Barbara Cleverly (13 page)

come to some agreement

and I can tell you - I’ve got my ticket out of here! And if you’ve any sense, you’ll be in the passenger seat when I take off, Joe.’

‘You’d oblige me, Madeleine, if you and your brother would remain in Ranipur for a while. You yourself, if you remember, asked my opinion on the plane crash that killed your husband and the Resident also has asked me to investigate. You and your brother are vital to the investigation and you can’t leave until I’ve been able to gather evidence and statements.’

Madeleine gave a derisive laugh. ‘Oh, yeah? Didn’t they tell you in Simla that the British have no legal or criminal jurisdiction in the princely states? You can detect all you like, Joe, and, sure, it would be good to know who’s killing the heirs but there’s nowhere you can go with the information. There’s nothing you can do but report back when you get out

If they let you get out!’

Joe allowed himself a wry smile. That’s an over-simple but - I have to say - incisive summary of my brief. Don’t tell me you’re on Sir George’s payroll too?’

‘Never met the guy’

‘Anything left in that bottle?

Joe’s mood was becoming less buoyant by the minute. Excitement and anger were ebbing away leaving a wistful sympathy for the hopelessness of Madeleine’s situation. He watched her with pity as she found two glasses and filled them clumsily with champagne. With sinking heart he guessed that she needed to talk through her grief with someone and resentfully wondered why she couldn’t have taken up Lizzie Macarthur’s offer of a safe haven and a sympathetic ear. But of course, he had an obvious attraction that Lizzie didn’t possess: in a desperate corner, a revolver and a steady hand will always win out over a parasol and a sharp tongue.

He eyed her warily as she touched his glass with hers. ‘You’re a resourceful woman, Madeleine. But - tell me - what are your immediate plans?’

‘You mean how soon am I going to get out of your hair?’ She laughed. ‘Don’t concern yourself, Joe. Your virtue’s safe with me! I find dripping-wet, detumescent, disapproving cops totally resistible. I’m going to sleep there - on that couch. I’ve stolen a couple of your cushions. I’ve used your bathroom - brought my own toothbrush - so - it’s all yours!’

She put down her glass, kicked off her shoes and stumbled towards the couch. ‘See you in the morning, Joe. Sweet dreams!’

The champagne was still chilled, still fizzing and with a sharp edge that exactly reflected his mood. He took the bottle, surprised to find that it was only half empty. There seemed to be no good reason for not finishing it. He poured himself another glass and sipped quietly, sitting on the edge of his bed, waiting. After a few minutes of cushion pounding, wriggling and muffled oaths, his guest fell silent and still. When he was quite sure that Madeleine was asleep he went into his bathroom and spent long luxurious minutes under his lukewarm shower. Belatedly noticing that Madeleine had made off with his bathrobe he wandered naked out of the ghulskhana and crept silently around his room turning out lights, checking doors, windows, cupboards and even the space under his bed. Five minutes of reconnaissance in enemy territory could save your life and he was not going to let his guard slip now. He had learned on the North-West Frontier to be perpetually vigilant and though these silken, sophisticated surroundings in no way compared with that harsh hell-hole he thought they might in their own way prove even more lethal.

He quietly closed the last wardrobe door.

‘I already checked all those,’ said an amused voice from the couch. ‘And that’s not all I’ve checked

Charming derričre, Commander!’

Ť ^ ť

Joe awoke to a discreet cough at his side and the tinkle of china on a tray being placed on a table at the foot of his bed by a cheerful Govind who made his way to the bathroom and turned on the taps. Joe just managed to find his voice in time to prevent him from drawing back the curtains to let in the full searchlight of an Indian early morning sun. His brain was still in the middle of a double declutch but he felt certain there were aspects of the night he would not wish to have illuminated until he was fully in control of events once more.

He lay low until Govind had disappeared. Where to start? His headache was not as bad as he feared it might be. Even more encouraging - there was no one sleeping on his couch. Or ever had been, to all appearances. All was neat, cushions back in place and surely that was his bathrobe hanging on the door? He sat up and called out softly, dreading to hear a reply: ’Are you there, Madeleine?’

No reply.

Relief washed over him and for a moment he was tempted to allow himself the delusion that the events of the last evening had never occurred. The discovery of a still-warm place on the other side of his bed, an indented pillow and several golden hairs in that indentation brought an even more unpalatable scenario to mind. He’d drunk too much champagne but surely he would recall the intimacy implied by his finds? He felt about guiltily under the covers for other clues but found nothing more incriminating than a folded square of writing paper.

‘Didn’t Nancy ever complain that you talk in your sleep?’ was the short message.

Almost as a signature the sound of a small aeroplane passed overhead. For a moment he thought it might be Madeleine heading off for Delhi but the plane circled and returned before flying off again towards the Aravalli hills.

There was something he had to check on, he remembered, and, scrambling from his bed, he searched about in the waste paper basket and in all the corners where she might have abandoned an empty champagne bottle. There was only the one he remembered finishing himself. Madeleine had, he calculated, in spite of appearances - the husky gin-fogged voice, the mistimed gestures - actually drunk in his presence about a thimbleful of wine. Her first glass had been spilled on the floor, he remembered, and the bottle was chill and must have been almost full when he arrived.

Madeleine was putting on a pretence of drunkenness. But why would she do that? Protective colouring perhaps? Drunks are never taken seriously. They are disregarded, an embarrassment; people look the other way when they enter a room. People underestimate them. He sighed as he realized that he had been misled into behaving like this towards Madeleine himself. And this had clearly been her intention. Poor little Madeleine, widowed and drowning her grief in a bottle. A common enough solution in India and therefore an easy deception but, if the drunkenness was a deception, what about the grief?

Joe wondered again about Madeleine’s ambivalent attitude to her circumstances. She had loved her husband by all accounts whilst hating his home and family. If something had happened to upset the balance in her life

But, of course, something had happened. Something of earthshaking proportions for Madeleine. The oldest son had died. At a stroke, Prithvi the gadabout socialite who was quite prepared to spend the larger amount of his time living with princely abandon in Europe or America with his adored young wife was now next in line for the throne of Ranipur. Had he succumbed to pressures put on him in the weeks following his brother’s death, pressures to devote himself to the serious business of ruling, to return to family traditions, take an Indian wife to ensure the succession? How secure had Madeleine’s marriage been latterly?

She had the technical skill and the opportunity to cut just the right number of steel threads to send her husband plummeting to the ground. Had she grown weary after two years of the stifling palace life of a princess - and a despised and disregarded princess at that? She had said something last night that had stayed with him through the mental fog into which he had descended. ‘I’ve got my ticket out of here!’ She was going to persuade the maharaja, by fair means or foul, to allow her to leave and not empty-handed. He wondered what exactly the ‘ticket’ consisted of.

Perhaps her brother Stuart could shed a light on all this? Joe looked at his watch. Six o’clock and he was due to see him at nine. Time to do justice to the pot of coffee and the pile of toast Govind had just brought in. He thought he would leave the lid of the silver chafing dish which undoubtedly contained eggs in some form or another firmly in place. He’d enjoy a cool bath and then a head-clearing walk in the freshest air he would experience that day, heading out to the polo ground perhaps, keeping well clear of the women’s quarters and the town. Half an hour later, he put on the white shirt, the light box cloth trousers and the riding jacket Govind had selected for him, snatched up a topee and set out.

The sun was already beating down fiercely when he walked out of the palace at seven. As he strolled out on to the verandah looking across the undulating polo ground an elegant figure in riding habit mounted on a gleaming black Arab mare spotted him, turned and came on towards him.

Third Her Highness was followed by a syce riding an equally fine horse a few yards behind. The red silk tunic and turban and the black trousers he wore had been carefully chosen, Joe guessed, to complement the white jodhpurs and black jacket of his mistress. Even the white egret pecking his way in their wake across the lawn seemed to involve himself in the frieze they presented. Raising a foot, the bird offered a hieroglyphic profile and stalked forward. Unconsciously, Shubhada echoed its movements, tilting an imperious nose that would have looked impressive on a coin.

‘Commander Sandilands. Good morning,’ she called. ‘I was surprised not to see you exercising earlier.’

‘I overslept, Your Highness,’ he said with a disarming smile. ‘Unused as I am to Rajput hospitality I indulged too recklessly in all the good things the palace has to offer.’

Oh what the hell! If the palace grapevine was all it was cracked up to be she’d probably heard he’d defeated a Russian grand master and slept with a whole boardful of chess pieces.

‘Then I recommend a short canter.’ She turned and spoke to her syce who dismounted and led his horse over to Joe. ‘Shall we?’

Luckily for Joe the horse was well into its morning exercise. He thought he would have had quite a struggle to control the magnificent animal coming straight from the stables.

Shubhada led the way at a canter along the polo field and Joe began to enjoy himself, thankful that he’d remembered to put on the topee against the sun. It occurred to him that he was taking part in a very unusual scene. Maharanees like Shubhada would at any time in the past and, as far as he was aware, in the present, be kept well away from the eyes of any man and yet here she was riding off with him with the ease of any Western girl.

She stopped and dismounted at the far end of the polo field in a shady grove of acacia trees and Joe joined her, hitching their horses to a branch. He was curious to know why she had arranged this time alone with him. He wondered whether she knew the true nature of her husband’s illness. He would have very much liked to know how her own future would be affected by his death. He asked none of his questions. Even in riding clothes she was regal and a Scotland Yard officer knows his place.

She went to sit on a fallen tree trunk and pointed a finger at the other end. Joe sat down and waited.

‘I wonder if you are aware, Commander,’ she said finally, ‘of the seriousness of my husband’s condition?’

Perhaps this interview wasn’t going to be as awkward as he had anticipated.

‘I am, Your Highness, and may I offer you my —’

‘Yes, you may,’ she interrupted, ‘but when the time comes. You will hear more from his physician, I am sure, but we are thinking that he will not last out the summer. We ought, of course, to have moved him to Switzerland where we would normally spend the hot season but his doctor has advised against it. Udai would not survive the journey apparently. And, naturally, as ruler, he prefers to die where he has lived, here at the heart of his kingdom.’

‘A devastating loss for many people,’ Joe murmured.

‘Far more than you can ever know,’ she said. ‘But the ones who suffer most at these times of change are the ruler’s wives. And, of these, the youngest, childless wife has most to lose.’

He looked at her, taken aback by her sudden frankness.

She smiled. ‘I think you don’t like me very much, Commander. There is no reason why you should. You are a stranger here, you owe me no loyalty or affection but - I’ll tell you something - I’m very glad that you’re here! I was educated in Europe and, believe me, in the small academic and aristocratic worlds in which I moved in London, Paris and Geneva one came to accept the security of a well-policed community. I know you have no jurisdiction here in Ranipur but, by your presence, you remind me that the ordered world in which I grew up is still available to me should I need to retreat to it.’

What was this? A veiled request for another ticket out of the state? In a few gallant phrases, Joe encouraged her to depend on him to do whatever was in his power to ease her burden.

She smiled. ‘Remember you said that, Commander! I shall!’

Emboldened by the new, more approachable persona she was showing him, he dared to ask her how she had come to meet the maharaja.

Her smile broadened. ‘I wish I could tell you it was a romantic meeting

you know

his eyes caught mine across the crowded floor of a hunt ball

I hurried to help him up when he fell from his polo pony

but no. It was an arranged marriage.’

Sensing she had her audience in the palm of her hand, she continued. ‘My father is himself a raja in a southern state. An enlightened man where gender is concerned. His own mother, my grandmother, ruled the state during her son’s minority with frightening efficiency for many years

’

She saw Joe’s surprise and added, ‘There are one or two states where the succession is through the female line - Travancore and Cochin, for example, and women have ruled in Bhopal for generations. Indeed, the Tiger Queen of Bhopal came out of purdah the more efficiently to work with her people when the country was in the throes of a dire famine and that not so many years ago. Many ranees followed her example. My father saw no reason not to raise his three daughters - I’m the eldest - out of purdah and with all the advantages available to his sons. We girls learned mathematics, science and languages alongside our brothers. I rode and hunted with them. Indeed, I do believe I was a much better sportsman than any of them.’ She frowned. ‘Oh, dear! I don’t know the feminine of “sportsman”!’