Дэвид Даунинг - The Dark Clouds Shining

The Indian gave him a rueful smile. “That is good,” he said. “Not good enough, as you English say, but still good. I believe thirty rupees are outstanding.”

McColl handed him the requisite notes, and the two of them shook hands. After seeing the Indian out the door, he turned to find Caitlin sitting on the side of the bed, hands interlinked on top of her head, bleakness in her eyes.

“What now?” she asked.

He sat down beside her. “I think we have three options.”

“Which are?”

“We could tell Fitzwilliam where they are and let him deal with them.”

“Kill them, you mean?”

He decided not to sugarcoat the pill. “Probably.”

“And you think that’s what they deserve,” she replied. It was more a statement than a question.

“If anyone does. They have just murdered four servants.”

She gave him a despairing look. “I know.”

He threw her a lifeline. “I don’t want to hand them over either.”

“For my sake?”

“Partly,” he conceded. “But I’m also afraid that Five will find some other use for Brady.”

“All right,” she said, as if knowing he had a reason legitimized hers. “So what are the other two options?”

“The easiest one is just to walk away.”

“And not lift a finger to save your prince?”

McColl laughed. “He’s not my prince. And the thought of either of us dying to save him… well, it’s too ridiculous for words. If I don’t believe that Jed and Mac gave their lives for anything worthwhile, then why would I want to risk yours and mine?”

She was silent for several moments. “Russia will get the blame,” she said. “The trade deals will collapse, and the famines will go on forever.”

“And we’re still guessing about the target,” he added. “If it is the prince, he’ll be well protected. If it’s Gandhi, we’re his only hope.”

“And walking away never feels right.”

“No,” he agreed, wondering what that might mean for their future. Whatever she decided, she’d be walking away from something.

“So option three is stopping them.”

“Yes. Which won’t be easy.”

“Sparing Sergei complicates matters, doesn’t it?”

“Of course, but…”

“Maybe I can talk him around.” She had a sudden memory of Sergei telling her how much cleverer she was than him.

“You really think that’s possible?”

“I don’t know. If we can get him away from the other two… then perhaps. But Jack, Sergei knows about you, that I had a long love affair with an Englishman. He never asked any questions—he’s old-fashioned in that way—and I don’t remember whether I ever told him your name. I am sure I never told him whom you worked for, but Brady probably has, and you being there will make it less likely he’ll listen to me. So…”

“You’re probably right, but I won’t let you go alone.”

“Sergei wouldn’t hurt me.”

“Maybe, but Brady or Chatterji might.”

She gave him a despairing look. “Couldn’t you hide behind the door or something?” she asked, only half seriously.

“It might work,” he said. “If there’s somewhere close by I can stay undetected, then I needn’t show my face until he makes up his mind.”

“That would work.”

“Then that’s our plan,” McColl said, with as much confidence as he could muster.

She wasn’t fooled. “It sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it?”

“I can’t think of anything better. And if by some miracle Sergei agrees, we can stick him on a train to somewhere and shop the others. If he doesn’t…”

“Then what do we do?”

“We could disable them all. A bullet in the kneecap is very effective.”

She looked shocked, but only for a moment.

“You walk again eventually,” McColl said, far from sure it was true.

She looked unusually waiflike in her uncertainty. He pulled her head onto his shoulder, and they sat like that in silence for more than a minute. “I sometimes think of Sergei as a grown-up boy,” she said eventually. “And in some ways he is. But he’s been at war for years, and he knows how to fight.”

“I guessed as much.”

“And in case you don’t know—what worries me most is the thought of losing you.”

He held her a little tighter and wished they could stay where they were.

“So when do we go?” she asked.

“Later this evening, but I’ll need to do a reconnaisance first. The more we know, the better our chances.”

Cunningham found the colonel sittingin his usual chair, the tip of his cigarette glowing in the darkness as he gazed out into the wind-twisted shadows of the garden. Cunningham expected a tongue-lashing, but Fitzwilliam listened to his report with a faint smile and then offered him a cigarette.

The Turkish tobacco seemed, as ever, faintly redolent of decadence.

“Any sign of McColl?” Fitzwilliam asked.

“No.”

“He’ll have made a run for it,” Fitzwilliam said confidently. “He’s thrown his spanner in the works. Why would he hang around?”

To make sure, Cunningham thought. “You’re probably right,” he conceded out loud. “And the Good Indian team must know we’re scouring the city for them.”

“You think they’ve made a run for it, too.”

“Probably,” Cunningham said carefully. “Their plan may have failed, but Brady can congratulate himself on cheating the hangman, at least for a while. If they haven’t, and they do stick around for a crack at Gandhi, then we’ll have some questions to answer.”

“The photograph?”

“Precisely.”

“Maybe it’s not such a problem. You’re the one in the picture, and once you’re on the boat home, we can deny all knowledge of you. Or better still, find someone willing to testify that you’re another Russian. It’ll be a hard job proving otherwise.”

Cunningham took a last drag on the cigarette and stubbed it out in an ashtray. “One other thought occurred to me.”

“That the Prince of Wales might have been their target?”

“Might still be. I think we have to consider the possibility.”

“I already have. Our usual security arrangements have worked well enough in the past. And I don’t think it would help to confuse matters at this late hour.” He turned to take another cigarette from the case on the table and lit it from the stub of the last. “Good Indian was authorized by London,” he said, meeting Cunningham’s eyes for the first time that evening. “They can hardly hold us responsible if anything goes wrong, can they?”

“But…”

“You see, I’ve been giving this matter a great deal of thought. If Brady and his friends do nothing, then no harm’s done. And if they do make use of the guns, then we’ll have the excuse we need to nail down the lid on this country.”

“And the prince?” Cunningham heard himself ask.

“Oh, there’s always another one waiting in line.”

Waiting on their balcony, half-lostin the street’s mosaic of lamps, Caitlin was brought back to earth by the voice calling up from below and felt for one beautiful moment like someone’s misplaced Juliet, a rose by any other name.

Or had she gotten that the wrong way around?

She walked down the stairs, adjusting her veil, thinking that here it was—the moment she’d been dreading.

The source of her trepidation was harder to pinpoint. Why should the prospect of seeing Sergei and his murderous friends evoke this hideous sinking sensation? Wisely or not, she felt no fear for her life, but she was afraid of something. Her sense of who she was seemed far too fragile, as if she’d spent the last few years pretending to be someone she wasn’t. A broken future could be repaired; a broken past could not.