CHAPTER

SEVENTEEN

 

 

Conversation with his father –

Sebastian seeks out Lady Eddington –

Captured by the Russians –

“We shall be very careful with your precious little girlfriend...”

 

 

SEBASTIAN SAT BESIDE his father in the back of the chauffeur-driven Bentley as they sped north to London.

He felt like a man reprieved from a death sentence. He considered the lies he’d told Jani about the photographs, and persuaded himself that they had been necessary. The truth would have hurt her even more and made the possibility of any rapprochement between them – slim though it was even now – practically impossible. It was a measure of the girl’s character, her essential decency and humanity, that she was willing to give him a second chance. And he would grasp the opportunity with both hands, he told himself; not only that, but he vowed that from now on his life of deceit and lies would be a thing of the past.

A little later his father said, “You’re quiet, Sebastian.”

“Oh, I’m tired, that’s all.”

“Made up at seeing the young Janisha again, I don’t doubt?”

“Rather.”

His father cast him a shrewd glance. “What did you talk about, out there in the garden?”

Sebastian shrugged. “Oh, her studies,” he temporised, “and how she hoped to get back to them very soon.” As he suspected that his father would be expecting the question, he asked, “Just what is Janisha doing at Carmody Hall, father?”

His Lordship harrumphed a little, then said, “Let’s just say that she was mixed up in a little intrigue, hm, after the crash-landing, and leave it at that? Nothing serious. She isn’t in trouble.” He paused. “Didn’t mention anything of it to you, did she?”

“Not a thing,” he said.

“Well, with luck she’ll be out of there in no time.”

Sebastian smiled to himself. “That’s good to know,” he said.

“Quite a girl, Janisha,” his father said after a minute. “Quite a catch. What are your intentions in that department, Sebastian?”

He felt himself redden under his father’s scrutiny. “Why, I haven’t really thought...”

“You could do worse, you know? She not only has beauty and intelligence – attributes not often found together in the fairer sex – but she has a commonsensical approach that bodes well for her future.”

“And... the fact that she’s Indian?”

His Lordship grunted. “What d’you mean?”

“Last year, when you first found out that she and I were friends, you weren’t exactly enamoured of the idea.”

Lord Consett shrugged uncomfortably. “Didn’t know the girl then, did I? Got to know her a little since then. And her father was a capital fellow – for an Indian, of course. Served the Raj damned well. And, after all, her mother was one of us.”

Sebastian smiled to himself.

“What I’m trying to say,” his father said, “is that a girl like that is just the sort to take a young chap in hand and show him what’s what, if y’get my drift.”

Sebastian stared out at the passing countryside. “Quite, father.”

The idea that one day he might settle down with Jani so that she might ‘show him what’s what’ was so far removed from the current situation that its contemplation was painful. First he had to fulfil his part of the bargain and spring Jani from Carmody Hall.

One hour later the car approached Richmond, and Sebastian asked to be let off at the monorail station. “I need to go into town to see someone,” he explained to his father as he climbed from the car.

He entered the station and boarded an east-bound monotrain, going over what he would tell Lady Eddington. He just hoped that the woman was at home and not taking high tea with her blue-rinsed Tory friends.

He stepped from the train at Mayfair station and hurried along Mount Street, finding number fifteen and climbing the steps.

His heart thudding, he rang the bell-push. A trout-faced butler answered the door and Sebastian asked to see Lady Eddington.

“And whom should I say is calling, sir?”

Sebastian told him and kicked his heels on the doorstep as the butler retreated.

He returned after a minute. “Her Ladyship will see you in the drawing room. She asked if you would take tea?”

“A stiff brandy if you don’t mind,” Sebastian said, following the butler into the house and along a corridor to a sumptuous room overlooking a lawned rear garden.

“Her Ladyship will be with you presently, sir.”

Sebastian sat on a padded window-seat and gazed out at the lawn; a bower at the far end only reminded him of Jani and his meeting with her, and her recriminations and tears. He turned away bitterly, in time to see Lady Eddington limp into the room with the aid of a stick. She was a tall woman with a kindly, powdered face – which was drawn into lines of concern as she approached and held out her hand.

He introduced himself, adding, “I am a good friend of Janisha Chatterjee.”

“I know all about you, young man. But Janisha?” she asked as she sank on to a nearby wicker chair. “I’ve been worrying myself sick about the girl.”

“I’ve just seen her–”

“You have? But where is she? And who the blazes is holding her? Is she well?”

Sebastian smiled at the barrage of questions. For all she was a dyed-in-the-wool member of the landed gentry, she clearly had Jani’s best interests at heart. “She is well, and incarcerated at Carmody Hall – a department of MI5,” he explained. “She asked to see my father, Lord Consett, and myself as some part of a deal to inform the British where the ventha is.”

Lady Eddington stared at him. “But she doesn’t intend to tell them, I take it?”

“No fear. Jani’s made of sterner stuff. She plans to escape from the hall this evening, and that’s why I’m here. She asked me to enlist your help in getting her out.”

The dowager clapped her hands before her flat chest and exclaimed, “Just like the girl! What spunk! Now tell me what I can do.”

“I need to contact Lieutenant Littlebody and Anand Doshi,” Sebastian began, and proceeded to outline Jani’s plan.

Fifteen minutes later Lady Eddington had her Rolls driven around to the front of the house, and Sebastian assisted her down the steps and into the back of the car. “Highgate, Donald, and take a circuitous route if you please.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said the chauffeur, pulling out into the street.

“I’d drive the thing myself,” she explained to Sebastian, “but my blessed leg is still not quite the ticket, you see.”

They took a devious route north, via Kilburn, the dowager turning in her seat to see if they were being followed. “Can’t be too careful these days, can one?” she asked, and, smiling to himself, Sebastian agreed that one couldn’t.

Presently they pulled up in a lane off the High Street and Lady Eddington led him into a mews and up a flight of stone steps. She rapped on the door and a shock-haired Indian boy, stick-thin and barefoot, pulled it open.

They hurried inside and Lady Eddington made the introductions.

Sebastian found himself in a small but comfortable lounge – with a fire blazing despite the time of year – in the company of Janisha’s very unlikely-looking co-conspirators. Lieutenant Littlebody was, despite his surname, a dumpy little man who looked less like an officer in the British Army than some mild-mannered country parson. And Anand Doshi looked very much like the street-urchin-come-houseboy Jani had described, right down to his thin face, massive staring eyes and unruly thatch of jet black hair.

Anand lifted a small table bearing a chess-set away from the hearth and they seated themselves, while Lady Eddington assured Littlebody and Doshi that Janisha was safe and well.

Doshi punched the air and beamed at Littlebody, who flopped into an armchair in evident relief. “We’ve been sick with worry,” he said, “ever since a pair of heavies shanghaied us and dragged Anand and me from the truck last night.”

“We thought we’d saved Jani’s bacon, sir,” Doshi said. “Everything had gone to plan! We were driving away with Jani in the back of the truck when a car pulled up in front of us and four thugs jumped out! We had no time to do anything, did we, Mr Alfie?”

“Not a blessed thing! They set about us with clubs and we were forced to beat a retreat, loath though we were to leave Jani. They drove the truck off before we could do a dashed things about it. Thing was, we couldn’t work out who the blazes it was who’d got the better of us. But you say it was the British, Lady Eddington?”

“It was, and they have Jani incarcerated at a place called Carmody Hall,” she said, and explained what Sebastian had told him and Jani’s scheme to free her in the early hours.

Sebastian caught Littlebody giving him the occasional once-over – as if he were sizing up a potential rival. The trio had shared many adventures, after all, and been confined together aboard the Edinburgh since leaving India. Time enough, he thought, for the Lieutenant to form a hopeless attachment to someone as comely as Jani.

He dismissed the thought as uncharitable. After all, Littlebody and Doshi had proved loyal helpmates in Jani’s flight from the authorities.

“I can supply you with a car and a rope ladder,” Lady Eddington was saying.

“We’ll set off just before midnight,” Littlebody said.

“I’ll accompany you,” Sebastian said, “and guide you to the hall. There’s a great oak standing just inside the north wall, and Jani said we should throw the rope ladder over the wall there.”

Anand Doshi was on the edge of his seat. “It is good, no, to be planning again after sitting on our bottoms for so long? I was becoming tired of beating Mr Alfie at chess!”

Lady Eddington beamed. “Then it is arranged. I shall go forthwith and gather what you need. I’ll have the car driven around at eleven-thirty.”

Sebastian stood. “I’ll return here then. In the meantime I really must go and get something to eat.”

Littlebody hesitated, then said, “You’re very welcome to stay and dine with us, Sebastian. Anand rustled up a very passable curry earlier.”

“That’s kind of you,” Sebastian said, eager to be away from the cloying heat of the small room, “but I really should be pushing off.”

Lady Eddington remained seated, but clutched his hand before he made for the door. “Jani spoke glowingly of you, Sebastian, and I can tell that her estimation was one hundred percent correct.”

He forced a smiled, colouring, and moved to the door accompanied by Littlebody. The lieutenant looked awkward and hesitant as he extended a hand on the threshold. “Well, thanks for everything, old chap. See you tonight.”

Sebastian shook the Lieutenant’s hand. “See you then,” he said, and hurried down the steps and out of the mews.

He knew a pleasant little French place around the corner in the High Street, which served an excellent beef bourguignon and kept a fine claret. He felt he would need to be half cut come this evening, and wondered at his reception from Jani when they whisked her away from Carmody Hall.

He was approaching the restaurant when he became aware of someone striding along beside him; before he knew what was happening, or could think to call out, another tall figure was on his left. In an instant they had his upper-arms in a manacle-strong grip.

“What the...!”

Something poked him in the ribs, and he looked down to see a pistol in the hand of the heavy.

“Be quiet, or I will shoot.”

A car jerked to a halt at the kerb and the back door swung open. He was bundled inside; the door slammed shut and they accelerated away down the street.

The heavy on his left worked the revolver painfully into his ribs.

Sebastian had had no time to panic, and all he felt now was despair. These people had to be MI5; his liaison with the Russians had been found out.

Then a small man in the passenger seat turned and gave one of his rare smiles, and Sebastian knew he was wrong.

“I am very sorry we had to resort to such crude tactics,” Rostov said, “but it seems that you can no longer be trusted.”

Sebastian tried to smile, not knowing whether to feel relief or alarm. “I don’t understand,” he said, sweating.

“Then allow me to explain. You were seen earlier in the company of Lady Eddington. Now we know that the old crone has links to Janisha Chatterjee, and as the latter has ‘disappeared’, we suspect that Eddington knows something of her whereabouts. By logical extension, my friend, it is possible that you, too, know where Chatterjee is at this moment.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Sebastian said, thinking fast. “Of course I saw Lady Eddington – I was trying to find out where Janisha might be!”

The Russian tipped his head to one side as if he might be considering the veracity of Sebastian’s claim. “Well, we shall see about that, my friend.”

Rostov nodded to the heavy on Sebastian’s right, who drew a black hood from his coat pocket, pulled it over Sebastian’s head, and tightened a drawstring around his neck. “What the blazes?”

“Merely a precaution,” Rostov said.

Sebastian tried not to dwell on the inevitable ‘interrogation’ that awaited him.

The car slowed, perhaps five minutes later, and came to a stop. He was marched from the car and manhandled up a short flight of steps. He heard a door open and then the sound of old linoleum crackling underfoot as he was frogmarched into a building.

He was pushed up a flight of stairs, almost tripping as he went, and then forced down on to a straight-backed chair while someone bound his hands and feet, securing him to the chair.

The heavies removed the hood and Sebastian blinked in the early evening sunlight slanting through a barred window into a small, bare room.

Seated on a settee, positioned immediately before Sebastian, was Dmitri Korolov.

Rostov positioned himself before the window, smiling at Sebastian.

“Now, my friend,” Rostov said. “Where is Janisha Chatterjee?”

“I told you, I don’t know.”

“Well, as I said earlier, we shall see about that.”

He nodded to Korolov and the young man picked up a polished wooden box from the cushion beside him, set it upon his lap and hinged open the lid. He pulled something out very carefully, a silver wire mesh as delicate as a hair-net. He plugged a lead that trailed from the nexus into a socket in the side of the box, then lifted a pair of headphones from the box.

“Do you have any idea what this is?” Rostov asked.

Sebastian shook his head, not sure if he really wanted to know.

“You British call it a CWAD.”

“A what?” He recalled Jani’s description of the device the other day, and his stomach turned.

“A Cognitive Wave Amplification Device,” Rostov said. “They are ingenious machines, one of which we liberated from your people a little while ago.”

“Not my people,” Sebastian snapped.

The Russian smiled. “Well, we shall find out soon where your loyalties truly lie, my friend, along with the whereabouts of Janisha Chatterjee.” He looked across at Korolov. “If you would care to explain how the CWAD works, Dmitri.”

“My pleasure,” Korolov said, removing the headphones and picking up the fine mesh. It hung limply from his fingers, its wires glinting. “The CWAD, when applied to the face of the subject, allows the operator – in this case, myself,” he said, gesturing to the headphones on his lap, “to ‘read’ – or perhaps ‘interpret’ would be a better description – the thoughts of the subject.”

“I don’t believe you,” Sebastian said, fear clutching his heart.

“To quote your Dr Johnson,” Korolov smiled, “‘belief is your prerogative’.” He nodded to one of the heavies by the door, who stepped forward.

Sebastian saw a needle glinting in his right hand.

Korolov said, “To affix the CWAD to your face, of course, it is necessary that you are unconscious. We wouldn’t want you to injure yourself while struggling, would we?”

Sebastian tried to moved away from the advancing needle, but the ropes held him tight. He struggled, but the heavy struck his face, then plunged the needle into his upper arm.

Sebastian passed out.

 

 

WHEN HE CAME to his senses, the CWAD was pinned to his face and it felt as if a dozen nails had been hammered into his jaw, cheekbones and forehead.

Dmitri Korolov perched on the edge of the settee, the headphones clamped to his head, adjusting controls within the box. He looked up at Rostov and nodded.

“To achieve the best results,” Rostov explained, “the subject must be conscious. It is a pleasure to have you back with us, my friend.”

The ropes bit into his wrists and ankles. His face throbbed. To add to the pain, his bladder was full to bursting.

Rostov knelt before Sebastian, staring into his eyes. “Now, where is Janisha Chatterjee?”

Sebastian hung his head and wept, “No...”

“Yes!” Korolov exclaimed, touching the earpieces of the headphones as he concentrated. “And what time will...?”

But Sebastian could do nothing to withhold the information about the plan to free Janisha from Carmody Hall.

Korolov looked across at Rostov. “She’s at a location in Surrey. Carmody Hall, and... at one o’clock she will be rescued by Lieutenant Littlebody and Anand Doshi. Or that’s the plan. Our friend Sebastian would have accompanied them too, except that he will be otherwise engaged.”

Rostov glanced at his watch. “It’s not yet six. Plenty of time.” He smiled at Sebastian. “And there I was, thinking that I had recruited a true servant to the cause, someone who might be trusted, who reviled the system from which he himself hailed.”

On the settee, Korolov interrupted his comrade; the young man was frowning as he said, “But... that’s the odd thing. He really does detest the bourgeois iniquity of the Imperialist system, but his feelings for the Chatterjee girl are stronger.” He shrugged, as if non-plussed by the fact that someone might allow sentiment to overcome ideology.

Korolov removed the headphones, and Sebastian was thankful that the Russian was no longer reading his most private thoughts.

Rostov addressed the heavies in Russian, and one of them nodded and left the room. Rostov turned to Sebastian, smiling. “Soon, my friend, Janisha Chatterjee will be in our custody. But don’t worry yourself. We shall be very careful with your precious little girlfriend.”

He snapped something in Russian to the remaining heavy, who for the second time advanced on Sebastian with the hypodermic syringe.

“No!” he cried, and struggled, futilely, as the Russian slipped the needle into his upper arm.

Rostov, Korolov and the heavy left the room and locked the door behind them, and Sebastian hung his head and wept.

As he felt himself slipping into unconsciousness, he wondered if this time the dose might be fatal.