Barbara Cleverly - The Last Kashmiri Rose

His words were cut short by a cry of impatience and another shot from Nancy ’s gun. She hit Prentice a second time in the chest and began to move carefully into the room, covering him every inch of the way.

Pale and haggard, Nancy gazed unwinkingly into Prentice’s eyes. Harshly she spoke to him, ‘Look at me, Prentice! Look! What are you seeing? You know so much about fear, don’t you! Are you face to face at last with your worst fear? A white-faced, sharp-tongued Englishwoman? A memsahib who hates you? A memsahib who’s just put three bullets into you and who’s about to put a fourth one in your neck?’

She raised her pistol to his neck.

Prentice rocked on his heels and seemed about to collapse. A dribble of blood flowed from each corner of his mouth. He lurched forward and groped at the desk for support, his eyes never leaving Nancy ’s face. But he did not fall. With sudden convulsive strength, he reeled towards the open door. Half staggering, half running, he fled clumsily down the passage and towards the back door and the servants’ quarters, leaving bloody hand prints on the wall, leaving a trail of blood on the floor.

With a curse, Nancy fired at his back and made to run after him.

Joe put out a restraining hand. ‘No! Leave him, Nancy! Care for the living. Midge! She’s in her room. Go and look after her. She’s drugged, unconscious, in danger!’

‘It’s all right,’ said Nancy. ‘We found her. Dickie’s with her. She’s unconscious but she’s alive. When you didn’t turn up to do your shift I checked your bungalow. Naurung had had the same thought and we guessed you’d have come here.’

‘Dickie’s here? Then – between you – get her out of here, for God’s sake! She mustn’t see this. She mustn’t wake to this!’

There was a confusion of voices and hurried footsteps in the hall. Dickie emerged from the shattered bedroom with Midge in his arms while Andrew, leaning on Naurung’s arm, limped awkwardly into the house. He stopped and looked aghast at the bloodstains, sniffing the smell of cordite, the sound of the shots still ringing in his ears.

‘ Nancy!’ he said. His voice was almost a groan. ‘ Nancy! Say you’re all right!’

Clumsily he took her in his arms while tears ran down his face.

‘I heard shooting. Oh, God! I thought you were another victim! That devil! Where is Prentice?’

‘Come with me,’ said Joe. ‘We’re going to find out. He’s gone off with four of Nancy ’s bullets in him. And Nancy – go with Dickie.’

‘Yes,’ said Naurung with sudden informality, ‘do, Bibi-ji, as the Commander says.’

‘And you, Naurung – you’re in charge here now. Let no one in. Do what you have to do.’

‘Sahib,’ said Naurung, ‘be careful. The cobra has slid into his hole.’

In a voice of cold resolution Andrew replied to him. ‘I’m armed.’

They set off down the passage following the trail of blood.

‘I can guess where he’s going.’ said Andrew. ‘At the bottom of this garden there’s the river and he usually has a boat moored down there. A few hundred yards away and you’re into the Indian town. If he gets as far as that we’ve lost him for good.’

‘He’s not going to the Indian town,’ said Joe.

They walked carefully out into the moonlit garden, through the hedge and into the unkempt garden of Prentice ’s old house. Here, perpetually torn by trailing rose briars and picking their way with difficulty through the undergrowth, they found at last a little path and followed it together. In his clumsy haste, Andrew cannoned into a mohwa tree bringing down a cascade of heavily scented waxy blossoms.

‘Be careful,’ said Joe, ‘he may yet be armed.’

They moved silently on.

The Mogul garden house was now in plain sight and, in spite of his foreboding, Joe paused for a moment, struck by its beauty. Pale and serene in the moonlight it seemed deliberately to set itself apart from the bloody doings of that night. Its Islamic dome rose to the starlit sky; fretted shutters closed its windows and a cascade of small fragrant red roses trailed and climbed. Joe pointed silently at the open door.

Andrew took out his gun and one on either side of the door they stood and listened for any sounds. There were none. Joe nodded and they entered. At first they could see nothing but after a while they became aware of Prentice, who seemed to be kneeling across the foot of a charpoy, his head buried in his arms.

Joe dropped on one knee beside him, parted his drapery and felt for his heart. Holding up a bloodstained hand he said, ‘Dead. At last.’

‘What was he doing?’ said Andrew in wonderment. ‘Why did he come here?’

Joe took a match from his pocket and struck it. Seeing a small lamp on a table, he lit it and held it up. The room was lined with patterned cupboards, each painted in glowing colours in the manner of the Mogul empire with lovingly depicted, and no less lovingly restored, scenes from Mogul mythology. On a table there were set out paints and brushes. The room had something of the quality of a shrine.

With surprising tenderness, Andrew reached forward and took Prentice by the shoulder, turning him over on his back. The dead hands clutched – of all incongruous things – a pressed flower which might once have been red and a battered school exercise book from which, as Andrew disturbed him, a sheaf of papers and photographs fell to the floor. Joe picked one up and saw a strikingly beautiful young man. Smiling, he stood by a river naked to the waist in a pair of cotton drawers. The next photograph showed the same figure a few years earlier mounted on a pony. The third Joe recognised. He had seen the same photograph in the Prentice family album, a laughing, handsome man in whose glossy dark hair was twined a spray of roses. The photographs told the story of Chedi Khan’s youth and young manhood. Happy to the last. Beautiful to the last.

‘Who’s this?’ said Andrew. ‘Who could this possibly be?’

‘It’s Chedi Khan,’ said Joe. ‘Eternally the love of Prentice’s life.’ And he explained.

They turned from the photographs to the exercise book across the front of which was stamped ‘st luke’s mission and school, armzan khel.’ The pages were stained with Prentice’s blood and they opened them one by one.

‘A child’s exercise book,’ said Andrew. ‘A child learning to write in English, it seems.’

‘Chedi Khan,’ said Joe. ‘Prentice sent him to school. St Luke’s Mission. Anglican Fathers but he ran away twice and each time went back to him.’

They turned the pages over and searched on, coming at last to a page of clear writing – evidently an exercise.

‘How’s your Hindustani?’ asked Joe. ‘Can you read this?’

‘Ought to be able to,’ said Andrew, tracing the writing with his forefinger. ‘Let me see… Well, it says, “To G.P. from C.K.” No puzzle about that. Now, what’s this? Er… “Don’t stop me following you”… I think that’s right… “because wherever you are… I will follow you…” Here, wait a minute,’ said Andrew. ‘I know this! Dammit, this is a translation from the Bible! Just the sort of thing, I suppose, the Fathers would have set as a writing exercise or a translation into Hindustani.’

He half closed his eyes in an effort to remember the text and slowly recited:

‘ “Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for wherever thou goest, I will go, and wherever thou lodgest, I will lodge: my people shall be thy people and thy God my God.

‘ “Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so unto me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me.” ’

They looked at each other.

‘From the Book of Ruth,’ said Andrew, marvelling.