The Nurse's War (36 page)

She knew she sounded impatient. She hadn’t liked the reminder of how bad things had become. And now she was over the first shock of his appearance, the first rush of pleasure at seeing again the face she’d loved so well, annoyance was uppermost. She was tired and hungry and, she thought confusedly, a little scared. Something bad was about to happen, else Grayson would never have made this trip.

He stood up and stretched his long frame. ‘Can we talk somewhere more comfortable?’

She thought it unlikely. The cottage was rented and the landlord a skinflint. What furniture he’d provided had almost certainly been bought at auction at rock bottom
prices.

‘Will this do?’ She gestured towards the narrow sofa crouching beneath the window sill, its red moquette worn so thin as to be almost colourless. Grayson followed her and perched precariously on the seat’s hard edge.

‘Well, here’s the thing.’ He turned to face her. ‘I’m going back to India. Not permanently, but I’ve no idea how long I’ll be. I thought it only courteous to a lover, or should I say a former lover, to bid her farewell.’

Daisy’s mouth dropped open. She was stunned, too surprised to speak, too surprised to dwell on being demoted to a former lover. In any case, he spoke truly. Their love seemed to have gone missing somewhere along the way, and right now she hadn’t the energy or the will to try and recapture it.

‘But why?’ she stumbled. ‘Why go back? Why go now?’

She felt stupidly upset. Twice this week India had swum into her world, seemingly out of nowhere, and left her bewildered. Ever since the package from Jocelyn had dropped through her letter box, she’d felt it burdening her mind. And now Grayson had arrived with India on his lips and the burden had just grown heavier.

He leaned back against the unyielding sofa cushion and took his time to answer. ‘Why now? Because there’s trouble. And I’m needed.’

That did nothing to calm her nerves. ‘Trouble? What trouble?’

‘You must have read about the situation—what’s been happening in India since Independence.’

‘You mean the killings? Yes, I’ve read about them. It’s been awful. But what have they to do with you?’

An unspecified fear tightened her face, until she felt her skin drawn hard against her cheekbones. Her voice must have sounded panicked, because he tried to soothe her.

‘Most of them have nothing to do with me and at the moment the country is generally peaceful. It was the speed of Partition that caused so many problems—huge swathes of the population suddenly on the move, Hindus and Sikhs going east, Muslims west. But people are more or less settled now. Most of them have got to where they want to be and there are only a few areas where all the old horrors—murder, arson, rape—are still going on. But they’re going on in one spot that interests me in particular.’

If he was trying to soothe her, he wasn’t succeeding. ‘And where’s that?’ Somehow she knew without asking.

‘Yes, you’ve got it.’ He’d read her mind, as he so often did. ‘Jasirapur. At least not the town itself, but an area of Rajputana some distance away—sorry, I should say Rajasthan now.’

‘I still don’t see what it has to do with you,’ she argued stubbornly. ‘The Indian authorities must be in charge.’

‘Javinder has to do with me. Do you remember him?’ Grayson smiled as he put the question to her. She knew he was recalling the time they’d spent together at the cantonment hospital.

‘Of course I remember.’ Javinder Joshi had been Grayson’s assistant in Jasirapur. She had helped nurse
him back to health after he’d been badly hurt in one of the riots that had been frequent before the war.

‘He’s gone missing and, since he’s one of our intelligence officers, London is interested in finding him. Which is where I come in. I was the SIS man in Jasirapur before Independence and a close colleague of Javinder’s. They reckon I have the best chance of discovering what’s happened to him.’

‘I don’t see that at all.’

Why was she so anxious to stop Grayson going, she wondered, when she’d allowed herself to drift from him with hardly a backward glance? And what could he do if he went to India? The country was vast, Rajasthan was vast. If the people on the ground hadn’t been able to find Javinder, why should Grayson be successful?

‘Surely someone in the local office must have searched for him?’

‘In a desultory kind of way, I imagine. But they don’t have the manpower and the situation is confused. Thanks to Partition, we’ve had the greatest migration in human history and that includes the civil administration. Add in the fact that the Europeans have all but disappeared and India has been left running the show on a skeleton staff.’

‘It still doesn’t make sense. Why send you? It’s years since you’ve been there. There must be someone else they could send, someone who’s worked in India more recently.’

‘Apparently not. The security service only ever had a small presence in Jasirapur and nearly all the ICS officers who worked alongside me have either retired or
returned to England.’

‘Javinder can’t just disappear. He’s probably taken leave of absence. Maybe someone in his family is ill and he’s had to take off quickly, without notifying anyone.’ She sounded desperate, she knew. And there was a part of her that was.

‘Unfortunately, he
has
just disappeared. Javinder is responsibility itself. He would never simply take off. I’ve spoken to the current admin team and they’re pretty sure he was investigating an unusual spate of violence that broke out a few months back. They think he had a lead as to who was behind it, but naturally, as his work is secret, he told them virtually nothing. They were guessing, though they can’t be sure, that he was travelling north.’

Daisy was silent for several minutes and when she spoke, her voice was devoid of emotion. ‘It’s going to be dangerous, isn’t it?’

‘It could be. Javinder may have been a little too successful in discovering the culprits. That’s why I wanted to say a proper goodbye.’

The threat hung in the air and her stomach cramped with tension. He had been in danger before and she knew how that felt. She didn’t want to feel that way again, but here she was, before he’d even left the country, feeling sick at the thought that he might once more be walking towards serious trouble. She swallowed hard.

‘And you’re going alone?’

‘No.’ His face had grown sombre, but now it broke into a warm smile. ‘That’s the good thing. I’m taking Mike.’

‘Mike Corrigan?’

‘The very same.’

‘But surely he’s never had anything to do with India? I remember you telling me that he’d always worked in Eastern Europe.’

‘True enough, but, wherever he’s worked, he’s a good operative and a good friend. And the trip will be a kind of swan song for him.’

She tried mentally to calculate Corrigan’s age. ‘He’s retiring? I wouldn’t have thought him old enough.’

‘Not retiring. He’s being moved. New brooms are sweeping through the security service and his injury has made it difficult for him to work in the field. He’s been seconded to another part of the organisation. To a section that’s strictly admin—so no more adventures.’

‘I know his leg was bad, but he seemed to manage.’ Mike’s limp hadn’t appeared to impede him when Daisy and he had met during the Sweetman crisis. But that might no longer be the case. Sweetman had forced him into crashing his car and Mike had ended with broken bones and a split head.

‘He’s managed OK, more or less,’ Grayson agreed. ‘But by the time you met him he hadn’t worked abroad for some years. And, since the incident with that fanatic, his health has become more of a problem. His leg has always given him stick, but now he’s experiencing giddiness, fearsome headaches, that kind of thing. Smashing into a lamp post head on isn’t to be recommended.’

‘So why are you taking him? I know he’s been a very good colleague, but if it’s going to be dangerous, surely
you need someone who’s completely fit?’

‘Mike will stay in Jasirapur. He’ll be my man in the office while I travel further afield. I need someone back at base that I can trust absolutely. And it will be easier to hunt for Javinder on my own. That way, with luck, I won’t draw too much attention to what I’m doing.’

It seemed a little too pat. It was unlikely Grayson would take a man who had no experience of India whatsoever on a journey that could be extremely dangerous.

‘Is that the real reason he’s going with you, or is there something else?’ She knew how close the two friends were.

His blue eyes lit with amusement. ‘You’ve got me well and truly taped, haven’t you? I suppose I want to do Mike some kind of favour. He’s been dealt a rotten hand and I feel sad for him. He makes the best of it, but there’s no disguising that being forced out of ops and into pen pushing has come as a real blow. He jumped at the chance of a last grab at the old life.’

‘I imagine that having a close friend with you might be helpful.’ She couldn’t quite keep the doubt from her voice.

‘Enormously helpful. With Mike in charge, I won’t have to worry what’s happening in Jasirapur while I’m up country. And he’ll make sure I get everything I need, when I need it.’

He’d already planned his strategy. He was determined to go and nothing would dissuade him. But why that was making her so dejected, she couldn’t understand. It was natural to worry for a friend about to embark on a perilous journey, but in her heart she knew there was
more to it than that.

She stood up and began mechanically to clear the teacups. She’d been too shocked before to think clearly, but now her mind brooded over the way in which India had once again assumed centre stage in her life. After months of silence, Grayson had appeared out of the blue and with startling news. And this just days after the package from Jocelyn had arrived, stirring recollections she would rather be without. It all seemed too coincidental and she didn’t believe in coincidence. Was fate dealing her another of its ugly hands?

ISBN: 978-1-474-02494-5

THE NURSE’S WAR

© 2015 Merryn Allingham

Published in Great Britain 2015
by Harlequin MIRA, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited
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