‘The two Indians you are with will be taken into the jungle. You will not see them again.’
Mabbut, sweating profusely a second ago, felt a cold wave chase up his back.
‘Don’t harm them, they’ve done nothing.’
‘They’ve done nothing, that’s true. When they could have done something they’ve done nothing. They would rather help you than help their own people. What do you call them in your country? Traitors?’
Outside there were cries and shouts, then silence.
‘Look, they gave me a ride here, that’s all.’
The man rose and walked close to Mabbut, staring down at him, contemptuously.
‘The car is licensed to one of the most expensive hotels in Bhubaneswar. We know them well. They provide all the cars for Astramex. Are you telling me you just happened to hitch a ride?’
Mabbut wished with all his being that he’d never let Ron Latham near this thing. He’d wanted to come to India under cover, move as and when he wanted, but Latham had insisted on the car and the hotel. ‘It’s our money, Keith, remember that.’ Well, now look where that money had got him. Quite possibly facing execution. And only three days into the trip.
‘I’m not with any company,’ he began.
‘You’re lying.’
‘Why should I lie?’
‘You have maps marked with the route to the refinery. You have a camera.’ He reached into a pocket on the side of his trousers and held up a thick wad of thousand-rupee notes. ‘You have money.’
Mabbut realised with a growing sense of helplessness that they must have searched the car thoroughly, his bag included.
‘Yes, Mr Keith Mabbut, I know where you are going, and your men will confirm this when we take them into the jungle.’
‘Look, I’m just a tourist. I have no links with any company.’
‘If you were a tourist you wouldn’t be here. Tourists go to the temples.’
Try as he might, Mabbut could not keep the desperation from his voice.
‘I wanted to see the interior. I wanted to see the local people. I don’t like going where everyone else goes. I hate crowds.’
He saw a momentary flicker in the other man’s eyes. For the first time in this chilling encounter he sensed a hint of an advantage. It was his only chance. He must lie, and lie well.
‘I’m an independent traveller. I like to see what I want to see. Nobody is telling me what to do. I am not working on anyone else’s account, believe me.’
He would never know whether his interrogator was on the point of believing him or not, for at that moment the first four bars of Beethoven’s Fifth emanated from Mabbut’s trouser pocket. His mobile phone was the one thing they hadn’t found. As the chords jangled out again, Mabbut opened and closed his mouth soundlessly.
His captor came up close behind him and pulled off the strap around his wrists.
‘Answer that.’
Mabbut slowly withdrew his phone. As he raised it to his ear, the man reached down and snatched it away from him. Eyes fixed on Mabbut, he put the phone to his ear.
‘Yes?’
Someone went by the door. A child laughed and was quickly silenced.
‘Yes, Mr Mabbut is here. Who shall I say is calling?’
There was a short pause and then an extraordinary transformation came over his face. He straightened up and the air of menace was replaced by one of concern. He ran a tongue across his lips and nodded.
‘Yes. OK.’
Glowering, he lowered the phone and handed it back to Mabbut.
Mabbut tried to keep his voice under control.
‘Hallo?’
The reply was not at all what he expected. A slow, rolling, half-amused drawl, almost a chuckle. And just a hint of a Scottish accent.
‘So you’ve found the real people?’
Never had a voice been more welcome. Even if it was taunting him.
‘Yes, I have. I have indeed.’
‘I hope they’re treating you well.’
‘They think I’m with the mineral company.’
‘Most of you are.’
Mabbut was seized, very briefly, with a renewed sense of panic.
‘I have nothing to do with them!’
‘Well, you seem to have fooled my people at the guest house, so I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. Until I see for myself, that is. Hand me back to Romera.’
Mabbut must have betrayed a moment’s confusion.
‘Romera,’ Melville repeated. ‘The man who wants to kill you.’
FIVE
It was two in the afternoon when he awoke. The inside of the tent was womb-like and powerfully hot. He looked twice at his travel clock, then lay back staring for a while at the peak of the tent. The first thing that struck him was that there was a peak at all, making the tent feel more like a tepee. And no polyester or aluminium ribbing here – this was a proper canvas tent, awakening childhood memories of campsites and fruit gums.
It had been almost light when he finally got to sleep, after Melville’s men had come to the village and extracted him. Nirwan and Farud, who had been taken into the forest, had already left. So terrified had they been that as soon as they were freed they’d headed hell for leather back to their homes and wives and children, leaving Mabbut no option but to go wherever he was taken. The two very dark-skinned, wide-eyed boys Melville had sent to collect him had smiled a lot but spoke no English, so Mabbut could glean no information about where they were or where he was being taken. They had arrived with a flourish an hour or so after Melville’s call, their battered jeep racing into the village ahead of a cloud of rising dust. They looked as though they were enjoying what they were doing, and were received with envious admiration by the younger villagers. The older men and women had remained aloof, clearly still intimidated by the insurgents in their midst.
Mabbut pulled aside the tent flap and looked around him. He was in a circular encampment outside a small village of mud and wattle huts. Majestic trees stood in isolation among wispy brown grassland, giving the impression of some great estate gone to seed. Mabbut could see no one else around, but then his eye was caught by movement in the village, and the sound of a voice. He looked again and saw a young child leaning out from the corner of a hut, staring towards him. He waved. The child disappeared.
Mabbut felt an urgent need to relieve himself. There was a stout tree near by so he walked over and stood behind it, making sure he was hidden from the village. As his pee hissed copiously on to the dry grass, he luxuriated in the pleasant sense of relief on all fronts. Then he heard a noise and, peering warily out from behind the trunk, he found three small boys standing in a line, watching him curiously.
The tallest of the three seemed to be the spokesman.
‘Toilet,’ he said, leading Mabbut to one of the farthest tents. He solemnly pulled aside the flap to reveal a privy, towel rail and canvas basin with water beside it.
‘Shukriya! Thank you,’ said Mabbut, hoping that a wide, self-deprecating smile would encourage them to laugh at his foolishness. If anything, it merely added a hint of pity to their serious, uncomprehending gaze. On an impulse, he returned to his tent, rummaged around in his things and retrieved a quarter-pound bag of Glacier Mints. He took out three and turned back to the children, only to find that another three had joined them. He went back to the bag and took out more sweets, by which time six more expectant faces had gathered. This time he brought out the bag. There were just enough to go round. The smaller boys clutched the tiny white polar bears warily until the ringleader popped one in his mouth. Soon there were more than a dozen little jaws at work. In the distance Mabbut could see a row of veiled heads peering curiously over the scrub-and-stick fence at the edge of the village. There were shouts and the children turned and ran home.
Mabbut gratefully took the last mint in the bag, aware that he was not only hungry but hot. Seeking the shade of the tent, he took out his notebook and pen. The last twenty-four hours had been so extraordinary he
scarcely knew where to begin. In fact he couldn’t begin. Writing things down had been his life, but at this moment, words felt superfluous. He was in the grip of events. He sat cross-legged on his low bed and, a little nervously at first, he listened to the silence around him.
After what seemed a very long time he heard whispers and a small hand reached in and cautiously pulled aside his tent flap. It was the same boy who’d spoken to him earlier.
‘Food,’ he said, beckoning Mabbut outside.
The boy had not come alone and a much emboldened little group greeted Mabbut’s emergence from the tent with a puckering of lips and a raising of fingers to mouths. Their ringleader pushed them aside and, taking Mabbut by the hand, led him towards the village.
Mabbut wasn’t sure what he’d been given to eat. It was some kind of corn mash, sticky and substantial but not particularly tasty. It was served with rice and chillies, in a bowl made from a large leaf that had been folded and pierced at either end with sharpened sticks. He ate in the cool semi-darkness of a room in one of the huts. In shape and size the room was almost identical to the one in which he’d been interrogated the night before. Two young women and an older man sat with him, while some of the bigger children watched from the doorway, silhouetted against the sunlight. They were not short of entertainment as Mabbut struggled both with the lotus position and with the unfamiliar technique of eating with his fingers. The older man, it seemed, couldn’t bear to watch such incompetence and, bending low, he disappeared into the recesses of the house. The women, elaborately ornamented, gazed impassively at Mabbut. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he could see that the doorways on both sides were bordered with ornate patterns in what looked like pen and wash. After a while the older man reappeared with half a coconut shell full of a sharp-smelling milky juice. Mabbut took it, bowed, and sipped gratefully. Whatever it was, it wasn’t milk. After another more cautious draught he handed it back. The man smiled broadly and insisted he drink again. After which he could remember very little.
‘Are you all right in there, Mr Mabbut?’
Mabbut pulled himself up with an involuntary groan. He was lying stretched out on his bed and darkness had fallen.
Hamish Melville’s head appeared through the tent flap. His eyes sparkled and his face was creased into a smile. He held out a water bottle.
‘You might need this.’
He watched as Mabbut drank deeply.
‘How’s the accommodation?’
‘It’s comfortable, thank you very much.’
‘These came from a disbanded Boy Scout group in Peshawar. Headmaster of the school thought them a little too Baden-Powell, you know, not quite in keeping with the times.’
Mabbut finished the water.
‘Anyway, when you’re ready, come and join us.’
Mabbut felt distinctly groggy. The water had helped, but his mouth still tasted foul and he realised he’d not cleaned his teeth for at least twenty-four hours. He found his toilet bag and toothbrush and did the best job he could. When he stepped outside he found that the campsite had been transformed. Lamps had been lit and beneath the tree where he’d relieved himself a generator thrummed. A trestle table had been set up, to one side of which was a fire over which a blackened pot was being stirred. Melville was at the table staring into a laptop. Three Indians, all young and neatly dressed in tight cotton shirts or T-shirts, sat around him. One was on a mobile, the other two were studying a map. Hearing Mabbut clear his throat, they looked up. Melville turned and called him forward with a wide introductory sweep of his arm.
‘Gentlemen, meet Keith Prynne Mabbut, citizen of the UK, born twenty-ninth March 1953. The year of the coronation,’ he noted with mock gravitas. ‘Passport number 276394702. Occupation? Well, I’m sure we’ll find that out in due course.’
He indicated the one unoccupied chair at the table.
‘Mr Mabbut, welcome to the University of Life. This is Kumar, this is Mahesh, Kinesh next to him and I’m Monsieur Steiner. From Antwerp.’
There was appreciative laughter around the table.
‘Sit down and we’ll get you a beer. Not Belgian, I’m afraid.’
Mabbut knew he was being teased but guessed that this was all part of the process, a bluff but necessary way of flushing him out. After all the game-playing of the last few days it was almost a relief, but he was aware that, now more than ever, he needed to keep his wits about him.
One of the young men poured a beer and put the glass in front of him.
Melville tapped at his keyboard with an air of finality, closed his laptop and took in Mabbut’s beer appreciatively.
‘I’ll have one of those too, Kumar, if you don’t mind. As we have a guest.’
Food was laid on the table in a cluster of small stainless-steel bowls. Deep-fried aubergine, spinach, spiced okra, beans, lentils, pickles, yogurt and tamarind juice – ‘good for a hangover’, Melville assured him. Rice was ladled on to individual plates. Mabbut was discreetly handed a spoon, but the others, including Melville, tucked in with their fingers, moulding the rice into a ball which was then dipped in the various dishes before being popped into the mouth with a neat flick of the thumb. Melville’s long and elegant hands were well suited to this dipping and rolling and he seemed as deft at the technique as any of his Indian companions.
Mabbut decided it was time to express his gratitude to Melville, for rescuing him.
The big man shrugged.
‘There are a lot of people round here who don’t like white folks, period. And why should they? They see them arrive in their big cars with their World Bank briefcases and they know that they’re not here for a walk in the woods. They’re off to the refinery. The refinery that was built on twenty-three local villages, and surrounded by a ten-mile barbed-wire fence. The refinery that makes people’s eyes burn and their skin itch and their water taste bad.’
He threw out an arm in the general direction of the village.
‘Give or take the odd ritual sacrifice, the Kidonga are basically friendly people, Keith. They look after each other, and they look after the place where they live. They don’t want much more than to be left alone. But as they live on some of the most mineral-rich land in India that’s getting to be a little more difficult. But they know I’m on their side. They trust me. That’s why they gave you afternoon tea.’
He broke into a wheezy laugh.
‘And a cocktail, I hear.’
At this, the laughter echoed round the table.
‘A sago-palm special on your first day here. Now that is an honour, Keith.’
Melville’s wide shoulders shook and eventually Mabbut joined in.
‘Then there are those who pretend to be on their side,’ Melville continued, ‘while basically using them to fight their own war. Eh, Kumar?’
The stockiest of the three Indians angled his head in agreement, puffing his cheeks out as he did so.
‘You mean the Maoists?’ asked Mabbut.
Melville chewed and swallowed. Then he stood, picked up a cup and walked to a plastic bucket from which he drew water. He splashed it on his hands then nodded at Mabbut.
‘Naxalites, Maoists. Naxals. Mostly well educated, committed to the overthrow of the government, the state and pretty much everything else they don’t like. They attach themselves to the tribals, appropriate their suffering and turn it into anger. Then they turn the anger into control. And they do kill people. Mostly policemen, but they can be unpredictable. You just happened to wander into a village that’s one of their recent acquisitions.’
‘Farud was right, then.’
‘Farud?’
‘My guide.’
‘Some guide.’
‘He didn’t want to come up here.’
‘He didn’t have to.’
This remark hung in the air, and Mabbut was aware that the mood around the table had changed imperceptibly. He took a sideways glance at Melville and found the craggy face turned towards him, the deep blue eyes appraising him as they h
ad done when they first met in the street in Bhubaneswar.
‘Most “lone travellers” can’t afford to hire a Toyota, Mr Mabbut.’
For a few moments only the sound of the generator broke the silence. Mabbut knew he mustn’t be stared down.
‘Well, thank you for saving our lives,’ he said quietly.
Melville’s eyes flicked across the table.
‘Thanks to Kumar, I know most of those Maoist boys.’
He pushed his plate to one side. As if at a signal, one of those who’d driven Mabbut back the previous night materialised from the darkness and began to clear the table.
‘They’re not all bad,’ Melville added. ‘We may disagree on motivation but we agree on fundamentals.’
There was a pause. Once again Mabbut felt that he was being given space to explain himself, but the moment passed. There was general movement as people got up from the table and Melville accepted a cigarette from one of the men. He squatted down and lit it using a stick at the edge of the fire, straightened up and took a deep pull. He coughed lightly but involuntarily.
‘Parval, sorry, Mr Singh, told me you were interested in the Astramex refinery.’
Mabbut flinched. What else had he told him?
‘He . . . Yes. He thought that I might be more interested in that than another day of temples.’
‘The temples here are world class.’
‘I agree. But there are maybe a little too many of them.’
Melville pushed back his hair and flicked his cigarette ash to one side.
‘Parval is quite political, you know. He has an agenda. I’m sorry if he forced it on you.’
‘Well, he was only trying to help.’
‘He must have thought you’d be interested.’
‘Yes.’
‘Because most tourists aren’t. Interested.’
Melville returned to the table, pulled a lamp up close to him and bent over the map. With his long hair, round glasses and his long beak of a nose, he looked like some ancient alchemist.
‘Maybe he thought you were a kindred spirit?’
The Truth Page 12
