Death in Kashmir Read online

  She stopped as though that explained everything, and Sarah said sharply: ‘What do you mean? What could happen to you?’

  ‘I might die—like Cousin Hilda.’

  ‘Cousin Hilda? … Oh, you mean Mrs Matthews? I’d forgotten she was a relation of yours; no wonder you’re feeling upset. It was a ghastly thing to happen. But there’s no need to be morbid about it. After all, it was an accident that could only happen once in a blue moon.’

  ‘It wasn’t an accident,’ said Janet Rushton quietly and quite definitely.

  ‘What on earth do you mean?’

  ‘I mean that Mrs Matthews was murdered.’

  The night and the silence and the brooding snowdrifts seemed to take a soft step closer and breathe about the isolated wing of the dark hotel, and the little flames that rustled about the deodar logs whispered … murdered … murdered … murdered.

  ‘That’s ridiculous!’ exclaimed Sarah indignantly. ‘Major McKay’s a doctor, and he said it was an accident. He said that she must have slipped on that rotten snow and hit her head on those rocks as she fell.’

  Yet, unaccountably, she did not believe her own words. There had been something about Janet Rushton’s incredible, unemotional statement that carried conviction in the face of all sane judgement and reasoning.

  ‘I know what they said. But they’re wrong. I know she was murdered. You see, we had been afraid of this for some time.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Mrs Matthews and I.’

  ‘But–but … Oh, I know she was your cousin, but really, Janet!’

  ‘As a matter of fact, she wasn’t related to me at all. That was only camouflage.’

  Sarah came to her feet in one swift movement. ‘I think,’ she said evenly, ‘that you must be over … a bit over-imaginative.’

  Janet Rushton smiled a little wryly. ‘Why didn’t you say “over-dramatizing yourself”?’ she asked. ‘It was what you were going to say, wasn’t it? No: I’m not over-dramatizing myself. I only wish to God I were!’ Her voice broke on the last word and the fingers of her clasped hands twisted convulsively together. ‘I’m sorry: I thought you wanted to help. But I can quite see how far-fetched and Horror-Comic all this must sound to you. If it’s any comfort to you, it sounds pretty crazy to me, so I don’t know why on earth I should have expected you to believe it. I ought to have had more sense.’

  ‘But I do—I mean, I can’t … Oh, hell!’ sighed Sarah despairingly, subsiding once more onto the hearthrug. ‘I’m the one who ought to be saying, “I’m sorry,” not you. And I really am sorry. I suppose I thought for a moment that you must be making fun of me just to see how much I’d swallow, and I reacted by doing a Queen Victoria: the “We are not amused” line. Can I change that instead to “Go on, convince me”? Please, Janet. I mean it.’

  Janet’s attempt at a smile was not entirely successful, but the nod that accompanied it satisfied Sarah, who smiled back at her warmly. But that brief check had evidently served to reawaken the older girl’s sense of caution, for she stayed silent for an appreciable interval; sitting very still and apparently listening, though as far as Sarah could hear there was no sound from outside the room, and only the flutter and purr of flames and the occasional crackle of a burning log from inside it. Nevertheless, Miss Rushton continued to listen, and presently she rose to her feet, and crossing over to the outer door, switched off the light, and drawing back the bolt with her left hand (the right one, Sarah noted, was hidden in the pocket that held the little automatic) eased open the door.

  The flood of moonlight that lay along the verandah had narrowed as the moon moved up the sky, but the long, snow-powdered arcade with its fringe of glittering icicles hanging from the roof-edge above was silent and deserted, and the only marks upon it were the prints of Sarah’s footsteps.

  Janet stood in the doorway for a moment or two, looking about her and listening to that silence. Then, stepping back, she closed and bolted the door, switched on the light again, and having checked the window fastenings and made sure that the curtains were closely drawn, looked across at Sarah and said very softly: ‘You won’t mind if I turn on the radio, will you? Cousin Hilda and I used to use it whenever we wanted to talk in a place where we could be overheard, so I know all the available stations backwards, and one of them puts on a discussion group around this time of night—or at least, that’s what it sounds like. I’ve no idea where it comes from or what language they’re talking, but voices make a better cover than music. So if you don’t mind…’

  She stooped to remove a small battery radio set from a chest of drawers that stood against the wooden wall between the door and the window, and placing it on top, adjusted the knobs and switched it on, releasing an excitable babble of voices that would have done credit to a family of Neapolitan fisherfolk enjoying a domestic row.

  The volume, however, while not sufficient to disturb the slumbers of any fellow-guests further down the verandah, was more than enough to prevent anyone outside the room from separating the lowered voices of Miss Rushton and her visitor from the medley of masculine and feminine chitchat and the incessant whine and crackle of static.

  ‘I see what you mean!’ commented Sarah, automatically keeping her voice below the level of the invisible disputers: ‘Well, go on with what you were telling me. I’m all ears.’

  Janet returned to her chair, and leaning forward, elbows on knees, to warm her hands at the fire, said carefully, as though choosing her words: ‘You must have heard of the Secret Service, though I imagine it never occurred to you that very ordinary people like Cousin Hilda—Mrs Matthews—and myself could belong to it. No!’ as Sarah made a startled movement and seemed about to speak, ‘let me finish. People like us—like me—are only small fry. Our job is just to collect information: odds and ends of rumour and talk and gossip that can seem meaningless by themselves, but when added to other scraps collected by other people can—may—mean a great deal. Well, some months ago the department we work for picked up a…’

  She paused, apparently searching for a word that would not commit her too far, and finally selected an ambiguous one: ‘A trail——’

  2

  Sitting by the fire with her sensible, schoolgirlish hands spread out to the blaze, and speaking in a carefully controlled voice that was pitched to reach no further than Sarah’s ears, Janet Rushton told how she had been sent to Kashmir to contact and take her orders from a Mrs Matthews, who, since it might cause comment if an unmarried girl were to live alone, would pose as a relative so that the small houseboat on the Dal Lake near Srinagar, that had already been taken in Janet’s name, could be moored next to Mrs Matthews’ much larger one. How between them they had found out what they had been sent to find out: only to discover with horror that it was no more than the tip of a submerged and deadly iceberg whose presence no one had even suspected …

  The situation was not one that they were equipped to deal with, and the enormity of the lurking menace had made it necessary for them to pass on the details of their discoveries to someone in higher authority. Yet their orders specifically forbade them to make any move to leave the State without the permission of their department. Since none of their various Kashmiri contacts operated at a sufficiently high level to be entrusted with such potentially lethal and unstable dynamite, Mrs Matthews had sent off the equivalent of a ‘Mayday’ call for help—though she was well aware that it would not be easy for anyone of their own nationality, or any non-Kashmiri for that matter, to arrive in Srinagar and get in touch with them without being noticed and talked about: for the simple reason that by then the year was drawing to a close.

  The hordes of summer visitors had all left long ago, and the fact that she and Janet had been able to remain without exciting remark was because both had a talent for sketching in water colours, and November happens, to be among the loveliest of months in the valley, as it is then that the snowline moves downward to meet the forests, the chenar trees put on every shade of red from vermilion to crimson, an
d willows, poplars and chestnuts blaze yellow and gold.

  As painters, this annual transformation-scene had provided them with an impeccable reason for staying on when all the other visitors had left. Just as it had previously given them an admirable excuse not only to drive, ride, walk or be paddled in a shikara* to any spot they cared to see, but to fall into casual conversation with innumerable strangers who would pause to watch the artists at work, linger to ask questions and offer advice, and finally squat down beside them to talk. An end that had, according to Janet, played no small part in their selection for this particular assignment.

  It was during this period, when the last of the leaves were falling, that Mrs Matthews had sent off that ‘Mayday’ call and sat back to wait for the help that she assured the anxious Janet would not be long in arriving. But four days later the Civil and Military Gazette, one of India’s best known daily newspapers, had carried a small paragraph reporting the accidental death of a Major Brett who had apparently fallen from his carriage on the Frontier Express, en route to Rawalpindi: ‘Foul play was not suspected, and the police were satisfied that the unfortunate man had at some time during the night, and while still half asleep, opened the side door of the carriage by mistake for the bathroom door…’

  The accident was clearly not considered important enough to rate the front page, and had been tucked away on an inner one among a rag-bag of assorted news. But according to Janet, Mrs Matthews had read and reread it, looking uncharacteristically shocked and upset.

  ‘I’d never seen her look like that before,’ said Janet. ‘She was always so calm and good-tempered … even at the worst times. I asked her if he’d been a friend of hers, and she said no, she’d only met him once: he’d been in the room while she was being given her orders. But she couldn’t help wondering if he had been on his way to meet us, because she didn’t believe the accident story. He wasn’t the kind to make that sort of silly mistake.’

  ‘But surely, if the police——?’ began Sarah breathlessly.

  ‘If one of–of our people dies in an accident, we let it go at that. Officially, anyway. That may sound callous, but it’s a lot safer all round than asking a flock of questions that can only lead to embarrassing answers. Cousin Hil—Mrs Matthews—said we mustn’t worry, because if he had been the one, and on his way here, someone else would be sent instead. But–but I worried. I couldn’t help thinking that if it wasn’t an accident, and he’d been killed to stop him coming here, then–then the people who did it might know about us. And that if anything were to happen to us, no one would ever know what–what we knew.’

  When the last leaves had fallen and cat-ice began to form on the lakes, the two of them had abandoned their houseboats and moved into Nedou’s Hotel in Srinagar, to wait with ever-increasing anxiety for an answer to that urgent call for help. Knowing only too well that with every day that passed it would become more and more dangerous for anyone to answer it, because at that season of the year no casual visitor in their right mind cares to undertake the long, cold and frequently hazardous journey along the winding mountain roads that lead to the valley. Unless they have a very good reason for doing so. One that leaps to the eye or is easily explained! Though even then such rare wildfowl are apt to be conspicuous.

  One such reason accounted for Mrs Matthews and her young cousin being able to take up residence, and without causing so much as a raised eyebrow, in the almost empty hotel where, apart from the suites occupied by a few elderly permanent residents living on their pensions, only a handful of rooms were kept open for the use of occasional visitors: the fact that both women were skiing enthusiasts.

  Like the watercolour sketching, this had been a point that had not been overlooked by their employers; and Gulmarg, the little summer resort that had become one of the favourite playgrounds of the Raj and the chief meeting-place of the Ski Club of India, lay within easy reach of Srinagar—a car drive of twenty-four miles to the village of Tanmarg on the insteps of the mountains, followed by a four-mile ride on the back of a sure-footed hill pony up the steep and stony bridlepath that zig-zags upward through the forest, bringing the visitor to the shallow bowl of Gulmarg which lies in the lap of the tall ridge of Apharwat.

  Both women had brought their skis with them, and everyone in the hotel was soon aware that they had skied in Europe before the war, and on several occasions since then at meetings of the Ski Club in Gulmarg, whenever there had been sufficient members to make it worthwhile opening the snow-bound hotel for ten days or so. ‘You don’t find people coming up here to ski on their own,’ explained Janet, ‘because it isn’t worth opening it for just two or three people. And skiing on the level ground in the valley isn’t much sport.’

  Two days after they had moved into the hotel in Srinagar, and while they were becoming seriously worried over the lack of response to their ‘Mayday’ signal, a violent snowstorm had swept in from the north; blocking the passes, closing the Banihal route and both the Murree and Abbottabad roads into the valley, and ensuring that no plane could cross the mountains to land on Srinagar’s still somewhat makeshift airfield. Telephone, telegraph and power lines fell before the onslaught of wind and snow, blacking out all Kashmir and isolating it from the outside world for more than a week. And even when it was over, the sky remained dark and threatening, with stormclouds hiding the high peaks, the airfield blanketed in drifts ten to twenty feet deep, the city snow-bound and avalanche threatening the toiling gangs of coolies who fought to clear the winding road through the mountains beyond Baramulla. The Banihal route could not even be attempted and was to remain closed for several weeks.

  The first bus to struggle through brought sacks of mail, and Janet and Mrs Matthews had skied over to the post office on the Bund to collect their letters. They had also volunteered to fetch the rest of the hotel mail, and it was only after they had distributed this that they had time to open their own, most of which consisted of Christmas cards. The rest was of no interest except to the recipient, but one envelope—posted unsealed in the manner of printed circulars—contained a ten-page Christmas catalogue issued by a well-known store in Rawalpindi.

  Mrs Matthews, to whom this had been addressed, glanced through it and left it open on the writing-table in her room for the remainder of the day, where the room bearer and any hotel servant whose duties brought him there—not to mention the odd resident who dropped in for a drink and a chat—had ample opportunity to see it, and to leaf through it if they wished. But later that night, when the majority of guests were safely in bed and the curtains were close drawn, she had removed from her small paperback library of favourite books that accompanied her everywhere, Stella Gibbons’ Cold Comfort Farm; and with its help decoded the message that the Christmas catalogue contained——

  ‘She told me about it next morning while we were skiing on the Takht,’ said Janet. ‘The man who had fallen from the Frontier Express had been on his way up to see us. But it didn’t necessarily mean that the opposition had connected him with us, so we were not to worry. Someone else would be arriving as soon as possible and would identify himself in the usual manner. Cousin Hilda said he’d be arriving that day, because if the mail bus had got through it meant that the Murree-Baramulla road was passable, and that judging from the date on the envelope, the catalogue had been posted in Rawalpindi just over a week ago. He must obviously have been snowed up in some Dâk bungalow on the road.’

  She stopped and fell silent for a space; staring bleakly into the leaping flames, until at last Sarah said in an uncertain whisper: ‘Didn’t he come?’

  Janet dragged her thoughts back from whatever unpleasant paths they had been wandering along, and said: ‘Yes. He came. His name was Ajit Dulab and he was one of the best game shots in the country. And one of the best polo players, too. He was supposed to be up here to see if he could bag a snow-leopard—they get driven down to the lower hills by bad weather. The State put him up in one of the Maharajah’s Guest Houses, and a senior official gave a cocktail party for hi
m to which we were all asked. To cut a long story short, he managed to arrange a meeting with Cousin Hilda—she was going to give him a skiing lesson—and she told him everything. And the next day he said the weather was too bad for shooting, so he bought a couple of snow-leopard skins at a shop on the Bund, and left.’

  ‘Then what are you worrying about?’ asked Sarah. ‘It’s his headache now, not yours!’

  ‘He never got back,’ said Janet in a hoarse whisper.

  ‘You mean … you mean he was murdered?’ gasped Sarah.

  ‘I don’t know! I suppose it could have been an accident. Just–just bad luck. That road can be very dangerous; cars and buses and lorries are always going over the edge. There are so many places where the mountainside drops straight down below it for several hundred feet into the gorge where the river runs—and no one gets out of that alive. Apparently his car was swept over by an avalanche.’

  Sarah released her breath in an audible sigh of relief and said: ‘Then it must have been an accident!’

  ‘Perhaps. But avalanches can be started by people, and someone could have been waiting … it could have been done on purpose. If only we could have been sure that it was an accident we’d have felt … well, better, I suppose. But we weren’t sure. We didn’t even know, afterwards, if someone else had been sent up here or not. Perhaps someone was, and didn’t make it either … like–like the other two.’

  ‘Do you mean you had to sit here and wait and do nothing?’ demanded Sarah, astounded. ‘Haven’t you got a radio transmitter, or a receiving set, or anything like that? I should have thought——’