Barbara Cleverly by The Last Kashmiri Rose

evenings
    always glad to pick up the gossip from London
    ’ Joe resumed his ride.
    Naurung took him first along the dangerous mountain pass on which Sheila Forbes’ horse had shied. He dismounted at the place where the accident had happened and, lying down, peered over the edge into the void below. A dizzying drop, he noted, with no cushioning scree slope down which a well-clad memsahib might bounce between the precipice rim and the river bank many yards below. The river curled on its way between its dusty banks like a fat brown adder and Joe shivered as he conjured up the scene ten years ago when Mrs Forbes had fallen screaming into this abyss. He pictured her wearing a cumbersome pre-war riding habit, being suddenly ejected from her side-saddle and falling head first to her death.
    The place itself was full of ancient terror. Hard-nosed policeman he might be but Joe admitted to himself that he was sweating with fear. He wriggled carefully backwards on to the path and rose to his feet.
    Naurung eyed him for a moment and said, ‘This is a bad, bad place. The horses do not like it.’
    ‘Can’t say I’d stop for a picnic here myself. Let’s look about, shall we?’
    He turned and looked back the way they had come from the station. ‘Well-used track apparently but here, about fifty yards back, it narrows and a group of riders would have to split up and ride along in file.’ He looked in the northern direction. ‘And after this bend where the path runs right along the precipice between the edge and that large rock is another hundred yards — would you say a hundred? — before there’s a chance of bunching up again with your friends. Naurung, pass me the records, would you? It would be interesting to see where exactly in the file of horses Sheila Forbes was riding. Did Bulstrode record that?’
    ‘No, sahib, but I believe one of the witnesses mentions it.’
    Joe found the place and sat in the shelter of the rock to read the accounts of the accident given by the friends she had been riding with.
    ‘This is interesting, Naurung. Mrs Major Richardson — Emma — has this to say: “Sheila was riding her own pony, Rowan — she never rode any other — and began to fall behind almost at once. She called to us that Rowan was going short on his near hind and she was going to dismount to look at it. She signalled to us to go on without her. It must have been a stone or something lodged in the hoof because she got back into the saddle and carried on. By this time she was about a quarter of a mile behind. We waved to her and rode on, expecting her to catch us up. We were getting to the slow bit anyway, the bit where the path narrows and you have to go single file, and we lost sight of her when we wound around the rocks. We’d all passed the tight place and gathered together to wait for Sheila to come round the bend. She never did. The next thing was the most appalling scream. The horse was neighing and we realised something dreadful must have happened. We rode back and there was just the horse, Rowan, by the side of the path, shivering. No sign of Sheila. Cathy Brownlow looked over the edge and shouted, “There she is! I can see her!’
    ‘ “Two of the party rode back to the station for help while the other three looked for a way down to the river bank. While we were casting about we came upon a saddhu by the road side
    ” A saddhu?’ Joe queried.
    ‘Yes. They are wandering holy men and I will say that I do not like them. For all their ritual washings they are dirty people. Some, I suppose, truly seek enlightenment and many stand on one leg for hours, perhaps days, on end. But I and others like me see them as dirty scoundrels who get what they can from foolish people — mostly from women — and what they get they spend on opium or on bhang. They daub their faces with wood ash and saffron. They wear a little pouch on a string and nothing else. They are really a naked people — very disgusting. I would chase them away and my father often did. They