With a confidence he didn’t feel, Joe set out to reassure them. ‘These are the days of the telegraph and the telephone and the train. If he can move about the country easily, how much more easily can the forces of Law and Order! I am going to Calcutta to check on this man’s story and I’ll inform the Governor. Wherever he’s fled, we’ll follow and we’ll stay on his trail until we’ve caught him.’

He looked around his audience, catching each woman’s eye and said quietly, as though making a promise to each individually, ‘And I’m going to get him. If it takes another week, another month or another year!’

Chapter Ten

After breakfast on Monday Joe put on his topee and set off to catch Bulstrode before he started out on his rounds. Presenting himself at his office building he was politely asked by a young Sikh officer to wait for a few moments. The few moments turned into several minutes of waiting time, carefully calculated to annoy, Joe guessed. He sighed and set himself to wait patiently, using the time to leaf though his notes. Eventually the door to Bulstrode’s office opened.

‘Sandilands!’ said Bulstrode with bonhomie. ‘Glad you could spare the time. Come in. Take a seat? Had coffee, have you? You’ve been turning the Somersham bungalow over, I hear. Up-to-date forensic methods hot from the press in Scotland Yard. Manage to turn up anything?’

The tone was friendly in the extreme but the eyes were suspicious.

Joe felt his professional detachment slipping. He desperately wanted to punch Bulstrode on his arrogant nose. Instead he said easily, ‘Nothing of any great consequence… Only perhaps two facts you might like to consider. One, that Peggy Somersham was certainly murdered and secondly that she was expecting a baby.’

Bulstrode stopped dead and turned to face him.

‘Good Lord! You don’t say! But that is certainly of consequence. That could well supply a motive!’

‘A motive?’

‘Yes. Certainly. A motive for suicide. I mean if the poor girl was preggers, maybe perhaps not Somersham’s – he was after all much older than she was… not exactly love’s young dream, you know, and the station’s not short of good-looking young fellers. It happens. The women are at it all the time. Can’t turn your back! In some marriages there’s a pregnancy not easily explained. Think about it. Don’t judge India by the standards of – well, what shall I say? – Wimbledon!’

‘Peggy Somersham did not kill herself,’ said Joe mildly.

‘Then Somersham killed her,’ went on Bulstrode unabashed. ‘Stands to reason. He found out she was playing away from home, doesn’t want to bring up a child that’s not his and takes the quick way out. Snip, snip!’

‘I will bear what you say in mind,’ said Joe without emphasis.

Bulstrode fell silent for a moment, confounded perhaps by Joe’s calm replies. He began to arrange and rearrange the piles of papers on his desk.

‘So where are you now, Sandilands? You demolish the suicide theory and overset the conclusion of the coroner. You declare that this is a murder investigation and yet as far as I can see you dismiss the prime and obvious suspect – Somersham – without any examination. So where are you left? Murder by person or persons unknown? A person who insinuated himself – or, if we are exploring all avenues, herself – through a high window about seven feet above street level. Doesn’t look too good to me! Who could have got in that way? An acrobat?’

After a moment’s hesitation Joe decided to go all the way and treat him as a colleague and without hostility.

‘I’m not,’ he said carefully, ‘looking for someone who came in through that window. I’m looking for someone who went out through that window. From inside the bungalow the sill level is only five feet above the floor and there was a stool to hand…’

‘But really, Sandilands, your murderer – what does he do? Ring the front doorbell and say, “Is Mrs Somersham at home?” ’

‘We’re dealing with a clever man, Bulstrode. As clever as you, as clever as me. Someone, I suspect, familiar with the habits of the house. Someone, it would seem, who knew that the Somershams were going out for the evening: it wouldn’t take a tour de force of deduction to assume that Peggy Somersham would have preceded such an occasion by having a bath. The man I’m looking for entered the house perhaps hours before the murder was committed and concealed himself in the bathroom cupboard. It wouldn’t be difficult and there is evidence that someone was lurking in there.’

There was a snort of derision from Bulstrode but Joe resumed, ‘This would not be difficult. There are always people coming and going – in the kitchen, buying and selling at the door, delivering and collecting. You know this better than I do. And such a one, I say, entered the house, concealed himself, perpetrated the murder and escaped through the window, choosing a moment when no one was passing in the alley. It would need a level head and it would need a measure of calculation that really freezes the blood. But you know that such things happen.’

‘Sometimes. Not often. Hardly ever. And your attacker would need a surprisingly intimate knowledge of European habits.’

‘If he were a European himself he would have that knowledge,’ said Joe.

‘Oh, come on, Sandilands, for God’s sake! You’re not suggesting…’

‘Yes I am suggesting,’ said Joe, ‘and perhaps while we’re on the subject you can tell me where you were at the relevant time on that evening? Let’s say between four o’clock and seven?’

Bulstrode leapt to his feet and stood glowering down at Joe. ‘I really resent that! Who the hell do you think you are? Not in bloody Scotland Yard now, you know! This is my bloody district! I’ve a good mind to ask the Collector to have you taken off the case. Know what a quagga-quagga bird is? If you don’t – I’ll tell you. It’s a bird that flies round in ever-decreasing circles until it finally disappears up its own arse! And that, I suspect, is what you’re busy doing.’

‘Well,’ said Joe, ‘perhaps you could tell me what you were doing at the relevant time?’

‘I was in the lower town,’ said Bulstrode, ‘as I think I’ve already told you.’

‘Dealing with petty theft in the bazaar, you said. I remember well. And if I asked to see your report on the incident…?’

Bulstrode’s face flushed with rage. ‘I’d tell you to mind your own bloody business!’

In the face of Joe’s expression of continued polite enquiry, after a moment, spluttering in disgust, he flung himself over to a shelf piled high with papers. He snatched up a battered file with ‘Shala-mar Bagh’ written across the spine.

‘I repeat, I was in the lower town, though not in the bazaar exactly. To be precise, I was here.’

‘And what is Shala-mar Bagh?’

‘It’s a tea house. It’s a sort of dance hall, I suppose you’d say.’

‘What does it mean – Shala-mar Bagh?’ Jo persisted.

Bulstrode looked uncomfortable. ‘It means, The Garden of Cupid. Had some trouble. Put it out of bounds to BOR’s. There was a fight and two stupid privates from the Shropshires got themselves cut up. I went down to see that the rules were being obeyed.’

‘And is this documented? Did you bring a case against the management?’

‘I didn’t need to. I cautioned them. Very easy-going sort of establishment. Get anything you want there. Perhaps you’re interested?’ he concluded venomously.

‘The alarm was given when, according to medical evidence, Peggy Somersham had been dead for an hour. It was some time before you could be located, er, digging in Cupid’s Garden, and you arrived at the crime scene three hours after the body was discovered. Presumably there are people in this dance hall who would vouch for your presence there over the period in question?’

‘Of course there bloody well are!’ said Bulstrode.

Joe’s mind was racing ahead. What was it Naurung had said? ‘An exchange.’ Drop charges against the establishment in exchange for an alibi? But could Bulstrode have entered the house unobserved? In disguise? Joe resolved to take Naurung into his confidence: to find out when – and truly when – Bulstrode had entered Shala-mar Bagh and when he had left.