Dead in the Dog (8 page)

‘And you saw nothing at all?'

‘Not a thing. If it hadn't been for the others hearing it – and the holes in the woodwork – I might have dreamt it all!'

Steve Blackwell sipped his orange juice as he turned to Robertson.

‘What about you, James? Anything to add?'

‘I've told you all this before – and your inspector chap. Like Douglas, I grabbed my rifle, then crouched down on the verandah, peering through the struts. Couldn't see a thing, all the shots had been fired before that. I went down the steps and hid behind a bush, then hollered for Douglas. He shouted back that he was going to phone for help, so I went around the whole place to see what the hell was going on. By that time, the servants and the tappers had crawled out of their holes and were jabbering fit to burst, so I had to calm them down. By that time, your boys and the army had arrived.'

‘Have they found anything?' demanded Diane, pouring herself another gin, without offering one to anyone else.

‘Not so far, but they're widening out into the rubber and the
ulu
on both sides of the road.'

A platoon of the Royal West Berkshires were at that moment tramping through the estate behind the scatter of buildings that lay beyond the bungalows and across the road, where the tappers and labourers were housed. The house servants lived in huts immediately behind the two dwellings, already the subject of intensive searching by half a dozen constables under Inspector Tan and his Malay sergeant.

‘We've found fifteen spent cartridge cases, all standard three-oh-three calibre, no surprises there,' added the superintendent.

‘What about footprints?' asked Douglas Mackay.

Blackwell shrugged dismissively. ‘Pretty hopeless, it rained like hell early this morning. Plenty of smeared prints about, but they could be anyone's. I doubt if even the Rangers could make anything of them.'

He was referring to the Sarawak Rangers, Ibans similar to Dyaks, recruited from Borneo as trackers. Heavily tattooed all over below the neck, these little men were superb at following terrorist trails in the jungle.

‘So what happens next?' demanded James Robertson.

‘I've got men turning over every house up the road as far as Kampong Kerbau and the army is searching each side of the road all the way from there back to TT. Then I'm going back to see the Director of Operations in Brigade to decide if we need to widen out the search into the hills. I haven't got enough men for that, it's up to the Brigadier to decide if he wants to turn this into a major operation.'

‘And what happens if those bastards come back tonight – or tomorrow?' snapped Diane, with nervous anger.

‘We're running a permanent patrol after dark, up and down between TT and Kampong Kerbau,' reassured the superintendent. ‘The police will use an armoured Land Rover and there's a scout car coming from the Garrison.'

He drained his orange juice and picked up his hat and stick.

‘I wouldn't worry too much, I've got a gut feeling that this was some spur-of-the-moment shoot-up by some crazy devil. Go down to the dance at The Dog tonight and take your mind off it.'

‘I'll use the Buick, at least that's got some protection,' glowered James.

‘More than my poor Austin,' snapped his wife. ‘I'll have to send Siva to Ipoh tomorrow, to get a new windscreen fitted.'

As Steven Blackwell turned to leave, Douglas rose to follow him, Rosa almost scurrying to his side to take his arm. The Robertsons offered a surly farewell to the trio and as the manager and his wife walked away across the coarse grass of the knoll towards their own bungalow, Diane went out on to her verandah to glower after them, reserving a specially poisonous glare for the trim figure of Rosa Mackay.

A
lthough the Friday night function at the Sussex Club was nominally a dance, the majority of the members never set foot on the floor, which was a small area of the big lounge cleared of tables and chairs. The occasion was hallowed by tradition at The Dog, being the main social function of the week, where people came to meet their friends and catch up on the week's gossip. They came to see and be seen, the men to ogle the younger women in their posh frocks and the older women to indulge in some righteous envy and to complain about their husbands.

In such an isolated community as Tanah Timah, the club provided virtually the only social diversion for the wives, who had not even the workplace or the Mess to relieve the boredom. There were not many Army wives there, as the place was still on the fringe of a brutal war, but as the terrorist threat had receded somewhat in this part of Perak, more of the senior officers' wives were coming out from home. The planters' wives had little choice but to stay, though some took extended leave back in Britain, often with the excuse that they had to see their children settled in boarding schools or colleges.

The younger women were almost all commissioned QA sisters from the hospital and being by definition unmarried, were the target of every military bachelor in the Brigade, as well as a few unaccompanied husbands and unmarried planters. Tonight, it was these ladies who monopolized the dance floor, being badgered by subalterns, lieutenants, captains and even the odd major, to gyrate with them on the polished boards, which a houseboy ritually lubricated with French chalk every Friday afternoon.

Tom Howden arrived at about eight fifteen, driven up by Alec Watson in his battered and rusty Morgan sports car. Dinner in the Mess was always brought forward on a Friday, so that they could get to the club reasonably early – a practice almost universal throughout the garrison. At about ten o'clock, the record player was switched off so that the assembled members could adjourn to the dining room, where Daniel always laid out a light buffet to keep them going until midnight, when the revellers drifted back to their mosquito nets.

Alec parked on the tarmac in front of the club, finding a space between the Austins, the Morris's, the MG's, the Land Rovers and a few big American gas-guzzlers, several of them armour-plated like the Robertsons'. Inside, there was already hardly an inch left free at the long bar, which ran across the full width of the lounge. A score of low tables fringed the dance floor, each with its circle of cane chairs. They were filled with people and the Indian servants were performing miracles of gymnastics with trays loaded with glasses and bottles, as they threaded their way through the obstructions. Half a dozen couples were swaying to a smoochy Sinatra number, generated by a Decca radiogram in the corner, operated by a fat Tamil houseboy who was worriedly studying a list of records supplied by Daniel, but constantly amended by the demands of the dancers.

The music was almost drowned by the buzz of chatter, which tonight was a good few decibels louder than usual. The inevitable topic was the new attack on Gunong Besar and as soon as Tom came in, he could see that the focus of attention was on James Robertson. He was perched on a stool at the centre of the bar, holding court amongst a cluster of acquaintances, all of whom had their own pet theory of what had happened. As Alec pushed his way to the bar for a couple of Tigers, Tom moved further along to be in earshot of the James's clique.

‘Bloody bullets were coming like hailstones,' brayed the planter, waving his gin like a flag. ‘Pushed the memsahib on to the floor out of the way, then took off over the verandah with my shooter!' He stopped for a gulp of Gordon's, then carried on with his elaborated saga.

‘But it was too late, the sods had all vanished. They'd shot up Douglas's place first, then had a pop at the natives around the back.'

‘Sounds a bloody queer attack to me, Jimmy,' drawled Les Arnold, the Aussie from the next estate beyond Gunong Besar. He was not actually part of the inquisitive circle around James, he had been sitting at the bar before they descended on his neighbour and had been enveloped by them.

‘What's queer about being shot at, Les?' demanded a captain from the West Berkshires, rather indignantly.

‘Not like the CTs to fire off a few rounds, then bugger off!' objected the Australian. ‘Even in Jimmy's last attack they killed a couple of blokes.'

Robertson flushed, both at being repeatedly called ‘Jimmy' and at the insinuation that his latest moment of glory had not been all that glorious.

‘An attack's an attack, Les!' he snapped petulantly. ‘What d'you think all those holes are in the walls – giant termites?'

There was a guffaw from the group at this witticism, but Arnold just grinned.

‘Good on you, mate! I'm glad they didn't call on me, just up the road from you. I need my beauty sleep every night.'

Alec came back with the beers and he and Tom leaned against one of the pillars that supported the high roof while they looked around at the talent in the room. The disc jockey had found one of the request records and now Tony Bennett was crooning about a ‘Stranger in Paradise', giving the swaying couples the excuse to cling together as if they had been welded front-to-front, their feet hardly moving.

‘Some nice-looking birds here, Alec,' murmured the pathologist. Stuck in his laboratory all that first day, he had so far hardly laid eyes on a QA, apart from their motherly Matron, Doris Hawkins. ‘Who's the dark-haired one, in the slinky blue dress?'

Watson grinned. ‘You got it in one, Tom! Everyone notices her first. That's our in-house
femme fatale
, Lena Franklin.'

Howden looked across to the centre of the dance floor and saw a slim, sexy-looking woman in her late twenties, with dark hair in what he called a Gina Lollobrigida style. Her eyes were enhanced catlike with make-up and her glossed lips were in a slight pout as she rested her chin on her partner's shoulder. Her dress was a westernized version of the Chinese
cheongsam
, a skin-hugging sheath of blue silk with a high collar and a slit up each side to the thigh. Tom could almost see the disapproval coming off some of the older wives, like a black cloud ascending to the fans overhead. Lena was certainly a dish-and-a-half, he thought. No wonder David Meredith was brassed off at the prospect of losing her to someone else.

‘Who's the guy she's with? That her new bloke?'

‘Nay, he's some prat one-pipper from the Hussars. Looks as if she's using him to fire up our master gasman – to say nothing of Jimmy Robertson.'

Looking around the crowded room, they found their anaesthetist standing with Peter Bright against the opposite wall, an untouched beer in his hand, scowling at the pair on the dance floor. As they watched, a handsome redhead in a white dress rose from a nearby table where she was sitting with several more nurses and a couple of young men. Going up to Peter Bright, she said something, but he smiled and shook his head.

‘That's another factor in the equation, Tom,' said Alec, who seemed to be a mine of information on the scandals and intrigues of Tanah Timah.

‘Who's she?' Tom asked, as he watched the auburn-haired girl talk animatedly to the surgeon.

‘That's our Joanie . . . Joan Parnell, QA sister on Medical One. She's like a rash!'

‘What d'you mean – like a rash?'

‘She's all over you! Especially if you're Peter Bright, she's got the hots for him even though everyone knows he's after Diane Robertson.'

Joan had now wrestled the glass from Peter's hand and putting it down on a shelf, was dragging him to the dance floor, leaving David Meredith alone and even more darkly morose.

‘I'm getting confused over all this,' muttered the pathologist. ‘It's like one of these Whitehall farces, with people popping in and out of bedroom doors.'

‘You won't get that, at least not on hospital premises,' said young Watson. ‘Both the Matron and our Old Man keep their beady eyes firmly on the bedroom doors in BMH.'

Just then, Alec spotted a couple of members leaving the bar and they quickly slid on to their vacated stools. ‘That's better, we can see the action in comfort now,' he said smugly.

The nubile Joan Parnell was wrapping herself enthusiastically around their surgeon on the dance floor and Peter Bright, though enjoying the feel of a lithe body in his arms, was casting wary glances around the room as they revolved slowly to the music.

‘Pete's on the lookout for the evil eye from Memsahib Robertson,' explained Watson, his boyish face alive with interest at the goings-on around him. ‘Though I haven't seen her here yet, maybe the shooting has given her the vapours.'

Tom was still doggedly working out the romantic permutations. ‘Her husband's here, anyway. You reckon he's having a fling with this Lena woman, the one that our gasman is keen on?'

‘That's it – and rumour has it that for years he's been playing away with Rosa, until just recently.'

‘Who the hell's Rosa?'

‘The wife of his manager, Douglas Mackay. They're here somewhere, I've seen them.'

‘Bloody hell, this is like something out of Somerset Maugham!'

Tom buried his face in his Tiger while he sorted out the machinations in his mind. ‘Any more shenanigans I should know about, while you're at it?' he asked, when he surfaced.

‘Not that I know of,' admitted Alec regretfully. Then he brightened a little, ‘Apart from our dear Commanding Officer, of course!'

‘Jesus, don't say he's been rogering someone too? I thought he was married?'

‘He is – that's the point! His missus was out here with him until two months ago, then she suddenly ups and goes home to UK. She was a right old battleaxe and the whisper is that she got fed up with him. But no one knows why?'

‘Where does he live, then?'

‘He's still in his married quarter in Garrison, thank God. By rights, he should quit and come to live in the Mess, now that he's on his own. That would be bloody awful, having the old bastard amongst us, but I think he's got some pull with the Brigadier, who's letting him stay on in his house. He's only got three months to go before RHE, so perhaps we'll escape a fate worse than death!'