The Moon's Complexion

by Irene Black

  Willi greeted each new development with the reaction of an Indian child to the gift of an English coin. It was clear that she meant to stay.

  “I’ll just get my bag out of the room,” Ashok said when they reached the Pandava. “And since it’s past midnight and I for one am tired, I think we should say goodnight.”

  “Bolt your door,” Hannah added. “Any problems, bang on the wall. We’ll be there in seconds.”

  “Hannah,” Ashok said as he closed the door behind Willi, “I’ve got something to show you.” He reached into his breast pocket for the newspaper article.

  Hannah wasn’t listening. She was staring at Ashok’s travel bag, which he had placed on the floor next to the bed. Now she put her hand on his arm, in a gesture that meant “be still.”

  She said, “Don’t open it. There’s something in it.”

  “What? How do you know? Did it move? Did you hear something?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. I think so, yes.”

  “Oh, come on. Mamallapuram’s gone to your head. You’re seeing spirits.”

  “Shut up, Ashok. There’s something in that bag.”

  “Not a lot, though. I took most of it out yesterday. Just a shirt and some boxer shorts, if I remember right. Not much of a threat, I think. Not the shirt, anyway.”

  “Stop fooling.” Hannah was still staring, transfixed, at the bag.

  “Look.” Ashok made a move towards it. “I’m going to open, just to show you it’s okay. Stand back, if you like.”

  Hannah launched herself at Ashok with such a loud scream that Willi rushed out of her room and hammered on their door.

  “What’s up? Open the door!”

  “Hannah thinks there’s some ghost in my case,” Ashok said, letting her in. “She won’t let me open.”

  “We women are intuitive,” Willi said. “If Hannah says something’s wrong, then it is.”

  “Well, how are we going to find out without opening?”

  “Okay,” Hannah said, “but not in here. Outside, on the lawn. Get your torch.”

  She took a reel of white cotton from her rucksack, handed the loose end of the thread to Willi, unraveled it, and broke off some ten meters. Gingerly, but without hesitating, she went up to Ashok’s bag and pulled the thread through the zip toggle, doubling it up and tying a knot at the end.

  “Good,” Willi said. “Now let’s get the bugger out!”

  Hannah noticed that Willi, for all her brave words, kept well back from the bag and did not offer to help.

  Ashok stood, arms folded, leaning against the door and looking at the two women with an amused expression on his face.

  Ignoring him, Hannah picked up the bag and trooped out into the humid night with Ashok and Willi trailing behind her. She placed the bag on the lawn.

  “Shine your torch, Ashok.”

  Hannah located the thread and, holding onto the end, backed off several meters until it was taut.

  Slowly, she started to pull the zip open.

  * * * *

  Terry in India? Felicity’s confession whirled around Duncan’s head. The room had suddenly become a prison, air so stale that Duncan could not breathe. The sofa, with Felicity upon it, was an instrument of torture.

  A voice, not his, spoke calmly to Felicity from somewhere inside Duncan’s body.

  “If he’s gone, why are you still here?”

  She sighed and glanced up at him.

  “Oh, Duncan, you’re so thick at times. Isn’t it obvious?”

  “Not to me.”

  “Do you really think I could have kept up living with you for months if I didn’t really care for you? Okay, so Terry pushed me into the whole business in the first place, but then you asked me to move in, and, well, I wouldn’t have done that if I hadn’t wanted to be with you. In the end, I was torn between the two of you.”

  “Bullshit. No one in their right mind would let their brother push them around like you say you did.”

  She shrugged. “I guess I wasn’t in my right mind.”

  “So tell me this. If your brother was really just investigating Hannah, he’d have made sure she didn’t see him. How do you explain that?”

  For a moment, he thought he’d called her bluff.

  But then she answered him calmly. “Okay, so he messed up a couple of times and she got a few glimpses of him. Her imagination ran riot. You know what she’s like. You saw it for yourself. The last thing he’d want would be to draw attention to himself.”

  Remorse and fear for Hannah gripped Duncan’s stomach and twisted it. It all made sense, dammit. He looked at Felicity, slumped in the corner of the sofa. There was no way round it. It would devastate his reputation, but he had to act.

  “Come on, we’re going to the police. You’re going to spill the beans.”

  “I don’t think that’s very clever.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “Has it occurred to you that the police might be involved? It certainly occurred to me. Too risky to put their own men onto her, so get Terry to do their dirty work instead. Think about it. They weren’t too keen to believe her stalking story, were they?”

  There was a certain logic in what she was saying, even though Duncan was fairly sure that Elliot Bannerman, and not some government agency, was at the root of the whole affair. He was guiltily relieved at having an excuse to keep Felicity’s story from becoming public property just yet. There had to be another way. First of all, he had to decide about Felicity. Should he throw her out onto the street or let her stay? He decided that the latter course was the more expedient. He’d be able to keep tabs on her, and, in any case, something about her vulnerability still touched him, despite his anger and humiliation. Had they both been victims?

  He sat down next to her on the sofa. “I’ve been a right idiot, haven’t I?” he said, putting on what he hoped was a sheepish expression. “Can’t say I blame you for taking advantage.”

  She looked down at her hands that were playing restlessly in her lap. “It’s...I mean, I did take advantage of you, of course, but after I’d got to know you, I hated what I was doing. We knew what they’d do to us if we tried to pull out. But...well, I really like you, Dunc.”

  She glanced up at him, and he could see that she meant it. Or did she? She’d taken him for a ride once. Was she doing it again? Play it cool.

  “Look,” he said, “we’ve got to sort this—our lives could all be in danger—you, me, and Hannah. Yes, and Terry, too. Let’s say you’re right and it’s not Bannerman. We don’t know who these people are or what they want. We’ve got to carry on normally at the moment. Just give me time to think. Meanwhile, promise me you won’t do anything silly.”

  “Don’t worry, Dunc. I’m staying right here.”

  He went back into the garden room. Five o’clock. Just time to phone a local travel agent before they close and ask for the telephone number of the Chamundi.

  Then he dialed the number. Yes, Hannah Petersen was staying there, but there was no answer from her room. Blast. Have to leave a message. This he did with considerable misgiving.

  * * * *

  On the lawn of the Pandava, two night porters had turned up, intrigued by the strange, foreign ritual. Ashok ushered them to what he judged Hannah would consider to be a safe distance from the bag.

  As Hannah pulled the zip open with her cotton thread, the torch picked out a faint movement inside it.

  The torchlight quivered as Ashok’s hand started shaking. Willi stepped hastily back even farther. Hannah showed no surprise.

  “Get away from it, Hannah. Let me do it,” Ashok said.

  “Shh!” She gestured him impatiently out of the way. “Keep that damned torch still, can’t you?”

  Now the bag was fully open. Hannah dropped the thread. They waited. Moments passed. The silence was broken by one of the porters, who questioned Ashok in Tamil. To save the awkwardness of trying to explain the inexplicable, Ashok put his finger to his lips.

  Hannah
took the torch from Ashok and shone it briefly around the garden. The light picked out a long, thin branch that had broken off the flame tree. Handing the torch back to Ashok, Hannah grasped hold of the branch.

  “Keep that torch steady on the bag.”

  Carefully, as if in a slow motion film, Hannah used the branch to tip the bag gently onto its side, the open top pointing away from the onlookers.

  For several seconds, even the air stopped breathing. Then, as imperceptibly as the minute hand of a clock, the bag’s occupant emerged.

  The five-foot cobra raised its head towards its audience, with the slow, powerful elegance of a Tai Chi expert. Ashok could see the black and white markings on its golden-yellow hood and the cold eyes transfixed in the torchlight.

  No one stirred. Like pawns on a chessboard, the watchers waited to be taken. Ashok’s trembling hand froze. No ripple now in the torchlight. Impasse. Time hung suspended, meaningless.

  It was over. The snake sank slowly back onto the grass and slithered away from them into the night.

  Like a concert audience waiting for the last note to fade, there was a fragment of silence before the porters burst out in excited Tamil, pressing their hands together, as if in greeting.

  Ashok spoke to them briefly before picking up his bag and walking silently back to the room.

  The two women found him sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at the wooden panels on the wall.

  Hannah put her arm around his shoulder and hugged him. He turned slowly to look at her and shook his head.

  “I can’t believe what you just did. You saved my life. And I stood by, like a wimp, and let you endanger yourself.”

  “Let’s get this into proportion,” Hannah said. “I was never in any more danger than anyone else. I just thought on my feet. I suppose I’ve had to do a lot of that in my life.”

  “And I’ve had to do very little, is what you’re implying.”

  “For goodness sake, I didn’t say that at all. How on earth should I know that?”

  “As Willi said, women are intuitive. And you’re right, of course. Life’s been a bit too kind to me, so far. I haven’t had to tough it out, like you.”

  “I used to be pretty tough, yes. I lost it when the stalker thing happened, but now I seem to have regained some of my confidence.” She ruffled his hair.

  He ducked aside, still clearly distracted.

  “Time for me to go.” Willi was still standing by the door.

  “No, Willi.” Hannah patted the bed. “Come and sit down. We need to talk about what happened.”

  Willi came across to them but pulled up the one chair in the room, carefully moving Hannah’s clothes onto the bed.

  She said, “This snake—it must have come while you were out today.”

  “No. It didn’t just come. It was put into Ashok’s bag on purpose.”

  “We don’t know that, Hannah,” Ashok said.

  “It opened the zip and closed it again, I suppose?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe it got in during yesterday night. I left it open when I fetched some of my things out of it. Must have been open for a good hour before I went back and fetched the rest of my things. That’s when I closed it.”

  “You don’t really believe that, do you?” Hannah said. “I don’t, any more than I believe in your loose rock theory.”

  “Well, maybe not. But we can’t dismiss completely.”

  “No. But let’s assume it was put into the bag sometime today. And let’s assume someone lobbed that rock at you. Also, you had that weird phone call yesterday, let’s not forget.”

  “I know. Okay, what have we got then? Willi gets stuck in a hut in Hyderabad, and I have a couple of near misses in Madras. There could be other explanations for all these incidents.”

  “No. Face it, Ashok. Our stalker intends to wipe out anyone who gets friendly with me.”

  “He’s obsessed with you,” Willi said.

  Hannah shook her head. “Won’t wash, I’m afraid. I’ve been attacked, too, don’t forget. Once in England. Then at the tombs and again in the taxi.”

  “Well, in fact, from the way you described it, you weren’t actually attacked in that taxi.” No way, Ashok thought, am I going to humiliate her by showing her the article in front of Willi.

  Hannah snorted contemptuously. “How naive you are sometimes, Ashok! Of course he would have attacked me, probably killed me, if I hadn’t got away.”

  “You don’t know that. Not for sure.”

  “So what about the incident in England?”

  “Perhaps he’s become even more obsessed with you and can’t bear to harm you,” Ashok said, desperate to water down Hannah’s fears, which he still felt were unfounded. Probably. The day’s events had dislodged his absolute certainty.

  “Perhaps he’s saving something extra special for me,” Hannah said. “You still haven’t accounted for the tombs. I saw the steel glinting in the hand that came at me.”

  “I have an idea.” Willi, who had been listening intently, now joined in the debate. “Someone later sent you pearls in a silver box. Could it be that, in the tomb, what you were seeing was not steel but silver? Could the person have been trying to give you the pearls?”

  Ashok and Hannah looked at Willi. Ashok felt as if he were seeing her for the first time.

  “That’s it!” Ashok said. “What d’you think, Hannah?”

  Hannah looked thoughtful. She shook her head slowly. “At the time I was so sure. Now...I don’t know. What I do know, though, is that he’s after anyone who has anything to do with me. And he’s out to get me, too, sooner or later.” She paused. When she continued, each word was carefully weighed. “So...the fact is that I can’t go on expecting others to take risks for me. Willi, tomorrow we’ll have to part company. I’ve had you on my conscience once already. I don’t want it to happen again.”

  “What, miss all the excitement? No way! And if anything happens to me, I’ve only got myself to blame, Hannah. So stop being a martyr. Now I leave you two alone and go to bed.”

  “We’ll talk about it again tomorrow. Goodnight, Willi.”

  Once Willi left, Hannah took Ashok’s hands in hers. “What I said to Willi goes for you, too. Leave me, Ashok. Take me back to Bangalore and then get on with your life. You...I...you mean so much to me. If anything happened to you, it wouldn’t just be my conscience that suffered.”

  Ashok grasped her firmly by the shoulders. “You can put that right out of your mind. No more talk of it. Right?”

  “But...”

  “But nothing. Do you think I could walk out on you now? You say I mean a lot to you. Don’t you think you mean just as much to me? Heavens, I felt bad enough tonight when I stood by like a gibbering idiot while you dealt with my cobra.”

  At that, Hannah burst into relieved laughter. She locked him in her arms. “Okay, my gibbering idiot. I guess I’m stuck with you. For the time being, anyway.” As an afterthought she added, “So it’s your cobra now, is it? Those two porters seemed pretty pleased to see it as well.”

  “The cobra is one of our gods. It was an honor that he paid us a visit. They will probably build a small shrine to him in the garden.”

  “You’re kidding. Aren’t they afraid of what it might do to their guests?”

  “He is unlikely to attack unless provoked. But you’re right. He is a bit of a liability here. By tomorrow, he may well have been bagged and taken to somewhere less populated.”

  “But they won’t kill it?”

  “Of course not. It’s what I’m telling you. He’s a god. He’s favored us with a good omen. Again your stalker has shot himself in the foot. So be happy, my Hannah. There’s no need to fear.”

  She held him close, and he knew she could feel the rapid beating of his heart. She kissed his eyes, his mouth, his neck. A sigh of capitulation escaped from his lips, as he thought about the article from the Hindu, still concealed in his shirt pocket. He leaned across and turned out the bedside light.

  * * * *


  Ashok waited until Hannah was asleep. He slipped silently out of bed, into his clothes, and out through the door.

  “Can I help, Sir?”

  “Were you here yesterday evening, when your colleague had his break?”

  “Yes, Sir, indeed.”

  “Can you remember if an Englishman checked in? A thin man, possibly wearing dark glasses.”

  The receptionist looked blank. Ashok placed twenty rupees on the counter.

  “There was such a man. But no dark glasses.”

  “Did you notice his eyes?”

  The desk clerk shrugged. “Sorry, Sir, I am not good at noticing such things.”

  Ashok put down fifty rupees.

  “Well, can you tell me anything about him? His name?”

  “One moment, Sir.” The man scrabbled under the counter and re-emerged with the box of registration forms. He leafed through them several times then frowned.

  “Very odd, Sir. This person’s details are missing.”

  “Perhaps he’s left.”

  “But form should still be here. They are removed to archives at end of each week only.”

  “Can’t you remember his name?”

  “No, Sir. I am not good at remembering names. It was not a well-known English name.”

  “His room number then.”

  The man gave an inane little smile. “So sorry. I am not good—”

  “Yes, yes. Okay. Can you remember anything else at all?” Fifty more rupees joined the pile on the counter.

  “Well...there was one thing.”

  “Yes?” Ashok struggled to hide his impatience.

  “He was making a phone call.”

  “Phone call? Who did he call? Did you connect him?”

  “Yes, Sir. It was to one of our guests—”

  “Which guest? Try to remember, please.” Another twenty rupees.

  “So sorry, Sir. I am—”

  “Not good at remembering names. Of course.”

  “But he was asking to look at registration forms. He was looking for his friend’s room number.”

  “Did he find it?”

  “Yes, Sir. I dialed that number for him.”