Ryman, Rebecca (48 page)

Either
Sir Joshua had no recollection of his behaviour the previous evening or he
chose not to remember; in any case he offered Olivia no apologies. Whether or
not he had apologised to Lady Bridget was difficult to tell. Marble faced and
sullenly silent, she made no reference to the occasion, but judging from Sir
Joshua's own grim expression, words had certainly been exchanged between them.
Torn with her own anxieties, Olivia took only cursory notice of their friction.
That Jai Raventhorne's life should be in jeopardy in so gross a miscarriage of
justice was not something she could forget easily no matter what the
circumstances between them. She faced a hideous dilemma; one way or the other
it had to be resolved. Somehow she had to secure confirmation from Sir Joshua.

With
no other option in sight, Olivia walked resolutely into his study that night.
Engrossed in polishing his collection of Chou period bronze bells—a duty he
always performed himself—he seemed nevertheless pleased to see her. "Still
awake? Good. Come and sit with me while I get this done. See this?" He
tapped the huge bronze before him with obvious pride. "Probably third-century
chung
from Shantung, part of a set. The
chih-chung,
handbells,
are smaller, of course, like the harness jingles. A glass of Madeira,
perhaps?"

Olivia
shook her head, relieved that last night's episode was
not to be
mentioned. There were other matters she had to talk about. The opening she
wanted lay on the desk before her. Picking up the newspaper, she asked boldly,
"Who on earth could be responsible for this brutal vandalism? It's
difficult to believe anyone could stoop so low."

His
concentration remained focused on the bronze. "Obviously someone has,
m'dear."

"This
'well-known Calcutta resident,'" she pretended to read, "has he been
positively identified? They say he was actually seen leaving the mine site in a
great hurry."

"Well,
there are rumours, of course." For all the interest his expression showed,
they could have been discussing the daily bazaar.

"Rumours?
Surely more than that, considering five eyewitnesses!"

"Perhaps.
It's up to Slocum to verify their accounts." He lifted the bronze to
replace it in the glass-fronted cupboard and returned with another bell, a
smaller one.

His
reticence irked but did not deter Olivia. "In the dark, eyewitnesses can
make mistakes. Or," she added pointedly, "they could have been drunk,
considering the festivities."

His
hand with the chamois-leather paused briefly. For the first time his impassive
eyes showed expression, a glint. "The moon was almost full," he
reminded her shortly. "Drunk or sober, a mistake seems unlikely."

Olivia
felt her chest tighten in the effort to appear casual. "It says here that
Mr. Slocum has gone to Kirtinagar. Has he discovered anything more of
significance?"

"We
will know tomorrow when he returns."

It
was evident that her choice of subject displeased him, but if she were to take
any action at all, she had to know everything. Ignoring his lack of
encouragement, she recklessly probed further. "And the motive? I wonder
what
that
could possibly have been—insurance fraud, perhaps, as some
suggest?" By asking that, she subtly revealed that she knew the suspect
was Raventhorne, but her uncle gave no reaction. She raised a light laugh and
picked up one of the bronze bells as if to examine it carefully. "It's
amazing what some businessmen will stoop to, isn't it? I know they do in
America. My father has written about several cases of arson by small factory
owners so as to collect insurance."

Her
inane chatter brought no change to Sir Joshua's expression. "Yes. That
might be a possibility."

"On
the other hand, here the explosion killed a man. I guess that automatically
means a charge of manslaughter?" She stopped and held her breath.

He
folded the chamois-leather neatly and slipped it back into its pouch, then sat
back to appraise her over his half-moon glasses. "I see that you have been
giving the matter considerable thought, m'dear," he remarked with what
Olivia knew was deceptive mildness.

Olivia
shrugged. "No more than anyone else," she answered easily.
"According to Mr. Ransome there is much conjecture and debate in station
about the outcome of all this." She waved a hand across the newspaper.
"Especially if the charge is manslaughter. A man could be put away for
years for manslaughter, couldn't he?" Her heart throbbing painfully in her
mouth, she waited for his response.

Almost
imperceptibly, his face changed once again; it became very strange, very still.
He moved his gaze away from her to fix it midair between the desk and the wall.
Lost within himself, he fell into a deep silence. Watching the change in him,
Olivia tried to discern its implications and couldn't; even in his silence
there was menace. With an effort, Sir Joshua roused himself from his reverie.
"Yes," he said, his face again hard, the moment of solitude over,
"if Slocum so chooses. It would be no more than the man deserves."

"If
Slocum chooses? Surely if Arvind Singh chooses to prosecute at all!"

"Arvind
Singh will prosecute. Slocum will see to that."

"See
to
that? How?" She no longer cared what he might make of her questions, she
had
to have the answers!

"How?
For an intelligent girl you're suddenly asking pretty daft questions!" As
if to make amends for his reprimand, he smiled. "My dear, Kirtinagar might
be politically independent, but economically it is far from so. There is no
industry in the State worth mentioning and there is much Arvind Singh needs to
buy from us for the subsistence of his people. That," he pointed out
softly, "makes him highly susceptible to pressure."

Olivia
started to feel sick. And frightened. What Ransome had said was true; whether
or not the facts fit, they would be trimmed to the requisite size so that
Raventhorne could be eliminated. "Then it is this Calcutta resident, Kala
Kanta I hear, who will be deemed the guilty party?"

"He
is the guilty party."

"And
if he can present an acceptable defence for himself?"

"He
can present none that Slocum will accept."

Who
was her uncle to decide that? Olivia felt a stir of cold, consuming anger. But
there was still one question, the most vital one, that remained unasked and
unanswered. And it was on this answer that her entire life might depend.

Forcing
herself to stay calm, she walked to the glass-fronted cupboard and set the last
of the bronze bells in its place. "As I see it then, the success of the
charge rests upon those five eyewitnesses. Supposing, just
supposing
as
a hypothetical possibility, that this suspect could prove beyond all reasonable
doubt that he was not in Kirtinagar that night, that he was elsewhere. What
then?"

A
flicker, a mere flicker, of uncertainty flashed in his eyes. She saw that this
question had angered him more than any of her others. Even so, he remained in
perfect control. "Hypothetically, such a contention, if proven, would
invalidate the charge. Any fool can see that. But he was not elsewhere. Nor
will he be able to prove that he was."

Yes,
a lynching had been arranged. The tree had been selected, the rope was already
in place, the mob screamingly impatient for the swinging. Olivia rose, her path
now clear before her. "I see now exactly what you mean when you say there
is more than one way of catching a monkey!"

If
he noticed her contempt, he did not show it. Even if he had, it would no longer
have mattered.

There
was barely an apology of a moon, the thin sickle still weak and faint. In the
flickering, filtered light of the stars the boatman rubbed the drowse from his
eyes and peered at Olivia in astonishment. She opened her cloth pouch and laid
some silver coins on the palm of her hand.

"Half
of that now and the rest when you have brought back a reply for me." Her
Hindustani was now reasonably clear and there was no ambiguity about the silver
coins.

The
man's eyes glistened as sleep vanished from them and he nodded with alacrity.
"Theek
hai,
memsahib, very well. The letter?"

Olivia
divided the coins in half, handed him his promised share and then an envelope.
"Remember, I must have an answer."

"But
if the Sarkar is not on board?"

"He
will be," she said with more conviction than she felt. "The letter
must be given only to him, no one else,
achcha?
Understood?"

The
boatman yawned and nodded, shrugging away his amazement at having been shaken
awake in the middle of the night by a solitary mem who had no business
wandering the streets on her own. Her sudden presence convinced him once more
of what he had long suspected—that all white people were vaguely mad.

The
small rowing craft moved off on its journey across the river, leaving Olivia to
the mercies of the cutting winds that seemed to pierce through flesh and bone
to freeze the marrow. Pulling her heavy woollen cape more closely over her
head, she placed Jasmine's night blanket on a dense knot of banyan roots and
settled down to keep her vigil until the boatman returned. It was not yet ten
o'clock but the streets were deserted, left to the
scavenging
mercies of stray dogs and huge bandicoots who scurried about making squeaking
noises and rustling dead leaves. Occasionally there was a sharper squeal as
some unwary smaller prey was undoubtedly caught and devoured on the spot.

Hugging
her knees and gathering her skirts closer to her legs, Olivia shivered a
little, her eyes fixed to a distant spot across the inky river where the
Ganga
was anchored. In spite of the blackness of the night she convinced herself
that she could discern the ship's ghostly outlines, its blobs of diffused
yellow lights on the deck, and she shivered again. Somewhere in that tent of
dark was Jai, perhaps even at this moment reading the letter she had composed
immediately after leaving her uncle to his brandy and his dreams of perverse
triumph. Nobody had seen her creep out of the house (how expert she was now in
the art of furtiveness!) or saddle Jasmine to the snores of the groom and his
son up in the hayloft. But even if someone had, it was immaterial. By tomorrow,
all of Calcutta would know the truth, and the prospect exhilarated her! She was
done with deceit and subterfuge; tomorrow she would climb to the top of the
Ochterlony monument and declare to the world her love for Jai Raventhorne.

A
faint splash in the distance caught her attention and she was alert instantly;
he was back already? With his reply? But when the boatman beached a few moments
later and she ran down the slope to meet him, all he handed her was her own
envelope. Unopened.

"The
Sarkar is not on board," he said with obvious regret, wondering if the
absence of a reply automatically deprived him of the rest of his payment.

Olivia's
spirits crashed. "Who told you that? Who was it you saw on board?"

"Since
the Sarkar was not on the ship it was not necessary for me to go up on
board." He pressed his elbows and winced. "I am an old man. My joints
are not what they—"

"Yes,
yes, but whose voice was it that informed you he was not on the ship?"
Olivia interrupted impatiently, almost crying in her disappointment. "Did
you recognise it? Try to remember, did you?" There was only one slim hope
left.

The
man pondered. "Well, it's difficult to—"

"Was
it Bahadur's?"

His
face brightened. "Yes, yes, it was his. I'd know it anywhere because he
has often hired—"

Olivia
stopped him by opening her pouch and emptying whatever coins she had in it onto
his palm. He gulped into silence,
staring at the silver. She closed his
trembling fingers around it. "All that is yours if you take me to the ship
and wait there to bring me back."

Galvanised,
the boatman leapt back into his craft, his grin of delight reaching from one
ear to the other as he hastily tucked the coins into a twist of his
lungi.
Spirits
soaring again, her face flushed and the fire of success racing through her
veins, Olivia clambered into the
dhoolie.
She knew her instinct would be
right; if Bahadur was on board it could only mean that Jai was too.