TWENTY-SEVEN

I walked with Colonel Arora out into the courtyard and in the direction of the Rose Building.

‘Isn’t it a touch late for the office?’ I asked.

‘It is.’ He smiled. ‘But we are going across town, and for that we need a car, preferably a fast one.’

From inside the royal garage came the sound of an engine being revved.

‘Conscientious fellows, your engineers,’ I said.

‘It’s a busy time for them,’ he replied, pushing open one of the doors. ‘The cars need to be readied for the coming monsoon. Then there’s the tiger shikar tomorrow. The camouflaged Rolls-Royces will be required for that. They spend most of their time being driven around the jungle and need regular maintenance.’

Sure enough, two mechanics had their heads bent under a camouflaged bonnet. The colonel scanned the gleaming rows of vehicles.

‘There she is!’ he exclaimed, pointing to a red car at the far end of the second row. ‘She’s always hiding!’

‘We’re not taking the Mercedes?’ I asked.

‘Good Lord, no! We’re taking something much more interesting,’ he replied, striding off. He stopped in front of a flame-red coupé and gazed at it lovingly.

‘What is it?’

‘What is it?’ he exclaimed. ‘My good fellow, this is an Alfa Romeo 20/80. She’ll do over eighty miles per hour on a race track. I had her up to fifty on one occasion. Very nearly landed upside down in a ditch.’

‘You won’t mind if we stick to twenty-five tonight?’

‘Very well, Captain,’ he said, running his hand along the bonnet, ‘but it’s your loss.’

We were on an empty road, heading south out of town. Arora was going considerably faster than twenty-five and the rush of air delivered the coolest breeze I’d felt since England. I was keeping my own counsel, content just to watch the world fly past.

‘So what do you make of our new Yuvraj?’ asked Arora.

I wasn’t sure exactly what to say.

‘You’re not an admirer?’ He smiled.

‘I think I preferred his brother.’

‘You seem to have reached your conclusion rather quickly.’

‘Do you disagree with it?’ I asked.

‘I did not say that,’ he laughed, ‘I’m simply curious as to what might have led you to form such a rapid judgement.’

‘Instinct,’ I said. ‘I’m a policeman, remember. I trust my gut.’

And it has nothing to do with his apparent interest in your friend, Miss Grant?’

‘Miss Grant’s an intelligent woman,’ I replied. ‘She can look after herself.’

‘I admire your confidence, Captain,’ he said. ‘I only wonder if it is well founded. After all, you’d be surprised at just how much sway a title and a hundred crore rupees can confer on a man.’

He had a point. What woman wouldn’t find the attentions of a millionaire, soon-to-be maharaja, appealing?

‘Even if he’s suspected of murder?’ I asked.

Arora turned towards me. He suddenly had that steel in his eyes. ‘You think he was responsible for his brother’s assassination?’ ‘Well, it wasn’t Shreya Bidika,’ I replied. ‘And Punit’s got the best motive of all.’

‘Have you any proof?’

‘No. Not yet, anyway.’

‘And what if the proof is hard to come by?’

‘I still have to try.’

The colonel smiled grimly. ‘Of course – innocent until proven guilty – that’s the British way, isn’t it?’

‘It’s the law of the land,’ I said.

‘Except this isn’t your land,’ he replied, ‘and I’m glad to say such ideas take their time reaching Sambalpore.’

We drove on in silence, till the colonel eventually spoke.

‘Any progress in finding Golding?’

‘A little.’

He glanced over. I decided to elaborate, if only so he’d turn his attention back to the road.

‘We think that whatever’s happened to him may be linked to the report he was writing for Adhir. Surrender-not says that Golding’s working papers are in his office, but there’s no sign of a report, not even a first draft. I’m thinking someone wanted sight of it before it became public knowledge. To what end, though, I’m not sure.’

The colonel shook his head. ‘There’s no mystery regarding the whereabouts of the report,’ he said. ‘The Dewan’s got it. I overheard him mention it to Fitzmaurice this evening.’

Now it was my turn to stare. ‘How did he get it?’

‘No idea.’ The colonel shrugged. ‘I’ll ask him tomorrow, if you wish?’

‘That would be useful,’ I said, ‘but it would be better if you could get your hands on it. I’d like Surrender-not to go through it.’

‘And how am I supposed to do that?’ he asked.

‘You’re a resourceful man, Colonel,’ I said as the car slowed and turned into an alleyway. ‘I’m sure you’ll come up with something.’

Arora brought the car to a halt outside a nondescript, two-storey house with shuttered windows and a balcony running along the upper level. I was still focused on Golding. If the Dewan had his report, what did that mean for the missing accountant? I was sure he hadn’t left Sambalpore of his own free will. Indeed, I’d discounted that idea as soon as I’d searched his house.

I ran through the possibilities: Golding had given the report to the Dewan, then been accosted. Or he’d been kidnapped on the Dewan’s orders and forced to hand it over. But that made little sense. The Dewan would always have been one of the first to receive a copy of the report. Maybe Golding had been accosted by Sir Ernest Fitzmaurice’s men? Anglo-Indian Diamond had the most to gain from an early sight of the figures. But would they kidnap an Englishman simply for an advantage at the negotiating table?

Colonel Arora knocked on the front door. Almost immediately it was opened by a short man with oiled-back black hair, a pencil moustache and white kurta, who received the colonel like an old friend. Arora turned and beckoned me forward. I tried to get Golding out of my mind. Whatever had happened to him, the answers could wait until tomorrow.

The smell of opium hung in the air. The short man led the way, through an open courtyard and on to a large, dimly lit room dotted with silken beds, several of which were occupied. On the bed nearest the door lay a European, a man of some means judging by his clothes, an opium pipe beside him on a small brass table, wisps of smoke rising gently. In one corner, two women in saris were engrossed in whispered conversation.

As opium dens went, this was, if not the Ritz, then most definitely the Waldorf, and about as far removed from what I was used to as London is from the moon.

Still, when in Rome . . .

A pretty girl in a pink sari came over and showed us to two beds either side of a squat table on which I presumed the opium lamp would rest. I followed Arora’s lead and took off my dinner jacket and handed it to her, then lay down on one of the beds while the colonel took the other. She departed, taking our jackets with her.

In her absence, I lay on my side and tried to make myself comfortable. It should have been easy – the bed was far more comfortable than the wood and string charpoys favoured by the sort of dives I frequented in Calcutta, and yet the expectancy of a new hit, of cravings close to fulfilment, meant my body ached in anticipation.

The girl returned, having swapped our coats for a silver opium tray and two long-stemmed pipes. It was when she placed the tray on the table that I noticed the oddness of the layout. The lamp and the pipes were there, as were the usual plethora of instruments for cleaning them, but the balls of opium resin and the needle used to cook them over the flame were missing. In their place stood a small pipette similar to an eye dropper, a miniature silver pan with an area smaller than a rupee coin, and a lacquered bottle on which was inlaid a golden image of the Lord Jagannath.

‘I thought we were here to smoke opium?’ I asked.

Arora and the girl shared a look.

‘We are,’ the colonel laughed.

The girl unscrewed the lid and the earthy scent of O filled the air. Taking the pipette, she dipped it into the bottle, then delicately placed four drops onto the silver pan.

‘But that’s—’

‘Correct,’ said Arora, ‘a liquid. That, my friend, is the legendary candū, the highest quality, distilled from the purest raw opium. Once perfected, it is bottled and aged like a fine wine.’

The girl began to warm the pan over the flame of the opium lamp.

‘Liquid opium? I never knew there was such a thing.’

‘You have been sorely abused, Captain,’ he said with a sparkle in his eye. ‘It’s only to be expected, I suppose. Not much of it is to be found in the open market these days. True candū, taken in moderation, of course, is a wondrous thing, conducive to the creative and inspirational processes. And because it is pure, unlike the rubbish you get in Calcutta, it won’t leave you in a stupor.’

Above the flame, the candū began to sizzle, releasing an aroma like that of roasting peanuts.

‘In the olden days,’ Arora continued, ‘Chinese mandarins, artists and high society all used it. But that was before your East India Company launched its opium wars.’

‘Wars which I understand the kingdom of Sambalpore did quite nicely out of,’ I added.

The colonel smiled. ‘True enough,’ he said.

The girl apportioned the smoking liquid between the two pipes. She handed one to each of us, and I leaned over, closed my eyes and inhaled.

Within minutes, it became obvious that Arora was right. The effects of the candū were starkly different from the dross I smoked in Calcutta. My skin began to tingle, the sensation travelling from my arms to my torso to my skull. The girl prepared and passed me a second pipe, and as I smoked the tingling transformed into an explosion of firing synapses and a sudden blinding white light inside my head. The light faded, replaced by a sense of deep calm and well-being.