Valley of Death

by Scott Mariani

  ‘Amal’s younger brother. The archaeology professor. She told me that it all started with him.’

  Brooke nodded. ‘What else did she tell you?’

  ‘That Kabir and his two colleagues were attacked three weeks ago while on a field trip to some remote country area. They were killed. He’s missing.’

  Brooke gave a sigh. ‘More or less, in a nutshell. It happened in north-west India, near a place called Rakhigarhi. It’s very remote. They flew there by helicopter.’

  ‘Charter aircraft?’

  She shook her head. ‘Kabir’s own chopper. He’s a licensed pilot. Or was.’

  ‘What were they doing there?’

  ‘I’m not quite sure. It’s to do with some big archaeological project that he’s spent years on. Sai and Manish were two of his graduate students at the Institute. It’s not unusual for Kabir to fly out to remote locations for his work, but he always stays in touch with his office. He was supposed to have been back after two days. When he didn’t make contact or return, alarm bells started ringing and the local police were called in. The helicopter was found abandoned, raided and stripped of parts. The police discovered the bodies of Sai and Manish a few hundred yards away, but no trace of Kabir himself.’

  Ben digested the details, and remembered what Brooke’s sister had told him. ‘They’d been shot?’

  ‘To pieces, pretty much. According to the police report. They found scores of cartridge cases lying a short distance from the scene.’

  ‘Implying multiple shooters. It doesn’t take that much shooting to take down two or three unarmed targets.’

  She nodded. ‘Using military weapons. The cases were surplus 7.62 NATO stuff.’

  ‘Ex-military,’ Ben said. After many years of being issued home-grown copies of the old L1A1 British infantry rifle, the Indian Army had switched to smaller-calibre INSAS weaponry in the eighties. INSAS stood for Indian Small Arms Systems. A backward step, in Ben’s opinion, because the L1A1 with its more powerful cartridge had been one of the best combat weapons ever made. The change had caused a flood of decommissioned but still perfectly usable arms to hit the market, a vast amount of which had inevitably ended up in the hands of irregular forces like guerrilla armies, terrorist organisations and criminal gangs all across Asia and eastern Europe. Along with even vaster quantities of the now-obsolete ammunition, crates of which traded hands for a song. Hence, a lot of very trigger-happy killers on the loose. The kind of morons who’d shoot folks to pieces just for the hell of it. If Kabir had encountered a bunch like that, the chances of his survival didn’t look too promising.

  Ben said, ‘Which would tend to support the police’s theory that armed bandits were responsible for the attack.’

  ‘That’s their take, and they’re sticking with it. The man in charge of the investigation over there is a police captain called Jabbar Dada. He calls himself “the dacoit hunter”.’

  ‘Dacoit?’

  ‘Outlaws, bandits, gangsters, whatever you want to call them. Apparently that whole region is overrun with marauding criminal gangs. Captain Dada and his police task force are on a mission to wipe them out. Sounds like he’s got his hands full. So on the face of it, the bandit theory seemed like a likely explanation.’

  ‘And I gather your Mr Prajapati shares that opinion, too.’

  Brooke seemed surprised. ‘Phoebe told you about Prateek Prajapati?’

  ‘Just that he’s supposed to be the best private investigator in Delhi.’

  She shrugged. ‘So they say. It was Amal who hired him initially.’

  Ben asked, ‘Why would Amal hire a detective?’

  ‘Because he still wasn’t satisfied, and he was frustrated that not enough was being done. He thought that Dada was too eager to run with the bandit theory, instead of trying to come up with proper evidence. If Kabir was shot along with Sai and Manish, why was there no body?’

  ‘How did they account for that?’

  ‘They just assumed that it must have been dragged off by wild animals,’ Brooke said. ‘Wild dogs, wolves, jackals, maybe even a tiger. Even though the other two bodies hadn’t been touched, as far as we knew. It didn’t seem to make any sense that some hungry scavenger wouldn’t have had a go at them, too. They’d been pecked by vultures, nothing more.’

  ‘Nice.’

  ‘So after endless days of going nuts in London, Amal decided he had to fly out to be here in person, and he jumped on the first plane.’

  ‘You didn’t come with him?’

  ‘No, I had a conference I couldn’t get out of. I came out to join him a few days later.’

  ‘Did Amal go to Rakhigarhi and visit the spot where it happened?’

  Brooke shook her head. ‘You know Amal. He wasn’t made for roughing it. He freaks out any time he ventures more than ten miles from a major city. He stayed here in Delhi while making a thousand phone calls to Captain Dada’s office. Then he went to see Prajapati and employed him to travel out to Rakhigarhi and visit the crime scene on his behalf. Prajapati spoke to the law enforcement officials there and came back satisfied their take on the situation was probably right, and that Kabir had almost certainly been killed along with his two associates, and that it was time to accept it, close the case and move on. Shit happens, basically.’

  ‘Nothing like thorough police work,’ Ben said.

  ‘Amal called me that night. He was very upset. He wouldn’t accept that his brother was dead. Kept insisting that Kabir must be lying injured somewhere, and the police had just missed it, and they weren’t trying hard enough and needed to widen the search. He had a big argument with Samarth about it.’

  ‘The eldest brother.’

  ‘Samarth had already spoken to Captain Dada on the phone and believed he must be right. Amal was furious with him.’

  ‘What about you?’ Ben asked. He could see the questions in her eyes.

  Brooke clutched her drink in one hand and raised the other in a gesture of helplessness. ‘I didn’t know what to tell him. The police had searched the whole area and found nothing. Their conclusions seemed to make sense to me too, at the time.’

  ‘At the time,’ Ben said. ‘But now you’re not so sure?’

  ‘Neither are you,’ she replied. ‘Or you wouldn’t be asking me all these questions about Kabir. First one brother goes missing, then the other. It can’t be just a coincidence, can it? You see it that way, too, don’t you?’

  ‘I’m only trying to build a picture in my mind, Brooke. Maybe it is just a coincidence. Maybe the police are right, and the incident in Rakhigarhi was nothing more than just a tragic case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and that we need to look in a totally different place to figure out why this thing has happened to Amal.’

  ‘Or maybe they’re wrong,’ Brooke said. ‘In fact, the more I think about it, the more certain I am that there’s more to this.’

  Ben looked at her and could see she was resolute. ‘Based on what?’

  ‘Based on something Amal said to me, the night those bastards took him.’

  Chapter 10

  Ben asked, ‘What did Amal say to you?’

  Brooke fell silent, and her gaze seemed to turn inwards as though she was reimagining the scene from that night. ‘When I arrived in Delhi, I’d never seen him so miserable and depressed. He felt like nobody was listening to him, he felt betrayed by Samarth who seemed to just want to accept what the police were saying at face value, and he was frantic at the idea that Kabir was lying somewhere badly hurt and suffering, maybe even dying. I wish I’d never suggested it now, but I had the idea that going out for a meal together that evening might cheer him up. There’s a big food district only about twenty minutes’ walk from here, with a lot of great restaurants. He was reluctant at first, but then agreed that a walk and a nice dinner out would do him good. We never got there.’

  Brooke choked up as she finished speaking, and had to pause for a few moments as she dabbed her eyes. She took another long sip of her scotch. Ben wis
hed she’d stop drinking. She clasped the glass with both hands in her lap and stared at it, shaking her head. Her eyes were pink and brimming again. She was gripping the glass so tightly that Ben was afraid it would break and cut her. ‘Oh God, what’s going to happen to him?’

  ‘You don’t want to focus on those kinds of thoughts,’ Ben said. ‘You need to believe he’s all right.’

  She flashed her tearful eyes on him. ‘You know perfectly well you’re only saying that. Don’t try to bullshit me. He’s either dead already or he’s sitting in some dark hole, absolutely terrified out of his mind. He’s not strong, Ben. He’ll fall apart under this kind of strain.’

  Ben leaned forward and reached out, gently took the glass from her fingers and laid it on the coffee table in front of her. ‘So what did he say?’ he prompted her softly.

  Brooke closed her eyes and let out a long sigh. After a few more moments she was collected enough to resume the story.

  ‘It was as we were walking. It was a lovely evening, cool and peaceful. I’d hoped a stroll would relax him, but he couldn’t stop going over and over the whole thing, about how too little was being done to find his brother, and how he was absolutely certain that this wasn’t just some random bandit attack as everyone thought. I said to him, “Amal, how can you really be so sure it wasn’t?” Like you, I thought maybe the police were actually right and that Amal should listen to Samarth. I couldn’t bear to see him torturing himself that way. But then he stopped walking, and he turned to me in the middle of the street, and he looked at me and said, “There’s something else about Kabir. Something I know that I haven’t told you, or anyone. It changes everything.”’

  Ben asked, ‘Something, like what?’

  Brooke slowly shook her head. ‘I wish I knew.’

  ‘He didn’t say?’

  ‘I could tell he wanted to, but couldn’t bring himself to. It was gnawing at him.’

  Ben frowned. ‘Not even a hint?’

  ‘I only know what little I was able to get out of him. He said that Kabir called him a few days before leaving on his trip, very excited, and confided something really important. Not just your typical run-of-the-mill secret. Something huge.’

  ‘If the trip was related to his work, this archaeological project you said he was working on, then presumably this piece of information relates to that as well?’

  ‘It’s a fair assumption.’

  ‘In which case, what are the possibilities?’

  Brooke shrugged. ‘Archaeologists dig stuff up. Maybe Kabir did, too.’

  ‘A discovery? Of what?’

  ‘I don’t know, Ben. You tell me.’

  Ben mulled it over for a moment or two, then decided that it was all too vague to even try to speculate about. ‘And Amal thought this secret, or discovery, or whatever it is, of Kabir’s might have had some bearing on the reason for the attack?’

  Brooke nodded. ‘That was why he was so convinced it wasn’t just some random incident. But whatever it is, Kabir had made him promise not to tell anyone.’

  ‘Not even you? His own wife?’ It was hard for Ben to say that last bit.

  ‘That’s what I said to him, too. Asked him why he couldn’t share it with me, if it was so important. Especially if it meant something about what happened.’

  ‘And his reply?’

  ‘He said to me, “He’s my brother, Brooke. Please don’t ask me to betray his trust.”’

  ‘Okay, fair enough. But why would Amal hold this information back from the police, if it might have shed some different kind of light on the investigation?’

  ‘I asked him the same question. He said a promise was a promise, and that was the end of it.’

  ‘Is Amal normally this stubborn?’

  ‘Look, I know you think of him as just this bookish nerd,’ Brooke said.

  Ben held up his palms in defence. ‘Did I ever call him that?’

  ‘But he has principles. If he felt it was wrong to betray his brother’s trust, wild horses couldn’t drag it out of him.’

  ‘I’m sure. You’d have to give him a Chinese burn to get him to talk, or twist his earlobe or something.’

  She gave him a resentful look. ‘That’s a low thing to say, Ben.’

  ‘I’m sorry. It might help us, too, if we had any clue what it was. You don’t have any idea?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘That’s just great. Nice to have so much to go on.’

  ‘One thing we can be sure of,’ Brooke said. ‘Kabir had some kind of big, important secret apparently connected with his trip to Rakhigarhi. And Amal was in on it too. Next thing, both brothers have disappeared, first one and then the other. The confidential information is what connects them.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  Her cheeks flushed. ‘Not maybe, Ben. Definitely. It means Amal was right. There’s more to this than a chance bandit attack. Has to be. And it also has to mean that whatever happened to him is somehow involved with what happened to Kabir. It can’t possibly be a coincidence.’

  ‘And all we have to do is find out what this secret was that Kabir made his brother swear never to tell a soul about. Bingo, our first inkling of a lead.’

  ‘If anyone can find out, you can,’ she said.

  ‘Do you think he’d have told his other brother?’

  ‘Samarth?’

  ‘If Kabir told him what he told Amal, he might share it with us.’

  Brooke thought about it, then shook her head. ‘From the way Amal talked, I doubt that Kabir confided in anyone else within the family. The two younger brothers have a closer relationship than with Samarth. He’s always kept himself at a distance. There’s some tension there.’

  ‘What kind of tension?’

  ‘This is India. Traditions are still very strong here. It had always been understood that all three brothers would enter the family business, take over from their father when he retired, and work together to expand the empire that old Basu had founded. But Amal and Kabir both chose to go their own ways, which caused a certain amount of bad blood between them and Samarth. Their father too, though he’s really quite sweet once you get to know him. He’s the reason I was able to get you here so fast. A couple of favours were called in from some very high-level people.’

  ‘So I gathered. Let’s get back to the events of that evening. You say you never made it to the restaurant. The snatch happened on the walk?’

  ‘Just before we got there. Not long after we’d had that conversation.’

  ‘I think you’ve been cooped up in this room long enough. Let’s get some air. Do you have a car?’

  She looked momentarily blank, thrown by the apparent change of subject. ‘There’s a Jag house car that I use as a runaround. It’s down in the garage. Or else we could get Prem to drive us in the Maybach.’

  Jaguars. S-Class Pullman limousines. Back when they were an item, Brooke’s drive had been a clapped-out Suzuki jeep. Ben said, ‘Let’s leave Prem out of it.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  He replied, ‘To the food district.’

  ‘I’m not hungry.’

  ‘We’re not going there to eat. I want to see the crime scene for myself. You’re going to take me to the spot Amal was kidnapped.’

  Chapter 11

  The sun outside was more intense as midday approached. The air felt as hot and heavy and moist as steam, trapped under the pale sky. Ben’s shirt began to stick to his back the moment he left the air-conditioned cool of the house, but despite the heat Brooke had wrapped a light shawl around her bare shoulders. Green and yellow silk, with a paisley pattern. It looked good on her. She carried a small embroidered handbag, or a clutch purse, or whatever woman termed these accessories, on a thin strap. Ethnic fashion wear, probably bought locally for a fraction of what some trendy London boutique would charge. The handbag seemed to hang heavy on its strap. It always mystified Ben what women carried around in those things.

  Bees and giant dragonflies buzzed about the flower beds as she led
him across the garden and down a path to the Ray residence’s garage block, a stretched-out and low open-fronted building painted white to match the house, with exotic ivy growing up its walls. ‘I suppose you could call it the family fleet,’ she said, showing Ben the row of cars inside under the shade. All lined up neatly facing outwards, all immaculately waxed and polished. Prem had parked the limousine in a space at the end of the row, dwarfing the bright red Ferrari next to it.

  ‘Whose is the flying tomato?’ Ben asked. ‘Amal’s?’

  ‘Amal doesn’t drive,’ she replied. ‘That’s Kabir’s. The Audi roadster is Prem’s. The little yellow Fiat belongs to Esha, Samarth’s wife. She doesn’t get out much, though.’

  ‘So I gathered. Unlike her husband, who’s never at home.’

  ‘He parks his Bentley there,’ Brooke said, pointing at an empty space next to the tiny Fiat. ‘He’s usually home by six or seven, if it’s not a busy day at the office. You might get to meet him later.’

  The silver Jaguar that Brooke used as general transport occupied the far end of the row. It was the latest F-Pace SUV model, compact and boxy. But its plain-Jane exterior was wrapped around a five-litre supercharged V8 engine. Whatever the Rays owned, it seemingly had to be top of the spec list. By contrast, Esha Ray’s choice of a cheap and cheerful Fiat seemed a little out of place.

  Ben pointed at it and said, ‘Not exactly your typical millionaire’s ride.’

  Brooke shrugged. ‘She used to drive a Porsche 911. She loved that car, but she sold it a few weeks ago. Actually, Samarth made her sell it.’

  ‘Made her?’

  ‘Said the insurance premium was too pricey for a woman’s runaround. That’s what she told me, anyway.’

  ‘I suppose rich folks don’t get that way by spending money unnecessarily,’ Ben said.

  Brooke shrugged again. ‘Whatever. Listen, do you mind driving? I’m a bit light-headed from the whisky.’

  ‘I think I can just about manage that.’