Jani and the Greater Game (The Multiplicity Series Book 1) (15 page)

SEVEN

Over the coals? –

A pleasant surprise – Alfie is tasked with a mission –

“The ferret after the rabbit...”

A
MILITARY POLICE
jeep drove Alfie Littlebody from his bungalow and through the canton to Brigadier Cartwright’s office.

Alfie felt like a condemned man. He’d spent most of the previous day kicking his heels in the bungalow, and in the evening against his best intentions had weakened and taken himself along to the Officers’ Club. Fortunately he’d not come across Tomlinson – out whoring with Kemp and his crowd, no doubt – and had proceeded to get thoroughly blotto. The drink had succeeded in wiping from his consciousness his fear of being hauled across the coals by the brigadier, but had left him this morning with a hell of a thick head.

The jolting of the jeep, as it passed the stands of bougainvillea surrounding the command complex, threatened to dislodge the contents of Alfie’s stomach. His fear of the imminent meeting was starting to mount. As far as he could tell, he was well and truly for the high jump however it worked out. Either Brigadier Cartwright had him down as a coward for turning tail and running from the massacre, or word had leaked to the brigadier from the mess that he’d gone native and had Nationalist sympathies.

It was another hot morning and Alfie was sweating in torrents. He mopped his brow. The sergeant in the driving seat glanced at him and said, “Head up, sir. Take it from me, old Cartwright’s a pussycat. Mind your Ps and Qs, salute in the right places, grovel a bit and you’ll be fine.”

“I will?” Alfie said, and even to his own ears he sounded pathetically grateful.

“Mark my words,” said the sergeant, braking outside the brigadier’s office. “It’s Cartwright’s deputy, Smethers, who’s the real bastard. Sadistic as they come. Good luck, sir.”

Alfie thanked the sergeant, jumped down from the jeep and approached the ivy-draped office, a bungalow very much like his own, in a quaint,
faux
-English garden maintained by a troop of hoe-wielding Indians.

He was kept waiting for five minutes in an anteroom by a pretty Scottish secretary, then ushered into a capacious room more like a lounge than an office, with a scatter of chintz-covered furniture and a big desk positioned in the sunlit bay window.

Brigadier Cartwright sat behind the desk, shuffling papers absently. He had the air of a man whose thoughts were elsewhere.

“Ah, Lieutenant Littlebody, isn’t it?”

Alfie snapped to attention and saluted. “Sir!”

“At ease, Lieutenant. Take a pew.”

Alfie sat down on a stiff-backed chair across the desk from Cartwright. He was sweating again, despite the fan that ruffled papers on the desk, but was too nervous to fumble with his bandana and mop his brow.

The brigadier thumbed through a file and looked up at Alfie from time to time.

“How long’ve you been in Field Security, Lieutenant?”

“Eight years, sir.”

“And in India for two years. What d’you make of the place?”

Alfie swallowed. He knew how a rabbit felt before the ferret pounced. “I... I’m enjoying my time here, sir, and finding the work rewarding.”

Cartwright nodded. “Good reports from your senior officers, Littlebody. Involved in the Panaji clear out, I hear?”

“Yes, sir.” Earlier this year he’d commanded a small unit that had travelled down to Goa and routed a cell of insurgents, arresting three Russians and half a dozen Nationalist sympathisers.

“Vital work you’re doing. I’ve never underestimated the job Field Security carry out here. Some of my colleagues have you down as a bunch of pen-pushing busybodies, but I see what you people accomplish and I’m impressed.”

Alfie croaked, “Thank you, sir.” The compliments over, he thought, now would come the grilling.

“So...” Cartwright said, tapping the file before him with a nicotine-stained forefinger, “I’ve been reading all about this dashed Allahabad business.” He leaned back in his chair, rather languidly, and looked across at Alfie as if expecting a comment.

Alfie said, “Yes, sir,” in barely a whisper.

“Ghastly show, what?”

“Ah...” Alfie stammered.

“Bloody beastly, if you ask me.”

Alfie swallowed, petrified. Was Cartwright referring to his, Alfie’s, part in the business – the fact that he’d turned tail and fled – or to the massacre?

“Beastly,” Cartwright went on. “I was livid when I found out. I said to myself, I’ll flay a few damned carcasses before the week’s out, what? Who was in charge–?” He riffled through the pages. “Ah, Frobisher. Might’ve known. I’ll see the blighter dragged over the coals.”

Alfie sat frozen in his seat, hardly able to believe what he was hearing.

Cartwright said, “So what’s your opinion about the business, Lieutenant?”

“Ah, well...”

“Come on. Out with it, man.” Cartwright leaned forward and said conspiratorially, “I’m on your side, y’know, Littlebody.”

Alfie blinked. He felt like weeping with relief as he said, “I... Well, to be honest, sir, I felt the entire show was badly handled. In my opinion, we shouldn’t have been there in the first place. It was a minor protest in the scheme of things. We should’ve let it blow over with a minimal police presence.”

“Excellent. That’s
exactly
what we should’ve done. Instead, Frobisher barrels in with all guns blazing.” He leaned forward and clasped his hands on his blotter, looking for all the world like an elderly and rather benign headmaster. “And once you were there, facing the mob? What would you have done then?”

“Then...” Alfie began tentatively, “then I would have held fire, sir. You see, although the mob was waving a few weapons... I’m of the opinion that they wouldn’t have used them. It was a token protest. I even think...”

Cartwright leaned forward. “Go on.”

“I think that, perhaps, a faction of the Nationalist organisers might even have – dare I say? – welcomed what we did, sir.”

“Hm. I don’t disagree, Littlebody. In other words, Frobisher played right into their hands, what?”

“Well, yes, sir, in my opinion.”

Cartwright nodded. “And your part in all this?”

Alfie considered his options for a split second – and decided that, in this instance, honesty would be the best policy.

“I wanted no part in the slaughter, sir, and effected a tactical retreat.”

The brigadier harrumphed. “Word in the mess, Lieutenant, is that you pissed your pants – excuse my French – and fled.”

“That is one opinion, sir.”

The brigadier stroked the line of his jaw. “Between you, me and the gatepost, Littlebody, although you went against a superior officer’s orders and refused to fire, you did the bally right thing.”

Alfie thought he was about to pass out with relief. “Why... thank you, sir.”

Cartwright tapped the file with the back of his hand. “Been reading up on your service record to date, Littlebody, and I’ve decided...”

Alfie blinked. “Decided, sir?”

“Something’s come up. Delicate matter. Needs a light touch. Might be a storm in a tea cup kind of thing. You with me so far?”

“Ah... yes, sir.”

“I don’t know whether you’ve heard about the
Rudyard Kipling
?”

“I caught something about it in the club last night, sir. Terrible accident.”

“But it wasn’t an accident, Lieutenant. The Russians brought it down. Not only that, they went among the wreckage afterwards and shot most of the injured. Among the survivors was an old girl by the name of Lady Eddington and a certain Janisha Chatterjee.”

“They were dashed lucky, sir.”

“I’ll say, Lieutenant. Now, the thing is, this Chatterjee gel – she’s the daughter of Kapil Dev Chatterjee, the Minister for Internal Security. Or he was, until this morning. Poor blighter succumbed to a long illness. Now his daughter was at her father’s bedside when he expired. An hour or so later her driver dropped her off in Old Delhi – she wanted a little time alone, which is understandable. Only, the damned thing is that she’s vanished.”

“Vanished, sir?”

“Completely. She was last seen at Roopa’s Tea Rooms on Lal Singh Road around eight o’clock this morning, talking to some old European. According to witnesses, she took badly and was helped into a taxi by the gentleman. And after that, nothing. Now, as I say, it might be a typhoon in the old china, but I’d like you to look into it. See what you can dig up. We can’t have the bereaved daughters of government ministers vanishing like this. Bad form. Doesn’t look good.”

“I understand, sir.”

“I thought, this might be a job for Field Security. Lieutenant Bolton is up in Srinigar, isn’t he, sorting out the bloody Kashmiris? So I took a look at your record and I thought, just the chap for the job.”

He reached into a drawer, pulled out a folder and slid it across the desk. “This is the file on Janisha Chatterjee, and a report on what we know of her disappearance.”

Alfie took the file. “Pretty substantial, sir.”

“We like to keep a detailed record of our... subjects, Lieutenant. As you’ll see, the filly is quite some girl. Bright as a button. Just started at Cambridge, studying medicine. Pro-British, as far as we can tell, though we do know that she has fraternised with a few Nationalists in London.”

Alfie opened the file and slid a photograph from under a paper-clip. It showed a small, slim girl in a knee-length summer dress, her smiling brown face framed in a fall of long black hair. “And quite beautiful, too,” he murmured.

“Don’t see the attraction of the natives meself, Littlebody, but each to his own. Very well, you know the ropes. I want you to find where the bally hell she is, what she’s doing.”

“You don’t think...?”

“What? That she has real Nationalist sympathies and has gone to ground with ’em?” he said. “Impossible to tell. Suppose it’s possible, but I bloody well hope not. Wouldn’t look good, what, if a minister’s daughter threw in her lot with the other side, hm?”

“No, sir.”

“So this is a priority job, Lieutenant. Drop everything and concentrate on finding the gel. And you’ll be needing a bit of tech to help you along.”

“Tech, sir?”

“High level clearance stuff. Top secret. Devices straight from our labs.”

Cartwright unlocked a cupboard in his desk. He withdrew two items and set them on his blotter. One looked like a gold lipstick cylinder, the other a rugby skullcap.

Alfie looked up at the brigadier. “What are they, sir?”

Cartwright indicated the cylinder. “Bods in the labs call it a photon-blade. And this,” he tapped the skullcap, smiling, “this is what the boffins term a VCA – or a Visual Camouflage Amplifier.”

Alfie grinned. “I’m sorry, sir. I’m none the wiser.”

“And nor was I when I pow-wowed with the scientists. In plain terms, Lieutenant, it allows the wearer to appear, to the onlooker, invisible – if one can ‘appear’ to be invisible, that is. You get my drift, anyway?”

Alfie felt dizzy. “Invisible, sir?”

“Quite invisible, apparently,” Cartwright said, shaking his head in wonder at the skullcap. “Right, that’s about it. Now take these bits and pieces over to the lab and a fellow there called Tennyson will show you the drill. Should only take an hour or so. And after that, you can start looking for the bally gel, what?”

Alfie sprang to his feet and saluted. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. Right away!”

He picked up the cylinder and the VCA, saluted again and turned to leave.

Cartwright said, “And don’t forget the file, Lieutenant.”

“No, sir!” he stammered, grabbed the report, saluted again, and marched from the office.

As he stepped from the building into the dazzling sunlight, Alfie felt as if he were walking on air.

B
RIGADIER
C
ARTWRIGHT SAT
at his desk for a minute after Littlebody had departed, drumming his fingers on his blotter and humming a chorus from Gilbert and Sullivan’s
H. M. S. Pinafore
. At last he pulled the phone towards him and dialled. “Smethers?” he said, “get yourself over here on the double.”