Ellis Peters - George Felse 11 - Death To The Landlords (14 page)

When everyone else was taken care of, Mrs Madhavan and Priya also helped themselves and sat down with the menfolk. And by the time the younger girls brought coffee Mr Achmed the silversmith had arrived, and the eldest son with his wife, and the married daughter with her husband, to meet the visitors and to reclaim their various children. The walls of the little house bulged.

Out in the centre of the open square the Land-Rover stood all this time, a magnet for the interest of the whole district. Word went round from one to another, and half the neighbourhood came to see.

Priya emerged from the kitchen with a new pot of coffee, and crossed to the steps of the house. The Land-Rover had nearly disappeared beneath a cloud of gaily-coloured children; but they were in pride and awe of it, more concerned with being seen to belong to it than anything else, and there seemed no need to call them away. It was because she was looking in their direction, however, that as she passed she looked beyond them, to where the solitary tree stood rooted in the baked earth, sheltering its little mat of grass.

There was a man in a yellow robe sitting cross-legged in the shade there, dappled with the sunlight filtering through the leaves over him. She saw the coils of wooden beads and coloured cords round his neck, the tangle of black hair, and the ash-smeared forehead with the cult mark of Siva. He was motionless, his body facing the street, but his head turned towards her father’s house.

For one instant she had checked at sight of him; and though she resumed her purposeful walk at once, she could not be sure that he had not noticed and understood. She went on into the house, and poured fresh coffee; and then, without a word to anyone, and hardly missed among so many, she darted out again, down the steps and straight across towards the tree. For he could not be a coincidence, and she knew he was no illusion. She had no idea what she was going to say to him, or how he would answer her; but she must confront him, challenge him, and at least get a close look at him, face to face, so that in future she would be able to identify him wherever they met, and through whatever disguise he might put on. Here on the public street, among so many people, what could happen to her?

The grass-plot under the tree was empty, the scintillation of leaves quivered over the place where he had sat only a minute ago. The sadhu was gone.

She went on into the street, and searched in both directions for the flutter of saffron cloth, or a glimpse of the tangled, oily black hair; but he had vanished utterly.

She walked back slowly to the house. Now, she thought, I know that it was Purushottam they wanted, and not Patti, and having failed, they will try again. However he did it, this spy, he has found us. He is not wasting his time watching Lakshman from a distance at Malaikuppam; he is here, hard on our heels. And now, what are we to do?

He knows that I’ve seen him, this man. He went away because he didn’t want me to see him more closely. So he knows we’re warned. Would it be best to stay here, in a town, surrounded by people, where nothing can happen without instant detection, where action would be suicide? But no, we’ve seen already that they will contemplate suicide without a qualm, if they must. Death does not frighten them, not even their own. No, hundreds of innocent people passing by would be no protection, they would still toss a bomb in at the door and kill as many as need be, just to kill one…

A private part of her mind said, and she heard it and did not try to pretend deafness: ‘…
that one
!’

She had a family, parents, all those younger brothers and sisters and nephews and nieces…

No, she thought, we must go. Get out of here as soon as we can. The departure of the Land-Rover will be sign enough. If we can whip it away unobserved, now, while he is keeping out of my way for his own ends, I can guide it by a roundabout route, and not pass where we should pass on the direct road to the Cape. We may be able to lose them completely, and yet the fact that the Land-Rover is gone should leave my family undisturbed. All will be quiet here. The visitors gone – any neighbour will tell them. But not where! I must warn my father not to tell anyone where we are going.

All along, of course, it had been ‘we’. She knew that she had never meant to remain here, and let him go on without her, still under that shadow. Not even before she had sighted the pursuit, much less now. Not until the threat had passed, once for all, would she part company with Purushottam.

She went back into the house, which was full of voices, and made her own quiet voice cut through them all, clapping her hands under her chin with a bright, apologetic smile. Purushottam had been trying for half an hour to raise his courage, and find the right words in which to request that she might be allowed to travel on to the Cape with them, and even in this liberating atmosphere he had found it a hard thing to do. Yet if he did not make some move now to continue the acquaintance, how could he hope to revive it later through the good offices of his one surviving aunt, who in any case would think the match most ill-advised? But Priya simply raised the pitch of her soft voice a couple of tones, and said deprecatingly: ‘I am so sorry, but it is quite time that we should think of leaving now. Please forgive us!’ and everything was resolved.

On the last eight miles to Cape Comorin the Western Ghats had been left behind at last, the country opened level and green with paddy-fields and palms, broken only, here and there, by small, astonishingly abrupt, mole-hill-shaped mountains that erupted out of nowhere like the remains of old volcanic activity. Most of their area was bare, bluish rock; only in the scanty folds of their lowest slopes did trees and bushes cling.

‘You didn’t tell us,’ said Parushottam, in the back of the Land-Rover with Priya, ‘that you were a Christian.’

She did not take her eyes from the road unrolling dustily behind them; but she smiled. ‘I’m not sure that I am. Not sure
what
I am. I think I am religious, but I am not very partisan. But I was brought up as a Christian, and I have never seen any point in changing, when calling myself something else will not really be any more appropriate to what I believe. I expect I don’t think very logically about these things, but categories are so limiting, and so confusing.’

Still she watched their wake; she had been watching it ever since she had guided them out of the town by bewildering lanes and alleys, and round by cart-tracks to reach this southern highway at last. But there was no vehicle in sight behind them.

‘Why are you watching the road so carefully?’ he asked.

‘To make sure that we’re not followed.’

His mind had been too full of other thoughts to have any room for the consideration of his own safety. He had forgotten, temporarily, that it had ever been threatened. ‘We shan’t be followed now? Why should we?’

‘I hope not,’ she said. ‘But there’s no harm in keeping our eyes open.’

The tall gopuram of a temple showed ahead, rearing out of the palms. A large grove of trees surrounded it, but the tapering, gilded tower stood out far above the fronds of their crests, covered with carvings and alive with colours. In five minutes more they reached the gates, and the broad, ceremonial path that led into its courts. There were several cars standing before the entrance, and at sight of the rearmost of them Dominic laughed, and slapped a hand lightly on the wheel.

‘This is where we came in! What did we say? Provincial France has caught up with us again.’

There was no mistaking that old, sky-blue Ford, with the scratches of some ancient skirmish ripped across one door, and dabs of red retouching on the rear wing. The Bessancourts must be inside the temple enclosure with their box camera, doggedly making up the record of their travels. A tall, rangy young man in khaki shirt and shorts and a white headcloth sat on his heels, leaning back comfortably against the enclosure wall, his arms embracing his legs and his head pillowed on his knees, contentedly asleep, though they could only assume that his job was to guard the parked cars and discarded shoes.

‘Shall we stop? Do you want to have a look at the temple?’ asked Dominic, slowing down.

‘No, let’s go on,’ said Larry. ‘If everybody’s going to be making for this hotel at the Cape, maybe we’d better get there ahead of the rest. Not much doubt we’ll be seeing the Bessancourts this evening, is there?’

They could smell the sea, and trace the direction of the wind by the slant of the trees, before they came within sight of village, temple or cape. There were roofs of buildings ahead, more palmyra palms, and then a crossroads where a battered bus had just turned, clearly having reached its terminus. A few houses, small and modest, and a stall selling fruit and drinks, the cheerful stall-holder brandishing a machete to behead the coconuts, and slice a way through to the three pockets of sweet juice in the palmyra fruits for his customers. And that was all.

‘Here we must turn to the right,’ said Priya. ‘Look, that big house – that is the hotel.’

A lane brought them to its gates, and to a parking-ground within. The house was quite un-Indian; it might have been more at home in any expensive Victorian suburb of any northern commercial town in England, and indeed it had once been a British Residency; but it had broad, grassy surroundings, and a few windswept flower-beds, and it looked solid, spacious and comfortable.

‘The first chance I have had,’ said Purushottam buoyantly, ‘to be a proper courier for you.’ And he led the way inside to book rooms for them all. They followed more slowly, and in the dimmer light within looked round them among the panelling and potted palms, glimpsing through open doors and rear windows a sudden dazzling vista of sand, flowing in undulating dunes along the edge of a half-buried road; and beyond that the glitter of water. The Indian Ocean, which had seemed still far away from them, was almost lipping at their back doorstep.

Their rooms were on the first floor. As usual they were all double rooms, but because of Priya’s presence they needed three, so that one of the men was also privileged to enjoy a room to himself. ‘You take that one,’ Dominic said, and took Larry’s bag from the room-boy and dumped it within.

‘Suits me,’ Larry agreed accommodatingly, and followed his belongings.

Purushottam caught Dominic’s eye, and smiled. ‘You feel responsible for me?’

‘No sense in taking any unnecessary chances, you’d better share with one of us. Doesn’t matter which.’ But it did. He was the one who would feel answerable to the Swami for Purushottam’s safety, and that mattered a great deal.

Priya’s room and Larry’s were neighbours, and faced east. The third room was approached by a small side-corridor of its own, and faced south. All three of them opened on a long balcony with railings of ornamental ironwork, supported on painted iron pillars from below. Purushottam tossed his bag on the left-hand bed, and unzipped it in search of a clean shirt. For verisimilitude he had brought away the bag which belonged to Lakshman, but he had put in his own toilet articles and pyjamas and a change of clothes. After the dusty journey he wanted a shower.

He was still revolving under the cool water when he heard, distantly through this splashing music, the shrill, peremptory shriek of a woman’s voice, and then Dominic’s resigned groan of: ‘Oh,
no
!’ from the balcony. In pure curiosity Purushottam emerged glistening and golden from the bathroom, trailing his towel over one shoulder and leaving moist footprints behind him.

‘Why: Oh,
no
! – and so fervently? What was it?’

Dominic drew back a little from the railing, and pointed down into the garden.

The Manis, in all their glory, were just returning from a leisurely stroll along the coastal road from the village; Gopal Krishna in immaculate beige linen and immense sunglasses, with his expensive camera round his neck, Sudha in a lilac and blue sari woven in subtle stripes that changed shade with the light, her wrists laden with portable treasure of good bracelets, and her pale golden face plaintive with vexation. Sushil Dastur, harried as ever, trotted at her elbow bearing her bag, folding canvas chair, cushion and book. And what had occasioned the shriek of reproof was that he had let fall her bookmark, and lost her place in the book. Profuse and voluble in apology and reassurance, he was already feverishly hunting for it again, at the peril of dropping her cushion at any moment.

‘
That
is what it was – the lady. You haven’t encountered the Manis yet, but you will, the minute they set eyes on us. One of those cars outside must be theirs, but I never thought. All those black hire jobs look alike. And the devil of it is that they know Lakshman. In any case, they’ll have read about Patti.’ The mention of her name was like a stab, all the more because it was entirely possible, for brief periods, and on the tide of such crazy pleasure as they had experienced at Nagarcoil, to forget all about her. The reminder was still a crude shock when it came; and reality was treading on their heels even here.

‘Do they matter?’ Purushottam asked, watching the three figures advance towards the hotel.

‘Do we know what matters? They were at Thekady. They’d seen us a couple of times before that. For that matter, the French people are surely on their way, too. The car we passed at the temple. A pity! As we were a couple of days behind schedule, I thought they might all have turned back northwards by now. Not that the Manis ever actually acknowledged Lakshman’s existence,’ he added scornfully. ‘I don’t believe they ever addressed a word to him. But the Bessancourts did. And in any case none of them can help noticing, at close quarters, that you’re
not
Lakshman, whether they expect you to be introduced or not. Now how are we going to account for you?’

Purushottam wrapped the towel round him, massaged his slender body pleasurably and considered. ‘Lakshman had to leave you, and I’m your new guide. My name’s Narayanan. Why not? Supposing there is anyone here who already knows of me – the chap you’re worrying about – then he knows my name. And for any others, Narayanan is a perfectly good name, common enough, you meet a few of us everywhere. It will do for a guide as well as for anyone else. Who knows, they might even take me for a plainclothes policeman detailed off to escort you!’

‘Good advice,’ agreed Dominic, after a moment’s reflection. ‘Why complicate things unnecessarily? Hurry up and get dressed, and we’ll go and brief the others.’

They had need of a united front; for the moment they appeared in the lounge, with its range of large windows giving on the coast road and the dunes, Sudha Mani rose with a small, melodious shriek of recognition and sympathy from her tea-tray, and bore down upon them in a gust of perfumed air, her sari fluttering.

‘Oh, Miss Madhavan – Mr Preisinger – Mr Felse—Oh, we have been so anxious about you all! It was all in the papers – such a dreadful thing, that poor young lady! Ah, how we felt for her, and for her unhappy parents, so far away! Oh, how little we realised, when we said good-bye in Thekady, that in so short a time —’ Her breath gave out; she held her swelling bosom, and heaved great sighs.

‘My wife,’ intoned Gopal Krishna, rolling ponderously up to her support, ‘is so hypersensitive. Your bad news – such a shock to hear…’

‘Yes, it is a wretched business,’ Larry agreed rather forbiddingly.

‘But why, I ask myself, should anyone wish to hurt a young English lady like Miss Galloway?’ Gopal Krishna blinked behind his dark glasses, and shook his head heavily. ‘The police have a theory? They did not detain you, I am so glad of that.’

‘No, they didn’t want us to stay put. Though of course we’re in constant touch,’ Dominic said. No harm to plant the idea that wherever they went the police might well have a shadow not far behind. ‘As far as we could gather, they think that Miss Galloway may have seen something incriminating at Thekady, perhaps without even realising it, and someone wanted her silenced. But of course we may be wrong – it’s just an impression. They haven’t found it necessary to interfere with your movements, I hope?’

Sudha raised her fine black brows, a little disposed to be affronted by the suggestion, but her husband flowed on complacently enough: ‘Oh, no, indeed no, we have not been troubled at all. But for such distressing happenings, it could have been a most pleasant trip. We spent two nights at Tirunelveli, and went out to the coast there to see the Subrahmanya temple at Tiruchendur, and the cave sculptures. We arrived here for lunch today. You are also staying overnight? That will be very nice, we shall see more of you.’

They withdrew, smiling their goodwill and shaking their heads over all that had proved regrettable and spoiled a perfect trip, and went back to their tea. Neither of them had given more than a faintly curious glance at Purushottam, who hovered in the background with a very fair imitation of Lakshman’s ambiguous manner.

‘Let’s get out of here and have a look for the Cape we’ve heard so much about,’ said Larry restively, and led the way out, straight through the lounge to an open door, and out into a narrow garden, a levelled waste-land of grass half silted over with the encroaching edges of the dunes. It was like Cornwall in many ways, the furtive wavelets of sand creeping towards the house, the sparse plantations of tamarisks, the smell of the sea.

A light, insinuating hand plucked gently at Dominic’s arm as he passed through the doorway, last of the four. He looked down into the timid, apologetic dark eyes of Sushil Dastur.

‘Mr Felse, I wanted only to say… I read in the papers yesterday, about Miss Galloway.’ He shrank a little, drawing his large, bony head into his hunched shoulders. ‘It is not for me – I am only a retainer… But I am so very sorry!’

Startled by the very simplicity of this direct approach, Dominic looked at him as if for the first time. The Manis made it difficult to view Sushil Dastur as anything but an adjunct of their passing, a kind of comic postscript. And the man himself made it no easier to see him clearly, since he saw himself in much the same manner, and would, in a sense, have preferred to be invisible. It was an act of courage and decision on his part to speak for himself. And even now he had in his other hand a silk scarf belonging to Sudha, and before he could break away she gave tongue in quest of it; ‘Sushil Dastur, quickly! There is a draught here!’

‘Thank you,’ said Dominic hurriedly, and briefly touched the arresting hand with his own. ‘We appreciate that very much. You’re very kind.’

Sushil Dastur fled. And Dominic followed the others out into the seaward garden. It was from the right, from the west, that the sand was advancing, marching so softly, so insidiously, that for long months a broom might hold it at bay, and then suddenly one morning the broom would have to be exchanged for a spade. To the left the garden opened into an untroubled expanse of grass, and a few clumps of shrubs and trees. The drive wound round the building to this frontage, braving the rim of the dunes, and here, too, a few cars had found parking space, though that at the landward side of the hotel was higher by several feet, and quite free of sand. And there among the parked cars was the sky-blue Ford with the scratched door; and just hoisting out the bags and locking the boot again was the rangy young man in khaki shorts and bush shirt, who had been sleeping placidly under the temple wall on the road from Nagarcoil.

He lifted his head at the sound of their voices, staring for a moment in tension between delight and disbelief, and then his face split open in a broad and bountiful smile, and he dropped the Bessancourts’ bags on the ground, and came gladly salaaming over the gravel pathway to meet them.