The Girl from Cobb Street (33 page)

‘Gerald is taking cover, I imagine. He can be a trifle squeamish, but it’s of no matter. He has done his job, and we no longer need him.’

‘We?’

Anish rose from his chair and paced back and forth, his wet footprints tracing a pattern on the hard, mud floor. ‘These men are patriots and so am I. We care about the future of our country. You and I have often spoken of it.’

‘So your thefts have not been for money?’

His expression registered distaste. ‘That’s something I leave to Gerald. I believe my motive a purer one. A free India.’

She looked at him then, really looked at him. Perhaps for the first time. Why had she never seen that messianic glow which lit his face, the zeal which lurked behind the soft, brown eyes?

She tried to reason with him, to speak words that might persuade him into freeing her. ‘Can we not forget the guns? You don’t need them. India will soon have its independence. Everyone says so.’

‘Everyone says so,’ he mocked again. ‘And everyone has been saying so for centuries. It won’t happen. Our overlords may give a little here, a little there, but they will never leave this country. It’s far too valuable to them. And our politicians won’t make them. Congress talks and talks but nothing happens.’

He stopped in front of her then and, bending down, took hold of her shoulders in a firm grip. ‘The only sure way to free India of British rule is to fight. And that is what we’re doing. Without force, the British will never leave. They will talk, they will make small concessions, but they’ll not give up power. They’ll employ every trick to avoid such a thing. For all their fine words, they will deceive, as they always have.’

‘And you think you can take on the might of the British army with
these
people?’ Her eyes flicked across the men gathered behind Anish and her expression was contemptuous. It was her turn to mock, and in response his face darkened angrily.

But when he spoke, his voice was determinedly even. He was not to be goaded. ‘Never think that we are alone. The British may divide and rule but there are groups like ours all over the country. Dozens in Rajputana alone. And not just Hindus. Moslems too, militant groups on all sides. And all are arming. There’s been too much talking—action is what we need. The British will be made to leave, and this is the moment we do it. Everything points to that.’

‘You think they won’t fight back? You said yourself they always have.’

‘Right now, they’re looking elsewhere. Their own country is menaced and soon they’ll be immersed in a war with the most powerful military force in the world. They’ll have too many pressing worries near to home, and they’ll take their eye off the ball—isn’t that the right phrase? That’s when we strike. And when the Japanese come, and come they will, the British will be too slow to respond, even if they find sufficient troops to defend India, which I doubt. The jewel in the imperial crown will be lost forever.’

‘What makes you think the Japanese will be interested in a free India?’

She had no notion of the politics of the situation, and no doubt she sounded witless. But she didn’t care. A vague idea hovered in the back of her mind that the longer she could keep Anish talking, the longer there would be for someone to find her. But who was going to find her? Who was even looking? She’d been deserted by the man she’d married and now deserted by the man she’d thought her friend.

‘Japan will liberate us.’ His tone admitted no argument. ‘But in the meantime, we must do our best to convince our lords and masters they are no longer welcome. And that, I fear, applies to you to.’

It was hopeless, she knew, but she had to keep him talking, spin out the minutes as long as she could. ‘What made you and Gerald think of stealing from the armoury?’

He fell for the bait. ‘It was my idea,’ he said grandly. ‘Gerald was simply useful. I found out quite by chance that your house had a cellar. It’s the only building in the entire area that has any kind of underground storage. Years ago it belonged to the chief railway engineer. He had the cellar built to store his equipment: shovels, picks, explosives. It meant his stores were out of the way of prying eyes and itchy hands, exactly what I needed. I persuaded Gerald to move there from the Mess. The house was perfect, isolated and on the road to nowhere. Nationalist fighters are spread right across the state and a halfway house was essential. You can’t transport a huge cache of weapons without causing suspicion. The flow of arms needs to be a trickle, not a torrent.’

‘And you picked on Gerald to help you because he needed the money. He must be glad to have such an ally.’

‘Gerald provided excellent cover, it’s true, but I’ve been a good friend to him, though you may not believe it. He is a vain, shallow fellow, don’t you find? When I first saw you, I couldn’t believe his stupidity. You were certainly pretty and you had an innocent charm, but you were never going to measure up. And to sacrifice his whole career … Of course, I didn’t know you then and I made a bad misjudgement.’

‘If he has sacrificed his career, it isn’t because of me but of what you persuaded him into.’

‘He didn’t need persuading and you must take some of the blame. You made his situation worse. Bringing a woman to live in the house has caused endless problems. It’s made moving weapons difficult and there was always the possibility you would find out what was happening and cause a stir. As you did. That was unexpected, I admit. I hadn’t bargained on your being quite so stubborn. As stubborn as I am, it appears.’

‘You mean you hoped I would take fright from the accidents you arranged.’ The whole shocking business was becoming clearer by the minute. How stupid she’d been in thinking that Grayson Harte was in any way implicated.

‘It would have been better for all of us if you had. But you didn’t. Gerald wasn’t happy with the plan but he went along with it. What else could he do? But no matter what we did, you didn’t budge. Just the opposite. You became nosier than ever, and started poking into things that didn’t concern you. And see where that has led.’

They were back full circle and she had run out of prevarication. All she could do now was plead. ‘Let me go. You must know I won’t betray my own husband. You can trust me to say nothing.’ When he made no response, she said in a voice that trembled only slightly, ‘Surely you can’t mean to harm me.’

He sat down opposite her once more and his glance was sorrowful. ‘I’ve no wish to harm you, Daisy, not at all. I like you, I like you very much. Over the weeks we’ve known each other, I’ve felt a strong connection.’

‘I’ve felt it too,’ she said eagerly.

There was a regretful shake of his head. ‘Whatever my personal feelings, though, I can’t allow them to weigh with me. The cause I fight for matters most and one fact is indisputable—you know too much.’

‘I can forget what I know,’ she said desperately. ‘Move the guns wherever you want and I’ll forget I ever saw them.’

‘I wish we could settle the business so. If it were up to me … I respect you, I admire your courage and strange to say, I
would
trust you to say nothing.’

He leaned towards her and traced the curve of her cheek with his forefinger. ‘But you see, it’s not up to me.’ He gestured back towards the waiting men. ‘My companions here don’t trust you. And why should they? You’re an Englishwoman, to them you’re one of the enemy, and I can’t convince them otherwise.’

She drew herself upright in the chair and tried to look at him unflinchingly, but her soul was quaking. ‘So what do you intend to do with me?’ She had a very good idea of the fate that awaited.

‘Me? Nothing. I intend to do nothing but naturally I cannot vouch for my comrades. I must leave you in their hands but I have asked them to be merciful.’

She swallowed hard and tried to find her voice. ‘You’ll let them kill me.’

‘Hush, Daisy. Such ugly words. Whatever your future may be, go to it in peace.’

He rose then, throwing the chair into a corner and, without looking at her again, strode to the far end of the warehouse and out of the open door. She could no longer maintain the composure she’d forced herself to keep, and tears poured down her face. She sat, bound to the filthy chair, sobbing quietly, sobbing for a life about to be lost, for a friend already lost.

While they’d talked, the men had been listlessly kicking at the mud floor and sending odd sprays of dust into the air, but with Anish’s departure they hastened into action. The man standing guard beside Daisy bent to untie her legs, then pulled her upright by the arms and out of the chair. The pain in her shoulders was unbearable, but she was beyond caring. It was her fate, it seemed, to die at the hands of strangers, unmourned and thousands of miles from home. Her disappearance would hardly create a stir. Gerald would concoct a story that would satisfy his Colonel and anyone else interested enough to ask. She could see how it could easily be done. He would pretend an urgent message had come from England that necessitated Daisy leaving immediately. A close relative, perhaps, who had fallen dangerously ill. He would say that he’d managed to arrange her travel back to England at very short notice and even now she was on a P and O liner sailing to Southampton. There would be no way of checking his story and who would want to? Later he could pretend the relative had recovered a little, but that his wife had felt it her duty to remain in England. Months would pass and people would forget that Gerald had ever been married. Would he? she wondered. He might feel a passing sadness, some guilt over the nature of her death, but in the end it would suit him very well. He would be released from a wife he had never wanted.

They were at the open door, and water was falling from the sky in vertical rods. It hit the earth with an astonishing power, then danced up at least a foot high, before finally subsiding and spreading itself into huge lakes. In the near distance she heard the roar of the river, louder and more terrifying than she’d thought possible. She could hardly believe that so short a while ago young men had swum out into its peaceful depths and launched the festival floats on their lazy way downstream. The once calm waters had become a churning, raging force.

With a man on either side of her, she was pushed through the door and into deep mud, which sucked at her feet and ankles. The air was damp, thick with water, but within it bloomed a new freshness. After the musty atmosphere of the warehouse, she breathed it in with gratitude. The world was waking up, it seemed, though she would not wake with it. She felt the soft kiss of air on her face and realised that she very much wanted to live. Every one of her dreams had been destroyed, but she wanted to live.

The men were clutching her by the arms, prodding and pushing, forcing her to lurch forward through the sticky, oozing earth. It was difficult to lift one foot in front of the other and she had to concentrate hard to keep upright. Not so hard that she missed the sound being carried faintly towards her on the sodden air. Not the rain, not the river, but raised voices somewhere ahead. The men’s grip on her tightened and she could feel the tension emanating from their bodies. One of them pushed her roughly in the back and she almost fell to the ground, her legs as well as her feet soaked from mud and water. Something unforeseen was happening, and it was making her captors apprehensive. In the driving rain she could see nothing, but neither could they. Abruptly the whole party came to a halt. The men peered uncertainly into the mantle of mist and she felt their grip relax very slightly; they stood for some minutes silent, motionless. It was almost as though she had been forgotten.

Then, in one small instant, the curtain of rain parted, and two forms materialised from out of the darkness. Two figures wrestling with each other, soaked with rain and plastered in mud. Shirts were pasted against chests, trousers hung wet and limp around flailing legs. Immediately her gaolers renewed their grasp on her arms and pushed her onwards until the small group had drawn almost abreast of the fighting men. For the first time she recognised one of them. It was Anish. He had not gone far, it seemed. Or he’d been prevented from going. One of the Indians lit a flame torch and held it high in the air, casting a circle of cold, white light. The flare, caught by the wind, flickered wildly but in its bright burst she saw illuminated the face of the second man. It was Gerald, Gerald who was fighting his friend.

But why was he here? Anish had said he’d be in hiding and ridiculed him for his squeamishness. But this wasn’t squeamish for Gerald was putting up a brave fight. Could it be that he’d come looking for her, worried that the plan he’d agreed with his friend had gone adrift. More than anyone, he would know the lengths to which Anish would go. Gerald might have acquiesced in the attempts to scare her away, but was murder a step too far, even for him?

If so, he was fighting frenziedly to save her. The two men were kicking, gouging, punching each other to a standstill. It was a street brawl without rules. Every so often, one of them knocked the other to the ground, but then he would scramble to his feet and, dripping with mud, fight on. It would have been almost farcical if it had not been so deadly. Two, three, four times the men sent each other sprawling and recovered, but Anish was the larger man and she could see that he was slowly gaining the advantage. As she watched, Gerald was once more knocked to the ground. He lay slumped on his back, but this time was unable to spring back swiftly enough and almost instantly Anish had his hands around his throat squeezing, slowly squeezing the life out of him. Daisy watched the tableau in horror. Her captors were agitated, fingering what she imagined were hidden weapons, wanting to intervene, but unable to separate one man from the other. They need not worry, she thought, Anish would finish the job himself. Her husband’s body was already going limp.