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Overview
1914, Fiji: Akal Singh, 25, would rather be anywhere but this tropical paradise—or, as he calls it, “this godforsaken island.” After a promising start to his police career in Hong Kong, Akal has been sent to Fiji as punishment for a humiliating professional mistake. Lonely and grumpy, Akal plods through his work and dreams of getting back to Hong Kong or his native India.
When an indentured Indian woman goes missing from a sugarcane plantation and Fiji’s newspapers scream “kidnapping,” the inspector-general reluctantly assigns Akal the case. Akal, eager to achieve redemption, agrees—but soon finds himself far more invested than he could have expected.
Now not only is he investigating a disappearance, but also confronting the brutal realities of the indentured workers’ existence and the racism of the British colonizers in Fiji—along with his own thorny notions of personhood and caste. Early interrogations of the white plantation owners, Indian indentured laborers, and native Fijians yield only one conclusion: there is far more to this case than meets the eye.
Nilima Rao’s sparkling debut mystery offers an unflinching look at the evils of colonialism, even as it brims with wit, vibrant characters, and fascinating historical detail.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781641295703 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Soho Press, Incorporated |
| Publication date: | 05/07/2024 |
| Pages: | 288 |
| Sales rank: | 242,914 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.90(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER ONE
“The Night Prowler was out again last night.”
This portent of doom first thing in the morning made Sergeant Akal Singh once again forget to duck as he walked through the door of the Totogo Police Station in central Suva.
“Arre yaar,” he muttered with feeling. In the six months he had been in Fiji, Akal had knocked his head on that very door any number of times. It wasn’t a particularly low door, but his turban added inches to his already formidable height. Akal smoothed his hands over the turban, cursing the lack of mirror in the sparsely furnished front room of the station, or indeed any of the police buildings. One had been ordered for the European officers’ barracks, but the ship from Sydney had been delayed. There was no talk of ordering one for the Indian and Fijian barracks.
“Is my turban correct?” he asked Taviti. The Fijian constable was manning the front desk, and had been the one to deliver the news about Akal’s current nemesis.
“Ah, I think it’s all right, sir. I don’t know much about turbans.”
“Is it straight? Is any hair falling out? Are there lumps and bumps?”
“Yes, sir, straight, sir, no hair falling out, sir. Seems like a lot of work.”
Akal continued to smooth his hands over the sides of his turban, checking everything was in place despite Taviti’s reassurances. “It’s a bloody bugger in this heat, I tell you. But the ladies love it.”
He waited for Taviti to scoff at this, given the dearth of women in Akal’s life, but instead the Fijian man mirrored Akal, his hand running thoughtfully over his tight wiry curls. “You think I should try it?”
“Do you think you can handle all the women?”
“Probably not. But my wife could!” Taviti shot back as he slapped the counter, resulting in a satisfyingly meaty echo throughout the room. Both men roared with laughter until they ran out of breath.
Akal had never in his life laughed as hard as he did with Taviti. No matter whether something was actually funny or not, Akal found himself convulsing in breathless spasms, Taviti’s laughter rolling over him, while not really knowing why. Still chuckling, Akal dropped down into the spindly wooden visitor’s chair and started to inspect the dust on his shoes.
Akal and Taviti’s fledgling friendship was unique in the Suva police force. They were of an age, Akal twenty-five to Taviti’s twenty-six, but many of their colleagues were a similar age so this alone didn’t explain their rapport. There were other Indians in the police force and plenty of Fijians. The language barrier left them all at arm’s distance, making themselves understood with a garbled mixture of English, Hindi, and Fijian when they had to, but never really trusting one another.
Even without the language barrier, Akal had not broken through with any of the other Indian officers. None of them were Punjabi Sikhs, so they did not have the immediate bond of home and religion. In fact, they all regarded him with a mixture of resentment and contempt. They were constables to his sergeant, and they had not seen him earn his stripes, so they had no idea whether he was capable or not. Add to that the rumours about the reasons behind his abrupt departure from Hong Kong, and it was no wonder that they gave Akal a wide berth.
When Akal had disembarked from the ship that brought him from Hong Kong to Fiji six months ago, Taviti had been waiting for him, having been sent to collect Akal and take him to the police station. Taviti had approached Akal as he stood swaying on the dock, trying to adjust to solid ground. A few minutes into their walk to the station, Akal and Taviti had adjusted to their vastly different accents and discovered in each other a reasonable grasp of English. Taviti immediately started teasing Akal about his inability to walk a straight line, and their friendship had been quickly cemented.
“I cannot believe we have all started calling this bugger the ‘Night Prowler.’ Bloody Fiji Times and their stupid names,” Akal grumbled.
“What would you rather call him? He prowls around at night. Seems like a good name to me,” Taviti responded with a shrug.
“Whatever we call him, I need to find him, or I will never get a decent case again.”
“What do you mean, ‘again’?” Taviti said, cocking his head at Akal quizzically. “You have not had a decent case since you got here. The inspector-general hated you on sight.”
“So, who was our wonderful Night Prowler bothering this time?” Akal said, focusing on his shoes and not making eye contact with Taviti. He had managed thus far to avoid explaining to Taviti the reasons he was in disfavour with the inspector-general, and he hoped to keep it that way, though Taviti almost certainly had an inkling of the truth. Everyone in the colony talked to Taviti. “Too much to ask that they got a look at him, I suppose?”
“No, usual story. It was the Wishbournes up on Knolly Street, you know, with the two daughters. Eleven o’clock. Mr. Wishbourne was at the governor’s party. The Night Prowler was naked at the youngest girl’s window. She woke up and saw him, started screaming, and he bolted. By the time the mother arrived, all she saw was his behind bouncing down the hill. But she definitely could tell it was a black behind.”
“Could she tell what kind of black?”
“My kind, not your kind. A good round Fijian behind, not one of your scrawny Indian arses.” Taviti flashed his teeth, each roughly the size of a small shovelhead. Akal was always astounded that Taviti managed to talk around all those teeth and mourned the day he would start losing them, as seemed to be the fate of all the older Fijian men.
“I’m off to Knolly Street, then. Maybe he will have left us a clue this time. His calling card, perhaps?” Akal looked up with a grin for Taviti, then jumped to his feet when he saw the inspector-general glowering at him from the door to the back rooms of the station.
“Singh. My office.” The inspector-general didn’t wait for a response and disappeared back down the corridor, his footsteps echoing through the room. Akal hurried to follow him.
“What did you do now?” Taviti asked.
Akal shrugged and muttered as he passed Taviti: “I’m still breathing. I think that might be enough.”
Akal approached the door to the inspector-general’s office with some trepidation. He had been in this office only once before, when he had first arrived to the colony. As soon as he had walked in, it had become apparent to Akal just how far he had fallen. The concrete room with its grimy louvres was a hovel compared to his previous commander’s office in Hong Kong, which had been all high ceilings and polished wood. He had spent countless hours in that elegant space, consulting with his commander as his star rapidly rose with the British administration in Hong Kong. In his first meeting with Thurstrom, it had been made crystal clear that he would not enjoy that same elevated status here.
The reception desk outside the inspector-general’s office, which had been full of neatly piled stacks of paperwork on his last visit, was now bare. This had been the desk of Sub-Inspector Marks, who had left the colony a couple of months ago, causing much consternation. Against the wishes of the colonial administration, the young inspector had managed to secure a commission to serve in the war being waged in Europe, leaving Suva without a European sub-inspector and the inspector-general without his right-hand man.
Akal knocked on the open door of the inspector-general’s office. Without looking up, the inspector-general waved him in.
Inspector-General Jonathon Thurstrom, head of the police force for the fledgling colony, was seated behind his large desk, which was littered with papers, as was every chair. He was an imposing man, tall and robust with a shock of greying red hair that illuminated the dim room. Akal stood to attention before the desk.
“Inspector-General, sir,” Akal rattled off with crisp precision, to no response.
Akal maintained his military bearing as Thurstrom continued to ignore him. The room was quiet but for the scratching of the inspector-general’s pen and the sounds of the trainees learning how to march outside. Thurstrom finished with his piece of paperwork and put his pen down, finally focusing on Akal.
“Singh, I have a problem.” Thurstrom jabbed his finger in Akal’s direction with vigour. “And I am making it your problem.”
“Yes, Inspector-General, sir?” Akal rattled off again, with slightly less precision.
“We’ve got a missing coolie out at the Parkins plantation in Nakavu. A woman. We have taken a report, and the plan was that whoever goes out that way next would do the usual checks. But some busybody missionary has gone and told the newspaper that there is no way she ran away. Went out to print this morning.” He stood up and leaned over the table, brandishing a copy of the Fiji Times like a pace stick. “He is saying she must have been kidnapped. It’s a bloody mess. And the Indian delegation arrived yesterday.”
The vaguely named Delegation for India’s Relations with Fiji was visiting to review the Indian indentured servitude program. Until now, nobody had seemed overly concerned about this. The Fiji Times’ reporting on the delegation had focused on who was attending the gala reception planned that night, and, crucially, what they would be wearing. The delegation’s actual purpose had been relegated to a single sentence towards the end of the article.
“I’ve heard rumblings that the Indian government are keeping an eye out for situations like this,” Thurstrom continued, beginning to pace the office and slapping the newspaper into his hand. “They want to see how we treat a crime against an indentured worker. I tried to get Keane involved to head off the political mess, but do you think he’s paying any attention?”
David Keane was the agent-general of Immigration. He had arrived six months ago, having never laid eyes on an indentured worker before, and had since lived in an uneasy sort of ignorant bliss. He had done nothing thus far to investigate the abuses that were alleged to be rife against the Indian labourers, male and female. Akal had arrived on the same ship as David Keane and he also had yet to make it out to a plantation. This was something he was glad of, in a quiet, selfish corner of his heart.
“I wish there were somebody else I could send,” the inspector-general said, pausing mid-pace to give Akal a sideways glance. Akal gritted his teeth. “But having a senior Indian officer involved might just get the Indian government off all our backs. Go see this idiot missionary and report back to me posthaste. Try to get him to calm down and see reason. If we can get him to stop screaming that she has been ‘kidnapped’ maybe this whole thing will go away.”