“Right, there’s the account of the inquest and the mention of the British Consulate asking for an independent coroner’s report,” he said. “Then there’s this report, stating quite clearly that it seemed unlikely that the strength of the blows inflicted on Phillip Mills could have been done by a nine-stone woman, unless she was very strong, which Jane wasn’t. Also…” He leaned forward and picked up the paper with the article in, “There’s this odd thing about the Indian woman found. States time of death as two to three hours after Phillip Mills and a clean, skilled severing of the throat. How could Jane possibly have known how to do that?”
John knelt back. “Come on, John, think!” He dropped the paper down and rubbed his hands over his face. “The British consulate asked for an independent report, i.e. they weren’t happy with what had been filed. The report raises some questions that were never answered. Jane didn’t kill Phillip Mills, I know it, so maybe they knew it as well? And if Jane didn’t kill Phillip, who did?”
He knelt forward and looked at the book on the mutiny. “A man with a history in India… Colonel Reginald Mills… Ah, here it is.” John read the passage he had already gone over twenty or so times. “Phillip Mills knew India, did he ever mention anything about it?” John thought back. He could only ever remember meeting Phillip four or five times and each time he’d been charming, affable and entertaining but rather shallow. The women loved him though. Clare thought he was terrific, especially that time he came to dinner.
“Dinner!” John suddenly exclaimed. “The dinner, here. My God! That story about his family, it had Clare agog!” He sat back on his heels. “God, what did he say now, what was it…?” He pinched the bridge of his nose between his forefinger and thumb. “Damn, what was it all about?”
He stretched across the carpet and grabbed the Polaroids he’d taken at the British Museum. “That’s it! After the mutiny and the murder of his wife, Colonel Mills had thrown some Indian into prison, where he’d died, and then stripped the family of all their wealth and dishonored them. The family swore revenge.” He looked down at the photographs. “The family were jewelers. Mills stole a bird, this one, one of a pair.”
John stood up and stepped over the mess, across to the window. He stared out at the garden. “Surely not.” He shook his head and dug his hands in his pockets. He was getting too old for all this, he wasn’t thinking properly, he was imagining things, rambling. Revenge: it was the stuff of fiction, not real life. He turned back into the room and surveyed the floor. But if Jane didn’t kill Phillip, then who did? Someone must have set Jane up as the culprit and that took planning; it required patience, skill. John went over each thing he had accumulated in the room, his eyes flicking over the floor. He was a soldier, he had fought in the Second World War, he knew what men were capable of, what evils, what suffering they could inflict. He stepped across the papers to the photographs and looked at them a final time.
So, if he was right that someone wanting revenge had killed Phillip and set Jane up, then what in God’s name did all of that have to do with Indi? How did she get involved, taken out to India and stranded there? What was the connection, if there was one at all? He sighed heavily and squatted down.
“Dead end,” he said to the empty space. “Unless…” He got up and turned to the books that lined one wall, running his hand down the shelves, looking for something. “Unless, unless… come on, where is it? Ah!” It’s a long shot but you never know, he thought, pulling the file down. He flicked through the pages and found the leaflet—Sotheby’s Fine Art. He filed everything, always had, thank God. He carried it out to the hall, picked up the phone and dialled the London number.
“Yes, hello,” he said, “I hope you can. I wanted to contact someone about Indian jewelry, nineteenth-century to the present day. You do? Mister who? Oh, well if that’s possible then yes. Super, thank you. Of course,” John took up his pen and reached for the pad, “of course I’ll hold on, no problem at all,” he said.
Indi and Oliver were at a corner table in the dining-room of the gymkhana club. They had taken to eating there; it was one of the cheapest and best places in the city and Oliver felt safe there. It was one of the few places he did. In the gymkhana club he didn’t have to constantly look over his shoulder, check what was behind them, what could be in front of them. He could relax, of a fashion, and he could forget for a while that what they were doing was potentially very dangerous indeed.
They sat, late in the evening, their dinner over, with the file of press cuttings that Rob Jones had sent from Delhi and the book open on the page they had got to. They said nothing to each other, they read in silence. Every now and then Oliver would glance across at Indi to check she was all right—he couldn’t help himself, it was instinctive. Since the incident the other night they had been together all the time and yet not “together” at all. They circled around each other, saying nothing personal, making no contact. They simply discussed the book, the clues, the trail. He thought he understood, it was so much for her to face up to, all the horror of the truth, and then there were moments when he just wanted to shake her and shout, Whoa! Stop a minute, look at me, talk to me! There were moments when he didn’t even understand his own feelings, let alone hers.
Oliver looked down at the page in front of him and tried to take his mind off her. He concentrated on the book, on the clue they were well and truly stuck on. He read and reread the verse, Sappho, he thought it was and thankfully it was written in English. For a reason perhaps? He wasn’t sure, but the picture, the dark water-color that went with it he was sure about. That it was different from the rest of the work, that much he was certain of. It was strangely different, as if something had fueled it, something had happened to raise it above the level of art. It was emotional, vivid, alive. And there was a line of Hindi at the bottom of the page, written in a different hand from the rest of the script. That was odd too. He read the verse one last time, murmuring the words under his breath.
“If you will come
I shall put out
new pillows for
you to rest on.”
Indi looked up. “That’s beautiful,” she said.
Oliver closed the book. “Yes, it is, isn’t it?” He reached out and went to place his hand over hers, then thought better of it. He drummed the tabletop with his fingers. “You look tired, Indi,” he said.
“I am.”
“Are you all right? I mean, all this, it’s not too much for you is it?”
She shook her head, not trusting herself to speak. It was awful, every word she read made her feel sick, it was a terrible journey of self-discovery, finding that she was no longer safe and secure in the knowledge of who she was, she was no longer just Indi Bennet, but was now the daughter of a murderess. She cleared her throat.
“Have you seen this, Oli?” she asked, changing the subject. She passed him a photograph in one of the articles. He looked down at it and saw a group picture, Jane and Phillip Mills, the maharajah of Baijur and Ramesh Rai, the maharajah’s close friend.
“It’s odd, isn’t it,” he commented, “looking at old photographs in black and white? They seem so far removed from how we are today.”
“God, I hope so!” Indi blurted. “I would hate to think that I was capable of doing something like my mother did… I…” Her voice faltered and she turned abruptly away.
Oliver glanced at her for a moment, then he too turned away. He didn’t know what to say.
Suddenly Indi scrapped her chair back and ran from the table. Oliver saw her shoulders sag and knew she was crying. He sat motionless for a few seconds, afraid of interfering and yet frightened of her being alone, then he gathered up their things and, calling out to the waiter that they’d be back, darted out after her.
Indi ran out of the doors of the dining-room and across the terrace, down onto the lawn. She stopped running, once in darkness, and slowed to a walk. The club had remained practically unchanged for seventy-odd years. Formerly open only to the British, it was n
ow open to everyone, and as she wandered down through the flame trees, Indi glanced behind her and saw it lit up, an old colonial building, the same one her mother would have known. She swallowed and stood for several minutes, looking back at it.
“You don’t honestly believe that Jane committed the murder do you?” She turned and saw Oliver. “Not after all that you’ve read, about the independent coroner’s report?” Indi shrugged and Oliver stepped closer to her. “Well, I don’t,” he said. “I cannot imagine it, and nor should you.” He kept his arms locked by his side because the temptation to hold her, to surround her with his arms, to press her close to his body, was so strong, it made him ache.
“Indi?”
She turned away. “No,” she answered at last, “no I don’t.” She began to walk on and Oliver walked after her. They went down through the trees to the end of the lawns, the moon lighting the way, and then through an arch in an old wall, hung densely with creepers. They came into the ruins of a water garden and walked down the steps toward the first pool, still strangely kept filled with water, black and still, reflecting the sky. They stopped and Oliver glanced around him, instinctively wary.
Indi sat down on the edge of the pool and looked at her reflection. She saw Oliver behind her and the trees, the pale orb of the moon. Then suddenly, she swung around. “The water garden!” she cried. “It’s the water garden!” She reached for the bag, pulling it out of Oliver’s hands. “Here! Wait!” Scrabbling in it, she found the book and flicked it open onto the right page. “Look, Oliver, here!” The drawing was the reflection of the water, the sky, the moon, the trees.
Oliver dropped down next to her. “Bloody hell! You’re right. It’s here, this place!” He took the book and studied the page, then he glanced up. “So? What does it mean? We’re here, what’s next?”
“Show me the verse.” Indi read the verse, then burrowed into the bag again. She pulled out her guide book and flicked through it until she found what she wanted. She read, then looked at Oliver. “In the sixteenth century, the Moghul ruler, Mahmud of Alwar, fell in love with a dancing girl. He wanted her in the palace but the Begum wouldn’t allow it so he built his mistress a palace in the hills overlooking the city. He built her the most beautiful water garden to keep her cool up there in the heat of summer and it says here that the remains of it can still be visited.” She laughed and dropped the guide book down on the ground. “That’s it! The next place! That’s what the verse refers to, love, the giving of gifts.” She leaned in close to Oliver to see the book. “It’s brilliant, isn’t it?”
Oliver smiled. “Yes, it’s very clever. What it all leads to, God knows.” He continued to look at the painting.
“What’s up?” Indi frowned. “You’re not satisfied, are you?”
“I don’t know, I…” He faced her. “I’m probably being silly but I can’t help feeling that there’s something else to it, that it all means more than just the next clue.”
“Like?”
“Like the drawing is so intense, so beautiful and the verse is so specifically about love. I’ve just got a feeling, that’s all.” He went to close the book. “Oh, and there’s this line here, in Hindi.” He read it out, stumbling over the words. “I wonder what it means?”
“It means, two bodies, two hearts, one soul.”
Both Indi and Oliver spun around. “Ashok?”
Oliver jumped up.
“Yes, and you are right, Oliver, it does mean more. It is a line about creation, about conception.”
Indi caught her breath. Suddenly frightened, she stood up next to Oliver and felt for his hand. Oliver had been right, this was far more dangerous than she had ever imagined.
“I am working for the Indian government,” Ashok said, “I have been following you for the last twenty-four hours. I know what is going on and I must tell you that what you are doing is illegal. From this moment that book is Indian property. We work together.”
Oliver felt Indi grip his fingers.
“So,” Ashok stepped out of the dark shadow of the wall. “I think you had better give it to me, if you want to do what is best for you.”
31
JOHN TIGHTENED THE KNOT ON HIS TIE AS HE SAT IN THE RECEPTION of the Sotheby’s London offices. He had a copy of Country Life open on his lap but he couldn’t concentrate on it. He was too anxious. It was Tuesday, he hadn’t been able to get through to Indi for days and this morning he’d had a call from Captain Hicks. Brief and curt, he’d said they were both fine, and that Indi would ring when she could. John didn’t know what to do. He was worried, even though he had no reason to doubt Captain Hicks. He felt a sense of danger, a strange intuition and, if he hadn’t been over seventy, he might well have got on the next plane out to Delhi.
“Mr. Bennet?”
“Oh, yes?” He stood and hurried over to the desk.
“Mr. Wraughton is free now. Could you take the lift up to the second floor and his secretary will meet you at the lifts.”
“Certainly. Thank you, erm, this way?”
The girl on the desk smiled and touched her hair. He was damn good-looking, Mr. Bennet, she thought, she liked older men, particularly the masculine, distinguished ones. “Yes, through the double doors there and the lift is on your right.” She looked up hopefully. “Would you like me to show you?”
“No, thank you, it’s quite all right.” John turned. Flirting was always wasted on him; he wasn’t a ladies’ man. “Thanks,” he called. “See you later.” He walked through the double doors and took the lift straight up.
“Ah, Mr. Bennet!” John thanked the secretary who’d shown him in and walked across to Wraughton. He was a young man, no more than thirty-five, John guessed, academic-looking, with a dark suit and small round spectacles. The two men shook hands.
“Please, Mr. Bennet, have a seat.”
“Thank you.” John glanced around the room while Wraughton searched under the piles of paper on his desk for his notes. The office was more like a study, it was lined with books, wall to wall, with papers, notes and photographs littering every available surface.
“Ah, here it is.” Wraughton lifted a brown card folder from under a pile of books. “I’ve made my enquiries, Mr. Bennet, and I’ve got quite a lot here for you.” He opened the file and took out some photographs. He sat down.
“The photos you sent me of the pieces in the British Museum looked vaguely familiar to me, only I couldn’t place them straight away. So, I had a dig through our records. The work is very unusual, Mr. Bennet, it’s highly stylized and the quality of the stones is rare. It’s excellent workmanship, more French than Indian, and it belongs to a man called Indrajit Rai.” Wraughton passed across his snaps. “We’ve had a number of pieces go through our house, Mr. Bennet, these two here for example, several years ago.” John glanced down at the photos. “I’ll give you a bit of the history shall I?”
“Please.”
“Indrajit Rai was well known for a number of years in the nineteenth century, he was a royal jeweler, served many of the royal houses of India and, indeed, several of his pieces ended up with Queen Victoria. We in fact saw quite a bit of his work brought over here during that period. However, his work then disappeared for a number of years, fifty years or so I think… Let me see,” Wraughton checked his notes, “yes, nothing came out of India from him up until the early twentieth century.” He shrugged. “I’ve no idea why, he maybe had money problems, retired, that sort of thing, but then in 1905 a number of pieces came on to the market again, some of Indrajit Rai’s and some new pieces but very much in the Rai style. It turns out his grandson had been building up the Rai house again and was producing superb jewelry which had found a market in Europe.” Wraughton passed across another photograph. ‘These were part of the Duchess of Windsor’s collection, sold a few months back. She was quite a fan of Rai’s work. To put it in perspective, he enjoyed something of the same reputation as, say, Cartier or Fabergé.”
John handed the photo back. “So what happened?
How come I’ve never heard of Rai?”
“Well, two things mainly. First, two world wars, Rai wasn’t European and it was terribly difficult for them to break into the European monopoly on fashion after the war, plus the company diversified, went into other things, built up other business interests. And secondly, and this is the main reason I think, the company suffered huge financial losses in the sixties. Just as the rest of the world was enjoying a boom economy, and houses like Cartier went on to become almost household names, the house of Rai was practically bankrupted. They lost millions!”
“How?”
“Well, to be honest I’m not really sure. It was difficult to get a real account of what happened; it was a private company with very diverse investments and we only dealt with the jewelry side.” Wraughton looked at his notes. “I did ring the man who previously did my job, though, he’s retired now, lives in Wittering. I was kind of fascinated by the whole thing,” he smiled, “and, to be honest, Mr. Bennet, I’ve had a few pieces from the house of Rai come through us over the past year so I wanted to find out what had really happened, get the picture in focus, in case any more pieces came up.” Wraughton took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose, then he slipped them on again. “Apparently, according to my colleague, it’s run by a cousin of Rai’s now. The youngest Rai son was involved in some kind of swindle back in the sixties and that’s when the business was handed over. The rumor goes, and it is just rumor as far as I can gather, the house of Rai had been working for the maharajah of Baijur, one of the last royal houses in independent India, making copies of his family’s jewels, extensive copies, during the troubles with Pakistan.” Wraughton stopped. “Are you all right, Mr. Bennet?”
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