The Strangler Vine (3 page)

I bowed and Frank followed, bowing so deeply that even the two ladies could not have failed to spot he was making fun of them. I turned to nudge him hard, and he grinned broadly and muttered, ‘Rescued from the harpies in the nick of time.’

‘That’s most ungenerous of you, but I am eternally in your debt,’ I whispered back.

He pointed into the throng where I could see Miss Larkbridge and the party about her, and pushed me through, trotting after. There was the old red-faced major from up country whose name I
could never remember, on the lookout for a wife. There was Moore, the plump, well-connected Company
writer
– a glorified clerk and accountant – who was given to wearing absurdly coloured neckties and waistcoats; tonight he was in turquoise-striped silk. And there was Keay, a lieutenant in one of the British army regiments, Her Majesty’s 31st foot, down from Banares. I envied Keay. He was infernally sure of himself, seemed to walk in a glow of promise, and was handsome in what I considered a rather predictable way – sleek and well kept like an expensive horse. He had even seen active service.

‘So how did the two ensigns manage to catch themselves an invitation?’ said Moore, the Company writer, disagreeably.

‘We were invited fair and square, Moore,’ I said mildly. Miss Helen Larkbridge looked over. She smiled at me. I stared at her, trying to hold her gaze – her eyes were two shades of blue, the paler contained by a ring of the darker – but she shifted her gaze.

‘Mr Avery, Mr Macpherson,’ she said. She had removed her glove and, as if forgetting this, held her bare hand out to me, allowing me briefly to touch the tips of her rosy fingers. I swear, my heart turned in my chest.

‘Mr Keay’s senior officer has told him he must do better with his study of the native languages,’ she said, looking slightly bored. ‘But since he is an officer in a British regiment, with British soldiers, I cannot see why.’

Frank made some elaborate and quite inexplicable gesture with his fingers, muttered to me, ‘Do not get too comfortable,’ and withdrew back into the crowd. He had no time for the rivalrous circle round Miss Larkbridge.

‘There is no point in studying Hindoostanee,’ Keay said. ‘I get by perfectly well with soldier bat, my servants understand me well enough. If blackie wants to get on, he should hurry up and learn English.’

The red-faced major frowned when Keay said ‘blackie’ and looked over anxiously at Helen. ‘In my own opinion, Miss Larkbridge, Mr Keay’s captain is correct,’ he said. ‘One cannot get on up country without some knowledge of the languages, though it is
true that these days there is less mixing between ourselves and the natives now than when first I arrived in India.’

‘In the dark ages,’ Keay muttered at me, rolling his eyes.

‘Up country!’ Miss Larkbridge said. Her hair was the most intense burnished gold. There were small silk roses entwined in it. ‘I dread the thought – more insects, more natives, the enforced eating of curry!’ The Major and Keay, who knew they would never keep a permanent posting in Calcutta, laughed politely but looked slightly crushed. Moore cheered up.

‘I must say, I agree with Lieutenant Keay,’ she went on. ‘I have no desire to get to know Hindoostanee or the Hindoos any better than I do now.’

‘Ah, you are as always a most obliging little divinity, Miss Larkbridge,’ Keay said, laughing, and seized her hand. Helen let him hold it a moment, then snatched it back, giggling. I grimaced. The truth was, I was jealous of all of them, even the old major, for they all enjoyed better prospects than me, and Keay was actually quite likeable. Moore cleared his voice and attempted to recapture the initiative.

‘Let us then, Miss Larkbridge, return to Calcutta matters. I am told Mr Mountstuart’s book is so scandalous it should not be seen by female eyes.’

‘I have a copy,’ I said. ‘Apparently Sheikh Habeebee is a cipher for Willoughby Greening.’

‘Is he really, Avery?’ She looked at me, her eyes wide. ‘How very clever of you.’ Moore gave me a cross look. I had evidently stolen his fire.

‘Well,’ he said quickly, ‘that is only one of several theories, but the truth is the book has tremendously riled my superiors on all fronts – it makes all kinds of salacious accusations not just about financial improprieties, but improprieties of other kinds.’

‘Goodness!’ said Helen, shifting her gaze to him. ‘What improprieties?’

Moore looked sheepish. ‘I am sorry, these are matters I should not have mentioned before a lady.’

‘I think he’s the most tremendous blackguard,’ Keay said, and
now Helen had turned to look at him. ‘I’m told he’s disappeared, gone into hiding and no one knows where he is.’

‘I heard he has gone deep into the
Mofussil
to write a poem about the Thugs.’ I felt a little thrill as Helen looked again at me.

‘Have you seen the article about the Thugs in the
Edinburgh Review
, Avery?’ said Moore. ‘“The Thugs or the Secret Murderers of India”? It has caused a tremendous stir in England.’

The Thugs were a particularly monstrous species of bandit gang – notorious for strangling unwary travellers using a special scarf called a
rumal
as a sacred ritual to the goddess Kali – whose existence had only relatively recently been exposed. They were an ancient and secret fraternity with their own customs and language and a reach across the whole of India, and they had been responsible for thousands of deaths – one Thug had confessed to over 900 murders. They were undeniably fascinating and macabre, but I thought them hardly a subject for a party, and I was sure I had heard everything that could possibly be said about them.

‘As I understand it,’ said the Major, keen not to appear provincial, ‘the article concerns the evils of Hindooism. Of Kali worship in particular: a religion that is pure, unmixed evil, and professedly devoted to the destruction of the human race. Hindooism enslaves and degrades its adherents, even encouraging them to kill their fellow man. The sooner we convert the natives to Christian ways and English morals, the sooner we can raise this country up.’

Keay yawned.

‘Are you an admirer of Mountstuart, Avery?’ Helen said.

‘I adore him.’

‘I too. What I would give to meet him! He is so dashing: ‘
There is a curious rapture among the lonely peaks—
’

‘
Where the inchoate darkling twilight to my lonely, tired soul speaks
,’ I finished. We smiled at each other.

I was happy. Helen shared my admiration. I could have quoted line after line. Then before I could make good my advantage, someone tapped me on the shoulder. There was Macpherson and behind him Captain Turpington looking as impatient as I had ever seen him.

‘Mr Avery. I have been searching high and low for you. I am only grateful Mr Macpherson was able to find you.’

‘Looking for me?’

‘Yes. Your presence is required at a meeting downstairs. Immediately. No time to waste. Come along.’

I stood, stupid. ‘For me?’

‘Yes, Mr Avery. Now.’ Macpherson grinned. Hesistant, I murmured, ‘Sir, are you sure there has not been a mistake? It is really me you require?’

The Captain gave Macpherson an irritated look. ‘I am quite sure, Ensign Avery. I hope you are not questioning my ability to execute my duty?’

‘Never, sir, never. Might I perhaps just take leave of …?’

He looked over and took in Miss Larkbridge. ‘Quickly, Mr Avery.’

I turned back. Keay and Moore had leapt into the breach and were deep in conversation with Miss Larkbridge.

‘Gentlemen, Miss Larkbridge,’ I called. They all looked up, and Helen turned her golden smile upon me – but only for a moment.

The sound of the reception retreated as I followed the Captain down a flight of stairs and through several gloomy storerooms, stepping carefully over what appeared to be large bales of linen but were in fact the servants of guests upstairs, wrapped in muslin and sleeping as their masters made small talk above. Finally, we came to a pair of dark wood doors. Turpington knocked and stood aside for me to enter. I hesitated.

‘Mr Avery?’ he said, rather as a stern schoolteacher berates a faltering charge. I walked in and the door closed behind me.

I found myself in a cool room dimly lit with candles and lined with old leather-bound volumes, some very dilapidated. One man sat behind a long wooden desk; another sat before it. He turned and I saw it was Jeremiah Blake. He looked ghastly; if anything, even worse than he had at our last meeting. His face resembled sweaty putty, blotched with patches of red, peeling skin. His eyes glistened unhealthily, and he was dressed in a dreadful mongrel hybrid somewhere between uniform and mufti: a tired-looking moth-eaten blue
shell jacket, a damp-looking cravat, and white military breeches, striped at the sides, that had seen better days.

He stood up. ‘No,’ he said.

‘You will sit down, sir,’ said the man behind the desk. ‘Ensign … er’ – he looked down at a sheaf of papers – ‘Avery. Good evening. I think you have met Mr Blake?’

I nodded, more bemused than before and now somewhat anxious, but the man immediately turned back to Blake. He shook his head and sat back down, while I, seeing there was nowhere to sit, pushed myself back into a bookcase in a vain attempt to make myself inconspicuous.

I recognized the man who had spoken as the Chief Military Secretary, Colonel Patrick Buchanan, who handed out promotions and positions for the Commander-in-Chief. He was a handsome fellow in early middle age, with a full head of chestnut hair that showed no sign of grey, and a carefully tended moustache. He smiled pleasantly and raised his eyebrows as Blake pulled out a crumpled handkerchief from a baggy pocket and wiped his neck.

‘As I said before, it has been a long time, Blake,’ Colonel Buchanan said cheerfully. He had what I had come to recognize as one of those Irish accents that sounds almost Scottish.

Blake shrugged. Buchanan looked amused.

‘We have a very particular task for you.’

Without stirring at all, Blake said very quietly, but clearly, ‘I didn’t ask for this. I don’t want it, and I won’t do it.’

‘How interesting,’ said Buchanan. ‘You have regressed to the accents of your childhood. But I know you, Blake. You are our man. A spell away from Calcutta will do you very well. It is time you returned to duty. You have obligations to the Company. And it is the kind of work you favour: independent, in the field, no one to answer to.’ The cheeriness took on a mocking tone. ‘In a few days we both know you will be quite recovered from the fever and perfectly able to travel.’

Blake seemed hardly to be listening. There was a long pause. Eventually he said, ‘I’m surprised you’re still here, Patrick. What do
you need with the Political Department now you’re getting rich on all those promotions?’

‘You cannot insult your way out of this, Blake, and you may call me Colonel Buchanan.’

‘No Collinson? Where is he, hiding in some corner?’

‘Sir Theophilus has moved on. I have oversight of the Secret and Political Department now.’ He paused dramatically.

‘The task is to find Xavier Mountstuart.’

Involuntarily, my head jerked up. Blake did not respond at all.

‘Mountstuart returned to Calcutta at the end of last year and brought the Governor General’s office the manuscript of his novel. Naturally, the Company was not especially happy with it, but it seemed harmless enough. He had done a great deal for us over the years and his literary standing is – or was – high. It was decided not to do anything to hinder its publication – a foolish decision,’ Buchanan said, leaning back in his chair. He seemed to be enjoying himself. ‘Which the Company now bitterly regrets. Mountstuart smuggled a deal more scabrous detail in afterwards, and the exceedingly rich Willoughby Greening is threatening to take all and sundry to court for libel, and has made a formal complaint about the Censor’s office to the Governor General. At the time the Company agreed not to hinder the book’s publication, as long as Mountstuart agreed that he would return to England before it came out and undertake never to return to India again – a promise he freely made.’

Blake looked up. ‘He agreed to leave for good?’

‘The climate no longer agrees with him. His health is not what it was. It is not so surprising. But that is not the issue. The fact is Mountstuart has not left India. And no one knows where he is. In March he set off on a trip into the Mofussil to research his next book – a long poem about Thuggee. The Company gave him permission so long as he guaranteed that he would be back in Calcutta before the monsoon.’

It had not occurred to me that the rumours I had heard bandied about in Calcutta’s drawing-rooms might actually be true.

‘He has vanished,’ Buchanan went on. ‘He was last seen in
Jubbulpore in Saugor and Nerbudda territory where he was visiting Major Sleeman’s Thuggee Department. He has not been seen since. It is the most tremendous mess and we need his whereabouts or his fate established and the whole matter tidied away as swiftly as possible. In a few weeks the Governor General Lord Auckland begins his tour up. The Company has a mass of important policies and there’s enough trouble in the country as it is. We need this resolved with little fuss and, most of all, as cheaply as possible. Naturally,’ Buchanan grinned, ‘I thought of you.’

‘I’ve heard nothing from Mountstuart for years,’ Mr Blake said. ‘And Jubbulpore is seven hundred miles away.’ Looking at him, it was hard to imagine he would manage seven miles let alone seven hundred.

‘Do not argue with me, Jeremiah,’ Buchanan said. ‘You have no choice in the matter and do not pretend you are not entirely curious to know what has become of him. We believe he left Jubbulpore in June or July. He may have gone to the kingdom of Doora. The place is ruled by a troublesome
Rao
who is said to harbour Thugs, but our man in Doora has seen nothing. Who knows’ – he grinned mischieviously – ‘he might even have been taken by the Thugs themselves. Or he may simply have chosen to disappear or go native for a spell. He can be, as you may recall, unreliable.

‘I will give you a week to prepare. You will take the overland route on the Grand Trunk Road. If you change horses every three to four days I reckon you could make Jubbulpore in three weeks.’