She shrugged dismissively. ‘A couple of other planter’s wives, but not lately, as far as I know. Then recently there was that sister down in the hospital. She was in Pangkor this weekend, looking as if butter wouldn’t melt in her bloody mouth!’
Diane paused and took a nervous drag at her Park Drive, before continuing.
‘Of course, there was that holy bitch next door, though again that was some time ago.’ She inclined her head towards the other bungalow lower down the slope.
This was news to Blackwell, though admittedly he wasn’t as close to the social gossip as some.
‘Are you saying that James had an affair with his manager’s wife?’
Diane feigned indifference, but viciously stubbed out her half-smoked cigarette in the long-suffering pot plant. ‘He must have been having it off with her for years – before I even married him, I suspect! It fizzled out some time ago, so maybe her religious conscience got the better of her, but more likely, Jimmy dumped her.’
‘Did Douglas know about this?’
The widow shrugged. ‘Hard to tell, he’s never said anything or showed any sign of knowing. James would have been very careful, he depended totally on Douglas to run this place, he wouldn’t have wanted to lose him. Maybe that’s why he gave her up.’
Blackwell, a happily married man with no inclination to go roving, marvelled at the risks that fellows would take in such a tightly knit community as this. He found it hard to believe that the news bore any relation to Robertson’s death, but it was another piece of information to add to the pitifully thin file on the case. Looking across at Tan, he saw that the inspector was quietly writing everything down in his notebook, so he launched into another topic.
‘Just for the record, to tidy up loose ends, it’s been obvious to everyone that Colonel O’Neill has been more than friendly towards you recently. Is there anything you want to tell me about that?’
He felt a little foolish asking this and Diane’s reaction made him even more embarrassed. She burst out into peals of laughter which though nervous, sounded quite genuine.
‘Poor old Desmond? Come on, Steve, where’s your sense of humour? I was just having a bit of fun, leading the poor old devil on. Those old witches that sit around the club already think I’m a scarlet woman, so I thought I’d give them a bit more scandal to gossip about.’
‘I’d be very careful, if I were you, Diane,’ advised Blackwell. ‘I think the colonel took it more seriously than you think. He could be a difficult man, if he thought you were making a fool of him.’
Diane Robertson waved a hand in dismissal. ‘It’s nothing, he just bought me a couple of drinks in The Dog and pranced about ushering me into his big new car. It’s rather nice, having a colonel fussing over you.’
Steven despaired of this attractive widow, who seemed to have about as much moral sense as the monkeys in the trees outside. After a few more profitless questions, he ended by cautiously raising one last matter.
‘You said that even before your husband died, you were thinking of going back to England, Diane. Would it be indelicate of me to ask if Major Bright might figure in any such future plans?’
She gave him a brittle smile. ‘What you are really suggesting is an Irish divorce?’
Steven stared at her, he had no idea what she was talking about.
‘An Irish divorce is with a twelve-bore, Steve, it’s a joke! That policeman’s mind of yours is really wondering if Peter might have shot James to make me available?’ she explained cynically. ‘It’s an exciting idea, I suppose. A handsome young man willing to kill for me, to get the woman he desires! But I can’t see Doctor Bright going to those lengths, keen as he is.’
Her head-on response to what he had hoped was an oblique question left him speechless, but Diane filled the vacuum.
‘Peter’s a good-looking chap, pots of money in the family. Bit of a stuffed shirt, but I suppose I could do worse. We’ll see how it pans out.’
A few minutes later, the superintendent was driven back down the road where James Robertson was killed, his mind still filled with the brazen attitude of the voluptuous blonde who seemed impervious to any emotion other than her own gratification.
The eight thirty meeting with the Commanding Officer had been even more fraught than usual, with O’Neill fractious after his night on the train up from Kuala Lumpur. He found fault with everyone, starting with Eddie Rosen, who had been Orderly Medical Officer the previous night.
‘Call that a satisfactory report on the SI list, lieutenant?’ he ranted, after the little doctor had given the usual resume on the three men with Weil’s disease. The CO carried on castigating Eddie for not delivering a blow-by-blow account of their temperature, pulse rates and blood pressures during the previous twenty-four hours, though this was a matter for the ward notes, not needed in a brief reassurance that their condition had not deteriorated.
After abusing Rosen, the colonel’s cold glare went around the room, doing his best to find fault with everyone. Tom Howden sat immobile, hoping that his usual invisibility would continue. Thankfully, O’Neill almost never questioned him, as he seemed neither to know nor care what went on in the laboratory and never visited it, except for the perfunctory walk-through at Tuesday inspections.
Unsurprisingly, the focus of O’Neill’s persecution fell upon the unfortunate quartermaster, Captain Burns. With a ferocity unmatched even by his previous tirades, he goaded Robbie about the state of his Stores records and demanded that a complete set of requisitions and dispensations of all drugs and medical equipment for the past three months be produced by next day. He all but accused the quartermaster of embezzlement and corruption, with veiled references to the ‘medical halls’ in Tanah Timah and Sungei Siput, retail pharmacies where cut-price army medicaments would be welcomed.
Robbie’s normally rough and ruddy face became almost puce with suppressed anger and seemed ready to erupt under the interrogation.
Alfred Morris prodded him covertly with his elbow from the next chair, warning him against any violent reaction which the colonel would undoubtedly welcome as evidence of insubordination and mutiny under Queen’s Regulations.
At the end of this blistering inquisition, the CO rapped on his desk with his cane. ‘You’ll see from today’s Part One Orders that training will begin tomorrow for the PE tests in four weeks’ time,’ he snapped.
These were the annual Physical Efficiency tests that all Service personnel were supposed to pass, otherwise they could have their pay and allowances docked. Percy Loosemore had told Tom that these were something of a farce, held in the garrison athletic ground, where they had to climb a rope, jump over some boxes and perform a few other innocuous feats of strength and ability. In addition, there was a three-mile run part-way up the Kerbau road and back, that had to be completed within a certain time. Percy had alleged that last year, several of the officers had arranged for a taxi from Tanah Timah to pick them up as soon as they were out of sight and take them to The Dog, where they sat drinking beer until it was time for them to jog the few hundred yards back to the garrison. But now their increasingly malignant colonel seemed to have other ideas.
‘You may be doctors, but first and foremost, you are soldiers!’ he barked. ‘You’ve gone soft, lolling about the Mess, drinking and going off on pleasure weekends like a lot of suburban bank clerks!’
Glaring around, he dropped his bombshell. ‘Tomorrow morning and on alternate mornings for a month, you will parade at six thirty in full kit on the hospital car park. I have arranged for a drill sergeant from the garrison to give you an hour’s exercises, which will include three full circuits of the perimeter road.’
With his narrow jaw jutting forward, he delivered his final broadside. ‘This applies to all of you, with no exception unless you have urgent clinical duties. I will be there personally to make sure there are no backsliders. I’ll make soldiers of you yet, even if it kills you!’
Mutiny was in the air that day, as the medical officers digested this latest
‘The bugger’s flipped completely,’ muttered Percy Loosemore, whose idea of exercise was walking from the car park of The Dog as far as the bar. Appeals to the Admin Officer brought no relief, as Alf Morris confessed that he could do nothing with the CO when he was in this mood. After leaving O’Neill’s office, the others clustered around the notice board at the bottom of the main corridor and read Part One Orders, a typed sheet of paper pinned up every morning which gave details of duty rosters and events for the day. Sure enough, there was the command to appear fully kitted at the crack of dawn, an order which had the Other Ranks smirking all day at the discomfiture of their officers.
‘Funny business, sir!’ grinned Lewis Cropper, as he brought Tom his pallid mug of mid-morning tea. ‘If you can’t find all your kit, let me know and I’ll scrounge some for you.’
