Borrowed Time Read online

  Ram enjoyed having his solitude back, however briefly. Mike and Lenny were excellent company, they were diverting and their professionalism was endlessly fascinating; but they had filled the cabin with human sounds and movement, they had upset the gentle daily routines of a man who led a distinctly quiet life.

  Tonight was a bonus. Ram sat back with a beer and his feet up on the couch, watching CNN News with the sound barely audible. As he watched he thought he heard the sound of an engine outside, then he decided it was the stereo output from the TV misleading him.

  A banging on the door made him jump so hard he spilled his beer. He leapt to his feet, wiping himself. The door was hammered again before he got it open.

  ‘Thank God you’re here!’ It was Dr Arberry. Ram had never seen him so dishevelled or so upset. ‘I was going to call the police, but my lines have been cut — then I remembered your guests …’

  ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’

  ‘Mr Graham and Mr Trent, are they here?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. They have business in Srinagar.’

  ‘Will you come then, Ram? Something awful has happened. I have to …’ Arberry put his hands over his face for a moment. ‘I have to make contact with someone who can influence outside help. I — I am frankly distraught.’

  Ram told him to wait in the car. He went back inside. He called Mike at police HQ and explained.

  ‘I’m going with him now. No, he hasn’t said. He’s too agitated to give explanations. Maybe you and Lenny should meet up with us at his place. Move fast and you could be there first.’

  Mike and Lenny got to the Arberry estate in a police car a full three minutes before Ram and the doctor arrived in Arberry’s black Mercedes.

  ‘We didn’t see any signs of activity so we sat tight,’ Mike said. ‘What is it, Doctor?’

  ‘Please follow me.’

  Arberry led them along the side of the mansion and around to the back. There was a sloping floodlit lawn. The butler and the maid stood by a dark bundle lying ten metres from the back of the house.

  ‘I heard a sound like nothing I can describe,’ Arberry said, striding ahead, combing the fingers of both hands through his hair. ‘It was hideous. Then I came out and found this.’

  They stopped where the butler and maid stood with their backs to the bundle. Mike crouched, confused by the shadows, reaching for his torch. He flicked it on and saw that the bundle was a boy, his head protruding from the folds of a dark garment, his tousled hair moving gently in the breeze. He was obviously dead.

  ‘Any idea what happened?’ Lenny said. ‘Who is he, anyway?’

  ‘What happened was an act of unbelievable savagery,’ Arberry said. ‘I know nothing more about it than that. The boy worked for me, I employed him as a general servant in the household.’ Arberry stared at the waxen face. ‘He was a fine young man.’

  Mike pulled back the collar of the garment and began to see what had happened. The boy’s head was not attached to his body. Neither were his arms or legs. They lay in a loose pile on his abdomen. The head rested on the grass where it had fallen.

  ‘My butler threw the cloak over the remains,’ Arberry said.

  Mike stood up. ‘Whoever did it used a machete,’ he told Lenny. He turned to Dr Arberry. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve any idea —’

  ‘The bandits!’ Arberry said. ‘The damned bandits, that’s who! They’re not content to ply their squalid trade, they have to live up to type. They have to disrupt and terrorize and destroy …’

  ‘Would there be any reason in this case?’ Lenny said. ‘Any specific reason, that is?’

  ‘The same old reason, the one that’s behind this escalating campaign that’s costing good decent lives!’

  Nobody said anything. They waited for the doctor to get control of himself.

  ‘They want me out of the Vale of Kashmir.’ Arberry was staring off into the darkness beyond the lower slope of the lawn. ‘I’m a unifying influence, you see. People like me give law and order a foothold. The bandits hate that.’ He turned and looked at Mike. ‘What can be done? Are we simply to give in to the barbarians? Do we move aside and let them have this place for themselves?’

  ‘I think we may be close to effecting a solution,’ Lenny said carefully. ‘I can’t go into details, not yet. But we have hopes.’

  ‘And we’re staying on the case,’ Mike added.

  Ram, feeling as inadequate as the other two, came forward and said he had told the police driver to radio for the detectives.

  ‘They will come and they will go through the motions,’ Arberry said wearily. ‘Now every minute that passes without something being done, I will be reminded that by just staying here, I’m putting other lives at risk.’

  ‘You’re an asset to this place, Dr Arberry,’ Mike said. ‘It would be a borderline tragedy if you left. I promise you, whatever action is possible, we’ll make sure it gets done. And soon.’

  Ram, Mike and Lenny travelled back to the cabin in the police car. As the headlights cut over the rim of the final rise, bringing them round on to the flat ground at the front, they saw another car parked by the door. It was a beat-up Peugeot.

  As Mike stepped from the police car the Peugeot’s door opened and Sabrina got out. For a moment he didn’t recognize her in the baggy clothes and straw hat.

  ‘Well, and aren’t you a sight,’ he said, pecking her cheek. ‘What kept you?’

  ‘Devotion to duty. If you don’t have it naturally, it’s a hard concept to explain.’

  Mike wrinkled his nose at her. ‘This is Ram, and I think you know Lenny.’

  ‘Nice to meet you, Ram.’ Sabrina shook his hand. ‘And hello again, Lenny. It was Colombia last time, I think.’

  Lenny nodded. ‘Barranquilla. It was the only time I ever saw a woman beat up a Caribbean dope pusher and take his gun off him.’

  ‘Memories,’ Sabrina sighed, ‘memories …’

  They watched the police car leave, then Ram unlocked the cabin and they went inside.

  ‘You must be hungry after your journey,’ he said.

  ‘Hungry and weary,’ Sabrina admitted. ‘I got lost a couple of times or I’d have been here sooner.’

  ‘I’ll rustle you up something.’ Ram paused in the kitchen doorway. ‘Scrambled eggs, melba toast, coffee?’

  ‘Magnificent,’ Sabrina said. ‘You’ve made a dusty, poorly-dressed woman very happy.’ She turned to Mike. ‘Did you get the pictures?’

  ‘What pictures?’

  ‘They came through after you left,’ Ram shouted. He came to the kitchen door again. ‘There was a note on the cover sheet. It said you were due for a surprise, so watch out. Signed Uncle.’

  Mike looked at Sabrina. ‘What’s he up to now?’

  16

  Amrit Datta was taken in the back of a small covered truck to a place in the countryside southeast of Srinagar. Two others travelled in the van with him, both young men, both warned like himself to say nothing on the journey.

  ‘You will wait here until someone comes for you,’ the fat man told Amrit as he pushed him into a small hut with a wooden bench along one wall. The other two, he noticed, were led to separate little huts.

  It was obvious they didn’t want the recruits to talk to each other on any account. No comparing of notes, no knowledge of one another. It made sense. In the van, they would have had to shout above the noise of the engine to make themselves heard and any communication between them would have been detected at once. In a hut together they could have whispered; hence, Amrit thought, separate quarters.

  He put his face to the side of the hut and was able to see through the slats. Although it was night there was a bright moon. He could see he was on a small farm, one of the dozens that dotted the countryside in that region. Chickens were wandering around and he had heard goats as he was shown into the hut. There was no way to establish his co-ordinates; it would be too risky to carry anything electronic since they were bound to search him. He had seen the town lights bri
efly as he got out of the truck and he knew he was looking at Srinagar from the south-east. That was something.

  He patted the front of his thin shirt and realized he had made a reflex action. Countless times a day, most days, he checked to be sure his gun and his ID were still there. Now he had nothing on him, nothing at all. There were only his habitual reactions to give him away.

  He remembered what Mike Graham had said: ‘Assume you’re being watched at all times, for you won’t know when they’re not watching. You can’t carry two amulets, so a freshly loaded camera and a gun will be delivered to you after you’ve been declared clean. Remember, give no sign that you’re anything but what your appearance suggests — a shambling untouchable.’

  Amrit gave himself a sharp reprimand about the body-patting and sat back with his head against the wall, waiting.

  Half an hour passed before the fat man came for him.

  ‘Look lively now, hurry up. You mustn’t keep people waiting.’

  The tone of his approach had changed now, and he no longer smiled the way he had. He was brusque, pushing Amrit ahead of him towards the little house at the centre of the farm, warning him to behave when he was inside and only to speak when he was asked a question.

  In the cottage he was shown along a short passage and into a smoky room with a low ceiling. Two men were in there: one was old, stooped and stony-faced, with one eye so watery it appeared to be dissolving; the other man was much younger, broad-shouldered and so tall that his head nearly touched the ceiling. The old one pointed to a chair by a small table in the centre of the room. Amrit sat down.

  ‘What is your name?’ the big man said.

  ‘Opu Hikmet, sir.’

  ‘Can you read?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Can you remember things you are told?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The old man came forward and handed Amrit a folded sheet of linen paper. ‘This is your map,’ he said, his voice gravelly. ‘You must follow it exactly. You must take no shortcuts, you must not try to change the route in any way. The journey will take you three or maybe four days. At night you will rest where it is safe, because you will be carrying valuable merchandise.’

  The big man pointed to a burlap sack on the table. ‘Pick it up with one hand,’ he said.

  Amrit reached forward and lifted the sack. It weighed roughly ten kilos. He put it down again.

  ‘Will you have difficulty carrying that? It will be a long journey, remember, and you must travel on foot.’

  ‘No, sir, I will have no difficulty.’

  ‘It must stay with you at all times,’ the old man said. He produced another folded piece of linen paper. ‘Three men will approach you when you have crossed the border and gone to the place described here and marked with red on the map. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘When each man says the phrase that is written, and when you reply with the other phrase that is written, you will give each man one bag from the sack.’

  Both men were silent now, looking at Amrit. For a moment he wondered if a reaction was expected. It dawned on him that they were watching for signs of uncertainty.

  ‘Repeat what you have been told,’ the big man snapped.

  ‘I have to carry the sack with me at all times and at night I must sleep only where it is safe, for the merchandise is valuable. I must follow the map and must not take any other route. When I cross the border and go to the place marked in red I must wait for three men.’

  ‘And when they make themselves known to you?’ the big man said.

  ‘I must reply with the second phrase that is written, and give each of them one bag from the sack.’

  The old man nodded curtly. ‘Now I will give you two more things.’ From a drawer in the table he took a thick bundle of banknotes and a small envelope. He handed the money to Amrit. ‘That is yours. It is payment for the one and only delivery you will make for us.’

  Amrit tried to imagine it was the most money he had ever seen at one time. He put on a face of restrained rapture.

  ‘You may do with the money as you wish,’ the old man said, without a glimmer of a smile. He held up the small envelope. ‘This is something else you must keep with you at all times.’

  He opened the end of the envelope and tipped a black capsule on to his palm. Amrit stared at it, knowing what it was, feigning bafflement.

  ‘If anything should happen to make the plan go wrong, if you should lose your merchandise, if you are arrested by the police, or if for any other reason you do not deliver the merchandise to the three men named on the second piece of paper, then you must not hesitate to swallow this. Keep it hidden about your body, somewhere that it will not be found but somewhere you can reach it if you need it suddenly.’

  Amrit looked at the old man, then at the other one. ‘What is it, please?’

  ‘It will make you die very quickly,’ the big man said.

  Amrit gulped softly. His fingers tightened around the money.

  ‘That is our bargain, our agreement,’ the old man said. ‘You do what we have told you to do, and if you cannot do it you swallow the potion. You must do it at once, you must do it without talking to anyone or answering any questions.’

  Amrit watched the old man drop the capsule back into the envelope.

  ‘If anything goes wrong, and yet you do not take the potion,’ the big man said, ‘then your family will suffer.’

  The old man held up a sheet of paper. It was a rural census sheet, the kind kept in district registries. It had pictures of Amrit and his fictitious wife and children. These people had been thorough, Amrit thought; but so had UNACO.

  ‘They will suffer in ways you cannot imagine,’ the big man said. He looked grim now, like a policeman issuing a warning. ‘There will be no pity. You may be tempted to think you could run away with our money and our merchandise, but if you do your wife and your three fine children will be seized at once. They will be taken to a place where their arms and legs will be broken, and then while they still scream with pain they will be put into a pottery furnace and burned to death.’

  It took no effort for Amrit to look sick.

  ‘You can change your mind still, if you wish,’ the old man said.

  Amrit looked at the money, ten centimetres thick in his hand. He looked up at the old man. ‘I will make the delivery,’ he said.

  The old man nodded and handed him the envelope with the capsule.

  Sabrina stood under the shower in the neat little bathroom at the cabin. For five whole minutes she had let the hot water sting her and revive her sense of wellbeing. Now as she killed the flow, she felt the throb in her leg start up again.

  She pushed back the shower curtain and took a shaving mirror from the window ledge. Twisting round, with the mirror positioned at the back of her thigh, she was able to see the knife wound. In spite of the immediate treatment she had applied, and subsequent fresh dressings, the edges looked raw and angry.

  She got out, dried herself, then fumbled in her bag. From the zippered emergency pouch she took a flexible ampoule of penicillin powder. She broke off the top and squirted the contents in a white stream on to the wound, moving the jet of powder up and down until it was exhausted. She put on a fresh dressing, told herself that would fix it, and got on with preparing herself for the day.

  Ten minutes later, wearing jeans, sneakers and a OuiSet denim shirt, she joined Mike and Larry in the kitchen. They had pushed the used breakfast things to one end of the table and had her photographs of the hill bandits spread out in two rows.

  ‘Great shots, Sabrina,’ Mike said.

  ‘Thanks, but the EVC12A deserves most of the credit.’

  ‘That’s no way to get yourself a reputation,’ Lenny told her. ‘Never praise the equipment — in fact never praise anything that can’t argue.’

  ‘They’re a lot better than I expected,’ Sabrina said. She picked up a print and peered at the detail. The pictures had been sent directly to the
cabin through the high-definition laserfax, and they looked like lab-printed glossies. ‘You can see all the faces,’ she said. ‘Pretty grim faces, at that.’ She looked at Mike. ‘Have you gained anything from them?’

  ‘The man at the front, the leader, is definitely Paul Seaton,’ he said.

  ‘Who’s he?’

  Mike gave her a summary of Seaton’s career.

  ‘And what’s your special interest in him?’

  Mike blinked. ‘Did I say I had a special interest?’

  ‘You didn’t have to. When I came in just now you were staring at this picture with your teeth gritted. You do that when something you’re chasing turns up in your sights.’

  ‘You’re imagining things,’ Mike said.

  ‘Am I imagining things, Lenny?’ Sabrina said.

  Lenny grinned and looked away. Ram came in through the back door wearing a tracksuit and trainers. He was panting.

  ‘Ram, I’ve something I want you to look at,’ Sabrina said. She went to her room and dug out the papers she had taken from Hafi. She brought them to Ram. ‘I wondered if anything here might be relevant. I majored in languages, but this is beyond me.’

  Ram went through the papers, reading a little of each. ‘It’s mostly correspondence to this Hafi character from other men who call themselves Unit Commanders.’

  ‘Hafi was a bandit,’ Sabrina explained. ‘I understand he had a lot of satellite outfits.’

  ‘Was a bandit?’

  ‘I’ll tell you about it some time.’ Sabrina nodded at the letters. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘It looks mostly like bragging and gossip,’ Ram said. ‘I’ll go through them in more detail once I’ve made you breakfast.’

  ‘You’ll spoil me.’

  ‘That’s my brief.’

  While Ram grilled bacon and fried eggs Sabrina sat down and studied the pictures with Mike and Lenny. ‘So what is it?’ she said. ‘A private vendetta?’

  Mike looked at her. ‘Why does it have to be anything like that?’

  ‘Vendettas and grudges bring out that atavistic glint you get now and then. What happened?’

  ‘God, you’re persistent.’