Stoddart Pallampur Predicament

A Superintendent Le Fanu Mystery
1. Auflage 2014
ISBN: 978-988-13510-3-6
Verlag: Crime Wave Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 189 Seiten

The second Superindentent Le Fanu Mystery sees our intrepid British policeman on the trail of the murderers of an Indian Rajah. Under pressure from his superiors, pining for his lost love and allergic to the sight of blood, Le Fanu must navigate through a political mine-field of colonial intrigue in 1920s Madras. As the British tighten their grip on the sub-continent, Gandhi's peace movement, British secret agents and armed pro-independence rebels complicate Le Fanu's investigations further and he soon finds himself in a quagmire of violent opposing forces that are unwilling to compromise.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Stoddart, Brian

Leseproben

One Le Fanu wondered how this Madras day could be any worse. The weather was its only saving grace. This close to Christmas (an odd celebration in India, he thought) it was bearable, seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit with little humidity, by local standards anyway. Just as well, wearing full dress uniform on parade like this was torture. He had arrived in Madras seventeen years earlier, in 1905, to begin his Indian Police Service career. In the hottest weather back then, recruits “called” on the martinet wives of senior officers to be received into “society.” It was laughable, but serious. A “calling” faux pas blighted several careers because some of those women were far more frightening than their husbands. Most recruits fainted at some point, dressed in full morning suit and top hat while waiting outside a suburban gate to be received as the temperature climbed well past one hundred. “Parade, Atten-SHUN!” The command snapped him back. This display of police force along the Marina Beach front near Fort St. George was more about reminding the populace who was in control than honouring the troops being inspected by the Governor. The war years aside, 1922 was the most difficult Le Fanu had experienced since that first one. Indian National Congress leaders in the Madras Presidency followed Mahatma Gandhi’s Non Co-Operation campaign to the letter. Police, military and civil service personnel faced boycotts, demonstrations and withdrawal of services for months. Le Fanu’s barber of fifteen years refused to cut his hair, until a local Congress leader’s slight prompted the resumption of normal service. Even now, corralled behind a military cordon but not bored let alone cowed after months of demonstrations, thousands of Madrasis and countryside recruits chanted slogans and waved placards at the police parade, and especially at the Governor: “LEAVE INDIA!” “INDIA FOR THE INDIANS” “LONG LIVE MAHATMAJI” “GO HOME!” Dressed mostly in the simple, homespun cotton cloth Gandhi made the symbol of India’s struggle, they had arrived at the ground from all over the city and surrounding towns hours before the police. Wandering snack vendors kept up a steady supply for those needing food. Here and there, speakers addressed smaller groups, stirring opposition to the British presence. Street musicians boosted their meagre incomes. The assembled throng, growing by the minute, produced constant noise so that parade members could scarcely follow their commander’s shouted instructions. Le Fanu knew this crowd would remain for a long time. British rule in India faced its toughest challenge yet as demands grew for independence and self-rule. Superintendent Christian Jolyon Brenton Le Fanu, MC, stood reluctantly in the parade’s front rank alongside Deputy Inspectors-General, the Commissioner and Assistant Commissioners. Trim enough; he was sturdy and six feet tall, fit from playing a lot of golf in the past two years because his empty house was especially unwelcoming at weekends. Under the police cap the hair remained fair if sporadically grey-flecked. His skin had not yet worn from the Indian climate. The grey eyes remained curious. As head of the innovative Crime Unit he was tolerated by most police officers, but despised by several, particularly the rotund, sweating figure accompanying the Governor around the ranks. Inspector-General Arthur Jepson had once been Le Fanu’s district boss, and that had ended badly. A couple of years ago he was then the surprise, compromise choice as Commissioner of Police for the city. He clashed again with Le Fanu, himself appointed by the previous I-G, Sir Maurice Wilson, to head the Crime Unit that used investigation methods created by the Austrian criminologist, Hans Gross. Jepson hated the idea, the unit, the methods and Le Fanu, not necessarily in that order. However, the unit’s continuing success blunted Jepson’s attack. He tolerated Le Fanu’s team, but with ill will and constant threats of closure. Adding to Le Fanu’s pain, Jepson somehow became I-G. Wilson was forced to retire, taking blame for shooting deaths caused by Jepson’s incompetence at a demonstration. Le Fanu and Jepson had sparred regularly since. Jepson and the Governor walked slowly along the first rank as crowd noise escalated further. When the pair reached Le Fanu, the Governor stopped. “Morning, Le Fanu. All well?” “Your Excellency. Yes, thank you, sir.” “Good man, your unit’s doing excellent work. Pity Special Branch wasn’t doing likewise. We’d have less of that racket if it was.” He gestured towards the demonstrators now straining to breach the cordon of police and military personnel holding them back. Le Fanu watched Jepson’s legendary temper rise to the imagined personal cut. The Governor spoke his mind. Since arriving in Madras four years earlier, Willingdon had constantly derided the Presidency’s conservative civil service and its opposition to political reform. “Jepson,” continued the Governor, peering from underneath the curved black velvet hat topped with ostrich plumes that crowned the ostentatious uniform, “please spare Le Fanu immediately after this little display. I need his advice. Le Fanu, could you come to Government House at, say, eleven this morning?” They all knew it was command rather than request, Jepson livid at being excluded. He held back as the Governor moved on. “Le Fanu, as soon as you leave that meeting, you report to me. That clear?” As Humpty Dumpty already fallen stomped away, fuming, Le Fanu sensed the arrival of a case complicated more by internal dispute and suspicion than by external villainy. If the Governor was involved, that was inevitable. After another half hour of preening, the parade was dismissed. The Governor was driven off in a recently purchased Rolls Royce. That, thought Le Fanu, summed up the British image problem. The Government announced serious economic woes for the Presidency and prospective cuts to services at exactly the time the car turned up. Its cost would keep several villages, perhaps even a district or two going for a decade or more. It gave the local Congress yet another opportunity to castigate British rule as insensitive, uncaring and unwelcome. Crowds streamed along the road and the sands, reinforcing the unwelcome message to departing police. Placards were waved vigorously, noise levels raised even further. Looking on nervously, armed guards awaited their own orders to retire, alert to any sign of a surge among the demonstrators. The human wall was holding, just. Tension rose, nerves were tested. Several recent demonstrations had ended in gunfire, and deaths. One untimely move and the same could happen here. Le Fanu ran his fingers inside the stiff collar, trying to ease chafing caused by the sweat worked up even on this mild day. He removed his officer’s cap, clamped it under his arm and used his free hand to brush back the still-thick hair. At his fortieth birthday three months ago, he found himself staring into the mirror, wondering how he looked and what he was doing with his life. That introspection passed, but some reflections remained. A parade started any day poorly, let alone one when a messy problem had already thumped on to his desk. Was this what he wanted to do for the next ten or fifteen years, even if the politics allowed? He was still considering that and other options when up rolled a squat, dark, beaming uniformed man with a flourishing beard and short, black, brushed back hair. “Good morning, sir. Did you enjoy the parade?” Le Fanu laughed. “Good morning Habi. Of course not. Did you?” “Not at all, sir. We might’ve been off catching criminals.” Sergeant Mohammad Habibullah had joined Le Fanu at the Crime Unit when it had started and he, too, was despised by Jepson and other conservatives. Not only was Habi Indian but Muslim to boot, and in Jepson’s narrow view unfit for positions best held by British personnel. To make it worse, Habi was a brilliant and therefore untouchable detective. He had spent two years at a minor English public school before the war and had developed perfect, idiomatic English to match his fluent Hindi, Telugu and Tamil. By rights, thought Le Fanu, Habi should be an officer already but that would not happen while Jepson was I-G, even though the sergeant had solved several difficult cases. “I see you had an audience with the Governor, sir.” The smile widened. “Very observant, Habi. I’m bidden to see him at GH shortly.” “And I’m assuming the I-G stayed just that little bit longer to instruct you to report to him immediately at the conclusion of said audience?” Le Fanu appreciated shrewdness, it made Habi an excellent policeman. When India gained independence, people like Habi would make it work. Le Fanu was in a Madras minority, of one he sometimes thought: Europeans who thought India should gain autonomy soon and full independence eventually. Its people were ready and the British bereft of ideas. That view ensured his unpopularity. Too many Europeans considered his support for Indian colleagues as a betrayal of the British cause, whatever that was now. His unpopularity was greater still within the small European civil community clinging doggedly to a rapidly fading way of life. Indians no longer obeyed the British unquestionably. More and more asked questions the British rarely had answers for. That added numbers and momentum to Gandhi’s movement and prompted further political debate. “Right again, Habi. He’s angry about not being invited to the...