‘But he appeared to take little notice of her.’
Grace sighed. ‘That’s part of the game, the ritual. Look, Joe, I’m rather a prosaic old countrywoman at heart but even I couldn’t help catching the ripples, the backwash, from some of their encounters. Disturbing. Very disturbing.’
‘But they only set eyes on each other four days ago! Nothing of any serious emotional significance could have occurred in that short time?’
Grace was laughing at him. ‘Joe, when you meet the right girl, I know what you’ll say to her – after a decent interval of course – “I say, old thing, I’m afraid something of serious emotional significance appears to have occurred!” You were standing right next to Lily when it happened, as was I, as were eight other people. They looked at each other and that was that. Instant recognition. It happens. The French call it a “coup de foudre”. A thunderbolt.’
‘Grace, you’re a scientist, a doctor, you surely don’t believe such things happen?’
‘I know they happen!’ she said sharply. ‘I wasn’t always fat, forlorn and forty-five, you know!’ she added quietly.
Joe was embarrassed for a moment. ‘Ah!’ he said. ‘A coup de Grace?’
‘Bad joke, Joe!’
Joe fell silent. He was again being led, gently and with humour, down a path he had no particular intention of following and he was determined to get Grace back on the track he had chosen. ‘You don’t mention what I consider to be the main problem in all this – the death of Zeman. Enough of the girls’ gossip – don’t forget, Grace, I am a policeman, inquisitive and suspicious by nature. Are there things about that mysterious episode that you’d be prepared to tell me?’
The road narrowed and for two hundred yards or so Joe and Grace were constrained to ride in line ahead and Joe’s question was left floating in the air. As the track widened once more, Aslam led them down to a stony ford across a hurrying stream, a tributary of the meandering Bazar river.
‘As good a place as any,’ said Grace, ‘to water the horses and form up. Gather our strength before we take on the difficult part of this expedition into the hills.’
‘It wouldn’t be a bad place,’ said Joe, ‘for you to answer my question. I know how you killed Zeman, but I can’t imagine why.’
Chapter Seventeen
‘Then your policeman’s imagination does not deceive you, Joe,’ Grace said lightly. ‘I’m glad about that. You say you “can’t imagine why”. Well, that could be because there is no reason why. I did not kill Zeman.’
Unabashed, she met his level gaze, rendered all the more penetrating by the sooty emphasis of his eyes, and said again, ‘I did not kill Zeman. But I’d really like to hear what you mean by “knowing how” I could have killed him.’
For the sake of peace on the frontier Joe would have kept silent – had, until now, kept silent, unsettling images from the dinner party still with him. He had a picture of Grace moving around the table to talk to Lily and occupying for a minute or two Zeman’s vacated place, setting his sherbet glass negligently to one side as she settled. She could easily have palmed a pill and Grace, so experienced in all practical matters pertaining to Life and Death, with a working knowledge of poisons, could easily have dropped it into the glass. It hadn’t been cyanide. In manhandling the body on the stairs Joe had come close enough to check that there was no bitter almond smell about the man’s mouth. The vomit also had been innocent of any betraying smell of poison known to Joe. And cyanide was an instant killer. Whatever else, it wasn’t cyanide.
With a start of horror Joe wondered what would have been the Amir’s reaction when it was revealed that his personal physician designate – both female and foreign – had done away with his kinsman, a trusted serving officer? If, as many thought, he was searching for the trigger for a holy war against the British, surely none better than this would ever offer? But Joe hadn’t dismissed the theory of a palace coup and he remembered flakes of what Iskander described as white cardamom being liberally sprinkled into Zeman’s tea and Grace’s voice, casual and authoritative, ‘Why don’t you all try it? It’s an excellent carminative.’ A cover for Iskander? So easy to put something besides the cardamom into his superior officer’s cup. Were Grace and Iskander conspiring? The only thing the unlikely pair would work towards together would be the preservation of the fragile status quo, he thought. Joe had liked Iskander. He thought him clever and reasonable with a sense of humour which appealed to him. Perhaps that had put Joe off his guard.