Valley of Death

by Scott Mariani

  Not good.

  Kabir’s Browning was still nestling in Ben’s waistband. But seven on one wasn’t his idea of favourable odds in a gunfight, least of all in broad daylight in the middle of the street. So he moved fast away from the Jaguar and made for the kerb. To reach it he had to get past the motorcycle that had pulled up on his right. As he bolted towards the pavement the bike rider blipped his throttle and dumped his clutch, and the machine lurched forwards in a deliberate attempt to block his way. The front wheel caught Ben’s leg a glancing blow and made him stumble, but he managed to stay on his feet and kept going. People in the crowd were noticing and reacting in alarm at the sight of the guns. A cry went up, spreading fast. In less than two seconds the whole street was erupting into chaos of a whole new kind as the overturned tuk-tuk and its spilled cargo were completely forgotten.

  The four men from the white Toyota and the three from the taxi raced after Ben. The guy in the flowery shirt yelled out, ‘Stop!’

  But Ben had no intention of stopping. He made it to the kerbside and ran.

  Chapter 20

  The crowd scattered in panic as Ben pushed his way through, yelling ‘Get out of the way! Get down!’ If his seven pursuers opened fire a lot of innocent bystanders were going to get caught up in it.

  The motorcycle that had rammed Ben’s leg revved hard and mounted the kerb, ploughing frightened pedestrians aside as the rider came after him. A woman in a green silk dress screamed and only just managed to yank her small infant to safety. The rider braked sharply to avoid her, its front forks plunging against their stops, then surged onwards with a howl from its twin exhausts and charged across the fast-clearing pavement to cut off Ben’s escape. The passenger dismounted from the pillion and blocked Ben’s way as he ran.

  Ben saw the gun in his gloved hand, and ran straight into him without slowing down, shouldering the guy hard in the chest and knocking him flying. The guy’s helmet hit the pavement with a loud crack. Ben ran on, pulling out Kabir’s Browning as he went. The bike rider gunned his machine and came on again, roaring straight towards him. Ben ducked aside to let it pass, then grabbed the rider by the belt of his motorcycle jacket and felt his arm stretch as the rider was yanked off his seat. The riderless motorcycle hurtled into a parked truck at the kerbside, caved its whole side in with a tremendous crash and toppled over.

  Ben let go of the dismounted rider, who was too stunned to give him any more trouble. The seven men from the cars were another matter. They were in hot pursuit and Ben had no time for anything except to run.

  Then the guy in the loose flowery shirt pulled out a cop badge and yelled, ‘POLICE! STOP!’

  The sight of the badge sent multiple thoughts spinning through Ben’s mind, all at once. This was India. The badge could be a fake. These guys might not be cops at all. But if the badge was real and they actually were cops, he wasn’t going to do the search for Amal any favours by getting into a running gun battle with them. Plus, they could shoot him dead in the street and nobody would blink twice.

  Ben stopped running. He let Kabir’s pistol drop from his hand. The cops closed around him. The one with the flowery shirt and the badge said, ‘I’m Detective Rajiv Lamba, New Delhi Police. You’re under arrest.’

  As he said it, a pair of marked police patrol cars arrived on the scene and uniformed officers jumped out, instantly deferential to Lamba and his plain clothes colleagues. Maybe they were real cops, after all.

  Ben said, ‘For what? Not shooting at a bunch of guys trying to jump me? You have a strange way of conducting your business, Detective.’

  One of Lamba’s guys picked the Browning off the pavement, unloaded it and bundled the separate weapon, magazine and unchambered loose round into a plastic bag while another one frisked Ben for more firearms and took his passport, wallet, phone, cigarettes and lighter. Ben asked him, ‘What do you think I’m going to do, set fire to you?’

  Lamba said, ‘Come with us, Mr Hope.’

  They walked him back towards the cars. The motorcyclist and pillion passenger were back on their feet and had taken off their helmets, standing at the kerbside near their wrecked bike and the van it had ploughed into, whose owner had appeared and was arguing loudly with one of the uniformed cops. The capsized tuk-tuk was still lying on its side in the middle of the road, but the fruit and vegetables scattered around it were no longer the focus of attention for the crowd of bystanders, which had doubled in size as everyone stared in fascination at the police detaining the foreigner, probably a mass murderer or American intelligence agent caught spying. There was a lot of animated discussion and pointing and snapping of selfies with the arrest scene in the background.

  Lamba sent one of his men to wave the onlookers away. Another clambered into the Jaguar, while Ben was herded into the back of the unmarked white Toyota with a detective either side of him. Lamba got in the driver’s door, started the car and used his concealed flashing blues and a few whoops of his siren to force a path through the stopped traffic as he U-turned back the way they’d come. The same three guys who had emerged from the yellow taxi got back in, and the taxi fell in behind the Toyota with a marked patrol car bringing up the rear.

  Ben asked, ‘Anyone care to tell me what this is about? I have an appointment to keep this afternoon. I’d be very upset if I missed it.’

  Nobody spoke. The detective who’d relieved Ben of his cigarettes took out the pack and offered them around to his buddies. Ben glowered at him. The guy threw back a smirky grin, lit up and puffed smoke in Ben’s face.

  Lamba drove in silence, and twenty minutes later they were arriving at a shabby, low-slung building with a bilingual POLICE STATION sign above the doorway in English and Hindi. Lamba drove around the back, down a side street full of litter, and pulled into a compound with mesh security fencing and a motley collection of police vehicles. Lamba parked beside them, joined by the yellow taxi and the marked patrol car. He turned to Ben in the back seat and said, ‘Let’s go.’

  Ben didn’t particularly want to go anywhere with these guys, but for the moment he let things roll. The seven plainclothes detectives and a couple of uniforms escorted him inside the building, which was as dishevelled and grubby on the inside as it was on the outside. So far he hadn’t been handcuffed or read any rights. Which was interesting, as it meant they weren’t properly arresting him. Not yet, at any rate.

  Once inside the station the uniforms and four of the detectives drifted off. Lamba and the remaining two walked Ben down a series of corridors to a nondescript interview room and sat him down at a plastic table with four plastic chairs around it. The tabletop was bare apart from a plain card folder containing some papers. There was a single barred window, so dusty and cobwebbed that it was opaque. The room smelled of mildew and, faintly, of vomit.

  Lamba motioned to the other detectives. One was ghoulish and reedy with a few strands of grey hair left on top, the other portly with the same kind of dyed black moustache and panda eyes as Prateek Prajapati. Lamba said, ‘These are my colleagues, Detective Savarkar and Detective Agarwal. We have a few queries we would like you to answer for us.’

  ‘Me too,’ Ben said. ‘Such as, what am I doing here? And when do I get my phone call? If I’m to be questioned I want a lawyer present.’

  ‘There’s no need for that,’ Lamba said with a smile. ‘This is not a formal interrogation. We’re all friends here. Aren’t we, boys?’ Savarkar and Agarwal responded with nasty grins. Lamba lowered himself into a chair across the table from Ben, picked up the card folder and opened it to sift through the paperwork, which was a mixture of handwritten notes and badly-photocopied official documents.

  Then the questions began.

  Chapter 21

  Detective Lamba kicked off the interview. ‘You entered this country shortly after ten thirty this morning, without a proper travel visa.’

  Ben shook his head in amazement. ‘Is that what this is about? Wowee, you people are on the ball. I’ve only just got off the plane.’


  ‘That’s not what this is about,’ Lamba said, leaning back in his chair with his fingers laced over his belly. The butt of his pistol stuck out of his belt, like some TV hard guy he probably had thought looked cool. He reached out and tapped one of the handwritten sheets in front of him. ‘According to my information, you represent the interests of the Ray family. That’s what we’d like to discuss with you.’

  ‘Then your information is as screwed up as your arrest procedures,’ Ben said. ‘I represent nobody. I’m here in India for personal reasons that are my own business and no one else’s. And if I’m not under arrest I can get up and walk out of here any time I want.’

  Savarkar, the reedy ghoul, said in a thick accent, ‘We only want to talk to you. Nothing more.’

  Ben replied, ‘Is that why you’ve been following me all day, for a chat? That’s a lot of unnecessary manpower to expend, when all you had to do was walk up to me and say hello.’

  Lamba said, ‘We were hoping we might get you alone. Simpler that way. The opportunity arose. Here we are. Now please tell us what your involvement is with Amal and Kabir Ray.’

  Ben said, ‘I don’t think I’m under any obligation to tell you anything. But seeing as I’m a generous kind of person, I don’t mind divulging that members of the family asked for my help. You might be aware of the recent incidents that have affected them.’

  ‘Which family members?’

  ‘Specifically, Amal’s wife, Kabir’s sister-in-law. And Amal’s father, Basu Ray.’

  Savarkar scribbled a note on a pad. Lamba asked, ‘How well do you know Basu Ray?’

  ‘Never met the man. Or Kabir. And I only just met the eldest brother, Samarth, for the first time today. I really only know Amal and Brooke.’

  ‘The Englishwoman. You spent the morning together.’

  ‘She’s an old friend,’ Ben said. ‘Do you have a law against friends spending time together?’

  ‘That depends on what they’re up to,’ Lamba said. ‘So tell me, what kind of help were you asked to provide to the family?’

  ‘To assist with the missing persons enquiry, in a private capacity. Apparently, local law enforcement have been doing a less than spectacular job of locating the whereabouts of the brothers, and of tracking down those responsible for the kidnap and the attack on Kabir and his associates.’

  ‘Rakhigarhi is a long way from Delhi,’ Lamba said. ‘What happens there is technically outside of our jurisdiction.’

  ‘Very convenient. All the more reason for bringing in an outside consultant.’

  ‘That’s what you are, a consultant?’

  ‘I have some experience of finding people who aren’t easily found. It’s what I used to do, among other things.’

  ‘Among what other things?’ Lamba asked.

  ‘I’m sure you’ve already checked out my past record, or the parts of it that flunkies at the lower pay grades are allowed to see.’

  ‘You served with the British Army. Retired several years ago, rank of major, operational details not disclosed.’

  ‘And if my former overlords in Her Majesty’s Ministry of Defence don’t feel bound to share that information, far be it from me to betray their trust.’

  ‘Very well,’ Lamba said. He glanced again at his handwritten notes. ‘And now you own a business in France. What is this “Le Val”?’

  ‘No secrets there,’ Ben said. ‘It’s what it says on the label, a training facility where we teach guys like you how to do their jobs properly. You ought to think about signing up for a course or two. Maybe get a season ticket. God knows you need it.’

  Detective Agarwal didn’t much appreciate the dig. ‘We’re doing our job,’ he said sourly.

  ‘Not with any great degree of success, obviously. Or else you might have found Amal and Kabir Ray by now.’

  Savarkar said in his impenetrable accent, ‘You think you can do better? Doesn’t look like it to me.’

  ‘I’m just getting started,’ Ben replied evenly. ‘Or was, until you butted in and disrupted my schedule. I’m supposed to be meeting someone right now and you’re making me look unprofessional by not turning up. I’ll have to offer my sincere apologies on behalf of Delhi’s finest.’

  Lamba smiled. ‘So, as a professional, what’s your opinion on the chances of finding Amal and Kabir Ray? Optimistic?’

  ‘Not pessimistic. In my experience, when someone kidnaps someone, there’s always a way to find out who did it and where they’ve taken them. They might not be alive any longer, but that’s a different story.’

  ‘Sounds like you’re pretty confident you can easily solve this case,’ Savarkar said. ‘Maybe that’s because you already know who did it.’

  Ben turned to him with a cold look. ‘That would be news to me, Detective. But I’d be interested to know how you came to that conclusion.’

  ‘A lot of these ex-military types end up drifting into things they shouldn’t,’ Savarkar replied with a noncommittal gesture. ‘We see it all the time.’

  ‘Do I detect a subtle whiff of accusation in there somewhere, or I am being paranoid?’

  ‘Let’s cut the crap, okay?’ Lamba said. ‘We have a pretty good idea that the disappearances of the Ray brothers aren’t a coincidence. And we think we know why. We think you do, too.’

  ‘I’m with you on the first part,’ Ben said. ‘But as for the second part, if I’m correct in assuming that we’re talking “criminal activity”, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but you’re pissing on the wrong fencepost.’

  Savarkar scowled. ‘What is that supposed to mean?’

  Ben said, ‘It means you’re making a fallacious judgment, officers. Or maybe you’re just plain stupid. Let me see if I’m understanding this correctly. You believe that these two individuals, both with perfectly clean records, one a respected archaeology professor and the other an aspiring playwright who happens to live in another country, are, or were, involved with some sort of criminal associates here in India, of whom they’ve now fallen foul. Drugs being the top possibility for what they were up to, seeing as narcotics are at the root of the vast majority of organised crime. All of which adds up to the Ray brothers as being regarded more as suspects than as victims of wrongdoing. Right so far?’

  Lamba said nothing but the look in his eyes as he gazed thoughtfully at Ben was answer enough. The other two exchanged glances.

  Ben said, ‘So my appearance in the middle of all this now has led you to regard me as a potential suspect, too. But you don’t have anything to really base it on, other than some vague supposition that a guy with my background is probably involved in a lot of dirty dealings, everything from gun running to mercenary contracts, maybe some muscle work on the side, the odd hit here and there. Hence this little fishing expedition of yours. Am I still on the right track?’

  Agarwal growled, ‘You’re in a lot more trouble than you think you are. We could charge you for possession of an illegal firearm, for a start.’

  Ben said, ‘And I could get onto my friend Mr Banerjee at the Indian Foreign Office and complain about the unlawful harassment of a British citizen. You snatch me off the street at gunpoint, now you’re holding me without charge, refusing me the right to make a phone call or seek legal counsel, and making all kinds of defamatory accusations. You’re way out of your depth.’

  ‘Oh, we know how well connected the Rays are,’ Lamba said.

  Ben replied, ‘And you obviously know that their influence in the right places is the reason I’m in the country without having gone through the official hoops to get a visa. Now two of them disappear in two unexplained incidents that might appear disconnected but most certainly aren’t, one involving death and bullets, the other a kidnapping without a ransom demand. Strange, I grant you. You’re not the only ones baffled and intrigued by it. But how you people choose to interpret the facts is to build a picture that casts the Rays as some kind of organised crime empire, like the Indian mafia. I’m guessing this is part of some agenda against them g
oing back years. Maybe old Basu made some enemies coming up, and this is a chance for certain parties to get their own back by dragging his family name and reputation through the mud, or maybe even getting them into real trouble. I really don’t care. But according to this theory, let’s suppose that the crooked Ray brothers were involved in some turf war against a rival outfit. Next thing, they’re taken out of the picture. Whereupon I suddenly turn up, out of the blue, magicked into the country under the radar. That pricked your ears up enough to put together a surveillance team. You’ve probably watched me coming and going from their gated estate, seen me driving around in their car. And you’ve been foaming at the mouth to find out, what’s this guy doing for them? What’s his role in this?’

  Lamba just shrugged and said nothing.

  Ben went on, ‘And like a bunch of impatient children who sneak downstairs early on Christmas morning, you just couldn’t wait to find out what Santa brought you. So now your way to crack the case is to lean on me, hoping I might incriminate myself. Or if you get really lucky, I might outright break down and confess to my crimes in the hope that you’ll go easy on me.’

  Lamba was silent. Savarkar was staring out of the opaque window. Agarwal seemed to have taken a sudden and intense interest in his fingernails.

  ‘Which tells me that you guys must be desperate,’ Ben said. ‘Because not only is bringing me in like this on a wing and a prayer the worst tactical move in the world, if I really was guilty, it positively screams that you’ve obviously got not a shred of evidence to back up your little fantasy scenario. If you had, you’d have got yourselves a search warrant and been all over the Ray family residence like a plague of locusts hoping to find their stashes of heroin and cocaine, and maybe a few large bundles of illicit cash that you could “confiscate”.’

  All three detectives remained quiet.

  Ben said, ‘This is why Prajapati, the private investigator, dropped the case and backed off. Because you people told him to. He was one of you, for thirty years. Probably owed someone a favour, or else someone had some dirty on him. You didn’t want him poking around and getting in the way of what might turn out to be a major drugs bust. Worse still, taking credit for it.’