Priya accounted for her day briefly and thoroughly, taking time for thought. When she had finished she said punctiliously: ‘I am trained, of course, to be able to deal with casualties. It is an acquired skill, not a virtue. I think Miss Galloway has really lived a very sheltered life, though I am sure she would not think so herself. Could I ask you, Inspector, if my patient – if he is still alive?’
If he hesitated, it was only momentarily. ‘So far, he is, and that is thanks to you. But I would not hold out too much hope for him. It was necessary to risk rushing him down to hospital, he needs surgery at once, and of course they are already giving him blood, but—Well, we shall see! Thank you, Miss Madhavan! You can go to your friend now.’
Priya went; and one by one the others added what they could to the picture of the day. Raju called on Dominic last of all.
‘And what was it that made you think this might not be an accident, Mr Felse?’
‘I didn’t see how it could be. I could imagine a minor blow-out from an engine, but nothing of this kind. This had wrecked the whole boat, every seam had started. And the violence of the injuries… it looked more like some kind of explosive gadget, deliberately planted. And that made me think of the sound we’d heard, and the cloud we’d seen. It would have been somewhere over those stretches of the lake.’
‘And the timing? You did not notice the exact time of the report?’
‘By pure chance, yes, I did. Not because of the explosion, but because we’d just decided we ought to start back, and Romesh was actually turning the boat then. I did a sort of mental check on how long it would take us to get back. It was then ten minutes to five.’
‘Thank you, that is useful. Very well, now you may all go. But you will not leave the hotel until given permission.’
But as they were filing out at the door he suddenly called: ‘Mr Felse!’ And when Dominic obediently turned back he added in a lower tone: ‘Come back for a moment, Mr Felse, and close the door. Sit down again.’ He sat back in his chair and sighed, and then smiled at Dominic very persuasively: ‘May I say that you have been most useful to us in this case? But for you I doubt if we should have been called in so quickly, and but for your party, and especially that admirable young woman, we should not have stood even the slim chance we stand now of ever getting a statement from the boat-boy Ghose. I don’t rate it high, but at least it exists. I think I owe you a little information in my turn. You may like to know that you were perfectly right. We have been going over the boat very carefully – that is why we delayed so long before seeing you. There was indeed an explosive device planted in it. As far as we can judge up to now, it was taped under the engine. From the position of the bodies it would appear that Mr Bakhle was at the wheel himself when the explosion occurred, and Ghose was behind him, in the stern. The firing mechanism was a small clock, and we have found the dial and parts of the bomb. It would seem that it was timed for five o’clock.’
‘Then it fired in advance of the time,’ said Dominic.
‘So it seems. A faulty device, but it was effective, all the same. You see the force of the timing. If the boat was taken out during the afternoon watering period, it was likely to be wrecked somewhere at the extreme of its range, well away from any inhabited place, and therefore, in all probability, from all help. It was an entirely professional job, Mr Felse – well put together, and no bigger than a medium-sized torch. And an important land-owner – and let me be frank, one much disliked locally – has been wiped out.’
‘It seems,’ said Dominic carefully, ‘that Mr Bakhle preferred to stay somewhat nearer home than usual this afternoon. He had guests this morning, and perhaps he was tired, and didn’t feel like going far. If the boat had really been at the limit of its range for the usual time allotted, it would have been where we were, out in open water. And it would have sunk totally, probably without trace.’
‘That is indeed the probability. Though with explosives there is always an element of chance. In our country, as in yours, Mr Felse, there are certain categories of people, distinct even among terrorists, whose favourite tools are the gun and the bomb. I am interested in your attitude to this affair, and I feel it only right to suggest to you that you and your friends, merely by virtue of being the first arrivals on the scene, and close and intelligent witnesses at that, may be at some risk yourselves. The evidence, as you have said, was most probably meant to disappear into deep water. But it did not, and you have become closely involved with it. I don’t say there was much for you to deduce – I do say that the Naxalites would have preferred not to run that risk.’
‘Naxalites?’ Dominic looked up at him sharply. ‘You really think they could be in it? Here?’
‘Here and anywhere. They may have originated in Bengal, they certainly have not stayed there, though they are less organised elsewhere. One of their weaknesses, indeed, is that the strings have almost always to be pulled from Bengal. But they extend everywhere, from Darjeeling to the Cape. “Death to the landlords!” is as valid a rallying-cry in the south as in the north.’
There was more than that; Dominic could tell by something withdrawn and watchful in the deep-set grey eyes. They had recovered part of the mechanism – the strings were almost always being pulled from Bengal – there could be ways of identifying where that bomb had been manufactured, perhaps even by whom.
‘Then the probability,’ he said slowly, ‘is that we have an agent from the north working here – not necessarily a Bengali, but sent from there. And you, I think, were already looking for him before this happened.’
The inspector smiled. ‘Mr Felse, you will do well not to enlist in our police, and not to learn any more.’
Dominic smiled, too. ‘I’m halfway there, as luck will have it. My father is a detective-inspector in England, I grew up in the tradition, even if I didn’t join the force. I grudge it that the lunatic Left, in any country, should discredit the legitimate Left by trying to turn killing into an approved weapon, and I hate it when their phoney grievances alienate sympathy from the genuine grievances that are there all the time, and need to be noticed and taken seriously. I don’t say even Bakhle was expendable – but surely Ajit Ghose wasn’t. One more life, a perfectly innocent one, is all in the day’s work, it seems.’
‘One or a hundred, I assure you. It’s all right – in this room we are quite private, I have seen to that, and Sergeant Gokhale here, though an impudent and insubordinate young man, is perfectly discreet.’ Sergeant Gokhale cocked one dark eye at his superior and smiled faintly, undisturbed at being discussed in this manner; they had evidently worked together amicably for some time. ‘But I should not theorise outside this room, not even among your friends. Here you may.’
‘I was thinking of the bomb,’ Dominic said. ‘If it was set to go off at five, then it was planted – or at least activated – since five this morning. I don’t know if the boat was used yesterday…’
‘It was, both morning and evening. And in the evening it was refuelled and serviced by the head boat-boy here, who is absolutely reliable – a local man who has worked here for many years. No, I think we can ignore the possibility that someone affixed that device at one visit, and then came back today to set it. We can concentrate on the time since five this morning…’
‘Then who had access? Judging by the time when we met Bakhle’s boat this morning, it was rather late in leaving…’
‘You are right, it did not leave until well after seven, and it came back about eleven. So from five until seven-twenty-five it was at the landing-stage, and again from eleven until three-fifteen. During the first period access would be very easy for anyone connected with the boat service or the hotel. Possibly even for outsiders. During the second there would be quite a number of people around, and though access would be easily possible, it would also be risky, since anyone unauthorised might very well be challenged if he approached the boat, and would in any case run the risk of being noticed, remembered and identified afterwards. One would choose the early morning in preference, I think. And then there were the morning guests, Mr and Mrs Mani and their servant. I shall be seeing them, of course. They are from Bengal…’ He let that tail away gently into silence, one eye on Dominic. He didn’t believe in it very seriously, but he had an open mind.