MONEY TREE (24 page)

‘
You OK?’ Ted was asking her dark-ringed eyes.

‘I
will be. Once we’re out of here.’

He
squeezed her arm in sympathy. She didn’t pull away, but there was no give either. Maybe he’d over-estimated the intimacy created by their shared trauma of this morning’s news from Oscar. But Ted was aware from her manner that yesterday’s events had shifted the balance in some subtle way. Some of her burden had slipped onto his shoulders. He tested the weight and found it bearable, even welcome.

CJ introduced the young woman as Meera Banerjee. She carried an old leather briefcase and a Nike sports bag. Her hair was cut in a short layer all round her finely
shaped skull. Her eyes were large and questioning.

‘No relation to the boss?’ asked
Ted automatically, reflecting that it was probably as common a name in India as Jones.

CJ had been desperate to reveal it. ‘As a matter of fact, yes. This is
Ramesh’s daughter. She has a degree in business law from Kolkata University and like her father she has also graduated from Harvard with an MBA.’ He was as proud as if she were his daughter.

Meera shrugged away the praise. The resemblance across the eyes was now apparent. ‘It is a pleasure to meet you both. This is a very exciting day for me.’ It was said a little mechanically, but then it was an unearthly hour.

‘We are putting her in charge of the Sagar district which includes the village you are going to visit, Ted.’

‘Both of us, CJ.
We’ve been forced into a slight change of plan.’

Ted
gave an abbreviated version of the events of the day before, omitting for the moment, GA’s hand in the hijack.

‘. . .
and so we think it’s best if Erin comes with me just in case she was the target.’

Meera’s eyes widened and she kept staring from
Ted to Erin. She turned to CJ and said something forceful in Hindi. CJ found a suitable translation.

‘Meera is telling me off. I am so sorry. This is my fault. I should have arranged a car. I did not think. And you were almost killed! How can I ever make it up?’

‘CJ, it’s fine. Look, it wasn’t your fault. How could it be? But it’s time we got out of here. We’re leaving no forwarding address and would ask you to be discreet. Tell no one.’

‘Of course, of course. Meera will enjoy
having Erin too.’

Meera found a weak smile and her English.

‘I will phone now and get another seat on the Bhopal train. Once there we will pick up one of our jeeps which is being driven up from Bangalore. We will then drive over to Chandapur and set things up.’

She looked a little amused. ‘I am afraid the accom
modation will not be so grand.’

Her expressive eyes took in the waterfall and marble of the lobby.
Erin caught the edge.

‘As long as we have a roof over our heads
, Meera.’

Meera looked at CJ for confirmation. He gave a loos
e smile that stood for a shrug.

‘Of course, we will provide proper accommodation. Normally we stay with one of the senior villagers or one of our local representatives. Do not worry Miss
Wishart, we will look after you.’

CJ hated to disappoint a guest and would rather bend the truth than cause any discomfort between them and him. As it was, he was relying on the warmth of the welcome to provide shelter.

The hotel car pulled away in the pre-dawn coolness. Inside, Erin and Ted seemed chastened by the thought of the trip ahead of them. The morning was still, the air soft. Only birds and an old beggar were stirring in the bushes all along the driveway of the hotel.

As they left through the exit, a van pulled up at the back of the hotel. The driver brought his mail sack in through the tradesman’s entrance. The boys who reported to the concierge took delivery and soon sifted and sorted the correspondence. Among the packages was one forwarded from
Kolkata, from the Oberoi Grand. It was addressed to Mr Theodore Saddler.

Having established that Mr
Saddler was no longer a guest and that he had in fact departed only five minutes before, the under-manager put it on the pending shelf in the cloakroom. He had no forwarding address for Mr Saddler, though he knew that a hotel car had taken him and another guest to the railway station. There seemed no urgency. It could wait for a few days. Maybe a week. If Mr Saddler came back they would give it to him. If he did not, there was a return address on the package and they could send it back to New York. Or if it had anything of value inside, maybe it could simply get ‘misplaced’.

The hotel car broke onto the ring road and merged with the morning traffic. Within ten minutes they were being bludgeoned by the noise of car horns, scooters revving, street hawkers and the jabber of hundreds of people jamming the entrance to New Delhi railway station. Its importance as a gateway, a jump-off point, sucked in an entire industry of fruit sellers, tea makers, cafe owners, tour guides and watchers, always the watchers, eyeing other people’s lives. People with nowhere else to go, nothing else to do but steal a little of the shine of those who could and did travel.

The driver edged his car into the mass but finally ground to a halt, afraid of having his splendid bodywork scratched against the inertia of the crowd. They struggled out of the car, opening the doors with difficulty. With even more difficulty they ploughed their way through the deafening bustle and the grabbing hands towards the station. Ted used his weight and size to clear a path and fend off the beggars, all the time trying not to step on families who seemed to have set up home in the station forecourt. They had been promised an air-conditioned luxury train and were puzzled at Meera tugging them towards a battered looking blue train with old-style computer printouts hanging from scotch tape on the side of the coaches.

‘
The Bhopal Shatabdi. We are in coach G,’ shouted Meera leading them down the platform. They came to the relevant coach. ‘Look for your names.’ She pointed at the printouts. Each had a long column of names. Ted began at the top, Erin at the bottom.

‘Here we are,’ said
Erin with triumph. She was pointing at the typed names of Meera and Ted and the hand-written insertion of her own name. Erin asked if the sheets were removed before departure or left to flutter like banners as the train thundered through the morning. Meera pretended she hadn’t heard. They scrambled on board and clambered their way to their seats over mounds of luggage, apologising as they went.

Inside, the decor was branch-line British Rail, circa 1960. Walls and ceilings that were once a shade of blue were now decomposing back to the original steel. There were nameless smears on floors, seat backs and walls. Nameless, till breakfast was served,
Ted remarked. A dull metal tray was placed in front of every passenger. It contained two pieces of white bread whose like he’d last encountered in giant catering packs in army canteens. A hot tin-foil covered an egg dish supported on a bed of tepid chipped potatoes. And tea bags. Two. Later to be converted to tea by the application of hot water from the giant urn wheeled through the carriage by the chai wallah. 

They set off exactly on time. Arctic blasts of air conditioning competed with Indian taped music to see which would be first to drive the passengers insane. The flat brown countryside ran by like old news-reels through windows yellowed by sun-filters and dirt. Trees flicked past. And people, bent over and pecking at the iron ground, or scything dead grass before the sun took full charge of the day.

Agra station arrived, but it felt like they’d been conned, as though the train had looped back to New Delhi. The same bodies stretched on the platform. Same dark faces inspecting the new arrivals for signs of hand-outs. Ted watched in admiration as two Kiwi girls with packs as big as sheep on their back and small ones on the front for balance, cut their brown-limbed way through the ruck and headed out into the sunshine of the station yard. For one piercing moment of regret, Ted Saddler wished he were going with them. Wished he had the time again.

The train jolted into life and the process repeated itself
six more times, though the stations were visibly more decrepit and the crowds thinner. The journey was passed in long silences. Meera seemed to have an unending amount of laptop work to do, and Erin finally gave up trying to make conversation. Once when Meera had gone to the toilet, Erin turned to Ted.

‘I don’t think she likes us here.’

‘Would you? This is your first big job and you get stuck with a pair of middle-aged – sorry! – whities. We’re an encumbrance. I don’t blame her.’

Erin
dozed off and on, and noticed Ted left his seat a few times. When he came back the second time, she was certain. There was the whiff of alcohol.

‘Is there a bar on this train?’

‘It’s a do-it-yourself arrangement.’

‘You’re not get
ting canned are you?’

‘What else is there to do on this
converted refrigeration unit?’

It was true, she thought. There was nothing romantic about this trip; it was freezing in the carriage, noisy, smelly and dirty. For a moment she pined for the soft carpets
, the sumptuous leather and the monastery quiet luxury of the First Class compartment of the airlines she normally travelled in. Used to travel in, she reminded herself. Her anxiety grew about the toilet arrangements up ahead.

Ted
Saddler sat fuming. He was prepared to admit that he woke every morning – had done for as long as he could recall – with his end of day drink as his first thought. So what? It was the solitary high spot of the day. The hours between waking and that first sip were only there to postpone and enhance the pleasure. Like delaying orgasm, if he recalled rightly. The really annoying thing was that he’d eased up a fraction since Erin had arrived, but obviously not enough for her highness. He was still getting grief. No good telling her it was medicinal; that during yesterday’s brush with the muggers a big muscle in his left arm had been pulled. The booze soothed, as did the memory of the satisfying impact of his fist on the attacker’s head.

The physical pain had been a wake-up call. It wasn’t anything as simple as a near-death experience provoking a stack of fine new resolutions. It was more the realisation that there was still something there, some ability to perform, to take risks and make things happen. In his head he’d written himself off a while ago. Now he thought of
Erin and the agreement, the vow, over the table the other night. To be 17 again. That would never happen, but he didn’t have to be 70 either. Not sure exactly what he was going to do about it, he let the scorched continent seep into his eyes as the train rocked through the day.

T
he challenge was to get the mix just right. That perfect combination of depressant and stimulant; smack and snow, the legendary, the high of highs, the speedball. He trusted Joey to get the best stuff, no adulterated shit laced with rat poison. But then you didn’t want it too pure. The ideal was heroin and cocaine cut to about 50% using some soluble but inactive substance. Not, absolutely not, Fentanyl, for example. Twenty deaths in the past month. Maybe the dealer thought he was being nice, offering something special. Fentanyl was surely special, an anaesthetic and painkiller about a hundred times more powerful than plain old smack. Must have been a wild way to go. That was part of it wasn’t it? Walking the cliff edge. Skis running too fast to even think about turning. Working the Porsche round the mountain tracks at the limit, feeling the tail go.

His washroom was big enough to have a
walk-in shower, Jacuzzi tub, toilet, sink and leather lounger. He set out his equipment on a pristine white towel by the sink. A syringe, two silver pots, a Velcro strap, a sachet of Vitamin C, a pack of alcohol wipes and a little burner with a receptacle sitting above the wick. Carefully he spooned a small measure of coke into the pan and added a mound of Vitamin C. He added a dash of water - enough to let the mix dissolve and fizz. He lit the wick below the small bowl. As the solution began to bubble, he spooned in a larger amount of brown smack, a little more water, and carefully mixed it till all the lumpiness had gone. The sharp vinegary smell filled the small room and made his eyes smart. He flicked the extractor fan to high. Ready. . .

Bare the
left arm. Check the soft skin on the inside of the elbow. Old puncture marks studding the lines of the veins. The only downside; playing tennis in long sleeves. Maybe try the ankle next time. Wind the Velcro strap round the bicep. Flex the arm and ping the skin until the vein stands prominent. Turn off the flame in the cooker and let the mix cool. Swab the elbow area with an alcohol wipe. Stay clean, stay safe. Poke the needle into the melt. Pull the plunger and see the warm brown fluid rise inside the tube. Tap and check for air bubbles. Breathe. Smile for the mirror. Now the skill. Point of needle against the vein and gently, sweetly, break the surface and slide it in. Test the aim. Pull the plunger back. A tiny red line appears. Got it first time. Smile, release the strap and push the plunger.

Watch
the level drop steadily in the glass chamber. Long before empty, feel the first rush. Mirror. Face and upper body flushing red. Eyes widening. Jaw slackening. Deep breath, sigh, shift weight and ease onto the lounger, still clutching the needle. Peer at the glass chamber. A last drop left. A final push.