Free Dead in the Dog by Bernard Knight

offered a surly farewell to the trio and as the manager and his wife walked away across the coarse grass of the knoll towards their own bungalow, Diane went out on to her verandah to glower after them, reserving a specially poisonous glare for the trim figure of Rosa Mackay.

THREE
    A lthough the Friday night function at the Sussex Club was nominally a dance, the majority of the members never set foot on the floor, which was a small area of the big lounge cleared of tables and chairs. The occasion was hallowed by tradition at The Dog, being the main social function of the week, where people came to meet their friends and catch up on the week’s gossip. They came to see and be seen, the men to ogle the younger women in their posh frocks and the older women to indulge in some righteous envy and to complain about their husbands.
    In such an isolated community as Tanah Timah, the club provided virtually the only social diversion for the wives, who had not even the workplace or the Mess to relieve the boredom. There were not many Army wives there, as the place was still on the fringe of a brutal war, but as the terrorist threat had receded somewhat in this part of Perak, more of the senior officers’ wives were coming out from home. The planters’ wives had little choice but to stay, though some took extended leave back in Britain, often with the excuse that they had to see their children settled in boarding schools or colleges.
    The younger women were almost all commissioned QA sisters from the hospital and being by definition unmarried, were the target of every military bachelor in the Brigade, as well as a few unaccompanied husbands and unmarried planters. Tonight, it was these ladies who monopolized the dance floor, being badgered by subalterns, lieutenants, captains and even the odd major, to gyrate with them on the polished boards, which a houseboy ritually lubricated with French chalk every Friday afternoon.
    Tom Howden arrived at about eight fifteen, driven up by Alec Watson in his battered and rusty Morgan sports car. Dinner in the Mess was always brought forward on a Friday, so that they could get to the club reasonably early – a practice almost universal throughout the garrison. At about ten o’clock, the record player was switched off so that the assembled members could adjourn to the dining room, where Daniel always laid out a light buffet to keep them going until midnight, when the revellers drifted back to their mosquito nets.
    Alec parked on the tarmac in front of the club, finding a space between the Austins, the Morris’s, the MG’s, the Land Rovers and a few big American gas-guzzlers, several of them armour-plated like the Robertsons’. Inside, there was already hardly an inch left free at the long bar, which ran across the full width of the lounge. A score of low tables fringed the dance floor, each with its circle of cane chairs. They were filled with people and the Indian servants were performing miracles of gymnastics with trays loaded with glasses and bottles, as they threaded their way through the obstructions. Half a dozen couples were swaying to a smoochy Sinatra number, generated by a Decca radiogram in the corner, operated by a fat Tamil houseboy who was worriedly studying a list of records supplied by Daniel, but constantly amended by the demands of the dancers.
    The music was almost drowned by the buzz of chatter, which tonight was a good few decibels louder than usual. The inevitable topic was the new attack on Gunong Besar and as soon as Tom came in, he could see that the focus of attention was on James Robertson. He was perched on a stool at the centre of the bar, holding court amongst a cluster of acquaintances, all of whom had their own pet theory of what had happened. As Alec pushed his way to the bar for a couple of Tigers, Tom moved further along to be in earshot of the James’s clique.
    â€˜Bloody bullets were coming like hailstones,’ brayed the