The first book in the Detective Joe Sandilands series, 2001

The night before her sixth birthday Midge Prentice woke under her mosquito net and breathed the familiar smells of a hot Indian night. There was the smell of wet khas-khas mats hanging across the doors and windows to keep out the heat of early summer, sweet and musty; there was the smell of the jasmine which grew over the bungalow; there was the bass accompaniment inseparable from India of drains and of dung. But tonight there was something else.

Sharp and acrid, it was the smell of smoke. Midge sat up and looked about her. Running across the ceiling of her room there was a flickering reflection of flames. She struggled out of her mosquito net and, barefoot, stood down on the floor. She called for her father and then remembered he was away in Calcutta. She called for her mother but it was Ayah who answered her call.

‘Come with Ayah, now, Missy Baba,’ she said urgently. ‘Come swiftly. Be silent!’

Ayah gathered her up. ‘Put your arms round me and hold tight. Very tight. Put your feet on mine and we’ll walk together as we used to when you were a baby and then the bad, bad men won’t see my Missy Baba. If I hide you under my sari they’ll just think that Ayah has another baby on the way.’

She swept silky folds over Midge’s head and they set off to waddle together towards safety. They had often done this before; it had been a game of her infancy. It was called ‘elephant walk backwards’ and now this clumsy game was to save her life. Midge caught brief glimpses of Ayah’s sandalled feet and was aware of others milling protectively about them and then they were in the open air. They were free of the bungalow. Men’s voices – Indian voices – shouted harshly, shots rang out, a woman’s scream was abruptly cut short and then the roar of the fire as it took hold of the thatch grew deafening.

But then, gravel was crunching under Ayah’s feet and she stopped. ‘Sit here,’ she said. ‘Sit here and keep quiet. Don’t move. Be hidden.’ And she tucked Midge away amongst the rank of tall earthenware pots overflowing with bougainvillea and zinnia.

In the mess, half a mile away, Jonno crossed and uncrossed his legs under the table and with a slightly unsteady hand poured himself a glass of port and passed the decanter. He was thinking – he was often thinking – of Dolly Prentice, or, more formally, Mrs Major Prentice. He was sure he hadn’t imagined that, as he had helped her into her wrap after the gymkhana dance, she had leant back against him, not obviously but perceptibly. Yes, surely perceptibly. And his hands had rested on her shoulders, slightly moist because it had been a hot night, and there had been a warm female scent. What was it she had said when, greatly daring, he had admired? ‘Chypre.’ Yes, that was it – ‘Chypre.’

And that wasn’t all. They had danced close. Not difficult when doing a two-step and she had said, almost out of the blue, ‘You’re getting to be quite a big boy now.’ It might have meant anything; it might have meant nothing. But he didn’t think so. In memory he held that slender figure in its red chiffon dress as close as he dared.

The young subaltern on Jonno’s left was also thinking of Dolly Prentice. He knew she’d only been joking but she had said, ‘Just bring your problems to me, young man, and I’ll see what I can do.’ Had she meant it? He thought probably not. But it had been accompanied by a steady and speaking glance and, after his third glass of port, he decided, nevertheless, to take her at her word.

That bloody pony! Fifty pounds! He hadn’t got fifty pounds! Why had he fallen for it? He knew only too well why. He’d been goaded into it by Prentice. ‘Take it or leave it. Pony’s yours for fifty pounds but be warned – he takes a bit of riding!’ And the clear implication – Too much of a handful for you!‘ He thought if he threw himself on Dolly’s mercy, she might intercede for him – get him off his bargain. Perhaps she could persuade her husband not to take advantage of a young and inexperienced officer? He didn’t like appearing in the role of innocent naughty boy but still less did he like having to borrow yet again.

Then, by God! The pony! In his secret heart he was aware that he couldn’t manage it. The pony was vicious. He had made a mess of Prentice’s syce. Put him on his back for a week, they said. ‘Oh, what the hell!’ he thought. ‘Damnation to you, Major Prentice!’ And he drained his glass.

The regimental doctor sitting opposite watched him guardedly. He always felt out of place in the elegant company of Bateman’s Horse. He tried not to, but could not help contrasting the splendour of their grey and silver mess dress with his own Indian Medical Service dark blue. He was not, in fact, thinking about Dolly Prentice. He was thinking about Prentice. He remembered (would he ever forget?) the public shame that had followed his first greeting at the hands of Major Prentice.

‘Tell me, doctor,’ he had said, ‘- we are all so eager to know – from what barrow in Petticoat Lane did you buy those boots?’

It was true that his boots did not come from a fashionable boot-maker. They had come from a saddler in Maidstone and they had looked good enough when he had first tried them on. He was painfully aware that, by comparison with the officers of Bateman’s Horse, the ‘Bengal Greys’, he lacked the skintight precision supplied by Lobb of St James’s, the skintight precision which forbade anything more substantial inside than a cut-down ladies’ silk stocking.

His thoughts turned to Dolly. Dolly with her large eyes and her ready sympathy. How could she bear life with that devil? How could she put up with him close to her? And a vision of Dolly in the arms of Giles Prentice rose, not for the first time, to trouble him. He imagined the heat of an Indian night. He imagined the close confines of a mosquito net. He tried but did not succeed in keeping at bay the vision of Prentice’s slim brown hands exploring the surface anatomy which his fervid imagination and medical experience conjured up. Too easily.

The senior officer present, Major Harry, looked up and down the table. Over-bright eyes, mottled faces, desultory and slurred speech – there was no doubt about it, when Prentice was away conversation ebbed and the drink flowed to fill the gaps. And Prentice was away. He had gone to Calcutta for an interview for promotion to the senior branch. ‘But why Giles? Why not me?’ There could only be one of them this time and that one was Prentice. This had been the moment when he might have broken through and God knew when there might be another one.

His career really needed the step. He needed the money. Very soon there would be children to be sent home to school in England. Already his wife was complaining and he was sick of the endless litany – ‘Nothing to wear… only one carriage horse… when can we buy our own furniture?’ He had desperately needed this step and now Prentice had it. Pretentious Prentice!

Dickie Templar likewise surveyed the company. On attachment and waiting to join a Gurkha regiment on the north-west frontier, he was glad that he was not to be gazetted into Bateman’s Horse. He felt that though they had a glowing past (they had been golden heroes of the Mutiny) they had for too long rested on their laurels and their promotion prospects were not good. And the officers – they bored him. Further than that, they even repelled him. Sick of their company, he rose from the table and made his way to the ghulskhana where, with difficulty, unbuttoning the flap of his tight mess trousers, he stood for a moment aiming largely by memory in the darkness.