Алистер Маклин - Borrowed Time

Two women helped her on to a horse. Mike was nudged and when he turned a man pointed to a horse standing saddled and ready at the edge of the clearing. Mike climbed stiffly into the saddle and coaxed the horse to where Sabrina’s stood.

‘Are you OK?’

‘Better than I expected,’ Sabrina said.

Seaton appeared and pointed to three of his men mounted on horses. ‘They will take you to a main road, and from there you will be able to make your way back to wherever you came from.’

‘What about the Range-Rover?’ Sabrina said.

‘A bonus we can really use,’ Seaton said, ‘for which we’re grateful.’ He looked at Mike. ‘Your friend’s body has been taken to the railway station at the town of Jerrida. Given your obvious resources, I’m sure you’ll be able to arrange its removal to wherever you want.’

Without another word Seaton turned and walked into one of the tents. The three horsemen moved off. Mike and Sabrina followed them.

By the time they reached the main road it was bright daylight. Mike and Sabrina sat on their horses and watched the bandits disappear into the rocks of the mountainside.

‘So here we are,’ Mike said, ‘wherever here is.’

A fresh morning breeze blew Sabrina’s hair out behind her. Mike told her she looked like an ad for shampoo.

‘Death warmed-over is what I feel like.’

‘They treated you pretty badly?’

‘Well, no …’ Sabrina shrugged. ‘It wasn’t like I was tortured or anything. The blood that was on me, I got that falling over a couple of rocks on the way to the forest. What they did was threaten, mostly.’

‘So what’s wrong?’

‘I developed septicaemia over the last few days–’

‘Septicaemia? How–’

‘Knife wound in my leg, it’s a long story. Anyway, I hit the crisis while I was up in the rocks, keeping watch. I can’t help feeling it was my fault it all went the way it did.’

‘You couldn’t have prevented what happened.’

‘I could have been more alert, and if I’d been more alert I might have spotted something going on in the forest.’

‘Forget it,’ Mike said. ‘The hills are Seaton’s territory. We didn’t stand a chance.’

‘I’m sorry about Lenny,’ Sabrina said, stroking her horse’s neck.

‘He was a good, dear friend,’ Mike said. ‘If I talk about him I’ll get maudlin. There’ll be time for that later. First things first. How’s the leg now? Should we try to get medical help?’

‘No need,’ Sabrina said. ‘Back there in the tent the ladies gave me the hill-bandit version of a blanket bath, and when they saw the dressing they had to have a look. Well I don’t know what they did, but they did it with squashed leaves and powder from a leather bag. It stung like hell for maybe three minutes, then they washed it off, bound the wound again and now it feels like it’s healing. The rotten way I feel, that’s just aftermath. The fact is I’m mending fast.’

Mike looked at the sun and pointed along the long dusty stretch of the road. ‘That way’s north. For now, that’s all we need to know.’

Sabrina brought her horse around, getting it to stand beside Mike’s. ‘This has been a terrible setback, hasn’t it?’ she said.

‘You could put it that way. We’re God knows how many miles from where we should be, we’ve wasted time and huge resources on chasing the wrong people, and a fine operator and good friend has been wiped out. It’s all loss, there’s been no gain at all.’

‘So it’s a time for taking one of Philpott’s axioms to heart.’

‘Which one would that be?’

Sabrina recited from memory. ‘ “Defeat in a venture should be regarded as a challenge, just as an obstacle should be seen as a disguised opportunity. Adversity should make us even more determined to succeed.” ’

‘Hear, hear.’ Mike smiled wearily. ‘Good old Uncle Malcolm. I’ll definitely do that one in cross-stitch when I get a minute.’

They began travelling north, the horses keeping in step, treading the road as if they regularly made that journey.

‘It’s odd,’ Mike said after a while, ‘but we haven’t started fighting yet.’

‘I noticed that.’

‘By now we should have been full of recrimination and blaming each other for all this catastrophe.’

‘Could we be maturing?’ Sabrina said.

‘Nah.’

‘What, then?’

‘I reckon we’re just too low to take the trouble to bicker. Give it time. We’ll revert to type.’

Sabrina was shielding her eyes from the sun, gazing at the winding stretch of road ahead. ‘I’ve no idea where we are,’ she said, ‘but it would be great if we came to the village where old Aziz lives – you know, the man who put me on to the convoy route?’

‘He could help us now, could he?’

‘I don’t think so,’ Sabrina said. ‘But he makes a terrific cup of tea.’

Malcolm Philpott’s arrival in India was precisely as low-key as he wanted, and his transfer from Delhi to Jammu was just as discreet. He arrived at the area office of Charity Distribution International in mid-afternoon and was shown into the office of the Senior Co-ordinator for northern India, Sarj Deerpaul.

‘Mr Philpott, your reputation comes before you!’

Deerpaul came around his desk with arms wide and for a second Philpott thought he was going to be hugged. But the rotund little man brought his arms down again, executed a short bow, and reached out his hand. They shook and Deerpaul showed Philpott to a chair.

‘Harry Lewis speaks so highly of you.’ Deerpaul got behind the desk again. ‘I gather you were once colleagues.’

‘Many years ago. But we’ve remained friends. I suppose he told you why I’m here?’

‘Indeed.’ Deerpaul patted the square knot of his yellow silk tie. ‘He tells me you hope to direct your expertise towards a solution, or at least a partial solution, of our biggest problem, the black market in charity aid.’

‘I hope to arrive at an evaluation, at any rate.’ Philpott was reluctant to make extravagant promises before he knew anything. ‘A plan of attack is the first essential.’

‘From our experience, I would say you will find yourself up against some very unpleasant characters, Mr Philpott. In our own probing of the problem we have lost investigators, and not just a handful. Good skilled men and women have died for doing no more than asking casual questions in the wrong quarter.’

Philpott explained he was particularly interested in a farm near Srinagar where aid consignments had appeared to be taken regularly for redistribution.

‘I know of that place,’ Deerpaul said. ‘It looks so vulnerable, so wide open to inspection and so entirely above board. We have not been able to do more than harbour suspicions, however. Two investigations have drawn blanks. Officers conducting a third investigation of the place never came back.’ Deerpaul smiled wincingly. ‘Melodramatic, no? But that is exactly what happened. Two seasoned investigators decided to tackle the owner of the farm – it is really no more than a smallholding – and those officers were never seen again.’

Part of Deerpaul’s trouble, Philpott knew, was that he and his investigators had to respect the laws of any region where they worked. UNACO had to do that too, officially. Unofficially there were agreements, and codicils to agreements, that made sure the law of a territory did not obstruct the work of a Task Force or anyone else connected with UNACO.

‘I would like to visit that farm tonight, if that’s possible, Mr Deerpaul.’

‘Why, yes …’

‘Is there a problem?’

‘Well… ahem … I had not expected you to be so avid in your need to get started. Consequently I have no agents available at present who can be assigned to go with you. The day after tomorrow, perhaps–’