The House of Blue Mangoes (63 page)

‘Heard you were unwell, so decided to pop by after church.’

‘The demon drink, old chap, otherwise I’m fine,’ Kannan said with a wry smile. ‘So what next? Am I to stand trial for seven, no, eight murders?’

Freddie glanced sharply at his friend.

‘Things are not that bad, Cannon,’ he said.

‘Maybe not for you, but then you’re white. I’ve just discovered I’m brown and no amount of soap and water will scrub it away.’

‘Hey, easy on, old boy. No need to come over all shirty . . .’

‘I remember Belinda, or was it Michael, saying once: “He was the whitest Englishman I know.” White, Freddie, for fair, brave, decent, courageous, heroic . . . and brown, black, yellow, olive for revolting things that have crawled out of the dark.’

‘Come on, Cannon, take it easy.’

‘I’m sick and tired of taking it easy, Freddie. The day will come when we’re all sick and tired of taking it easy and then where will we be?’

‘Look, Cannon, I thought we were friends . . .’

‘I hope we still are . . . What happened to your face?’ Kannan had just noticed a slight thickening of Freddie’s jaw. ‘Got into a fight?’

‘Nothing as fancy as that. Just clumsy old Freddie with two left feet. Slipped while getting out of the bath and the lip of the tub caught me a nasty whack,’ Freddie said, getting to his feet. ‘I’ll run along then. See you at work tomorrow.’

‘You’re a poor liar. Tell me what really happened.’

Slowly and patiently, Kannan managed to coax the truth out of Freddie. Over the past couple of days, while Kannan had gloomed about his bungalow, a rash of crudely lettered posters, demanding in Tamil that the whites get out, had begun appearing on trees and walls around the district. The police had arrested a couple of labour leaders but the murder of the Reverend Ayrton hung heavy on the planters’ minds and their suspicions weren’t laid to rest by the arrests.

Freddie had gone to the club as usual on Saturday and after lunch had found himself in the middle of a group of people who were quite drunk and expounding a theory that he hadn’t heard before: how was it, asked one obnoxious Assistant, that none of the killings, with the exception of the first one, had taken place on the Pulimed Tea Company’s estates? Was it because Kannan worked there? And why had the posters only started appearing when Kannan absented himself from work?

Did they know, he had asked, that Kannan’s uncle had been imprisoned by the authorities for being a terrorist?

‘Damned liar. He knew I was a friend of yours. It was almost as though he was daring me to take him on.’

‘I don’t know where he found out about my Aaron-chithappa, Uncle Aaron to you,’ Kannan said. ‘He was in prison for many years. He was one of the early freedom fighters. I wish I had known him.’

‘The way Taylor put it, he seemed to suggest he was a criminal.’

‘He certainly wasn’t a criminal.’

‘I didn’t think so . . .’

‘And so you took the blighter on,’ Kannan said with a grin. ‘But you should have seen him,’ Freddie said, adding modestly, ‘He was much more drunk than I was. Nasty piece of work though.’

‘Thank you, Freddie, I truly appreciate it,’ Kannan said as he walked his friend to his motorcycle.

‘Oh, I say, there’s another piece of news that I almost forgot,’ Freddie said. ‘The police have taken someone into custody for the pastor’s murder, a former sacristan who was dismissed for thieving. Apparently he’d threatened to get even, and was considered quite capable of carrying out the threat while under the influence . . .’

‘But our friend yesterday and others like him would rather I remained the prime suspect. God, how they must hate me.’

‘Spineless bastards every one . . . But look, I’m off to Madras next week . . .’

‘Lucky devil, I know you had some leave coming, but how did you manage to get around Michael?’

‘Well, with the strike and everything, he thought this would be the best time for me to slip away . . .’

‘How long will you be gone?’

‘A fortnight, sixteen days actually. Is there anything I can do for you in Madras?’

‘Not a blessed thing,’ Kannan said.

‘Why don’t you drop in for a drink, Saturday? I leave early Monday.’

‘I’ll be there,’ Kannan said.

When his friend had gone, Kannan went to his room, had a bath and changed. He was not surprised to hear that he was the subject of gossip and innuendo. It only strengthened his resolve. He thought: The world pushes, and it pushes, and then we push back, just a bit . . .

That evening, contrary to protocol, he went across to the General Manager’s Bungalow, without an appointment. The Stevensons were having tea when Kannan rode up, but he declined the offer to join them and asked to speak to Major Stevenson alone. Mrs Stevenson was none too happy at the request, and assumed her imperious aspect, but Kannan stood his ground.

As they strolled on the bungalow’s vast lawns, Kannan made no reference to the events of the past days and asked only that when the next killing took place he be given a week’s leave to bring the killer to book. And a guarantee that no one else would interfere in the hunt. Stevenson looked pensive, then nodded. He decided it was probably wiser not to ask any questions.

From that day onwards, every morning before he left for work, Kannan, who had never paid anything but lip-service to his faith, would offer up a fervent prayer. Please, Lord, let the killer strike again.

Nine days later his prayers were answered.

101

At the northern boundary of Morningfall division, the estate fell away steeply to a deep ravine, along the bottom of which ran a little stream. Beyond the ravine was an unusually shaped hill that split into two about halfway up. At certain angles the twin peaks resembled human faces, as a result of which they were dubbed Annan-Thambi. The valley between them was thickly forested, the scurf of trees extending well beyond the base of the hills. A footpath ran through the patch of jungle. The labourers on the estate used the trail as a convenient short cut to Pulimed town, which lay on the other side of Annan-Thambi. The alternative was a five-mile walk.

After the advent of the man-eater nobody dared use the footpath, unless a large party could be mustered to make the journey. The latest victim had made the fatal error of taking the short cut alone. His wife had come down with a high fever, and as it was barely an hour past noon he thought he could hurry across the hill to the small dispensary in town and get back before the light began to fade. He hadn’t reckoned on the fact that a man-eating tiger, having lost its innate fear of man, will hunt both by night and by day. At a bend in the jungle road, the man-eater had sprung out on the unfortunate man and killed him. It had dragged the body to a small clearing, and after eating about half of it, had retreated deeper into the forest. The alarm had been raised when the man failed to reach town, and Kannan was at the kill within a few hours. With him he had the local poacher, a necessary evil, and a couple of his own men. The poacher interpreted the killing with only a minimum amount of exaggeration.

Casting around for a suitable place to sit up over the kill, they decided on a medium-sized jungle tree, shrouded by a thick screen of bushes. Instructing his men to build a machan some twenty feet off the ground, Kannan hurried off.

He had already informed Stevenson. The General Manager had granted him a week’s leave and had spread the word that no one else was to interfere. Kannan wished he’d remembered to borrow Freddie’s massive elephant gun before his friend left on vacation, but there was nothing to be done about that now. He got on his motorcycle and drove to the coolie lines on Connemara Estate, a largish plantation owned by the McCracken Tea Company, whose estates extended right up to the boundaries of Glenclare Estate.

He had never visited the coolie quarters on any of the estates since his orientation tour when he had first arrived. As then, the sight of the buildings depressed him: rows of long, low mud-and-plaster buildings roofed with tin, a dozen families to a building, a family to a room. Small, raggedly dressed children, their faces liberally plastered with mucus and dirt, were playing in the beaten earth before the houses. At the sight of him, the children ran screaming into the houses and the women hastily covered their heads with their sari pallus. Most of the men were back at work, at least some of the time, guarded by men with guns, either the managers themselves or local poachers with their fearsome weapons.

Kannan walked up to an old woman and asked where he might find Harrison. Lowering her head, she pointed to a one-roomed cottage perched on a slight rise near the lines. As he neared it, he saw that it was constructed in the same way as the other buildings in the quarter, except that it was roofed by country tiles.

In the open patch of beaten earth surrounding the cottage, four children were playing. They ranged in age from four to fifteen and all of them had the pale brown skins of mixed breeds. An enormously fat woman, dressed in a garish pink sari, gold bright against her nose and wrists, pounded grain in a stone quern, oblivious to the shrieking children who seethed around her. The children grew quiet as he approached and their mother looked up from her pounding and gazed at him with interest.

‘Are you Mrs Harrison? I wish to see your husband,’ Kannan shouted above the sound of wood on stone.

‘Never married me, but yes, he’s here. I’ll see if I can get him.’

She stopped what she was doing, heaved herself to her feet, the sari slipping momentarily and affording him a glimpse of huge breasts. She waddled off towards the house. Over her shoulder she yelled at the children to go and play, then disappeared into the cottage. As he waited for her to emerge, he reviewed the little he knew of Richard Harrison.

He had never met the man, but then he’d gone native twenty years ago. After being fired for his excessive bouts with the bottle and pluckers, it was said that Harrison had simply packed all his worldly belongings into two empty kerosene tins and gone off to live with the coolie woman he had been sleeping with at the time. Since then, nobody had seen anything of him. This suited Kannan. All he needed was for the man to agree to what he had in mind.

The fat woman reappeared and told Kannan to go in. As he climbed up the steps to the house, he could hear the pounding start up again.

The first thing that struck him as he entered the room was the smell: the thick stench of unwashed bodies, stale food and drink, dung smoke and urine. When his eyes adjusted to the meagre light that filtered through the single dust- and smoke-stained window, he saw a gaunt old man sitting on a string cot, dressed in a lungi and a singlet. His disproportionately large head, which was totally bald and covered with liver spots, drew Kannan’s attention. Realizing he was staring, he averted his eyes. He needn’t have bothered, for Harrison did not acknowledge his presence but continued to sip from the brass tumbler in his hand.

Kannan took a quick look around. Pots and pans hung from pegs driven into the mud wall, as did saris and other clothes. Sleeping mats were rolled up in an untidy heap in one corner and there was a tin trunk and several empty kerosene tins along the walls. Harrison still ignored him, so he cleared his throat and began to speak, anxiously and fast.

‘Mr Harrison, I’d like your help, sir. There’s a man-eating tiger on the estate, and I hope you can help me get rid of it. The whole district’s being terrorized by the animal and . . .’

‘Why me?’ The voice was surprisingly deep and pleasant.

‘Well, I thought . . .’

Harrison didn’t let him finish. ‘Why don’t you get those fancy bloody planters and their expensive rifles to get rid of your problem, Mr Dorai?’

Kannan was astonished that Harrison knew his name.

The old man laughed and took a swig of whatever he was drinking.

‘Sir, I’ve heard you’re one of the best shikaris in the district . . .’

‘And a drunkard and a bedder of a black woman to boot. Oh no, mister, you’ll have to do better than that.’ He laughed again, a disagreeable sound in the little room, and then his laughter was broken by a fit of coughing so prolonged that Kannan didn’t know whether to go to his assistance or flee. When the cough finally subsided, Harrison wiped his face with a dirty rag, and said, ‘Shall I tell you why you are here, Mr Dorai? It’s because the white men think you are behind the killings. And you want to redeem yourself by killing the phantom tiger of Pulimed.’

Kannan said nothing.

‘Let me tell you, mister, news travels in many ways here. And the answer to your request is, no. I have no desire whatsoever to help you or your masters.’

When Kannan spoke, there was a pleading note in his voice, to his disgust. But he kept on anyway. ‘Please, Mr Harrison, I shall make this worth your while. Whether we shoot the tiger or not, I shall pay you a hundred rupees, no, two hundred,’ realizing even as he spoke that it was over half his monthly salary.

The old man made no reply and seemed to have forgotten about him. Kannan was turning to go, when he heard him say, ‘Your money does not interest me, mister.’ This time when Harrison lapsed into silence it was evident that the interview was over.

Kannan had almost reached his motorcycle when he heard a child hailing him in Tamil. It was one of the older children he had seen playing around Harrison’s house. The message the boy delivered was brief: his father wanted Kannan to visit him in the evening, when he would let him have a final decision. Kannan had no idea why the old man was reconsidering but he suddenly felt less dejected.

102

There were still a couple of hours left to sundown when Kannan and Harrison reached the kill. Harrison carried an old model .275 Rigby rifle, obviously well cared for, the metal parts oiled and gleaming, the worn stock lovingly polished, and Kannan shouldered his Mannlicher.

As they looked down at the remains of the victim, Kannan asked, ‘Are you sure this is a tiger kill? I mean, this one’s eaten a bit, but most of the victims weren’t even touched. And not one of the shikaris has even seen it, let alone managed to get a shot at it.’