Scott Mariani - Valley of Death

Brooke went on, ‘So the big bastard let go of my arm and shoved me away so hard I fell over. Everything spilled out of my handbag. He must have thought I was going to snatch up my phone and snap a picture of him and his buddies, because he stamped on it and smashed it to pieces. Meanwhile, the one I’d knocked down was getting to his feet, and they had Amal in the back of the van. I started running over to try to do more to help him, but then two of them pulled out pistols and pointed them in my face. They looked as if they meant it. I was afraid they were going to shoot me. What else could I do? I backed off.’

‘You did the right thing, Brooke. There was nothing more you could have done.’

‘You’d have done more.’

‘Don’t be so sure about that.’

‘I know you would, Ben. You’d have taken those weapons off them and rammed them down their throats, sideways. You wouldn’t have let them take him.’

‘Sometimes you have to let it go. Happens to the best.’

‘I failed.’

‘You need to get that out of your head,’ he said. ‘Because you’re right, they probably would have shot you. And then you’d be dead. And if you were dead, there’d have been nobody to call in my help. And Amal would have been on his own. No winners in that situation.’

She smiled weakly. ‘Maybe you’re right.’

‘Plus, it would upset me just a little if you were dead.’

‘Thanks. Still, whatever happens, I won’t make that mistake ever again.’ She reached across her side for the little embroidered handbag and unzipped it. She dipped her hand inside and came out with something that made Ben’s eyebrows rise. Now he knew why the bag had looked heavy on its strap.

‘Where the hell did you get that?’

The pistol was a Browning Hi-Power, almost identical to the one Ben kept at the armoury at Le Val. One of his all-time favourite personal defence weapons, for its ruggedness, balance and deadly effectiveness. Nine-millimetre Parabellum. Thirteen-round magazine capacity, plus one in the chamber. All steel, the way guns used to be.

‘It’s Kabir’s,’ she said. ‘He keeps it in a bedside drawer at the house, for personal protection. Showed it to me once, much to Amal’s disapproval. He hates guns.’

‘That figures.’ Ben didn’t hate them, even though he knew too well what they could do. Nor did he love them, and he mistrusted people who did. In his way of thinking, they were simply tools. Ones to be treated with great caution and respect. Sadly, they often weren’t.

‘After the kidnapping, I sneaked in there and borrowed it. I should have done it sooner. If only I’d had it with me that night, things might have gone differently. But carrying it makes me feel more comfortable.’

Ben took it from her hand and examined it. It was old and scuffed, but well maintained and smelling of fresh oil. The magazine was fully loaded up. Nine-millimetre full metal jackets, the cartridge rims marked with the head stamp of the Indian government’s Ordnance Factories Board. Military ammo. Not available to civilians. Ben wondered where Kabir had managed to procure this kind of hardware from.

He said, ‘Might have gone differently for Kabir, too, if he’d taken it on his trip.’

He went to hand the pistol back to Brooke, but she waved it away. ‘You hold onto it. You can handle it better than I can.’

‘I’m hoping I won’t need it.’

‘What’s that saying you told me once? Better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it. It’s a truth I never fully appreciated until now.’

Ben tucked the gun into his waistband, in that old familiar place behind his right hip where he was convinced he had a Browning-shaped hollow from all the years of carrying one concealed. He untucked his shirt and let it hang loose to hide the pistol’s butt. He said to Brooke, ‘Finish the story.’

‘There’s not much more to tell. They all jumped aboard the van and slammed the doors and took off down the street, leaving me standing there alone. The couple of witnesses were long gone. I wanted to call for help, but my phone was in pieces. I ran down to the bottom of the lane and told the staff at the restaurant what had just happened. Or tried to. I was in such a state of shock that I probably wasn’t making much sense. One of the waiters called the police for me. When they finally turned up, I led them back here and described things pretty much the way I just did to you.’

‘What about the van’s registration number?’

‘Got it, memorised it, told it to the police. It was a local plate, with a DL for Delhi. Took four days for them to come back to me and tell me it was a stolen vehicle. I’d already guessed as much.’

‘Okay,’ Ben said. ‘Anything else?’

‘That’s all of it,’ she replied with a deep sigh. ‘Every last detail I can remember. Which basically adds up to zero. We have nothing.’

Ben shook his head. ‘We don’t have nothing.’

The street kids had done their duty and the Jaguar was still in one piece. Brooke paid them off with more rupees, then turned to Ben. ‘You want to get something to eat? We’re in the right place for it. Or we could have lunch at the house.’

‘Later,’ he said, getting into the car. ‘I’m not hungry.’

‘Me neither.’

‘And we’re not going back to the house. Not just yet.’

‘Fine with me,’ she said. ‘What did you have in mind?’

‘This Mr Prajapati of yours. The best private investigator in Delhi.’

‘He’s not mine,’ Brooke replied, a touch irritably as she got in the passenger seat. ‘I told you, Amal hired him to look for Kabir, then I hired him to look for Amal.’

‘With sensational results on both counts. When was the last report you got from the guy?’

‘Days ago. Don’t ask me how many. I’ve more or less given up waiting for him to call.’

‘Then I think it’s time we had an update,’ Ben said.

‘Want me to call him?’

‘I was thinking we could drop by his office and say hello. You know where it is?’

‘I’ve only been there, like, eight times. I think I can remember the way.’

‘Then let’s pay Mr Prajapati a visit.’

The offices of the P. P. Detective Agency were on the second floor of a dirty building on a busy pedestrianised precinct in Janakpuri District Center, between a shop advertising LAPTOP AND DESKTOP REPAIRING and a boutique selling cheap knockoffs of designer-name jeans.

‘Classy location,’ Ben said. ‘If this guy’s the top private eye in the city, imagine the worst.’

‘He did come highly recommended,’ Brooke said. ‘He spent thirty years with the Delhi police.’

‘What better recommendation is there?’

She led the way inside the building. ‘I always take the stairs. The lift makes creaking sounds like it’s going to stick. And it smells as if someone’s been keeping chickens in there.’

‘Good idea.’ Ben thought the whole building and the street outside smelled pretty bad too, but maybe he just hadn’t been in the city long enough to get used to the ambient aroma that hit the olfactory sense like a mixture of pollution, sewage, sweat, cooking fumes, decaying vegetation, tropical flowers and incense that had been mulched up together in a giant cauldron and stewed for a couple of thousand years.