by C. M. Palov
A waistcoated server approached. With a crisp economy of motion, he placed two napkins, an iced latte and a cup of chai on the table.
Edie immediately reached for the sugar bowl. ‘I know. It’s a sacrilege to be drinking coffee in a country famous for its tea, but jet lag is about to get the better of me.’
Nodding sympathetically, Gita said, ‘I understand. For the last five days, I’ve been subsisting on chai and cigarettes.’
‘You smoke cigarettes?’ Edie tried to visualize it, but couldn’t bring the image to mind. Somehow it didn’t jive with the sari and bindi dot.
‘Although it’s still something of a taboo in India for women to smoke, I picked up a few packs at Charles de Gaulle airport,’ Gita confessed, her cheeks flushed with color. ‘I’d read somewhere that cigarettes calm the nerves.’ She raised the tea cup to her lips and took a measured sip. ‘Maybe I’m not smoking enough.’
In all honesty, Edie didn’t know how the woman was coping emotionally, unable to fathom the torment that Gita had been made to endure since Anala’s abduction. ‘Whatever gets you through the night . . .’
Sugar her drug of choice, Edie reached for the bottle of flavored syrup, adding a sweetened spurt to her beverage.
As they waited for the computer to boot up, Edie decided to throw caution to the Indian wind and ask a question that had been niggling since Paris. ‘I’m curious . . . what was Caedmon like when you knew him at Oxford? He rarely talks about his past.’
Gita lowered her tea cup. For an infinitesimal second, her brow wrinkled before again smoothing out. ‘Caedmon would probably cringe to hear me say this, but he was sweetly demonstrative. The snobbery at Oxford could, at times, be breathtaking, yet he possessed none of the conceited pretensions of his peers. In that bastion of conformity, he was very much his own person.’ Her lips curved ever so slightly. A ghost of a smile. ‘Do you by any chance know what the name “Anala” means in Sanskrit?’
Curious, Edie shook her head. ‘I have no idea.’
‘It means fire. I used to tell Caedmon that he had red hair because he burned with an inner fire. After I became pregnant, my father prohibited me from mentioning his name,’ she confessed in a hoarse tone of voice, one tinged with sadness. ‘Naming our daughter Anala was my clandestine way of giving her –’ Clearing her throat, Gita waved away the thought. ‘Twenty-two years is a lifetime. What’s he like now?’
The other woman having deftly turned the tables, Edie smiled, more than happy to return the favor. ‘He’s still an iconoclast. And, yes, he still has an inner fire, but it’s tempered with the courage of conviction.’ Although tempted, Edie refrained from mentioning that on occasion the ‘fire’ burned out of control. As it did earlier when Caedmon charged out of the café. ‘And just so you know, Caedmon has book smarts and street smarts,’ she added, to reassure herself as much as Gita.
‘When I first discovered that Anala had been abducted from the house, I . . . I didn’t know who else to turn to,’ Gita whispered, hazel eyes welling with tears.
Hearing that, Edie intuited that Gita Patel also had no one to turn to emotionally; that she’d been going through this hellish nightmare all alone. Suddenly feeling a deep connection to the dark-haired, teary-eyed woman in the beautiful sari, Edie reached across the table and pressed Gita’s hands between hers.
‘Trust me. Caedmon will do everything in his power to find the Evangelium Gaspar.’ Giving Gita’s hands a consoling squeeze, Edie wordlessly handed her a clean napkin.
‘Forgive me . . . I’m a mess.’ As she wiped her cheeks, Gita smiled weakly, clearly embarrassed that she’d lost control of her emotions.
‘No need to apologize. In fact, I’m impressed with how well you’re keeping it together.’
More composed, Gita began tapping away on the computer keyboard. ‘It won’t take but a moment for me to pull up the file.’
‘Great. I’m interested to see what you found.’ Leaning forward, Edie peered at the computer screen and read through the particulars. Finished, she glanced over at Gita and grinned. ‘Ohmygod . . . you hit the jackpot.’
23
‘It’s your lucky day, cabrón,’ the Bête Noire rasped. On the verge of swinging an old-fashioned metal scale at Caedmon’s head, he instead flung the heavy device aside. He then glanced dismissively at the two Indian men who, hearing Caedmon’s agonized scream, had rushed to the scene. Sneering at the pair, the brute stormed out of the spice warehouse.
‘But not so lucky for you,’ Caedmon muttered, still sprawled at the bottom of the stairs.
The ruse having worked, he gratefully allowed the two men to assist him to his feet. Brushing the dust off his trousers, he thanked each man in turn before rushing outside. Worried that he wouldn’t be able to overtake the Bête Noire, when his shoe lodged in the stair tread he’d impetuously feigned a broken limb. It seemed the most expedient way to pursue without all of the huffing and puffing. He could now surreptitiously follow the other man to his lair while conserving his energy for the next bout.
Keeping to the shadows, Caedmon hurried down the lane that ran through the middle of the spice bazaar, the Bête Noire approximately fifty meters ahead of him. Arms swinging, torso listing in a macho swagger, the Spanish-speaking tough was blithely unaware that Caedmon had risen from the deep and now followed in his wake.
The fact that the man did speak Spanish, as well as heavily accented English, was an inexplicable, but nagging detail.
Still concealed in the umbra, Caedmon rounded the corner and continued to follow his quarry through a marketplace. Closed for business, the stalls were shuttered and locked. Only a few loiterers ambled along the pavement. Completely taken in by Caedmon’s ploy, the cocky bastard didn’t once turn and peer in the opposite direction.
It’s that sort of smug hubris that can get a man killed, Caedmon mused.
Passing a derelict truck parked on the curb, hanks of green and red beads dangling from the windows, he stepped over to the rear passenger bumper. Hope springing, he reached under the grimy protrusion. With his arm extended, he rummaged around and – perfect! – slid a blackened tire iron out of the metal rings securing it to the vehicle’s underside. Weapon at the ready, he picked up the pace, the Bête Noire having veered on to a cross street.
By the time he reached the intersection, the bruiser was nowhere in sight.
Bloody hell.
Worried the fish may have escaped the trawl, he hurriedly made his way down the litter-strewn lane that was framed on either side by wooden shanties; derelict structures that he suspected had never seen better days. India’s squalor was not for the faint hearted, the stench enough to make a weaker man bend over and retch. As it was, he had to put the back of his free hand to his nostrils to block out the smell of the alley which was a putrid effluvium awash in raw sewage, rubbish and the odd animal carcass.
The Jewel in the Crown, my arse.
Day fast fading, murky gray shadows materialized. Sensing something in the gloaming, he raised the tire iron.
Only to lower it an instant later when two pathetically thin, doe-eyed boys scampered out of a doorway.
The taller of the two lads whipped out an accordion-style souvenir book. ‘Very nice. Very nice. Only twenty rupees,’ he informed Caedmon, holding the book up for inspection. ‘Good buy!’
‘I’ll give you the twenty rupees, but first you must answer a few questions.’
‘You American?’ the second boy inquired.
Tucking the tire iron under his arm, Caedmon reached for his wallet. ‘I’m English,’ he told them, extracting the stipulated amount plus another twenty. Both boys’ eyes lit up with an entrepreneurial gleam. ‘There’s twenty for each of you, but only if you tell the truth. Did a man with a moustache pass through here a few moments ago?’
In concert, the boys eagerly nodded.
‘What was he wearing?’ Caedmon next asked, the question a set-up to gauge the pair’s veracity.
‘Black clothes,’ the shorter one said.
>
‘Just like his friends,’ the other one supplied, unasked.
‘Ah! So the man with the moustache has a few friends, does he? Do you know how many?’
The taller boy held up two fingers.
Alarmed to learn of an unholy trinity, Caedmon asked the follow-up: ‘By any chance, did he meet his two friends just now?’
The question elicited simultaneous shakes of the head.
‘And lastly, do you know where the man with the moustache is staying?’
Again, it was the taller lad who took the lead. ‘Follow me.’
Caedmon did, the boys navigating a labyrinth of winding lanes and narrow alleys. The maze ended at a two-story guest house. A dilapidated colonial vestige, the building featured two covered patios on the ground floor and two balconies above. Without being asked, the taller boy silently pointed to one of the patios.
Got you, you bastard!
Their fee earned, Caedmon handed each boy twenty rupees.
‘Good buy!’ the smaller one enthused.
‘Indeed.’
Caedmon waited until the two urchins had disappeared back into the maze before approaching the patio. His senses tightly calibrated, he soft-shoed towards the tawdry guesthouse. As he did, he eyed the peeling paint, mismatched curtains and rotting garbage. My compliments. Lovely accommodations.
In the far distance, a pair of dogs contentiously barked. In the near distance, he heard muffled footsteps. Someone scurrying home while there was still a bit of daylight left. In a matter of minutes the sun would conclude its westward glide, twilight waiting in the wings.
Moving with a predator’s slow, deliberate gait, Caedmon stepped over the low railing that bordered the patio and took up a position near the French doors. The lights were on inside the room, enabling him to peer into the jackal’s lair. At a glance, he could see that there were two unmade beds and a narrow cot. Empty beer bottles and containers of takeaway were scattered about. An unidentified dark-skinned man was sprawled on one of the beds, a plastic shopping bag clutched in his hand.
A door suddenly opened on the other side of the shabby guestroom, spilling garish light as the Bête Noire stepped out of the bathroom. He glanced at the prone man’s plastic bag and frowned. ‘I told you not to drink the water.’
‘Fuck you, Hector. My belly aches from the food not the water.’ Wincing, the other man gingerly sat up. ‘Shit, man! Everything I eat now turns to water.’
Hector.
At last Caedmon had a name; the irony of which made him smile humorlessly. Had anyone ever been so inappropriately christened? Hector, the firstborn son of King Priam, had been ancient Troy’s most stalwart warrior, famed for his courage and honor. During the Middle Ages, Hector was esteemed as one of ‘The Nine Worthies’, a legendary figure who personified the chivalric ideal.
‘So, where the hell have you been anyway?’
‘That English cabrón ambushed me,’ the misnamed brute informed his crony.
Arms moving in a herky-jerky motion, Hector spewed a venomous litany, going into great detail about the ‘ambush’. Most of his soliloquy was in English with the odd word of Spanish. Caedmon had been to Gibraltar where a similar mash-up of English and Spanish was occasionally spoken. But these two men weren’t Europeans. The idioms and macho body language strongly suggested that they were Americans. Probably first or second generation, their families having immigrated from Mexico or Central America.
An uneasy dread gripped Caedmon’s lower belly, none of the puzzle pieces fitting together. How did these two thugs find out about the Evangelium Gaspar? By no stretch of the imagination were they academics. Hired muscle, more than likely.
Still fuming, Hector peeled off his T-shirt and tossed it on to the floor. When, an instant later, he turned round to retrieve a duffel bag, Caedmon’s eyes opened wide – the man’s entire back, from his waist to shoulders, was covered in an elaborate and colorful tattoo of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the patron saint of Mexico. Impeccably rendered, the Virgin was garbed in a bright green cloak and limned in a brilliant halo of golden light. Crowned with roses and a ghoulish calavera, a Mexican skull, she stood atop a twining serpent. A New World variation of ‘a woman cloaked with the sun’ from the Book of Revelation.
Seeing the religious icon was further confirmation that the Catholic Church was somehow involved in Anala’s kidnapping.
‘Jesus, my gut is killing me,’ the unnamed man groaned. Clutching his belly, he flopped backwards on to the bed.
Showing a noticeable lack of sympathy, Hector snatched a bottle of deodorant from the dresser and, removing the cap, slathered each armpit. He then tugged a dark brown T-shirt over his head. Retrieving a leather wallet from his hip pocket, he took a quick tally. ‘That should be enough.’
The other man raised his head off the mattress. ‘Where you going, homie?’
‘There’s a whorehouse down the street. Mi chorizo needs a lil’ curry sauce,’ the lout snickered, cupping his crotch. It was an affectation that Caedmon found annoyingly tiresome. A vulgar twist on girding one’s loins.
‘Hey, man, you promised G-Dog that you’d control yourself.’
G-Dog? Caedmon’s ears instantly pricked. An alias, obviously, he wondered if G-Dog was the mastermind behind the abduction. If so, were G-dog and Irenaeus, the individual who sent Gita the ransom demand, one and the same?
‘I only promised G-Dog that I would play it safe.’ Shoving a hand into his jeans pocket, Hector pulled out a length of wrapped prophylactics. ‘Never leave la casa without them, amigo.’ He grinned, proving that he was one of those beasts who actually enjoyed wallowing in the mire. ‘Bitches are the same the world over. They lie on their back and show me their crack and usher me to paradise.’
‘After which, you pay them the going rate,’ the other man said pointedly.
Still grinning, the bastard shrugged and said, ‘Heaven doesn’t come cheap. Although I bet the blue-eyed Sanskrita that we bagged for G-Dog would have given it to me for free.’
The blue-eyed Sanskrita. Did he mean Anala?
The bastard!
Licking his lips, Hector smashed a balled fist into an open palm while he humped the air with his hips.
Watching the lewd pantomime, an incendiary rage surged up Caedmon’s spine. In that molten instant, images flashed across his mind’s eye: Anala’s ransacked room; Anala’s ‘proof of life’ photo, bound and gagged; Gita’s tear-stained face. Images that blurred around the edges. Congealing into a stone-cold fury. The kind of fury that incited a savage desire to slay one’s enemy. To kick in the French doors and inflict blood-drenched bodily harm.
He drew a ragged breath. Then another. I need to stay calm. To collect as much intelligence as possible. To learn the enemy’s strengths and weaknesses before launching an attack.
The man sprawled on the bed gestured to the laptop computer on the nearby table. ‘We’re supposed to Skype G-Dog in a little while.’
‘Stop nagging. It’s just gonna be a quick fuck-and-go. I don’t particularly like dark meat, but a man needs his sustenance,’ Hector said over his shoulder as he headed for the door.
‘Qué cabrón,’ the bedridden man muttered sourly as the door slammed shut.
Unmoved, Caedmon watched as the other man suddenly sat up and vomited into his plastic bag. The weak animal in the herd, he had no idea that a predator lurked. Waiting to take him down.
Caedmon slid his hands over the tire iron.
He knew right from wrong. Knew how tenuous the sliver of space between them could be.
Was he willing to cross that line to save a child he’d never met?
Yes. Absolutely.
‘Well, that’s that,’ he whispered, ready to make his move.
24
Caedmon waited until the lone man went to the bathroom.
Seizing his chance, he used the tire iron to pop the lock on the French door. Hurriedly, he slipped across the threshold, the loud blare from the television in the neighboring guest room mu
ffling the break-in.
At a glance, he could see that the accommodations were even more dingy and cramped than they’d appeared from the other side of the glass, the walls covered in a gray, dirt-laden veneer. As with any cheap hotel, the beds sagged and the amenities were almost non-existent, consisting of only a scarred wooden table and two chairs. Surveillance photos of Anala and Gita were tacked haphazardly on to the wall adjacent to the table. Momentarily stopped in his tracks, Caedmon stared at the dozen or so photographs.
Seething, the bile rose in his throat.
Securing a hand around each end of the tire iron, he stormed over to the closed bathroom door. On the other side, he heard a prosaic flush. Now wasn’t the time to debate the situational ethics of the intended act. Now was the time to act.
With that thought in mind, he kicked in the flimsy door.
The round-faced man stood in front of the sink, the water still running. In that split second when the door flew open, their gazes met in the mirror.
Brown eyes opened wide. The shock absolute.
‘Who the fuck –’
Caedmon rushed forward, squelching the query midstream. Looping the tire iron over the shorter man’s head, he yoked it around his neck. He then pulled with all his might, yanking the man backward. Legs spread wide, he pulled the other man against his chest. With the iron pressed to his quarry’s windpipe, Caedmon proceeded to cut off the lout’s airflow.
Grabbing at the iron, violently twisting and turning, the other man tried to break free. Caedmon refused to let go. Teeth bared, he tightened his grip. The tiled bathroom was barely large enough to turn round in, let alone wage gladiatorial combat. Flailing wildly, his adversary grabbed the only weapon within reach – the metal towel rack – and yanked it free of its moorings, sending chalky wads of plaster flying through the air.
Weapon in hand, he tried to clout Caedmon in the head, swinging the chrome length over his shoulder.
Caedmon instinctively recoiled, the makeshift bludgeon missing the mark. Worried the other man might actually knock him out, he released his left hand from the tire iron. At the same time, he forcefully swung his right arm downwards, smashing the iron into his adversary’s shins.