The third incredible novel in the highly acclaimed Malabar House series featuring Persis Wadia, India's first female police detective. A Times Audiobook of the Week
Bombay, 1950
When the body of a white man is found frozen in the Himalayan foothills near Dehra Dun, he is christened the Ice Man by the national media. Who is he? How long has he been there? Why was he killed?
As Inspector Persis Wadia and Metropolitan Police criminalist Archie Blackfinch investigate the case in Bombay, they uncover a trail left behind by the enigmatic Ice Man - a trail leading directly into the dark heart of conspiracy.
Meanwhile, two new murders grip the city. Is there a serial killer on the loose, targeting Europeans?
Rich in atmosphere, the thrilling third chapter in the CWA Historical Dagger-winning Malabar House series pits Persis against a mystery from beyond the grave, unfolding against the backdrop of a turbulent post-colonial India, a nation struggling to redefine itself in the shadow of the Raj.
(P)2022 Hodder & Stoughton Limited
Praise for the Malabar House series:
'This is a crime novel for everyone; for those who love traditional mysteries there are clues, codes and ciphers, but it also had a harder edge and a post-war darkness' Ann Cleeves
'Outstanding. I've always been a fan of Vaseem Khan but this latest offering is something special and something new' Imran Mahmood
'This is historical crime fiction at its best - a compelling mix of social insight and complex plotting with a thoroughly engaging heroine. A highly promising new series' Mail on Sunday
'This is historical crime fiction at its sharpest, set on the brink of independence and during a dramatic period of the subcontinent's history' Sunday Times
Release date:
August 18, 2022
Publisher:
Hodder & Stoughton
Print pages:
352
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Although this is a work of fiction, many of the ingredients have been culled from fact:
– The POW camps at Dehra Dun were home to over a thousand prisoners during the war, mainly ‘enemy aliens’, civilians from Axis countries unfortunate enough to be caught in India when World War Two broke out.
– The characters of Dieter Stuhlmacher and Udo Kessler are very loosely based on Heinrich Harrer and Peter Aufschnaiter, two famous mountaineers who were captured in Karachi in 1939 while planning an ascent of Nanga Parbat.
– Harrer and Aufschnaiter spent five years in the Dehra Dun camp, before escaping, climbing the mountain passes into Tibet. Their escape and subsequent years living in Tibet – and Harrer’s interactions with the then young Dalai Lama – are captured in the Brad Pitt film Seven Years in Tibet, based on Harrer’s book of the same name. (To be clear, neither Harrer nor Aufschnaiter were murderers!)
– The Caesar cipher is as described, though the QWERTY version of the cipher is my own invention, inspired by another cipher known as the ‘QWERTY or Keyboard cipher’.
– The Banganga Tank is a real feature of Bombay and its origin myth is as described in the book.
– Sheshnaga – or Shesha – is a primal being in Hindu mythology, the king of the nagas, semi-divine deities that are half human, half serpent.
– The Hindu god, Lord Vishnu, is often depicted reclining on Sheshnaga.
– The Karishma Mandir is based on various temples around India, but particularly the Padmanabhaswamy temple in Thiruvananthapuram, the state capital of Kerala, in southern India. It is often cited as the richest place of worship in the world.
– In 2015, an article in Forbes stated that treasure estimated to be worth one trillion dollars lay beneath the temple. What is known for certain is that in 2011, five vaults were opened by a team approved by the Supreme Court of India and fabulous riches discovered therein, much as I have described the treasures in the vaults beneath the Karishma Mandir.
– An audit conducted in 2016 into the assets of the Padmanabhaswamy temple suggested that a great deal of the treasure had mysteriously vanished. One can only speculate how much of the priceless wealth collected by the temple over the millennia of its existence has been plundered down the ages, and by whom.
– The issue of antiquities taken from sovereign nations by colonial powers around the world remains a thorny one, with arguments presented on both sides as to why such items should or should not be returned to their country of origin. With respect to Britain and India, the debate last reared its head in recent years over the fate of the Kohinoor Diamond, currently housed in the Tower of London as part of the British Crown Jewels. At present, there appears to be no appetite in the British government – or the British monarchy – to send the great diamond back to the subcontinent.
It was almost impossible to understand what Martel was saying above the rising wind.
Peter Reynolds blinked the snow out of his eyes. The blizzard was coming in hard and fast; soon they’d have to break camp and wait it out.
But he couldn’t let go of what he’d seen. Or, at least, what he’d thought he’d seen.
‘I think there’s someone up there.’
Martel’s cadaverous face registered a moment’s confusion, then twisted into anger. Peter sensed another argument.
When they had left to begin their adventure, just three weeks earlier, they’d departed as colleagues, having met eight months prior in New Delhi, a city undergoing a slow and painful transformation under Nehru’s fractious new government.
A friendship had developed, of sorts. Two Europeans – traditional foes, an Englishman and a Frenchman – navigating the bureaucratic jungle of the nation’s capital. Not that that was how the Indians saw themselves. Dealing with the pompous new breed of civil servant had become the bane of Peter’s life. Independence had brought freedom to the country, but with it had come opportunists settling into the vacuum left by the departing British. If Delhi had been a city of forts and mendicants before, it now served as a bastion of political cutthroats and blowhards with the moral scruples of rutting goats.
The paperwork alone was enough to make a man blow his brains out.
The trek had been a welcome break. Martel, an experienced climber, had proposed the expedition, had even picked a route suited to Peter’s level of skill.
Or so he’d said at the time.
They’d taken the Himalayan Queen up from Delhi, then hired a jeep to ferry them to the village of Yamunotri, nestled in the foothills of the Garhwal Himalayas. From here they’d set off on foot, nothing but the packs on their backs, making their way up through the Dhumdhar Kandi Pass, an experience Peter would not soon forget.
The scenery, as Martel had promised, was enough to take a man’s breath away: vivid mountainscapes, crystal clear night skies, the occasional snow leopard. What he’d neglected to mention was the cold and the danger. The high mountain passes were no place for an unseasoned climber, weak-limbed by the first stirrings of mountain sickness.
It didn’t help that he was in the company of a man whose recklessness would have made a drunk sapper seem sober by comparison.
Not that the Frenchman had shown any remorse. He had that peculiar temperament oblivious to anything but its own inverted logic.
Sociopath. That was the word.
Having barely survived the Dhumdhar Kandi Pass, Peter had made up his mind to quit. But somehow, Martel had beguiled him. The simple fact was that they had planned a two-man expedition. Even Martel wasn’t foolhardy enough to continue on his own.
Guilt. That, and the fear of ridicule in the eyes of a Frenchman.
Quitting was simply not an option.
They’d trekked down from the pass to the hamlet of Dharali, then turned up to Nelang. From here, they’d headed northwards to the Tsangchokla Pass, leading into Tibet, their ultimate destination.
‘It will make a fine story,’ Martel had told him. ‘Imagine la tête que feront tes enfants!’
Well, he was certainly imagining the faces of his children now. Imagining them gathered around his casket at the old church in Hampstead with his wife, Amanda, dressed in black and cursing her fool of a husband.
Martel’s growl cut across his thoughts. ‘No one could be alive up there.’
Peter hesitated. How sure was he of what he’d seen?
They’d been trekking through the high pass, knee-deep in snow, a stiff wind lacerating their faces. The valley snarled around them, sharp granite ridges covered in their winter blankets.
Martel had told him the route was often employed by Buddhist pilgrims.
What he hadn’t bothered to point out was that even fanatics rarely ventured here in the depths of winter.
And then the worst had happened.
A roar above and behind him. He’d turned to see a section of the nearest ridge shear away, come tumbling down in great slabs of snow and ice. Crying out in terror, he’d flapped and cursed his way out of the torrent’s path.
When the snow had settled, he’d looked back and seen . . . a narrow cave opening high up on the ridge’s flank. And in the mouth of the cave, what looked like the shape of a man.
He’d used his binoculars, but couldn’t be certain.
He’d caught up with Martel, who’d been a hundred yards ahead and had missed the minor avalanche entirely.
Convincing him to go back was never going to be straightforward.
‘Out of the question. If anyone is there, then he is dead.’
‘All the more reason to check. His family would wish to know.’
‘It is not our responsibility.’
‘I can’t see anyone else out here.’ Peter squared up to the Frenchman. He was sick of Martel’s condescending attitude. ‘I’m not moving on until we take a look.’
Martel must have seen something in the set of his shoulders.
‘Merd!’ he shouted and then turned and began trudging back the way they’d come.
Peter smiled under his hood, gripped his walking poles, and followed.
It took some time to find a safe route up to the cave.
Martel led, cursing all the while. On more than one occasion the unsettled snow shifted under them, almost making Peter question his obstinacy.
Finally, they slipped into the opening. The cave mouth was small and shadowed in darkness. Outside, dusk was falling.
He stared down at the shape he thought he’d seen.
A wash of relief as he realised his eyes hadn’t deceived him.
The dead man was splayed against the inner wall of the cave mouth. Rocks had piled up behind him, where the roof had collapsed, packed in with ice and snow. It seemed obvious that he must have been further in, and the avalanche had nudged his body towards the opening. Without that movement, he might have remained hidden, Peter thought. In the summer months, no one would bother to climb up here simply to explore a narrow opening in the rock face.
With a sharp bite of horror, he noted that the man’s face was all but gone, crushed by falling rocks.
Martel had dropped to his knees and was examining the body closely, running a torch over it. ‘He’s a white man,’ he eventually concluded.
Peter knew that many western climbers had perished in and around the Himalayas, lost in the high passes or attempting reckless mountain exploits.
He shuddered. There but for the grace of God . . .
Martel had begun searching the man’s pockets.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Looking for identification.’ He patted down the man’s thin shirt and trousers. The outfit was completely unsuited to the cold.
How had he ended up here in this remote cave?
Martel pulled something from an inner pocket.
A book.
Slipping off a bulky glove, he blew warmth on to his fingers, then flipped open the book and trained the torch on the flyleaf.
Peter resisted the urge to snatch the volume from the Frenchman’s hands.
A gust of wind blew into the cave, howled around them.
Finally, Martel looked up at him. The torchlight gave his sallow cheeks a skeletal aspect.
‘Bombay,’ he said, simply.
Chapter 10
By the time she stepped into the autopsy suite, the bodies had been prepped, undressed, photographed, and Bhoomi’s initial fingertip investigation conducted.
He was in a sombre mood, she was glad to note.
She supposed that at some point death became meaningless to a man accustomed to grappling with corpses on a daily basis. Yet, occasionally, the profanity of a particular passing might strike an unexpected note of melancholia. The murder of a husband and wife in their own bed was far enough outside of the usual to sober even a man like Bhoomi.
She waited impatiently as he went to his bank of instruments, returned with a saw, and began the process of cutting open Stephen Renzi’s body.
Her gaze lingered on Leela Renzi, stretched out beneath a white sheet, only her head visible. Her expression seemed beatific in the washed-out light of the autopsy suite, the only indication of her violent end the grisly line visible across her throat.
She recalled De Mello’s words – in particular, that Leela had been due to leave the city that evening. Only a last-minute change of plan had led to her being in the home that night.
On such random casts of the die could a person’s fate turn.
By the time Bhoomi finished, it was late into the afternoon. He washed his hands, then asked her to follow him.
She was surprised when he led her not just out of the suite, but all the way up two flights of stairs and into the college’s courtyard.
‘I’m sorry,’ he explained. ‘I needed to see the sun.’
She waited as he took a battered tin from his pocket and rolled himself a bidi. ‘Do you smoke?’
‘No.’
‘Good. It’s a filthy habit.’
He lit the thin cheroot and took a deep lungful. Blowing out a cloud of smoke, he seemed to contemplate the passing throngs of chattering students hurrying to classrooms.
‘Tell me about them.’
‘He was murdered with a hammer. Or a weapon with a profile very similar to one. Blunt force trauma. At least twenty blows, to the front of the cranium and the face. I found round depressive fractures in the frontal bone and the zygomatic arches. The facial structure was completely destroyed – nasal, maxilla, the mandible.’ He shuddered. ‘The level of violence was unusual. This was a crime of anger. Of rage.’
‘And yet the wife wasn’t treated the same way.’
He knuckled the side of his nose. ‘No. A single, deep, incised neck injury on the front of the neck, starting from just under the right ear, and severing the carotid artery. In other words, her throat was cut. The attacker was right-handed.’
‘Is that conclusion or conjecture?’
‘With the evidence to hand: conjecture. If the killer had been behind her, I would have said he was left-handed, because of the way the knife was drawn across the throat. From her right side to left. But, based on my examination of the crime scene photographs and the position of her body, I don’t think this was the case. I think he leaned over her as she slept and simply slit her throat. The deep tailing off of the wound on the left side of her neck indicates that he was right-handed. If he had been left-handed, it would have been an unnatural angle to maintain pressure all the way to the end.’
They stood in silence for a moment, absorbing the horror of it. The idea that you could fall asleep one day and never wake again, murdered as you were lost in dreams.
‘After he killed her, he walked around to the other side of the bed and murdered the husband. I think he woke him first. Or he woke of his own accord.’
She waited for him to explain.
‘Defensive injuries. He raised his hands to ward off hammer blows. Several carpal bones in his right hand are broken as well as the ulna of his left hand.’
She pondered this, then said, ‘There’ll be another body coming in soon. A foreign priest by the name of Peter Grunewald. His injuries are almost identical to Renzi’s.’
He looked at her sharply. ‘You think it was the same killer?’
‘I don’t know. But it seems an incredible coincidence. A day after an Italian is bludgeoned to death, a German is murdered in the same manner?’
‘Perhaps it’s a copycat.’
‘Renzi’s murder hasn’t made it into the papers yet.’ She glanced at him. ‘I suppose it won’t be long now that his body’s here.’
He stiffened. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
She didn’t bother to reply.
‘Look. I can’t be here every minute of the day. Plenty of others have access to the morgue.’ His voice had risen to a whine. ‘I can’t be held responsible if someone decides to let reporters in the back door.’
‘I thought being in charge meant that you were responsible.’
He seemed about to argue, but then thought better of it.
‘I want you to expedite the Grunewald autopsy.’
‘Fine,’ he said sullenly, turning his back to her.
She realised that she’d offended him, though in truth, she’d merely stated a fact.
Tact. Somehow it had always escaped her. She recalled Archie Blackfinch’s words from an earlier investigation, to the effect that if she wanted others to help her, she’d have to make them feel wanted.
‘You’re doing a fine job,’ she said, then realised that she meant it.
His shoulders twitched. He nodded, accepting the compliment, then dropped the roll-up to the floor and crushed it under his heel.
‘I’ll let you know when I’ve scheduled Grunewald. I’ve got a backlog, but I’ll jump him to the top of the queue.’
‘Thank you.’
On that note, they parted, walking stiffly off in opposite directions like duellists.
Chapter 11
Fort. The area had taken its name from the old fort, built by the British, the ruins of which could still be found down by the docks. Until the mid-nineteenth century, to speak of Bombay was essentially to speak of the area circumscribed by the fort’s walls.
Over time, other buildings had been erected in the surrounding environs, to the greater glory of the empire. The Bombay High Court, the Rajabai Clock Tower, the Victoria Terminus railway station, the Asiatic Society, Elphinstone College. As one commentator had drily observed, there was more architectural heritage packed into the pugnacious little enclave than the rest of the city put together.
Persis recalled that in olden times, the walled city had refused entry to anyone arriving after sunset, forcing latecomers to spend the night outside the city walls, at the mercy of brigands and passing leopards.
Today, the Fort district was one of the most vibrant in Bombay, home to expensive restaurants, art galleries, museums, and the stock exchange.
Only the very wealthy could afford to live here.
Then again, had things been any different during the Raj? The only change she could discern was that where once the familiar strains of ‘God Save the King’ had drifted from ballrooms and drawing rooms, now it was Rabindranath Tagore’s ‘Jana Mana Gana’ that the wealthy played to evince their patriotic bona fides.
The Sinhas maintained a luxurious five-storey mansion on British Hotel Lane that looked more like an office block than a home. It had once served as the British Hotel, the establishment from which the winding alley took its name. The hotel had shut its doors a century earlier, auctioning off its fixtures and fittings, down to the monogrammed plates in its kitchen.
Persis was let in via ornate gates, and met in the lobby by an enormous Sikh. The man resembled the Colossus of Rhodes, if the Colossus had been persuaded off his pedestal and bundled into a double-breasted grey suit and a mustard-coloured turban.
He introduced himself as Aman Singh, Sinha’s aide, and asked her to follow him up a flight of marbled steps.
‘The lift is out of order,’ he rumbled.
They walked up five flights. On each floor, doors branched off into the interior of the house. A door on the third floor gaped open; a woman stood framed inside the throat of a narrow corridor. The sound of wailing could be heard within.
The desperate keening brought home to Persis the fact that she was visiting with grieving parents, not just a politician whose fearsome reputation preceded him.
They continued upwards. The fifth floor served as Sinha’s offices, explained Singh, doubling up as campaign headquarters during election season.
She was led through an anteroom in which a battery of typists flailed away at Remingtons and Godrej Primas.
Behind them, a large red banner depicted a yellow hammer and sickle.
She followed Singh through into the private office of Pramod Sinha, an expansive space with wood panelling, bay windows, art deco floor tiles, and a marble-topped desk centred on a heavy Kashmiri rug. On the wall behind the desk was a blown-up photograph of Gandhi, Nehru, and Subhas Chandra Bose. A smaller print showed a much younger Sinha sitting at the Mahatma’s feet, looking up in callow adoration at a loinclothed Gandhi threading cotton on to his spinning wheel.
Sinha was sitting behind the desk, telephone in hand, barking into the receiver.
A striking man, was her immediate impression.
A square, dark face, set off by the brilliant whiteness of his kurta, below a cap of dyed black hair that fitted the top of his head like a welded plate. Above his upper lip bounced a black moustache, as shaggy and full of life as a Scottish terrier.
Sinha completed his call and thumped the receiver back into its cradle. His face grew still, as he registered her presence. She introduced herself.
‘Please. Sit.’
She folded herself into one of the high-backed Regency chairs, then waited as Sinha sprang up out of his own seat, trotted to a sideboard, and poured himself a drink. He tilted the bottle in her direction, but she declined.
He fell into his seat again, took a large gulp, then fixed her with a steady, bloodshot gaze.
She’d never met the man, but was acutely aware of his reputation. Sinha was one of those unscrupulous politicians that India seemed to have summoned forth in multitudes following independence. The kind who’d sell their grandmothers for an electoral seat, and throw in a couple of aunts for good measure.
His political career had seen early success with the Congress Party, only foundering when he’d adopted a contrary stance on Nehru’s planned social reforms, taking issue with the Prime Minister’s attempts to bring greater representation for Dalits – the Untouchables – into government.
Sinha’s ideals, like many in the new India, did not stretch to the lowest rungs of society. Men like Pramod Sinha had found it easy to abandon the tenets of constitutionalism, to live by their own rules, claiming a sort of noble madness as they navigated the political morass of post-colonialism.
He’d left the Congress in a huff, and immediately joined the Peasants and Workers Party of India, a Marxist outfit founded a year after independence.
It explained the bust of Karl Marx Persis could see nestled in an alcove behind the man’s desk.
She wondered, briefly, why Sinha was at his desk a day after his daughter’s killing. According to Stephen Renzi’s business manager, Arthur De Mello, the man had doted on her.
As if sensing her thoughts, Sinha said, ‘De Mello tells me you wish to speak with me about Leela’s murder?’ His manner was brusque, impatient. She detected a seam of anger.
She’d seen it in others, men rarely touched by the vicissitudes of fate, unmanned by circumstance, lashing out in blind fury.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Are you heading up the investigation?’
She hesitated. ‘No. My colleague, Inspector Hemant Oberoi, is in charge.’
‘Then why is he not here himself?’
‘I – He’s following up a lead. Sir.’
Sinha’s moustache twitched. ‘You have a suspect?’
She took a deep breath. ‘No,’ she said, firmly. ‘But we have avenues of investigation that we are pursuing.’
He grimaced. ‘When you’ve been a politician for as long as I have, you learn to recognise the art of saying something without saying anything at all.’ He lifted his tumbler to his lips, took another large swallow. ‘I’ve heard of you, of course. The famous policewoman. Perhaps you should be leading the investigation.’
She coloured. It was surprising to hear a man like Sinha suggest such a thing. She’d received scant credit in the newspapers for her work on recent cases, the plaudits handed to the men who’d been tangentially involved. But Sinha’s comment implied that he knew more.
‘I’ve made enquiries,’ he said, as if reading her mind. ‘Your colleagues at Malabar House enjoy a miserable reputation. In an ideal world, my daughter’s murder wouldn’t have been assigned there. But I seem to have lost my ability to influence matters.’ He gave a bray of self-pity. ‘Would you believe me if I told you that your commissioner once waited on me like a Kamathipura courtesan? Now he won’t even return my calls.’
She found words in her mouth. ‘Your daughter was murdered in her sleep. It’s an indefensible crime.’
Tears welled unexpectedly in his eyes. He blinked them back, coughing to reassert his composure.
‘What do you want to know?’
‘With a case like this, it’s important to establish motive. I don’t believe anything was stolen from your daughter’s home. I’m looking for something . . . personal.’
‘Leela was the sweetest soul. People used to ask me why we had no more children, why I didn’t have sons. The truth was I didn’t need another child. Leela was everything to me.’ He seemed on the verge of breaking down. ‘I can’t believe anyone would want to harm her.’
‘I’m not certain that they did. She wasn’t meant to be in the house that night.’
He instantly grasped her meaning. ‘The killer came for Stephen?’
‘It’s a theory. Of course, if this were a crime of passion . . .’ She hesitated.
‘Go on.’
‘Well, if Leela had become romantically involved with someone else, or if another man had become infatuated with her, it might explain why nothing was stolen, why Stephen was bludgeoned with such seeming rage, and why she was killed in the way that she was.’
Sinha’s eyes fell to the desk as he relived the horror of his daughter’s final moments. ‘No. Leela was faithful to Stephen. She loved him dearly. I can’t say whether another man had become enamoured of her – but it wouldn’t surprise me. She was beautiful and gregarious. She trusted too easily. I’d warned her. God forgive me, but my daughter was a fool.’
‘Tell me about Stephen . . . How did they meet?’
‘I’m not certain. Leela said it was at a function, here in Bombay. This was back in 1946. Stephen hadn’t been long in the city. He was running a motor parts shop. Of course, I immediately told her to stop seeing him. A foreigner, an Italian, and an unsuccessful one at that! Hardly a suitable match.’
Persis flushed as a sudden image of Archie Blackfinch flashed in front of her eyes. Sinha’s words might have come from her aunt.
‘But I’ve always been a fool where my daughter is concerned. When she made it clear that they would marry with or without my permission, I gave in.’
‘What did you make of him?’
He considered his reply. ‘He surprised me. I’ll give him that. He was a likeable man. Big, boisterous, like a bear. He had a sense of humour. He liked to drink. I’d heard Italians were lazy, easily distracted, but he was a hard-working man. I loaned him the money to grow his motor parts business, used my connections to land him his first big contract. But he did the rest himself. He gave Leela a good life.’
‘They were happy?’
‘As far as I could make out. Yes.’
‘Do you know of any recent business dealings that might have soured? Anyone he may have upset?’
Sinha thrust himself backwards in his chair. ‘Stephen had that rare quality of being able to maintain goodwill even when you disagreed with him.’
‘What do you know about his past?’
‘Very little. That was the one thing he rarely talked about. He was an only child, and both his parents had passed away. With no family connections left back in Italy, he decided to move abroad.’
She paused. ‘I’d like to speak to your wife, too, if I may.’
He seemed dismayed by the request. For an instant, he floundered. ‘She’s inconsolable. I should be with her. The reason you find me at my desk is because work is the only way I can bury my grief. If I wasn’t here, I’d go mad.’ He waved at his aide, standing silently in the corner like a statue. ‘Singh will. . .
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