Читать книгу Daisy's Long Road Home - Merryn Allingham, Merryn Allingham - Страница 12

Grayson wouldn’t have approved, Daisy was sure. She was following a uniformed retainer down a long hall of polished marble and feeling very slightly intimidated. She wondered whether after all she should have mentioned her plans to him, or at least left word with Ahmed. It was too late for that now. The hall which had seemed unending finally came to a halt, and she was ushered into what she supposed was a drawing room. She had a brief glimpse of sumptuous walls lined with red and gold silk before a man glided towards her. He offered her his hand in greeting.

‘Miss Driscoll? I am Ramesh Suri.’

Her host wasn’t a large man, no more than average height and of slender build, but Daisy still felt a qualm when she looked at him. She wasn’t sure why. He gestured her towards one of the several thickly brocaded sofas and sat down opposite. The servant who’d escorted her toured the room, pulling the satin blinds fully down at every window and plunging the space into near darkness. For a short moment, she was blinded but then her eyes regained focus and she was able to take in her surroundings. There was richness everywhere, from the wall coverings to the embossed ceiling to the Indian silk rugs on the floor. What she took to be antiques were scattered at random throughout the room. Ramesh Suri was evidently a very wealthy man, but one who chose to live isolated. She wondered where his money came from and had a premonition that it might not be too sensible to enquire.

‘You have come far, Miss Driscoll?’ he asked in a soft voice.

‘From Jasirapur.’

‘That is far enough on a hot day. And in an open tonga.’

Her skin was doing an unpleasant thing, sending short, sharp prickles around her body. There was nothing in his speech to make her wary, so why did she feel this disquiet? She sensed his gaze on her, hard and impervious. Yes, it was his gaze, she decided, or rather his eyes that were so disturbing. They were coal black and, at a certain angle, they appeared opaque, as though a screen had descended. As though their owner could look out but no one could look in.

‘Have you happened at my gate by accident?’ he asked.

He must know that she hadn’t. He had clearly heard her tell his aggressive servant that she had come to speak to the master of the house. But she answered him tranquilly enough, ignoring his pretence. ‘Not by accident, Mr Suri. I came to see you.’

She heard a slight shuffling behind her and saw Suri beckon to whoever had come into the room. From the corner of her eye, she caught sight of two young men, one not much more than a boy. They hovered discreetly to one side until their father beckoned to them again.

‘You must meet my sons, Miss Driscoll. This is Dalip.’ The older of the two came forward and bowed. He didn’t offer his hand, she noticed. He was dressed less ostentatiously than his father but there was the same opaqueness to the eyes. ‘And this is Daya.’ The boy moved awkwardly forward. He was barely out of his teens and had not yet lost the innocence of boyhood. His face was open, friendly. Quite unlike his brother or his father.

A second servant, dressed in the same red embroidered livery, brought small bowls of sweetmeats and a tray of clinking glasses. Gratefully, Daisy sipped the iced lemonade. Ramesh Suri had been right in saying it was hardly a sensible day to come travelling in an open tonga. Another misdeed for which Grayson could scold her. Right now, though, she must banish him from her mind. He had his own business to attend to and she had hers. And hers was here, in the home of Anish’s uncle.

‘So how do you find Jasirapur?’

‘It’s an interesting town,’ she said neutrally, and then with more enthusiasm, ‘and India is fascinating.’

‘But this is not your first trip to India, I believe?’

How did he know that? If she were a stray traveller who’d stopped at his house—to ask for directions, to seek refreshment—he would surely know nothing of her. But she wasn’t a stray traveller, was she? He knew her, he knew who she was. She had a frightening feeling that he’d known even before she’d said her name at the gate. The prickling increased.

‘And are you here for long? This is not the best time of the year to visit our country.’

‘I’m not sure when we’re to return to England. We may stay for the cooler weather.’

‘You mention “we”. So you are here with companions?’

She was sure that he knew that too. And just as sure he was aware of who her companions were. Suddenly, the thought that Grayson and Mike belonged to the Intelligence Service carried meaning. It had always seemed a strange way of life, Grayson’s career, nothing to do with the real world as she knew it. But, in that instant, she realised it had everything to do with it. And this man with the opaque eyes knew that better than she. ‘I’m here with a friend and his colleague,’ she said, continuing the bluff. ‘They have business in Jasirapur.’

‘And have left you to your own devices today, I see. You have come adventuring alone.’

She didn’t like the way that sounded. ‘I left a message to say where I was going. They won’t be worried.’

‘How very sensible of you. But to come all this way—Megaur must be more famous than I realised.’ He lounged backwards in the heavily embossed chair, his head resting on cushions weaved in golden thread. The slightest smirk touched his mouth. He was playing with her, she decided.

‘It’s not Megaur I came to see, Mr Suri, but you.’ She was fed up with this cat and mouse game. She would state what she wanted and he could make what he would of it.

‘Dear me. Now why would you wish to see me?’ He swatted lazily at a passing fly.

‘I knew your nephew.’ She was bold now, refusing to look at the black eyes.

‘You must be mistaken. I do not have a nephew.’

‘No longer, it’s true,’ she said even more boldly, ‘but you used to. His name was Anish, Anish Rana. I’m sure you cannot have forgotten him. He died only ten years ago. His mother, Parvati, was your very own sister.’

‘I know none of these people, if they ever existed.’

She felt the elder son begin to move towards her, but his father’s glare flashed at him to stay where he was. Suri’s eyes were as hard as agate and he sat poker straight in the imposing armchair. His mouth was a thin, tight line, his expression no longer lazy. If she were to find out what she wanted, she would need to be more conciliatory.

In a gentler voice she said, ‘I understand this subject may be painful for you but—’

‘You understand nothing,’ he interrupted, and there was no doubting his hostility.

‘Forgive me if I’ve angered you. I’ve come only to ask one question and I hope you will answer it for me. I think you can. It’s something that is entirely personal but very important to me. I believe Anish’s father may have been a patient in the hospital where my mother was a nurse. If your sister left papers belonging to her husband and you still have them, it’s possible that my mother is mentioned in them.’

He said nothing but his face was chipped from stone.

‘I know it sounds most unlikely,’ she went on, ‘but it’s the only lead I have. I’m sure Anish’s father must have written to his wife while he was recovering in England from the wounds he’d received, and it’s just possible that your sister kept his letters. I hoped you might still have them.’

‘I know not one person you speak of.’ The voice brooked no argument.

It didn’t stop Daisy though. ‘Karan Rana was your brother-in-law and you don’t know him?’

Ramesh half rose from his chair, his body taut and his stare dagger sharp. ‘I know nothing of this man.’

‘And nothing of your sister, Parvati?’

‘I have no sister. Can you not understand that? I have never before found the English to be quite as stupid as you appear to be.’

‘Is it stupid to ask for information?’

‘There is none to have.’ He clapped his hands as if to underscore the finality of his words. ‘Now I think it is time for you to leave.’

‘But—’

He pointed to the door. ‘Leave, Miss Driscoll, unless you wish to be helped on your way.’

She became conscious that the retainer who had served them drinks had returned and brought with him several companions. Together they flanked the doorway.

The glowering elder son walked forward, his steps marked and deliberate. He took up a position at his father’s shoulder. He was a clone of the older Suri, she thought. It was Daya who was different. He remained standing at a distance, half in shadow, but she could see the smooth skin of his face creased with worry lines.

Unhurriedly, she stood up. She was determined not to betray alarm and fought to keep her voice level. ‘Thank you for your hospitality.’ She hoped the irony would not go unnoticed.

Her legs felt flimsy but, without a backward glance, she strode to the door. It swung open before she reached it, and she realised that yet another servant had been lingering on the other side. Suri appeared to need a battalion of retainers to protect him, any one of them eager to eject her if she’d shown a reluctance to leave. His voice followed her as she began to walk back along the long ribbon of marble.

‘You would do well to forget your questions, Miss Driscoll. For your own well-being. Enjoy India but forget the questions.’

She stopped in her tracks and retraced her steps to the door, facing her host across the flurry of silken rugs. His threat was too important to ignore.

‘I will enjoy my stay in your country, Mr Suri, but it won’t stop me asking questions.’ And, with that, she turned and marched proudly back along the hall, through the huge carved wooden door, which stood ajar, and out into the hot midday sun.

‘You won’t get any answers, you know.’ It was Dalip who had followed her out to the iron gates. ‘That woman brought humiliation on our family. A woman from a princely house who should have brought only pride. Her belongings were burnt. Every item. There is nothing left. Whatever you hoped to find no longer exists.’

Daisy climbed into the tonga without replying.

Her pride was bruised. The visit had been a disaster. She’d been all but thrown out of the house and had learned nothing for her pains. As the tonga bounced its way back to Jasirapur, Dalip Suri’s parting shot echoed in the rhythm of the wheels. His words had hit home. Everything his aunt had owned had been burnt, he’d said, and she believed him. His father wasn’t just angry, he was malevolent. Ramesh’s insistence that he’d never had a sister, never had a nephew, disclosed the cold fact that he’d wiped these two close relatives from out of his life. The burning of Parvati’s small stock of possessions was consistent with her brother’s frightening pretence that she had never existed. And consistent with his refusal to accept any of Anish’s belongings when his nephew died. The adjutant had described Ramesh as rude. Daisy would have said vindictive. But there was little point in name calling. If Parvati had ever possessed papers that in anyway referred to her husband’s time as a patient in England, they were long gone. And, after all, it had been the most tenuous of clues.

The more she thought of it, the more she realised that today’s visit had been foolish. Karan Rana had been wounded in France and sent to England to recuperate. She knew that to be the truth, since she’d had it from Anish’s own lips. But where in England, she didn’t know. It was her own wild hope that he’d been sent to Brighton where her mother had nursed Indian soldiers back to life. A wild hope that Karan had known her mother and, even wilder, that he had known her mother’s lover and therefore her own father. Grayson had warned her it was an impossible quest and she must learn to accept that he was right. She had discovered nothing; more than that she had received a warning not even to try. Suri had been a little too knowledgeable about her and the thought made her deeply uneasy.

His warning was still reverberating in her head when she walked up the veranda steps of number six Tamarind Drive and bent her mind to the next problem: how to explain her long absence this morning to Grayson and Mike. The expedition had taken much longer than she’d expected and they would have returned for lunch an hour ago and be worried to find her gone without a word of explanation.

As she came through the door, Grayson’s face lit with relief.

‘Thank God, Daisy. We were just about to send out a search party. Ahmed had no idea where you’d gone.’

‘I thought I’d take a drive in the country.’ Her tone was airy, as though this was the most natural thing to do in the middle of the day in the middle of an Indian summer. If she’d hoped to deflect disapproval, she’d hoped wrongly. But it was Mike, rather than Grayson, who appeared the most annoyed.

‘A drive in the country? In this weather? If that’s so, you need your head examined. Grayson wasn’t joking when he said we were about to launch a search. We could have had the entire Jasirapur police force looking for you. And why exactly?’

She was taken aback by his vehemence, but put it down to genuine concern. ‘I’m sorry, Mike. Truly, I never meant to worry either of you. I hadn’t realised I’d gone so far or that it would be quite so hot. I had to take shelter for a while, that’s why I’m so late.’

Grayson looked at her steadily. ‘You know Rajasthan better than that, Daisy. It’s April. It’s hot. What could be so important that you’d risk driving under a burning sun for so long?’

‘It wasn’t important,’ she said quietly. ‘I was mistaken.’

She was relieved when he walked to the table and rang the small brass bell to tell Ahmed they were ready to eat at last. He wasn’t going to pursue the matter, not in front of Mike she thought, but she was sure that once they were alone he’d want to know just where she had been.

They ate the entire meal without speaking a word. It was clear that Mike was still furious with her, while Grayson seemed lost in his own thoughts. But when Ahmed had cleared the plates and set out three individual dishes of crème caramel, he broke his silence.

‘This may be the time to tell you both that I’ve decided to leave tomorrow.’

She saw that Mike looked shocked, as shocked as she felt.

‘I think I’ve worked out the general direction Javinder took,’ Grayson said coolly, ‘and I don’t want to waste more time hanging around Jasirapur.’

‘But all you know is that he took off travelling north, and you’re not even sure of that.’ She was amazed that he would try to follow the young man on such meagre information.

‘I think I can probably narrow it down a little more now.’

‘But how?’

Grayson spread his hands wide and gave a rueful smile. ‘It’s taken a while but, over the last few days, odds and ends have come my way. You know how it is.’ That was the problem; she didn’t know.

‘More instinct, Gray?’ Mike put in, a grim look on his face. ‘What you’re proposing is madness.’

‘You’d be surprised at how helpful instinct can be. It’s often more reliable than paid sources.’

‘You can’t really be serious.’ Mike’s face had turned blood red.

But, when Grayson didn’t reply, he appeared to make an attempt at swallowing the anger he evidently felt and, when he spoke, it was in a coaxing tone. ‘Look, the paperwork can go hang for a few days. In any case, I’m not finding anything in the office that’s remotely useful. Let me come out and about with you—we’ll dig around locally together. With both of us on the job, we’re more likely to uncover something.’

‘I appreciate the offer, but I’ve waited long enough. At this very moment Javinder may be hurt, ill even. And definitely in trouble or he’d have found a way of contacting us. So speed is important. I’m pretty sure I’ll pick up other intelligence as I go.’

When his friend gave another impatient shake of the head, Grayson held up his hand as if to stem the flow of condemnation coming his way. ‘I know you’re worried, but you shouldn’t be. I’m going to be fine and don’t forget, I’ll have you here, back at the sharp end. That gives me confidence.’

She could see that Mike wasn’t convinced, and neither was she. The thought that Grayson would be leaving the next day filled her with mild panic. She didn’t want to be left behind in Jasirapur with only an irate Mike for company. She got up and began clearing the bowls onto the tray that Ahmed had left. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Mike’s hand reach out and seize one of the spoons from the table. As she looked up, he rapped it loudly against the wooden surface to gain their attention.

‘Aren’t you going to make any attempt to stop him going on this mad journey, Daisy?’ The angry red flush had died but Mike’s lips were compressed into a thin line. ‘It’s the least you could do. After all, you must be here for some reason.’

She was astonished. The attack had come from out of nowhere and it was a struggle to defend herself. ‘I’m here for my own reasons,’ was all she managed.

‘That’s clear enough,’ he said bitingly.

‘I don’t understand. Just what are you accusing me of?’

‘There’s no accusation, though if you choose to interpret it that way, you can. Put simply, I’m unsure just why you thought it a good idea to gatecrash this trip. It certainly wasn’t to help. In fact, judging by the scare you gave us today, just the opposite.’

‘Mike, please …’ Grayson began, but his colleague had pushed his chair roughly back from the table and picked up the battered briefcase he never seemed without. ‘I’m going back to the office. I’ve work to do.’ And he banged out of the door.

Grayson stood for a minute, watching after him, then turned to face her, his dark blue eyes troubled. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what that was about. He’s not himself, it’s clear enough.’

She cut his apology short. ‘It’s fine. It really doesn’t matter.’

And it didn’t. She’d wondered before if Mike resented her coming on this journey and it seemed that she’d been right. He resented her badly. She was sorry for it but there was little she could do. In time, his antagonism might soften. She certainly hoped so. Living with that degree of animosity would be far from easy. But other than being open and friendly in her dealings with him, she could do nothing to improve matters. What she must do, though, was to make this trip to India count. Over their silent lunch, she had begun to toy with a new idea, and when Grayson followed in his colleague’s footsteps and she was left alone in the house, she set to thinking it through.