Stephanie (16 page)

On the fourth day in mid-morning he had a period of temporary easement and got out of bed and put on his smart shirt and long-sleeved white sweater, pulled on his trousers and shoes. From his window he looked out at the traffic in the street, the parked cars, the hurrying people. All so much more prosperous than Bombay – no beggars, no street-sellers, no rubbish, no broken pavements. But apart from that he thought there was very little difference. Civilisation created the rush, the pressure, the noise, the indifference.

On the table by the bed were the remains of his breakfast: samosas and sponge cake, and he tasted a spoonful. It was cold and unappetising but this time it went down. He finished the plate, anxious to disperse the wind in his stomach. As he did so he caught sight of himself in the mirror, his face sallower than ever, drawn, cadaverous.

Yet he was a little better. His strength was returning, even though the dread of the pain hung heavy in his mind. He must get away from here. To save his health he must get away. His fingers fumbled as he tied his smart tie. He struggled into his long-waisted grey jacket.

He must face them, demand that he should be paid what was owed him and set free to enjoy his three weeks in England. At the very least they must give him some idea of their intentions.

He turned the handle of the door and found it opened. (At night it was locked.) In the passage outside a Tamil maid was cleaning out the next-door room; dirty sheets and a towel and a pillow case were in a heap by the door. He stepped over them and went downstairs.

Subdued voices on the first floor. One was that of Mr Subarthi, the other that of Pavel, the man who usually brought him his food.

‘Well, we can't go on much longer,' Pavel said, talking in Hindi. ‘Why don't we call Dr Yaqoob?'

‘What could he do? We have no facilities for surgery here.'

‘Would that matter?'

‘Well, my God. We cannot have the hotel turned into a slaughter place! … Personally I would like to put him on the next plane back to India, have done with him. But we must get permission first. Or send him back to Brussels – where he could be met, safeguarded.'

‘If we have to, it's better to be rid of him here. Take him to that high-rise building where Miss Roberto has her offices. A convenient fall …'

‘Like Sita Ram? But that was a different case in which his guilt was proven … Anyway, we must wait until instructions come through, I tell you. Meantime see he does not talk to passing guests. When a man is ill it unlooses his tongue.'

Nari crept past, his heart thumping. He was weak and lightheaded but fear gave him strength. He had had no intention when leaving his bedroom of doing more than confront these men; but their answers had been plainly given him. If he once went up again he might never be allowed down. He patted his pocket. They had his passport, but the wallet he had brought with him was still there. It held fifty pounds in ten-pound notes and some English silver. Of course he had been paid nothing of what had been promised him here.

On the ground floor no one was about. The front door was closed but it seemed improbable that in a hotel it would be locked. Someone was banging about in the kitchen. A little reception desk on the right of the door had a register upon it and a board on the wall with keys hanging. No one in the hall at all.

Holding his breath, he slid behind the counter, turned the key that was in the drawer in the desk. Here were more keys and a bundle of English notes. He grabbed at them and stuffed them in his hip pocket. A voice was calling now. Pavel's voice.

When he opened the front door the light outside made him blink, and the cold air caught at his breath. His grey coat was far too thin for this climate and he had no hat. Shivering he went down the five steps and turned towards Victoria Station. Just now there were not enough people to hide him, but he had the presence of mind not to run.

Thirteen five-pound notes in the bundle he had grabbed. It was largely luck that had made him take the direction of Victoria Station, but when he saw it and the signpost Underground he dived into it, and decided to take a train to Oxford Circus. It was a more or less random choice, but he had a cousin living in Oxford. He knew that that was not in London, but he thought the name might bring him good luck. After a couple of false starts and being sent back to buy a ticket, he caught a tube and sat in it hunched up and sickly until the name moved across the windows in front of him. Then he was out again and into the crowded streets, wandering and cold and lost and in pain again, but free. Temporarily free.

He walked about for a bit and stopped before a shop that offered cut-price clothing. Fingering his money, he hesitated long and then went in and bought a waistcoat, a scarf, a trilby hat and a pair of gloves.

The assistant seemed friendly enough, so Nari asked if he knew how he could get to Edgbaston, Birmingham, where relatives were expecting him.

‘Birmingham? Cheapest would be long-distance bus, mate, but I don't know where you catch it. Next best is train. Euston's the station.'

‘Eustons? Is that in London?'

‘I'll say. From here … look, you can turn left and keep straight on till you get to Oxford Circus, then a tube will take you to the station. If you can afford it, you could be there in ten minutes in a taxi. Cost you a couple of quid.'

‘Quid?'

‘Pounds. Maybe less; traffic isn't bad today. You all right? You're looking seedy.'

‘Thank you,' Nari said with dignity, ‘I am very well.'

Nevertheless he took a taxi, as the pain was hovering.

Satish Mehta had been living in England for twenty years. He was a kind but grumpy man of fifty-five with a thin energetic wife and five children, all born, with the exception of his eldest boy, Prem, in England. Two of the children were still at school, the eldest of them helped in the shop.

A prosperous business, for it was at the corner of intersecting streets, the side streets being so unimportant that parking in them was still permitted, and he was on the edge of a comfortable middle-class area of white people who might shop mainly in the supermarkets but found Mehta useful not only as a sub-post office but for all the shortfalls in their domestic purchases.

Before the Mehtas came an English family called Robinson had run the shop with far greater efficiency than the Mehtas and kept open just as long, but the Mehtas still made a comfortable living and slept seven in the small accommodation over the shop. They had hopes of Prem, who was studying to pass his degree as a chemist, and father Mehta had already taken a lease on the shop next door to turn it into a chemist's shop when his son qualified. There were two doctors' surgeries nearby.

Prem was finding it hard work and had failed the exams once. In this he was a disappointment to his parents, chiefly to his mother who had most of the enterprise of the family. The younger children yawned their way through the days, and her husband suffered from catarrh and found the climate depressing. Sometimes she thought he only came properly alive when the subject of cricket was mentioned. His children shared this passion, and when there was a test match at the nearby county ground the shop was almost unstaffed. In a recess of the small recess given over to Her Majesty's post was a tiny television set which was always on if any ball-by-ball commentary was taking place.

One afternoon early in May there appeared in the shop a tall young Indian who looked to them like a Rajasthani, in a thin grey waisted coat and a brown trilby hat; his face was haggard and drawn and he had not recently shaved. He asked the boy behind the cheese counter if he could see Mr Satish Mehta.

The boy gestured with his knife and said briefly: ‘Post office.'

At the back of the shop behind the usual counter and grille a plump balding Indian was filling up forms. After due time he looked up.

‘Yes?'

‘Mr Satish Mehta?' the young man said.

‘Yes?'

‘Mr Mehta. I am your cousin, Naresh.'

Mehta's smooth gloomy face did not change. ‘ Cousin Naresh? Who is that? Who are you?'

The young man's face twitched as in a spasm of pain. ‘Naresh Prasad, Cousin Satish. From Bombay. I am but recently arrived from Bombay. Last Thursday I was in Bombay. I came by air, on a Boeing 747, in but a few hours. My mother … my mother was first cousin to your wife's sister-in-law, Ania. They send you greetings from Indore.'

Mehta's face did not relax. ‘It will soon be thirty years since I was in Indore. Then I was a young man, younger than you. You must ask my wife about her cousins – I know nothing of them. She is at the main till. You must ask her.'

‘My mother died three years ago,' said Nari. ‘Before she died she said I must visit England and meet my cousins. She said I was to bring you greetings from Indore. I have been carefully saving up until I could pay the fare.'

A customer had come up behind Nari and was waiting for her pension.

‘Go and see my wife,' Mehta said impatiently. ‘ She will no doubt be able to greet you.'

Nari spent the night in the storeroom surrounded by packets of cornflakes and cases of tinned soups. They had found a spare mattress for him and a blanket and a tattered counterpane.

Daya Mehta said: ‘It is true he is a cousin, Sati. He knows the family and all about us, but I do not understand why he has come. He says he is unwell. I hope he has brought nothing with him from Bombay.'

‘No luggage, certain,' said Mehta, stirring beside her in the dark.

‘He tells me it has been stolen. I do not know how much money he has got but he seems to have a little bit.'

‘If he is unwell he had better go to see Dr Brown in the morning.'

‘I suggested that to him, but he exclaimed no, he did not wish to see any doctor. He thinks if he takes it quietly here for a few days he will be better.'

‘He is your cousin,' said Mehta after a moment, ‘and it is necessary that we should show him hospitality. But for how long? There is something fishy, girl. I do not trust him.'

There was a long silence.

‘Are you asleep?' he asked.

‘No, I was thinking. He tells me he has lost his passport also.'

‘Oh, my God!' said Mehta, sitting up. This is too much! There is the question, did he ever have one?'

‘Do you mean – but how could he have been allowed in? You know how careful they are nowadays.'

‘Indeed, but there are holes in the tightest net. Of course, it may be that I am wrong. But I do not like his looks, his nervousness, his evasiveness; he talks much but tells nothing; he eats only soft foods; I tell you, girl …'

‘What?'

‘I do not want him to be a bad influence on Prem. Already Prem idles too much of his time.'

‘No,' said Daya Mehta. ‘But that is not the worst. The worst thing is …'

‘Indeed. We must pin him down as to the truth about his passport. If he is in England legally then we must try to help. If he has come in illegally we shall be held to blame if we are found to be sheltering him. It will never do for any of us to be discovered to be breaking the law of the land, It would ruin Prem's prospects and indeed the prospects of all our children. The police keep a record and once you are on the record they will come again and again. I know.'

There was silence for a time. Mehta went on: ‘Although we are living in England so long there is still a feeling among many that we are intruders. You see it so often. The last thing we must do is to be getting into trouble with the police.'

‘What shall I do in the morning, then? Tell him he must go?'

Mehta grunted, struggling with his fundamental good nature. ‘The boy looks ill. I think in some way he has been through it. In the morning – after we have breakfasted and the children are out of the way – let us see most carefully what he has to say. If he is truly related to you it is not seemly that we should send him away without a full knowledge of the facts.'

It was Polly Colton's birthday. She was fourteen, and it could hardly have been a more inappropriate time for celebration. Last weekend the house had been in a state of siege, with newsmen pressing for interviews. Suzanne had sent Polly word not to come home, and one or two enterprising media men who went to the school were choked off. Errol had been in bed for four days. Flu, he said; but this was the obvious excuse: Stephanie's death had shaken him to his roots. Even when he came down he mooned around the house and was irritable and morose.

But a birthday party for the following weekend had been long planned, and neither Polly nor Suzanne – who often made common cause with her stepdaughter – saw any reasonable excuse to cancel it. The death was almost two weeks ago, of a woman they did not know and did not like; the inquest was over, the funeral was over; it was a nasty disreputable episode which showed Errol Colton up in a bad light, but was all better put behind one. If fools of newspaper men still hovered around and cared to make something of it, then let them.

The tabloids, as expected, had had their field days.
Last Hours of Tragic Stephanie
, one had trumpeted.
Earl's Cousin With the World at Her Feet; Lost for Love; Secrets of Oxford's Smart Set
. One had got as far as
The Travel Tycoon and The Deb.

But in fact the siege had been raised a few days ago, at least from Partridge Manor; another scandal with a royal connection had blown up.

Even so, the birthday party was a fairly muted affair. About half a dozen grown-ups and a dozen young. An unexpected guest was a new friend of Daddy's called Smith. Polly had the ability of some young people of being able to take no notice whatever of people she was not interested in, but Mr Smith interested her. He was about fifty, spoke good English and was quite smooth, but anyone less like a Mr Smith it would be hard to imagine. Polly had left Corfu at eight and had not been back since, but she had vivid memories of her childhood. There had been a lawyer in Corfu, a Greek but born in Alexandria, whose reputation was highly dubious. The mothers had whispered together when he drove along the sea road in his Mercedes, and Polly had overheard them and partly understood. Mr Smith reminded her of him. (Later she learned that this man's first name was Angelo, which seemed a better fit.)