The Ninth Buddha (2 page)

He remembered her as she had been in those last two months:

pale and feverish by turns, remote, her face turned to the wall, intensely conscious of death’s approach.
 
There was nothing sculpted or romantic about her passage from the world, nothing fine or ethereal: just a young woman racked with pain, just blood and sputum, and in the end decay.
 
After her death, men had come and burned her clothes and the furniture in her bedroom and scraped the walls as though they harboured some deadly miasmatic force.
 
She had been thirty-one.

For two months, he had sat by her bedside holding her hand;

and for two months he had been conscious that they had become strangers to one another.
 
She had died in his arms, but a nurse would have done as well.
 
More than a war lay between them: in their world, love was as hard to come by as forgiveness.
 
They had met in Delhi eleven years earlier, at the first dance of the winter season.
 
She had come out with the “Fishing Fleet’ the annual contingent of eligible young ladies in search of husbands and had stayed behind as Mrs.
 
Wylam.
 
He had not loved her Fishing Fleet girls did not expect love but he had learnt to care for her.

He sat down in his pew again.
 
At the altar, the priest purified the chalice and began to recite the Antiphon: “Ecce Virgo conapiet et panel filium.
 
Behold a Virgin shall conceive and bear a son.”

In another month, Christopher would be forty, but he felt older.

His generation what there was left of it was already old: young

old men to rule a decaying Empire and heal the breaches left by war. He shuddered.
 
There would be another war in Europe.
 
A year ago, the thought would have left him cold.
 
But now he had a son to fear for.

Unlike so many who had fought in the trenches in France and Belgium, Christopher’s mind and body were intact.
 
But his own war, that dark, secret and dirty war whose details he was not even permitted to speak of, had changed him.
 
He had returned with his body whole and his spirit in tatters: cold, cold and lonely, and the dusts of India choking him, filling his throat and chest and nostrils with dry and bitter odours.

Elizabeth’s death so soon after his return had made of that change a permanent and frozen thing, hard, calcified in the blood, ineradicable.
 
It consisted in part of the obvious things that came through war and death: bitterness, a loss of joy, a certain coldness of the affections, grief written large, a deep sense of futility.
 
But there were other feelings too, feelings that surprised him: a profound sense of human worth under all the tawdriness, compassion both for the men he had killed and for himself in his former ruthlessness, patience to accept what he had come to believe was inevitable.
 
At times he dreamed of tall white mountains and cool, wave less lakes.
 
And he spent a lot of time with William.

The priest read the last Gospel, final prayers were said, vespers were sung, and the service came to its appointed end.
 
Christopher took William’s hand and led him out of the glittering church into the darkness.
 
It was the Sunday before Christmas, but he found it hard to believe that God would ever return to earth.

They did not notice the car waiting in the shadows further down the street.

“Christopher.”

He turned to see a figure approaching from the side door of the church.

Father Middleton, still in his cassock, was making towards them.

“Good evening, Father.
 
What can I do for you?”

“I’d like to talk with you, Christopher, if I may.
 
Could I walk with you a little?
 
Would you mind?”

The priest was shivering slightly from the cold.
 
His thin cassock was more a spiritual than a physical garment.
 
But he was a strong man who made a point of defying the elements when he could.

Christopher liked him: he made no show of piety and had helped after Elizabeth’s death by steering well clear of all talk of the blessed souls in paradise.

“Perhaps we could talk in the church,” suggested Christopher.

“It’s cold for you out here.”

Father Middleton shook his head firmly.

“Nonsense, Christopher.
 
I won’t die.
 
You’ve both got some way to go.
 
And I only want a few words anyway: just along Hencotes past the Sele, then I’ll leave you and get back to my little fire.”

Christopher nodded and they set off.
 
He felt his son’s small hand in his, warm and fragile, the frosted snow giving beneath his feet, the fog gathering force beyond the limits of the flickering gas lamps
 
The presence of the priest made him self-conscious.
 
Somewhere behind them, a car door opened and closed in the darkness.

“I’ve been thinking,” said the priest, ‘that it may be time to put up a permanent memorial to our war dead.
 
I thought perhaps a small chapel in their honour, dedicated to the Virgin.
 
Nothing ostentatious.
 
Just a quiet place near the front.
 
Somewhere a widow can light her candle and be left in peace.”

Out of the darkness, muffled footsteps crossed the street and came in

their direction.
 
In another place, at another time, Christopher might

have taken alarm.
 
But it was Sunday and this was

England.
 
Long months of inactivity had lulled his instinct for , danger.
 
The darkness thickened round him, like something solid moving against his flesh.

“How can I be of help, Father?
 
You’ll want a

donation, of course.

I’ll be glad to contribute.”

“Indeed.
 
I’ll be grateful for anything you’re willing to give.
 
But

I wondered if I could ask more of you.
 
You’re a military man yourself.

I’ve heard .. .”
 
he hesitated ‘..
 
. that you were decorated.”

They were nearing the end of Hencotes.
 
A single light struggled against the dark, laying a yellow film across the firmly packed snow.
 
Christopher stared ahead into the darkness.
 
Who had told the priest?

Not William, he was sure of that.
 
His secret was safe with the boy.

Perhaps Harriet..
 
.

“Yes,” he said.
 
His breath mingled with that of the priest, white and listless in the clear air, like milk moving in water.

“I’d like to set up a fund,” Father Middleton continued.

“You’re the man at Carfax now, ever since Major Ridley died.
 
There’s your sister, of course.
 
But I’d like a man, a soldier, to head the appeal.”

“I was never a soldier.”

“No.
 
But highly decorated.
 
For valour.
 
I ask no questions.
 
You have military rank.”

“Father, I’m not sure .. .”

The footsteps were upon them now.
 
Two men emerged from the shadows, their faces pallid in the thin light.
 
They were dressed in heavy coats and wore shallow fur hats pulled down well on their heads.
 
The first man had a narrow, sour face and eyes that looked as though he had not slept for nights.
 
His companion was heavier and coarser-featured, with dark stubble on his chin.

, What happened next took only a few seconds, but it was to ; remain etched on Christopher’s memory for the rest of his life.
 
The I thin man nodded at his companion.
 
Both men began to run at once.
 
There was no time to skip or dodge.
 
Christopher felt himself
 
bowled over, then the thin man was on top of him, pressing him into the snow, crushing his chest, making it impossible for him to breathe.

There was a stifled cry.
 
Twisting his head, Christopher saw the heavy

man grab William from behind and begin to pull him, struggling, across the snow.
 
The boy kicked out, trying to escape, but the man was too powerful for him.

Christopher pressed up, freeing his right arm in an attempt to grab for his assailant’s throat and dislodge him.
 
But the man twisted away from him, thrust a hand into the wide pocket of his coat, and brought out a large pistol.
 
Christopher froze as the man raised it and held it against his head.

“I am ordered not to harm you,” the thin man said.
 
His voice was soft, the accent foreign yet hard to place.

“But I do not always obey orders, and I have killed a great many men in my time.
 
I intend to leave here without interference.
 
Do you understand?
 
So please lie still and let us do what we have come here to do.
 
The boy will not be harmed: I promise you.”

William cried out, still struggling with his captor.

“Father!
 
Help me!
 
Help me!”

The thin man cocked the pistol and held it very hard against Christopher’s temple.
 
Beneath him, he felt the snow cold and precise against him, and a stone that stabbed mercilessly into the small of his back.

He had forgotten Father Middleton.
 
The priest, stunned by the suddenness and violence of the attack, had remained standing in the middle of the road, a single arm raised, whether to ward off further attack or to bless his attackers it was not clear.
 
But at the boy’s cry, like a sleeper awakened, he stirred and began to stumble through the dragging snow.

Encumbered by the struggling child, the heavy man was finding it hard to make progress.
 
He almost slipped as William twisted in an effort to throw him off balance.
 
One arm was round the boy’s throat, while the other desperately tried to pin William’s flailing arms to his side.

The priest ran up, arms reaching for the boy’s assailant.
 
He cried out inarticulately, the same voice that had spoken Mass only minutes before, troubled now with fear and a grim rage.
 
His finger’s tore at the man’s arm, dragging him from the boy.
 
The two men slipped and slithered on the wet ground, their feet struggling for some sort of purchase.
 
Suddenly, the heavy man lost his balance and fell, pulling the priest with him.

“Run, William!”
 
Father Middleton shouted.

“Run like hell!”

William hesitated, then turned and ran back in the direction of

the town, in search of help.
 
On the ground, the priest rolled in the snow, fumbling for a grip that would allow him to overpower the kidnapper.
 
He was a rugby player, but the man beneath him was stronger than him and was starting to recover from his fall.
 
The priest got his arm across the big man’s windpipe, hoping to crush the air from his lungs, but as he did so the other man succeeded in bringing up his knee hard into his groin.

Father Middleton grunted and bent with pain.
 
The heavy man squirmed, pushing him away from him, wriggling out from beneath his body.
 
But as he started to get to his feet, the priest recovered his breath and lunged at him in a low tackle, bringing him down heavily into a patch of virgin snow.

Suddenly, something glinted in the lamplight.
 
As the priest threw himself across to pin him down again, the man lifted a knife and brought it up in a smooth arc.
 
The knife-blade shimmered in the light, then disappeared as it entered the priest’s chest.
 
Father Middleton’s body jerked backwards, trying to escape the pain of the blade, but the momentum of his leap kept him moving down on to the hilt.
 
He fell on to the man, tearing the knife from his grasp, throwing blood across his face.

“Jesus!”
 
he cried, writhing with pain He reached for the knife handle but his hand had lost all its strength.
 
It slipped on blood and fell against his chest.
 
With his last strength, he traced a clumsy cross over his heart.
 
His hand shook and fell away, his legs jerked, then he became still.

Christopher pressed up against the muzzle of the gun, but a hand pushed hard against his shoulder and forced him down again.

“You bastards!”
 
he shouted.

“You murdering bastards!”
 
But the man with the gun did not relax his grip or move the barrel.
 
A light went on in a window across the street.
 
There was the sound of a sash being raised.

“What’s going on out there?”
 
someone shouted.

“Get the police!”
 
shouted Christopher.
 
But the thin man struck him hard across the cheek and pressed a hand down heavily against his mouth.

He saw the heavy man wipe the blade of his knife on the priest’s cassock and stand up.
 
His face showed no sign of emotion, no hint of regret.
 
He had killed the priest as he might have killed a sheep or a pig, and thought as little of it.
 
Christopher wanted to kill him just as wantonly.
 
At least William had got away.
 
Whatever happened to him now, the boy was safe.