Dead in the Dog (25 page)

‘In this man's army, you can get away with writing off a truck or a tank with no more than a ticking-off,' the corporal had confided. ‘But break a bloody thermometer worth five bob and there's hell to pay!'

It seemed that the luckless quartermaster had fallen foul of the eccentric Commanding Officer over something to do with this time-honoured tradition.

‘Apparently, Captain Burns is livid!' went on Joan. ‘It seems the colonel has been persecuting him for months and now Burns has been heard to say that he's willing to swing for Desmond O'Neill! Let's hope they don't meet on one of our nights on duty!'

With this cheerful thought, the two went about their business and after finishing his pilgrimage to the other wards, Tom made his final trip to the arms kote. As he went, he kept a wary eye out for the CO, but thankfully the only thing he saw at the top end of the hospital was a cat slinking along a monsoon drain. The excursion to the arms blockhouse also went peacefully, though again there was another new Malay OR locked inside, one Tom had not seen on his previous visits.

By midnight, he was back in his own bed, as the air-conditioned ward was occupied by a gunner with malaria. As he stared up in the gloom at the dim wraith of his mosquito net, he thought of the coming weekend. Visions swam into his mind of nubile maidens in grass skirts dancing on a palm-fringed moonlit beach – and they were all wearing the starched headdress of the Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps.

T
he next meeting of the investigators into the killing of James Robertson was held in the Police Circle building, partly because Steven Blackwell wanted to emphasize that this was primarily a matter for the civil police, rather than the military. The same people attended halfway through Thursday morning, gathering over Fraser & Neave grapefruit sodas in the superintendent's room upstairs. Inspector Tan was present, sitting in his usual self-effacing way with an open notebook on his knee. This time it was Blackwell who sat behind his desk as chairman and he opened the proceedings by pulling a sheet of paper from the now slightly thicker file on Robertson's murder.

‘The first thing is another report from the lab at Petaling Jaya,' he announced. ‘The blood on those leaves from the road up to Gunong Besar was the same blood group as the dead man's. It was a moderately common group, but I see no reason to think that it was anyone else's but his.'

He shuffled out another sheet and laid it on his desk.

‘Perhaps more significantly, there is report on the bullet that the doctor here removed from James's chest.'

There was a palpable silence as the faces opposite waited for the result.

‘It was
not
fired from the same weapon as that which peppered the estate buildings the previous week.' He emphasized the negative, to impress the fact on the others, who broke into a confused murmuring.

‘So where does that leave us?' demanded Enderby, the major from the provost marshal's section.

Steven shrugged. ‘Either the same guy using a different rifle – or two different villains!'

‘Pity we don't have the shell-case from James's shooting,' offered tubby Major Preston, the Intelligence Officer.

‘Wouldn't help much,' retorted the SIB sergeant. ‘The ones from the previous shoot-out were a complete mixture of ammunition from after 1948. Unless this one was a cordite-filled shell which greatly pre-dated the others, we couldn't say it was from a different source.'

‘And it still wouldn't tell us who fired the damned thing,' added the superintendent, wearily.

Tom kept quiet through the ensuing silence, as the others digested this latest unhelpful information. He felt that after carrying out the post-mortem, he had nothing more to offer these professionals.

‘So what's the next move?' asked Alfred Morris, mindful of the questions that Desmond O'Neill would be barking at him when he got back to the hospital.

‘I've now got statements from virtually all the people who might either be involved or might know something useful,' said Steven Blackwell. ‘These, together with the information kindly provided by the garrison on the military personnel, will have to be gone though with a fine toothcomb. We need to know who was where and when they were there, on that night.'

Morris stroked his bristly moustache in a gesture of concern.

‘That's a hell a wide net to fling, Steven. Theoretically, it could be any of us – even me! I was in bed, but I can't prove it. Captain Howden is the only one of us who has a cast-iron alibi!'

Tom pushed his chair back, grating it on the concrete floor.

‘Maybe I should leave now, if you are going to discuss colleagues of mine,' he offered.

Blackwell waved him down. ‘I wouldn't be concerned about that, Tom. We're hardly likely to accuse anyone this morning! And we may need your advice if anything crops up about the actual shooting.'

Having made his point, the pathologist settled back, admitting to himself that he was intrigued by this business of detection. Maybe he would take up this forensic game when he went back home. The senior police officer shuffled his papers once again and picked out one to lay on top.

‘I'll go through each of the people in turn, just to lay out the basic plot. The first is Major Peter Bright, your senior surgeon. He says he went to the usual Friday night dance at The Dog, left about ten forty-five and drove downtown to the Rest House, where he sat alone and had a few beers, before driving back to the hospital soon after midnight. He arrived in time to see all the action outside the Casualty Department and we know that he came in at that point.'

Blackwell raised his head and looked enquiringly around at the others. Again Tom kept his mouth shut, but the staff sergeant felt no such inhibitions about an officer unknown to him.

‘Why leave the club and go drinking alone in a local bar late at night?'

It was hardly accurate to call the Rest House a ‘local bar', of which there were several in Tanah Timah. The Rest Houses were a chain of rather austere hostels originally meant for government officials to stay in when they were travelling on official business, but anyone could book in if there was a vacancy, and they were usually open for food and drink. However, the SIB man's question was still valid.

‘I asked him that myself,' replied Steven. ‘He was a little reluctant to be precise, but said that he got fed up with The Dog and felt like a change.'

He smoothed his bald head thoughtfully. ‘I think we all know a little about his personal attachments and it seems probable that these were at the root of it,' he added delicately.

‘And he says he was alone, not with a woman?' demanded Preston.

Blackwell nodded. ‘I suspect the woman he would have liked to have been with was otherwise engaged. Anyway, he's got no alibi for the crucial hour.'

‘The Rest House servants – do they confirm he was there?' asked the SIB sergeant.

‘There was only one Indian boy on duty at that time of night. He said that a tall man with yellow hair was there, but was hopelessly vague about times.'

‘What do we know about Major Bright that's relevant?' grunted Enderby, pointing a finger towards the files.

Steven Blackwell looked across at Alfred Morris. ‘You must know everything that's in here, being the Admin Officer at BMH.'

Alf nodded. ‘An exemplary military record. He's a Regular Officer, a Senior Specialist in Surgery, in line to be pushed up to half-colonel when he finishes this tour in Malaya. Upper-class chap, his father's also a doctor, I understand. Hunting, shooting and fishing types.'

‘What about personal character?' enquired Enderby.

‘Divorced a couple of years ago when he was in Germany. No children. Don't know what else to say about him,' ended Alf loyally.

Steven nervously tapped a pencil on the desk. ‘Let's not beat about the bush, chaps. It's common knowledge that Peter Bright was more than a little friendly with Diane Robertson.'

Alfred Morris bridled a little at this. ‘A small place like Tanah Timah is naturally a hotbed for gossip. But we don't actually know that there was anything between them.'

Major Enderby snorted. ‘Come off it, Alf! I'm not even in BMH, but even I know that Peter had the hots for the lovely blonde.'

‘You're not suggesting that he shot her husband just to make her available?' said Morris indignantly.

‘Stranger things have happened,' grunted the more cynical SIB man. ‘A few drinks inside a fellow and a sense of grievance, anything can happen.'

‘And a little bird told me that Diane might have been playing away lately,' added Preston, mischievously.

‘I don't believe it for a moment,' huffed Alf Morris. ‘Peter Bright is a real gentleman, murder would never enter his head!'

The police superintendent shrugged and turned to another sheet from the file on his desk.

‘Captain David Meredith, your anaesthetist. What about him?'

Alf shook his head. ‘A complete non-starter, I'd say. Having designs on Diane Robertson was the last thing he was interested in – he was dead keen on one of the QAs, Lena Franklin.'

Steven regarded Alf steadily. ‘But we know that that affair had cooled off a bit, according to my sources. And it was very likely Jimmy Robertson who did the cooling.'

‘You've been listened to Percy Loosemore, our garrison gossip,' retorted Morris accusingly. ‘His tongue will get him into trouble one of these days.'

‘This Captain Meredith, isn't he the one who's a crack shot?' growled Markham. ‘Bisley and all that?'

‘Oh, come on, sergeant! There's the better part of a thousand soldiers in the Brigade, all taught to shoot well enough to hit a bungalow or a chap across a narrow road! You don't need to be an Olympic hopeful for that.'

‘Anything in his Confidential Report that's relevant?' asked the Intelligence Officer.

‘Not very bloody confidential any more,' muttered Morris, but no one seemed to hear him.

The superintendent rustled some more paper. ‘Short Service Officer, originally Welsh, but his family now live in Wiltshire. Twenty-eight, unmarried – nothing else to say about him, really.'

‘And where was he at the material time?' asked Major Enderby.

‘Says he left The Dog early, at about half ten and went back to the Mess in BMH. Went to bed, knew nothing of all the drama until breakfast.'

‘Can he prove that?' asked the ever-suspicious SIB man.

Steven looked at Morris. ‘No one saw him at the Mess, as far as I can make out. Alf, you were called out when James was brought into Casualty, did you see any sign of him?'

‘No, but there's no mystery there. All the officer's rooms are in a row down the left-hand side of the two mess buildings. They have louvred doors on each side, one facing on to the grass outside the dining room, the other outwards towards the perimeter fence. The cars are parked out that side for the night, so people can reach their rooms without coming into the mess compound.' He waved his hands to demonstrate the geography of the BMH Officers' Mess.

‘But he hasn't got an alibi either?' persisted Enderby.

‘I don't see that he needs one,' answered Morris obstinately.

Blackwell sighed. They were getting nowhere fast.

‘Let's get away from the officers for a change,' he said resignedly. ‘Here's some stuff on Les Arnold that I didn't know before.'

He pulled some Telex sheets from a large buff envelope and unfolded them. ‘Police Headquarters in KL has been in touch with their Aussie counterparts in Queensland, who checked up on Arnold. It seems that he did time in the slammer some years ago.'

There was some lifting of eyebrows as Blackwell elaborated.

‘In 1940, he was convicted in Cairns of causing grievous bodily harm to a guy. Got five years jail, but was let out to join the Army when the war started. Went into some tough Special Forces outfit, spent a couple of years fighting in New Guinea.'

Enderby gave a quiet whistle of surprise. ‘Does it say what the GBH was all about?'

‘Some trouble over a woman, it seems. The other guy assaulted him and he went after him. If there hadn't been a plea of provocation, it seems he might have been done for attempted murder.'

‘Did he beat him up that badly, then?' asked the sergeant.

Steven Blackwell shook his head. ‘No, he shot him – with a rifle!'

On the short drive back to the hospital, the revelation about the Australian planter was the main topic of conversation between Alf Morris and the pathologist.

‘Just because he shot some chap in the shoulder fourteen years ago, doesn't make him the culprit now,' warned the major, anxious as ever never to prejudge any issue.

‘No, but it can't help putting him near the top of the shortlist, especially when there are no other reasonable contenders,' answered Tom. He was secretly glad that his brother officers, as he had already begun to think of them, were by implication, off the hook.

‘Mustn't say a word about all this in the Mess, of course,' warned Alf, quite unnecessarily as far as Tom was concerned. He was still uneasy at having been made privy to the personal information that Steven Blackwell had produced that morning. After revealing the news about Les Arnold, the policeman had gone on to describe the background of Douglas Mackay and his wife Rosa, though there seemed little there to suggest either as suspects.

‘No advantage in the manager shooting his boss,' said Tom ruminatively, as they were passing the derelict tin-dredge. ‘If the plantation folds up or is sold, he may lose his job.'

‘I don't envy Steven Blackwell's part in this,' said Alf. ‘It must be very awkward having to interrogate and possibly suspect people you have to live with in a small place like this.'

‘Yes, it would have been much easier if the Commies had shot him,' answered Tom, with unwitting cynicism. ‘At least we'd not all be looking at each other as if we were afraid that one of us did it.'