After a few minutes Nancy began to stir and abruptly sat up. ‘Tell you something, Joe,’ she said. ‘I’m hungry!’
‘Good Lord! That’s right. So am I! I’d forgotten – we’ve got a perfectly good picnic.’
They settled together to lay out their picnic on a cool flat rock, with appreciative murmurs from Joe as he unpacked sandwiches, two bottles of the inevitable India Pale Ale and a mango each accompanied by a silver fruit knife and fork.
They ate in companionable silence, neither feeling the need to fill the gaps with inconsequential chatter, each lost in thoughts for the moment unsharable.
‘No coffee, I’m afraid,’ said Nancy at last.
‘Who wants coffee?’ said Joe, leaning over to lick an errant drop of mango juice from between her breasts.
‘I do, actually,’ she replied. ‘But there’s something I want more than coffee and that’s you.’ Flushing slightly at her own boldness, she added hurriedly, ‘Look, I’m not sure how men… how you… work. Is this all right?’
‘It depends who you’re with,’ said Joe. ‘I’ll tell you – with you it’s abundantly all right!’
As they rode slowly back together Nancy said, ‘Tell me, Joe – I don’t know anything about you. Where do you come from? What’s your world? What’s your family?’
‘I wondered when you’d get around to checking my pedigree!’ he said easily. ‘I’m from Selkirk, the River Etrick, a place called Drumaulbin on the Borders. My father has a place there. It’s quite big – three farms really – but even so there isn’t enough to support two sons in affluence and I left it to my older brother to take care of and went to read Law in Edinburgh. But then the war came along and I joined the Scots Fusiliers. I and half a dozen lads from Drumaulbin all joined up together and set off south. Blue bonnets over the border, you might say.’
‘But you didn’t go back to the Law after the war?’
‘No. By that time I’d got so identified with the Fusilier Jocks I wanted to do something for them which I didn’t think I could do as a douce Writer for the Signet, called to the Scottish bar, so, after a certain amount of thought, I joined the police.’
‘Now why on earth should you do that? I mean, it’s not the place where you’d expect to find a gentleman, is it?’
‘Well, I thought, in general, boys like the ones I was fighting with have a pretty rotten deal one way or another. I thought I could do more good as a bobby than as a lawyer.’
‘What nonsense! Men don’t join the police to do good!’
‘Don’t judge us all by the example of Bulstrode! But you’re partly right. I had another compulsion. I was wounded in the trenches – shot through the shoulder…’
‘I noticed! Someone did a good repair.’
‘But while I was away from the front recuperating they kept me busy. I was given intelligence work to do. Interrogation of prisoners. I found I was rather good at it and when I came out I wanted to do more. There’s been a big shake-up in the police force since the war. Everyone has a picture of friendly but stern blue-caped bobbies ticking little boys off for stealing apples but it’s not like that at all. There are so many changes, so many developments – fingerprinting, telegraph communication, the flying squad – and I want to be there in the forefront pushing the force in the right direction!’
‘Goodness! I hadn’t realised you were such a missionary!’
‘Missionary?’ Joe laughed. ‘I believe it’s time the police force stopped being a servant of the aristocracy and became the guardian of society and that sounds very pompous so I suppose you’re right. I am a sort of social missionary.’
‘You must have felt you were coming back through time being sent to Bengal?’
‘I’ve loved working with the Bengal Police. They’re clever, eager and effective. There’s nothing I’d like more than a squad of Sikh officers to take back to London with me! Give me twenty Naurungs! That would shake up Whitehall!’
‘So your time hasn’t entirely been wasted here?’
‘No. I suddenly found myself locked in the arms of a dusky charmer and minded never to return. I mean – you don’t pick up a timeless houri on every corner in life’s road. Make the most of your opportunities, I say,’ said Joe lightly. ‘Is there anything else I can tell you about Sandilands of Drumaulbin?’
Nancy gave him a searching look, smiled and shook her head in uncharacteristic confusion. She kicked her pony and drew ahead, leaving Joe to watch her slender figure through narrowed and speculative eyes.
Chapter Seventeen
As they rode into Panikhat in the late afternoon the air grew still, the glow of the sky deepened as the sun burned its way westward and wreaths of smoke from cooking fires coiled and flattened over the native town.
Joe looked at Nancy, flushed, sunburned and dishevelled. ‘Shall I,’ he wondered, ‘tell her that she’s got two buttons undone and the label of her blouse is sticking out? This is a little bit embarrassing, I think. Andrew might well be the nicest man I know and I sometimes think he is but – unless-he’s a fool, which I think he isn’t…’
He needn’t have worried. As they drew into the Drummond compound, a syce ran up to take the horses and a bearer hurried to Nancy with a note on a silver tray. She read it quickly and said, ‘Oh, what a shame. Andrew’s been called away to Goshapur. There’s a row brewing apparently between a landlord and some of his tenants. He won’t be back before sunset. Can I offer you a drink, Joe?’
Joe courteously refused, limp with relief that he would not yet have to look Andrew Drummond in the eye, and started to make his way back to his bungalow. Carefully keeping to the shady side of the street, he walked on, leading Bamboo. His thoughts were interrupted by swiftly trotting hooves coming up behind him and by an authoritative female voice.
‘Good afternoon, Commander. Or – as formality seems to have been thrown to the winds – good afternoon, Joe.’
Joe turned about to meet the calculating eye of Mrs Kitson-Masters. The last thing he wanted to do, having narrowly avoided an inspection by Andrew, was to find himself the subject of scrutiny by Kitty. He smiled and bowed.
‘Kitty!’ he said. ‘Exactly the person I most wanted to see!’
‘You look as though you’ve had an exhausting day,’ she said.
‘I have. Are you on your way home, Kitty? Good. If I may, I’ll come with you.’
‘Informality on informality! I will look forward to receiving you.’
She drove on and Joe followed her round the corner, into Curzon Street and down her front drive.
‘Now, tell me how I can help with the investigation. At least I assume that this has to do with the investigation, though I would prefer to think you were seeking me out for the charm of my company.’
‘Both,’ said Joe, settling on the verandah while a jug of lemonade appeared on the table between them. ‘It seems rather an odd question but – as far as you know – did Alicia Simms-Warburton suffer from a fear of water, a fear of drowning? I mean a deep-seated, out of the ordinary fear?’
Kitty looked at him in astonishment for a moment then replied slowly, ‘Yes, as a matter of fact, she did. A week or so before she died it was Panikhat Week… the station puts on lots of entertainments to celebrate the end of the working year before people start to go off to the hills, visitors come from other stations – you’ve just missed it this year – and that year someone had organised a regatta on the river just beyond Giles’ place. “Henley on the Hooghly ” or something like that, they’d called it. The local villagers are superb boatmen. They’d provided the boats and decorated them with flowers and everyone had a wonderful time – apart from Alicia! She refused to have anything to do with it. Made rather a silly fuss, I remember. Wouldn’t put a foot in a boat. Yes, you’re right, Joe. A phobia, I think you’d call it.’