by Mark McKay
Chapter 5
Ross was right about Bengali food, it was delicious. Rebecca had a fish curry with a potato and cauliflower side dish done in a coconut sauce, all flavoured to perfection with the local five spices mixture.
‘This is wonderful. Pass the bread please.’
‘I told you. This country has some awesome food.’
Ross had shaved for the occasion and his unruly grey locks were smoothed into a ponytail. Rebecca thought he looked quite presentable and he wasn’t without a sense of humour, either. He was probably twenty years older than her though, and she reminded herself that she didn’t want any romantic entanglements on this trip, however casual and short they might turn out to be. She wasn’t averse to a casual affair if no one was hurt in the process, but experience had taught her that someone’s ego invariably got bruised, and it was usually the more brittle male ego. She wondered if he had designs on her and then dismissed the thought. There were more important things to consider.
‘Figured out your first destination, then?’ asked Ross.
‘I’m going somewhere near Patna, place called Chipra.’
He looked at her blankly. ‘What’s at Chipra? Never heard of it.’
‘Maybe nothing, but I want to check it out. It’s nine hours by road though, so I’m flying up tomorrow morning.’
‘Probably a good idea. Driving in India is an acquired skill. No one gives way, they just merge into the traffic in their own mysterious way. It takes a bit of getting used to.’
‘I’ll get a car in Patna. I’m sure I’ll be able to merge.’
He laughed. ‘Just make sure you lean on the horn if you want to overtake anyone. Then you should be fine.’
Back at the hotel after telling Ross she wanted an early night, Rebecca sat in a wicker chair on the verandah outside her room. She held a tall glass of lime juice with a half shot of gin in one hand and her mobile phone in the other. She hadn’t had the phone on since arriving and no doubt someone had called or messaged in that time. She switched it on. A missed call from her mother, she recognised the number. Otherwise nothing but a text message from a number she didn’t know. She opened it. It was from DCI Severance: ‘Rebecca, your name came up in a murder enquiry in Cambridge. Man who sent you the manuscript was shot dead Friday. Concerned for your safety, please contact me soon as possible.’
She had a sharp intake of breath and her hand holding the drink twitched, but she held on. She looked around, but right now she was the only one on the verandah. She could hear voices in the courtyard below, suddenly audible when a moment ago she hadn’t registered them. She got up a bit unsteadily and peered over the railing at a group of people sitting below. One of them looked up and smiled and she waved back without thinking. She sat down again and took a long drink, thinking that maybe another one of these with a double shot of gin might be in order.
After a minute, she was calmer. No reason to panic, no one knew she was here apart from her mum and the City of London Police. And now Alexander Marsh, of course. Once she had visited Chipra and satisfied herself that no possibility existed of finding the lost tomb, she would be able to put it out of her mind. Then all she would need to do is plan a full itinerary of Bihar and beyond and start enjoying herself. She replied to the text, saying she was fine and that she would call this number tomorrow at 9.30pm local time, which would be 4pm in London. Then she took her empty glass and headed downstairs to the bar for a refill.
After a restless night, she met Ross for breakfast. Her flight left at midday, so it was breakfast and straight to the airport.
‘You look a bit bleary-eyed,’ he remarked.
‘Still acclimatizing, I guess. I’m sure I’ll sleep like a log tonight. Can we do Bengali cuisine round two, when I get back?’
‘Of course. I have another week here, so as long as you’re back in that time.’
‘I will be. See you in two or three days, tops.’
The flight landed just after 1pm, and she made her way to the Avis desk in the airport terminal. She made sure she got a car with sat nav, then half an hour later she was on the road out of Patna, listening to a heavily accented Indian voice telling her where to turn next. She felt some trepidation at the prospect of having to deal with some unexpected “merging”, but once out of the city she settled in behind a truck loaded with oranges and stayed there, staring at a sign on its colourful rear bumper exhorting her to use the “Horn Please” until she took the turn off to Chipra, some forty minutes later.
She drew up outside the village shop. This was Simon’s starting point on his map and he had reproduced it in his last email. She consulted the print out she had brought with her and looked out the window, to her right. Half an hour’s walk in that direction. Fine. She locked the car and set off. There weren’t many people about but she felt conspicuous anyway and a little nervous as she walked the route. Wide enough for a car as long as no one came from the opposite direction, so she wasn’t going to chance it. After fifteen minutes she met three Indian girls in multi-coloured saris, carrying jars of something on their heads. They looked at her curiously and she could hear their giggles trailing into the distance as she left them behind. It was hot, the Indian sun was merciless as it burned over the fields, but she had enough foresight to wear a light headscarf and carry a water bottle. She was halfway there.
As she took the turning to the right she could see something in the distance, like a mini-tower. It wasn’t a tree, it had a distinctly metallic hue and she knew suddenly that it was a small crane. What was that doing here? Did sinking test shafts involve using a crane? She didn’t think so. Then she saw that the crane was smack in the middle of the meteor crater, as Simon had described it, and the crater was surrounded by a chain fence. The fence was only about four feet high and it was dotted at intervals with signs in an alphabet Rebecca had no chance of deciphering, but was what she thought must be the Hindi equivalent of “Keep Out”.
She stopped at the fence, taking in the scene. There was nobody around. In fact there was nothing to see but a large heavy looking tarpaulin, which covered the area directly in front of the crane. She was perplexed. There were signs that test rods had been used to gauge the soil beneath most of the area, but why the crane? There was absolutely no need for it. Unless… She took a quick look around and then climbed over the fence.
The tarpaulin was staked down with metal pins. She wrestled with each of them and finally extracted the last one. She was sweating now. The tarpaulin was as heavy as it looked and she began to roll it back from the end nearest the crane. A part of her knew what it had to be covering and as the smooth two thousand year old slab revealed itself she gasped in sheer wonder and joy. There were elaborately carved letters in Brahmi coming into view, and she laughed a little hysterically as the words “Son of Ashoka” sprang out at her. There was more, but that could wait. The slab was some ten feet long, no wonder they needed the crane. She was kneeling on it now, rolling the tarpaulin back on itself. Then the slab ended, but the tarpaulin continued. She managed to stop rolling it back enough to prevent it from falling into the gap beyond and then she leapt off the slab and attacked the gap from the other end.
They had dragged the slab back with the crane so the tomb entrance was only partly uncovered, but the gap was six feet across and wide enough for a man to get into. She could see steps. This was incredible, but she wasn’t going anywhere without light. She ran back to the crane. There was a toolbox in the cab and thank God, a decent size torch, too. And it worked. Her heart was beating like a drum and she took another look around, the place was still deserted. Then she slipped carefully into the gap and slid down the first few stairs, until she could stand unimpeded. She switched the torch on.
The stairs were wide and smooth and were certainly just as they had been so long ago, when this place was built. She was entering a time machine. She descended for what must have been thirty feet and then the stairs ended, and she was on a dusty stone floor. She shone the torch u
pwards and saw an equally smooth stone ceiling, about fifteen feet above. The air down here was stale but breathable, and she started walking ahead.
They began to appear on either side of her, about five footsteps apart. Long rows of proudly seated lions towering a foot or so above her, with their mottled stone manes and their majestic heads, staring ahead. It was pitch black and she had to swing the torch from side to side to capture them in the light before they were gone again. She counted twenty on each side and then they stopped.
She could see that the hall of lions had opened out into something more spacious, but the torch beam wasn’t doing much to penetrate the darkness ahead of her. She played the light around her feet and saw a generator off to one side. There were cables extending from it and she figured it must be driving some sort of lighting system. She bent down and unscrewed the petrol cap. She could smell fuel, so she primed the pump and steadying her foot against the generator, pulled the cord.
The first two tries produced nothing but sputtering. ‘Come on,’ she breathed. Then on the third pull it came to life and a moment later, the arc lights came on. Rebecca stood transfixed, she felt sudden tears of wonder streaming down her face. The hall had opened into a circular chamber and in the middle of this was the tomb of Baladitya, with a sarcophagus resting on a raised stone dais. Looking down on the sarcophagus were four more seated lions, each positioned in its own quadrant of the circle so its gaze was directed centrally towards the dais. But these were no ordinary lions. Each was at least eight feet high, elaborately sculpted and staring at their charge with huge emerald eyes. And they weren’t made of stone. Each one of them, from head to foot, was fashioned exquisitely in gold. Rebecca was willing to bet that it was solid gold, too. Four solid gold lions, of great splendour and utterly priceless.
It was a dream. She pulled out her phone and took photos in rapid succession, some to get as wide an angle as possible and then moving in close to ensure she got the sculpted detail of paws and manes and heads. And the sarcophagus, of course. She reached up to stroke one golden mane, marvelling at the craftsmanship. Then the generator spluttered once more and she thought it must be low on fuel. Time to go. When she switched the machine off the silence was deafening and the darkness impenetrable, apart from the shaft of light illuminating the entrance steps at the far end of the hall of lions. Easy enough to get back with the torch, all she had to do was walk in a straight line. She was halfway there when she heard the sound of voices. People were coming down the stairs!
For a moment, she panicked. Then she killed the torch and felt her way into the gap between the two closest lions. Was there any space behind them? Yes, there was just enough room to stand upright directly behind one of them. She waited, trying to breathe as quietly as possible, but she was sure the sound of her racing heart must be loud enough to be heard ten feet away. The voices came closer, a man and a woman speaking a language she didn’t recognise, advancing as she had done, by torchlight. They stopped talking and passed her by, but she couldn’t see them. She only knew they had gone further on because she saw the beam of the passing torch. Had they stopped? Were they looking for her? She didn’t dare move.
The generator started up. Rebecca inched her way out and looked towards the sound. The arc lights were on now and she could see two figures silhouetted by their glare, with their backs to her. Over the noise of the generator she thought she heard one word in French from the woman, a simple ‘Magnifique’. She hoped the magnificence referred to would hold their attention for as long as it took her to get out of here and then she quietly slipped her shoes off and ran back to the entrance, thinking the generator would cover any noise she was making. Before she went up the steps she turned back to see what was happening. They seemed fully occupied and hadn’t moved and from here they were just distant figures, anyway. She ascended as fast as she could, only pausing to take a look around the site before emerging fully into the daylight. There was nobody else up here. She stopped briefly to put on her shoes and then ran through a gap in the fence where it had been unlocked and set a brisk pace back to the car.
When she got there she was perspiring freely in the heat. The car had air conditioning, she thought. A Mercedes was parked not far away, and after getting in her own vehicle she wrote down the licence plate number. She started the car and drove out of Chipra. If the two people she’d just narrowly avoided had registered the presence of her car and seen that it was a hire car by the sticker in the rear window and bothered to take the details, then she might be in trouble. And the locals she had passed would remember a white woman. She told herself to calm down and rationalise the situation. They wouldn’t have been looking for anything out of the ordinary until they got to the site and saw that the tarpaulin had been moved. And as they had left the place unattended, it could have been moved by anyone. She couldn’t understand why they would leave it open to trespass in any case, but she knew that any prospective tomb robber would need to bring in some very heavy lifting gear to stand a chance of getting the lions out. They weren’t going anywhere, any time soon.
She was elated, confused and terrified all at once. Elated at the amazing discovery, confused by Marsh’s assertion that there was nothing to be found when there so patently was something, and terrified by the implications that her discovery might have for her continued well-being. Two people were dead in connection with this already and she didn’t want to be number three. She needed to get out of sight for a while and think. She concentrated her attention on the road ahead and half an hour later she was back at the airport hire car terminal. She dropped the car and took a taxi into town. She had a hotel booked for one night where she figured she could hole up, calm down, and try and make some sense of all this.
Later that evening she was none the wiser. All she really thought she knew was that Alexander Marsh had lied to her. To locate the tomb entrance and uncover it and then get the crane in to drag back the slab would take at least a week, maybe two. Simon had flown back from here, presumably directly after giving Marsh the information, on July 4th. Then on the 8th he was murdered, and today was the 22nd. So it was doubtful that the team Marsh claimed he’d sent had been and gone away empty handed in that time, leaving the site free for another team to just appear from nowhere and find what the first one couldn’t. She had to conclude that Alexander Marsh must have had other plans for any potential find right from the moment Simon and he first met, and then having found something way beyond expectation wasn’t about to share it with anyone else.
Rebecca, on the other hand, fully intended to share her discovery with the Archaeological Survey of India’s Kolkata office as soon as she got back. If they already knew about it, then it would be because Marsh had gone down the proper channels, though that didn’t explain his lie to her. But if they didn’t know, they could get an official team up there and take over the site. That seemed like a plan to cover all the bases, but it didn’t relieve her anxiety. She had intended to do a little sightseeing and then find a restaurant, but decided against it. She would eat in her room.
At 9.30 she called DCI Severance.
‘Rebecca, I’m relieved to hear from you. Are you OK?’
‘Fine. I found something. Give me your email address, I’m going to send you some photos. Take a look at them and then call me back, will you?’
Ten minutes later he returned the call. ‘Am I looking at what I think I’m looking at?’ he asked.
‘I found the tomb, just where Simon thought it would be. In archaeological terms it’s a huge find, just amazing.’
‘You must be over the moon. Are these lions I’m looking at made of gold? They must be worth a fortune.’
‘Yes, solid gold I think. But when I say I found it, I wasn’t the first. I’m worried. I was told by the man at the India Society that there was nothing there.’
‘But you went there anyway? Does he know?’
‘No, but I’m not sure what’s going on now.’ She gave him the full details. ‘The peo
ple who came down as I was on my way out must know the site was disturbed.’
‘Did you get a look at them?’
‘No. A man and a woman, but I only know that because I heard their voices. I don’t know what language they were speaking. I thought she said something in French, later on.’
‘Ah, that’s interesting.’
‘Really? In any case it could have been anyone disturbing the place. They’d left it unattended, for how long I don’t know, of course.’
Nick was concerned. ‘I think if what you say is correct and Alexander Marsh is doing a little private enterprise, then you’re probably going to be the prime suspect. We can’t protect you while you’re in India. And now we have another man murdered and I can only assume there is a link, but I don’t know what it is. Do you?’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘What are your plans, once you’ve spoken to the Archaeological Survey people in Kolkata?’
‘Well, I suppose I could come back to London. I’d intended to do a week or two of travelling here, first.’
‘Where are you staying in Kolkata?’
She gave him the address.
‘I’d like you to keep in touch,’ he said. ‘Let me know what they say in Kolkata. I would prefer it if you came back to London as soon as you can.’
Rebecca sighed. ‘Will I be safe there? Simon wasn’t.’
‘We should be able to help with protection.’
‘I’ll let you know. Right now, I don’t feel safe anywhere.’
She flew back to Kolkata the next day and arrived early evening. Ross was still in residence and met her on the way into the hotel.
‘Back already? Find anything in that village of yours?’
‘No, nothing. Are you doing anything for dinner?’
They went to another restaurant, of his choice. The food was excellent, but she couldn’t give it the attention it deserved. She felt jumpy, on edge. Some of this was communicated to her dining partner.
‘What’s up, Rebecca?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Alright, don’t bite my head off. You seem a bit nervy, that’s all.’
‘Time of the month. Nothing to worry about.’
‘If you say so.’
He was unconvinced, but left it at that. She wasn’t about to share her concerns with anyone, besides it was a long story and would sound like nothing more than a fantasy to someone she’d just met. She hardly believed it herself. She tried to calm down, but her gaze kept straying to the door whenever anyone entered the restaurant. It was ridiculous. It was a perfectly normal evening in a perfectly normal restaurant and all these people coming and going were no threat whatsoever. And tomorrow she could share the details of her find with the proper authorities and get out of here. Still, she wanted to be out of sight and not sitting here feeling so vulnerable in a public place. When Ross suggested dessert she just looked at him and he took the hint. By 9pm she was back in her room.
She’d ordered a large gin and lime from the bar on her way through, and now she sat cradling it. Hopefully it would calm her down a little and even help her to sleep. She checked the mirror. Tomorrow she would get some hair dye and take out the purple streaks. Yes, she should become as anonymous as possible and then leave Kolkata. Maybe she could go up to Rishikesh and get lost in an ashram for a week or two. As long as the lions were safe first… There was a knock at the door and she flinched. Perhaps it was Ross, wanting a nightcap. Well why not, just the one. She opened up.
‘Ms Slade?’ A woman, wearing a burka. How did they do it in this heat?
‘Yes, who are you?’
‘May I?’ The woman advanced and Rebecca took an involuntary step back. The woman closed the door behind her.
It was disconcerting. Rebecca could only see the eyes and they didn’t look friendly. ‘What do you want?’
‘I’d like you to come with me, please.’
‘I’m not going anywhere, with anyone. Would you leave now?’
The woman reached into her shoulder bag, quite casually. Then she was pointing a small handgun at Rebecca’s midriff.
‘This gun is very quiet and at this range, very lethal. Please do as you’re told.’
Rebecca stumbled back and found herself sitting on the bed, speechless.
‘Get up.’ The voice wasn’t polite any more. ‘Walk in front of me, quite normally. Don’t make a noise or do anything to attract attention or you will regret it, I promise.’
She did as she was told. She prayed that Ross would appear as they walked through the foyer, but it was deserted. Everyone was in the lounge, or out in the courtyard. There was a car waiting outside and as Rebecca got in she wondered if she would ever see the inside of this hotel, or any other for that matter, ever again.