The RAMC major brushed up his bristly moustache with a slightly nervous gesture. ‘If you think it’s OK, Steve. I don’t want to drop you in the mire for breaching some legal protocol.’
The police officer shook his head. ‘I’ve been on the phone to the coroner and explained the situation. As far as he’s concerned, as long as there’s no likelihood of anyone being charged with murder, he’s prepared to run a combined inquest on all three victims. He’s also happy for me to disclose enough information to clear up any lingering suspicions that involve this hospital.’
‘Thank God for that! We’ve already got enough problems here of our own,’ murmured Morris, half to himself. ‘But I’m still not clear what the hell has happened up at Gunong Besar. It’s still hard to believe all that’s gone on up there.’
Steven mopped his sweating brow with a large khaki handkerchief.
‘If they hadn’t left those notes, I wouldn’t have known what the hell happened, either! I’d better not show them to you, but the gist of Douglas’s letter was that he claimed to have killed James Robertson for seducing his wife, having first shot up the bungalows to lay a smokescreen for his murder plan, by suggesting that both were the work of terrorists.’
Tom Howden had already heard the content of the notes, so it was only Alf who was still in the dark.
‘You said “claimed”,’ pointed out Morris. ‘Does that mean he didn’t do it?’
‘Douglas certainly fired all those rounds at the two bungalows a few weeks ago. He says he also intended killing Jimmy later, but decided he couldn’t go through with it. I suspect his strong religious conscience got the better of him.’
‘But you said his suicide note indicated that he
‘He was lying, for reasons that became clear later. Most of his note was an explanation of how he had hated Jimmy for years, after he discovered that he had been having it away with Rosa for so long. He put none of the blame on her, by the way. He claimed that the lascivious Jimmy made all the running.’
‘What about the attack on the bungalows? How did he manage that? I understood that the bullets didn’t come from any of the rifles up at Gunong Besar – nor were they the same as the one that killed Robertson.’
Blackwell again wiped the sweat from his face. It was time he went back home to Britain, he thought suddenly. Even after years in the Far East, he seemed to suffer even more from the climate as time went by. He jerked his attention back to Alf’s question.
‘Mackay said he had a couple of extra rifles hidden away, in addition to the weapons that he and Jimmy gave us for test firing. When he came up from Johore some years ago, he brought them with him. There was a lot of CT trouble down there then, and guns were easy to come by, especially by planters intent on defending themselves.’
Tom Howden threw in another question. ‘I wonder how he managed to arrange that mock attack on his own?’
The superintendent shrugged. ‘I assume he waited until Rosa was asleep in bed, unless she was aware of what he was up to. Then he went out, ran around firing almost at random, until James appeared, then pretended to join him in hunting for the non-existent attackers.’
Alf Morris frowned at a few of the words he had just heard.
‘Are you suggesting that Rosa might have known what her husband was up to?’
Steven tapped his tunic pocket where he had the two notes from the estate bungalow. ‘Her note doesn’t say so, but I suspect she knew. It was her note that upset everything that was in the one left by her husband. He must have written his the previous night, after he had decided to hang himself. Rosa then found it in the bedroom long before the
Alf shook his head slowly in disbelief that such things could be going on in Tanah Timah.
‘So you reckon she then decided to commit suicide? And it wasn’t just because she’d lost her husband?’
Blackwell shook his head sadly. ‘No, it was guilt and remorse for murdering James Robertson. She makes no bones about it in her letter, she says that Douglas had been acting very strangely lately and when she tackled him about it, he told her that he had intended to kill Jimmy, but couldn’t go through with it.’
‘So she knew that her husband was aware that she’d been unfaithful to him with his boss?’ put in Tom.
‘Sure, she went on about her sins and that although James had pestered her for a long time, it was her fault that she gave in to him. When Douglas confessed that he couldn’t go through with it, she decided to finish the job herself. She knew all about Douglas’s hidden pair of rifles and took one when he was asleep. That night, she went down the road and flagged down Jimmy when he was coming home from The Dog. He stopped on the road and she shot him when he got out. Then she drove the car back to the club and hurried home on foot.’
‘Didn’t her husband know?’ asked Alf, incredulously.
‘Not then, she says – but later she broke down and told him what had happened. They agreed to sit tight, but she says that Douglas became more and more guilt-ridden and afraid that my investigation would eventually narrow down to Rosa. To save her, he wrote that false confession in his note, then hanged himself.’
Tom’s brow was furrowed with doubt. ‘But if she had continued to sit tight, it would be assumed that Douglas’s confession was true and the matter would have been cleared up?’
Steven shrugged. ‘But she didn’t! She says that she herself had been considering suicide for some time, which was why she had taken a bottle full of paraquat from the stock in the estate sheds. When she read Douglas’s note, taking the blame for her murderous action, she wrote her own letter, then drank the stuff, poor woman!’
The three men sat silently for a while, each thinking what mayhem had been caused by a randy planter.
Four weeks later, Tom Howden was lying on his stomach on the warm sand of Batu Ferringhi beach, on the north coast of Penang Island. Alongside him, Lynette Chambers was dozing with a straw sun hat over her face and nearby a dozen other members of both the RAMC and QA Messes were lounging about, enjoying a leisurely weekend. Penang was a couple of hours’ drive from Tanah Timah, but due to the car ferry from the mainland, it was easier to reach than Pangkor. An old-fashioned hotel, The Lone Pine, sat amongst the palm trees almost on the edge of the beach, and after one of its famous Sunday curries eaten at tables under the trees, lying down was obligatory!
Tom stared out at the blue sea under a blue sky, still bemused that it was not the grey Tyne under rain clouds. He mulled over all that had happened in the past few weeks, as now life was returning to normal at BMH. The coroner’s inquest on the three victims from Gunong Besar had been held in the Police HQ on the previous Wednesday. The lawyer-coroner from Ipoh played down the drama as much as he could and rapidly brought in verdicts of murder by Rosa Mackay on James Robertson and suicide ‘while the balance of their minds was disturbed’ on the two Mackays. As to the suicide notes, he declined to make them public, but stated that he was satisfied that their contents confirmed the conclusions of the court.
Desmond O’Neill had returned two days after the dramatic events up at Gunong Besar, but was in a silent, withdrawn mood and Tom’s involvement in the affair was never even mentioned.
A week later, the CO vanished and belatedly, Alf Morris was able to inform the Mess that he had been suddenly recalled to the UK to take up a desk job at the Medical Directorate of the War Office. A new Commanding Officer was on his way out by air and until he arrived, Major Peter Bright was acting as temporary CO.
It was all rather mysterious and those few in the know, who included Morris and the physician John Martin, maintained a discreet silence, though they hinted that as O’Neill was so near the end of his tour and as his wife had refused to stay any longer in the Far East, compassionate grounds were involved. The whole of the hospital took this excuse with a large pinch of salt, but made no complaint about the marked improvement in the atmosphere that resulted. The business about the arms kote was also swept under the carpet, with vague murmurings from Alf Morris that O’Neill had been obsessed with security at the hospital.
Peter Bright was very relaxed in his new role as CO, and he used his new authority to award himself plenty of free time, shooting off to Penang in his sports car at frequent intervals. Undoubtedly, he was visiting the fair Diane in the Eastern and Oriental Hotel, Penang’s equivalent of Singapore’s Raffles. The efficient gossip system reported that she had passed up her intended passage on the first UK-bound ship, as she suddenly found the attractions of Penang much to her liking.
Similarly, David Meredith, the gloomy Welsh anaesthetist, was seen to smile on several occasions, obviously having been reconciled with his own lady love, Lena Franklin.
As to Gunong Besar itself, Les Arnold announced that Diane Robertson had accepted an offer he had made to buy the estate. He magnanimously offered to supervise the rubber production there until probate and other legal
