Philip Kerr - Esau

‘The yeti is already moving up toward the ice field,’ said Tsering.

‘Good. Okay, you know what to do. Any of them steps out from under the clamshell, shoot them. You should be comfortable enough in here,’ said Boyd, and with a final cheery wave, zipped up the airlock door behind him.

‘Goodbye,’ he shouted, and then dropped the outside flap to seal the entrance.

The sirdar turned immediately to Jack, brought his hands together in a namaste, bowed, and said, ‘I am sorry. Jack sahib. How it is happening, I don’t know. I thought Ang Tsering was good man, good assistant sirdar. I pick him. Yo saap. Yo bhiringi. It is my fault, Jack sahib. Malaai ris , Jack sahib. Malaai dukha. ’

Jack shook his head.

‘Forget it, Hurké. It’s not your fault. The question is, what are we going to do about it? Do you think he’d really shoot if one of us went outside now?’

Hurké Gurung moved his head from side to side in an expression of uncertainty.

‘I am not sure at all,’ he said finally. ‘It is a terrible thing to do murder in my country. Tsering is not a very religious man. For him to kill someone, I think he would require very much money. Enough perhaps to leave Nepal for good. He has always wanted to go and live in America, I think.’

‘Boyd’s certainly not short of money,’ said Jack. ‘And his people could probably fix something with the State Department.’

‘ Ke garne , Jack? What is to be done?’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Perhaps, I am thinking he would kill one of you bideshi , because you are foreigners. He is a most resentful fellow I think. Always he has been most troublesome for more money, and for more equipment, always more. A real saaglo . But me? Perhaps he will be having more respect for me, because I am sirdar. For him, I am maalik . He will have to have maanu for me. And maybe more than a little fear too. Like some pahelo cowardly fellow.’

Jutta picked up Jameson’s jacket and covered the dead man’s face. Then she stood up and shook her head.

‘I think you’re wrong,’ she said. ‘I think I’m the one who he would find hardest to kill. After all the help I’ve given him—’ Jutta checked her irritation.

‘The memsahib is right, of course,’ said Hurké. ‘Perhaps if the memsahib was to engage Ang Tsering in conversation, then I might come at him from behind.’

‘Aren’t you forgetting something?’ sighed Swift. ‘There’s only one way out of this damned tent. And it’s made of Kevlar too. Not exactly your average tent material.’ She punched the wall experimentally. ‘Not even a snow leopard could tear through this. This stuff’s virtually bulletproof.’

Hurké Gurung dived into his rucksack and came up with his Nepalese knife, the boomerang-shaped khukuri . He drew the eighteen-inch-long hatchet blade from its hard leather scabbard and hefted it confidently.

‘Pardon for contradiction, memsahib,’ he said. ‘But this will do the job. Maybe bulletproof, yes. But bulletproof not knife-proof. Khukuri. From when I was a Gurkha. Cut through anything. Very sharp. Even cut through Boyd sahib’s clamshell.’

‘Ang Tsering?’ Jutta’s tone was matter-of-fact, even friendly. ‘Are you there? I need to talk to you, please.’

Hearing nothing, she repeated the question and began to unzip the interior door.

‘I don’t want to talk to you.’

‘Well, I have to talk to you.’

‘Didn’t you hear what Mister Boyd told you?’ said Tsering. ‘What he told me? That I was to shoot anyone who stepped outside of the tent.’

‘Yes, but you and I are friends, Tsering. We’ve been friends since the beginning. That’s why I helped you with your German.’

‘I wouldn’t place too much reliance on this help. Miss Henze,’ insisted Tsering. ‘And Mister Boyd is my friend now. He is helping me.’

‘Well, maybe he is, but I can’t believe you’d shoot me.’

‘Be assured it would give me no pleasure. But I have my orders. Please stay inside the tent. There I can assure your safety.’

‘Have you ever heard of the Hippocratic oath, Tsering?’

‘Of course. It is an oath taken by doctors of medicine.’

‘Well then, Jameson sahib has been shot,’ she said. ‘I need to fetch something from my medical bag in the lodge. Otherwise he will die.’

Jutta threw back the outside flap and, still standing inside the doorway, faced Ang Tsering. Smoking nervously and with an automatic pistol in his gloved hand, he looked more uncomfortable than usual. Jutta wondered if he had ever held a gun before, if Boyd had even shown him how to use it.

‘That is far enough please, memsahib. I do not wish to shoot you.’

She glanced down the bloodstained front of her body.

‘As you can see, Jameson has already lost a lot of blood. He is quite likely to bleed to death unless I can help him.’

The assistant sirdar threw away his cigarette and rubbed a hand through his sea-urchin haircut frustratedly.

‘So you can see I simply must have that bag. Perhaps one of the other Sherpas could fetch it for me.’

‘No, this will not be possible. All of the Sherpas ran away as soon as they heard the shooting.’

Jutta heard a ripping sound inside the clamshell behind her and knew that the sirdar must be nearly outside. She stepped out of the doorway and onto the snow. Looking down the glacier she saw the tracks in the snow. But the sun reflecting off the snow was too strong and Boyd was already invisible to her.

‘Then either you must get my bag, or I will fetch it myself.’

Tsering backed away, levelling his gun at Jutta’s head. Only now did he think to work the slide that pushed a bullet into the breach of the automatic.

Jutta smiled, realizing that his familiarity with the gun was probably limited to television programs.

‘What about the safety catch?’ she said.

Tsering glanced at the side of his weapon and then checked himself angrily.

‘Don’t patronize me,’ he said and fired into the snow in front of Jutta’s feet. ‘You see? You see? I know what I’m doing and I will shoot. Believe me, memsahib. If you take one more step I will have no choice but to shoot you in the leg. And who will help the doctor? Answer me that, please?’

‘You’ll have to kill me to stop me helping Jameson sahib,’ she said.

‘Why do you want to get yourself killed?’ pleaded Tsering. ‘You have been very kind to me. I do not wish it. Now please go back inside.’

Out of the corner of her eye, Jutta saw the sirdar stealthily approaching Tsering’s back. She caught sight of the murderous expression on Hurké’s face and the razor-sharp blade of the khukuri glittering in his hand like a bolt of lightning, and stopped her cry with her own hand.

Mistaking her gesture for fear, Tsering advanced toward her, still pointing his gun.

‘Yes, you would do well to be afraid. I will do it, make no mistake. I care not if Miles Jameson sahib lives or dies. He is just another bideshi to me. Do you hear? Let him die. He should never have come in the first place. None of you should have come. You are all thieves. All of you.’

Tsering was shouting at her now, as if trying to convince himself that he could use the gun and shoot her if he had to.

‘Now go back inside, you stupid woman,’ he told her angrily. ‘Or I will shoot you. Do you hear?’

The hand pointing the gun at her was shaking. Jutta retreated, thinking he might pull the trigger accidentally.

By now the sirdar was only about a metre behind Tsering, the khukuri held at shoulder level.

Jutta gasped. Surely he wouldn’t actually use the knife.