Read The Setting Sun for Free Online Page B

swallow the fly.
    ‘Can’t remember where exactly. A couple of years ago Iwas working on the history of the Maharashtra police force, the successor to the old Bombay IP your father worked in. So many names and dates.’ He tells me a bit about his project.
    ‘Were you in the police yourself?’
    Rajeev looks up with hooded eyes. ‘Let’s say I’m an independent scholar with an interest in policing and security issues.’ He writes my contact details in a tatty notebook.
    ‘So your father was pukka IP?’ He’s clearly impressed. I explain about Bhosle’s email, why I know so little about Bill’s career and my problems starting my researches.
    ‘Never mind,’ Rajeev nods sympathetically. ‘I have something to get you going. Lucky you caught me. This is my last day here before the holidays.’
    Back in the reading-room, he pulls a slim blue volume from a stack of gazetteers on his desk. It’s the History of Services, Bombay Province .
    ‘This records every posting of everyone ever employed by the British government.’
    I’m shivering with excitement. He checks the index, before flicking back to the relevant page.
    ‘Look, your father was in the second-last cohort appointed from England. There were only four probationers in 1938, and two more in 1939. Once war started, recruitment from the UK was suspended.’
    Bill’s entry shows that after joining up in Bombay, he attended the Central Police Training School in Nasik for two years, followed by six weeks’ military instruction in Colaba Barracks.
    ‘Just down the road from here,’ Rajeev explains.
    Then Bill returned to Nasik as probationary Assistant District Superintendent.
    ‘Nasik’s about five hours inland by train.’
    But here’s a puzzle. There’s a long hiatus, between March 1941 and January 1943. Was this when Bill was in what’s now Pakistan, suppressing the Hoors? After another period in Nasik, I see he was transferred to Satara in January 1944, where – according to Professor Bhosle – he worked against the Parallel Government. Now his rank is Special Additional Superintendent. What does ‘Special’ signify? In 1946, he’s posted to Ahmedabad, today in the neighbouring state of Gujarat. Then the record stops. Why?

    Bill aged eighteen at school in 1938, the year he left for India
    ‘Is there a later edition? He was here until Independence, for sure.’
    Rajeev grimaces regretfully. ‘Not until 1950. And it doesn’t have records for those who’d retired by then. Perhaps he stayed in Ahmedabad until he returned to the UK?’
    That would corroborate Aunt Pat’s instinct that Bill witnessed first-hand the horrors of Partition. Ahmedabad is the closest Indian city to what’s now southern Pakistan, and manya refugee train would have left or arrived there. Was that where he received his wounds?
    ‘What about this gap between his first and second spells in Nasik?’ I repeat what Bhosle told me about the Hoor rebellion.
    Rajeev shakes his head after a moment. ‘No, look here.’ He shows me another page, where the entry of a contemporary of Bill’s reads: ‘Services placed at the disposal of the Government of Sindh.’ He shakes his head. ‘So if your father went there, it should be recorded, too.’
    It’s perplexing. ‘But there’s no mention of his Indian Police Medal, either. It’s listed for other people.’
    ‘Maybe he got it in late ’46 or ’47?’ The mournful look returns. ‘I found discrepancies during my own research.’ He’s almost apologetic. ‘I think the British became less meticulous about record-keeping towards the end, perhaps because of the war or because they knew they’d soon be leaving.’
    Despite the frustrating incompleteness of the record, for the first time I have an outline of Bill’s Indian career. What a stroke of luck to have run into Rajeev.
    I ask my engaging new acquaintance how he became interested in Indian police history. He looks startled for a moment, before explaining that he