Death to the Landlords

Seven

Malaikuppam: Wednesday Evening

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None of them, until some time afterwards, really got the events of that day into focus, or could link them into any significant sequence. They reacted rationally, answered questions coherently, even remembered abstruse and advisable precautions, and took them as a matter of course; but all in a haze, like automatons responding to automatic stimuli. Too shocked to feel, they could still think and reason, and do what the circumstances demanded of them.

So they left Patti lying where they had found her, because even her position might mean something to the trained observer, something to indicate where the explosive had been placed, and how fired. There was nothing they could do for her, except, as soon as it was bearable and time had allowed them to thaw out enough to recognise the necessity, to let her parents know what had happened to her, and perhaps, also, inform whoever had been more or less responsible for her in this country, her head teacher, or the business acquaintance of her father who had got her the job. No one could help Patti herself any more. If there is such a thing as instantaneous death, that was what had happened to her, and nobody could undo it.

So they set a guard on the doorway of the wrecked office, and another of Purushottam’s servants in the garden at the rear; and Priya, still blindly following her own nature, retrieved the screaming children from among the vegetables, and made sure they had not a scratch upon them before she handed them over, now shaken only by hiccoughing sobs, to their distraught mothers. After that they went back to the house, all of them walking rapidly and mechanically like somnambulists, chilled of face and unnaturally wide and fixed of eye, and the telephoning began. First the local police; and they were not so far gone as not to realise that Purushottam’s family name would count for a great deal there. Then to Mr Das Gupta in Koilpatti, to tell him that no car would be coming for him today, that no meeting was possible today. Not the reason, however; not yet. Later they might well feel that they needed his legal advice, but first they must let the police have their head. Touch nothing, alter nothing, inflect nothing. The loaded Land-Rover still stood below the terrace; they had forgotten it, until Purashottam sent out a servant to bring in the bags and remove the food before the heat of the day began. They all knew there would be no departure now.

‘We ought,’ said Dominic, expressing what they were all feeling, ‘to let Inspector Raju know what has happened, too.’

For this could hardly be anything but a corollary of the affair at Thekady. Either one more in a series of outrages which had begun there, or else a move to eliminate witnesses of the first crime. They hovered between the two opinions, but the one thing they could not believe was that this was an unconnected incident. They had blundered into a labyrinth, perhaps merely by reason of being on the boat that discovered the murdered body of Mahendralal Bakhle; and now every move to find the way out might be the wrong move.

‘It is a delicate matter,’ said Purashottam. ‘We are in Tamil Nadu, and the lake is in Kerala, and the state police can be jealous of their rights. We must wait until they come. But as it does seem to be a continuation of your Inspector Raju’s case, they may even be glad to call him into consultation. We should be diplomatic.’

They could use such terms, and consider such niceties, while all the time within their shut minds the frantic thoughts kept running round and round in circles like shot animals trying to reach their own pain: ‘Patti’s dead. She left her diary in the office, and she remembered it and ran back for it, and the office blew up in her face and killed her. Ten minutes more, and the Land-Rover would have been on its way, and she would have been safe on board – but then Purushottam would have shut himself in there with his accounts – Patti delayed the departure, and it’s Patti who’s dead… But which were they after?’

‘But we could call the Swami,’ said Dominic.

‘In Delhi?’ It seemed almost as far away as America.

‘Why not?’ He wanted to hear the sanest, most reassuring and detached voice he knew. It had a way of settling things into a true perspective, even death. This was not the first time he had faced the Swami Premanathanand across a murdered body, and perceived in consequence that death is only a part of the picture, however inevitable and omnipresent. ‘He’ll need to know what’s happened, since he sent me here, and he’s quite certainly concerned about you.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Purushottam, faintly encouraged. ‘I suppose it might be a good idea at least to let him know what’s happened.’

It took Dominic some little time to get his call through and even when he reached the number that belonged to the haphazard little central office of the Mission, buried in the narrow complexities of the Sadar Bazaar, it took him longer still to get hold of the Swami. There was a minor policy conference in progress over the projected purchase of some new agricultural machines, and the Swami could leave the council only for a few hurried minutes. Dominic could picture the earnest heads bent over coloured brochures, and all the ardent faces, young and old, so lit up with partisan enthusiasm that the sharp western mind would never recognise their angelic shrewdness and practicality until they had beaten down his prices and extracted from him his most effective lines. They had a small factory in Andhra where they were making their own, working them out to specification according to regional needs, but they couldn’t yet do everything themselves. And angels need to be both practical and shrewd, in order to hold their own with fallible mankind.

The distant voice, gentle, courteous and abstracted, said in his ear: ‘I have only a few moments, I am sorry. You are at Malaikuppam?’

‘Yes, Swami, we’re here. Since the day before yesterday…’

‘And all is well with you and Purushottam?’

‘No, nothing is well. We need your advice.’

‘Tell me,’ said the Swami alertly, and composed himself to listen in silence. When the brief but shattering recital was completed, he continued silent for a moment, and then he made utterance twice, with a thoughtful pause between, and very gently hung up the receiver.

Dominic came back into the room where the others waited; all their eyes were on him, and Priya at least seemed to see in his face something heartening, as though he had been given a promise, and carried the sheer relief and reassurance of it in his eyes.

‘What did he say?’

‘He said,’ Dominic reported faithfully, ‘ “To the born sure is death, to the dead sure is birth; so for an issue that may not be escaped thou dost not well to sorrow.” ’

‘Helpful!’ said Larry sourly, his New England mentality outraged.

‘And then he said: “I will think what is best to be done.” And hung up.’

‘And is that all?’

‘You don’t know him,’ said Dominic.

Strangely, as if a strangled spring had been released to gush freely, Priya bent her shining black head and began to cry, freely and quietly, not like a heart breaking but like a broken heart beginning to mend. And Purushottam, far too Indian to put an arm round her, nevertheless leaned forward with a gesture of fastidious delicacy, almost of fear, as though he had astonished himself, and took her hand in his.

The Tamil inspector of police from the district H. Q. was a strong contrast to Inspector Raju, a highly-strung, insecure man who made a fair amount of noise over his activities; but lucidly his insecurity prompted him to accept a highly-convenient let-out when it was offered. After lengthy discussion by telephone with his District Superintendent he gave it as their joint opinion that the Keralese authorities should certainly be called into consultation, since this appeared to belong to Inspector Raju’s prior case. The probability must at least be examined. Meantime, all the witnesses were kept waiting in suspense inside the house, while Purushottam showed the police officers the scene of the tragedy. Then he, too, was dispatched to wait with the others.

It was no wonder that they had a long time to wait. They had seen the desolation of the office, every shard of which would have to be examined; for somewhere there were the fragments, such as remained, of the second bomb. And they had seen the violation of Patti, with which the police doctor was now engaged. What they had to tell was of secondary urgency. They waited now in a very slightly relaxed but still numbed quietness, chilled with shock for all the growing heat of the day. The servants brought food, but no one did more than play with it, if this helpless distaste could be described as play. Only late in the afternoon did Inspector Tilak get to them, and even then it was to inform them that Inspector Raju had been notified several hours previously, and was on his way. The satisfaction in his voice was carefully suppressed but none the less present. The death of an English girl in a terrorist outrage was a very hot potato, which he was by no means sorry to be allowed to drop in the lap of the police of the next state. What he wanted to hear from them first, therefore, was the whole story of the events at Thekady; and they told them separately, each of them remembering in isolation. Their statements regarding the new outrage were left to wait until Inspector Raju arrived, as in the early evening he did, driven by Sergeant Gokhale in a rather unexpected Mercedes.

Mindful of his duties as a host, Purushottam had made provision for them. A meal was waiting, and there were rooms prepared, since clearly they could not return to their own state this same night. The two inspectors had a lengthy session together before they interviewed their witnesses, and it was past nine o’clock by the time they had all made their second statements, and were assembled again in conference. It seemed that Inspector Raju, in view of what they knew already, saw no point in concealing from them those aspects of this case which linked up only too surely with the previous one.

‘Mr Bakhle was killed by a bomb, deliberately planted on board his boat. I can tell you now that the bomb that killed Miss Galloway, of which we have found fragments – more fragmentary, unfortunately, than in the last case – seems to have been manufactured in a similar way, with the same materials, probably by the same hand and at the same time. The connection is clear. We cannot reconstruct the dial of the firing device this time, and we don’t know for what hour it was set, for there is a possibility that it may have gone off through some unexpected shock or vibration. So we can’t deduce from the time of the explosion anything precise about the person for whom it was meant. But I’m sure you will not have missed the implications. In five or ten minutes more the party would have left, and it seems obvious from your statements that after your departure Mr Narayanan would have gone back to his work in the office, in preparation for his lawyer’s intended visit.’

He looked round them all, and his lined face was a little grey and tired after his journey, but there was nothing wrong with the sharpness of his eyes.

‘Yes, it is true, not everyone could have known that fact, though all this household could, as well as yourselves. But that is less significant than you may think, for the fact seems to be that ever since his father’s funeral rites Mr Narayanan has spent much of his waking time in there, and that may be well known by now to most of the district. It could also very easily have been learned by anyone making a private study of Mr Narayanan’s habits. I have seen for myself that though there may be a watchman during the night, this house is virtually open twenty-four hours a day. The gate is almost never closed, but even if it were, the wall would be very easy to scale. In short, the bomb could easily have been planted during the night by someone who had watched Mr Narayanan’s routine for some days, but perhaps had not even realised that he now had guests. The necessary observations may well have been made before your arrival. But in any case another death, the death of an innocent bystander, quite uninvolved in any ideological struggles in India, would not worry the people who plant bombs to do their work. To them Miss Galloway, I’m afraid, merely represents the loss of a little explosive. They have more.’

Quietly and carefully Dominic said: ‘You’re saying, Inspector, that the attack was meant for Purushottam. Not for Patti.’

‘I am saying that quite clearly that is the inference you have all drawn from the occurrence. It is, indeed, the inference anyone would draw. So much so, that now I am only wondering, and perhaps asking you to consider the possibility, too, whether that is not what we are all meant to think. Here is another landlord, a vulnerable target, obviously the bomb was meant for him.’

Purushottam’s sombre face did not change; the idea was not new to him. Nor did it seem to impress him very much, after the day they had spent here together, and the sights they still carried burned within their eyes, and could not stop seeing.

‘But,’ said Inspector Raju, “There are many landlords, some more obvious targets than our friend here. Here is a new bomb outrage, at the home of the land-owner who happens to be entertaining the witnesses closest to the Bakhle killing at Thekady, and that bomb outrage just happens to wipe out one of those witnesses, instead of the host. I am not very fond of coincidences. I always tend to look round behind them – almost to believe that they are not coincidences at all. Therefore I would like you to consider the possibility that an agent of the Naxalites may very well have moved here from Thekady to Malaikuppam, not because his next victim had already been marked down here, but because he was following you, the witnesses.’

‘But in that case,’ said Larry, galvanised into speculation almost against his will, ‘if he wanted to get rid of us, why not plant his bomb in the Land-Rover, and time it for when we were well away from here? It would be the safest method I can think of.’

‘Because, Mr Preisinger, for the past two nights Mr Narayanan’s watchman has been making your Land-Rover his base. He is a romantic, and to him a Land-Rover is an exotic wonder. You may be sure no one has had the opportunity of violating that sacred vehicle. Moreover, supposing there was a choice among witnesses – some, say, who knew virtually nothing, one who had some special knowledge – they would have preferred to aim, at least, at getting the vital one, and letting the others go. Many deaths are acceptable in a pinch, but need not be wastefully incurred where they are not necessary. And Miss Galloway had made use of the office yesterday evening. She may have been under observation then – even so closely that someone knew she had left her diary there. I do not say it is so. I say only that it is something to be considered, and I ask you to consider it.’

‘She wrote two letters,’ said Priya suddenly, raising her heavy dark eyes. ‘She had them sealed and stamped in her bag, ready to post. If she had any knowledge – if there was anything troubling her – may she not have put it into her letters home?’

‘We had already thought of the same possibility, Miss Madhavan. The bag is virtually undamaged. We have opened the letters. They are exactly what would be expected of a young girl’s letters home – quite straightforward accounts of her travels, only omitting, understandably, the ugly experience at Thekady. There is nothing there for us. Naturally they will be passed on to her family. But what made you think of that? Had she behaved as if she had some secret and dangerous knowledge? Her collapse at Thekady now almost suggests that she believed she knew something of perilous importance, and was frightened to confide it – frightened to a degree which cannot quite be accounted for by the shock of the discovery, which was common to you all. And under which, I must say, you yourself behaved with exemplary fortitude.’

She hardly heard the compliment, though if she had it might have given her both pleasure and pain. She was peering into pure air before her, frowning anxiously.

‘I don’t know… She’d had such a sheltered life until she came to India, naturally she was very much upset by the manner of Mr Bakhle’s death. She had never known anything like that. I don’t know, it would be easy to misinterpret what was no more than the after-effects of shock. What can I say? I hardly knew her. Surely you must have looked through all her belongings. Was there nothing?’

‘Nothing. For of course you are right, we have looked.’

‘And the diary she left behind – it was very important to her, she ran at once to recover it – like the wind she ran.’

‘Ah, the diary!’ Inspector Raju drew a long breath. ‘What has become of that? Who will tell us? We have sifted through every scrap of paper that remains in that office, Miss Madhavan. But we have found no diary.’

In the hours before dawn, when at last he fell asleep after long contention with wakeful images that would not be shaken off, Dominic dreamed of hearing a car’s engine climbing steadily up the. track from the main road, endlessly climbing and climbing and refusing to give up or be discouraged, though every yard gained was replaced by an equal distance unrolling ahead. A part of his mind was still awake enough to realise that this was one of those frequent frustration dreams that come between waking and sleeping, usually in the last hours before arising, and go on for an eternity that turns out to have been contained in the twinkling of an eye. The frustration is there because the minuscule particle of time involved compresses the eternity too strictly for any fulfilment ever to be achieved. The car would never complete the climb, never arrive anywhere. He knew that as he slid away into deeper sleep.

But when he opened his eyes on the rose-radiance of dawn, and his ears to the chattering of the sparrows on the verandah, and the passing scream of parakeets come and gone like a flash of light, he felt in his bones and blood that something was changed since yesterday. He showered and dressed, and went out through the quiet house, where nothing stirred but the distant soft movements of barefoot servants, to the terrace, and straight across it to the top of the steps.

Below him the Land-Rover still stood forlornly waiting; but beside it was parked, with almost pedantic neatness, an elderly black Morris. It seemed the car of his dream had completed the climb, after all, and arrived at its destination. He was not aware of ever having seen this car before. It had the discreetly old-fashioned, anonymous, average look of the hired car, and betrayed nothing whatsoever about the man or woman who had recently driven it.

Dominic went looking for him. The terrace continued round the corner of the house and all along the north-east wall; and at an hour when everything that wakes turns its back on the chill of the night and looks eastward into the first rays of the sun, this jutting corner seemed to be the place where anyone already waking would naturally go. There was a stone seat just round the corner, draped with a hand-loomed rug. And there was a man sitting cross-legged on the seat, his hands cupped in his lap, his face upturned to the rising sun.

His colour was pale bronze, and in the reddish, gilding rays of dawn, launched horizontally like lances along the mist-blue and dust-amber land, he might have been indeed a bronze, made not so far away in Tanjore in the high period of the art, three centuries and more ago, for all his clothing melted into the same range of glossy metallic shades. Not even the darkness and texture of hair broke the unity, for his head, with close-set ears and beautiful, subtle shaping of the skull beneath the skin, was shaven naked as his face. Lofty, jutting bronze brows arched above large, closed eyelids; the long lips were folded together peacefully in the faintest and purest of smiles, and the thin, straight nose inhaled so softly and tranquilly that not even the act of breathing seemed to inflect his charged stillness.

But he was not asleep. As soon as Dominic’s advancing figure cast a shadow on his nearer shoulder, the bronze cups of his eyelids lifted from exceedingly bright, mild, knowing eyes, dark brown and deeply set; and when two more steps had projected the shadow across his body he dwindled magically but gracefully into a middle-sized elderly gentleman wearing a saffron robe with a frayed hem kilted comfortably round his loins, and a fawn-coloured trench coat draped over his shoulders. His naked feet – his sandals lay beside the bench – were slim, bony and whitened with dust. He looked way-worn, but not tired. And he looked up at Dominic with a bright, gratified smile, and joined his palms gently under his chin in greeting.

‘Namaste, my son!’

‘Namaste, my father! I’m glad you are here.’ His very presence resolved everything into a matter of serene understatements.

‘You are not surprised?’ remarked the Swami Premanathanand, with a distinct suggestion of disappointment.

‘Never surprised by you. But very glad of you.’

‘I flew from Delhi to Madurai – it is a tedious business, thought it is so quick. And from Madurai I have driven that hired car – a car quite unknown to me, I am used only to my own.’ His own was a forty-year-old Rolls, visually reduced by sheer hard labour to a flying scarecrow, but mechanically nursed like an only child. He was slightly surprised by his success with this modern degenerate, and a little proud. ‘I arrived nearly an hour ago, but I did not wish to disturb anyone. I am afraid this is a house not well-blessed at present with dreamless sleep.’

‘I dreamed I heard you coming,’ said Dominic.

‘That was not a dream, I was thinking of you. As I promised,’ he said, ‘I gave thought to the problem of what might best be done. And I thought that my responsibility in this matter is very great, and that I ought to be here with you.’

He rose, and slipped his feet into his worn sandals, his long, prehensile toes gripping the leather thongs.

‘Shall we go into the house?’