I walked with Colonel Arora out into the courtyard and in the direction of the Rose Building.
‘Isn’t it a touch late for the office?’ I asked.
‘It is.’ He smiled. ‘But we are going across town, and for that we need a car, preferably a fast one.’
From inside the royal garage came the sound of an engine being revved.
‘Conscientious fellows, your engineers,’ I said.
‘It’s a busy time for them,’ he replied, pushing open one of the doors. ‘The cars need to be readied for the coming monsoon. Then there’s the tiger shikar tomorrow. The camouflaged Rolls-Royces will be required for that. They spend most of their time being driven around the jungle and need regular maintenance.’
Sure enough, two mechanics had their heads bent under a camouflaged bonnet. The colonel scanned the gleaming rows of vehicles.
‘There she is!’ he exclaimed, pointing to a red car at the far end of the second row. ‘She’s always hiding!’
‘We’re not taking the Mercedes?’ I asked.
‘Good Lord, no! We’re taking something much more interesting,’ he replied, striding off. He stopped in front of a flame-red coupé and gazed at it lovingly.
‘What is it?’
‘What is it?’ he exclaimed. ‘My good fellow, this is an Alfa Romeo 20/80. She’ll do over eighty miles per hour on a race track. I had her up to fifty on one occasion. Very nearly landed upside down in a ditch.’
‘You won’t mind if we stick to twenty-five tonight?’
‘Very well, Captain,’ he said, running his hand along the bonnet, ‘but it’s your loss.’
We were on an empty road, heading south out of town. Arora was going considerably faster than twenty-five and the rush of air delivered the coolest breeze I’d felt since England. I was keeping my own counsel, content just to watch the world fly past.
‘So what do you make of our new Yuvraj?’ asked Arora.
I wasn’t sure exactly what to say.
‘You’re not an admirer?’ He smiled.
‘I think I preferred his brother.’
‘You seem to have reached your conclusion rather quickly.’
‘Do you disagree with it?’ I asked.
‘I did not say that,’ he laughed, ‘I’m simply curious as to what might have led you to form such a rapid judgement.’
‘Instinct,’ I said. ‘I’m a policeman, remember. I trust my gut.’
And it has nothing to do with his apparent interest in your friend, Miss Grant?’
‘Miss Grant’s an intelligent woman,’ I replied. ‘She can look after herself.’
‘I admire your confidence, Captain,’ he said. ‘I only wonder if it is well founded. After all, you’d be surprised at just how much sway a title and a hundred crore rupees can confer on a man.’
He had a point. What woman wouldn’t find the attentions of a millionaire, soon-to-be maharaja, appealing?
‘Even if he’s suspected of murder?’ I asked.
Arora turned towards me. He suddenly had that steel in his eyes. ‘You think he was responsible for his brother’s assassination?’ ‘Well, it wasn’t Shreya Bidika,’ I replied. ‘And Punit’s got the best motive of all.’
‘Have you any proof?’
‘No. Not yet, anyway.’
‘And what if the proof is hard to come by?’
‘I still have to try.’
The colonel smiled grimly. ‘Of course – innocent until proven guilty – that’s the British way, isn’t it?’
‘It’s the law of the land,’ I said.
‘Except this isn’t your land,’ he replied, ‘and I’m glad to say such ideas take their time reaching Sambalpore.’
We drove on in silence, till the colonel eventually spoke.
‘Any progress in finding Golding?’
‘A little.’
He glanced over. I decided to elaborate, if only so he’d turn his attention back to the road.
‘We think that whatever’s happened to him may be linked to the report he was writing for Adhir. Surrender-not says that Golding’s working papers are in his office, but there’s no sign of a report, not even a first draft. I’m thinking someone wanted sight of it before it became public knowledge. To what end, though, I’m not sure.’
The colonel shook his head. ‘There’s no mystery regarding the whereabouts of the report,’ he said. ‘The Dewan’s got it. I overheard him mention it to Fitzmaurice this evening.’
Now it was my turn to stare. ‘How did he get it?’
‘No idea.’ The colonel shrugged. ‘I’ll ask him tomorrow, if you wish?’
‘That would be useful,’ I said, ‘but it would be better if you could get your hands on it. I’d like Surrender-not to go through it.’
‘And how am I supposed to do that?’ he asked.
‘You’re a resourceful man, Colonel,’ I said as the car slowed and turned into an alleyway. ‘I’m sure you’ll come up with something.’
Arora brought the car to a halt outside a nondescript, two-storey house with shuttered windows and a balcony running along the upper level. I was still focused on Golding. If the Dewan had his report, what did that mean for the missing accountant? I was sure he hadn’t left Sambalpore of his own free will. Indeed, I’d discounted that idea as soon as I’d searched his house.
I ran through the possibilities: Golding had given the report to the Dewan, then been accosted. Or he’d been kidnapped on the Dewan’s orders and forced to hand it over. But that made little sense. The Dewan would always have been one of the first to receive a copy of the report. Maybe Golding had been accosted by Sir Ernest Fitzmaurice’s men? Anglo-Indian Diamond had the most to gain from an early sight of the figures. But would they kidnap an Englishman simply for an advantage at the negotiating table?
Colonel Arora knocked on the front door. Almost immediately it was opened by a short man with oiled-back black hair, a pencil moustache and white kurta, who received the colonel like an old friend. Arora turned and beckoned me forward. I tried to get Golding out of my mind. Whatever had happened to him, the answers could wait until tomorrow.
The smell of opium hung in the air. The short man led the way, through an open courtyard and on to a large, dimly lit room dotted with silken beds, several of which were occupied. On the bed nearest the door lay a European, a man of some means judging by his clothes, an opium pipe beside him on a small brass table, wisps of smoke rising gently. In one corner, two women in saris were engrossed in whispered conversation.
As opium dens went, this was, if not the Ritz, then most definitely the Waldorf, and about as far removed from what I was used to as London is from the moon.
Still, when in Rome . . .
A pretty girl in a pink sari came over and showed us to two beds either side of a squat table on which I presumed the opium lamp would rest. I followed Arora’s lead and took off my dinner jacket and handed it to her, then lay down on one of the beds while the colonel took the other. She departed, taking our jackets with her.
In her absence, I lay on my side and tried to make myself comfortable. It should have been easy – the bed was far more comfortable than the wood and string charpoys favoured by the sort of dives I frequented in Calcutta, and yet the expectancy of a new hit, of cravings close to fulfilment, meant my body ached in anticipation.
The girl returned, having swapped our coats for a silver opium tray and two long-stemmed pipes. It was when she placed the tray on the table that I noticed the oddness of the layout. The lamp and the pipes were there, as were the usual plethora of instruments for cleaning them, but the balls of opium resin and the needle used to cook them over the flame were missing. In their place stood a small pipette similar to an eye dropper, a miniature silver pan with an area smaller than a rupee coin, and a lacquered bottle on which was inlaid a golden image of the Lord Jagannath.
‘I thought we were here to smoke opium?’ I asked.
Arora and the girl shared a look.
‘We are,�
�� the colonel laughed.
The girl unscrewed the lid and the earthy scent of O filled the air. Taking the pipette, she dipped it into the bottle, then delicately placed four drops onto the silver pan.
‘But that’s—’
‘Correct,’ said Arora, ‘a liquid. That, my friend, is the legendary candū, the highest quality, distilled from the purest raw opium. Once perfected, it is bottled and aged like a fine wine.’
The girl began to warm the pan over the flame of the opium lamp.
‘Liquid opium? I never knew there was such a thing.’
‘You have been sorely abused, Captain,’ he said with a sparkle in his eye. ‘It’s only to be expected, I suppose. Not much of it is to be found in the open market these days. True candū, taken in moderation, of course, is a wondrous thing, conducive to the creative and inspirational processes. And because it is pure, unlike the rubbish you get in Calcutta, it won’t leave you in a stupor.’
Above the flame, the candū began to sizzle, releasing an aroma like that of roasting peanuts.
‘In the olden days,’ Arora continued, ‘Chinese mandarins, artists and high society all used it. But that was before your East India Company launched its opium wars.’
‘Wars which I understand the kingdom of Sambalpore did quite nicely out of,’ I added.
The colonel smiled. ‘True enough,’ he said.
The girl apportioned the smoking liquid between the two pipes. She handed one to each of us, and I leaned over, closed my eyes and inhaled.
Within minutes, it became obvious that Arora was right. The effects of the candū were starkly different from the dross I smoked in Calcutta. My skin began to tingle, the sensation travelling from my arms to my torso to my skull. The girl prepared and passed me a second pipe, and as I smoked the tingling transformed into an explosion of firing synapses and a sudden blinding white light inside my head. The light faded, replaced by a sense of deep calm and well-being.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Tuesday 22 June 1920
First light entered through French doors left open to the heat. I watched as the sky brightened over blue hills. There was no sunrise to speak of, just a gradual change of hue from black to gunmetal grey.
The clouds outside might have crowded low, but my mental fog had lifted. I had to hand it to Arora – he’d been right about the candū. I’d never experienced an opium hit like it. There’d been no coma-like stupor the previous night, and the usual lethargy of the morning had been supplanted by a crystal-clear lucidity.
We’d left the establishment after four or five pipes, Arora depositing me outside the guest lodge at around one in the morning. I’d made it to my room and fell asleep almost immediately.
Feeling better than I had done for a long time, I lay back under the canopy of a maharaja-sized bed and thought of Annie. It seemed a waste to be in such a bed all alone. And then I fervently hoped that Annie too was alone, in her bed at the Beaumont and not— I stopped myself. It was best not to imagine such things.
Instead, I turned my mind to Adhir and the dead assassin with the mark of Vishnu on his forehead. If there was indeed a religious angle to the killing, there was one place where the answers might lie. I got up, dressed quickly and headed out of the room.
I considered waking Surrender-not, but there was no point. It was better to let him sleep: he’d need to be at his best later in the day. Instead, I made my way downstairs and out of the front door.
At the Rose Building I commandeered the Mercedes, guiding it along the gravel driveway and out of the palace gates. I headed south towards the bridge. But as I approached the fork, I had a different idea. Instead of making for the river, I took the left fork and headed into town.
The road outside the Beaumont was busy with passing traffic, but the hotel itself seemed sleepy. I parked close by and walked into the lobby. My new friend the receptionist was again on duty, though his face betrayed no sign that we might have met the previous day.
‘I need the room number of one of your guests,’ I said. ‘A Miss Grant.’
It was the second time I’d asked him for the room of an unaccompanied woman. He knew better than to question the motives of a sahib, especially one as willing to grease his palm as I was, but we still had to go through the formalities.
‘We cannot give out such infor—’
I passed a five-rupee note over the counter before he could finish.
‘Room twelve, sir,’ he said, ‘but you won’t find the lady in question there.’
My stomach lurched. Visions of Annie with Punit passed through my head. Had he slipped something funny into her drink and forced her to stay at the palace? Wasn’t that the sort of thing one expected of an oriental despot?
‘She’s breakfasting in the dining room,’ he continued, pointing to a door.
I almost laughed in relief and passed him another five rupees.
The dining room hummed to the conversation of half a dozen round tables. Annie was close to the window; a little further along sat Katherine Pemberley. Silhouetted against the light, she looked so much like Sarah that I felt a renewed pang of anguish. Both women glanced over, and for a split second I had trouble remembering which of the two I’d come to see.
Then Annie smiled and I walked over and asked if I could join her.
‘Be my guest, Captain,’ she said, taking a sip from a porcelain cup. ‘You disappeared rather quickly last night.’
‘Colonel Arora wanted to discuss something,’ I lied. ‘Did you stay long?’
‘Not really.’ She dabbed delicately at her mouth with a starched napkin. ‘The whole evening was rather off colour, to be honest. So are you going to tell me why you’re here?’
‘I came to thank you for persuading Punit to invite me on his tiger-shooting jaunt this afternoon,’ I said. ‘And as a token of appreciation, I thought I might invite you for a little drive in the country this morning, before it gets too hot.’
She eyed me suspiciously, then took another sip of tea.
Annie lit a cigarette as the car flew across the bridge.
‘Where are we going?’
‘I thought we might have a look at that temple.’
She took a pull. ‘The old ruin?’
‘No, the new one. Next to where Adhir was cremated.’
She threw me a look like a slap to the side of the head. ‘I’d have thought you’d be more interested in the relic than the new one, Sam. You always seem happier living in the past.’
Ahead, the temple emerged out of the haze.
I pulled off the road and, amidst a cloud of dust, brought the car to a stop not far from the compound wall. In front of us the temple’s marble carvings shone in stark relief. Annie took the images in her stride, not that I expected anything less. She might be an Anglo-Indian, but when it came to these sorts of things, she was far more Indian than Anglo. She walked towards the doors, touching her hand to her forehead, then her chest. I’d seen Surrender-not do something similar in the presence of the divine.
‘What’s that?’
‘What?’
‘That thing you did with your hand,’ I said, mimicking the action.
‘Oh that. It’s a Hindu thing. A mark of respect for the deities within.’
‘I didn’t know you were religious.’
‘I’m not, but it can’t hurt to be in with the gods, can it?’
I followed her up marble steps into the temple porch. The wooden doors were solid and closed. I was about to push on them when Annie put her hand on my arm.
‘Wait a moment. We can’t just barge in.’
‘Why not? It’s a house of god. Surely they welcome all comers?’
‘It’s not a church, Sam,’ she replied tersely. ‘Some temples don’t even admit lower caste Hindus. How do you think they’re going to react to an Englishman and a half-caste?’
‘Well, they’ll never make converts with an attitude like that,’ I said.
‘Hindus don’t go in much for converting,’ she re
plied, ‘and if they did, I very much doubt they’d start with you.’
‘I’m hurt, Miss Grant,’ I said, as a low rumble came from the doors, which had begun to swing slowly open. ‘Maybe we should ask the priest?’
But it wasn’t a priest who exited first amid a blast of incense. At the head of a small procession came an elderly woman dressed in a plain blue sari with a few golden bangles on her wrists. Her feet were bare. She emerged from the gloom and I realised I recognised her. The Maharani Shubhadra, the Maharaja’s first wife. The one who’d accompanied him to dinner the previous evening before leaving him in the care of the young Third Maharani.
A few paces behind her walked Davé, the Dewan. My presence seemed to come as a shock to him, and not a pleasant one, judging by his reaction. He shot forward like an angry terrier and attempted to screen the Maharani from view.
‘This is holy ground, Captain Wyndham. You cannot be here!’
I caught the Maharani’s eye. A look passed between us, the suggestion of a shared thought contained within it. Perhaps she felt as amused by her minister’s reaction as I did. I decided to take a chance.
‘My apologies, Mr Prime Minister,’ I said. ‘Miss Grant has a love of religious architecture and I offered to bring her out to have a closer look at the temple. Of course, if we are causing offence to Her Highness, we shall go immediately.’
I took Annie by the arm and made to leave.
‘Captain Wyndham,’ said a soft voice behind me, ‘please wait. The Lord Jagannath, in his temple, recognises no distinction between the castes. And I have often thought that the matter should not stop there. Please. You and your companion are welcome to stay.’
She spoke to the Dewan in her own tongue and the prime minister’s face fell. Nevertheless, he swallowed down his instructions, nodded, then headed into the temple.
Fortune favours the bold, or so they say, but in India, there was no such thing as fortune. What we called luck, Hindus ascribed as an attribute of the goddess Lakshmi. And it seemed that she was smiling on me. I hadn’t anticipated asking any questions of the Maharani Shubhadra, but here she was, out of purdah and unchaperoned, at least for the moment. All I needed was an excuse to keep her here for a few minutes. To my surprise, however, it was the old maharani who took the initiative.
A Necessary Evil Page 20
