Midnight at Malabar House (Inspector Wadia series) Read online

  Also by Vaseem Khan

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  Midnight at Malabar House

  Vaseem Khan

  www.hodder.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain in 2020 by Hodder & Stoughton

  An Hachette UK company

  Copyright © Vaseem Khan 2020

  The right of Vaseem Khan to be identified as the Author of the

  Work has been asserted by him in accordance with

  the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

  stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any

  means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be

  otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that

  in which it is published and without a similar condition being

  imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance

  to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  eBook ISBN 978 1 473 68549 9

  Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  www.hodder.co.uk

  To history’s unsung female pioneers who, through obstinacy,

  willpower and an indomitability of spirit, have changed our world.

  Contents

  Map

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Author’s Note: The Ghosts of Partition

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  31 December 1949

  The call came in the deepest part of the night, the telephone’s lusty urgency shattering the basement silence. Persis paused, pen poised above the blank white page of the duty log she had been attempting to complete for the past hour.

  There was little to report.

  She sat alone in the office, the only sounds the gentle swishing of the ceiling fan and the scurrying of a lone mouse under the jumble of desks and battered metal filing cabinets. Occasionally a muffled bang would drift in from the world above. New Year’s Eve fireworks. The entire city was out partying, the streets alive with drunken multitudes, celebrating the end of the most turbulent decade in the nation’s history. In spite – or perhaps because – of this she had agreed to stand vigil for the night. Frivolity was alien to her nature and she had often been told that her tastes – in matters of dress and deportment – tended to the staid.

  Perhaps this was the effect of growing up without a mother.

  Sanaz Wadia née Poonawalla had died when Persis was just seven, taking with her the last vestiges of an already waning belief in a benevolent God. Her father had never remarried, raising her as best as he was able in the margins of his grief. Poor Aunt Nussie had tried her best, but Sam Wadia was a stubborn man.

  The thought passed through her mind that the call might well be her father, ringing to assure himself that, an hour into the new year, she was still alive and well.

  She plucked up the receiver of the black Stromberg Carlson: ‘CID, Malabar House. Inspector Wadia speaking.’

  A moment’s hesitation, as her caller’s incredulity filtered down the line.

  It wasn’t the first time.

  Her appointment, seven months earlier, had occasioned hysteria in publications as far apart as the Calcutta Gazette to the Karnataka Herald. In Bombay, the Indian Chronicle had been particularly scathing: ‘The commissioner’s experiment in catapulting a woman into the service might well mirror our fledgling republic’s forward-thinking ideals, but what he has failed to consider is that in temperament, intelligence and moral fibre, the female of the species is, and always will be, inferior to the male.’

  That cutting, framed in glass, now looked up at her from her desk. Each morning it served as a shot across her bows, a trenchant reminder that if it was respect she craved, she faced an uphill task in earning it.

  Her caller gathered his composure. ‘May I speak with your superior officer?’

  She stifled the urge to slam the receiver back into its cradle. ‘I’m afraid that tonight I am the ranking officer. Sir.’

  The shallowest intake of breath. ‘In that case, Miss Wadia, might I ask you to make your way to Laburnum House on Marine Drive. The residence of Sir James Herriot.’

  ‘Inspector.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Inspector Wadia. Not Miss.’

  Silence. ‘My apologies. Inspector, if you could make haste, it would be most appreciated.’

  ‘May I ask what this is regarding?’

  ‘You may,’ said the voice coolly. ‘Sir James has been murdered.’

  Chapter 2

  Laburnum House: a two-storey cubist monstrosity, splashed in virulent shades of imperial maroon and beige, and imprinted from top to bottom with art deco motifs, including two startling elephant heads adorning the sea-facing main gates.

  She was met at the front door by a house servant, a hand-wringing native with the look of an overdressed coolie. The man led her swiftly through a shimmering reception hall, an expanse of white marble from the centre of which sprouted a bronze of Prometheus. Some wag had stuck a turban on the Greek Titan’s skull, imparting an air of noble sanctimony.

  She was ushered into a drawing room where the man who had summoned her rose in greeting from a tan leather chesterfield.

  His name was Madan Lal, Sir James Herriot’s chief aide, a slender figure, immaculate in herringbone tweed. He wasn’t quite tall enough to pull off the high-waisted trousers, but there was a smartness to him that signalled a sense of self-assurance.

  He held out a hand. ‘Inspector. Thank you for getting here so quickly.’

  She noted the manicure, the clean-shaven cheeks, the black hair oiled back in a perfect widow’s peak. Round, steel-framed spectacles gave him the look of a bookkeeper or an insurance broker. All in all, an attractive man, if one liked them a little on the well-pressed side.

  It struck her that Lal, in his urbanity, was the very image of the modern civil servant. A man for the times: India in late 1949, more than two years after Partition, a nation struggling to redefine itself against a background of continuing social and political unrest. The dismantling of the old feudal system had seen a significant lurch towards the left, an attempt to even up the social scales. Set against this was the inertia of millennia, the hegemonies of old India, zamindars and noble houses frantical
ly scrapping for their place in the new Eden. Independence had given them a bloody nose, but they weren’t about to go down without an almighty scrap. Or so her father said.

  She returned to the moment. ‘Perhaps you could explain the circumstances of Mr Herriot’s murder?’ Small talk had never been her forte.

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Sir James.’ He gave a thin-lipped smile. ‘We are all wedded to our titles, are we not?’

  She coloured, wondering if he was chiding her for her earlier intransigence.

  ‘In theory, you should refer to me as Major Lal. I served with the 50th Parachute Brigade in Burma. At any rate, let us dispense with formalities. Please come with me.’

  She followed him through the lavishly appointed mansion, up a teak-banistered staircase, and along a series of corridors to the rear of the house.

  Lal stopped before a lacquered black door. ‘Forgive me, but I take it that you are not of a . . . delicate disposition?’

  She gave this insulting statement short shrift by brushing past him and into the room.

  It was a study, lavishly decorated. Crystal chandeliers hung from a whitewashed ceiling. The furniture – a combination of bone-inlaid Burma teak and hand-carved rosewood – had been curated with impeccable taste. One wall was given over to a mural in red and black ceramic: Hannibal slogging over the Alps on elephant-back. The remaining walls were taken up by bookshelves, weighed down with identical-looking tomes, many of which had probably never been touched by human hand.

  It was a room designed to impress, rather than a venue where midnight oil was routinely burned in lucubration.

  Directly before them was a large desk, and behind that desk, slumped in a buttoned-leather captain’s chair, was Sir James Herriot.

  His head lolled on to his chest, arms slack by his sides.

  She moved around the desk to get a better look.

  The Englishman was in his late fifties and balding in that particularly aggressive way the British did, the top of his dome marred by a profusion of scarlet patches. He wore a red cape and a red tunic, unbuttoned to the navel, revealing a naked chest, pale and hairless. His stomach bulged above his crotch. He was naked from the waist down, something that had not been apparent from the door.

  Instinctively, she averted her eyes, then chided herself. A police officer had a duty to examine every aspect of the crime scene.

  Before she could proceed further, the door opened and a white man strode purposefully into the room. Tall, spare-framed, with thick, dark hair, and an uncommonly handsome face, he swung a boxy black leather bag by his side, like a doctor’s carry case. A cream linen suit flapped around him, frayed at the elbows. A ratty tie was pushed up in an untidy knot towards a smooth neck. Green eyes flashed from under dark eyebrows. Black-framed spectacles sat on his nose. A sheen of sweat moistened his clean-shaven cheeks.

  ‘Archie. Thank you for coming.’ Madan Lal extended a hand to the newcomer who shook it warmly. He turned to her. ‘Inspector, may I present Archimedes Blackfinch? He is presently serving as an adviser to the crime branch.’

  ‘Archie, please,’ he said, extending his own bony hand in her direction.

  ‘Adviser?’ she echoed, staring at the appendage as if he were attempting to palm her a live grenade.

  ‘I’m a criminalist with the Metropolitan Police Service in London,’ he clarified, lowering his hand.

  Lal took up the baton. ‘As you know our government is keen to breathe new life into the various state organs that have been returned to our patronage. If India is to uphold the rule of law we must have a police force worthy of the name. Advisers such as Archie have been retained to provide us with the necessary rigour to underpin our ambitions.’

  It sounded like a campaign speech. She frowned. ‘I take it you know each other?’

  ‘We have had prior dealings. I assure you, he is most capable.’

  ‘But he has no standing here as an investigative officer?’

  Lal’s smile became strained. ‘Technically speaking. However, it is my hope that you will accommodate him. In fact, I am certain the commissioner would approve.’

  She swallowed her objection. Clearly, Lal had the reach to pour discontent into the ears of a higher power.

  Turning back to the body, she said, ‘Why is he dressed like this?’

  ‘I should have explained,’ replied Lal. ‘Tonight Sir James hosted his annual New Year’s Eve ball. It is always a costumed affair.’

  ‘Who was he supposed to be?’

  ‘Mephistopheles. He is—’

  ‘The demon to whom Faust sold his soul.’

  He nodded. ‘Quite.’

  He seemed surprised. Perhaps women who could actually read and not just look pretty posing beside books and vases were unknown to him.

  ‘Where is the . . . lower half of his outfit?’

  ‘I’m afraid that his trousers have not yet been found. It is most puzzling.’

  It was more than that. Why would Herriot’s trousers be missing? Had the killer taken them? To what end?

  ‘May I?’ said Blackfinch.

  She watched as he set down his case, opened it, removed a pair of gloves and pulled them on. She’d been taught the basics of crime scene procedure at the police training college at Mount Abu, two gruelling years as the only woman among a cadre of men who, for the most part, believed she had no right or reason to be there. It was here too that she had learned of the two Indians who had developed the fingerprint classification system that was now used throughout the service and which had been successfully exported to no less a home than Scotland Yard. Naturally, the credit for the technique had fallen to their English supervisor. She doubted that the Henry Classification System would be renamed now that the British had been shown the door.

  Blackfinch stepped forward, laid his hands either side of Herriot’s skull, and gently lifted his head.

  She saw that blood had coagulated around his throat. Streaks of dried blood snaked down towards his pale belly, and over his thighs.

  Blackfinch’s gloved fingers interrogated the bloody mess until he found what he was looking for. ‘The pathologist will have to confirm, but it appears as if a sharp blade was inserted here, at the side of the larynx, driven forcefully inwards, then yanked out to sever the carotid and jugular arteries. Death would have been all but instantaneous.’

  Something caught his eye under the desk and he bent down to reach beneath it. When he straightened, it was with a balled-up handkerchief in his hand. He sniffed at it, crinkled his nose, then removed a waxy paper bag from his case and dropped the cloth into it. Not bothering to explain, he resumed his examination.

  Persis turned to Lal. ‘What was he doing up here?’

  ‘I have asked myself the same question. I suspect he needed a moment’s respite from the festivities. These functions can be quite trying.’

  She looked again at Herriot’s desk. It was of the pedestal type, fashioned from polished teak and waxed to within an inch of its life. The top was inlaid with a marble slab in bottle green, edged with rose gilt. The eight drawers making up the pedestals had reassuringly solid brass handles. A collection of objects ranged across the desk. An empty whisky glass. An ashtray in which lay a solitary cigar stub. A beige globe of empire, British colonies picked out in red, India still very much in the fold. A reading glass. A brass inkstand with lidded inkwells. A telephone.

  There was something about the precise arrangement of the objects that bothered her, a subconscious itch. But she couldn’t place it.

  She moved to the far side of the desk and reached for the handle of the topmost drawer.

  Both men all but cried out, startling her.

  ‘If you’re going to touch anything, you must put on gloves,’ said Blackfinch.

  Flushing, she cursed herself for not having considered this. The idea of appearing incompetent bothered her far more than being murdered or assaulted in the line of duty, a gruesome eventuality that Aunt Nus
sie predicted on a daily basis.

  Lal’s objection was more prosaic. ‘Those are Sir James’s private drawers,’ he protested.

  ‘I don’t think privacy is of much concern to him any more, do you?’

  ‘You don’t understand. Sir James was working on many sensitive matters for the government. Those drawers may contain confidential documents.’

  ‘Then it’s a good thing,’ she muttered, violently pulling on the gloves Blackfinch handed her, ‘that I am known for my discretion.’ She opened the topmost drawer – it was unlocked – as Lal’s eyes bulged. The man was a bureaucratic heart attack waiting to happen.

  The drawer contained a selection of papers, correspondence and handwritten scribblings, but nothing of note or of seeming relevance to Herriot’s death.

  Inside a battered leather notebook, she discovered a newspaper cutting taken from the Times of India. It included a photograph of four individuals: two Indians, a man and a woman, arm in arm, flanked by two tuxedoed white men. The article, dated two months earlier, detailed the gala opening of a club in Bombay.

  She studied the individuals in the photograph.

  The white men were nondescript – she pegged them as businessmen or civil servants – but the Indian couple were handsome, effortlessly glamorous. The woman, dressed in a sari, had one arm looped around the man’s, the other at her throat, where an ostentatious necklace was prominent.

  Scanning the article, she discovered that the Indian man in the photograph was the club’s owner, Adi Shankar; the woman attached to his arm, ‘socialite, Meenakshi Rai’. Aside from the article, the notebook was empty. She wondered briefly why Herriot had kept the cutting, then, on a whim, added the item to the evidence she had been collecting.

  Quickly, she riffled through the remaining drawers, finding little of interest – scraps of paper, the odd trinket absentmindedly shoved in and forgotten about, a case of cigars. Lal had worried needlessly.