A Necessary Evil

by Abir Mukherjee

  We left the main party well behind. The Carmichaels had joined Annie and Fitzmaurice in stopping to admire Sir Ernest’s kill, and that left only Surrender-not and Colonel Arora, and a solitary old tracker who walked ahead of us, looking for signs of tiger activity.

  We travelled for what felt like hours, the sounds of the forest enveloping us: the strange, ghost-like bleating of the spotted deer, the crack and rustle of branches as the elephants passed by, and the calls of a dozen different birds. Here, in the midst of nowhere, every thing began to seem simpler, as if Sambalpore and its courtly intrigues were a million miles away.

  The prince broke the silence. ‘You know, in the old days, Father liked to come out here for weeks at a time. He’d get up early each morning, head out into the jungle with only his gun-bearer for company and shoot a tiger before breakfast. He was quite a prodigious hunter. I was seven the first time he allowed me to accompany him and Adhir. They brought out a tiger especially for me to shoot, obviously not a very good one, but to a child of seven it was impressive nonetheless.’

  ‘And did you shoot it?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh yes,’ he replied matter-of-factly. ‘Right between the eyes.’

  The light began to fade, yet still we continued. The tracker searched for signs – a pad print in the dirt, a tuft of fur caught on a thorn bush, even tiger excrement. Finally, he looked up and nodded: he’d caught the trail. We pressed on, keenly aware of something new in the still, sweltering air. It heightened our senses and imbued the forest noises with fresh significance, charging them with electricity.

  Somewhere close by, a crow shrieked and flew skyward. I looked up. Even the monkeys in the pipal trees looked wary. I tasted dust on my tongue. Then abruptly, the tracker stopped and pointed. I saw a streak of something in the undergrowth disappear almost instantly, reappearing a moment later.

  ‘We have him now,’ said the prince.

  Except it wasn’t a ‘him’. The tiger was now only forty feet from us, but behind it were two more – small golden and black cubs.

  ‘A mother,’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ he said and reached for rifle.

  The tigress must have realised the danger. She could easily have run, yet she stood her ground, placing herself between us and her cubs, and bared her teeth.

  Punit raised his rifle, took aim, and then everything seemed to stop, as it often does in that primal moment before the kill. Even the monkeys sensed it. From their positions in the trees, they began to shriek. I looked over at them and something else caught my eye.

  A glint of metal in one of the trees.

  Three years of sitting in a trench in wartime France might not have taught me much, but it had taught me to recognise a sniper when I saw one. I shouted to Punit to get down even as I leaped forwards to pull him to the base of the howdah.

  I heard a shot, then what sounded like an echo. Above me the wooden canopy exploded in a hail of splinters.

  ‘Stay down!’ I shouted as I grabbed my own rifle. Another shot rang out, the bullet ricocheting off the silver lip of the howdah.

  I raised my rifle. It took me a moment to pinpoint the attacker. I couldn’t make out much at this distance save for the fact that the man was a native and clad in a grey-brown shawl. Then came the crack of another gunshot, not from the attacker, but from our left. It was Surrender-not. The other elephant had drawn level and the sergeant too had picked out the sniper. Surrender-not was pretty handy with a rifle, and his first shot was close enough to our assailant to panic the man. My training kicked in. I took aim and fired. My shot wasn’t as accurate as Surrender-not’s but it didn’t have to be. All I had to do was keep the sniper off-balance. The sergeant could do the rest.

  He followed up with another shot and this one found its mark. The gunman dropped his rifle and fell from the tree. Surrender-not trained his rifle on the spot where he should have landed, but, with the tall grass and the fading light, it was hard to make out very much.

  The prince was still on the floor of the howdah. I leant over and tapped him on the shoulder. ‘The danger’s passed, Your Highness.’

  He took my hand as I helped him up. Suddenly there was a shout from the other elephant. It was Colonel Arora.

  ‘He’s running for it!’ he yelled, pointing to a movement in the grass. He turned back to me, ‘You’re a military man, Captain. You know what to do!’

  He ordered his mahout to circle out to the left and the elephant ploughed forward through the undergrowth.

  ‘Your Highness,’ I said, pointing, ‘please order our driver to pursue our fleeing friend.’

  The prince uttered something. The mahout shouted ‘Digar, digaff and we were off again.

  ‘Where’s Arora going?’ asked the prince. ‘Why aren’t they joining us?’

  ‘Tactics, Your Highness,’ I replied. ‘It’s just like tiger hunting. Were the beaters. Our job is to drive our prey into the path of the colonel and Sergeant Banerjee. They’ll do the rest.’

  The light was dying but it was still just possible to follow him. I asked Punit to order the mahout to slow down: there was no point in pushing the attacker forward until Arora and Surrender-not were in position to head him off. It was a fine balance, and once darkness fell the odds would quickly turn in his favour.

  Then a shot rang out.

  ‘Faster!’ I shouted and pointed towards the noise. The other elephant had stopped next to a river. Arora stood on the ground while Surrender-not was sat up in the howdah with his rifle trained on a figure lying prone in the grass.

  ‘Is he all right?’ I shouted down to the colonel.

  Arora looked up. ‘He’ll live.’

  ‘Did you shoot him?’

  ‘No,’ he replied, brandishing the butt of his rifle. ‘I just gave him a tap on the head with this.’

  He knelt down and rolled the man over. The fellow was unconscious. His bare arms and face glistened with sweat, and on his temple, a purple bruise was blossoming where Arora’s rifle butt had made contact. It had smeared the ash that was painted onto his forehead, but the original shape was unmistakable – the Srich-aranam. The mark of the followers of Vishnu.

  The mahout ordered the elephant to its knees and I jumped down.

  ‘It looks like you gave him more than a tap’, I said. ‘Do you recognise him?’

  ‘I can’t say I do,’ replied the colonel. ‘But Sambalpore is a small place. If he’s from around here, someone will recognise him. And if he’s not, we’ll just have to get the truth out of him ourselves.’

  ‘In that case,’ said Prince Punit, ‘we should get him back to Sambalpore.’

  ‘You are unhurt, Your Highness?’ asked Arora.

  ‘I’m perfectly fine,’ replied the prince testily.

  With the unconscious attacker hogtied and unceremoniously dumped atop the colonel’s elephant, we groped our way slowly back through the darkness. It was over an hour before we spotted the flickering lights of the camp. The conversation had been muted since the attack. The prince didn’t seem to want to talk, and I was happy with the silence as I had my own thoughts to organise.

  I no longer saw much point in questioning Punit. Even if I did, asking him about his brother’s assassination moments after someone had taken potshots at him seemed a trifle indelicate. As the camp drew near, though, the prince finally spoke.

  ‘Thank you for your actions back there, Wyndham. I won’t forget it.’

  ‘I did what anyone would have done in my position, Your Highness.’

  ‘Do you think you can get the bastard to talk?’ he asked.

  ‘We’ll find out when we get him back to Sambalpore,’ I said.

  ‘Be that as it may, I’m indebted to you. But, Captain, I’d be grateful for your discretion regarding what transpired today. I wouldn’t want to spoil the mood for our other guests.’

  ‘Naturally, Your Highness,’ I said. ‘I won’t mention it and I’ll make sure Sergeant Banerjee doesn’t either. I can’t speak for Colonel Arora, though.’
>
  ‘You leave Colonel Arora to me,’ he replied.

  Our approach triggered a buzz of activity in the camp. A half-dozen servants ran up to guide the elephants, help us dismount and pass round stiff shots of whisky. The prince knocked his back, then picked up another and headed for the tents, while Colonel Arora and his men dealt with the prisoner. I was about to join them when Surrender-not stopped me.

  ‘I need to speak to you, sir,’ he urged. ‘In private.’

  He had that surly look about him that generally heralded bad news.

  We walked close to where the elephants were being fed and watered, out of earshot of the tents. I took out a pack of Capstans and a box of matches, passed him a cigarette and took one for myself. I lit both, then took a long drag and exhaled.

  ‘What’s on your mind, Sergeant?’

  ‘It’s Colonel Arora, sir. I think he was in two minds about apprehending the attacker.’

  I almost choked on my cigarette.

  ‘It looked to me like he did a pretty good job of clubbing the man over the head. Are you sure?’

  ‘I think so, sir.’

  Surrender-not had to be mistaken. Arora would hardly have wanted the man to get away. ‘Tell me what happened,’ I said with a sigh.

  The sergeant looked over his shoulder. Satisfied that no one could overhear, he continued. ‘As you saw, after the assailant jumped from the tree and started running, the colonel took us off to circle around—’

  ‘Yes,’ I nodded impatiently, ‘to cut off the man’s escape. It was a sound strategy.’

  ‘Yes. But it’s what transpired afterwards, once we were in position, that’s the issue.’ He took a nervous pull of his cigarette. ‘Tie colonel said he thought the man was making for a nearby river, the one place where the forest wasn’t bounded by a wall. We headed for it and managed to reach the ridge above the river a few minutes before we spotted your elephant coming towards us.

  ‘The colonel ordered our mahout to move directly into your path, in the expectation that you were driving the attacker that way. The light was growing faint and he thought there might be a chance that the assailant would slip past us, especially once he saw our elephant. So he decided to get down and conceal himself a little further along the ridge. He told me to remain in the howdah so that I’d have a clear shot if the man came towards me.’

  I was getting impatient. ‘That all seems quite sensible to me. What exactly is your point, Sergeant?’

  ‘This, sir,’ he replied forcefully. ’Despite the darkness, we caught sight of the attacker running towards the river. Sure enough, he saw the elephant and changed course; right into the path of where the colonel was waiting. The next thing I see is the colonel rising from the grass with his rifle. The attacker almost ran into him. Then the two of them stared at each other for a good few seconds. It was only after I’d let off a shot that the colonel hit him with his rifle butt.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘As certain as I could be given the failing light.’

  ‘And does the colonel know you saw him?’

  ‘I don’t think so. His attention was on the attacker.’

  I tried to make sense of it. If Surrender-not were correct, there were two possibilities. The first was that Arora had recognised the gunman, and for whatever reason had frozen – unlikely given his military background. The second was more disturbing – that Arora himself was somehow involved in the attack, and if he were part of such a conspiracy, did it mean he’d also been a party to the assassination of Prince Adhir?

  I leaned against a tree and decided the most useful thing I could do was to finish my cigarette and think it through. It appeared that Punit, my prime suspect, was himself a target for assassination, and Arora, the only man in Sambalpore that I trusted, a man I’d smoked opium with hours earlier, might be a party to the plot. If that wasn’t enough, there was the small matter of a missing Englishman whom I suspected of having been murdered by the kingdom’s prime minister, and a second who believed his life was in danger.

  I stubbed out the cigarette butt on the tree trunk.

  ‘What now, sir?’ asked Surrender-not.

  ‘Now? We go back to Sambalpore and question our guest. But before that, I’m going to head back to the tent and help myself to a double of everything they’ve got.’

  THIRTY-FOUR

  The sudden possibility that Arora might be playing a double game cast doubt on almost everything,

  I needed time to think, to try to figure out just what the hell was going on. I’d hoped the journey back to Sambalpore would give me that time, but Punit had other ideas.

  I wasn’t sure exactly when, but at some point after being shot at, he’d decided to appoint me his de facto bodyguard, at least till we got back to town. And so, in a black mood, I’d joined him and Annie for two of the longest hours of my life, sitting in the front of a ridiculously camouflaged Rolls-Royce, while the man whose life I’d just saved sat in the back and tried to flirt with the object of my affections. As experiences went, it rated slightly behind being subjected to a gas attack in a trench.

  The prince’s chatter was peppered with talk of high society, film stars and exotic locations, all dropped into conversation with the subtlety of a howitzer. But the thing is, a howitzer generally gets the job done. I didn’t doubt that Annie possessed the intelligence to see right through Punit, but I’d imagine it takes an uncommonly strong woman to resist an invitation to Chamonix for Christmas or Cannes in the spring. What was distinctly lacking from his conversation was any mention of the attack that had just taken place, or the fact that the gunman was now on his way to the palace in the back of one of the catering lorries. That felt like odd behaviour for a man who seemed to have a constant need to talk about himself. It was possible he was embarrassed by his role in the proceedings. Maybe had I not been in the car, he’d have recounted the tale for Annie’s benefit, possibly portraying himself as the hero of the encounter. Or maybe the whole episode had put the fear of God into him.

  I did my best to ignore the goings-on in the back and ran through the facts. Adhir was dead, shot by an attacker with the Sricharanam on his forehead. That man had later killed himself. Punit had just been attacked by a gunman with the same mark on his forehead. Portelli had identified it as the mark of the followers of the god Vishnu, of whom the Lord Jagannath was an avatar. And according to the anthropologist, Sambalpore was tied closely to the Jagannath cult.

  That Punit had also been targeted for assassination suggested this might be a wider plot against the entire royal family, and, if so, would imply that he wasn’t the instigator of his brother’s murder. And yet there had to be some connection to the palace, or else how would the concubine, Rupali, have caught wind of it?

  A plot to destroy the royal family, hatched from within the royal court. The two things were difficult to reconcile.

  There was one other possibility that occurred to me, only because I was a suspicious bastard who really didn’t like the prince very much. It struck me, as we jolted over a particularly deep pothole, that perhaps the whole attack on Punit had been a fake, stage-managed to throw me off the scent. Maybe the prince’s life had never been in danger? Maybe the attacker was in the pay of the prince? Maybe that’s why Arora had hesitated before clubbing the man.

  But that would mean Arora was in league with the prince. Had he been Punit’s man all along, charged with ensuring Adhir was murdered in Calcutta? He had, after all, been the one who’d chosen the circuitous route back to the prince’s hotel that day. But it made no sense. It had been Arora who, over the objections of the Dewan, had convinced the Maharaja to allow Surrender-not and me to investigate. And it was Arora who’d organised for the telegraph and telephone lines to be cut to stop us being recalled to Calcutta. Why do any of that if he was responsible for the very crime we were investigating? I was tying myself in knots. There had to be something else, some other explanation for why he might have hesitated in apprehending the attacker.

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sp; Whatever the answers were, I hoped to get them soon enough from our prisoner.

  ‘You’ll join us for dinner, Captain?’ asked Punit as the car drew up outside the guest lodge. ‘It’ll only be a small affair. I was thinking me, Miss Grant, Fitzmaurice, Davé, Colonel Arora and you and your sergeant. It will give us a chance to have that chat you wanted.’

  I couldn’t see any way of refusing.

  ‘Of course, Your Highness,’ I replied, as a footman opened my door. ‘Though I have to attend to something first.’

  ‘Excellent,’ replied the prince, rubbing his hands together. ‘Shall we say nine o’clock?’

  ‘I’ll let Sergeant Banerjee know,’ I said, exiting the car.

  ‘Nine o’clock then,’ the prince confirmed as the footmen closed the doors.

  I turned to Annie as the car moved off towards the palace.

  ‘You’ll need to invest in some warm clothing,’ I said, ‘if you’re planning to spend Christmas in the Alps with Prince Douglas Fairbanks there.’

  ‘Now now, Sam,’ she said as she took my arm. ‘That sort of talk really doesn’t become you. Besides, I’m much more interested in what happened out there in the jungle after you’d left me behind with Fitzmaurice and the Carmichaels. You and Punit spend a few hours on an elephant and now you’re his best friend?’

  ‘I could ask you the same question,’ I said.

  She smiled. ‘Did you manage to ask him what you wanted to?’

  ‘Not really. I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt.’

  She took a breath.

  ‘Adhir was murdered in Calcutta,’ she said patiently. ‘From what you’ve told me, it was a well-planned assassination, and when cornered, the assassin took his own life. Do you honestly think Punit is capable of that sort of planning or engendering that sort of loyalty?’

  I said nothing and instead escorted her inside. The scent of attar of roses hung in the air. At the foot of the stairs she removed her arm from mine.