Jon Stock - Games Traitors Play

‘The priests, they are very strict about this sort of thing, you know,’ the man from Bangalore had said. But Marchant had reassured them, explaining that he was just there for the atmosphere. In the darkness, he had calculated that he wouldn’t be turned away before he reached Shushma.

Suddenly he was at the front of the queue, standing before her. They exchanged eye contact, and he could already see surprise in Shushma’s eyes, which was just what he wanted. She glanced across at the priest, who was wearing a white lunghi bordered with green and gold, and a sacred thread slung diagonally across his bare chest. He was too busy with a big party of devotees to have noticed a foreigner apparently trying to talk his way into the shrine.

‘Sorry, Hindus only,’ Shushma said, in surprisingly good English. He remembered that she had worked at the British High Commission for a year. He studied her for a moment, tracing her features, thinking that his father had once looked into the same big eyes. She was undeniably beautiful. Marchant’s mother had never been a big influence in his life. If she had, he imagined he would feel some hostility towards the woman who had slept with his father and was standing before him now. Instead, he felt only warmth. And pity. Her small features had a filigree fragility about them.

‘You need to come with me, now,’ he said quietly. ‘Your life is in danger.’ Shushma dropped the candle she was holding. The yellow ghee spread out across the table. ‘Don’t be alarmed, please. I’m here to help you. Look at me.’

She fumbled with the spilt candle and slowly raised her eyes.

‘Who are you?’ she asked. Was there a flicker of recognition? Marchant detected a growing restlessness in the queue behind him.

‘I’m not with the police,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m Daniel, Stephen Marchant’s son.’

Meena moved quickly back through the hall, following the foreigner at a safe distance. He looked Russian to her. Something about his manner, the tan socks on his shoeless feet. When he passed the Golden Lotus Pond, he broke into the open and pulled out a mobile phone. Meena dropped back and did the same, calling her CIA colleague who was still stationed outside the east gate.

‘We’re bringing her out in five,’ she said.

‘Your taxi’s waiting,’ he replied.

‘And we’ve got company,’ she added.

She hung up and rang her colleague at the Lakshmi idol. The signal was faint, but he heard enough to make his way quickly towards the Golden Lotus Pond, picking up another colleague, who was posing as a market-stall seller, along the way. They knew what to do. Delay the Russian for as long as possible, accuse him of taking photos without a camera ticket. Anything. Just play up the paperwork, Meena had told them.

‘How can I trust you?’ Shushma asked, glancing around her again, but Marchant sensed that she already believed he was who he said he was.

‘My father used to keep a Nataraja on his bedside table in Delhi,’ he said. She looked at the icon across the hall, and then back at Marchant. It was a gamble. He didn’t know where his father and Shushma had made love, where they had conceived Dhar, but there was a chance it had been in his parents’ bedroom in Delhi.

Shushma stared at him, this time tracing his features, recognising in them the man she had once loved.

‘I have been in danger most of my life.’

‘The Americans want to ask you some questions. We’d rather you talk to us, in London.’

‘I don’t know where my son is,’ she said. ‘If that’s what you want.’

‘I’m sure you have no idea. But the Americans won’t believe you. Trust me, I know. Please, we have to go. The east entrance.’

Shushma paused for a moment and then went over to talk to another female temple worker, who was lifting candles out of boxes in the shadows. After a brief exchange, the woman came up to the table and began to hand out candles to the devotees who had grown increasingly agitated in the queue. Shushma said something to her in Hindi, touched her forearm and then made her way out of the hall, followed a few yards behind by Marchant.

Marchant saw Meena up ahead and drew alongside Shushma, who was walking swiftly, her small feet barely lifting off the ground.

‘This is Lakshmi, she’s with us,’ he told her as Meena approached. ‘You can trust her.’

Meena stopped, expecting them to slow up. But Shushma kept moving, head down, as if she was trying to shut out the world, an approach to life that Marchant reckoned didn’t look too out of place in a temple.

‘A car’s waiting for us outside,’ Meena said, catching up with them. She turned to Marchant with raised eyebrows. Hadn’t she expected him to close the deal, to appear with Shushma?

‘She’s American,’ Shushma said quietly, still walking fast.

‘Don’t worry,’ Marchant said. ‘We’re going to London. I promise.’

‘Please, relax,’ Meena said, speaking in fluent Hindi and slipping an arm through Shushma’s. For a moment, she resisted, but after glancing at Marchant, who managed a smile, she let Meena’s arm stay interlocked with hers. ‘We’re here to help you,’ Meena added.

Satisfied that Shushma was in safe hands, Marchant looked back down the crowded colonnade. Again he thought he saw someone slipping away, disappearing behind the pillars. He was certain it was Valentin.

‘I thought your people were taking care of the Russian,’ he said.

‘They were. Why?’

‘He’s behind us. I’ll catch you up.’

‘Daniel, we need to get her out,’ Meena said, a sudden urgency in her voice.

‘You don’t know this man. Get her into the car. I’ll find you.’

Before Meena could protest further, Marchant had peeled away and was heading back down the colonnade. He knew it wasn’t part of the plan — Meena was meant to neutralise any threats — but Valentin wasn’t going away. He should have pushed him under the train.

The tall Russian was moving fast through the devotees now, walking towards the Hall of a Thousand Pillars in the west corner of the complex. It was one of the temple’s main tourist attractions, a sixteenth-century architectural marvel, according to Meena. She had talked about it on the flight, explaining with a smile that there were in fact only 985 pillars. It reminded Marchant of a round of golf his father had told him he once played at the Bolgatty Palace in Kochi harbour, southern India: nine holes, but only six tees.

Marchant hung back behind a pillar to watch Valentin, trying to establish what he was doing. The Russian showed a ticket and entered the hall, glancing in his direction before he disappeared out of sight. Marchant was confident that he hadn’t been seen. Was he meeting someone? Hoping to draw him away from the others? Marchant knew he should have stayed with Meena and Shushma, but it wasn’t tradecraft that was driving him now. The Russians — Valentin, Primakov — were too closely associated in his mind with something he never wanted to accept. They represented all that he despised about himself, about his father: the potential in everyone to betray.

He paid for a ticket and entered. Ahead of him was a low-ceilinged hall supported by row upon row of carved pillars. It was about to close for the day and was almost deserted, but there was no sign of Valentin. He walked forward, keeping close to the pillars and looking down the lines as they stretched away from him. He thought he saw a movement to his right, in the far corner, and headed towards it. But by the time he reached it there was no one there.

Then he spotted him, at the end of another row of pillars. The hall was also a gallery, and Valentin seemed to be studying a glass display cabinet of some kind. Marchant moved quickly, his bare feet silent on the cold floor. He stopped behind a pillar, four feet from Valentin, who still had his back to him. Marchant watched for a moment, wondering whether to strike from behind or get him to turn first. It seemed less cowardly. But then Valentin glanced at his watch and looked around, making up Marchant’s mind for him.