Ellis Peters - George Felse 11 - Death To The Landlords (15 page)

‘Sahib… sahib! So I find you here also! You know me? You remember me? Romesh Iyar, boat-boy?’

‘Romesh!’ It was impossible not to be warmed by the reflection of his pleasure. Larry halted willingly. ‘We never expected to see you here, you’re way off your beat. I thought you had a job waiting on the railway at Tenkasi. What are you doing here?’

‘Sahib, I stay in Tenkasi three days, work sometimes, but no regular job. My brother very poor man, I not stay there to live on him. Third day police say can go now, not report any more. In Tenkasi is not good, no jobs there. So I go try in Trivandrum, but there also I got no luck. Everywhere many men without jobs.’

‘You’d have done better,’ Dominic suggested ruefully, ‘to stay in Thekady, where you had a job.’

The turbaned head shook violently. Anything rather than that. ‘No, sahib, no stay there. No go there again. That was bad place, bad luck, must get away from that place.’

‘But what will you do, then? Are you working for the Bessancourts now?’ Self-contained and self-sufficient, those two elderly, invincible people seemed the last pair in the world to need or want a servant.

‘I very lucky, sahib. Someone tell me, good jobs going in Dindigul, in tobacco factories, so I want go there, but it is long way, cost too much money. But then I meet Bessancourt Sahib and lady, and they remember Romesh. They say they go from here to Pondicherry. Best road to Pondicherry is through Dindigul. So I ask, please take me like servant, you not pay me anything, only food and let me ride with you, and I do for you everything. They very kind, tell me yes, can come.’

‘Fine! And you think there really will be a job for you there?’ asked Larry.

‘Oh, yes, sahib, very good jobs in tobacco factories. I am good worker, can do all.’

‘You drive a car, too?’ Not that the Bessancourts seemed to need a relief driver, but there was little else for a travelling servant to do for them, they were so used to being self-supporting.

‘Oh, yes, sahib, I drive anything with wheels, very good driver.’ He went and picked up the discarded bags from where he had dropped them. ‘Must go now, Bessancourt Sahib waiting for luggage. You stay here tonight, sahib?’

‘Yes.’ Dominic thought, as perhaps they were all thinking, it’s Thekady all over again, but without Patti. The same cast, even a rather similar Victorian hotel, the same parked cars, the same – though very different – tourist spectacle long since formalised by strict custom. Here you don’t go out to watch elephants from a boat; but the rules are no less firmly laid down. You go out in the evening towards the west, to watch the sun go down in the Arabian Sea, and in the morning you get up early and go out towards the east, and watch it come up again out of the Bay of Bengal, far away beyond invisible Ceylon.

Romesh Iyar had been an employee at Thekady for a matter of months, he remembered; and suddenly he asked on impulse: ‘Romesh, all the time you were at the lake, did you ever see a sadhu begging by the Siva shrine, the one near the forestry bungalow? Wearing this cult sign?’ He drew it with a stick in the gravel. Romesh had put down the bags again, and was gazing down at the scratched drawing with a face suddenly tight and wary. He took some moments for thought, though they could not escape the feeling that he had known the answer from the beginning. Finally he looked up into Dominic’s face, and he was no longer smiling.

‘Yes, sahib – once I see such a man. That is strange – it was that same time, same weekend when
that thing
happen. Day before you come to my boat, I go down to village with truck to bring flour, in afternoon I go. I see this sadhu then, sitting by lingam. I remember it because never before I see anyone sitting there. This once only I see him. ‘ His face was clouded, even uneasy; something more was stirring in the back of his mind. ’Sahib, why you ask me this?’

‘We saw him, too,’ said Dominic, ‘that same day. We wondered if perhaps he was often there.’

‘No, never before I see him. Only that once. But, sahib – there is something else, now you have spoken of this man. Just such a man I see also today.’

‘Today?’ said Dominic sharply. ‘Where?’

‘Sahib, in Nagarcoil. Bessancourt Sahib stop there for midday meal, and I go look at the town. In Krishnancoil district I see this sadhu, sitting under a tree, in Jambukeshwar Lane. This same mark he had. Sahib, was this the same man? Was it he…’ His voice foundered. The whites began to show in a widening band all round the pupils of his eyes. ‘But, sahib, this was
a holy man
…’

‘I shouldn’t worry,’ Dominic reassured him quickly. ‘The police wanted to check on everyone who was in the area, that’s all. Why should you be anxious about it now? You’re with the Bessancourts, and in a day or so you’ll be heading for Dindigul with them. You’ll get your job, and never hear any more about this.’

‘Yes,’ said Romesh, but abstractedly, and as he picked up the bags for the third time his face was still taut and alert with something that did not quite amount to fear – wariness, uncertainty, disquiet. He would be glad when the sky-blue Ford headed north-east again. ‘I go now, sahib, must go, got work to do.’

He set off round the corner of the house, and they stood looking after him until he vanished.

‘You don’t suppose,’ Larry said tentatively, ‘that he was making up today’s sadhu, just to oblige?’

‘No,’ said Priya quietly, ‘he is speaking the truth. The man was there. I know, because I saw him, too. Perhaps you did not notice – Jambukeshwar Lane is the name of the road where we live.’

She told them the whole story. ‘If the Bessancourts were at lunch, that would be about the right time. I think Romesh must have passed by and seen him before I noticed him. When I went out again, he was gone. I think he knew I had seen him, and he did not wish to be seen at closer quarters. So I thought the best thing to do was to get you away from there at once, while he was keeping out of sight for his own sake. And that is what I did.’

‘But why,’ demanded Purushottam, aghast, ‘
why
did you say nothing? If I’d known we were being followed – if I’d known they were watching us – I’d never have brought you with us into this danger.’

She looked at him with a pale but radiant smile, and said: ‘But that
is
why. Now I am here, and there is nothing you can do about it. It was not only that I wanted to come with you, it was partly because there was no time for explanations, and I did not want to alarm my family. Also I did want to get you out of Nagarcoil by a roundabout way, in the hope of losing our shadow. And we may have done so, you know – I hope so. I feel sure no vehicle actually followed us. It seems that they know quite well who you are. But if they now know
where
you are, it’s because they knew in advance where we were going, or at least were able to guess. Or because once again they have simply found us, as
he
found us in Nagarcoil. A Land-Rover is not so anonymous as one of those black hire-cars and taxis.’

Purushottam said, with eyes for no one but Priya, and in a hurt, reproachful voice, like a baffled child: ‘You shouldn’t have done this to me. Of all things in the world I wanted you safe.’

‘Of all things in the world,’ said Priya, almost crossly. ‘I want you alive.’

It struck Dominic as being one of the oddest, as well as one of the briefest, love-scenes of all time, but it was exceedingly illuminating. Even Larry, whose perceptions were inordinately obtuse where women were concerned, looked astonished and enlightened. The retrospect of Nagarcoil acquired undreamed-of implications. That fantastic set-up knocked on the head all considerations of caste, and even of poverty and wealth. On the one hand this girl so extravagantly rich in relatives and so poor in terms of money, and on the other this lonely, aristocratic, voluntary exile from caste and class, with his head full of exalted ideas and his life empty of kin. An excellent arrangement, Dominic thought, the pooling of equal but different resources. I wouldn’t mind betting the Swami saw this coming. For a life-long non-swimmer he is certainly pretty good at forecasting the tides.

‘No point in arguing, anyhow,’ he said reasonably, standing-in for his distant mentor, ‘she’s here now. Look, you go on out to the shore, and I’ll join you in a few minutes. I’ve just remembered something I’d better do now, while I think of it.’

What he had remembered – though he had never actually forgotten it, or detached his mind from it – was that he had promised to telephone the Swami whenever anything occurred that might be relevant to the matter in hand. And a Saivite sadhu seated in contemplation outside the little house in Jambukeshwar Lane seemed, in the light of past experience, alarmingly relevant.

‘I see,’ said the distant, meticulous voice, with evident concern, ‘that I have miscalculated. I was afraid of it. Nothing has happened here. Lakshman is exemplary and immune – and I must say that I now feel every confidence in him – and no suspicious characters have been seen within a radius of miles. I am afraid no one is interested in us. The hunt has not been side-tracked. You understand what this means? Someone knew about that change of identities.’

There seemed no other explanation. From Koilpatti down to Nagarcoil they had seemed to have the road almost to themselves. If they had been followed – and they must have been – it had been at a most discreet distance. The pursuer had not had to depend on keeping his quarry in sight. And why set out to shadow the Land-Rover at all, unless someone had watched the embarkation, and observed and understood the change in the cast?

‘It is a possibility,’ admitted the Swami, ‘that someone already knew Purushottam by sight, but it cannot be put higher than a possibility. Much more probable is that someone was watching
who knew Lakshman
. And now you tell me that there are no less than six people there who know Lakshman quite well, from the events at Thekady.’

‘Seven,’ said Dominic, reluctantly. ‘There’s Larry. I don’t seriously believe he’s anything but what he seems, but I daren’t take it for granted. And if one of us was involved, there wouldn’t have to be any watcher to find out the score, would there?’

The Swami blandly ignored the omission of Priya, even though the blanket phrase ‘one of us’ could have been interpreted as including her. He pointed out practically: ’But there
was
a watcher. At Nagarcoil, if not at Malaikuppam, he was seen. By two quite independent witnesses, whose evidence is mutually corroborative. However, I agree with you, we must lose sight of no one, of no possibility.’

‘You do take this seriously, then?’ He was dismayed but not surprised; he had known in his own heart that it must be taken seriously.

‘I take it very seriously indeed. And since it is known to all these people that Purushottam is in the hotel, that is clearly the most dangerous place, and what I feel we must do is get him out of it as much as possible. Forgive me,’ said the Swami with his habitual subtlety and courtesy, ‘if I say “we”, for of course in every case you will do as you see fit, and I have complete confidence that you will do rightly. But since it was I who sent you there into danger, in the belief that I was sending you out of it, I must take my share of the responsibility for your situation.’

‘Give me your advice,’ said Dominic. ‘I need it.’

‘It will be best if you behave exactly as visitors to Cape Comorin are supposed to behave, and take advantage of the possibilities that offers. It is nearly time now for the evening ritual. Go out loudly and noticeably in a party to the sand dunes to watch the sunset. In dispersed groups everyone will be doing the same. Out there you will soon find more company, the women and boys who sell shell necklaces and other souvenirs. It will be quite cheap to add them to your party – a little conversation, a few strings of shells, and they will gladly go with you for the evening, and hope to make a few more sales on the dunes. Surround Purushottam on all sides – go to the village and the temple afterwards if it is still too early to disperse for the night. No one will attempt the assassination of someone enclosed in a large, mobile group visible for miles around. And I do not think the enemy will be found among the humble people encountered there on the spot, the poorest of the poor who make shell necklaces to sell to tourists. In all their lives few of them travel more than twenty miles from home, or are acquainted with news from much farther afield than that. Also I do not think it will be advisable to eat at the hotel. At the temple and in the village there will be booths. Where there are pilgrims there are always people to supply their needs. And when you come back to the hotel – how are your rooms situated?’

Dominic told him.

‘Good, that may simplify things. Then say good night to the others, lock your door, disarrange your beds as though you have slept in them, and leave by the balcony, taking the key with you. It should be a warm, gentle night, you can safely spend it out in the sands or in the village. Do not come back until the hotel begins to stir, then rouse your friends and go out to see the sun rise. And everything with care!’

‘And not a word to Larry? – or even to Priya?’

‘The innocent are safer knowing as little as possible,’ said the Swami very seriously, after prolonged consideration. ‘From tomorrow it may be necessary to improvise afresh, but let us first take care of tonight.’

‘It seems crazy,’ Dominic said in helpless protest, ‘that four of us here should be virtually under siege from one miserable individual. Aren’t we attaching too much importance to this threat?’

‘The man without scruples,’ said the Swami sadly, ‘to whom every life but his own is expendable, always starts with an advantage worth a whole army over the man who regards life as holy. And the man who creeps in secret is more dangerous than armies. Never be ashamed of taking precautions against snakes. Though indeed,’ he added remorsefully, ‘not all snakes are vicious or treacherous, they want only to defend themselves. Men who should walk upright, but creep in the grass with poison like snakes, have no such justification.’

‘And tomorrow?’ Dominic asked. ‘Do we pay our score and get out of here?’