The Night Tiger(122)

“What?” William’s stomach lurches, recalling the terror he felt, right after Ambika’s mangled torso had been identified, that the salesman would come forward and tell everyone about their affair. But there’s nothing to fear, is there? Despite Rawlings’s doubts at the time, there’s been no criminal investigation.

He lifts his teacup. It’s too hot to drink. “Why ask you about that?”

“People think we’re close. And we are, aren’t we?”

William shudders at this assumption. “We’re not close, Lydia. I can’t have you telling people that we’re engaged, when it’s not true.”

Her face turns red, her mouth trembles. “How could you say that—after everything I’ve done for you?”

A chill across the back of his neck, telling him to run, run away now. “I’ve never asked you to do anything for me.”

“All the things that could have caused you problems—I got rid of them.”

He shifts uneasily. Something is coming, approaching the doors of his mind. Something that he forgot or overlooked. He’s not used to being hunted like this. It’s wrong, all wrong. Outraged, he says, “I don’t have any problems!”

But she’s not listening. “Haven’t you ever felt that you can change things, control them, if you wish hard enough?”

William flinches.

“You do, don’t you? I knew you would. No one else understands.” She clasps his hand. Her fingers are cold. “Well, I have that power, too. You probably know about it, since I heard you were asking around about my fiancés.”

Fiancés. “There was more than one,” says William, realization dawning on him.

“Yes, I was engaged twice. Three times if you count intentions. They were all no good, though. I didn’t know how to choose, you see. I had to get rid of them.”

Is she saying that she’s like him, filled with that dark ominous power? William’s hand is numb. Pulling it away, he tries to say scornfully, “Are you saying you can wish people dead?”

“Can’t you?”

William has never voiced this to anyone, but at that moment, drowning in Lydia’s frenetic blue gaze, he almost does. “Everyone’s wished someone dead at some point, Lydia. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“I did it for you,” she says. “That salesman. And those women who were so bad for you. Why do you associate with them?”

Horror grows tendrils of blackness, twisting through his stomach.

“First was that Tamil woman Ambika, the one you used to meet in the rubber estate. I told you I’d seen you going for walks in the morning, though you never saw me. She was quite unsuitable, of course, and people were starting to talk, even our servants at home. So I removed her.

“Then that salesman turned up again. I knew him when he was a patient here. From time to time, he’d come by and visit that little nurse. We’d chat a bit—he was quite a flirt for a local.” She smiles. “He was asking about you, hinting that Ambika was your mistress. I had to stop him, too.”

Frozen, William listens as her rosebud mouth keeps moving, words spilling from it. A cold narrow thread of reason tells him it’s impossible. Nobody can arrange for a death by tiger, or make a man break his neck. Lydia is just deeply disturbed, he tells himself, trying not to panic at how much she knows about his private life.

“Lydia,” he says firmly. “That’s enough. You’re imagining things.”

“No, I’m not.” She stares at him over the rim of her teacup. “I did everything for you.”

“I don’t owe you anything!” And now William is furious, his stomach burning with acid. Foolish, stupid, troublesome woman! If she goes around talking like this, it will only turn out badly for him. He takes a deep breath and swallows a mouthful of tea. It’s bitter.

Two spots of red appear on her cheeks. “There’s a plant, a tall shrub with flowers. It’s growing right outside your house. People think it’s beautiful, but they don’t know how poisonous oleander is. If you make a strong tea from the powdered leaves, it causes dizziness, nausea, vomiting. Then fainting, heart failure, and death.” She recites the symptoms as though she’s learned them by heart. “My father managed a tea plantation in Ceylon before, where it’s common for young girls to commit suicide by eating the seeds. I kept some with me when I went back to England. It was very useful.” She takes another sip of tea. “When I came out here, it was easy to prescribe to people. I help at the hospital after all; the locals believe what I say. I gave Ambika a tonic for female complaints—she must have wandered out and died in the plantation. Though I didn’t expect that a tiger would eat half of her.”

“It didn’t eat her,” says William, his voice cracking with strain.

She ignores him. “The same thing for the salesman, though I told him it was stomach medicine. He vomited and fell into a ditch.”

“And Nandani? Did you give it to her, too?”

“She was sitting right there, in your kitchen.” Lydia turns her feverish gaze to him. “It was for the best. She’d already caused a scene, showing up like that at dinner.”

William’s hands are shaking. Bile rises in his throat. “I’m calling the police.”