‘No idea, Miss Driscoll. I am sorry to disappoint you if that has been the purpose of your visit. I did not know of Karan Rana’s existence until after his death. Then over the years, I heard something of his story, but not all, from Parvati.’
‘Did she know his real name?’
‘But naturally. They were married, a couple, even though he turned out to be the wickedest of husbands. You know, of course, that he betrayed her?’
Daisy nodded. The conversation was veering towards the awkward again. ‘I would love to know Anish’s real name.’ She hoped her voice wasn’t too eager, hoped it didn’t betray how much the information meant to her. ‘He was a dear friend, you see,’ she went on, ‘and I’ve always thought of him as Anish Rana. Now that I can’t, it doesn’t feel quite right. It seems as if I no longer know him.’
‘His real name? That’s simple enough. Verghese, that was his father’s birth name. Verghese.’
CHAPTER 10
She was back on the street again, having thanked her host profusely and left him to his bittersweet memories. She had the clue she sought, the clue that might lead her to Anish’s paternal family. Verghese was an unusual name in Rajasthan, and surely one she could trace. Mr Bahndari had said the family came from a princely state in the north; it was odd that, one way or another, the north of the region had become a constant refrain. It was where Grayson was bound as soon as his injured wrist permitted. But she would need something more tangible than a simple compass point. If she could identify exactly where the Vergheses hailed from, she might be able to persuade Grayson to take her with him. She must ask as many people as she could, and since the Bahndari house was a stone’s throw from the bazaar, she would start there. She would follow Grayson’s advice. If you wanted information, he maintained, head for the bazaar, in this case a jumbled collection of shops and stalls that filled the centre of Jasirapur. With a few questions here, a smile there, and several purchases on the way, you would almost certainly find what you were looking for. It was true that it hadn’t worked for him recently, but she was sure she would be more fortunate.
She started with Sanjay. His shop, the Johari Bazar, had expanded to twice the size she remembered, but was still a treasure trove of colour and touch. She could have easily spent the rest of the morning in aimless wandering among its stacked shelves, losing herself in the beauty of the silks, the laces, the organzas, but she had serious business to conduct. Sanjay himself came hurrying forward, eager to serve a European customer with money to spend, but, when he drew close enough to recognise her, his footsteps lagged.
‘Mrs Mortimer. A very good day to you.’
His eyes fell and he seemed to be studying the sanded floor closely, unsure she imagined of how best to address her. She had been Mrs Mortimer when he’d last seen her, but Gerald was dead and in the most abject of circumstances. The name of Mortimer had a history in Jasirapur and Sanjay would know every line of it. Not the sanitised version of events espoused by the military and endorsed by the ICS, but every true line.
‘It’s good to see you again, Sanjay,’ she said a little too heartily. ‘How have you been?’
He had learned some English since she last saw him but it seemed to have done little to make him comfortable with his English customer. Natural good manners, though, forced him to continue the conversation.
‘I am well, Mrs Mortimer.’ The name was slightly slurred as if he still couldn’t decide what to call her. He had never known her by her single name and to use her first name would be desperately impolite, but he seemed relieved at her cheerfulness. He must have concluded rightly that she was not about to resurrect dead events. ‘My shop is doing well.’
‘I can see that. I think the choice is more dazzling than ever.’
Sanjay brightened even further. ‘And how can I interest you this morning?’
‘I’m looking forward to buying another length of silk—for the sari I’ve always wanted. But it won’t be today.’ The shopkeeper’s face fell a little. ‘I’ll be back, I promise. But first I have a job to do.’
He looked intrigued. ‘And what would that be, memsahib?’ He still used the familiar term of respect. Old habits die hard, she thought, and independence will change things only very slowly.
‘I’m trying to find someone,’ she began. Sanjay continued to look interested. ‘You might remember Anish Rana—he was a lieutenant with the 7th Cavalry?’ Sanjay’s expression changed. His face clouded and she was sure he took a step back.
‘I know there was trouble.’ That was putting it mildly. ‘But I need to get in touch with Lieutenant Rana’s family—his father’s family, that is. Have you any idea where in Rajastahan I should start looking?’
‘No, no, memsahib. I know nothing of the lieutenant.’
He sounded scared, she thought. If he did know anything, he was reluctant to tell. She tried another approach.
‘I know that Anish had some old friends—they lived close to his family, I think, and I’d love to meet them. Their name is Verghese. It’s not a common name, I think. You might know them or at least where I might find them.’
At this idea, Sanjay shook his head so violently that she feared it would twist from off his neck. She could see that she might have to accept defeat since there was little point in harassing the man. But she would try just one more throw. ‘I suppose you don’t know anyone else who—’
‘No.’ The negative could not have been more emphatic.
‘That’s a shame,’ she said easily. ‘But not of any real importance.’
He seemed relieved at her willingness to drop the subject. ‘And the sari, memsahib?’
‘I’ll be back, Sanjay, I promise.’
She turned to go out of the shop and was surprised when he hurried after her. ‘Memsahib, Mrs Mortimer, please, you are nice lady. Please to be careful.’
‘I will be, Sanjay, don’t worry.’
‘No more questions then, memsahib. They will be bad for you.’
It was plainly a warning, a friendly warning this time, but the second she had received in just a few days. For an instant she wondered whether she should heed it, but if she did, she would discover nothing. A renewed sense that something bad was being hidden strengthened her determination. She gave the shopkeeper a sunny smile and walked out into the street. Slowly, she sauntered along the main thoroughfare, sharply aware of averted eyes and turned backs, then took one of the many narrow alleys that housed the poorer stalls. Something had happened since the morning she’d taken a lift with Grayson and spent a few happy hours buying trinkets here, but what it was she had no idea. She walked on, the stallholders in these meaner streets staring through her as though she did not exist. Their glance was not hostile, not even suspicious, but simply impassive.
She paused at a stall selling fruit. Should she buy some and try to strike up a conversation? For a moment after she came to a halt, she thought she heard footsteps, footsteps that stopped when hers did. That decided her to walk on, though it was most likely her imagination, unruly at the best of times. And this wasn’t the best of times. Coming back to Jasirapur had turned into a troubling experience and quite different from what she’d imagined. She’d expected memories to come thick and fast and braced herself to face them, but it was clear that far more than memory was at play now. These last few days had seen the past itself resurrected. At least it felt that way. She had known wickedness before here in this town, thriving beneath a veil of normality. Now another corner of the same veil had been lifted and she sensed there was a new wickedness that had taken its place. But what it was or why it was happening, she could not guess.
She had reached the end of the second alley and was about to turn back when she felt it. A decided tug at the hem of her dress. She looked down, nervously scanning the dirt path to right and left. The faint outline of a man glimmered in the dust. He was crouching in the shadows between two abandoned stalls and he was beckoning her to follow him. Had they been his footsteps she’d heard? Had he b
een stalking her all this time? Common sense told her to walk away and quickly, but instinct tantalised her with the thought that here might be what she was looking for.
It took courage to follow the stained white kurta, but Daisy had never lacked courage. The man led her further and further into the maze of small back streets, twisting and turning their way—to what? To a blank wall. There was no exit from this alley, which was barely a yard wide and had high walls of windowless houses on either side. No exit except by retracing her steps and who knew what now lay around the corner she had just turned. Her courage began slowly to seep away. It looked as though she had walked into a trap.
‘You have money?’ the man asked in a guttural whisper.
‘Some.’
‘Show,’ he demanded.
She was being robbed. Really she shouldn’t be surprised. She fished in her handbag and took out a handful of crumpled rupee notes, hoping he wouldn’t snatch the purse and find what was left of the small amount of money she had brought to India. But he nodded, satisfied with what she had offered.
‘I tell you.’ So the money was for information. Not a robbery then. She became alert to the harsh tones of his voice.
‘Verghese family very important,’ he gasped out. ‘Rajah too important. Nobody speaks.’
Her instinct hadn’t lied and excitement tangled her breath, but she tried to keep her voice calm. The man could flee at any moment. ‘I’m beginning to realise that, but where does the family live?’
He gave a swift, furtive glance behind him, as though he expected an army of men to come tearing around the corner. ‘Many miles away.’
‘Yes, yes,’ she said impatiently, ‘but where? In Rajasthan? In the north?’
He nodded, his eyes wide with fear. He was more scared than she.
‘Sikaner.’ His voice was barely a whisper. ‘Kingdom of Sikaner.’
There was a sudden noise of running feet and three or four thickset men—it was difficult to tell their number, since they were thundering towards her so quickly—appeared at the end of the narrow lane, wielding long wooden sticks. Her informant let out a yell of terror and, before her eyes, disappeared into fresh air, or so it seemed. The house on her immediate left had an odd-shaped door and, for an instant, she saw a chink of light illuminating its wooden rim. It must be a kind of trapdoor, she thought, and the man had vanished through it. Goodness knows where it led, but he must deliberately have brought her to a place where he knew he could make his escape.
She turned to face the men who had stopped only feet away. Shoulder to shoulder, they filled the narrow space. ‘If you will excuse me, please.’ She went to push through them, but a hand came out and barred her passage.
She pulled herself up to her full height and once again wished for extra inches. ‘Allow me to pass this minute,’ she commanded, feeling slightly ridiculous. With a heft of one of the lathis they carried, she could be despatched instantly and for ever.
The man who appeared to be leading the posse stood looking at her stonily. ‘You ask no more questions. You go back to England.’
‘I shall certainly return to England, but only when I’m ready.’ She tried to sound unconcerned while her stomach was somersaulting.
‘Now. You go back now.’ He rasped out the words.
‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible.’
The men continued to stare at her in a tense stand-off that lasted for several minutes. Finally, their leader took a step towards her, so close that she could feel his hot breath on her face. He looked down at her and spat contemptuously to one side, missing the skirt of her dress by inches.
‘Go—’ the voice was brutal ‘—or you will suffer.’
He said something to his compatriots and they turned and walked back up the narrow alley, swinging their lathis from side to side. For some minutes, Daisy remained where she was. Her heart was beating wildly, her pulse uneven and her forehead beaded in perspiration. She was scared, thoroughly scared, but she hoped she hadn’t shown it. It had been yet another random moment of terror, she thought, in a recurring theme that made no sense. Surely the questions she’d asked were innocuous enough, yet now she had received threats from both sides of Anish’s family—she had to presume the men with sticks had something to do with the Vergheses. Were they employed directly or indirectly by Anish’s grandfather? But whoever was behind this intimidation, it was vastly puzzling. Why was she being threatened?
And why was everyone else? She wasn’t the only one to have been scared. Sanjay had tried to warn her and none of the stallholders in the bazaar would meet her eye. Her poor, scruffy informant had risked his life for a few rupee notes. She felt bad that she might have put him in danger and could only hope that the gang of roughs would not catch up with him. Slowly, she walked back through the main bazaar, past line after line of stallholders who busied themselves at her approach. Silence followed her every step. For the first time in India, she felt alien. An exile. It was a horrible feeling.
A desperation to see Grayson took hold and, despite the heat, she almost ran towards the building which housed the civil administration. She burst through the door of his office, her hair a limp tangle and her cheeks two scarlet stains. Mike Corrigan was at one of the twin desks and barely visible behind the ever familiar piles of paper. Of Grayson, there was no sign.
Mike looked up as she bumped her way across the room, overturning several boxes of files and finally coming to rest opposite him.
‘What on earth’s happened, Daisy?’ He’d started up from the desk and was staring at her dumbfounded. She must look a mad witch, she thought, stepped from the pages of a child’s fairy tale.
‘Nothing,’ she stuttered. ‘At least—’ then changed her mind and finished weakly ‘—nothing really.’
‘Here, you’d better sit down.’ He hauled himself from behind the desk and found a wooden chair. Then limped to the small refrigerator that sat in one corner of the office and poured iced water into a glass. ‘Drink this. You don’t look at all well.’
‘I got confused and lost my way in the bazaar. I’m finding the heat too much, I suppose, but I’m fine really—silly of me.’
She knew she sounded mindless, but if it stopped him probing, she was content. She didn’t want him asking questions. That would mean confessing what she’d rather keep to herself: her visit to the Bahndari house, the enquiries she’d made in the bazaar, the gang and their threats. Right now she wasn’t equal to explaining any of it, and certainly not equal to enduring the inevitable lecture. For some reason, too, she wanted to share her information with Grayson alone.
‘Is Grayson around?’ She tried to sound as though his whereabouts was unimportant.
‘No,’ he said curtly, his concern for her welfare forgotten for the moment. ‘He’s taken the jeep for a drive.’
‘But why?’
‘Why do you think? He needed to see how his wrist would hold up. He’s determined to leave tomorrow, no matter what I say.’
She wondered if he was about to begin a new harangue, forcing her to join his hymn of disapproval, but instead he said, ‘Why, was it important? Did you need to see him particularly?’
‘Not really, no. I was in town—taking a break from the bungalow. And then it got very hot and I got very confused. I thought I might travel back with him.’
‘I’ve no idea how long he’ll be but it’s probably best not to wait. Why don’t you grab a tonga and get some rest before dinner?’ It was clear that Mike wanted her out of the office, but he couldn’t help adding, ‘If Grayson’s got any sense, he’ll park the jeep up and not touch it for the next few weeks.’
‘I don’t think that’s likely.’
‘You know what I think—if you chose to, you could persuade him to stay.’
‘I don’t wish to make you angry,’ she said quietly, ‘but you’ve misjudged the situation. I’ve no influence over Grayson.’
‘I’m not angry, and I’m sorry I bit your head off earlier. But you’re undere
stimating yourself.’ He held up his hand to stay her protest. ‘Look, I know things have been rocky between the pair of you. I’m his friend after all. He doesn’t tell me much, but I can see for myself. Nevertheless, he listens to you. He respects you. If you wanted, you could stop him.’
‘I wish that were true. I don’t want him going into danger any more than you do.’
‘It’s surely worth a try, particularly now he’s injured himself. And that was pretty stupid—wallking into a wall.’
She did a quick think. Grayson evidently didn’t want the true nature of last night’s escapade to be known, and she wondered why. Mike was a close friend and the colleague he was depending on.
‘It was a silly accident,’ she said, ‘but it won’t stop him. You know Grayson. He’s come to India to do a job, and he’ll do it.’
‘And, while he’s doing it, he’ll come off badly, if I’m any judge.’
‘But you’ll be here to support him?’ She realised as she asked the question that she wasn’t entirely sure.
‘Of course, I will. Haven’t I always been?’
A memory, hideously graphic, flashed into her mind. Mike had taken a dreadful beating in the Sweetman affair and she felt ashamed to have doubted him. ‘Yes,’ she said warmly, ‘you have, and suffered for it.’
‘So did Sweetman, if that’s who you’re thinking of.’ He grinned across at her, looking much younger and far less intimidating.
‘Running him to ground was quite a feat.’
‘It was an adventure. I know I got mashed up, but it was worth it.’ He relaxed back into his chair, still smiling. ‘Wartime in London had real excitement, didn’t it? The IRA sending spies over from Ireland in droves, and Germany constantly trying to infiltrate our network and just as constantly failing. Then those Indian chaps your husband …’ He trailed off, no doubt remembering, she thought, that one of those Indian chaps had murdered Gerald. ‘Anyway, they had an agenda of their own. So plenty to keep us busy,’ he finished briskly.
Daisy's Long Road Home Page 11