Again reassuring Diane that the police and the army were thick on the ground around the estate and promising to come up again first thing in the morning, Steven Blackwell went out to his vehicle, leaving another Land Rover with two armed constables parked ostentatiously outside the bungalow.
By the time Steven Blackwell got back to BMH, the place was buzzing with activity, mostly centred around the Casualty hut at the end of the car park.
Pushing past two red-capped Military Police standing in the doorway, he found that the Matron had joined the throng and was deep in conversation with Alfred Morris and the night sister. Tom Howden was talking in a corner with Peter Bright, who had seen all the activity when he had driven in a few minutes earlier and come to investigate. Although Morris was his equal in rank, Alf was non-medical and in the absence of the Commanding Officer, the surgeon was assumed to be top dog when it came to a medical problem, which apparently included sudden death. It was not a responsibility he welcomed.
‘So where the hell is O’Neill?’ he demanded irritably, in his cut-glass accent. ‘Did you try his quarters again?’
‘Three times, but nobody answers the phone,’ grunted the pathologist. ‘Alf has just sent a runner up there now, to knock on his door.’
He looked curiously at Peter Bright, who seemed to be in a fever of excitement, more than even these unusual circumstances warranted. The surgeon was agitated, running his fingers through his fair, wavy hair and nervously nibbling at his lower lip. Even Tom’s superficial knowledge of the intrigues in Tanah Timah was enough to set him wondering if Peter’s thoughts were now dominated by the fact that the love of his life had suddenly become a widow.
The major from the garrison was on the telephone, but now slapped it down and came across to the police superintendent. ‘We’ve had patrols up and down that damned road as far as Kampong Kerbau, but there’s not a sign of anything out of the ordinary. I just don’t understand it, the bandits don’t just loose off a single shot, they usually set up an ambush and blast hell out of whatever comes up the road.’
‘That’s if it did happen on the estate road,’ replied Steven. ‘At the moment, we haven’t a clue where the shooting took place.’
Everyone in the room gravitated towards the speakers, forming a circle around them. The QA corporal, her orderly and the pharmacy staff sergeant stood on the periphery, a captain from the provost marshal’s unit pushing in front of them. He was in charge of the military police, though the nearest investigators, the SIB, were in Ipoh. Speaking to Steven, who he knew well both professionally and socially, he voiced what was in most people’s minds.
‘Why the hell poor old Jimmy? And where did it happen?’
A confused chatter began filling the room and Blackwell saw that the whole affair was in danger of becoming a circus, with so many people milling about, most of whom had no real need to be involved. He held up his hands and called for quiet.
‘This is a police matter until we learn otherwise,’ he said loudly. ‘Mr Robertson was a civilian and he suffered his fatal injuries somewhere out there.’ He waved his hand at the rest of Malaya, before turning to Peter Bright and Alf Morris who were now standing together.
‘Could I suggest that the body is taken to your mortuary, as we’ve nowhere else to put him nearer than the ones at the civil hospitals at Ipoh or Taiping. I’ll contact the coroner first thing in the morning, but I’m sure he’ll want a post-mortem carried out.’
The coroner for this area of Perak was an Indian lawyer in private practice at Kuala Kangsar and Steven knew from experience that he would agree to almost any suggestion made by the police.
‘It’s almost one thirty,’ he continued. ‘My men and the army are still combing the area, but there’s nothing more we can do here until the morning, so I suggest we all get back to our duties or to our beds.’
There was a general shuffling as people began moving, but they halted abruptly as a harsh voice suddenly barked at them from the doorway.
‘What’s the meaning of this? Major Bright, what’s going on here?’
It was the Commanding Officer, Desmond O’Neill, dressed in a dark blazer and striped tie, with grey flannels above black shoes. His bony face glowered at them, lips compressed into a thin line.
‘What are all you people doing in my hospital at this hour of the night?’ Even at this tense moment, Tom Howden noticed the colonel’s proprietary attitude towards the BMH.
‘There’s been a tragedy, sir.’ Peter Bright chose his words carefully, being well aware of his senior officer’s peculiarities. ‘James Robertson has been shot dead. Outside somewhere, but he was brought here in case he could be resuscitated.’
‘He’s a civilian,’ snapped O’Neill. ‘He should have been taken to a general hospital.’
No one wanted to point out to him that the nearest was more than twenty miles away but Steven Blackwell was in no mood to be obstructed by some military martinet.
‘He wasn’t actually certified dead until he was on army premises, colonel – and the death may well be due to enemy action. I’ll clear it with the Brigadier in the morning, but I’ve asked if we could have the use of your mortuary in these urgent circumstances. As you will know, bodies go off rapidly in this climate and we’ll need an examination to help our investigation, as this is a murder.’
The cold eyes of the colonel roved aggressively around the room, then his mercurial moods changed into an almost benign state.
‘Of course, superintendent, of course!’ He turned on his heel like a marionette and glared at Tom.
‘Howden, you’re supposed to be a pathologist! Get the corpse to the mortuary and perform a post-mortem in the morning.’
He swung back to the others and his ferocity returned. ‘This is a Casualty Department, not a peep show. Everyone who has no business here can clear out – now!’
With a last glare at the discomfited faces, he vanished and they heard his car start up and accelerate away.
‘Cheeky bugger,’ muttered the garrison major to Alf Morris. ‘If I had another pip on my shoulder, I’d have told him where to get off!’
The faithful Admin Officer murmured something about O’Neill’s bark being worse than his bite, but the major had joined the general exodus and soon only the RAMC staff remained with the policeman.
‘In the morning, I’ll have to come and take statements from everyone who was in The Dog tonight,’ said Blackwell. ‘I’ll contact the coroner as early as I can and get his authority for you to carry out a post-mortem, Captain Howden.’
Alf Morris gave an indrawn whistling noise to indicate his concern at this.
‘You’d better get back to the colonel to get his consent for that, Steven.’
‘But the bloody man has just ordered him to do it!’ protested the police officer.
‘Our beloved leader can be very fickle,’ warned Peter Bright. ‘What he says tonight, he might flatly deny in the morning.’
Blackwell gave a small sigh of exasperation and after making his farewells, went wearily out to his waiting Land Rover, the surgeon following him to his own sporty MG. By now, the orderly sergeant had got two RAMC privates to bring a trolley from the Families Clinic next door and with the others watching with sombre expressions, they covered James Robertson’s body with the sheet from the examination couch and hauled him across on to the trolley. As they pushed the sad burden away to the mortuary, Tom Howden had a sudden thought, as he had inspected the place only a couple of days ago. The morgue was part of his domain as the pathologist, a hut little larger than a garden shed on the edge of the helicopter landing pad, incongruously next to the badminton court.
‘There’s no refrigeration there. He’ll go off pretty fast in this heat,’ he said to Alf Morris.
As usual, the imperturbable Admin Officer had the answer. ‘That’s under control, we get blocks of ice brought in to put all around them. There’s a Chinese contractor in the town who supplies it, I’ll organize it first thing in the morning.’
With this bizarre image in his mind, Tom went off to scrounge a last cup of tea from the night sister, before going back to his bed in Intensive Care for what remained of the night.
Morning Prayers went off quite mildly, in spite of the fears of several officers that the Old Man would be ranting about their failure to notify him about the shooting, ignoring the fact that he was nowhere to be found. In
