I spent the next ten minutes fruitlessly searching for the Gurkha. Trying the locked doors of buildings, pushing against windows, but in the end, I gave up and trudged despondently back towards the nurses’ quarters.
My breathing had returned to normal but the exertion of the chase hadn’t done me any favours.
Surrender-not was waiting at the steps, a cigarette clutched firmly in his hand, the shock still written on his face.
I walked over to him and for a moment neither of us spoke. There was no need. We both knew what the other was thinking. He was no doubt feeling the guilt of being overpowered, forcing me to bargain for his life and thereby losing what might be our only chance to stop that madman before he killed again. I could have told him he had nothing to feel ashamed about. Some days you got the bull, and some days the bull got you. What mattered was we’d saved Rouvel’s life and that we’d both live to fight another day. And at least now we knew what our adversary looked like.
The nurses’ quarters were in a state of commotion as we entered. A gaggle of nurses, some in uniform, some in their dressing gowns, had congregated in the lobby, their discordant voices carrying out into the night. A hush gradually descended as they noticed us.
‘Where’s the porter?’ I asked.
‘He’s gone to alert the authorities,’ said a middle-aged nurse – English by the sound of her accent. ‘Who are you?’
‘We’re the authorities,’ I said, making for the stairs.
Somewhere close by a siren sounded. The military police would be here soon and I’d no particular wish to be around when they arrived. All I needed was to collect Miss Rouvel and then we could be on our way.
I walked back up to the second floor and along the corridor. Rouvel’s door was open and her room empty. There was no sign of her or her suitcase.
‘Where is she?’ asked Surrender-not behind me.
‘Gone,’ I said.
Not wanting to attract the attention of the military police, we descended via the rear staircase, the one where half an hour earlier we’d unceremoniously handed over our weapons to a five-foot Nepalese with a knife. Some of the rooms on the ground floor were now empty and unlocked, their occupants having chosen to leave their rooms and congregate in the lobby, and we simply exited through the window of one which looked out onto the rear of the building.
‘What now?’ asked Surrender-not as we hurried towards the car.
I tried to put myself in her position, work out what she might be thinking. Someone had just tried to murder her. Rather than stay and wait for us to return, she’d bolted. Maybe it was because she feared we couldn’t protect her, or maybe there was something she didn’t want to tell us.
I considered where she might go. The whole of Barrackpore was an army cantonment – as much a military base as it was a town. It was, save for the base at Fort William, probably the most secure location in the whole region.
But the fact was our killer was a military man. Our little altercation with him earlier put that beyond doubt, and rendered Barrackpore about as safe as the beaches of Gallipoli. Rouvel would know that too, and I figured she’d want to get as far from Barrackpore as possible.
‘I think she’s making a run for it,’ I said.
‘You think she might be going to join McGuire?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I think whoever telephoned McGuire had told him of Dunlop’s murder. And I think that same someone also sent the car to pick him up. There was no telephone in the nurses’ residence. For Rouvel to know where McGuire was, she would have had to have known of his plans to run before we’d arrived. That’s unlikely, especially as she’d been unaware of Dunlop’s murder. And she’s taken her suitcase with her. My guess is McGuire’s been taken into protective custody. Rouvel’s escape, on the other hand, feels like a flight to safety. I think she’s trying to disappear.’
‘You think she’s making for Calcutta?’ he asked.
‘Possibly,’ I said. ‘Or she’s making for home.’
Either way, she had a twenty-minute start on us at the most, and she’d no transport. The nearest rickshaw rank still operating at this time of night was a mile away on the main road. I doubted she’d have got far.
For someone without a car, the routes out of Barrackpore were limited to two options: the railway or the river. If she was heading for Calcutta, the obvious choice was a train to Sealdah at the north end of White Town. If, on the other hand, she was heading back home to Chandernagore, the obvious route was a boat across the river to Serampore, from where she could catch a train to take her north to French territory. And the trains would be frequent tonight. It was Christmas Eve and a lot of people would be travelling home for the holiday. Extra trains would be laid on to transport passengers from Calcutta back upcountry.
Whichever direction she was headed in, if she made it onto a train, the chances of me finding her again quickly would be slim, and with McGuire having fled, she was the only one left who could provide the answers I needed.
‘We should make for the station,’ said Surrender-not.
‘You go,’ I said, ‘and take the car. If she’s there, take her into protective custody. Arrest her if you have to. I’ll join you as soon as I’ve searched the ferry ghat down by the river.’
With that, we went our separate ways. Surrender-not headed for the car and then to the station. Something in my gut, though, told me that Rouvel would make for the river. It seemed counter-intuitive at first – a boat was slow and dangerous – but in truth, the river was the sensible option. Not only was it the most direct route to Chandernagore, it was easier to reach on foot than the station, and at this time of evening she was unlikely to be stopped. A boat across the river was less risky too. Barrackpore wasn’t that big a place and the station was open ground. Waiting there would increase the chances of her being noticed by someone who knew her. The other shore was a different prospect entirely. No one would know her there. She could catch a train from Serampore in complete confidence that no one would recognise her.
I ran towards the riverbank, to the ghat where we’d arrived the day before when we’d taken the boat from Rishra. The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that this would be Rouvel’s escape route.
A low wall overlooked the riverbank. The lights of Rishra and Serampore flickered in the distance, their reflections dancing on the black water. Ahead of me, the ghat was in darkness, save for a solitary light outside a shack on the jetty. The place seemed dead, the air still, the silence broken only by the gentle lapping of the waves against the muddy bank and the sound of my laboured breathing.
I kept running, on towards the deserted bankside, fear growing with each step that I’d made a mistake. Was it possible that she’d headed for the railway or even the road?
The wall ended at a flight of steep stone steps which ran down to a ferrymen’s hut and the wooden pier. Below me, a number of small naukas had been dragged up and marooned on the mud-bank. Others, like shackled prisoners, were tied pathetically to the pierside. There was no sign that any of the vessels were being made ready for a crossing. I stopped to catch my breath, overcome by fatigue.
I had a choice. Waste more precious minutes descending the steps and searching the shack in the increasingly forlorn hope of finding her, or cutting my losses and heading for the station. I’d made up my mind and was about to turn round when something in the rhythm of the waves lapping against the pier seemed to change. They became irregular, as though disturbed by the wake of a vessel. Leaning against the wall, I peered down into the gloom below. It took several moments to make it out, but there, about a hundred yards out, a small nauka was approaching the pier. The vessel had no lights but its solid outline stood silhouetted against the rippling water, a cadaverous figure leaning on the steering paddle at the rear. Suddenly a figure emerged from the shack below, shoulders and head wrapped in a shawl, and carrying a suitcase.
I bounded down the stairs, keeping one eye on the treacherous, slime-covered steps and the other on the approaching boat. I reached the pier just as the boat was drawing level and sprinted for the far end. For tense moments, I lost sight of the cowled figure, separated from it by the bulk of the shack. I cleared the edge of the structure. The ferryman had thrown a rope round an iron mooring post and was pulling his boat up to the pier.
The figure in the shawl was speaking. I couldn’t make out the words but I knew the voice.
‘Miss Rouvel!’ I shouted. ‘Wait!’
She turned round, and for a moment she hesitated. Then she picked up her case and gingerly stepped into the boat.
‘Chalo,’ she said the boatman, with urgency in her voice and a wad of rupees in her hand.
I pulled out my warrant card and pointed it at the ferryman. ‘Stop,’ I said. ‘This boat isn’t going anywhere.’
Behind me came the first stirrings from the shack. The other boatmen, alerted by the commotion, had come out to see what was happening. The last thing I needed was trouble from a shed-load of itinerant ferrymen wondering why I was threatening one of their own. I turned towards them. ‘Police business,’ I said with as much authority as I could muster. ‘Go back inside.’
I jumped onto the boat and steadied myself. Rouvel stood in front of me like a frightened child, holding the suitcase to her breast like a shield.
‘I’ve nothing more to tell you,’ she said. ‘Please let me go.’
‘You tell me what’s this is all about and I’ll consider it.’
‘Don’t you see?’ she said. ‘I don’t know. If I did, don’t you think I would have left when Ruth Fernandes was killed? Why would I stay in Barrackpore if I thought he would come after me?’
‘Who is he?’ I said.
‘I don’t know. I’ve never seen him before.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Yes.’
I sensed uncertainty in her voice.
‘Maybe he was one of the soldiers who passed through your hospital during the war?’ In the belly of the nauka sat a small hurricane lamp. I ordered the boatman to light it, and in its dim glow, I pulled out the photograph that showed Dunlop, McGuire, Rouvel, Fernandes and the others lined up outside the hospital in 1917. ‘Is he in this photograph?’
She shook her head. ‘No.’
‘Are you sure?’ I asked, looking down at the faces in the picture: British, Indian, Nepalese … at Rouvel; at Dunlop; at the dead man from the funeral parlour who I now knew was a Nepalese called Prio Tamang; at Anthea Dunlop who’d been spared; and at Ruth Fernandes who was supposedly in Rawalpindi.
‘Positive.’
‘I need your help, Mathilde,’ I said. ‘Give me something and I’ll let you go. You have my word.’
We stood there for what felt like an eternity. Then she spoke.
‘Rawalpindi.’
‘What about it?’
She pointed to the photograph. ‘You’re looking at it.’
And then it hit me. Rawalpindi. I couldn’t believe I’d been so stupid.
I thrust the photograph at Rouvel. ‘Rawalpindi,’ I said. ‘It was never the town, was it?’
She swallowed hard but said nothing.
‘This is Rawalpindi right here, isn’t it?’ I said, hitting the photograph with the back of my hand. ‘These people; Dunlop’s work; all of it – Rawalpindi was the code name for his research.’
‘Please, I can’t tell you anything more,’ she pleaded.
‘Are people dying because of what Dunlop was researching?’
She shook her head. ‘Rawalpindi was evil,’ she said, ‘but if I tell you, they will arrest me. And you promised to let me go.’
‘The police can protect you,’ I said. ‘I’ll protect you.’
She laughed bitterly. ‘Not from these people, Captain. Not from the military. If you want to know about Rawalpindi, you must speak to Colonel McGuire.’
I doubted Section H would let me within a mile of McGuire if they could help it. If I was going to get answers quickly, the only one left to provide them was the poor frightened nurse standing before me.
‘Miss Rouvel,’ I said gently, ‘I may have a solution.’