A Christmas Garland (5 page)

He looked at the chain. “It’s beautiful,” he told her solemnly. “Did you really make it yourself?”

She nodded.

“Then you are very clever,” he said.

Slowly, shyly, she smiled at him, showing white baby teeth.

“It’s for Christmas,” the boy explained. “To put up in the house.”

“It will be lovely,” he answered.

“Do you have Christmas?” Helena asked him.

“ ’Course he does, silly!” Her brother shook his head
at her ignorance. “Everybody has Christmas!” He looked at Narraway. “She’s only three. She doesn’t know,” he explained.

Helena held out the bright blue chain. “You can have it, if you like,” she offered.

He drew in breath to refuse, politely, but saw the smile again, and the hope. He glanced momentarily at the woman, uncertain what to do.

“Take it.” Her lips formed the words silently.

Narraway bent down a little to reach the chain and touched it. It was smooth and bright, the paper stuck together a trifle crookedly.

“Are you sure?” he asked. “It’s very beautiful. Don’t you want to keep it?”

She shook her head, still holding it out to him.

“Thank you very much indeed.” He took it gently, in case she changed her mind at the last moment and clung on to it. “I shall put it up in my house, near where I sit, so I can see it all the time.” She let it go and it fell loose in his hands.

The woman picked up the baby and carried her to the top of the veranda steps; Narraway handed the bag to her, then waited as they all went inside, the two older
children still watching him as he turned and walked down the path again, holding the blue paper chain in his hand.

T
HE PRISON WHERE
D
HULEEP
S
INGH HAD BEEN HELD
faced a large, open yard with buildings on three sides and an open dogleg way out, which was where most of the observation had taken place. Men had been working at various jobs of maintenance and repair, the sort of routine necessities that occupied most of a soldier’s day when he was not in battle or marching from one place to another. They were tedious tasks but better than standing idle. It was easy to imagine leaving such a post, and then having to be a little imaginative with the truth in order to cover your absence.

Narraway stood in one place after another, checking the angles of sight, the possibilities of error or invention. Could any man have been so absorbed in his work as not to notice someone else pass by him? He did not believe it.

Had anyone left his stated position and then had to
cover his absence? It seemed like the only answer. Proving it would be almost impossible. Even the attempt to prove it would earn him enemies.

H
e began his questioning with Grant. He had been the first man to reach the prison after Chuttur Singh had raised the alarm. He was not yet on duty now, having been on guard most of the night before. Narraway went to see him, feeling mildly guilty for waking the man when he must be tired. But lack of time left him no alternative.

Narraway went in through the gate, past some ponies picketed near a magnificent mango tree. He walked briskly to the veranda and up the steps, and knocked on the door. He knocked a second time, not really expecting an answer, then pushed it open and went in.

“Corporal Grant!” he called clearly.

There was silence.

Rather than call again, he crossed the sitting room. There was a large, rickety table in the center with a half
bottle of brandy on it, four empty soda water bottles, and a corkscrew. Used glasses sat where four card players had obviously been the previous evening. There was also a box of cigars, a few odd magazines, a rather ornate inkstand, a bundle of letters, and a revolver.

The rest of the furniture he ignored, going past more chairs, a battered Japanese cabinet, and a corner stand with assorted hog spears, buggy whips, and a shotgun. He did glance at the various pictures hanging on the wall, hoping they might give him some idea as to Grant’s origins and character. There was a school photograph. There was also a painting of a soldier with a woman in clothes of perhaps twenty or twenty-five years ago, judging from the style of the woman’s hair and the line of as much of her dress as he could see. They were probably Grant’s parents.

“Corporal Grant!” he called again, more loudly. He did not want to intrude into the bedroom. It would be ill-mannered. He would not appreciate a senior officer doing the same to him. Also he wished to make an ally of the man rather than an enemy, at least to begin with. “Corporal Grant!” he repeated.

There was a stirring from the room beyond, then the sound of feet on the floor and a rustle of fabric. A moment later Grant appeared in the doorway, tousle-haired, still half asleep. His trousers had been hastily pulled on, and his tunic was not yet fastened.

“Yes, sir. I am Grant,” he said.

“Sorry to disturb you,” Narraway began after introducing himself. “I wouldn’t waken you now, except that I have only today to speak to everyone about the Tallis case. I’ve been detailed to defend him. Since you were the first on the scene, I thought I should begin with you.”

Grant blinked. He was a good-looking young man, perhaps four or five years older than Narraway, with a slight country burr to his voice. Narraway placed his accent as Cambridgeshire, or a little farther north. His hair was brown with a touch of auburn, his skin burned by at least one Indian summer.

“Oh.” Grant sighed. “I see. Well, I can’t tell you anything more than what I’ve already told Captain Busby. Sorry.”

“Finish dressing.” Narraway made it more a suggestion than an order. “I’ll make us tea.”

Grant gestured toward the third room. “Kitchen’s there. There are servants somewhere. Probably left me to sleep. I hate having them fussing around when I’m …” He did not bother to finish the sentence. Narraway already knew he had woken him.

Ten minutes later they sat in the central room with tea in front of them on the table. Grant was in full uniform and freshly shaved. But he still looked tired, and there were dark smudges around his eyes. He seemed nervous, but Narraway attributed that to the stress of remembering a shocking experience and having to recount it, knowing that it would end in the execution of a man he had possibly known quite well and certainly trusted.

“I don’t know what I can tell you that makes any difference,” Grant said.

“Just tell me what happened,” Narraway replied. “If I know what you’re going to say to Captain Busby, at least I have the chance to prepare for it.”

Grant shook his head. “It won’t make any difference,” he said unhappily. “I don’t know what the devil got into Tallis. I always thought he was a decent chap. In fact, I liked him. Everyone did. Well … one or two of
the officers thought his sense of humor was a bit off.” He looked at Narraway quickly. “They just didn’t understand. When you deal with illness and injuries every day, if you don’t laugh sometimes, even at crazy things, you go mad.”

“You have been out here long?” Narraway asked, looking at Grant curiously, wondering what his experiences had been that caused him to speak with such feeling.

“Couple of years,” Grant replied. “I was in the Crimea before that.”

Narraway winced. The disasters of that war, the fatal mistakes, were legend already. “Balaklava?” he asked, before he thought of the possible inappropriateness of the question in the present circumstances.

Grant pulled a wry face. “Thank God for Colin Campbell,” he said briefly.

Narraway was impressed, in spite of himself. “Were you there with him?”

Grant straightened in his seat a fraction, some of his weariness disappearing. That was an answer in itself. “Yes. Another damn stupid war we got into by accident
because we didn’t look where the hell we were going!” He rubbed his hand over his brow, pushing the heavy hair back. “Sorry. There are times when I’d put the whole damn government on horseback and order them to charge the enemy guns—with bullets coated in pig grease! Mixed metaphor. Sorry. I lost friends in that too.”

Narraway sat silent, thinking of all the young men who had died needlessly because someone didn’t know, or didn’t think about, what they were doing. Every one of them had been somebody’s son, somebody’s friend.

Grant rubbed his hands over his face and drew in a long breath, letting it out in a sigh. “Perhaps Tallis did go mad, poor bastard. I hate this more than facing the enemy in the field. But I can only tell you what I know.”

Narraway jerked himself back to the present.

“That’s all I want,” he said quietly. It seemed odd to be in this silent, rather shabby house, sitting over cups of tea, talking about betrayal and murder conversationally, but with hands that trembled and voices that every now and then rasped in the throat. “You heard the prison alarm,” he prompted. “Where were you?”

“About a hundred yards away, in one of the outbuildings,” Grant replied. “I was checking munitions stores. I dropped what I was doing and went outside—”

“Did you see anyone else?” Narraway interrupted.

“Not ahead of me, and I didn’t look behind. It’s sort of cluttered there … sheds, outhouses, that sort of thing. There was a pony and cart off to the left. I just noticed it out of the corner of my eye as I ran to the prison.”

“Anybody else moving? Running?” Narraway asked.

“No. I must have been the nearest person.”

“When you got to the prison block, the outside door was open?”

“No. It’s a makeshift prison. The real prison was too badly shelled. This does pretty well because it was a magazine of some sort. Not hard to make a couple of cells inside, and the whole thing locks only from the outside. Ideal, really. Escape-proof, without help.”

“Any other prisoners there at the time?”

“None except Dhuleep.” Grant looked down at his lean, sunburned hands on the table. “Before the mutiny there would be the occasional insubordination, drunken fights and things, maybe even a theft or two. Since the
siege and the massacre, no one steps out of line. Those of us left are … close.” He looked up, hoping Narraway would understand without the need for explanation.

Narraway nodded. “What had Dhuleep done?”

“Dereliction of duty. Off his guard post at night. I thought he’d just gone to get some sleep or something like that. We’re all tired, a bit jumpy.” He sighed. “But of course he could have been anywhere.”

“Most likely trying to find information about the patrol,” Narraway replied.

Grant looked down at the table again. “Yes—I suppose so. Looks like it now, doesn’t it?”

“How did you get in?”

“It’s easy enough from the outside. The key’s there.”

“What did you find when you entered?”

Grant’s face tightened, his eyes suddenly bleak. “Chuttur Singh was on the floor in the main room outside, lying near the door. He must have used his last ounce of strength to reach up and pull the alarm. The cell door was open. There was no one inside, just Dhuleep’s bedding on the floor and a plate of food, spilled … and blood. Lots of it. There was a trail of blood from the cell across the floor to where Chuttur had crawled. He
was in a terrible state, his uniform slashed half to pieces, scarlet with his own blood. His face was gray, what I could see of it. He could hardly move.” He stopped speaking for several seconds, emotion choking him at the memory.

Narraway waited.

A clock ticked on the mantelpiece. Somewhere outside a child shouted, its voice innocent, happy.

“He was dying,” Grant went on with an effort. “He told me Dhuleep had escaped and to go after him. He had to be stopped because he knew about the route of the patrol. I wanted to stay and help him. He was … there was blood everywhere!”

He looked up at Narraway, agony in his face. “I should have stayed,” he said hoarsely. “I left him and went after Dhuleep. I—I was desperate that he shouldn’t get away, because of what Chuttur said about the patrol.”

“How long had Dhuleep been in the cell?” Narraway asked.

“A day or two, I think,” Grant replied.

“So they didn’t know he had this information, or
they would have changed the patrol route, or time, or something?” Narraway said.