Death in Kashmir (37 page)

Sarah collapsed in a limp heap, gasping, choking, sobbing in hysterical relief, and after a moment or two she dashed the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand and laughed up at Hugo.

But there was something wrong. Something out of true. Why wasn't Hugo laughing? Why didn't he say something? Why did he look so–so——

The cold hand that had for a moment released its clutch upon Sarah's heart, began to close again—very slowly—and she struggled to her feet and stood staring at Hugo, her hands clutching the back of the spiky, carved chair. There was an odd smell in the room—so faint that had the windows been open she would not have noticed it. A smell that conjured up terrifying memories …

Hugo said: ‘What were you doing, Sarah?'

His voice was the voice of a stranger; soft and without any expression—almost a whisper.

Sarah said: ‘Hugo! Don't look at me like that! What's the matter?' Her voice cracked oddly.

Hugo did not take his eyes off her face. He said again: ‘What were you doing, Sarah? You were taking it down, weren't you?'

Sarah did not answer. She could only stare numbly, her eyes held by that curious fixed look on Hugo's face.

Hugo said: ‘I saw you. I was watching from the pantry doorway. You were writing it down, weren't you? I never thought of it being here. How did you find out?'

Sarah's brain seemed to be full of wavering, ludicrous thoughts that swooped and darted like swallows. Incredible, impossible, fantastic ideas that chased themselves across her brain, whirling and absurd; gone before she could see them clearly or put them into words.

Hugo leant down and picked up the writing-block and Sarah's eyes, released, flickered and closed and opened again.

Hugo—Hugo's hands holding the writing-block. Bright red hands: shiny, slippery, horrible … Why, he was wearing gloves! Rubber gloves …
Red rubber gloves,
drawn up over his wrists, smooth and taut except where a jagged tear at the edge of the left-hand glove showed a small triangular patch of sun-tanned flesh …

He was holding the writing-block in his left hand, and in the right a curious object that looked like, and yet unlike, a gun. And he was speaking again, though his words did not seem to make sense to Sarah. She could only stare at those smooth, slippery, red hands and try to remember something——

Red … like blood … and shiny; and that smell … the smell in the dark, musty hall of the house by the Gap. That was it!—the tiny triangular patch of wet blood at the edge of the chair, that hadn't been blood at all but a fragment of red rubber——

Hugh was saying: ‘I'm sorry, Sarah, but there it is. You know too much. You shouldn't have meddled. Why the hell couldn't you leave well alone?' His voice was all at once absurdly querulous and aggrieved, like that of a spoilt child.

Sarah forced her gaze away from those scarlet hands and up to Hugo's face. She said, her voice a frozen whisper: ‘Then it was you in the hut, waiting for Janet. Oh no! No, I don't believe it. It's crazy—you couldn't, Hugo!'

‘I had to,' said Hugo, still in the same queer, querulous voice. ‘You don't suppose I liked doing it did you? The damned girl was too clever for her own good. Besides, the end justifies the means—you believe that, don't you? The individual doesn't matter—can't matter. Janet was just grit in the machine. She had to be removed.'

He's mad, thought Sarah wildly, he's quite mad! he
must
be. She said: ‘Hugo—don't! You don't know what you're saying.'

Hugo laughed suddenly and when he spoke again his voice was quite normal. He came forward into the little cramped drawing-room, and as the bead curtain clashed behind him he glanced at it, frowning, and said: ‘I shall have to cut that damned thing down, or our dear friend Charles might drive up to it in the same way you have. Odd to think I've been through this bloody boat with a small-tooth comb and missed what was right under my nose. Damned smart of you to spot it, Sarah: I always knew you were a smart girl. How did you do it?'

Sarah said wildly: ‘
Hugo
—Hugo I don't understand. Why did you…? Oh, I think I must be going mad!'

Hugo sat down astride a chair facing her, his arms along the back of it and his chin on his sleeve, but he kept the odd-looking object in his right hand pointed at Sarah. His hand was quite steady, and suddenly Sarah was afraid as she had never been before, even when she had first heard the footsteps in the dark behind the bead curtain. And curiously enough, her fear steadied her.

She looked at Hugo, and it was as if she were seeing him for the first time.

The Hugo she had known, the gay, babbling, easy-going Hugo, was no more a real person than a piece of painted canvas scenery is real. That Hugo was merely a façade; a smokescreen; and behind it lived the real Hugo. Looking at him now, Sarah could not understand why she had ever thought those hard, implacable eyes were gay, or had failed to notice the cruelty of the small tight mouth. I suppose, she thought dazedly, it was because he was always laughing—or talking. His mouth was always open and his eyes crinkled up. One listened to him and laughed at what he said, and didn't really look at him at all …

She said desperately: ‘But why?—What did you do it for?'

‘The Party,' said Hugo; as one who says ‘for God.'

‘What party? I don't understand—you're English!—you can't mean——'

‘As a matter of fact,' said Hugo, ‘I'm half Irish, but——'

‘Oh God!' interrupted Sarah. ‘
Cromwell,
I suppose!'

Hugo threw back his head and laughed; but the unaffected gaiety of that sound did not deceive Sarah any longer. It was a habit and no more. Part of his stock in trade. It went no deeper than the surface.

‘I'll spare you that,' said Hugo, ‘but if you think that any waving of the Union Jack is going to affect me, you waste your breath. No, it was always the Cause. One life, Sarah, that's all we get, and we're a long time dead. Have you ever thought of that? No, I don't suppose you have. You're young yet. But there are millions of people who spend it in misery and sickness and grinding poverty, slaving their guts out to earn power and money and leisure for a pampered handful of profiteers or effete layabouts who still think of themselves as “the Aristocracy” and regard all those who work with their hands, or are less well born or well connected than themselves, as “the Common Herd” …

‘Now that this war is over the scum will be coming up to the top once more and imagining that they can carry on in exactly the same way as they did before. Well they are due for a series of nasty shocks! Much nastier ones than the election results that put a cat among the pigeons last year! The People are moving, and nothing can stop them now.'

‘You mean—you're one of
them?
' gasped Sarah. ‘A
red?
'

‘If you like to call it that. Though it's not a word we use much.'

‘But you're a serving officer … you can't … Doesn't your country mean anything to——No, I can see it doesn't. But Janet—and Mrs Matthews—and, and—Ahamdoo——Oh God! was that you? How many were there? How
could
you——'

‘Don't be a fool, Sarah!' said Hugo roughly. ‘They were on the other side, and they knew the risks of the game. They took a gamble and lost. That's all there is to it. Do you suppose that any of them would have hesitated to shoot me if they'd been able to get off the mark quicker? Of course not! Your precious Charles wouldn't hesitate to shoot me in the back if he had half a chance. And quite rightly. I'd do the same to him if I thought I could get away with it. I'd only just tumbled to Charles. Clever chap. Makes me boil to think I never dreamt … Oh well——!'

Sarah said uncertainly: ‘Does–does Fudge know?'

Hugo's face changed. His brows twitched together in a black frown, and his voice was suddenly harsh and rasping: ‘No, she doesn't! Fudge has nothing whatever to do with this. She knows where my sympathies lie of course, which was why she insis … persuaded me to give up my job in Intelligence—because she was afraid I might be “too biased”. She hadn't the remotest idea that it was much too late in the day for that, or that the damage, from her point of view, was already done. She still doesn't know. Not yet, anyway.'

Sarah said: ‘Then how did you manage about Janet? You were at Khilanmarg with her when … No you weren't! That was why Janet stayed: you said you'd strained a tendon. You hadn't, I suppose.'

‘No. I merely didn't want to go to Khilan because I was still hoping to catch whoever came to that hut near the Gap: Charles, I imagine? Oh yes, we'd cottoned on to the hut all right. It wasn't too difficult, because one of the great advantages of having worked for Intelligence is that you get to know a reasonable number of your fellow-workers, and to learn how some of them tick. For example, that a select few of the more erudite, who are not all that certain that their Indian servants don't understand English and may not be averse to accepting bribes and listening at doors, elect to conduct their top-secret discussions in Latin, in the belief that not a word of it will be understood by any inquisitive ear. And how right they would have been if I hadn't got wind of it and contrived to plant a few exceedingly innocent-looking Indian ears here and there, whose owners, convincingly disguised as humble servitors, were all in possession of Classical degrees acquired at English universities.

‘That hut scheme was only one of several interesting bits of news we managed to collect in this way: and very useful it proved——Though I admit it never occurred to me that Janet would take my place up at Khilan just when it had become a case of “Now or Never”, with the possibility of the weather turning nasty and still no sign of any ruddy lamplighter. Fortunately it made no odds, since she came anyway. I nipped across from the hotel and lit my own signal lamp, on the off-chance that it might fetch her down, and it did. All I had to do was wait. The only casualty on our side was that idiot Mohan Lal, who apparently hadn't realized that she'd be bound to have a gun. She plugged him very neatly.'

‘Who–who was Mohan Lal?' asked Sarah shakily.

‘Oh, just one of the boys. Rather a nasty bit of work and no loss. But it annoyed the third member of the party, who we'd managed to plant as a waiter in the hotel, quite considerably. I had the greatest difficulty in preventing him from shooting the girl out of hand, which would have caused no ordinary mess. Nothing like a purely accidental death for closing a tiresome episode without trouble. Missing bodies, or corpses with bullet holes in 'em, are a hell of a nuisance and stir up streams of awkward questions.'

Sarah said: ‘How did you do it? Why didn't they——' Her voice failed her and she could not go on.

‘Why didn't they make a fight for it? Ah! See this little gadget?' He gestured with the curious weapon he held. ‘Gas. A very clever invention of an exceedingly clever man. It can either stupefy, anaesthetize, or kill instantly. Depends on your trigger finger and how much you wish to use. It leaves no trace and it makes no noise. A whiff of this, and then it's a simple job to knock someone on the head in the sort of place that they might be likely to hit themselves if they'd had a bad fall. Or stick a knife into them with no fuss at all: not a cheep…!

‘I've got an excellent staff, but the brains are here,' Hugo tapped his forehead, and suddenly flung back his head and laughed loudly and uproariously: ‘God, how I've laughed up my sleeve sometimes at all our pompous brass-hats and gilded Foreign and Political snobs—the lordly “heaven-born”! If only they'd known that all the time I held 'em here–here, in the palm of my hand!' The hard blue eyes held for a moment a fanatical glow and his voice dropped to a whisper: ‘But nobody knows. I've been too clever for them. Nobody knows. Good old Hugo—the station silly ass.'

Sarah said, trying to keep her voice steady, trying to keep the wild panic from showing in her face: ‘Why are you telling me all this?'

Hugo looked at her for a moment as if he had forgotten she was in the room. He said petulantly: ‘Now don't be silly, Sarah. You know quite well why. You know too much. Far too much. I'm sorry, but there it is.'

‘But–but——' the words seemed to dry in her mouth, ‘you can't kill me, Hugo! You can't. If–if I promised…'

‘You wouldn't keep it, and I'm too near the end of the job to take any chances. The stakes are too big. No, my dear. A little whiff of this and the question will be settled. I'm not sure what they will decide that you died from. However the local
MO
is not likely to amount to much, and the chances are that he'll put it down to some heart trouble and leave it at that. In your fall, suffering from this inexplicable attack, I think you will have stumbled against the bead curtain and pulled it down with you. Yes, that will be the best idea. Two birds eliminated with one stone. And if you are considering screaming, I shouldn't. This stuff can work like chain lightning.'

Sarah fought with blind panic and managed to steady her voice. She said: ‘It's no use, Hugo. You can't get away with it this time. There are men watching this boat and they must have seen you come on board.'

‘You mean the bird in the bushes along there?' said Hugo with a laugh. ‘That's all right. He's the only one within sight of the boat. The others are merely watching the various approaches.'

‘You mean, you
knew?
' Sarah's grip tightened on the back of the chair.

‘Of course I knew. I'm no fool. The chap over there saw me come on board. In fact he couldn't have missed me: I made as much noise as possible. And why should he worry? He sees you hand over Lager to me when you leave, in the presence and with the approval of his boss—Charles was a party to that transaction, remember? Then not long before you return I come along the bank complete with dog, and go onto your boat turning on the drawing-room light in the process—always a disarming act. No criminal turns on a light. As you could see, he's not posted near enough to overhear much, and he undoubtedly supposed that you and Charles were greeted affectionately by me when you came on board.