The Avatari (2 page)

‘They are waiting for you in the library, Mr Heron and an inspector whose name I didn’t quite catch,’ the house manager now informed Ashton. ‘Go on, sir. I’ll send Martha with the tea.’

‘Thanks very much, Duggy.’

Ashton hung his waterproof and slouch hat on the coat hooks and took off his overboots in the hallway. He ran his fingers through his short but thick salt-and-pepper hair and straightened his scarf as he walked into the library. The police inspector and Constable Heron, who had been seated at the table, rose to their feet as he entered. Ashton nodded at George Heron who was looking flushed. His companion, a tall, dark-haired man, flicked the constable a sideways glance before holding out his hand.

‘Good evening, Sir Henry. I’m Peter Orwell,’ the man said, taking Ashton’s hand in a warm, friendly grip. ‘Just taken over as inspector at Bromwich and haven’t had the pleasure of meeting you, sir.’ Turning to acknowledge the presence of the constable, he added, ‘George here tells me how well regarded your family is in these parts. And, indeed, you yourself are held in high esteem, sir.’

As they shook hands, both men sized each other up. The inspector’s voice was deep and sincere. He looked younger than George, though Ashton guessed he was older. The inspector had noticed that Ashton was about his own height, only more powerfully built. His amiable expression and twinkling grey eyes offset the strong rugged features and square jaw which would otherwise have made the man distinctly imposing.
To the manor born
, he thought wryly.

‘Indeed,’ Henry Ashton reciprocated, turning from the inspector to the other man, whose hand felt somewhat moist in his own. ‘Please sit down, gentlemen.’

Ashton and the two men sat facing each other across the table. He had noticed they were already halfway through their tea.

‘Well,’ he said, looking at the inspector, ‘how can I help you gentlemen? I take it this is not a social call?’

‘You’re right there, Sir Henry,’ the inspector admitted. ‘There has been something of – how shall I put it – an incident hereabouts. You wouldn’t mind if I asked you some questions, would you?’

Ashton cocked his head to one side, an amused smile on his face, and replied, ‘I don’t think my minding would make much difference, Inspector. But please go right ahead.’

He poured himself a cup of tea from the pot which Martha had carried in on a tray and placed in front of him.

The inspector didn’t smile back. ‘Were you expecting anyone?’ he asked. ‘I mean, the man your house manager would probably have told you about when you came in? A Mr Liu Than?’

‘No, not really,’ Ashton replied. ‘Can’t really say I have ever heard the name.’

‘Take your time, sir,’ the inspector persisted. ‘Perhaps someone you had asked to come by a while ago and had forgotten to tell your house manager about?’ Orwell paused, then added, ‘A young, slightly built, clean-shaven Oriental man with long hair? A student type?’

The inspector turned and stared pointedly at the assorted figurines of the Buddha on the shelves.

Ashton shook his head. ‘During my days in the army, I’d been around in the East and met many people of that description.’ He smiled politely. ‘But no, I don’t think I know the man. Maybe if I saw him, it would ring a bell.’

‘How about your house manager? Does he have relatives or friends who drop by?’

‘Duggy? Surely you’ve already asked him that question? Well, none of his relatives have ever come here to visit. And then he’s a Gurkha, while this name you just mentioned – Liu Than – is not a Nepali name.’

There was a silence. Ashton took a sip of his tea, then looked at the inspector and asked gently, ‘Now, shouldn’t you be telling me what this is all about?’

‘Yes, of course,’ the inspector agreed, though his hesitation suggested he might be weighing how much it would be prudent to disclose.

He took out a small spiral-bound diary from his pocket and placed it on the table in front of him. He flipped through the pages, referring to his notes.

‘Well, sir,’ he began, ‘there has been, as I said earlier, an incident, to put it mildly. A young man – Oriental, Chinese, whatever – who gave his name as Liu Than arrived this afternoon, possibly from London, in a taxi and made his way to the Wordsworth Arms in the village.’ The inspector paused before continuing, ‘According to the landlady, Mrs Harris, the man, who had a student ID from the London School of Economics, had checked into one of the rooms at the inn before coming downstairs and asking if you lived nearby. When she told him you did, he made a call from the desk to Stiles and spoke to your house manager. He then asked Mrs Harris to help him call a cab that would take him to your place. We had his name checked out with LSE; they don’t have any student by that name. So the ID was probably forged. We have also asked Scotland Yard to help us trace the cab the young man hired to get to the village.’

The inspector rocked back in his chair and continued, ‘Liu Than took the local cab at around 3.30 p.m. and started off for your place. Talked a bit on the way, asked about you, according to the cabbie, who turned out to be quite chatty himself. Quite an anomaly hereabouts, I would imagine.’

The inspector paused, his amused glance straying in George’s direction. The constable remained impervious to the implied dig and continued to stare stolidly at his pad. Ashton observed that George’s face was still flushed. Something had rattled the man and
that
was unusual; he didn’t rattle easily.

‘May I smoke, sir?’ the inspector asked politely.

In response, Ashton took his cigarette case out of his pocket, snapped it open and held it out to the other man. The inspector accepted a cigarette. Taking one himself, Ashton shut the case and put it back in his pocket. Meanwhile, the inspector had fished out a lighter. Leaning forward, he lit Ashton’s cigarette before lighting his own.

‘Thank you, sir,’ the inspector said. ‘Well,’ he continued, ‘it seems the cabbie knew you.’ He glanced at his notes. ‘Jimmy Holmes?’ He looked at Ashton enquiringly.

‘The local grocer’s son. Yes, I do know him; he has been accepted at Sandhurst. Frightfully keen to join up, he had asked me about the army. I shared some of my experiences, though I did warn him I was frightfully out of date,’ he replied. ‘I imagine he’ll be leaving for Belfast at the end of the month for his military training before joining Sandhurst.’

‘I see,’ the inspector replied, looking thoughtful. ‘Well, Jimmy and Liu Than were apparently followed on their way here by two Land Rovers. Jimmy initially assumed it was just his passenger’s overactive imagination at work. But when the vehicles followed them right up to the place where the bylane leading to Stiles branches off from the main road, he was convinced that something was up. At this point, the Oriental gentleman apparently became terribly agitated and urged Jimmy to hurry, whereupon our young man led those Land Rovers on quite a chase. At the lay-by after the arch bridge, one of the vehicles overtook them, almost pushing them into the gulley so that they were forced to stop. It was here that the Oriental gentleman jumped out of the vehicle and made a dash for the woods, with seven or eight men wearing ski masks in hot pursuit. Interestingly enough, although they were armed, they didn’t fire at him.’

‘Needed to get him alive,’ Ashton murmured softly, not wishing to disturb the flow of the inspector’s narrative.

‘Precisely. Well, they approached him from all directions and began closing in. Then comes the interesting part. Our Oriental friend sits down on the ground, pours something on himself – lighter fluid, possibly – and sets himself on fire. Jimmy says it was quite a blaze! The trees nearby were charred and if it hadn’t been for last night’s drizzle, putting out that fire would have been quite a job for the forest chaps.’

The hair on the back of Ashton’s neck bristled. He could feel his temples throbbing. No wonder George was looking rattled! He brought his cigarette up to his lips and squinted through the smoke.

‘That’s something,’ Ashton remarked, relieved that his voice sounded steady.
Don’t think about Saigon!
He turned away and stared at the fireplace, knowing that the inspector was watching him.

The ensuing silence was broken by the lady constable who walked in with an update.

‘The lab people have finished at the site and they say it’s all right for us to come by, sir,’ she informed the inspector.

‘Thank you,’ he said, then turned to Ashton. ‘I shall have to request you to accompany us, sir, just to check if you can identify anything. Not that there is much to go by; it’s quite grisly, really.’ He paused. ‘Once you’ve finished your tea, of course.’

‘That all right,’ Ashton said, pushing his cup away.

The group trooped out to where the cars were parked. Ashton saw that Duggy had taken their car out of the garage and was at the wheel, parked behind the Bentley.

‘We don’t really need to take another car,’ the inspector said authoritatively, waving at Duggy and gesturing for him to step out. He then turned to Ashton. ‘You can both come with us, Sir Henry,’ he offered by way of explanation. ‘It won’t be any trouble dropping you back home.’

‘I would rather take my car, if that’s all right with you?’ Ashton said quietly, but crisply.

Peter Orwell picked up the tone and saw that Ashton’s affable face was set in a firm line, his grey eyes staring back expressionlessly at him. ‘As you wish, sir,’ the inspector replied, quickly backing off.

They set off in the three cars, Ashton’s following the Bentley and the Panda. The moment they were on their own, Duggy and Ashton lapsed into Gorkhali, the language of their regiment.

‘Yo keko barema ho?
What’s all this about, Sergeant?’

‘
Thaha chaina.
Haven’t a clue.’ After they had been driving for a while, Duggy added, ‘Liu Than, the man who rang, said I should tell you that the Teacher has asked you to redeem a promise you had made.’

It was the second time that evening that Ashton experienced a prickle of unease and even though Duggy was looking straight ahead and couldn’t see his expression, he could tell something was wrong.

‘Are you all right?’ the sergeant asked.

‘Fine, just fine,’ Ashton replied. ‘You didn’t tell the police about Liu Than’s message, did you?’

‘They didn’t ask.’

They had travelled four miles from the house when they came to a small clearing, where the dense growth of trees on either side of the road thinned out. Police cars and an ambulance were parked off the road. On one side, the ground fell away to a rocky stream about nine or ten yards below the level of the road; on the opposite side, the ground sloped upwards. The police had fenced off the area with yellow tape and Ashton could see what looked like a media crew huddled behind it. He recognized one of the reporters, who began approaching him, but a constable quickly intercepted the man and sent him back. The inspector came forward, took Ashton by the arm and, lifting the tape, guided him through to a clump of bushes on the high ground at the top of the slope. He turned and pointed to the clearing behind them.

‘This is where the first car overtook the cab,’ he explained.

They could see the tyre marks, deeply embedded in the moist earth, giving the road a wide berth before getting back onto it thirty yards or so ahead. Since the car to which those tyres belonged seemed to have climbed back onto the road almost at a right angle to it, it could be inferred that its driver had been attempting to block the road and intercept an approaching vehicle.

‘Since it was uphill the bigger vehicle could generate more power then the cab,’ the inspector went on.

There were other tyre marks too, criss-crossing each other and indicating that the vehicles which had left those telltale tracks had reversed and got back on the road.

‘The cabbie says the men in the first vehicle were getting off, when his passenger, who was in the back seat, jumped out, stumbled and made a dash for the high ground there.’ The inspector turned and pointed back up the hill. ‘The cabbie tried braking to avoid ramming into the vehicle ahead and swerved off the road instead. He says the next thing he saw, once he had got a grip on himself, was that his passenger had reached the top of this mound and was near that clump of bushes. The next moment, there was this big fireball.’

‘How can you be sure the men chasing him didn’t set him on fire?’ Ashton asked, knowing what the answer would be.

‘Thought about that,’ the inspector replied, ‘but no, that wasn’t the case, because the cabbie reported that none of the men were close to halfway up the mound when his passenger burst into flames. Also, the dead man’s body shows no signs of a struggle.’ The inspector stopped and looked keenly at Ashton before continuing, ‘It makes you wonder why Mr Liu Than didn’t try to make for the woods when he was ahead, eh?’

Ashton refrained from comment, merely nodding in response.

As the two men climbed further up, a man in a lab coat approached, nodding to the inspector before stepping aside to give them an unimpeded view of the body. The head and upper chest were so badly burnt, the skin so charred and mottled, that it was hard to believe they had once belonged to a human being. The figure, although it had toppled over to one side from its seated position, was still cross-legged. Part of the lips had burnt away, exposing teeth and gums in a way that gave the corpse a frighteningly feral expression. Bits of charred cloth clung to the body. One hand lay in the corpse’s lap; the other rested over its left breast, as if the man it had belonged to had been taking a pledge with his dying breath. The burns were concentrated on the head and upper torso; from the waist downwards, the body was almost intact, suggesting that the man had emptied the bottle of inflammable fluid over his head. A light breeze brought a disturbing whiff of burnt flesh their way.

The constable whom Ashton had seen in his driveway had followed them up. She gagged at the sight and turned away.

‘Not a pretty sight, sir,’ the inspector said grimly. ‘Any chance you can place him?’

‘I’m afraid not,’ Ashton managed to reply, his voice hoarse, as the memories threatened to flood back.
But in the present circumstances, that’s okay
, he thought,
my reaction will seem natural
.