‘I’m sorry if I upset you. I felt you needed to know the truth.’
‘I appreciate your honesty, Ben. You were always honest with me, no matter what.’
He said nothing to that, sensing the reference to the troubles of their past.
Brooke went on, ‘And the truth is that the odds are bad. And that I should be getting ready for the worst outcome. Just like Samarth said.’
‘Maybe, or maybe not. There’s only one way to find out, by seeing what’s what in Rakhigarhi. Could be tonight, could be tomorrow. Soon. I promise. Then we’ll know, for better or for worse.’
She took another sip of wine, set down her glass and twirled it thoughtfully on the tabletop. ‘And where exactly will I be while this is happening?’
‘You’ll be here at the hotel, where I can be certain you’re safe. This has got to be the most secure location in Delhi.’
She looked up from the table and fixed him with an emerald green look that went through him like a laser. ‘Ben Hope, if you think you or wild horses can keep me from coming with you to Rakhigarhi, you’re either more naïve than I’ve given you credit for, or you just don’t know me. I will not be squeezed out of this.’
‘Brooke—’
‘I’m coming with you,’ she insisted. ‘That’s absolutely and utterly final. No argument. End of discussion.’
‘I’d almost managed to forget how stubborn you can be.’
She snorted. ‘That’s a good one, coming from you. Give me one good reason why I should stay behind.’
‘This is dangerous.’
‘You know I can handle myself. I’ve been in tight situations before.’
‘And I work alone.’
‘Except you’re taking this Haani along for the ride. So why not me?’
‘He’s been there before. He knows the terrain.’
‘And he’s a guy.’
‘Don’t start that.’
‘No place for a woman, right? Scared I’ll slow you down? Get in your way?’
He looked at her. ‘You want honesty?’
‘Always.’
He said, probably a little more sharply than he intended to, ‘The honest truth is that I care more about what happens to you than anything else in the world. More than what might happen to me. In fact by comparison I don’t give a shit what happens to me. I worry that if you’re there, I won’t be able to focus on what I need to do because I’ll be too distracted by the absolute bloody terror of you getting hurt. Because I couldn’t live with myself if that happened. Because you matter so damn much to me, and you always have, and you always will. That’s why I want you to stay behind.’
His words seemed to snatch her breath away for a few moments. She opened her mouth to reply, then closed it again. She blinked a few times. Then flushed scarlet and looked back down at the table, and shifted around in her chair.
He said, ‘I’m sorry. That didn’t come out the way I meant.’ As he watched her, he saw a tear well up in the corner of one eye, then the other. She wiped them quickly away.
‘Yes, it did. I’m sorry too. Let’s go upstairs. You need to rest. It’s going to be a long night.’
Ben was feeling rueful as they headed up to Brooke’s room. He was glad of the fact that the lift was full of other hotel guests, giving him an excuse to stay quiet. Brooke seemed ill at ease, too, and he sensed it wasn’t just the strain of what she was going through with Amal. The lift glided open on the seventh floor, which was no less richly decked out than the rest of the place, and they walked in silence to her door.
The Royal Premiere room might have been the thrifty option but its sheer unabashed luxury still made the London Dorchester look like a cheap bed and breakfast. In the city with the biggest poverty problems on earth and four million souls living trapped in the most subhuman conditions imaginable. Ben wouldn’t have been able to get the disparity out of his head, if he hadn’t been so dog tired. Besides, he had enough to feel guilty about right now. He made straight for the plush sofa and was about to throw himself down on it when Brooke touched his arm and smiled and said, ‘You really don’t have to sleep on the sofa.’
The first words she’d said to him since they’d left the bar. They also happened to have been the very same words she’d spoken to him on the memorable evening he’d visited her place in Richmond, years ago, when they first got together. He didn’t know if she remembered it, but he certainly hadn’t forgotten.
He had raised no objections on that occasion, and for different reasons was in no mood to protest now. He crossed the broad expanse of Persian rug towards a four-poster bigger than a Cadillac Fleetwood, kicked off his boots and collapsed face-down on the cool, silky bedspread, closed his eyes and felt his muscles relax. Not even the self-blame and regret for opening his mouth too big earlier, let alone the worries about what lay in store at the end of the road to Rakhigarhi, could stop the rising tide of sleep from swallowing him up.
He drifted off within seconds.
Chapter 34
When he awoke, he was instantly aware of Brooke’s presence close by. He propped himself on an elbow and twisted his head upwards to look at her. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, one foot dangling towards the floor, the other tucked under her, leaning on one hand with her body canted diagonally across his legs but not touching him. She’d removed the green shoes. Her toes were as cute as he remembered them. She was gazing pensively at him, with her head cocked to one side so that a cascade of auburn curls hung low across one shoulder and rested along the curve of her arm. He realised that she’d gently draped a blanket over him as he slept. The drapes were drawn and a dimmed bedside lamp cast a soft glow.
‘Hello,’ he said. ‘What time is it?’ He looked at his watch, bleary-eyed.
‘Nearly eight o’clock,’ she replied softly, still gazing at him the same way.
‘Have you been sitting there all this time?’
‘I like watching you sleep. You looked so restful. Like a little boy. Not a care in the world.’
‘That’s me all over,’ he said.
‘And I was thinking about a lot of things while I watched you, and I wanted to say I’m sorry.’
He sat up straighter on the bed and leaned his back against the satin headboard. She shifted her body away from his legs to give him space.
‘It’s me who should be sorry,’ he replied after a pause. ‘What I said earlier, it was crossing the line. It was a stupid thing to come out with.’
She shook her head, and the auburn curls danced against her arm and shoulder. ‘Actually, no. It was a lovely thing to say, Ben. You just caught me a little off balance, that’s all. But I wasn’t talking about that. It’s other things I’m sorry about.’
‘What other things?’ he asked, still too half-asleep to grasp her meaning.
‘About us,’ she replied quietly. ‘About what happened between us. The way it all went so wrong, after being so happy together.’
‘Yes, we were. And we both know what went wrong. It was my fault. I let you down.’
She shook her head again. Her eyes were full of pain and shining from the glow of the lamp. ‘That’s how I used to think. I blamed you so, so much. It took me a long time to understand what really happened, and why I was wrong.’
‘I walked out on our wedding,’ he said. ‘I deserted you, and I paid the price. I’ve been paying it ever since. No less than I deserved.’
‘You were going off to help a friend in need,’ she said. ‘Roberta was in trouble. She knew that you were the only person in the world who could get her out of it, and so she came to you. Just the same way that I came to you, because I know you’re the only person who could help me now.’
‘I’m glad you did.’
‘When you dropped everything to go off with her on the eve of our wedding, it felt like you were dropping me, first and foremost. Going off with the old flame who’d come back into your life out of the blue. That’s how it seemed. I’ve never felt so rejected. It broke my heart.’<
br />
He wished she’d stop. It was too painful to hear. ‘You think I don’t know that?’ he whispered.
‘But if I hadn’t let my emotions rule my mind, I’d have realised that’s just who you are. That’s what you do. When people need you, you go to them. You make things right. No matter what the situation. No matter what the risk. That’s why you’re Ben Hope.’
Ben said nothing.
‘And now I needed you the same way. Now I was the old flame, popping up out of nowhere and disrupting your life with my cry for help, except I didn’t even have the courage to come to you directly, and I sent Phoebe to do it for me. But you still dropped everything without hesitation to come to help me and Amal, just like you did for Roberta.’
Ben just listened.
‘I’m ashamed that I treated you the way I did back then. My heart was broken, and so I had to break yours in return, just out of anger and hurt pride. I let my stupid ego destroy everything we had together, and I know that now, and I don’t know where to begin to ask for your forgiveness.’
Ben said, ‘There’s nothing to forgive, Brooke.’
But there was a lot to be sorry about. Like a lifetime of happiness together that had been snatched away forever. Like a thousand unhappy memories that still felt like a knife in the guts and that the passing of time could do nothing to heal. Like the pain that he was feeling right now, being here with her and reliving the bitter emotions all over again.
‘If I could take it all back—’ she breathed, then stopped herself from saying more.
‘You shouldn’t talk that way. You’re happy with Amal.’
She said nothing. There was a lot going on behind those green eyes.
‘Aren’t you?’
She said, ‘And now what? What if—?’
‘Don’t talk like that either.’
She tried to smile, the eyes filling up with tears now. ‘How do you want me to talk?’
‘Maybe it’s best not to talk at all,’ he said. ‘Shush now.’
She leaned towards him, and held him so tightly that it was as though she was clinging to him out of desperation. He felt the muscle tension in her arms, and knew from the soft heaving tremors in her body that she was crying. ‘I’m so glad you’re here,’ she murmured in his ear. Her voice sounded snuffly and hoarse. ‘I’ve missed being with you. So much.’
‘Me too,’ he replied. Something was stinging his eyes and hurting his throat. He swallowed. Damn it all. He nuzzled his face into her shoulder and squeezed her tighter.
She whispered, ‘Take me with you. Please don’t leave me alone here. I don’t think I could bear it.’
‘I won’t leave you alone, Brooke.’
Chapter 35
That was how it was decided that Brooke would join Ben and Haani in driving to Rakhigarhi that night. After Ben had quickly showered and changed and munched most of the sandwiches they ordered up from room service, it was time to head down to the car and set off across the city to collect their travelling companion. The weather had turned, the evening sky heavy and sultry and threatening a downpour of rain. Brooke unpacked a lightweight raincoat from one of her expensive Burberry suitcases, and crammed it into her handbag along with an extendable travel umbrella.
‘Good to see you brought your survival gear,’ Ben said. ‘We might need it.’
‘Don’t mock. These things are very practical.’
‘I don’t know how the SAS copes without them.’
They rode the lift down to the lobby and made their way out to the car park. The black night sky was shrouded with even blacker clouds and the air was moist. As they clambered into the Jaguar, Brooke asked for the dozenth time, ‘Are you sure we can trust this Haani?’
‘He’s okay,’ Ben replied. ‘And he’s seen the map. He’s the only person left who was closely involved from the beginning. Nobody else can guide us better than he can to where Kabir believed X marks the spot.’
‘Unless we drove over to the house instead and got the map for ourselves. Then we’d be independent.’
‘By breaking into Kabir’s safe? Only he had the combination.’
‘You’ve broken into safes before.’
‘With explosives and power tools,’ he said. ‘Not exactly discreet. Having your brother-in-law call the police and get us arrested for attempted burglary might set back our plans somewhat.’
Ben was getting adept at carving fast through the chaos of the Delhi traffic, which was even denser and wilder at night. He retraced the same route he’d taken earlier, in reverse, heading northwards. Brooke had never seen the worst parts of the city, and was shocked at the sight of the slum districts. ‘I knew it was bad, but this is dreadful. Those poor people. Folks in the West just have no idea what poverty really is, do they?’
‘I don’t know about that,’ Ben said. ‘Life can be pretty tough when you can only take two overseas holidays a year, drive a downmarket brand of new car and have to settle for an older generation iPad.’
Right on schedule, they reached Haani’s street and Ben parked in the same place he had earlier. He and Brooke stepped out of the Jaguar and looked around them. The neighbourhood was still bustling, though the street vendors were gone, replaced by other tradespeople of a more nocturnal variety, like the prostitutes and drug dealers who had come out to play. Though if the skies opened up the way they were threatening to, the street would soon empty as everyone ran to shelter from the deluge. Brooke had her handbag on her shoulder and was keeping her umbrella handy, with her thumb on the spring release catch like a flick knife ready to be deployed.
Ben looked at his watch. Nine o’ clock precisely. Dead on time for their rendezvous, but he could see no sign of Haani at the appointed meeting place. ‘He said he’d wait for me outside the leaning apartment building.’
Brooke said dryly, ‘Obviously he must have changed his mind. Maybe we’ll have to get the map for ourselves after all.’
‘Or else he decided to wait indoors. It’s going to chuck it down any minute now.’
‘Not much of a Boy Scout, your Haani.’
Ben looked up at the windows of Haani’s building, to see if he could tell which was his apartment and whether anyone was at home. That was when he noticed that there were no lights on in his building at all. Every single window on every floor was dark, as though the residents had all collectively decided to go to bed early, defying the noise from the street and the bright illumination of the tightly-clustered neighbouring blocks. Ben said, ‘We’d better go up and check. And he’d better not have let us down.’
Ben returned to the car to grab his bag, inside which he always carried a small, bright flashlight. He switched it on, slung the bag over his shoulder, and they entered the dark building with the strong white torch beam probing and sweeping ahead of them. The creaky staircase looked even grimier and more dismal than it had during the daytime. The earlier noises of music and arguing and crying babies had all gone quiet, and a strange kind of anticipatory hush hung over the building. Reaching the first-floor landing, Ben saw that the dead dog had been removed. In its place stood a group of residents gathered outside their apartment doors, one of them holding a dim electric lantern, everyone talking agitatedly in low voices the way people do in the darkness.
Brooke stopped and spoke to them in Hindi. The old man with the lantern replied at length, seeming to believe she was someone in authority and then looking disappointed when she wasn’t. Brooke translated for Ben, ‘There was a power outage earlier this evening. The lights flickered, went dim, and then died. They’re waiting for someone to come and do something about it.’
‘Good luck with that,’ Ben said.
‘He says they all think someone on the top floor tripped the power. Some kind of party going on up there, apparently. All kinds of noise and carrying on.’
‘Whatever,’ Ben said. ‘Let’s go and find Haani, and get out of here.’
He led the way up and up the dark stairs until they reached the top floor, then tracked al
ong the pitch blackness of the narrow landing and past the row of doors to Haani’s at the far end. Whoever had been partying up here earlier on and making all the noise, it was all over now. The top floor felt deserted and oddly desolate.
Ben flashed the light on Haani’s door and saw that it was hanging ajar by a couple of inches. Which, in itself, was no great surprise, considering the damage it had received earlier. But he was getting a bad feeling, and it wasn’t just the eerie darkness and silence of the building.
Brooke was right behind him, standing very close by. He whispered over his shoulder, ‘Wait here.’ He sensed her reluctance, but she said nothing. He pushed the door softly open. And stepped inside the darkness of the apartment, probing the way ahead with the torch beam.
And his bad feeling got worse.
Ben’s first sense impression inside the room was a smell, or a combination of smells. Like something that had got burnt while cooking, mixed up with the acrid scent of melted electrical insulation. The latter possibly to be expected, in a building with dodgy wiring that had just suffered a blackout. But another smell was mixed in too. One Ben knew well. The smell of death and blood.
He remained very silent and still. The pool of white light scanned slowly around the inside of the room, picking out features and objects. The blind covering the inside of the barred window. The two interior doors, both closed. The chair he had pulled away from the table earlier to sit on, still in place. The armchair Haani had sat in while they talked. The tiny kitchen area with the piled dishes in the sink.
But no Haani.
Slowly and cautiously, Ben moved across to the bedroom door, pushed it open and swept the light around the bedroom. The rumpled bed, the kabaddi posters on the wall.
Still no Haani.
Ben retreated to the living room. There was one interior door left to try. Haani’s tiny, rudimentary bathroom. He stepped over to it, quietly turned the handle and nudged the door and shone his light through the gap. And his bad feeling suddenly grew worse still. As bad as it could get. So did the smell of death.
Valley of Death Page 18
