Barbara Cleverly (32 page)

Dejectedly Joe watched Charlie Carter and his escort swing out of the police compound and set off for the railhead. At the last minute Charlie had turned about and, cupping his hand to his mouth, had shouted, ‘Joe! Change your mind! Come with us!’

Joe shook his head. ‘It’s your affair, Charlie,’ he said. ‘It’s up to you to make the arrest, not me. Don’t forget I’m only a supernumerary. I’ll stay here and mind the shop!’

Joe lingered on the verandah; bitterly he didn’t want to move on to the next thing. He knew very well that care for Charlie’s status in the matter was not truly his motive. Charlie had been right when he’d said he might prove a liability. He was aware that he was deeply reluctant to think of Isobel under restraint. He didn’t want to be there when she was brought to book. He didn’t want to witness the collapse of her long deception, the crumbling of her so carefully constructed position before the world. He went over and over the evidence. Have we got a case? Can we really persuade the world at large, to say nothing of the court, that through all these years ‘Alice’ has played everyone on a string? Sir George? Simla high society? Friends and colleagues in high places? Her closest friend Marie-Jeanne Pitiot? He wasn’t able to share Charlie’s excitement and determination. And now it fell to him to report to Sir George. Joe did not look forward to this.

He stepped into the street to call a rickshaw but was surprised to find himself confronted by Edgar Troop riding into the police compound. To Joe’s further surprise, he appeared to be leading a second horse. He greeted Joe with urgency. ‘Glad to have caught you, Commander,’ he said. ‘Is there anywhere we can talk? Hurry up – we haven’t much time!’

Joe hesitated. ‘Here, I suppose. I don’t think Charlie would mind if we sat on his verandah for a minute or two.’

Troop threw a leg over the horse’s mane and slid to the ground, authoritatively calling out for a syce to take his horse. ‘This’ll do as well as anywhere.’

‘Listen,’ said Troop as they established themselves, ‘I don’t want to force a confidence and God knows this has nothing to do with me but I was just coming back from the chummery and I passed Charlie Carter appropriately accompanied by the full panoply of the law. Six police sowars under Charlie’s havildar, no less! On his way to the station, I believe. Am I right?’

Joe hesitated before replying, saying at last, ‘Well, I don’t know to what extent you’ve put two and two together but since the world will know in an hour or so there’s no reason why I shouldn’t tell you that he was on his way to arrest Alice Sharpe.’

‘And he expected to find her at the station?’

‘Yes indeed. She and Rheza Khan have tickets booked through to Bombay from Kalka. Luggage has been sent in advance and they’ve taken more with them. Fact is – and again, you might as well know – the play is over and Charlie has gone to ring down the last curtain.’

‘I thought that was probably it

’ He leaned forward in his chair, speaking fast and urgently. ‘Now, understand me – I have a great, though reluctant, admiration for Alice, I won’t say affection, but a respect. In the eyes of the good people of Simla and in the eyes of the world at large, I’m something of a scoundrel. You’ll hardly deny that you have thought so. No? Exactly. But I’m as white as the driven snow in comparison with Alice. I expect you hardly know the half of it! The fact is that she’s exploited everybody she’s come into contact with including myself. I’ve performed errands for her – and, by the way, murder has not been amongst them – and I’ve been paid. I am, in a way, a gun for sale but get it into your head that I had no part in the murder of Conyers or that unfortunate Russian fellow.’

Joe cut in. ‘This is all a matter of evidence, Troop,’ he said. ‘We can safely leave it to the police.’

Troop snorted with derision. ‘Alice and Rheza Khan are off to the station with Charlie in hot pursuit but don’t you think it a bit odd that they should have made such a ponderous flit? With the utmost public parade? Straight down the middle of the Mall? And Charlie’s gone down there, handcuffs in his back pocket? Just intercepting the miscreants at the last minute? Does that sound like the Alice we know? Can you imagine that anyone clever enough to fool the entire world for three years would make a move so inept? No! Charlie will proceed to the station to make his arrest and his birds will have flown!’

‘Flown? How flown?’

‘I’ll tell you but – do you think this well-equipped police station could provide a chap with a drink? It’s been rather a dusty day so far.’

‘I don’t think Charlie would begrudge us,’ said Joe, turning to the whisky decanter and glasses that stood on the windowsill. ‘But go on. What were you going to tell me?’

‘Listen,’ said Troop. ‘At the back of the station is the old post office warehouse. Now empty. I couldn’t help noticing that there were two horses – good horses – saddled and standing in the old warehouse. A syce was with them. Not a local man. A man, I’m prepared to surmise, from Rheza Khan’s village. Now who could these horses possibly have been ready for? And I’ll tell you something else. Alice and Rheza passed within a few yards of me and to all outward appearances Alice was appropriately dressed for travel with her luggage into Kalka on the Toy Train. To all outward appearances, I said. But if you have the habit, which I have, when I’m in the company of a pretty girl, and that is how I would describe Alice, you look her up and down. I speculate as to what she is wearing underneath and I’ll go further – I speculate as to what she would look like if she were wearing nothing. Perhaps you do the same? And I’m never wrong about these things! Under that unfashionably long travelling dress Alice was wearing jodhpurs and riding boots. That say anything to you? It suggested to me that she was about to climb on to a horse and while Charlie Carter and others were standing by the front door waiting to interview Alice and Rheza Khan she had discreetly left by the back and by now had a considerable start.’ His eyes narrowed and he took another sip of his whisky. ‘Those waiting horses were good ones, I can tell you!’

‘Troop,’ said Joe, ‘you may be right, you may be wrong. I suspect you are right but why are you telling me this? What axe have you to grind? I don’t know you well but – forgive me – I have reason to believe that you are in the axe-grinding business much of the time. So, tell me, what’s this all about?’

Edgar Troop suddenly flushed and turned on Joe. Venomous, he hissed, ‘Alice! The mighty director of ICTC! Chosen confidante of Lady Reading! The so pitiably neglected wife of drunken Sharpe! The focus of so much womanly sympathy! Christ Almighty! Bloody woman! “Oh, Captain Troop, very kind of you. Now tell me what do I owe you?” And “Oh, Captain Troop, I have a tiny commission for you. I wonder if you’d be so kind

And I’m so terribly sorry if I can’t know you when we meet in public

I’m sure you understand

You mustn’t mind, if, when you come to see me I have to keep you waiting

I’m so terribly busy.” Treated me like an errand boy! And she nothing but a tart if Flora’s to be believed! I – and several others in Simla, I can tell you – would be delighted to see that one get what I’ll call her just deserts!’

‘So you’re saying they’ve made off on fast horses, but where?’

‘Well, not to Kalka, I’ll bet! I think Carter and his merry men will have gone chasing off down there and it’ll be some hours before they realize they’re following a false trail – and you can bet a false trail will have been laid for him. By the time they double back Alice and Rheza Khan will be miles away into the hills. They’re making for Borendo and the Zalori Pass and thereafter I’d guess on north through Manali. It’s their back door out of this country. That’s where Rheza Khan’s people come from. Up there, every second person you meet is likely to be his cousin.’

‘But, Troop, what’s in it for Alice? What’s she going to be doing empty-handed on a spur of the Himalayas?’

‘Empty-handed? When was Alice ever empty-handed? Where do you suppose the jewellery paid for by ICTC and filtered through Robertson is to be found? Good jewels – I mean good by international standards and Alice wasn’t collecting rubbish – don’t take up much space. You can hide an emperor’s ransom up your knickers! Is it in a safe at ICTC? In Alice’s bottom drawer? No, it’s in a saddlebag on its way up to the Zalori Pass. And remote? Not if you know the country. Come and look at this!’

He moved through into Charlie’s office and pointed to a large map on the wall. ‘There’s Simla. And there to the south is the Kalka railhead and on south to Delhi and the P&O liner at Bombay. But north – look! You pass through these mountains – Rheza Khan’s back yard – and weave your way along to Joginder Nagar. That’s a railhead too and the track leads on to Amritsar, Lahore and eventually to Karachi. And in Karachi you can pick up a steamer on its way from Bombay to the Gulf and from there to London and the rest of the world. Assuming you’re allowed to leave tribal territory of course.’

‘What is Rheza Khan’s stake in this enterprise, do you suppose?’

‘Alice of course. Money and Alice – in that order. That’s his stake. Do I have to spell that out?’

Joe remembered that, passing close to Alice, he had encountered a distant and teasing scent of sandalwood and that the same scent had come to him from Rheza Khan. ‘I believe you, Troop,’ he said heavily. ‘I believe you entirely. Are you saying that Alice is in danger?’

Troop gave him a long and unfathomable look. ‘I can’t tell,’ he said at last. ‘Where she is now going, she’s entirely in the hands of Rheza Khan and you know what they say? “Trust a rat before a snake and a snake before a Pathan.” Alice will know that the game is up as far as Simla’s concerned and Rheza will know the same but the question is – have they both the same objective? Oh, yes! They have the same primary objective, that is to say, leave the country with the swag, the fruit of three years’ careful swindling of ICTC, but what then? Well, I think this is where they diverge. Alice, I believe, intends to get out of the country with her fortune and to get out in the company of Rheza Khan and then – I suppose – settle down somewhere out of British jurisdiction.’

‘She told me she’d like to live in America,’ Joe remembered.

‘Yes, I think that would be Alice’s idea. It’s a country that would suit her. She’d prosper there. But I can’t see Rheza, if I understand him at all, embracing a wider horizon than his native land.’

‘You’re not really answering my question which was – is Alice in danger?’

Troop answered immediately with the air of one who had thought this out with care. ‘I don’t think she’s in danger until they reach journey’s end. But when they do, she will, as far as Rheza is concerned, have fulfilled her purpose. I don’t think Alice, clever though she be, will get out of there alive. I think she’ll stay alive, as I say, just long enough to ensure a safe passage back to Rheza Khan’s homeland. Women – especially faithless wives – aren’t much respected up there, you know. I don’t think she’s going on a picnic in the foothills of the Himalayas with a couple of decent chaps like Troop and Sandilands!’

The tone was light, the tone was cynical, but Edgar Troop’s face was tormented.

‘Bloody girl!’ he said, exasperated.

‘But what now?’

‘Well, Charlie is by now miles down the Kalka road. I don’t know how far he’ll get before he realizes he’s been double-crossed and comes spurring back to Simla to pick up the trail at this end. They’ll be too late. They’ve got to be cut off before they get to the Zalori Pass. The tribe will be waiting for them beyond that. I think we only have a serious chance of stopping them if we can get them before they make it through the pass.’

‘We? Troop, you must know I have no authority.’

Troop crossed the room and pulled a rifle from the rack. He tossed it to Joe. ‘That’s all the authority they recognize in the hill country. I took the precaution of borrowing Reggie’s best mount from the stables at the chummery. He’s a bit of a handful but you look like a chap who can keep his seat. And if you’re coming with me you’ll need to borrow a coat of Carter’s – it can get cold up there, this time of year. Here – take this poshteen. Charlie won’t mind.’

He took a ragged and hairy sheepskin coat from a peg behind the door and handed it to Joe. Joe looked at it dubiously. ‘Are you quite sure it’s dead?’

‘Would smell even worse if it weren’t. Now that’s enough buggering about. They’re riding already and they’ve got about twenty minutes on us. Are you on or not?’

Joe was already banging his way through the door.

Ť ^ ť

Wouldn’t quite do,’ said Troop, indicating the pair of horses in the hands of a patient syce, ‘for the distinguished police commander at the King’s Birthday Parade on the Horseguards. Probably not quite what you’re used to.’

Strong and sturdy, the two horses kicked and fretted, shaking their heads to rid themselves of flies. Joe thought they looked likely enough.

‘I feel like the Colonel’s son,’ said Joe swinging himself into the saddle. ‘Do you remember?

‘The Colonel’s son has taken a horse and a raw, rough dun

was he,

A heart like hell and a mouth like a bell and a head like a

gallows tree.’

‘Can’t get away from Kipling,’ said Troop as they clattered out of the yard on to the Naldera road. ‘We’re twenty minutes astray,’ he continued as they trotted on together. ‘But that won’t be the end of the world. We won’t go by the road. I very much doubt if Rheza knows this bit of country as well as I do. I’ve shot and hunted over all this stretch of land, taken picnic parties, sightseeing parties, shikari parties – this is Edgar Troop’s back garden, you know. We’ve got to intercept them before they can get to the Zalori Pass – and taking a very large number of short cuts we ought to be able to do just that.’

Edgar Troop had roused himself. Depressions and doubts seemed to be at an end. Looking at his companion’s suddenly alert eye and flushed face Joe was aware of a further reason for Troop’s eagerness to lead the pursuit. Perhaps the prime reason.

‘This man,’ thought Joe, ‘is a hunter! What’s that awful phrase? – “the thrill of the chase”. He’s in its grip.’ And much more arousing to him than any tiger or leopard hunt was the challenge of tracking a clever and dangerous human being through the wilderness. A manhunt. And just for once, Edgar Troop could appear on the side of the angels.