“Jigsaw, sahib?”
“Puzzle.”
“You must understand, sahib, these people who sell themselves on street, they have owners, masters, who expect money always. They are not good men.”
“I know,” he sighed. “I was not getting anywhere and became careless.”
She stopped cutting; she was finished. She put the scissors and comb into one hand and brought her other hand up and rested it on his cheek. “You are good man, sahib. You should not deal with such people. You should return home to England, find good girl and work for King.”
He lifted his hand and laid it over hers, not pushing it away.
“I found the girl I wanted, Amita, but I did not understand her. I drove her away from me, and now I am trying to make it up to her in the only way she will understand.”
* * *
Amita stood on one side of the ferry, away from the other people so as not to upset them. Her disguise made it difficult to get things done and had proved to be almost useless.
Before they had parted Valentine had made her promise not to tell Maliha he was in Pondicherry. He did not know how much longer he would be there so it would not matter.
She watched the river churning away as the hull of the ferry ploughed through it. The paddle wheel, three times her height, threw up water that made rainbows in the sun. Seagulls followed the boat and dived into the water behind looking for fish disturbed by the passing vessel.
She disembarked from the ferry last, as befitted her place. There were a number of shops and houses around the jetty but they soon fell behind as she walked along the long road back towards the city. She did not know where Maliha was going to be. She hoped it would not be far. And that her mistress had not been delayed.
The road climbed up into a small range of hills and she looked back across the river that curved round with it. Then down the other side, coming around a corner she saw a steam carriage parked by the side of the road. She smiled and hurried.
It was empty but there were trees on a spit of ground that poked out into the river. She thought she saw a splash of colour there. She reached the vehicle and confirmed it belonged to her mistress; the head scarf and goggles lay on the seat. She turned towards the promontory and walked through the trees.
She stopped short. Her mistress stood with her arms around the Frenchwoman. They were kissing. A riot of emotion went through her. Her initial confusion was replaced by jealousy, then anger at this Françoise who presumed to take the place of Valentine. And finally a great feeling of sorrow for him. She did not think her mistress to be so fickle, and yet here she was.
Well she could and would stop this. She pushed through the trees and bushes.
“Sahiba!”
Chapter 5
i
Françoise catapulted out of her arms and turned away from the approaching maid. Maliha considered the experience. As she had never kissed Valentine she had nothing to compare it to; in fact she had not kissed anyone so intimately. Even with Guru Nadesh, since kissing had not been part of his repertoire, only inducing paroxysm, and even that had been interrupted.
Of course relationships between women were frowned upon as much as those between men—when they were acknowledged at all. Maliha knew what physical passion felt like; the guru had achieved that much at least. While the kiss had not been unpleasant she had not felt the same passion with Françoise. Perhaps there was more to it. She looked across at Françoise who was looking particularly discomfited and had the red flush of embarrassment in her cheeks.
Amita reached the two of them and pressed her palms together at her forehead to indicate her deference and their high position above her. Maliha nodded to her.
“Did you find anything useful?”
“Very little, sahiba,” said Amita. “The person I spoke to has seen African slaves around the air-dock but did not know details.”
Maliha looked at her thoughtfully; if she were not mistaken her maid was hiding something from her.
“And?”
The look of discomfort that crossed her face, the slight shuffling of the feet and the way her hands gripped one another tighter confirmed it but she did not respond.
“What happened?”
“There was trouble, sahiba.” Amita glanced at the French woman, but they were speaking Hindi and she could not understand their words. “I spoke to hijra on street. Their pimp—”
“Pimp?”
“Owner, manager, hijra work for them and they give up all money to them.”
Maliha nodded and remained silent for Amita to continue.
“The pimp wanted money for her time. I had to run,” Amita said. “I am sorry, sahiba, I have failed you.”
Maliha waved her hand. “All information has value. Did you find where they landed?”
“I am sorry. She said she did not think they came in at air-dock. A ship can land anywhere?”
Maliha nodded. Although, she thought to herself, it would most likely be day otherwise it would be difficult to find the place. And if it were night there would have to be recognisable landmarks for the ship’s pilot or navigator, and lights to land by.
They could not make such landings without being seen whether it was day or night. And if they could be seen then someone would talk about it.
* * *
At the wheel of her steam carriage Maliha headed back into the city. It was mid-afternoon and two days since the girl’s death, and what did she have to show for it?
Françoise sat beside her but had not spoken since being discovered in Maliha’s embrace. She was a good Catholic girl; it was probably very confusing for her, particularly if she had enjoyed the kiss. Then Maliha thought of Valentine again. He was always teasing, never serious. And she felt a smile creep across her lips.
“Let us review the situation,” Maliha announced in French as they approached the first bridge into Pondicherry. Françoise jumped at her words.
“Review?”
“The facts such as we know them. You start.”
The woman sat up straighter in the seat and looked out at the approaching buildings as they went over the top of the bridge. “A pregnant African girl poisoned herself in the middle of a wedding.”
“Good. The poison was some green form of cyanide which was in an Italian-made lead-glass container. What else do we know about her?”
“We believe she was a slave.”
Maliha nodded. A small herd of goats scattered as they rumbled past. “And she was being beaten.”
“Yes.”
“In fact beaten constantly, regularly and severely for six months or so, but on the other hand she was being kept healthy, her wounds treated, and she was well fed.”
There was a long pause. They passed a field where a water buffalo was pulling logs into place for the construction of a fence.
“Amita was able to determine the slaves are probably not brought in at the air-dock, but they do pass through it. I do not think it would be too hard to discover where they arrive.”
“Is that something we should do?” asked Françoise. “It sounds dangerous.”
“It probably isn’t necessary for this investigation,” said Maliha. “So who did not commit the murder?”
The French woman paused again, as if she were not used to having her rationality tested in such a fashion. Perhaps it was unusual.
“The bride and groom?”
“One or other of them might have had a reason to prevent the wedding from taking place.”
“The parents?”
“Same argument.”
“I do not know how to answer your question.”
“Exactly,” said Maliha. “We have no motive.”
“But,” said Françoise, “whoever owned her killed her because she was pregnant.”
“In some ways that is the reason why I do not think the girl’s master—or mistress—”
“A woman could not do such a thing.”
Maliha thought about the cases she had dealt with. �
��Françoise, I like you very much but I must tell you, from personal experience, that a woman is very capable of such a crime. I have known three women who were killers and quite cold-blooded in two cases.”
“The one that wanted to kiss you as a lover?”
“No, she only killed on the spur of the moment, in a moment of passion.”
“This was not a moment of passion.”
“No. This was calculated. The poison. The timing. The fact the poison was self-administered,” said Maliha. “Everything says that this was carefully planned.”
“You are saying the girl must have been instructed to poison herself.”
Maliha did not respond.
“Sacre bleu,” Françoise said in a barely audible whisper. “It is a terrible crime, to force someone to commit a mortal sin, to throw someone else into hell for eternity.”
Maliha engaged the brake. She had pulled up at the front of Françoise’s cousin’s house.
“We are here?” Françoise seemed surprised.
“We are also taking the pregnancy for granted,” said Maliha.
“The girl is murdering her own child in the womb. Another mortal sin.”
“You are thinking like a Catholic, Françoise.”
The woman turned and looked directly into Maliha’s eyes. “You make me wonder whether you are sent by Satan to tempt me, Maliha Anderson.”
“I am not insulting you, Françoise,” said Maliha. “Your beliefs are your own concern. When I say you are thinking like a Catholic I just mean that you are ascribing your own thought processes to others, when you have no right to do so.”
“I do not understand.”
“Do you think the African girl was a Catholic?”
Françoise opened her mouth as if the act of doing so would bring the words into her mind. But there were none and she closed it again without speaking. Then she brought her hand to her mouth. “I see.”
Maliha smiled.
“Would you like to come in for some tea?” said Françoise.
Maliha’s automatic reaction was to resist; she was not the sort who engaged in social niceties if she could avoid it. But she had not finished working through her thoughts yet, and it was refreshing doing so with someone as innocent as Françoise. It was like writing in chalk on an untouched blackboard.
“That would be acceptable.”
She engaged the engine once more and moved the carriage to a shady spot and placed it such that the sun would not touch it all the rest of the day. In her disguise Amita was forced to remain in the car.
Together she and Françoise walked up the steps and into the house.
“The servants have the afternoon off,” said Françoise.
“All of them?”
Françoise apparently had not heard her and led the way to the kitchen where she prepared the tea.
They carried the teapot and cups, along with a selection of cakes to a cool room at the back of the house. It had tall windows that looked inland, towards the hills.
“There are many questions that still present themselves,” Maliha said having taken some Battenberg cake, which she adored. “What do you think they are?”
Françoise seemed to prefer the small round cakes with sugar toppings, and was midway through consuming one when Maliha asked the question. She continued to eat the cake slowly while she looked for answers.
“If it wasn’t the slave master who killed her, it must have been someone who knew she existed.”
“Good.”
“Someone who wanted to disrupt the wedding.”
“Most likely, but why do we know they wanted to disrupt the wedding?”
Françoise searched for an answer but Maliha could see she was not going to come up with anything. Eventually Françoise shrugged her shoulders. “I do not know.”
“If the intention was simply to kill the girl, there are far easier ways of doing it,” said Maliha. “Do you think the girl would have tried to escape if she had been able?”
Françoise looked up suddenly. “Perhaps she liked the pain as well—are there people who like pain?”
Maliha nodded. “If you can imagine it, someone somewhere will have done it.”
“You make the world sound like a terrible place.”
“You are naïve, Françoise.”
“You insult me again.”
Maliha smiled. “No, a simple statement of fact.”
“I am older than you by five years but you speak to me as if I am a child. I am not sure I want to live in the world you inhabit.”
Maliha put down her cup. She stood and brushed the crumbs from her sari with delicate flicks of her fingers. The patterns of mehndi still showed on her hands. Amita had painted her fingernails blue to match the sari she had worn to the wedding, but that was long gone; bloodstains would never come out of the silk. It had been burned.
She went to the windows, opened them, and stepped out on to the paving stones that led across to the garden proper. She heard Françoise come up behind her. She felt her close by, Françoise’s blouse sleeves brushed against Maliha’s bare arm.
“What do we do now?” asked Françoise.
“That depends on whether you want to continue to be involved with me. You are not wrong, my world is not a pleasant one.”
Françoise seemed to consider her words. “I think I would like to follow you.”
“Even if I lead you down roads where you do not want to go?”
“You have done so much more than I.”
“Though I am your junior by five years.”
Françoise laughed, but it was more of a chuckle. Maliha realised she had not heard her laugh before. It was not at all a proper laugh for a woman. Too throaty, too ... provocative. “I am a naïve girl from the French countryside who has seldom questioned what she has been taught.”
“And I am an agent of Satan sent to tempt you from the one true path.”
“Sorry.”
“Perhaps I am.”
Françoise took Maliha’s hand and pulled her round so that they were face to face. “I do not believe that. I do believe that perhaps my education was not as broad as I may have believed.”
“And you want to learn from me?”
“I believe that would be a good thing to do.”
Maliha pulled her hand from Françoise’s and stepped away from her. She spotted a seat set into a tall hedge, out of the sun and she sat in it. It was out of sight of the windows of the house. Away from prying busybodies. Françoise followed and sat beside her, close but not touching.
“Think about it, Françoise,” said Maliha. “Whoever provided the means for the girl to kill herself, who persuaded her to do it, who arranged for her to escape from her torture chamber—this person knew all about her. They must have had her confidence and yet did this terrible thing. But this person was most likely not the same one that had been beating her all these months.”
Françoise looked into her eyes; it seemed as if she were mesmerised by them. “But the person who committed this crime is truly evil.”
“Sadly no. If only it were that simple,” said Maliha. “I think that with the right pressure a desperate person may do almost anything.”
Françoise made no reaction but reached out and took Maliha’s hand again.
“At present,” continued Maliha, “we are a moth fluttering near the truth, but soon we will become a wasp and we will be able to sting. And then this person will direct their murderous attentions to me. If you are also there they will surely try to kill you as well.”
“They will try to kill us?”
“That has been my experience in most cases.”
“But you did not die.”
Since the answer was obvious Maliha remained silent. Françoise smiled and squeezed her hand. “I had scarlet fever when I was young and almost died of it.”
“It is different when someone has the power of life and death over you and truly desires to bring your existence to an end.”
“You cannot dis
suade me.”
“You do not understand the truth of it.”
“I have faith in you.”
Maliha opened her mouth to protest at the choice of word, but Françoise silenced her with her lips.
ii
Valentine tested the weight of the gun in his pocket. He knew it was oiled and loaded. There would not be any mistake this time.
Six months had changed him. Ever since Maliha had rejected him for daring to rob her of her prize, though he had only acted to preserve her honour. An honour she clearly did not value, since she was willing to discard it to bring the dregs of humanity to justice.
That piece of slime was better off dead.
Valentine pressed back into the shadow of the doorway he stood in. Two men walked past, their loud voices echoed between the dark buildings. By their clothing they were air-sailors but he did not recognise the language. Something oriental.
He envied Maliha’s command of language, but then he could not match her memory; her mind was like a camera and everything she saw was indelibly imprinted.
A door opened and closed. There was raucous laughter from somewhere away in the night. From the far distance the thunder of waves forever breaking on the shore. There was so much less noise in the night that every sound stood out.
After Amita had left he had returned to the market and watched the pimp. He saw which children he ran and where he went with the money. The child Amita had been talking to could not have been more than twelve, but some were even younger.
Every fibre of him wanted to leap out and slaughter the monster that forced them into such labour. He wanted to release the anger piled up inside him. Once upon a time he had seldom been angry, and when he had he would simply be angry.
But since she had rejected him, it was as if a dam had been constructed within him and the anger grew behind it. He did not know how much longer he would be able to keep it there before it broke free and consumed everything in its path, including himself. All he could do was relieve the pressure.
The lights in the building across from him were extinguished. Not long now.
The dark windows emitted the sounds of sex. The anger boiled in him.
Wind in the East Page 11