Stain of the Berry (26 page)

3/15/2011 10:56 PM

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BOOKS/Anthony Bidulka - Russell Quant Mystery/Anthony B...

authorities would turn a blind eye."

"What are you saying?"

"They would shame her, humiliate her, and then, Russell," he added after a pause, "they would have her killed."

He said the words so calmly I found them doubly wretched. Finding words of my own to express the outrage I felt escaped me. I sensed the gentle eyes of my uncle on me. I turned to face him.

"It's true, Russell," he said. "Of course we don't agree with it. We knew we had to do something."

"But...but what can we do?" I was reacting as if the horror of it all were unfolding as we spoke, not something that had already happened, six years ago. My God, I thought to myself, what a tragedy it was.

Sereena...my uncle...it was...it was nearly too much to take in.

"We had to act," Maheesh continued. "Quickly. We talked about a plan. Poor Cand...Sereena was in such a state she barely knew what was happening. The best we could do was finally separate her from the body of her child, and when we finally told her of our plan, she was compliant, I'm sure without really knowing to what she had agreed."

"The police were called," Uncle Lawrence kept on after a sustaining gulp of red wine. "We complained and caused much ruckus over the phone, saying we'd called earlier and had no response."

I shook my head, in a daze. "I don't understand. Why did you do that?"

"Two reasons. First, it took us some time to concoct our final plan and we did not want to arouse suspicion as to why we hadn't called the police immediately. They would know that sort of thing when they examined the bodies. And secondly, we needed to give my body time to disappear."

We kept quiet as one of the servers entered the room, cleared plates and refilled wine glasses.

Maheesh went on. "The police were told that the three of us together, Sereena, your uncle Lawrence and I, discovered Sangita defiled and dead, obviously at Akkie's hands. Lawrence, driven by an understandable rage, attacked and killed Akkie. Then, in a fit of remorse and guilt at taking another's life, Lawrence threw himself off the balcony into the river below.

"Of course, the police immediately dispatched a crew to find Lawrence's body but because of their unexplainable lack of response to our first emergency call it was certain the body was long gone and might never be found. Which, indeed, would be the case. When the police processed the scene, we made sure that Lawrence's fingerprints and DNA were in ample evidence. Sereena's were no problem as it was her home."

I turned to my uncle in disbelief and horror. What kind of madness was this? "You...you took the blame for the murder? You faked the murder and your own death? But...?" The questions in my mind were coming so fast they threatened to overcome me.

"Oh my boy," he answered. "The most important thing was to save Sereena's life. Too many had already been lost that night. The only way we could be assured of doing that was if the police-and the Batten family-believed that it was not she who killed Akkie. And if it wasn't she...it had to be me or Maheesh."

I swung a heavy-lidded gaze to Maheesh with one thing on my mind: Why not Maheesh? This monster, Akhilesh, had been
his
friend, they were in
his
country, wouldn't
he
have had a better chance of surviving this...this execrable, ridiculous plan? And by the look on Maheesh's face, he knew exactly what I was thinking: he had thought it himself.

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"Russell," my uncle said sternly, even though I had not opened my mouth. "It had to be me. Maheesh begged me not to do it, but it made the most sense. You see, I simply had the least to lose. If Maheesh had faked his death, he would have lost all his wealth and prestigious position in Indian society."

I made a face as if to balk at that. Who cared about Maheesh's place in society?

"Don't judge what you don't yet understand. If Maheesh did this thing, he would, without doubt, lose everything. If I did it, it was possible that I could lose nothing. At the time, we thought that, with Maheesh's help of course, I would stay in hiding for a while..."

"That was when we were told you had died in a skiing accident?"

He nodded. "Yes. Even the authorities agreed to that. They wanted to make as little a deal of things as possible, to save the Batten family the international controversy. And they were told my family would be devastated by a suicide. We wanted the story of my death-leap from the balcony to be as sound as possible. It was a horrible thing to have to do, I know, but it was necessary. And, we thought eventually I would be able to sneak back to Canada and take my life...or something like it...back."

"But you never did," I countered, as if it was I who'd been denied the rest of my life. "Why?"

"Several things happened we did not expect, and, most importantly, Maheesh and I were in love. Even if we had to live in secret, it was better than to be torn apart with no hope of ever seeing each other again." At this Uncle Lawrence gazed fondly into his lover's eyes and his face reflected the great love he saw there. "As time went on, it became disturbingly apparent that certain members of the Batten family were not buying our ruse, or if they were, they still felt some inclination to make life for Sereena as miserable as they could. The loss of Akhilesh was a heavy burden for them."

"So," Maheesh added, "it was decided that it would be Sereena who would go away, not run, just leave behind an uncomfortable situation with as few clues as possible as to where she was going. Enough time had passed, you see, that to most, the idea of Sereena wanting to leave the home and country that held such miserable memories for her would not raise much suspicion. For us it was a sad day, especially for dear Lawrence, for you see, Sereena was his only companion, she was the only one, besides me of course, who knew he was alive."

"And that's when she came back to Saskatoon?"

The two men nodded and Maheesh said, "After Candace legally became Sereena Orion Smith."

"She chose the name herself," Uncle Lawrence told me. "Using the initials of SOS was her idea, an allegorical reference; she felt in desperate need of help...emotionally, physically, every way possible."

"And, more so, it was an homage to Lawrence, her savior," Maheesh pointed out with pride.

Uncle Lawrence shook it off and mumbled something about the foolishness of such sentimentality. I sat there in dumbfounded awe; of the story, of the nearly impossible-to-believe circumstances these people had found themselves in, and the incredible way in which they had decided to extricate themselves from it. My uncle's ultimate sacrifice-his life...or if not his real life, certainly his livelihood and lifestyle. That Sereena would go along with it.. .did it really make sense? But I knew it had been too much information to take in at once to even consider whether any of it made sense, or was it all just another fantastic deception? Deep down, I knew it wasn't.

"You are wondering about Sereena," my uncle said, still, after all these years, reading me so well.

I nodded solemnly. "Yes."

"She never wanted any of this. In the state she was in at the time, she would have more than gladly thrown herself off that balcony, for real, and might have done so on several occasions, that night and for 110 of 163

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months afterwards, if it wasn't for Maheesh."

"In many ways," Maheesh said contemplatively, deflecting any credit for himself, "I think Lawrence saved her life. Knowing what he'd done for her, that he'd made such an extreme sacrifice to save her, made her beholden to him. She owed him her life...she owed it to him to keep herself alive. Because for her to have killed herself-as she so much wanted to do in the unimaginable depths of her agonizing grief over her lost child-would have been to slap Lawrence's face. It would have been to say that all he'd done, all he'd gone through, was still going through, meant nothing. That alone, kept her alive, kept her going."

"There was no reason for her to stay in India; what was done was done," Uncle Lawrence insisted. "I couldn't free myself from hiding unless I too went away from India, and I was unwilling to do that because I would not leave Maheesh. And Sereena's life was misery there. There was nothing for her there, whereas I had everything."

"Except freedom," I said.

"Bah," he retorted as if it meant nothing. "When she finally relented and agreed to leave the country, I demanded one favour, which she gladly granted." He leaned into me and said, "To return to her home, my home, and keep watch over you. Of all the people I'd left behind, my boy, it was you who I felt most guilty about leaving. I had abandoned you, unhappy with your work, with a family who did not understand you, and no one to see to it that you were all right. So I sent you my dearest friend."

I smiled at that. Sereena had been my uncle's present to me. And what a wonderful gift she had turned out to be.

"Thank you," I croaked, my throat growing tight.

"Things are better now, yes?" He searched my eyes for the non-verbal answer.

I produced a wide smile. "Yes. My life is..." I stopped there, and even though I knew what the next word would be, I wanted to enjoy the great revelation of it, "wonderful."

Uncle's Lawrence's eyes sparkled, as they used to do before all this, and he exchanged a happy, paternal look with Maheesh. "I am so very pleased."

The servers brought in a fresh berry sherbet and aromatic coffee, and for some minutes we basked in the glow that follows a wondrous meal and the warmth of the mood surrounding the table. Yet although it was lovely, I hadn't all the information I wanted and eventually found myself breaking the spell. "So what's with the Alex Canyon-Grette Gauntlus show? Why did you send them after me now? Has something changed? Did something happen?"

My uncle's grey-streaked eyebrows rose high upon his forehead. "You happened, my boy."

Uh-oh.

"And Sereena," Maheesh added, shooting his partner a look. "To be fair, Lawrence."

"Yes, yes, and Sereena," my uncle agreed.

"What about us?"

"I suppose, in the end, it really is my fault. Ever since I 'died' and went away, I've been desperate to see your face, to make sure you're all right, to remind me of home. Fortunately Maheesh has plenty of money, which allows me to escape my Indian hideaway from time to time. It's a risk, but I do it. Over the years, Sereena has kept me up to date on your travels, and when I could, I followed you, just for a glimpse."

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somewhere in me, I suspected it all along.

"She told me about your cruise last year and it was I who arranged that our yacht, the Kismet, would rendezvous with yours. Unfortunately you spied me spying on you."

I recalled the fleeting vision of a man on the upper decks, looking down at me when I'd first arrived to come aboard the boat. "But I didn't know it was you."

"Still, you began your research. You found out about A&W Corporation."

How did he know about that? How di...oh maaaaaaan. "But why was that a danger? Why did Sereena have to disappear?"

"With Sereena's departure from India, suspicions certainly abated. At first. But some of the evidence we'd planted at the murder site was being re-examined by a private firm hired by the Batten family-some of whom never bought the story of someone unknown to them, me, committing the murder, committing suicide and the body conveniently disappearing. Although we've no concrete knowledge of what has been found, current rumours are not good. Maheesh has been threatened and it has been made clear that if ever it is discovered that he was involved in duplicity surrounding Akhilesh's death or if I was found to be alive, retribution against us and against Sereena would be swift and it would be severe."

I gave Maheesh a startled look. "Your life has been threatened? Are you in danger?"

He patted my hand and said, "It's nothing, really, nothing."

"Sereena began to worry that if you persisted in your research...after all, I've heard stories of what a great detective you've become," my uncle said with undisguised pride, "that eventually you would uncover her past and, by association, me and this entire story. If that happened, if we were revealed, we could easily find ourselves at the not so tender mercies of the Battens."

"So she decided to leave?"

"Yes. In the hopes of dissuading you." He chuckled then. "Of course, if only she'd known you as I do, she'd have realized that such an action would only serve to spur you on. But by then it was too late, she'd already made good her disappearance."

"So you sent Alex and Grette to stop me."

"At first more to see what you were up to, and to ensure that any leads you discovered were...dealt with. I imagined there would be no stopping you until you had answers as to Sereena's whereabouts. So, that is why I brought you here: to give you your answers."

"I'm sorry, Uncle Lawrence, to have caused you such trouble, but this simply is not good enough. There has to be another way. Now that I've seen you, know you're alive, I want you back. There has to be some way."

"No, Russell. There is not."

"But..."

"Never, Russell," he said harshly. "I will never come home."

Suddenly I was angry. "Why won't you even try?" My voice was a tortured, tearing whine. Why, why, why? I hated how I sounded, like a petulant child being denied, but the feelings were real and coursing through me like venom. He had abandoned me. I'd needed him so much. He was my guide in a strange and unfamiliar life I was just coming to accept and understand, the ruler by which I measured my success, the only person I could find comfort with when things got rough.