The Girl from Cobb Street (34 page)

She was overwhelmed with pity. And dread. Where Gerald went, she would follow. But he had gathered his strength into a last desperate effort and was tearing Anish’s hands from his throat. One more tremendous lunge, and he managed somehow to push his opponent backwards. Anish stumbled, and lost his grip and Gerald staggered to his feet. He was barely able to speak.

‘Let her go.’ Through the rain, his voice came in gasps. ‘Let her go.’

Anish was almost as winded. ‘I can’t. You know that.’

‘I’ll make sure she says nothing.’

Anish shook his head, and drops of water sprayed around him as though he were a dog emerging from the river. ‘It won’t work, Gerald. Be reasonable, man.’

‘Reasonable! When you mean to kill her. Let her go!’

It was impossible, she knew. Gerald could not rescue her. He was one man against seven. Anish shrugged his shoulders as though abdicating any further responsibility for the whole sorry mess. ‘I can’t. Look for yourself.’

He pointed at the small group yards from the warehouse door and it seemed that for the first time Gerald saw her, standing mute and still, hands bound and straitjacketed between two of her captors. He started towards them and suddenly one of the men she’d taken little notice of, was by her side. From the corner of her eye she caught the flash of a weapon and then felt the sharp tip of a knife at her throat.

‘You’d be wise to go no further. You can do nothing for her.’ Anish panted out the words, but his friend wasn’t listening.

From beneath a wide leather belt, he had drawn a revolver and was levelling it at Anish. Through the thunder of rain, he yelled across at the man holding the knife. ‘Drop your weapon. Let her go or I’ll kill Rana.’ His voice was cracking, his mind evidently in chaos. He seemed at the very edge of an abyss and poised to topple over.

The man holding the knife did not move. Gerald shouted again, this time in Hindi. In response the men drew closer to Daisy, surrounding her and blocking her view of what was happening. There was a loud explosion. A gunshot, it had to be. Then an outburst of angry voices and feet floundering through water. All but one of her captors had abandoned her. Her view was clear now and she could see through the battering rain: Anish was on the ground and lying very still. Gerald was crouched over him, his head in his hands. In a fury, her gaolers surged towards him, and he turned at the sound of their approach. For a moment he looked directly at her, and then he fled.

With the men on his heels, there was only one way to run and that was towards the river. But there could be no escape in that direction. Gerald was exhausted, his energy spent, and her captors caught up with him as he reached the riverbank. In the light of the flame torch she saw the glint of steel, the same knife that had threatened her, and then he’d vanished into the churn of waters. Her heart bent beneath this new weight of sorrow. Gerald had tried to rescue her. The man who did not love her, for whom she had been only ‘fun’, had tried to save her life and in doing so, had lost his own.

She was allowed no time to grieve. Once the group was certain that Gerald had gone to his death, they returned for her. She’d been too stunned by the sudden chain of events to make any attempt to break free. How far would she have got in any case? Her shackled arms made running almost impossible, and she had no idea where she was or where she could run to. There was no escape; she would be the third sacrifice of the night. The men dragged and pushed her through furrows of mud, through deep troughs of water, past the body of Anish and up onto the riverbank. It was clear she was to follow Gerald into the deluge. His body, if it were ever found, would be badly battered and, along with Anish’s violent death, the authorities would draw their own conclusion: the two men had quarrelled in the most deadly fashion and in the frenzy of their clash, Gerald had shot his friend and then taken his own life. There would be nothing to link either death with the men who held her.

But she was a different matter. If she were found, her death must look an accident. They would not shoot or stab her. They would simply let her drown. They would unbind her and push her into the river. At festival time, there were always accidents. People got drunk, became careless. It was easy to slip in the rain, easy to lose your way and think the riverbank a safe path. She would no doubt be just one of several fatalities that night. But first they would have to render her semi-conscious, she reasoned, for they’d need to ensure that she had no chance to save herself. Not that it was likely. How could anyone, even a strong swimmer, survive against the torrent below. But a light blow from a cudgel would do the trick and cause little suspicion.

She stood on the wide, green riverbank and felt strangely at peace in a world made newly beautiful. The moon had floated free, a huge, pale disc silvering a path through an extraordinary landscape. By its light, she could see that the grass was now lush, that small flowers would begin to raise their heads above ground for the first time in months, and over everything reigned crisp, clean air. Now she was being dragged further along the bank to a section that towered high above the water. The men were making sure that when she fell into the maelstrom below, it would be with sufficient force to pull her under. Her erstwhile gaoler seemed to be the group’s chief, and when he was satisfied she was in the right place, she saw him approach, a wooden bat in his hand. Not a cudgel then, but a cricket bat. Her mind was gradually drifting, uncoupling itself from what was happening. She found herself smiling at the incongruity of the weapon they’d chosen, found herself unsurprised that it would be just as she’d anticipated. The man raised the bat, ready to bring it down on her head in a glancing stroke. She waited for the blow to fall. But in vain. The scene had ground to a halt. She heard a click—guns? The safety catches on guns? But how could that be?

‘Drop your arms immediately.’ The voice echoed through cascading rain.

Daisy knew that voice. The man at her side dropped the bat into the frothing waters below, and was grabbed from behind by a figure in uniform. She was saved, she realised. Unbelievably, she was saved. She dared to turn her head then. Her captors had been herded together some distance away, and stood in a ragged line, hands raised high in the air. Facing them was a phalanx of uniforms, a column of policemen, each with a gun pointing at a miscreant’s head.

And there was Grayson Harte striding towards her, taking her gently by the arm, navigating a path from the riverbank through an expanse of mud and water towards a waiting police car, its light flashing lurid blue across the flooded land.

A large black sedan pulled up alongside and a silver-haired man emerged. He was improbably dressed in a pinstripe suit, and stepped gingerly towards them.

‘Are you sure you’ve got them all, Harte?’ His voice was low, cultured. To Daisy, he seemed a being from another world.

‘I believe so, sir.’ Grayson nodded towards the men flinching beneath the raised guns. ‘All of the Jasirapur group at least.’

‘And the servant?’

‘The police have gone with my assistant to pick up Rajiv Gupta. And the cache of arms, too, that he’s been guarding.’

‘Good, good,’ the man muttered vaguely. He was looking across at the mud-splattered body which lay between them and the men Anish had called his henchmen. ‘Pity about the lieutenant. I’d like to have seen him stand trial. Bloody traitor!’

Daisy had been standing slackly by Grayson’s side, unable to stop herself from drooping, but at these words she bunched her hands together into two small fists. Anish was no traitor, she wanted to shout. This was his country. And whatever he’d done, she forgave him for it. He’d been mistaken but he’d believed in his cause—passionately. And she loved him, as a friend, as a sister.

‘I must be getting Daisy to a place of safety, sir,’ Grayson said tight-lipped.

‘Of course. So sorry you’ve had such a beastly experience, Mrs …’

‘Mortimer,’ she said defiantly.

But the man was already clambering into his sleek, black saloon. Grayson nudged her towards the waiting police car. ‘You’re to go to the Infirmary, Daisy. Dr Lane is waiting for you.’

The car door slammed shut, the driver hit the accelerator, and the vehicle screeched onto the rain-soaked road, tyres spinning through the mud. She twisted round in her seat and looked back. At the flashing blue lights, at the glint of police guns still levelled at the cowering men, and at Grayson busily directing each arrest.
So this is what you were doing in Jasirapur
, she said to herself.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

D
aisy nestled into the deckchair’s canvas fold and watched the ship creaming its way through the ocean. She had only to walk a few yards from her cabin to enjoy the freedom of the upper deck, and since few of the passengers in this select part of the ship chose to rise quite so early, she was enjoying the view undisturbed. In contrast to her outward journey on
The Viceroy
, her accommodation spelt comfort: a first-class cabin and on the starboard side of the ship. Port outward, starboard home, POSH, that’s what Grayson had said. You avoided the worst of the sun that way. It must have been even more important in the days before cabins were equipped with electric fans. Their space was small, and after a day’s fierce sun, passengers must have felt they were being cooked in their bunks. No wonder they so often slept on deck, men on one side, women on the other. She thought that must have been wonderful—to lie beneath a spread of brilliant stars and watch the ship’s superstructure moving gently against a clear, dark sky. It was almost enough to make her regret the new-fangled fans. But she was grateful for the consideration she’d been shown: the special cabin, the friend to accompany her. In truth, she’d been too stupefied to concern herself with travel arrangements, and had agreed to everything the regiment had suggested.

It had been a strange few weeks. She had stayed at the Infirmary just one night, sufficient time for Dr Lane to check her over and pronounce that, apart from cuts and bruises, she was fully fit—in body at least. Her mind and heart were something else. There were days before she could leave for Bombay, and a matronly Moslem woman had been deputed to look after her. Amina Masri had moved without fuss into Rajiv’s old quarters but spent most of her time in the house with Daisy, feeding her charge tea and titbits, patting her hand comfortingly and muttering beneath her breath at the wickedness of the world. Grayson had visited only once, ostensibly to make sure that Amina had settled in. In their one-sided conversation, he’d talked to her of everything—the weather, his colleagues, letters from home—everything but the events of that terrible night. It had been out of respect for her fragility, she imagined, but also perhaps because his task was done and dusted. Anish was dead, and the group Grayson had been tracking so assiduously were locked away and facing justice.

She had sat and listened politely to him over the teacups, but his voice had come to her as though it were travelling through a dream. In the same fashion, she’d imbibed the Colonel’s speech of regret and nodded blankly at the police chief, as he proudly declared that her captors, together with Rajiv, were now in jail and awaiting trial. She knew she must have thanked the Adjutant for his expertise in organising a swift passage home, but she had no memory of the words she’d used. Her mind was constantly telling her that none of this was happening, none of this
had
happened. And yet it had. A grand tragedy had played itself out against the setting of her small life, and she was still struggling with the aftermath. Try as she might, its echoes would not let her go.

Her time in India was ended but despite everything she’d endured, she had not wanted to leave. In the end she’d had no choice and, almost in a trance, she’d packed her few possessions in the cardboard suitcase, and waited for transport to arrive that would take her to Marwar Junction and on to Bombay. It had been as sad a departure as it had been a homecoming, for in the end she’d been sorry to say goodbye even to the bungalow. The rains had transformed it, or rather they’d transformed its garden, and that in turn had made the house newly welcoming. Within a few days of the monsoon arriving, the land had turned green, covered in a carpet of brightly coloured, scented flowers, which tangled themselves in and out of the long alfalfa grass. Along the pathway which once sported nothing more than dry dust, frogs and toads were in constant motion, crossing and recrossing the new lushness. At times, the heat of the sun would suck the vapour from the ground so strongly it rose a foot high, and for several hours would hang there unmoving. Like an altar curtain, she decided, like the opaque screen she had sat behind on so many childhood Sundays. The rain brought with it snakes and cockroaches emerging from their hiding places, mosquitoes too, and greenfly and small black beetles. But she didn’t mind. The sheer freshness of the world charmed her and whenever it stopped raining sufficiently for her to venture outside, she would sit quietly on the veranda watching the garden rebuild itself beneath her gaze.

Snippets of news gradually filtered through from the cantonment and found their way to the island she inhabited. Gerald’s body had not been recovered and officially he was ‘presumed dead’. It was accepted without question by his fellow officers that both he and Anish had died trying to rescue her from her assailants, and she said nothing to disabuse them. A letter had come from Jocelyn in Simla, full of warm sympathy for Daisy and sadness and admiration for the two dead men. She was glad she wouldn’t be meeting her friend face to face for surely she would have confessed the truth. But everyone was happy with the story as it stood, the police too, and it seemed best to let things lie. She doubted the prisoners would complicate matters, since the tale that was being told exonerated the leader they respected and accorded him an honourable death. Why she had been captured remained a mystery to most, but there was a general presumption that it must have been for money. Grayson’s very special branch of the ICS, of course, knew differently, and though it must have stuck in their throats—particularly the throat of the pinstriped man, as Daisy thought of him—they had said nothing to contradict this view. She imagined they were playing a long game and hadn’t wanted to alert other nationalist groups in Rajputana that they knew of any kind of link with the Indian Army. Their official stance was that only Indian civilians had been involved in the fracas, and that these men were being summarily dealt with.