‘That’s right! I believe that’s right! And we all went… no, we didn’t all go… I say, didn’t Reggie go up to Annandale that day?’

Joe listened with exasperation and amusement. Too much gin for breakfast. Too many almost identical days. He was never going to get corroboration or denial here. And yet, on the other hand, the absence of corroboration seemed, paradoxically, to corroborate Edgar Troop’s account of his movements. Surely if he had anything to hide, surely, if this careless and dissipated crew were any part of a well-structured alibi, they would have been better rehearsed than this? And yet, on the slightest hint from Troop, any one of them would remember anything and, ultimately, contradict anything as required. Joe imagined with horror standing any one of them up in court as a witness.

Charlie, who had been standing silently in the background, now cut in. ‘This is all very jolly and I’m a great believer in police interviews being carried out in the most public possible way but there are limitations and I really think I and the Commander have to ask if we could speak to you individually. Now we can either do that here or you could, as the saying goes, accompany us down to the station to assist us in our enquiries. I’ll play this either way. It might be more convenient for you, to say nothing of more discreet, if you were to set aside a room for our use.’

A chorus broke out. ‘Of course. Of course. Anything we can do… Not sure if we can remember it all but we’ll do our best… Anyone got a cigarette?’

Finally, ‘It’s a bit of a mess but why don’t you come into my room?’ said Jackie Carlisle and he led them into an adjoining room where a servant was perfunctorily flicking about with a duster and had – not well – just finished making up the bed. There were three roorkhi chairs, a low table, a battered bureau, a wheezy overhead fan, several half-empty bottles and three or four boxes of cigars as yet unopened.

‘Sit you down,’ he said.

Carter flipped a notebook open on his knee. ‘Tell me now, Jackie. You met here on the day in question more or less by accident and with no serious prior engagement – am I right?’

‘Yes,’ said Jackie Carlisle absently.

‘And then you had tiffin? Correct?’

‘Correct.’

‘And what time is tiffin served?’

‘Oh, the usual… one o’clock or thereabouts.’

‘Then you and Johnny and Edgar and Reggie Sharpe went for a drive?’

‘That’s right. Bertie was there to begin with but he had to go back to work. You see, I’ve got this new car…’ He waved an explanatory hand at the window. ‘Well, not new exactly but new to me. Second-hand Delage.’

‘Ah, yes,’ said Carter. ‘The Delage. We’d certainly noticed it – so conspicuously and illegally parked. Would you…?’

‘Oh, I’ll get it moved! Have to wait until I’ve got it fixed though,’ he said resentfully. ‘Anyway, we drove out on the Mashobra road. We dropped Reggie off at the racecourse to do a bit of horse-coping.’

‘And until Reggie got off you were all together?’

‘Yes.’

‘All the time?’

‘Yes, I think all the time. Edgar got out for a pee, if that counts.’

‘Anybody else get out for any reason at any time?’

‘Not that I remember. It was all a bit informal. You know what it’s like just after lunch. I was thinking more about the car than anything else.’

And there was a good deal more in the same vein with a lot of ‘as far as I can remember’ and occasionally, ‘ask the others, I can’t remember’.

And then Carlisle resumed, ‘And we dropped Reggie off and drove a bit further up towards Mashobra but the road’s so bloody awful I didn’t want to bump a new car about too much so we turned round – quite difficult up there, I might tell you – and we came back here and played snooker.’

‘Who did?’

‘Well, I did. Edgar did. Bertie was there, I think. Or – wait a minute – some but not all the time is the answer but you’d better ask him. The long and short of it is we got back here about three and played two or three frames of snooker.’

‘Two? Three?’

‘Three, I think. Or it may have been four. More than two, less than five. Is this any good?’

Charlie Carter listened with care and made an occasional note. His eye met Joe’s and they silently signalled, This is useless! And, indeed, four (or was it by any chance five?) had met for lunch, three (or was it perhaps five?) had gone for a drive, two (or was it three?) came back for a game of snooker which, it would seem, had occupied them from three o’clock until five (or was it six?).

‘Thanks, Jackie,’ said Carter at last. ‘That’s been most helpful. Now find Johnny and ask him if he’ll kindly look in. If you don’t mind us using your room?’

‘No. No, no. Help yourself! How about a cigar? Drink, anybody?’

‘Now that’s what I really appreciate,’ said Charlie Carter as Jackie left the room. ‘Succinct witness, all the facts at his fingertips, accurate memory of events! Christ! This is no bloody use! We’ll never get anywhere with these chaps! From about twelve noon on any given day they’re all completely bottled. They’re never going to remember something that happened more than two days ago. We’re wasting our time, Joe, you realize that, don’t you?’

‘Yes,’ said Joe, ‘I realize that. This could, though, be the most carefully set up bit of obfuscation and by remembering nothing clearly, repeating themselves, contradicting themselves, arguing amongst themselves, they could set up the most impenetrable smoke-screen to conceal the movements of Troop.’

‘It could be but I really don’t think they’ve got the brain!’

They sat for a moment dejectedly listening to the creaking of the fan as it stirred up eddies of yesterday’s curry, ancient cigar smoke and a hundred years of dissipation.

‘Any point going on with this?’ said Joe.

Carter eyed him apologetically.

‘Got to, old man. Got to. Sake of consistency, I’m afraid.’

‘Thought you’d say that,’ said Joe. ‘Ah, well… Next! Johnny, old bean! Take a pew!’

Chapter Twelve

«^»

The next morning Joe took a rickshaw back to the Mall and got out in front of a green and gold decorated shop front with its hanging sign, ‘La Belle Epoque’. The shop window was empty save for a single dress of red satin displayed on a chromium-plated stand, well lit and managing to be at once exclusive yet discreetly welcoming. Joe was impressed. Impressed and embarrassed, suffering at once from an eagerness to explore and that embarrassment which overcomes the most sophisticated of men when confronted with the anguish of entering a women’s dress shop alone.

‘I’m supposed to be a policeman. A policeman of international repute, you might say. Clearly at my time of life I ought to be able to walk into a shop with a flourish and that’s what I’m going to do!’

The shop door fell open at his gentle pressure and he stepped into a scented half darkness, the light supplied by partially concealed bracket lights set amongst fabrics on display. Side by side and talking loudly, two Englishwomen were considering day dresses being offered to them by two Eurasian girls. The transaction was overseen by a middle-aged and expensively dressed woman whom Joe presumed to be Mademoiselle Pitiot.

Without interrupting her sales talk she extended a welcoming glance to Joe. ‘I don’t think you would regret it, madame,’ she was saying and, turning to the lady’s companion, ‘Do you not agree? Green is exactly the colour I would choose for madame. Mary, take this into the changing rooms and why not take the blue dress as well? Probably not the yellow – I may be wrong but I think madame would disappear in a yellow dress. Though Lady Everett surprised us all with her choice of daffodil for the viceregal ball last season, did she not? Come through and try them on.’