Death in Kashmir (34 page)

Sarah's mouth tightened and her green eyes sparkled dangerously. Practical joke nothing! thought Sarah angrily, she wanted to make me look silly to Charles, and anything sillier than getting oneself locked in a lavatory I can't imagine. She'd like Charles for herself. Well, she can't have him, that's all——!

‘Cat!'
said Sarah, unaware that she had spoken the word aloud.

‘What's that?' asked Charles, startled.

‘Nothing,' said Sarah, flushing guiltily. ‘I was just thinking of something.'

She flicked the little sequin overboard, where it flashed briefly in the moonlight like a wicked little green eye, and was whirled away in the wake of the paddles—for now they were moving swiftly once more.

The
shikara
passed through a narrow neck of water where a grassy island bearing a row of tall poplars reached out an arm towards the shores of Nasim, and entered the wide, glimmering expanse of the Dāl Lake. On their left, among the dark masses of trees along the curving shore, lay the village of Nasim and the mosque of Hazratbal; and away in the distance, at the far side of the lake, lay the Shalimar Gardens and the mountains, misty with moonlight.

The lake stretched before them like a vast mirror, smooth and shining, and the night was so still that the dip and thrust of the paddles seemed intolerably loud in that silver silence. Yet theirs was not the only boat on the Dāl that night. There were a few little low-lying native boats, barely more than dark streaks on the gleaming water: fishermen out spearing fish, or houseboat
mānjis
returning from visits to friends in the villages. And further out on the lake, their white canopies ghost-like in the moonlight and the oil-lamps on their prows pricking warm pinpoints through the silver, were two more
shikaras.

By now their own
shikara
was heading away from the Nasim shore towards the centre of the lake, and Charles had ceased to lounge back against the cushions. He was sitting upright, leaning a little forward with his hands clenched on his knees, staring intently ahead; and Sarah, following the direction of his gaze, saw a ghostly shape afloat on the water ahead of them, and realized that it was an island. A tiny island with tall trees upon it, lonely and lovely in the middle of the moonlit Dāl.

At first it was only a shadow, a silhouette in silver point; but as they drew nearer to it the outlines sharpened and darkened, and she could see that there was a small building on the high ground in the centre of it, while at each corner a huge chenar tree leaned its boughs out over the water.

As she looked, Sarah's eye was caught by a movement away to the right of the island. There was yet another
shikara
out there on the lake, a white moth in the moonlight. But since this one carried no light at its prow, it was impossible to tell if it was moving towards the island or away from it.

Charles had seen it too, for he gave a curt order to the rowers and they checked their paddles. For a moment or two their boat moved ahead on its own momentum, the water whispering along its sides; then it slowed and drifted quietly to a stop.

Sarah moved, her dress rustling on the cushions, and Charles made a brief imperative gesture of the hand, demanding silence. He was staring out into the moonlight, his head a little on one side, and Sarah too sat still, listening. In the silence she could hear the quick breathing of the rowers behind her and the
drip, drip,
of water from a paddle. A fish jumped and a frog croaked from a patch of floating weed. Then, very faintly, she heard the sound of paddles and realized what it was that Charles was listening for.

The sound of those other paddles was not growing louder, but softer; which meant that the boat beyond the island was moving away: and there was yet another sound from somewhere far away out on the lake. So faint that it was little more than a vibration in the stillness. The
pht–pht–pht
of a motorboat …

Charles turned his head and gave a brief order, and the
shikara
moved forward again; softly now, as though the need for haste were gone; and almost before the prow grated against the bank he had gone forward and leapt ashore. Sarah followed more gingerly, her boldly patterned frock nearly invisible against the chequered black and silver of moonlight and chenar shadows.

The little island could not have been more than thirty yards square. The four great chenar trees were rooted on the level turf, while in the centre the ground rose in a series of artificial terraces banked with Persian lilac, to a small summer-house. It did not take more than a couple of minutes to walk round the entire island. But there was no one there.

Charles looked at his watch again and stared out across the water to where a faint white dot showed against the reflections of the mountains. It was the
shikara
that they had seen beyond the island and it was moving in the direction of Srinagar.

A bird rustled among the lilac bushes, but no other sound broke the stillness, for the faint beat of paddles and the throb of the motorboat had both died away: and watching Charles's tense profile, white against the inky shadows of the chenar trees, Sarah was seized with a sudden shiver of fear and unease that made her glance quickly over her shoulder, as though she half expected to see someone standing behind her among the shadows.

‘Why isn't he here?' she asked, forming the words with an effort. She had meant to speak them aloud, but somehow they had been spoken in a whisper. And it was in a whisper that Charles answered: ‘I don't know. Either he never came, or else…'

He did not finish the sentence and after a moment Sarah said uneasily: ‘Or else what?'

Charles turned slowly, and his face in the clear moonlight showed drawn and rigid, the face of a stranger. It was as though he had aged ten years in as many minutes. He said under his breath and as though he had forgotten Sarah and was thinking aloud: ‘… or else—he's still here.'

Sarah took a swift step backwards, her hands at her throat. ‘Still here? You mean—on the island?' Her voice cracked oddly: ‘Don't be ridiculous, Charles! There's no one here but ourselves and the boatmen.'

‘Perhaps,' said Charles curtly. ‘Anyway, we can make sure.'

He turned away abruptly and began to search among the lilac bushes, and it was a moment or two before the full significance of that dawned upon Sarah. Her brain felt cold and numb and stupid and she did not seem able to move. She stood as though frozen, staring unseeingly ahead of her into the dense shadows, while the bushes about the little summer-house rustled as Charles searched among them.

Directly in front of her, outlined blackly against the expanse of moonlit lake, stood one of the four huge chenar trees that gave the island its name. Its massive trunk was hollow with age, and as Sarah's eyes became accustomed to its darkness, detail after detail emerged from the shadows as though it were a photograph in a developing tray.

Charles had made the circuit of the lilac bushes. ‘He's not there,' he said.

‘No,' said Sarah. Her voice sounded husky and strange and as if it did not belong to her—as though it belonged to some other girl who stood there in a black and white patterned frock among the black and white patterns of shadow and moonlight. She lifted one arm and pointed stiffly, like a jointed doll: ‘He's over there. In the tree…'

And suddenly, as though her legs would no longer bear her, she sat down abruptly on the dew-damp grass and began to laugh.

Charles leant down and quite deliberately struck her across the cheek with the back of his hand.

Sarah gasped, choked, and caught her lower lip between her teeth, and for a long moment she stared up into Charles's quiet, unwavering eyes, and seemed to draw strength from them.

‘I'm sorry,' she said in a subdued voice. ‘I'm–I'm behaving very badly.'

Charles said: ‘I shouldn't have let you come. Go and sit in the boat, darling.'

‘No,' said Sarah. ‘I'm all right now. Let me stay, please.'

‘It won't be pleasant.'

‘I know,' said Sarah: ‘Janet wasn't pleasant … or–or Mrs Matthews, either.' Charles did not argue further, but turned and walked over to the tree.

Sarah had been right. The sprawled fingers of a plump, clutching hand that showed so still among the dead leaves and grasses at the foot of the old chenar tree were Ahamdoo's. The rest of him lay huddled inside the hollow tree-trunk with the haft of a Khyber knife protruding from his breast.

Charles and the tall rower who had stood at the bottom of the water steps by the Club lifted him out and laid him on the grass in the bright moonlight. The round, pockmarked face that had been ugly in life was uglier in death: the dark eyes wide and staring, ringed with white, the lips drawn back from uneven teeth in a grimace of agony or fear.

Charles knelt and searched through the voluminous brown robe, and pulling off the curled-toed leather slippers, felt inside them and examined the soles. But if Ahamdoo had carried any tangible message, it was not there. Only … only … about the folds of those robes there lingered, faint in the fresh night air but quite distinct, that same curious odour that both Sarah and Charles had met with twice already: first in the deserted hut by the Gap, and then again, that very morning, in the dusty showroom of Ghulam Kadir's shop at the Fourth Bridge.

Now it was here too; on a little island in the middle of the moonlit Dāl, clinging about the robes of a murdered man.

Charles lifted a fold of the robe and sniffed at it, frowning. Letting it drop again, he rose to his feet and spoke to the tall rower, who fetched a torch from the boat, and together the two men searched the island inch by inch: the grass verge, the terraces and the steps up to the little summer-house, the bushes of Persian lilac and the hollow trunks and twisted roots of the old chenar trees. But they found nothing there but dead leaves and the debris of old picnics. And though there were footmarks in plenty, it was impossible to tell who had made them or when, because too many country boats stopped at the island on their way across the lake.

Charles returned to the
shikara,
and lying prone along the shallow prow, peered into the water around the shore with the aid of the torch while one of the rowers paddled the boat in a slow circuit of the island. He had obviously forgotten Sarah, who stood backed against the lilac bushes in a patch of bright moonlight, her hands gripped tightly together. Now and again she shivered, but she did not move.

The
shikara
completed its circuit of the island and Charles returned to the body of Ahamdoo. There was no other boat, and nothing to show how Ahamdoo had come to the island. Charles stood for a while in silence, staring down at the huddled figure with an intense, frowning concentration, as though he could wrench the secrets from that dead brain by an effort of will. Then abruptly he went down on his knees again.

Ahamdoo's right hand, which Sarah had seen protruding from the hollow trunk of the chenar tree, was lying with clawing, outspread fingers on the grass. But the other one was clenched, and Charles knelt again and lifting the closed fist, forced it open. Rigor had not yet set in and the body was still warm, but the fingers had been so tightly clenched that it was only with difficulty he opened them.

There was something in the palm of Ahamdoo's hand on which, at the moment of death, he had clenched those podgy, brown fingers; something that gleamed dully in the moonlight. A single blue china bead.

Charles picked it up and turned it over between his fingers, smelt it, shook it, looked through it and touched it gingerly with his tongue. Finally, with a faint shrug of the shoulders, he produced a handkerchief in which he wrapped the bead carefully, and having replaced it in his pocket, rose to his feet, dusted his knees and spoke to the tall rower in the vernacular.

Together they lifted the small, plump body of Ahamdoo and placed it in the shadow of the chenar tree, and a second man came over from the boat carrying a coarse blanket with which he covered the body. Charles spoke to them in a low voice and they nodded without speaking. The tall man thrust his hand into the bosom of his robe and for a moment Sarah thought she saw the glint of a revolver. Then Charles touched him on the shoulder, and turned towards her: ‘I'll take you home,' he said curtly. ‘There's nothing more we can do here.'

He took Sarah's cold arm and led her back to the boat, while the tall man and the man who had brought the blanket squatted down, India-fashion, in the shadows near the shapeless dark heap that had been Ahamdoo. And presently the
shikara,
now with only two rowers, drew away from the island.

Sarah found that her teeth were chattering, though whether from cold or shock she could not be sure, and Charles picked up her fur cape from where it lay on the floor of the boat and fastened it round her unresisting shoulders. There was a folded travelling rug on the forward cushion, and he shook it out and drew it up over her knees.

Sarah said, trying to keep her voice steady: ‘What are those two going to do?'

‘Wait here until I send the boat back for them.'

‘Aren't you going to send for the police?'

‘No,' said Charles curtly. ‘The less the local police, or anyone else for that matter, knows about this, the better.'

‘But—the body. You can't just leave it there. What are they going to do with it?'

‘Dispose of it,' said Charles bluntly.

‘How?'

Charles shrugged his shoulders. ‘Oh there are ways. It's better for everyone concerned that Ahamdoo should just disappear. I assure you it isn't an unusual occurrence in this country.'

He relapsed into silence; frowning down at the tasselled shadow of the canopy fringe that jerked in time to every thrust of the paddles; his hands clasped about his knees.

Sarah drew the fur cape closer about her throat and shivered again, and Charles evidently felt the slight movement, for he glanced round at her.