by Peter Hayes
“Sergeant.” The second cop, whom I’d almost forgotten, was pointing at my wrist.
“Interesting bracelet that,” the first bobby said. He lifted my hand. “May I ask where you got this?”
“It was a gift.”
“From whom?”
“That name isn’t relevant here.”
“Oh, but I think it is. May I?” He slipped it off me and held it up against the photo of the treasure. “Feel it’s only fair that I give you a caution, sir.”
“Caution received.”
“The person’s name, sir.”
“Look. Can’t we leave her out of this? She’s a guest.”
“We don’t get it from you, sir, we’ll just have to get it from her, now won’t we?”
There was nothing for it. “All right. Prasad.”
“Prasad, is it?” He paused, as I watched the penny drop. “Not like the chappie who was murdered?”
“His widow.”
“Is here? With you?” The way he said it made it sound like the most incriminating thing in the world.
“I told you. I’m a friend of the family.”
“And where is Mrs. Prasad now?”
“Not in.” (I was technically correct.) Though no sooner had I uttered this falsehood than Vidya appeared, escorted by Odin. She was splashed with mud from head to boot, above which she wore jodhpurs and was tapping a black leather crop on her thigh.
There was a moment while the coppers drank her in. “Sorry, ma’am, but I guess we were expecting someone . . . older.” We all knew what he meant. “Yours, ma’am?”
“Was. What of it?” She was giving the bobbies only half her attention; with the other, she was absently stroking Odin and flipping through the mail.
“May we ask where you got it, Miss?”
“A wedding gift from my Lakshmi Auntie.”
“Can this be verified?”
“Ring her up.”
“Her number, miss?”
“Oh, I don’t know it, offhand. But I’m certain you can suss it out. She’s Rājmata of Udaipur.”
“Raj what?” the bobby queried.
“Queen Mother,” I translated, “of Udaipur. India.”
“Though I warn you now, the lines are atrocious. It could take you days to be getting through.”
We seemed to have reached another natural impasse. As in London, it was our word against the cops’ suspicions. At the moment, our denials still carried the day. Actually, I think it was Vidya’s royal presence—and Odin’s large, protective one.
The silent one whispered something, prompting his colleague to say, “We’d like to borrow the torc, sir. For analysis.”
“You’ll have to ask Mrs. Prasad.”
“Oh, take it,” Vidya said dismissively, as though dealing with a couple of insolent servants. “Leave a receipt with Mrs. O’Connell.” And flinging the leather whip on a table, she and her monster ascended the stairs.
Chapter 23
When the police were gone, I did the only sane thing I could think of under the circumstances: I made myself a cup of tea. Then I sat in the garden and drank it.
There’s a saying in the East: “Of the fifty-six strategies, flight is the best.” Briefly, I considered Mombasa, then Mumbai. But being fugitives would have meant the end of life as we knew it, and the end of my career, too. Then again, defending ourselves against a charge of murder—or two—surely would have the same effect. The bobbies had clearly been putting me on. I don’t know why I hadn’t copped to it sooner. Jai’s murder was page two news, making their queries (“Dead, sir?” “Oh, dearie me, sir . . .”) not merely coy, but sinister.
Well, they could inquire all they wanted. I hadn’t killed Jai and I hadn’t filched their filthy treasure and they’d have one hell of a time proving I had. So who did?
My cell phone rang. The roughhewn voice was all too familiar. “Been doing some legwork. Prasad, he’s got enemies? Nodda bit. Guy’s bu-loved. No one’s got one bad word to say. Shtoopin’ his students or somebody’s daughter, and the dad or the boyfriend takes it poorly? Nuh-unh. How ’bout his job? Well, yeah, is a coupla anthologists don’t like he shoulda been made head a department, ’pointed above ’em—but these guys ain’t gonna kill him for it. Even though they’re Dons. You know, like Corleone?” He chuckled at his joke. “See where I’m goin’?”
“No.”
“Comes down to this—you and the wifey there’s our only real suspects.”
I was silent a moment, then hung up, dismayed.
Wooland looked no better than when I’d last seen him. Furred black patches, missed while shaving, lurked beneath his jaws, and a long canvas bag, once a smart promotional gift, drooped in his fist. He wore a shapeless wool pullover and a pair of threadbare carpet slippers—as though he’d sauntered into the summer evening unaware he wasn’t shod.
He began with an apology. “At the hospital the other morning, I had no idea your friend had just been killed. Why I didn’t mention it then. I’m so very sorry.”
“Quite all right, Wooland.” And I imagined him having spent the weekend alone in his stuffy office, bent over his computer.
“Anyway, you asked for some data. On Henry Carlson Lewis Jones. So here: there’s been a series of utterly horrendous double sexual murders in Surrey. Couples with car trouble stalled on the roadway are approached by someone who cuts the chap’s throat and abducts the girl. She’s raped, then stabbed to death, slowly.”
“What do you mean, slowly.”
“Multiple stab wounds, none to vital organs. It’s . . . torture. She dies eventually of . . . uh . . . exsanguination.”
“And . . . ?”
“Henry Carlson Lewis Jones is the CID’s chief suspect. He’s been questioned by them twice but they’ve gotten nowhere.”
So Vidya had in fact read him perfectly for the sadistic predator he was. And, in doing so and shooting him dead, had saved our lives. And, no doubt, others’. I wanted to say, “Well, that’s the end of your double sexual homicides in Surrey.” But instead I said, “Thanks, Wooland. I owe you one.”
Vidya was seated in an armchair, leafing through a women’s magazine.
“What are you reading?”
“Stew-pid,” she said, and flung it down. “It’s all about boob jobs. As if big bazooms were the secret of happiness.”
I lowered my gaze twelve inches or so. “Aren’t they?”
She blushed. It was charming.
“What is it then? The secret of happiness.”
She smiled a Mona Lisa smile. “Santosha.”
“Contentment?”
She nodded. “Accepting whatever happens to befall you. As a gift—from God.”
I fixed her with my eyes. “Even your husband’s murder?”
She fixed mine back. “Even your own.”
I gave her answer the two beats it deserved, then told her what Strugnell had said about Henry Carlson Lewis Jones, omitting only the woman’s torture.
“Thank you. There’s always that doubt, you know, scratching like a dog at the back door of one’s mind.”
“Why did you take the gun?” I asked. “A semiautomatic? You know the penalties for that type of thing.”
“I could say I was scared. Or had a premonition.” She thought for a moment. “But neither is true. Sometimes I’m just . . . bad.”
She looked at me challengingly, almost as if to test how I’d respond.
I laughed. “Well, I’m glad. Because if you hadn’t been bad . . . we’d both be good and dead.”
The question that now arose was this: had Henry Jones killed Jai Prasad? If he had, then with Vidya’s shot, frontier justice had been done. And we could all breathe a little easier, too. It certainly fit with my intuition that Vidya had been the ultimate target. Look at the timing. The buzzer had rung minutes after her return. Jones had watched her enter the mews, then followed. If he’d meant to kill Jai, he’d had all night to do it in. Why wait till his wife came home?
The
n there was the blade. A website maintained that a Bowie of that style and size was capable of chopping through two-by-fours! So it could have killed Jai.
On the other hand, there was no proof at all Henry Jones was the culprit. Or that his stalking us in the starlit field was anything but an unrelated attempted crime of opportunity. Nor, having missed once, that he’d trailed us from London. We hadn’t been followed. I was certain of that. Nor could he have known we would stall out in Salisbury. Nor was his MO entering flats.
In which case then, there was someone still at large who hadn’t yet gotten what he—or she—really wanted.
I went round the house and checked our defenses. Willie’s twelve-gauge was broken open on a table in the front hall, loaded. I’d shown it to Vidya. An unsheathed machete leaned in a corner. I hefted it and cut the air. This was more my style. Then there was Odin.
After dinner, over trifle and coffee, I told Vidya what Houlihan had said—about us being the only two suspects.
“I’m not sure how smart we were—to get involved like this.” She sighed. “I’m afraid it makes us look guilty at worst—heartless at best.”
“Well, it’s too late now. And anyway, Jai was more than your husband. He was my dearest of friends.”
“You loved him. I know. Still there’s no decent reason why you should have your entire life . . .”
“Look,” I interrupted her, “I’m seeing this through. To the end. And not just because I loved Jai—because I love you.”
I’d said it. There. And with a force and suddenness that surprised us both.
She regarded me coolly. “Even if it means . . . ?”
“Going to hell and back? If I have to.”
“But it’s me they suspect. And these scandals have an awful way of besmirching everyone they touch.”
“Yeah? Well, I don’t give a fuck.” I took her hand. “I don’t care about that. I’m going to make certain that nobody hurts you. You have to solemnly promise you’ll let me.”
She nodded, slowly.
“Good,” I said. “Now tell me this: where you were that night between twelve and three.”
Obstinately, she shook her head. “You misunderstand. It’s not that I’m unwilling . . . It’s . . . I cahn’t.”
“Try.”
“Read the book.”
“The book?”
“Yes. The enchaunted one.” She nodded, smiled, kissed me sweetly, then accompanied by Odin, ascended the stairs.
I sat there checkmated, stymied, stopped. I was in the midst of attempting to solve two murders, cover up a third and prevent a fourth. I didn’t see how I could do this successfully without Vidya’s full cooperation.
In fact, it wasn’t enough not to be charged with Jai’s and Jones’s killings. Both cases had to be resolved and shut. If not, with Jai, a cloud of suspicion would hang above our heads forever. And if the cause of Jones’s death weren’t ruled “self-inflicted,” who knew what future hell we’d face? An advance in forensics ten years hence (like fingerprints in 1900 or, more recently, DNA) might someday link us to Jones’s killing through some form of evidence we didn’t know exists.
But what could I do? I couldn’t beat it out of her!
So, following Vidya’s request, I got out the “enchanted” book and opened it to another chapter, one that—I sincerely hoped—would help solve the mystery of both my Ladies.
There are four types of persons, Ghazil always says, before whom the wise never go empty-handed: a god, a guru, a king—and a child. Since our youngest guest was two of these and his mother was a queen, I gave orders they be suitably fêted and fed. Carpets were spread, wood and water gathered, fires kindled and food prepared. You may question the wisdom of such a durbar1 given our position, but wherever he is and whatever he’s doing, a prince must always be a prince. Besides, my men were hungry and the wounded needed care.
I presented the Queen with an embroidered shawl made of a wool so soft it has usurped the name of its country, Cashmir, and is worn, I hear, by ladies of the harem as far away as the courts of France.
To the young king I gave a blade whose handle held a ser2 of purest gold. I also awarded him one of our Afghans, with which he seemed to be enamoured: a splendid young bitch, thin as a splinter and shy and wild as a divine shadow. His gifts I chose with special care—a knife and a hound—to afford at least symbolic protection, though protection from whom or what I still couldn’t say. Then ‘Abd al-Wali drew a mouse from his pocket, making the boy (and the men, as well) gasp with alarm as he gulped it down—only to withdraw it, moments later, alive and wriggling from behind the child’s ear!
For this admirable feat, he received from the boy a look of utmost adoration and from the Queen, a ruby of the most excellent water, weighing half a misqal3. No sooner had he received the gem, however, than it vanished, and we watched again with mounting discomfort as he searched for it frantically, only to discover it (at last!) beneath his turban. This final bit of flimflam was greeted with cheers, and while the men applauded, the Queen arose and entered the tent I’d erected for our use.
The moment I entered she turned to me, all pretence of social graces gone. She looked like a woman at the end of her tether who is resigned to prevail by sheer force of will. “I am . . . beset,” she said, glancing warily about her, like a person encircled by ravenous beasts.
“Beset? By whom?”
“By whom are we not? To the north, the Uzbeks raid our villages, while to the east, we are threatened by your brother’s men. To the west, even now, the Rana of Mewar is raising an army with which he hopes to seize my throne. I have begged him to put aside these unworthy ambitions, but . . .” She paused.
“. . . those are the least of my worries, really. The greatest threat is from within.” She looked about her, as though the beasts were closing in. “Every time I eat, I fear my bread is laced with poison. Every time my son is out of sight, even for a moment, I panic, wondering if I will see him again, or if I won’t be called, ‘O Queen, come quickly, a terrible accident has befallen . . .’ ” She looked away, biting her lips, refusing to finish the inauspicious sentence. I looked out the tent at the little king, gingerly stroking the head of his dog as ‘Abd al-Wali entertained him.
“People see a woman and a boy on the throne and are tempted to dream dreams they shouldn’t.”
“And why merely dream them?”
“Because they are cowards,” she said with a venomous contempt. “They know what they plan to do is a sin and so they extemporize, torn. They’re like a pack of dogs that know they mustn’t filch a chapāti4. If kept at bay with a stick, they’ll behave. But turn your back on them for even half a moment and they will rush inside and snatch your supper. Then, as the saying goes, ‘The dog sits in the cook’s place.’
“Today,” she confessed, “I don’t know where we were going. We were supposedly visiting the shrine of a Saint, but,” she conceded, “this is not the way. The jackal your companion killed was, I fear, more our jailer than protector. So I prayed to the Goddess to come to our rescue. And the next moment . . . you appeared.”
There is something delightful in being viewed as an instrument of divine intervention, even as I marvelled at the ever-expanding ramifications of my vow. Not only did the Queen require protection from my brother, Jafir, from the Uzbeks, and from the impetuous Rana of Mewar, but apparently from her own ministers, too.
Regarding my brother, I said to her, “Know it will be difficult. To restrain Jafir is like trying to dam the sea. Reason means little to him, nor do others’ desires. He follows only his own sweet will.”
“Then what can I offer,” she asked, “to persuade you? Allegiance? Tribute? I’ll give you more than you and your men can bear.”
Alone with Mayura in the desert tent, motes of dust swarming the sunlight, I looked again at her fulsome lips, heavenly eyes, and the vivid silken cords of her throat—and I knew it wasn’t gold I wanted.
She knew it, too, for with an almost imperceptib
le flutter, she offered herself to me. I cannot describe exactly how she did this, except to say she lifted and exposed her throat, tossing back her wild jet hair, and made a sound that is, indubitably, the syllable of surrender.
I covered her. She gasped, then gave herself without withholding one scintilla of her being. My tongue unlocked the vault of her throat: it was filled with nectar, and in her body’s clinging weight and heat, I could feel the truth and fullness of her submission.
I thought I might take her then and there and moved to rip away her bodice, but she stopped my hand, saying, “Nay. For now, take this.” And she opened her fist.
I thought at first it was a chunk of ice brought down from the Himalayas. In the heat, it was a welcome prize. Then it caught the light and ice became fire! Only then did I see it was a crystal or, more precisely, the largest and most astonishing diamond I have ever had the wonder to behold. “It’s . . . enormous. It must be worth . . .”
“Half the daily expenditures of the world . . .”
I tried to envision such a sum. Take all the gold, coin and kind that changes hands in the course of a day, halve it, and you had the approximate value of the object in her hand.
She tendered it. I have handled gems; even so, I was shocked by its weight and water.
“This seals my surrender.” Again, she took the dust of my feet. “Be true to me,” she said as we parted. “And I swear to God I will be true to you.”
Though our vow was one of lovers, it wasn’t love of which she spoke.
1.durbar: royal court
2.ser: a measure equal to about one kilo
3.misqal: a measure equal to approximately ten carats
4.chapāti: a flat, unleavened bread
Chapter 24
There comes a point while reading a book when it naturally absorbs you: you merge with it like ink in a blotter. You forget you are reading and begin to live and breathe the tale. Only later, looking up at the dismal subway relentlessly hurtling itself toward Brooklyn, do you realize that, for the past ten minutes, you haven’t been on a train at all but in a rooming house in wartime London, or, in my case, soul kissing a Rajasthani queen.
