The Ninth Buddha (16 page)

He saw the confusion on the girl’s face as soon as she opened the door:

she simply did not know what to do with him.
 
Christopher was no longer persona non grata he had taken dinner with the Carpenters the night before and been introduced to the assembled orphans as a man of sorrows.
 
But something held her back from granting him immediate admission.
 
He resolved her dilemma by pushing past into the hallway.
 
Ignoring her cries of protest, he made his way directly to Carpenter’s study and flung open the door.
 
It was empty.
 
The vacant eyes of dead animals stared at him from the walls.
 
He closed the door on them and headed for the Carpenters’ drawing-room.
 
He did not bother to knock.

Moira Carpenter was receiving visitors: a wealthy Indian lady dressed in the indoor garb of a Muslim nobleman’s wife and a spinsterish European woman in serviceable clothes, who sat and held her teacup with the bored self-deprecation of a governess in the throes of middle age.
 
When the door opened and Christopher burst in, the governess spilled tea into her ample lap and Moira Carpenter almost scalded the cat. Only the be gum held her ground, as though rude interruptions were part of the daily round for her.

Christopher was the first to speak.

“Where’s your husband, Mrs.
 
Carpenter?”
 
he snapped.
 
His nerves were on edge.

“Mr.
 
Wylam, I .. .”
 
Moira Carpenter began, carefully replacing her blue and white china teapot on the doily-topped table by her elbow.

“I want to speak with him.
 
Where is he?”

“Really, this is most improper.”
 
Mrs.
 
Carpenter was recovering quickly from her shock “Just what do you mean bursting in here like this?
 
You “Martin Cormac is dead.
 
Murdered.
 
I think your husband knows something about it.
 
Where is he?”

Moira Carpenter had been half-way to her feet when Christopher broke the news.
 
Her legs seemed to give way under her and she sank back into the chair.
 
The colour that had started to rise in her face deserted it instantly and was replaced by a ghastly pallor.

Christopher thought for a moment that she would faint, but within seconds her true nature had reasserted itself.
 
Cormac had been right: beneath the skin, she was cast iron cast iron of the highest quality.

“Explain,” she said.
 
Her lips were taut and pale.

“Martin Cormac dead explain.”

“I found him at his bungalow less than half an hour ago.
 
In bed.

Someone had cut his throat.
 
That’s all I know.”

“And you think my husband knows something you do not.

Explain.”

“I’ll explain that to your husband, Mrs.
 
Carpenter, if you’ll kindly tell me where he is.”

All this time neither of the other two women had spoken.
 
The pale governess was plainly distressed and kept rubbing mindlessly with a small lace handkerchief at the tea stains on her lap.
 
The be gum watched unperturbed, as though the cutting of throats, like rude interruptions, was a commonplace of her unruffled existence.

“You will explain it to me, Mr.
 
Wylam, or not at all,” Moira Carpenter riposted.
 
She was still pale, but the blood that had fled her face was doing its work elsewhere.

“Martin Cormac knew something about your husband, something the Reverend Carpenter may have wanted to remain hidden.

I went to Cormac’s place this morning to find out what it was.
 
I found him dead and his desk broken into.
 
That is your explanation.

Now, will you tell me where your husband is?”

“The Reverend Carpenter is with my husband.”
 
It was the be gum voice.
 
She was a plumpish woman in her forties, clearly a senior wife whose power in the harem owed less to personal beauty than political acumen.
 
Christopher thought she would, in truth, be no stranger to sudden and unexplained death.

“I regret,” she continued, ‘that they cannot be disturbed under any circumstances.
 
Perhaps Mrs.
 
Carpenter will arrange an appointment for this afternoon.
 
In the meantime, you will be good enough to show yourself out.”

“And who exactly is your husband, madam?”
 
Christopher demanded.
 
He was not in a mood to be cowed by a woman who took her governess for morning tea in a Silver Ghost.

“The Nawab of Hasanabad,” Moira Carpenter explained, as if in deference to some obscure point of Muslim etiquette that did not allow the be gum to utter her husband’s name.

“And what the Begum says is correct they are not to be disturbed.
 
Go home, Mr.
 
Wylam.
 
Collect yourself.
 
Think about what you have been saying.

And if you still feel you should speak to my husband, return later this afternoon as the Begum suggests and he will be pleased to entertain you.
 
Would you like me to send a boy to notify the police of your gruesome discovery?”

With an effort, she was casting a veil of normality over the scene.

The governess had begun to breathe more easily.
 
The tea stains would wash out.

“His throat was cut from side to side,” Christopher barked at her.

“With a scalpel.
 
Would you like me to show you?
 
Why don’t you all drive up to the hospital with me in one of those shiny cars outside and see for yourselves?
 
We could bring tea and sandwiches.

You’ll just have to be careful about the flies there are rather a lot of them just now.”
 
He sensed that he was on the verge of snapping, but it didn’t seem to matter.

The two European women blanched visibly at Christopher’s tirade, but the be gum remained unmoved.
 
Unlike the others, she had seen men with their throats cut from side to side.
 
The talk of flies made her think the stranger was insane.

“Please leave at once,” she said, ‘or I shall have to call for my husband’s men to throw you out.
 
They won’t be gentle, and I won’t be upset if they break your neck.”

Christopher swore and stormed out of the room.
 
He had wasted enough time already.

The transition from the Carpenters’ quarters to the orphanage was effected by a double doorway.
 
He felt the chill as he went through the Carpenters kept their own heating high.
 
The evening before, he had formed only a hazy impression of the place’s layout.
 
The ground floor, which he had briefly toured, consisted of the assembly hall, classrooms, dining-room, and kitchens.
 
On the first floor to his right were the girls’ dormitories and bathrooms.
 
To his left lay the boys’ section, which he had visited the evening before.

He headed there first.
 
Going through a plain door, he found himself in a long, empty corridor.
 
On either side were wooden doors set with panes of glass in their top register.
 
Glancing through the first, he saw a teacher at a blackboard and the first two rows of desks.
 
The voices of the boys came to him through the glass, singing in a monotone:

“Nine times seven is sixty-three; nine times eight is seventy-two;

nine times nine is eighty-one; nine times .. .”

The voices faded as he moved on.
 
The corridor led directly into a tiled hall, where his feet echoed.
 
Away from the classrooms, where only the dreary chanting of parrot phrases gave any hint of life, the building was heavy with a peculiar, cloying silence.
 
It was a silence grown from misery and boredom as weeds are grown from their particular seeds, dense, desolate, and forbidding.
 
He felt himself slow down and move on the balls of his feet, falling instinctively into harmony with the atmosphere of the place.
 
A broad staircase lay to his left, connecting with the floor above.
 
He moved toward it, drawn without any reason to the upper floors.

The staircase led on to a narrow corridor, redolent with the smells of un perfumed soap and starched bed-linen.
 
The walls were white and stark, without concession to mortality or pain.
 
Here, sleep was a chore like any other, with fixed times and set rules.

Only the dreams escaped regimentation.
 
The dreams and the nightmares.

Christopher opened the door of the dormitory.
 
It was a long, bed-lined room, like the one he had slept in at Winchester, but colder and more cheerless.
 
Someone had left a window open.
 
A cold wind moved restlessly through the room, its appetite undiminished after its long journey from the mountains.

He felt a sense of inquietude grow in him.
 
Pale sheets were moving in the gusts from the open window.
 
The small beds with their iron frames, the white walls, the rows of foot-lockers without colour or personality all reminded him once more of the ward of a hospital ... or an asylum.
 
What nightmares did the children of the Knox Homes have when they lay dreaming in their narrow beds on a winter’s night?
 
he wondered.
 
Dark gods ... or the Reverend and Mrs.
 
Carpenter smiling their slow smiles and reading comforting words from the Bible?

Next door, there was a cold bathroom.
 
Water dripped from a washer less tap on to white enamel.
 
Damp towels hung limply on wooden rails.
 
Lattices of pale light lay on the tiles like bars.

At the end of the corridor was a small wooden door marked “Sick-bay’.

Christopher knocked softly, but there was no answer.

He tried the handle.
 
The door was unlocked.
 
Inside was a low bed covered in tightly folded sheets, and beside it an enamel washstand with a hand-towel draped over the bowl.
 
Even here there were no concessions.
 
He remembered how Moira Carpenter had tried to explain to him that sickness was a token of sin, that the sick should be cared for but not coddled.
 
To comfort sickness was to comfort sin.

He was about to leave when something caught his attention.

Along the wall opposite the bed stood a small linen-chest.
 
It seemed to have been shifted recently, about two feet further from the door, leaving a noticeable patch of lighter paint on the wall where it had stood.
 
Christopher could not understand why it had been moved: its new position was awkward, much too close to the washstand to allow the drawers to be opened fully.

He opened the lid and looked inside.
 
Just a pile of sheets, all neatly folded and stacked evenly.
 
There were two drawers at the bottom of the chest.
 
He opened each of these in turn, but found only towels and a few basic medical items.
 
Perhaps there was something wrong with the wall behind the chest.
 
He squeezed between the chest and the washstand and pushed.
 
The chest was heavy, but it moved across the uncarpeted floor without much difficulty.

He had to step away from the wall in order to allow the light from the window to shine on it.
 
It was so unobtrusive that he might not have noticed it but for the business of the chest.
 
Someone had cut two letters in the wood, using a nail or possibly a pocketknife.
 
He had seen the letters before, he did not have to ask what they meant or who had written them: W W William Wylam.
 
He had devised the simple monogram about two months ago for his son’s use.
 
There was no longer any doubt.
 
William had been here.

Ill

He ran all the way back to the entrance hall.
 
At the foot of the stairs leading to the girls’ dormitories, two exquisitely dressed figures were standing, evidently the Nawab’s personal bodyguards.

As he approached, one of them stepped towards him and held a hand palm forwards in his direction.

“Very sorry, sahib, but I have been given instructions not to let you go any further You have been asked to leave.
 
I will take you to the door.”

Christopher was in no mood to argue.
 
He reached for his belt and raised the revolver he had taken from the policeman at Cormac’s house.
 
He pointed it straight at the bodyguard’s forehead.

“We’re going nowhere near the door,” he said.

“Over there,” he ordered, waving the gun in the direction of the living-room.

“Your friend as well.
 
Tell him to move or I’ll blow your head off.”

The man knew better than to argue.
 
With his colleague, he made for the living-room door.

“Open it and go inside.”

They did as ordered.
 
Inside the room, the trio of women were still sipping morning tea and nibbling at caraway cake.
 
This time the governess dropped her cup and saucer on to the floor.
 
The be gum looked up from her plate, saw what was happening, and gave Christopher a look that was probably the nearest thing to a death sentence in Hasanabad. Moira Carpenter looked like the antithesis of Christian charity reluctantly made flesh.
 
No-one said a word.