Death in Kashmir (24 page)

‘There wasn't a messenger,' said Charles slowly. ‘He was held up on the road and arrived too late.'

‘But how…?' Sarah found she could not complete the question.

‘We don't know how they found out,' said Charles bleakly. ‘About the hut and the signal I mean. But there's obviously been a bad leak somewhere, because the light was a trap, and Janet walked into it.'

‘But somebody else
was
there. I've told you! I saw the bullet hole and—and there was blood on the floor.'

‘I know,' said Charles. ‘I saw it.'

‘You!'
Sarah's voice was a whisper.

‘Yes,' Charles's eyes, watching her over the guttering candle flame, reflected small dancing glints of yellow light. ‘You see I was the messenger. I was the man you bumped into in the snowstorm on the
marg.
'

‘Oh!'
said Sarah on an indrawn breath. ‘I didn't know. I only knew that—' she stopped abruptly.

‘Only knew what?' asked Charles curiously.

Sarah flushed and bit her lip. ‘Nothing,' she said curtly. She did not intend to explain to Charles that the intense interest she had taken in him in Peshawar had sprung partly from a strange and persistent conviction that she had met him before.

Charles regarded her curiously for a moment but did not press the question. He sat down again on the sofa and pulling a thin gold cigarette-case from his pocket offered it to Sarah, and when she shook her head took another cigarette himself and lit it at one of the candles.

Sarah, studying his face as it bent above the wavering flame, was astonished at herself that she should not have instantly recognized him as the man of the snowstorm. How could she have forgotten the line of cheek and chin, even blurred as it had been by darkness and falling snow? The grey eyes, or the voice with its faint suggestion of a drawl and its unintentional but instinctive note of command, which could only belong to Charles?

Charles looked up suddenly and caught her intent gaze. His mouth curved in a shadow of a grin and he said: ‘It was easier for me. You had red hair.'

Sarah blushed rosily and for no apparent reason, and to distract attention from the fact, said hastily: ‘Tell me what happened. What did you do?'

‘There wasn't much I could do,' said Charles soberly. ‘It had been arranged that I should be among the later arrivals at the Meeting—there were several people who could only manage the last few days—so that I could leave with the rest of the crowd not too long after collecting the information. Just long enough to be seen to have no contact with Mrs Matthews and her supposed niece! But though the reasoning behind that decision was sound it turned out to be a mistake, because the weather was obviously batting for the opposition——

‘A flash flood on the Kabul River meant that I took a full day to reach Rawalpindi, then just beyond Uri I found that the road was blocked by an avalanche that had brought any amount of rock and trees with it, and no motor traffic was likely to get through for three or four days. So I came on foot and skis, which was slow going and delayed me badly. I was met near Babamarishi by one of our men, a Kashmiri, who acted as a guide as far as the outskirts of Gulmarg and happened to mention, casually, that an elderly memsahib had been killed in a skiing accident. His version of her name was near enough for me to realize who it was. So I had that much warning, at least. But there was still Janet.

‘I went on, keeping to a woodcutter's track through the forest that Kadera had shown me, in order to keep out of sight as much as possible. I had a key to the hut, and I meant to lie up there until it was dark enough to light the signal lamp that was in my pack. I wasn't far short of the hut when I met a coolie who was employed by the hotel to collect and carry wood—he had a great load of it on his back and had stopped to rest, and he asked me for a cigarette. He too told me about the old memsahib who had died, and he said that the young Miss-sahib who had come up with her had been killed that very morning in a similar accident; which he attributed to evil spirits. That was how I learned about Janet…'

Charles was silent for a time, twisting the cigarette between his fingers and looking tired and grim. And at length he said: ‘Since it seemed that they had both died on one of the ski runs there was no reason to suppose that anyone knew about the hut near the Gap, so I went there anyway. Because I badly needed somewhere to rest before tackling the long slog back to Babamarishi, and there was obviously no point in staying on in Gulmarg any longer, or in turning up officially as a latecomer to the Meeting. I meant to turn back and say I hadn't been able to make it because of the hold-up on the road, and that it hadn't been worth waiting for the way to be cleared. Which is what several other people did——

‘It wasn't until I got to the hut and saw those tracks on the path and found that I didn't need my key because the door was open, that I realized that a fuse had blown somewhere—and at a very high level.
You
know what I found inside. It didn't take long to work out what had happened, or realize that whoever stage-managed those two “skiing accidents” also knew all about the hut and the signal. In fact there was only one thing I couldn't understand.'

He paused for a moment, frowning, and Sarah said: ‘Why they didn't lay for you too?'

Charles nodded. ‘Yes. If they knew so much, why didn't they wait for me? They obviously knew that another contact was coming and what he was going to do; though it's doubtful if they knew his identity, because any one of a dozen people might have been detailed for the job. Well, why not wait until I arrived and gave the signal, knock me off, and then wait until Janet arrived and do the same by her?'

‘Perhaps they had meant to do that,' said Sarah, ‘and then something happened to hurry them up?'

‘The storm,' said Charles. ‘I came to the conclusion it must have been that. They probably waited in the hut for me for a night or two, and then realized that there was a storm brewing.'

‘Bulaki said so,' interrupted Sarah in a half whisper.

‘What's that?'

‘My bearer. He told me on the morning we left for the Khilanmarg ski-hut that there was bad weather coming.'

‘That would be it,' said Charles. ‘If they waited any longer for the contact to show up they might hit bad weather and be unable to use the signal: so they decided to get Janet. After all, she was the main objective Once she was dead it didn't really matter how many messengers came up to the hut. It's some consolation to realize that she must have got one of them. She carried a gun, and I'm prepared to bet a good deal that the bullet that made that hole came from it.'

Sarah said: ‘Were you in that house when I came into it?'

‘I don't think so. I must have missed you by a pretty narrow margin. I don't mind telling you that I didn't stay long! I saw everything I needed to see, and then I went up through the trees at the back and did a recce to see if I could find the body of the man who was shot in the sitting-room. There were tracks running slantways up the hill, and I followed them for a while; but I didn't like the look of the weather, so I came back, and I only noticed then that there was a broken latch on a side door. I went in by it to see if I'd missed anything, but there was nothing there but a pile of dusty furniture, and as I saw that it had started to snow I chucked my hand in and came away. I cut across the back garden and came down parallel to the path and onto the
marg,
and I hadn't gone far when I hit into you. Gave me a considerable jar, I assure you.'

Sarah laughed a little shakily. ‘Not half as bad a shock as it gave me! So it was you I heard in the hut.' She sat silent for a moment and then said, ‘Then—there is nobody who knows.'

‘Knows what?'

‘The–the “Big Thing” you talked about. The thing your friend found out—and Janet and Mrs Matthews too. Now that they are dead, does no one else know?'

‘No one human,' said Charles slowly.

‘What do you mean,' asked Sarah sharply.

‘There is still something that knows. This boat knows.'

In the little silence that followed upon his words a candle flame flared and went out, sending up a thread of evil-smelling smoke into the deepening shadows of the room.

The draught whined along the floor and lifted the worn carpet in uneasy ripples as the boat lurched to a wilder gust of wind, and once again, as earlier on that same night, Sarah became aware of the inanimate objects that furnished the small room. Once again they seemed to her imagination to become endowed with a sentient personality, a mysterious entity of their own, so that even with her eyes held by Charles's steady gaze, she could still see them. The carved tables, the shabby chintz-covered chairs, the cheap brass trays and the rows of dusty books upon the shelf. All those things that had watched Mrs Matthews: that had watched Janet, and were now watching her, Sarah Parrish …

‘Yes,' said Sarah in a dry whisper. ‘Yes, the boat knows.'

A savage gust of wind raged across the lake, accompanied by driving rain, and shook the little houseboat as a terrier shakes a rat. The tables and chairs jerked and shifted and the candlestick that bore the last remaining candle toppled onto the floor, plunging the room into darkness.

Then, as suddenly as it had come, the wind died away. One moment the night was riotous with sound, and the next it was quiet save for the slap and splash of water against the sides of the boat, the whisper of light rain falling on leaves and lake water, and a faint mutter of far-off thunder.

Silence seemed to flow into the valley, smoothing out the turmoil of the storm as oil smooths out rough water. And in that silence, though there was no sound of footsteps, the boat jerked suddenly to a different rhythm as someone trod quietly up the gangplank and scratched very softly on the pantry door …

14

Sarah's terrified gasp was loud in the silence, and Charles switched on his torch, and throwing an arm about her shoulders felt the tension of her accumulated fear as vividly as though he had touched something charged with static electricity.

He said quickly: ‘Don't, dear! It's only Habib. I'm sorry—I ought to have warned you. But what with one thing and another, I forgot. I put him off on the bank and told him to keep an eye on the approaches, and to come aboard if anything worried him. I left the boat outside the dining-room window.'

‘Who—who's Habib?' quavered Sarah, struggling to collect herself.

Charles released her, and stooping to pick up the fallen candlestick, replaced it on the desk before replying.

‘Officially, my bearer-cum-driver,' said Charles, relighting the candle with the flame of his cigarette-lighter: ‘Actually, an invaluable assistant. I'd better go and see what's up.' He walked to the doorway, and then turned and came back again.

‘Can you use a gun, Sarah?'

‘I … I think so. But——'

Charles drew out a small black Colt automatic barely larger than a cigarette-case and tossed it into her lap. ‘Be careful of it. It's loaded. I'm going out to talk to Habib and do a bit of reconnoitring, and if anyone you don't know comes onto this boat before I get back, don't wait to ask questions. Shoot first and argue afterwards! I won't be long——'

Without giving Sarah a chance to protest, he turned and vanished into the darkness of the dining-room, and a moment later she heard the sound of the pantry door being eased open in its groove, and then the boat vibrated again to noiseless footsteps descending the gangplank.

Sarah sat tense and still, straining her ears to listen in the stillness, and fighting a frantic desire to follow him and run screaming down the bank to take refuge with the Creeds. But between the prow of her own boat and theirs lay almost thirty yards of wet darkness, bounded by reeds and scrub willow: and Charles had taken the torch. Her fingers tightened round the tiny gun, and the feel of the cold metal steadied her; but she was still sitting tensely on the extreme edge of the sofa, listening, when Charles returned some fifteen minutes later. The candle had guttered out, and the entire houseboat was in darkness.

This time Charles came from the shore and up the gangplank, and Sarah collapsed onto the sofa cushions with a sob of relief at the sound of his voice. He spent some time moving about in the pantry, from where she could see the reflected gleam of his torch, and presently he came into the room carrying a lighted hurricane lamp that he had found in one of the cupboards. It flared abominably and the oil smelt, but Sarah was grateful for any form of illumination.

‘Well?' she inquired, trying to make her voice sound cool and casual: ‘What was worrying him?'

‘Habib? Nothing much,' said Charles shaking the wet out of his hair. His clothes were patched with damp and leaf mould and his shoes were caked with wet earth. ‘Your electric line is down: he tripped over the end of it on the bank, and was afraid that it might have been cut on purpose. Which would have proved that someone other than myself had designs on this boat tonight. However, we managed to trace the other end without drawing attention to ourselves by showing a light, and it was obviously brought down by the wind.'

He broke off to fiddle with the wick of the hurricane lamp that was flaring lopsidedly and darkening the glass with smoke, and poking at the wick with a matchstick, observed in an abstracted voice that judging from the ease with which he had been able to break into her boat earlier in the evening, he suggested that she fit the door and windows with some strong bolts tomorrow. If, of course, she intended to stay on it.

There was the faintest suggestion of a query in those last words, and Sarah replied shortly that she had every intention of doing so. But though the words were brave enough, the effect was somewhat marred by the fact that she had been unable to bring them out without her teeth chattering. Because even as she spoke she wondered what would have happened to her, and if she would still have been alive, if it had been someone other than Charles who had forced the latch of the dining-room window that night?