by Vaseem Khan
A ball bearing was nestled in a small hole in one corner of the box’s lower half. In the corresponding corner of the other half was another hole. At the bottom of the hole in the upper half was a tiny strip of metal.
It was now easy to see how the mechanism worked.
Two tiny magnets in the two holes. A single ball bearing. When inside one hole, the ball bearing acted as a lock, ensuring that the two halves were securely fastened together. But give it a good thump in the right place and the ball bearing would drop away from its magnet and fall into the opposite, deeper hole, releasing the catch.
Simple, but fiendishly difficult to solve.
She focused on the revealed cavity, just two inches in diameter. Nestled there was a folded piece of paper.
She picked it out, set down the box, then opened the paper.
Written on it, in Healy’s hand, were the words:
Now was the hour that wakens fond desire
In men at sea, and melts their thoughtful heart,
Who in the morn have bid sweet friends farewell,
And pilgrim newly on his road with love
Thrills, if he hears the vesper bell from far,
That seems to mourn the dying day.
She’d seen these words before. Recently. In the translation of The Divine Comedy she’d just finished skimming. It was one of the many passages that had lodged like splinters in her brain. Dante’s vivid prose, his descriptions of what awaited Man, had crept under her defences.
The real question was: why had Healy written out another passage from Dante’s masterwork . . .?
A noise jerked her head up. Was that the front door? She’d been concentrating so fiercely that she’d blotted out everything else.
She pushed herself off the sofa, walked around the aisle blocking her view of the front of the shop, and padded towards the door. Silence unfurled around her, but there was a quality to it now that prickled the base of her neck.
She stopped yards before her father’s counter. The street outside was deserted.
Perhaps it was nothi—
The sound of feet behind her. She turned, just as a figure charged towards her from behind a tall bookshelf, clad in black, a balaclava covering the face.
She reacted without thinking, pulling out her revolver and firing in one fluid movement. The shot cracked loudly in the semi-darkness.
The figure bore her to the floor, knocking the breath from her, the revolver slipping from her grasp. The man – a frantic part of her brain was sure that it was a man – sat astride her, his weight bearing down on her. A flash at the corner of her eye, and then a fist connected with the top of her skull. She was momentarily stunned.
Hands scrabbled at her clothing. A thought pierced the haze: was she being assaulted?
Ever since she’d put on the uniform, her aunt had told her that she would be raped in the line of duty and begged her to quit before it was too late. Perhaps she’d be pleased that her prediction had finally come to pass.
So easy to quit, to stop struggling. To just lay back and let it happen.
But she’d never quit anything in her life.
The realisation hit her that her assailant wasn’t assaulting her. He was methodically searching her pockets. Looking for the chit she’d recovered from the puzzle.
The same man who’d attacked her outside the observatory.
No!
Her grasping fingers closed around the revolver. She lifted her arm and fired.
The bullet hit him square in the chest. He rocked back, then lashed out, smashing the gun away. A second swipe and he’d knocked her back into semi-consciousness. She felt his hands close around her throat. Her legs kicked as she pulled at his grip, then flailed her fists at his arms. Might as well have been striking stone.
The sounds of her own choking reached her ears. The room began to revolve around her; her vision clouded . . .
The tinkle of the door chimes, then the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps. Her attacker cried out, then fell away.
She could breathe again. She was pulled into a seated position, where she gulped in great lungfuls of air.
A man crouched on his haunches beside her, staring intently at her with concern.
She focused on him. Shock burned through her.
‘Persis!’ said Zubin Dalal. ‘Are you okay?’
Chapter 32
‘This is becoming a habit. A bad one.’ Seth stared at her with a mixture of sympathy and annoyance.
It was eight the next morning, and Persis was sitting in the SP’s office, in uniform, with a thumping headache and a bruised throat. Swallowing was difficult, as was talking.
She’d just finished recounting to him the events of the previous night. They remained at the forefront of her thoughts, raw and painful.
Moments after the attack in the shop and the arrival of Zubin Dalal, she’d picked herself off the floor and checked on her attacker.
Zubin had hit him over the head with a cosh.
But the man wasn’t just unconscious. He was dead.
So, her eyes hadn’t deceived her. She knew that she hadn’t missed; her second shot had struck her assailant in the chest. Somehow, he’d kept going, powered by adrenalin.
Ultimately, the bullet had done its work.
Breathing deeply, she’d knelt beside the corpse, then reached under the chin and pulled off the balaclava.
A gasp escaped her.
Before her lay the Englishman, James Ingram.
Now, sat before Seth, the questions continued to multiply.
Why had Ingram been following her around? Why had he attacked her?
It made no sense.
Ingram was a writer. No story was worth acting in such a manner. Unless . . . Could Ingram have been Healy’s accomplice? Had Healy betrayed him? It would explain a lot, including why Ingram had turned up in Bombay a month ago.
She imagined the pair of them plotting to steal the manuscript: Healy, the inside man, Ingram, there to provide support . . . But once the deed was done, had Healy charted his own course? Hidden the manuscript, instead of handing it over to Ingram? Why? A change of heart, perhaps? Or something else?
Her head hurt from fruitless speculation. Better to stick to the facts.
‘What do we know about this Ingram?’ Seth’s voice dragged her back to the present.
‘Only what he told me. All of which can now be discounted.’
Seth knuckled his temple. The current turn of events had only added to his woes. ‘Maybe something in his past can shed some light on where Healy has hidden that blasted manuscript.’
She nodded mechanically.
He continued to stare at her. ‘Are you okay?’
She stared at the wall.
‘You know, in my entire career, I’ve never shot anyone. Barely even had to take out my gun in anger. You’ve now killed two men in the space of a few weeks. I can’t claim to know what that feels like, but I can say this: they both deserved it.’ He unfolded himself from his seat then perched on the edge of the desk before her. ‘You have the makings of a fine officer, Persis. If you were a man, they’d be pinning medals on you, grooming you for command. That isn’t the world we live in. Instead, they’re sharpening their knives. If you don’t find that manuscript, they’re going to come for us both.’
A bouquet of flowers was waiting on her desk, with a note.
‘What’s this?’ she asked, glaring at Birla. ‘I don’t need flowers. I’m not in hospital.’
‘Don’t look at me. I’ve never given my own wife flowers. Not even at our wedding.’
Haq squashed a chutney sandwich into his mouth. ‘Not guilty,’ he burped.
There was a note with the flowers.
Can we meet? Z.
The previous night returned with a horrible wrench, like a rogue wave capsizing a rowboat.
Zubin.
In all that had happened, she’d barely had time to register his presence. Seconds after he’d charged into the shop and
knocked Ingram cold, her father had arrived, clattering down in his wheelchair with a semi-comatose Krishna at the tiller. The gunshots had awoken them both, dozing in the upstairs living room.
Having ascertained the lay of the land, Sam insisted on waking up Aziz, who lived ten minutes away.
The doctor had given her a quick once-over, despite her insistence that she was fine. Shining a penlight into her eyes and gently palpating her skull, he’d declared that there appeared to be no serious damage.
‘You’re a lucky young woman,’ he’d told her.
Aunt Nussie had turned up moments later, though no one appeared to have called her. She took one look at the scene and launched into a passionate diatribe against the police service, urging Persis, once again, to consider if not her own safety, then the sanity of those around her. What could she gain by persisting in this perverse desire to wander about the city being bludgeoned and shot at by criminals?
‘She’s the one who did the shooting,’ Sam pointed out.
Nussie ignored him.
And ten minutes after that, Archie Blackfinch had arrived. He’d come in his official capacity, but once he discovered exactly what had transpired, he’d asked her to step outside.
In the warm night air, he stared down at her from behind his spectacles. ‘Are you alright?’
‘Why does everyone keep asking me that?’
‘Because we’re concerned. Because we care.’
She hugged herself, and focused on Akbar, who’d followed them out into the alley and was rubbing himself against her ankles. Less out of sympathy, she thought, and more because it was time for his evening meal.
‘You’re lucky he wasn’t armed. He could have shot first.’
‘But he didn’t. I did.’
Silence. A bicycle came barrelling down the alley, forcing them to step backwards. ‘Who was the, ah, gentleman who saved you?’
‘He didn’t save me.’
‘That’s not the story he’s telling in there.’
She turned on him so quickly that he was forced to take a step back. Her face was rigid with anger . . . and then the fire went out of her eyes. It was hardly Blackfinch’s fault that Zubin had shown up, that she was now in the insufferable position of being indebted to him.
What the hell was he doing here?
As if invoked by the mere thought, the door behind them opened and Zubin Dalal walked out into the night.
Her heart gave a little bound.
He’d hardly changed. That same insouciant moustache, the merry eyes, the black hair slicked back over a neatly shaped skull. He was a small man, barely the same height as her, but impeccably dressed in a grey double-breasted suit. He moved with the grace of a ballerina, and smiled as if the devil himself had put an arm around his shoulder and told him he could do as he pleased. A black homburg was clutched between the manicured fingers of his right hand.
‘It’s about time I took my leave,’ he said.
Persis said nothing. His eyes stayed on her a moment, then he turned and extended a hand to Blackfinch. ‘Zubin Dalal. I’m an old friend of the family.’
‘Archimedes Blackfinch. Most people call me Archie. I’m a forensics specialist with the Metropolitan Police Service in London. Currently deputed to work with the IPS.’
They shook hands.
‘Pleased to meet you, Archie. Will you be needing anything further from me?’
‘No. I think we have the material facts.’
Zubin nodded, then returned his attention to Persis. ‘Perhaps you and I could talk tomorrow?’
‘We have nothing to talk about.’
He seemed about to reply, then smiled instead. He set his hat on his head, tipped the brim, and bade them goodnight. They watched him walk along the alley and clamber into a black Studebaker. His arm hung out of the window, tapping a rhythm on the driver’s side door as the car idled. Moments later, he drove off with a screech of tires.
‘Intriguing character,’ said Blackfinch. ‘How fortunate that he was visiting at just the right time.’ The question behind his words lingered in the air.
She knew that Blackfinch was an intelligent man. He could sense something was up. She wondered if it was like alley dogs, some sort of pheromone in the air.
She turned to him. A part of her wanted to embrace him, to feel his warmth against her, to acknowledge the fact that she felt good in his company. That, in the whole shitty business of policing, he was the one man who’d treated her simply as another officer and not a symbol of progress or an unwanted embarrassment. A sudden, perverse desire swelled inside her . . . As if sensing her thoughts, Aunt Nussie came barrelling out, breasting the night air like a seahorse. Placing a protective arm around her shoulder, she steered Persis back into the store. ‘Let’s get you out of uniform and into the shower. And then a nice hot meal.’
Resistance pulsed through her . . . and was gone. She surrendered.
Behind them, Archie Blackfinch stuck his hands in his pockets and watched her walk away, the light from the street lamp reflecting dully from his spectacles.
Now, sat at her desk, she wondered if she shouldn’t have taken a moment to speak with him.
She could sense the Englishman’s increasing bewilderment. Technically, nothing had yet happened between them, but her attempts to ensure that nothing did happen had sent him spinning into confusion. And the fact that she herself was confused about the confusion that her confusion was creating only added to the confusion.
Jaya’s words rang in her ears. ‘If you like him, do something about it. Don’t dither around. One thing I can tell you, he won’t wait for ever.’
Persis sighed, then picked up the note she’d found inside the puzzle box.
She needed to focus on the case, take her mind off Zubin Dalal and Archie Blackfinch.
She had confirmed that the passage Healy had written down came from Purgatorio, the second part of The Divine Comedy, in which Dante climbs Mount Purgatory in the company of Virgil, navigating seven levels of suffering associated with the seven deadly sins.
She set the new verse against the earlier one recovered from Healy’s bag.
Was there a link between the two? . . . There seemed to be no connection that she could see. The passages were from different books within Dante’s masterpiece, focused on different aspects of his journey. Essentially, they were simply different brushstrokes from the same great canvas; there seemed nothing material in their structure or content that set them apart . . . She corrected herself. There was one minor difference. The second verse was written with spaces between each line, whereas the first was simply three lines bunched together.
A stylistic difference, apropos of nothing.
Disappointment settled in her guts; the ashy taste of failure clogged her throat.
She got up and walked to the interview room, closing the door behind her. She needed a few moments alone, and the room was the only real refuge available.
She slumped into a chair behind the much-abused interview desk. It had been transferred from another station, scratched and dented, one of its four legs inexplicably shorter than the rest, bequeathing it an irritating wobble. On the wall was a portrait of Gandhi, beside it, the tricolour of the new Indian flag.
She closed her eyes and tried to chart a course through the maze.
John Healy was proving to be a harder man to understand than she’d thought. Respected scholars didn’t simply wake up one day and decide to steal one of the world’s great treasures. The fact that he’d left behind a series of tantalising clues demonstrated the meticulous planning that had gone into the theft. That those plans had ended with him committing suicide was irrelevant.
Or rather, even the suicide held some meaning.
She now knew that the story that had emerged following the war about Healy’s imprisonment in Italian POW camps was inaccurate. He hadn’t spent any great length of time cooling his heels at Vincigliata. He’d been removed within a month of arriving there.
Whe
re had the Nazis taken him? Why? Did his wartime experiences in Italy hold the key to his actions in India?
A knock on the door. Without waiting for an answer, George Fernandes entered.
‘I went to Kramer’s workplace last night. Spoke to the man in charge, the Frenchman, Jules Aubert. He tried to give me the runaround again but I told him what you’d said about harbouring a Nazi and that seemed to get his attention. He looked terrified at the idea of someone accusing him of a thing like that.’ He grimaced.
Persis was struck by a sudden thought . . . Could Jules Aubert have been a Vichy collaborator? That might explain how he’d ended up in Bombay, and why the mere idea of an investigation into a Nazi at his club would bring him out in a cold sweat.
‘I described the man we’re looking for,’ continued Fernandes. ‘Mr Grey. Aubert eventually admitted that he remembered a man like that coming in a few weeks ago. Tall, heavy-set, short black hair, a scar across his left cheek. He called it a’ – he checked his notes – ‘a Schmisse. It’s a German word. It means a duelling scar. He said that many German officers, especially upper-class ones, were keen on fencing, and the scar was a sort of badge of honour, a way to signal their status. He mentioned a couple of prominent Nazis who had them, including Rudolf Diels, the founder of the Gestapo.’ He flipped a page in the notebook. ‘Aubert says he spoke very briefly with Mr Grey. Claims Mr Grey introduced himself as Udo Becker, though he doubts that was his real name. Many of those who frequent his establishment prefer to operate under aliases. Becker claimed he was only in town for a few weeks. He was looking for some entertainment and someone had recommended Le Château des Rêves. Aubert introduced him to Francine Kramer and the pair seemed to hit it off.
‘He made a big song and dance about how he never forces his girls on anyone. They’re free to choose.’ Fernandes’s contempt made it clear exactly what he thought of Aubert’s assertion. ‘And that’s it. As far as he knows, Francine took Becker upstairs. Another satisfied customer. He never saw him again.’ He paused, checked his notes again. ‘I spoke to some of his girls. One of them recalled Becker. Remembered the scar. She says he was chatting for a while to another customer, not a regular. Tall man with blond hair. Her description was sketchy. She asked around but it turns out none of the girls had entertained him, though he’d been propositioned, of course. He seems to have come to the club with the sole purpose of meeting Udo Becker – Mr Grey. Unless, of course, they just happened to bump into each other.’
