‘A wake.’
‘Dad’s wake. We buried him today at the church . . .’
‘Which church?’
‘Holy Joe’s. St Joseph’s.’
‘You’re a Catholic.’
‘Do I look like a bloody Hindu?’
‘Why do you think I shot your father?’
‘I’ll be honest with you: I think you had an argument with him.’ The boy leant against the bar, becoming conspiratorial with me. ‘I’ve been asking around about you. You’re on an investigation of corruption by the railway lot, so listen . . . You thought my dad was on the take. Commerical man, working on big contracts. You know how that could go.’
He certainly was a sharp kid. It was almost as if he knew about Schedule C. I said, ‘I liked your dad.’
‘Come on, man, of course you say that!’
‘If he thought I thought he was on the take . . . Then he would have been more likely to shoot me, wouldn’t he?’
Silence for a space.
‘So now you get amused at me? My dad – carrying a gun! Listen, you had an argument with my dad. You know . . . all that whisky the pair of you knocked back. My dad had the top education of India, but he was a booze-ard like you. And he would blow up, man.’
I said, ‘He told me he had a lot of arguments with you.’
‘He did, that’s right. What else did he say?’
‘That you were wasted as a ticket inspector.’
‘You think I want to be like him? I loved my dad, but do you know what I called him? Nowhere man. Too big for the Insty, too small for the big clubs. But not really too small, man – too black. Do you know how many other top men came to see him off?’
‘You mean gazetted officers?’
‘Six.’
From the corner I heard, ‘Anyhow, I ducked just in time to give Stripes a free passage.’
‘Sounds a fair number for a small funeral,’ I said.
‘And how many of those came back here, do you think? Two. You should have heard them. “Oh, you people have made such a lovely job of your Institute, we must come here more often.”’
‘I doubt they said that. Not in so many words.’
‘What are you doubting, man?’
‘They wouldn’t say “you people.” Is your mother still in the other room? I’d like to go through.’
‘Why?’
‘Pay my respects.’
‘Keep your respects.’
The big Englishman who’d been talking about tiger hunting was approaching from behind Anthony Young, who turned aside, indicating the man, saying, ‘Here, you will like him. Another booze-ard.’
The boy then quit the bar.
II
‘His father would have given him a clip round the ear,’ the big Englishman said, ‘or indeed a belt. A very good man, John Young.’
We were sitting in basket chairs on the veranda of the Institute. The Englishman had introduced himself as Charles Sermon, and on hearing the name I realised I’d heard of him. He was an officer of the East Indian Railway, and quite famous for being British and yet haunting the Railway Institute. I accounted for my own presence on the Company payroll in the manner approved by Harrington in London, mentioning only Schedules A and B of the enquiry. He nodded blandly at this. I made it clear that I was not investigating the killing of John Young, and Charles Sermon made no reaction beyond saying, ‘They’ve a sound chap on the job, I hope?’
Sermon was a traffic manager, quite high up on the passenger side. I mentioned Askwith as being the father of my daughter’s friend and he gave a respectful nod. ‘My boss,’ he said, looking across the garden. I waited to see whether there would be any advance on this. As there was not, I mentioned Dougie Poole, and his name brought a smile to Sermon’s face. ‘Dougie’s on the goods side. Great fun is Dougie, but it would be wrong to take him for a lightweight.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Oh, I don’t know, but he’s an interesting chap, bit of dark horse . . .’
I seemed to me that Sermon would neither be on the take, and nor would he finger anyone who might be. These actions would be insufficiently romantic for him. I supposed that he was perfectly good at the complicated work at the traffic department, but that his true mind was elsewhere: in the mofussil.
The mali was now stringing some up some empty kerosene cans. Charles Sermon explained that they would rattle against each other, and so keep the fruit bats off the mangoes. Since the mali spoke no English, Sermon pointed out some of the flowers to me.
There were orchids of various kinds, sunflowers, red dahlias, carnations, African daisies. We sat among the scent of these flowers, with just a hint of manure. The garden was beautifully kept, except for a couple of bushes close to where we sat that looked half dead, with leaves only on the uppermost parts. But they must have been meant to look like that; they would not have been tolerated in that condition otherwise. Sermon offered me a good Turkish cigarette from a good silver case, and we smoked in silence for a while, gazing towards some wagons being shunted in a cloud of golden dust, with the sun setting beyond, and occasionally sipping our drinks. Anthony Young had called Sermon a ‘booze-ard’ but there was a good deal of water in his whisky, and I was on lemonade.