Free Dead in the Dog by Bernard Knight Page A

planter, waving his gin like a flag. ‘Pushed the memsahib on to the floor out of the way, then took off over the verandah with my shooter!’ He stopped for a gulp of Gordon’s, then carried on with his elaborated saga.
    â€˜But it was too late, the sods had all vanished. They’d shot up Douglas’s place first, then had a pop at the natives around the back.’
    â€˜Sounds a bloody queer attack to me, Jimmy,’ drawled Les Arnold, the Aussie from the next estate beyond Gunong Besar. He was not actually part of the inquisitive circle around James, he had been sitting at the bar before they descended on his neighbour and had been enveloped by them.
    â€˜What’s queer about being shot at, Les?’ demanded a captain from the West Berkshires, rather indignantly.
    â€˜Not like the CTs to fire off a few rounds, then bugger off!’ objected the Australian. ‘Even in Jimmy’s last attack they killed a couple of blokes.’
    Robertson flushed, both at being repeatedly called ‘Jimmy’ and at the insinuation that his latest moment of glory had not been all that glorious.
    â€˜An attack’s an attack, Les!’ he snapped petulantly. ‘What d’you think all those holes are in the walls – giant termites?’
    There was a guffaw from the group at this witticism, but Arnold just grinned.
    â€˜Good on you, mate! I’m glad they didn’t call on me, just up the road from you. I need my beauty sleep every night.’
    Alec came back with the beers and he and Tom leaned against one of the pillars that supported the high roof while they looked around at the talent in the room. The disc jockey had found one of the request records and now Tony Bennett was crooning about a ‘Stranger in Paradise’, giving the swaying couples the excuse to cling together as if they had been welded front-to-front, their feet hardly moving.
    â€˜Some nice-looking birds here, Alec,’ murmured the pathologist. Stuck in his laboratory all that first day, he had so far hardly laid eyes on a QA, apart from their motherly Matron, Doris Hawkins. ‘Who’s the dark-haired one, in the slinky blue dress?’
    Watson grinned. ‘You got it in one, Tom! Everyone notices her first. That’s our in-house
femme fatale
, Lena Franklin.’
    Howden looked across to the centre of the dance floor and saw a slim, sexy-looking woman in her late twenties, with dark hair in what he called a Gina Lollobrigida style. Her eyes were enhanced catlike with make-up and her glossed lips were in a slight pout as she rested her chin on her partner’s shoulder. Her dress was a westernized version of the Chinese
cheongsam
, a skin-hugging sheath of blue silk with a high collar and a slit up each side to the thigh. Tom could almost see the disapproval coming off some of the older wives, like a black cloud ascending to the fans overhead. Lena was certainly a dish-and-a-half, he thought. No wonder David Meredith was brassed off at the prospect of losing her to someone else.
    â€˜Who’s the guy she’s with? That her new bloke?’
    â€˜Nay, he’s some prat one-pipper from the Hussars. Looks as if she’s using him to fire up our master gasman – to say nothing of Jimmy Robertson.’
    Looking around the crowded room, they found their anaesthetist standing with Peter Bright against the opposite wall, an untouched beer in his hand, scowling at the pair on the dance floor. As they watched, a handsome redhead in a white dress rose from a nearby table where she was sitting with several more nurses and a couple of young men. Going up to Peter Bright, she said something, but he smiled and shook his head.
    â€˜That’s another factor in the equation, Tom,’ said Alec, who seemed to be a mine of information on the scandals and intrigues of Tanah Timah.
    â€˜Who’s she?’ Tom asked, as he watched the auburn-haired girl talk animatedly to the