Stephanie (20 page)

‘I thought
you
could do something for me! My own blood cousin!'

Jiva considered again. Here there had to be a sudden decision. It could not be something to be pondered over. He said: ‘I can give you an injection to ease the pain. That is simple. But I cannot miss my plane … Look here, I have another idea. Perhaps I can get a friend of mine to see you …'

‘What is this friend of yours? Is he a doctor?'

‘No, but he has doctors who would treat you. He is a friend. If I telephone and ask him –'

‘But as to the capsules –'

‘I do not think he would feel it necessary to tell anyone in authority. If I ask him, I believe he will help.'

‘How can I find him?'

‘I will telephone him. You will have to stay here until he sends someone round to pick you up. You understand?'

‘Yes, Cousin Arun! Now you are my friend!'

Arun licked dry lips. ‘I will ring him now. You will have to stay here and wait until he sends for you. It may be some hours, it may be tomorrow; it depends how busy he is, if he is at home. But if you wait here you must promise to stay in the house. There is milk and tea. You would be well advised not to take anything else. Telephone no one. Answer the door to no one else. You understand?'

Nari pulled up his knees. ‘And you will give me something to ease this pain?'

‘Yes. But remember you must do whatever my friend says. I think it is your best chance.'

James had been in charge of the operation, and his helpers were two farmers, a post office boy, a medical student and an electrician. They were all in ragged clothes, which was part disguise and part necessity; they looked like tramps and they had sabotage in mind. Apart from James, who had had a rudimentary course before he left England, the only one with any useful practical knowledge was Marcel, the electrician.

They had laid the charges overnight, with simple trip fuses to demolish the bridge at the right time. The problem was to know exactly when their quarry was to be expected. This line was used for passenger services to and from Lyon, business men, even schoolchildren. It would be a calamity if the wrong train were passing over the bridge at the time.

Their objective was a train due to leave Lyon for Bordeaux at eight in the morning carrying tanks and anti-aircraft guns to strengthen the defences of the Biscay coast, and word was going to be sent through from Lyon to the farmhouse about two miles from the bridge. Unfortunately, some other members of the Resistance who were not aware of these plans – and it was always the custom to work in self-contained units so that capture and torture did not involve more than the members of a single unit – had decided that night to cut the telephone wires out of Lyon going west.

So no quick easy telephone message could be sent.

The explosives did not need to be touched: they were well hidden and admirably sited. But the trip fuses had to be set.

James had been out on his bicycle as soon as dawn broke, reconnoitring the land east of the bridge. The line ran straight for a mile, then curved through a gully, with a tunnel and cliffs. He had worked it out that if he posted one of his men at the exit from the tunnel, he could be seen – just seen – by another man standing beside a tree on raised ground near the bridge. If one signalled to the other and he signalled to James, James would have about four minutes to run along the edge of the bridge and set the fuses.

It was now well after 7.30, and a cloudy breezy morning. Undulating fields, grazing cows, a distant road lined with poplars, glimmers of a green sky and a pencil or two of sun. They waited.

And waited. It occurred to James that he would not be disobeying his general instructions if he simply blew up the bridge. This would wreck the main line west from Lyon and effectively disrupt communications. But the lure of destroying the tanks and the guns was just too great.

Two railmen began to meander across the bridge from the other side, talking and gesturing and spitting as they went. As they got halfway one stopped and pointed with the stub of his cigarette at something on the line. It was the trip fuses, roughly if effectively disguised as foghorns but not sufficiently well hidden to deceive railmen. As James started up he saw Marcel standing against the skyline with both hands raised above his head. It was the signal.

James ran along the bridge. ‘Halt!
Ne touchez pas! Nous sommes le maquis!
'

The man with the cigarette was kneeling looking at the fuse wire, trying to pull off the adhesive tape.

James took out his revolver. ‘ Stop or I'll kill you!'

The Frenchmen looked at each other. Cigarette shrugged. ‘This is for the Boche? But how do you
know?
The eight-twenty is now due. That is –'

‘It is not that! I have the signal!'

‘
Nom de Dieu
,' said the other Frenchman. ‘Those on the eight-twenty are students, housewives, young children –
all French
…'

He bent to yank at the fuse and James hit him on the head with his revolver. The man collapsed on the tracks.

‘Get him out of the way!' As the other hesitated, ‘Do you want me to shoot you?'

The railman threw away his cigarette. ‘
À Dieu ne plaise!
How am I to know? This could be an outrage!' But he bent to do as he was told.

As they picked up the man they could feel a quiver in the railway line. Even then James stopped to check that the fuses had not been broken. They lugged the man towards the end of the bridge as the train snorted and rattled into view.

Somebody started firing, and bullets flew near the three men, who fell in a heap at the end of the bridge, rolling to take cover in the long grass. The great engine came towards them across the bridge, thundering, unstoppable. And it did not stop. With horrible frustration James saw the train coming safely across. Then there was a flash of light, an ear-splitting boom – the men were flung backwards – and the middle of the bridge began to give way.

The momentum of the engine had carried it beyond the collapse as it poured white smoke into the great blue-black column of the explosion; then the train slowed to a stop and with extraordinary deliberation the bridge behind it came apart, and one by one the trucks and carriages fell with the bridge into the ravine below.

As he slid and sidled painfully but peacefully into his estate car James wondered what had brought that adventure so vividly back today. Perhaps it was a dream he had had last night which was that he could walk and run as easily as he had once done.

He had learned to run as never before on that morning long ago, for with twelve Germans dead and a score more injured and enormous damage to railway stock and the bridge, the saboteurs had to be found. Marcel was shot and killed early on, but the rest got away, including Captain James Locke. Somehow
he
had got away, running doubled through the tall hay. Somehow he had made it – otherwise he would not be here, bereaved of a beautiful daughter who would then never have been born, prepared to go out and persevere obstinately on this most discouraging quest.

‘I'm going to see Arun Jiva,' he said. ‘He's avoided me twice. If he's not prepared to answer the door I shall wait. If I draw blank there I shall try Hillsborough before I come home.'

Mary patted his arm. ‘Have a care.'

‘Of course.'

Since Stephanie died Mary had taken to sharing his bed more often – not for any physical contact these days but for the companionship. She knew how badly James had taken the tragedy, but he was not a man to say much about it, and she believed, rightly, that she was a valuable outlet. Often they talked long into the night: he would take the tablets to contain the pain in his ankles, but never since Stephanie's death would he touch sleeping pills. So sometimes they talked until three or even four, but when he woke in the morning she was always gone. It was as if the role of the housekeeper took over at dawn.

He had put his wheelchair in the back of the estate car, but there did not appear much likelihood of his being able to use it.

Oxford was as crowded as usual. Every time he came into the city he winced at the horrors of the new architecture. If they'd built it all in Cowley it wouldn't have mattered. What had happened here was utter desecration.

After a brief lunch he made for Jericho and Caxton Street and parked outside. For once there was room. Slide out of the driver's seat, fish for the sticks, awkwardly up the two steps. Since Stephanie's death he had used his legs much more. It didn't suit them at all but he half welcomed the pain as a counterirritant.

The bell yielded no result. He tried the knocker. He was aware that the curtain in the downstairs room had stirred. No answer. He took his stick and rapped loudly on the window.

Wait. Silence. Then the door creaked.

A three-inch gap. A stranger. But an Indian.

‘Is Dr Jiva here, please?'

The man shook his head vehemently. ‘No. Not here. Gone away.'

‘When will he be back?'

‘Don't know. Not now.'

‘I'll wait,' said James.

‘Can't wait.' The door was closing. James's heavy boot was well adapted for putting in the way.

‘I want to come in.'

The thin young man hesitated.

‘Are you from Mr Errol Colton?'

‘No.'

‘Then I must ask you to be leaving me alone!'

‘I want to know when Arun Jiva will be back.' James put his shoulder to the door. The resistance was not great and he found himself in a tiny hall. The Indian had retreated halfway up the stairs. He was in a thin vest and a pair of striped pyjama trousers and was grey-faced and shivering.

They stared at each other for nearly half a minute, then the Indian said: ‘Are you the doctor?'

‘No. Do you want one?'

After another pause the Indian turned and stumbled up the stairs, disappeared into a room, and a door slammed.

James limped with his sticks into the room on the right, a small sitting room. It was conventionally and sparsely furnished with little evidence of Asian influence and a few books with German titles among a round dozen on anatomy and pathology. There was a half-empty cup of tea, a tin teapot, some biscuits spilled on the floor. A few drawers were open and empty – some newspapers thrown untidily into a corner. In a wastepaper basket exam papers torn across, a notebook with diagrams. A coat and hat thrown on a chair, a pair of shoes as if kicked off.

James looked at the coat. It was from Lewisohn of Carnaby Street: the material new and cheap but stained and crumpled. No shop name in the hat. He stopped and listened. This was a tiny house but he could hear no movement upstairs. He had never thought anyone else lived here but Arun Jiva. This sickly-looking fellow could just be visiting – or he might be a student. The room upstairs into which he had disappeared must be the one from which James had observed Jiva watching him when last he called.

He lowered himself into a chair, put down his sticks and lit a cigarette. How long would Arun Jiva be, and what could he demand to know when they confronted each other? Were you a party to the murder of my daughter? An impossible question. Why was he here at all?

What do you want? Arun Jiva would say. Who let you in? Your lodger upstairs who, by the way, looks pretty sick and appears to be waiting for a doctor. And how does he know Errol Colton's name?

Fifteen minutes later, having recovered from the effort of getting here, James began to look round the house. He took his time, opening drawers and cupboards, a bureau, the fridge, the cooker, the shed outside at the back. All very normal. There was a non-European smell in the kitchen, and the existence of so many spice bottles on the shelves accounted for that. Moving clumsily about, he had made a considerable noise, but there was still no reaction from upstairs. Maybe the man had fainted. Shouldn't one go to inquire if only for humanitarian reasons?

Stairs were not the most impossible obstacle from James's point of view – slopes were that – but a flight was not something he tackled lightly. He went up now, one best foot at a time, hand over hand on the rail, and sitting down twice on the way. They were steep, cheap stairs, relic of the jerry-builder who put up the house a hundred years ago. Three doors, the middle one obviously the bathroom and loo. He was sure it was the right-hand one.

The Indian lay on the bed. His face was still drawn and grey but he looked better, more relaxed, his expression one of content. There was a smell of vomit in the room.

They stared at each other. ‘When will Jiva be back?' James demanded.

‘I have been telling you. He is gone.'

‘Gone where?'

‘Home to India. On the plane this afternoon. In nine hours he will be in Bombay.'

As James came into the room he saw a photograph of Stephanie on the mantelpiece.

‘When will he return?'

‘Oh, he does not know. When it is convenient for everybody, he says.'

‘And who are you? What is your business here?'

‘My name is Nari Prasad. I am a relative. His cousin by marriage, you understand. You need not wait. Arun will not return.'

‘Until it is convenient for everybody, eh?'

‘What?'

‘That was what you said, wasn't it? That Arun Jiva would return when it was convenient for everybody.'

‘Did I say that? Maybe that is what he has told me. What is that you are taking up? I do not know who you are, sir.'

‘My name is James Locke. This is a photograph of my daughter, on holiday with your friend, Errol Colton.'

Nari shook his head. ‘Errol Colton is not my friend. I do not think I have ever met him.'

‘Why did you expect him this afternoon, then?'

‘Because my cousin says he will be coming or will be sending a doctor to see me. I have been very ill. I am still very ill. I have a stoppage of the bowels.' Nari's face twitched at the memory of the pain which Arun's tablets had driven away. He was feeling altogether better, less tense, quite willing to talk to this lame old man who had called, though anxious that the doctor should come. It was two hours since Arun had left.