His mobile phone rang and he listened for a while. “Yes, sir!” He rang off and said, “They want me for a news conference, Christine. TV! The world’s media! But you will not leave now, will you? I must see you again. If necessary I shall have you detained!” He gave an excited laugh.
“No,’” she said. “I won’t leave. Good luck with the media.”
“I shall be cool, like James Bond.”
When he had gone, Mrs Dubashi came and sat with Christine. “I’m afraid your spiritual journey in Varanasi has not been a conventional one,” she said. “Are you disappointed?”
Christine thought, then nodded sadly. “The Swami, the Jain, the burning ghat – they were all powerful experiences and gave me much to think about, but none of them have changed the hurt I feel when I think of my mother’s death.”
Mrs Dubashi said, “When I lost my first baby, I was heartbroken. Nothing could ease my pain. Then my mother told me that the pain was from the labour of creating a place inside myself for my baby. When I had finished doing that, the pain would ease and my baby would live for ever in my heart.”
“Oh.” Christine pondered her words, and as she did so it occurred to her that they might be the truest thing she had heard on her journey.
Later that evening they watched television together, to see the news. The lead item was the arrest of Mr Nemichandra, with Sub-Inspector Gupta the star. He spoke to the cameras in a clear, confident voice, more mature now, Christine thought.
Mr Dubashi said, “My goodness, he’s talking to the whole world,” but his wife corrected him. “No, look at his face, he’s talking to just one person – you, Christine. You’d better watch out,” she chuckled, “that young man’s in love with you.”
VANISHING ACT by Christine Poulson
“ONE OF THESE men is a murderer.”
Edward looked at the grainy black-and-white photo that Edith held up. Three men smiled out at him.
“What’s this all about?” he asked. “Who are they?”
“I’ll give you a clue. One of them’s my brother – and he’s not the murderer.”
Edward gestured impatiently. “I need a better look.”
She brought her wheelchair closer to his bedside and leaned forward, bringing with her a gust of perfume, something warm and spicy.
Theirs was a new friendship and it would inevitably be a short one. The doctors were careful not to offer any predictions, but Edward knew that he didn’t have more than a week or two. He was bedridden now. The morphine took care of the pain, but what he hadn’t expected was the boredom. Strange that time should drag, when there was so little of it left, but so it was. That was why Edith was such a godsend. She was in the hospice for a week’s respite care. They had taken to each other and she visited him every evening, scooting down the corridor in her wheelchair. She was an interesting woman, had spent most of her working life in Canada as a museum curator. He enjoyed her “take no prisoners” attitude without feeling it was one he could adopt himself.
“Your brother is the one in the middle,” he decided. They had the same nose: that bump on the bridge was unmistakable. “Who are the others?”
“Let’s call that one Dr X and that one Doctor Y.” She pointed with a red-varnished fingernail.
Edward studied the photograph. Doctor Y was tall and fair with something irresolute about his mouth, the kind of man who is a little too anxious to please. Dr X was short and dark with a widow’s peak and full, sensuous lips.
“When you say murder…?”
“This all happened a long time ago – say, twenty-five years, even thirty? A surgeon had an affair with a theatre nurse. When it turned sour, he murdered her to save his marriage – and his reputation. There was a conspiracy of silence amongst his colleagues and he was never brought to book.”
“Then how do you know?”
“My brother told me. He was one of the doctors who kept quiet. Fred died a couple of months ago.” She gave a caw of laughter. “He’s beaten me to it. Just. He was very near the end when he let the cat out of the bag. It preyed on his mind. You know how it is…” She shrugged.
When you’re near the end? Yes, he did know – who better? – and counted himself lucky. On the big things, marriage, children, work, he’d done just fine. He did rather regret that he’d never got round to reading Proust, but you can’t have everything.
“Fred told me what I’ve just told you,” Edith went on. “‘One of these men is a murderer.’”
“Did he say how…?”
“She was found dead in bed. Healthy young woman, never had a day’s illness in her life. One of those unexplained deaths. Hospital dispensaries are full of things that could bring that about. They weren’t as strict about keeping track of drugs in those days.”
Edward thought it over.
The stillness was broken only by the slap of sleet on the window. The curtains hadn’t been drawn against the November night. Streaks of rain gleamed on the glass and overlaid the smeared lights of the town in the valley below.
At last he said, “After all this time, it’s pretty academic…”
“Is it though? What about all these breakthroughs in forensic science and what they can do with DNA? If the police reopened the case, who knows what they might find?”
There was a knock at the door.
They both started, caught each other’s eye, and laughed.
“Edith?” A nurse, a thickset man that Edward hadn’t seen before, was standing at the door. “It’s time for your injection.”
Edith swung her wheelchair round.
“Hey! You can’t just leave it at that! Which one is it?”
“You decide. Observing criminals was your job, after all.” As she headed for the door, she raised a hand in farewell. “Let’s see how good a judge of character you are.” The words rang out like a challenge.
He watched as she disappeared through the door. Helpless and exasperated, he slumped back on his pillows. That was Edith all over. Surprising that someone hadn’t murdered her before now.
She had left the door open, but it didn’t matter. He liked to see people coming and going up the corridor.
His glance strayed to the clock on the wall. Only nine o’clock. An hour until he could expect his daughter’s phone call. He sighed and picked up the photo again. Yes, he had seen many killers in his time as a court artist. But he had long ago learned that, as Shakespeare put it, “there’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face”. Appearances could indeed be deceiving.
The men were standing on the steps of a building – neo-Georgian – and now that he looked more closely he saw that one of them had a glass in his hand. Some kind of celebration? Had this been taken before the murder? If indeed there really had been a murder. The three men were much the same age, somewhere around the mid-thirties. The clothes and the body language – it was surprising how much you could learn… Was Doctor X or Doctor Y wearing a wedding ring? If only he had a magnifying glass…
When the phone rang, he was surprised to see that an hour had passed.
Jennifer cocked her head. Her ear was so attuned to the night and the silence that she was alert to the smallest unusual noise. She wasn’t the nervous type – never had been – and she was used to working nights, but… what was that sound?