Ellis Peters - George Felse 09 - Mourning Raga (13 page)

They were watching him with wonder, and as yet carefully suppressing the hope that he knew how to work miracles, and could make his word good now.

‘No,
I
haven’t got that sort of money here, don’t look at me like that. I haven’t, but the company has. We’ve got a big credit in the bank here to cover this Buddha film. And it so happens that it will run to two hundred thousand without being sucked dry, and when necessary my signature is enough to draw on it. If I left anything undone that I could do for Anjli, I’d never be able to look Dorrie in the eye again. And she’ll replace the loan as soon as she knows the facts. Tomorrow I must draw the money out of our bank, and you can buy a cheap school briefcase, just as he said, and we make the payment.
You
make the payment, rather – and
I
stay out of sight and keep an eye on your shoes.’

The wild flush of relief came back to Tossa’s face, and the brightness to her eyes. Dominic let out a long, grateful breath.

‘Oh,
lord
, if we
could
! Is it really all right for us to borrow it? But you wouldn’t try anything then, would you? I mean, we agreed we had to obey instructions, for Anjli’s sake.’

‘I would not! But I’d have a shot at trailing whoever takes the briefcase, that’s for certain. Once we get Anjli back, I’m all for putting the police on to her kidnappers.’

‘But is it going to be possible to hang around and watch the place, like that? Won’t you be too noticeable?’

‘You haven’t seen the Lakshminarayan temple on a Sunday afternoon! It’s like a fun-fair. Cover galore and thousands of people. Might make it hard for me to keep an eye on him, but it will certainly reduce his chances of spotting me. It’s worth a try, at any rate.’

‘The Birla temple, he said,’ Dominic pointed out.

‘Same thing, laddie. Lakshminarayan is its dedication, and the Birla family built it. They had to do something with some of the money, it was getting to be a bore.’ There was a faint snap of bitterness in this lighter tone; no wonder, when they had need of a comparatively modest sum at this moment for so urgent a reason, and were put to such shifts to acquire it.

‘I can’t tell you,’ Dominic said fervently, ‘how grateful we are for your help.’

‘Not a word, my boy! I’ve known Dorrie for years, and didn’t she ask me to keep a fatherly eye on you over here? But I tell you what, I’d better get out of here by the garden way tonight, hadn’t I, and keep away from you except where we can be strictly private?’

He rose and stretched wearily. There were times when he looked an elderly man, but always withindoors and in presence of few if any observers.

‘Is there nothing I can be doing?’ Dominic asked anxiously, aware of having ceded his responsibilities to a degree he found at once galling and reassuring.

‘Sure there is. You can go out in the morning – maybe alone would be best, if Miss Barber doesn’t mind? – and buy a cheap, black, child’s briefcase. Somewhere round Connaught Place there are sure to be plenty of them. And about half past ten you could oblige me by being inside the State Bank of India, the one in Parliament Street. If you’re seen going in there, that can only be a good sign. And I’ll come separately, they won’t know me. And we’ll take out that two hundred thousand rupees – that’s something over eleven thousand pounds, I’d say offhand. You know, that’s not so exhorbitant, when you come to think about it! – and see it packed up all ready for the pay-off, and packed into that briefcase. And in a couple of days we’ll have Anjli out of bondage.’

On Saturday morning they drew out the money from the film company’s account in the State Bank of India in Parliament Street. Dominic was there waiting with his plastic school briefcase in his hand before Felder arrived; in good time to admire the imposing appearance his colleague made after a night’s rest and a careful toilet, immaculate in dark grey worsted. The clerk treated the whole transaction as superbly normal, and was deferential to the point of obsequiousness, perhaps because of the size of the withdrawal. Felder was carrying a much more presentable briefcase in pale chrome leather; Dominic had never seen him look the complete city sophisticate before. Even his tone as he asked for the money to be made up in mixed notes was so casual and abstracted that any other course would have seemed eccentric.

So that was that. They were moving at leisure away from the counter, with two hundred thousand rupees in assorted denominations in a large, sealed bank envelope, linen-grained, biscuit-coloured and very official-looking. It seemed like having a hold on Anjli again. Suddenly it seemed an age since Dominic had seen her face or heard her voice, and he remembered the jasmine flowers, with the strange ache of an old association fallen just short of love.

‘Put it in the case now,’ suggested Felder in a low voice, proffering the crisp new parcel before they were in view from the doorway. ‘Or would you rather I locked it in the office safe until the time comes?’

‘Yes, you keep it. Drop it off at the desk for us tomorrow, there’ll be plenty of people in and out. Supposing there is someone watching me now, he may think it a good idea to knock off this lot before I can get it back to the hotel, and then ask for more. How can I be sure?’

‘All right, as you like.’ Felder shrugged his shoulders ruefully. ‘I suppose it is my responsibility.’ The envelope disappeared into the chrome leather case, swallowed from sight with a magnificent casualness. Briefcases of that quality went in and out of here by the score, black plastic scholastic ones were much rarer in this temple of commerce. Dominic felt grateful that he had bought Everyman copies of the Hindu scriptures and the Ramayana and Mahabharata, to give a semblance of gravity to his own flimsy burden. They could easily have been mistaken for money, viewed from the outside.

‘In the morning, then, about ten, I’ll bring it to the desk. Better be somewhere close, in case. And when you leave the temple in the afternoon, come in to Nirula’s for tea. I’ll be there.’

‘We will,’ said Dominic.

‘Go ahead first, then, I’ll give you ten minutes or so.’

Dominic walked briskly out of the imposing doors of the State Bank of India, and away down Parliament Street, with his tawdry briefcase filled and fulfilled with the wisdom of thirty centuries of Indian thought and feeling. Worth a good deal more, in the final issue, than two hundred thousand rupees, even taking into consideration the relative impossibility of adequate translation.

It was the longest Saturday they ever remembered, and the only good things left about it were that they had at least a hope of recovering Anjli, and that they were spending the agonising time of waiting together. Felder kept away from them, and that was surely the right thing to do. And they made contact with no one, so that if they were watched the watchers might be quite certain that they had not infringed their orders. They went no farther from their hotel than the Lodi park, where they sat in the sunshine among the fawn-coloured grass and the flowers, the amazing, exuberant, proliferating flowers of the season, and looked at the towering rose-coloured tombs with which the Lodi dynasty had burdened the Delhi earth, and thought about Purnima’s modest pyre by the Yamuna, and her little heap of ashes going back to the elements, and nothing left of weight or self-importance or regret. And it seemed to them the most modest of all ways of leaving this world, and the most in keeping with the spirit’s certainty of return; until, of course, the cycles close in the last perfect circle, and you are free from any more rebirths.

But they did not stay away long, because they were afraid of being out of reach, even by ten minutes’ walk, in case there was some new message. They had very little sleep that night. Felder, in the smaller villa at Hauz Khas, fared no better. All of them were up with the first light, and aching for the afternoon to come.

To reach the Shri Lakshminarayan temple, if you happen to be in the shopping centre of Delhi, Connaught Place, you strike out due west along Lady Hardinge Road, and it will bring you, after a walk of about a mile, straight to that amazing frontage. Don’t expect anything historic; the temple was built towards the end of British rule, as a gesture towards the wholeness of all the Indian religions, which are still one religion, so that it belongs to orthodox Brahmans, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists, and anyone else, in fact, who comes with sympathy and an open mind. It is dedicated to Narayan and Lakshmi, his spouse, but it also houses images of others of the Hindu pantheon. Which pantheon is itself an illusion, a convenient veil drawn over the face of the single and universal unity; convenient, because its multifarious aspects provide an approachable deity for everyone who comes, from the simplest to the most subtle, and from the most extrovert to the most introvert, and all routes that lead to the universal essence are right routes.

What Dominic and Tossa saw, as they turned into the final straight stretch of the road and emerged into the broad open space of Mandir Marg, facing the forecourt of the temple, was a huge, gay, sparkling construction in several horizontal terraces, above a sweeping flight of steps, and crowned above by a triple shikhara, three tall, fluted, tapering towers, shirred in a pattern imitative of reed thatching, each capped at its sealed crest by a yellow cupola and a tiny gilded spire. The towers were mainly white, picked out with yellow, the levels below them were white and russet red and yellow, lined out here and there with green, arcades of mannered arches and perforated balustrades. All the textures, all the colours, were matt and gauche and new; and with their usual assured recognition of realities, the modern inhabitants of Delhi had taken the place for their own. Felder had not exaggered. It was a fairground; a happy, holiday, Sunday-afternoon crowd possessed it inside and out.

Mandir Marg was teeming with people and traffic. They crossed it warily, Dominic hugging the cheap little briefcase that contained the bank’s envelope full of money, which Felder had left at the desk at Keen’s that morning.

There was plenty of space for all who came, about the front of the temple. But approximately half of that space was cordoned off behind frayed white ropes, sealing off the actual front of the temple wall beside the staircase. Within this enclosure stood and sat half a dozen or more vociferous Hindus, jealously guarding serried rows of footgear discarded here by the faithful, and waiting patiently for their return. Just to the right of the steps sat a diminutive brown boy, slender and large-eyed, one thin leg tucked under him, one, clearly helpless and distorted at the ankle, stretched out like a purposeless encumbrance at an improbable angle. A home-carved crutch lay beside him. He had more than his fair share of sandals and shoes to mind.

Tossa and Dominic shook off their sensible slip-ons, and proffered them tentatively across the cords. There is always the problem of tipping now or when you recover your property. The uninitiated prefer to play safe by doing both, even if this involves over-paying. Dominic gave the boy a quarter-rupee, reserving the other quarter for when they emerged, and held out the briefcase to be placed with their shoes. The child – how old could he possibly be? Thirteen? – seemed to be content. Even conscientious, for he lined up the two pairs of shoes with careful accuracy, and stood the briefcase upright between them. And yet he must be in on this thing… Or was that necessarily so? There could be somebody he knew and trusted, a credible story, a planned diversion… No, better withhold judgement.

They climbed the steps. Delhi receded and declined behind them. Through the arcaded doorways sweet, heady scents wafted over them, sandalwood, incense and flowers, an overwhelming, dewy splendour of flowers. This is the season of flowers in Delhi; the marvellous shrubs and trees blossom a little later. But the sense of approaching a fairground remained. Why not? Fairs are essentially religious in origin, and if they are joyful occasions, so should religion be.

They stepped into spacious halls faced everywhere in parti-coloured stone and polished marbles, brightly lighted, swarming with curious, reverent, talkative people, notably hordes of alert, lively, fascinated children. Formalised gods sat brooding immovably under mini-mountains of flowers, little bells chimed ingratiatingly, reminding the remote dreamers that small, insistent worshippers were here requesting attention. Everything was fresh, naive, festive and confident; religion and everyday life knew of no possible barrier or even distinction between them. The fragrance was hypnotic; there was a kind of radiant dew upon the air. And yet if you cared to be hypercritical you could fault everything in sight as garish, crude and phoney; you would be mistaken, but in that mood you would never recognise the fact.

The pale, sharp sunshine fell away behind them, and the delicate blue fingers of perfumed smoke brushed their faces. They had been told not to watch their shoes, and not to emerge again for half an hour exactly. They obeyed instructions to the letter.

Felder stood on the opposite pavement, watching the ceaseless flow of people about the steps of the temple, the play of coloured saris and the flutter of gauze scarves. A man alone could stroll this length of street on a Sunday afternoon for as long as he would, and it was highly improbable that anyone would notice him among so many. From time to time he moved along to a new position, drew back into the shade of the frontages for a while, crossed the street to mingle with the crowd over there in the sun, and even climbed the steps and wandered along the open terrace; but seldom, and only for seconds, did he take his eyes from the little black case propped upright between the two pairs of shoes. At the far end he descended again to the street and made his way back along the edge of the roped enclosure, among the darting children and the idling parents, and the hawkers selling glass bracelets, spices coloured like jewels, bizarre sweetmeats and heady garlands. Half an hour can seem an eternity.

No one had approached the lame boy’s corner, except to hand over more shoes to be guarded. The briefcase lay close to the rope, within reach of a hand, and the boy was busy; it would not be impossible to snatch the thing and vanish with it among the crowd. But there it stood, demurely leaning against Dominics’s shoe, a small black punctuation mark in a pyrotechnical paragraph.

A quarter of an hour gone, and nothing whatever happening. He turned to retrace his steps once again, and cannoned into a wiry fellow in khaki drill trousers and shirt and a hand-knitted brown pullover in coarse wool. The man was bare-headed and clean-shaven, his complexion the deep bronze of an outdoor worker; and by the way he recoiled hastily and obsequiously from the slight collision, with apologetic bobbings of his head, Felder judged that he was not a native of Delhi. When Felder, for some reason he could not explain, turned his head again to take another look at him, the fellow was still standing hesitant on the edge of the pavement, looking after the man he had brushed. He looked slightly lost among this confident crowd, and slightly puzzled, as if he had somehow come to the wrong place.

Felder put the man out of his mind, and concentrated again upon the black briefcase. But eight minutes later, when he came back that way, the man was still there, and this time the thin face with its strongly marked features and large dark eyes turned towards him with clear intent.

‘Sahib, I beg pardon,’ he said low and hesitantly in English. ‘Can you please help me? I am stranger here. I am not from Delhi, I come from the hills. Please, this is Birla Temple?’

‘Yes, that’s right.’ He had no wish to stop and talk, but it would be difficult to withdraw from this unsought encounter too ruthlessly, for supposing there was more in it than met the eye? Supposing someone had become suspicious, and was keeping him under observation, as he was keeping watch on the briefcase?

‘And, sahib, is here also Birla House? I wish to see Birla House.’ In the gardens of that princely residence the Mahatma was shot and killed; but it lies a matter of two miles away from the Lakshminarayan temple. Felder supposed it was possible that a simple hillman sightseeing in Delhi might expect to find the two in close proximity.

‘No, that’s quite some way from here. You could get a bus, I expect, it’s well south, close to Claridge’s Hotel.’ Absurd, he thought the moment he had said it, as if this chap from out of town would be likely to know Claridge’s.

‘Sahib, I have no money for bus.’ Clearly he was not asking for any, either, it was a perfectly simple statement. ‘I will walk, if you can show way.’

Felder had to turn his back on the temple for that, and point his pupil first directly away from it, down Lady Hardinge Road towards Connaught Place. ‘Take the third turning on the right into Market Street, and go straight on down to the parliament building. You’ve seen it?’

‘
Acha
, sahib, that I have seen.’

‘Then you cross directly over the Rajpath, and keep straight ahead down Hastings Road, and at the end of Hastings Road you’ll find Birla House occupying the corner of the block facing you.’ Accustomed to the visual imagination, Feldcr demonstrated the direction of the roads in the air, an invisible sketch-map. The dark eyes followed it solemnly, and apparently with understanding.

‘Sahib, you are most kind. I am grateful.’ Large, lean, handsome hands touched gravely beneath the hillman’s chin. He bowed himself backwards towards Lady Hardinge Road, and then turned and walked purposefully away.

Felder heaved a breath of relief, watching him go. It was all right, after all, the man was genuine, and had had no interest in him but as a source of information. He turned quickly, and his eyes sought at once for the small black speck close to the lame boy’s side, sharp and sinister against the pale tawny ground. The interlude had not caused him to miss anything, it seemed.