‘Doesn’t make sense, does it, but that’s about as close as I can get.’

‘Any idea where our vital witness might have gone?’

‘Sure. We’ve got ideas. Ahmed thinks he must have returned to his village. That’s a day’s camel ride from here if you want to go check. He’s probably just arriving.’

‘You think that would be a waste of time?’

‘I do!’ Stuart put his cup down carefully and squinted into the sunshine, checking that they were not overheard. ‘I think Ali is at the bottom of the lake.’

‘You’re saying he’s joined the ranks of the surplus-torequirements assassins – like the men who supplied the panther that killed Bishan Singh?’

‘Yeah. That sure was one unlucky black cat,’ said Stuart bleakly.

‘This village to which Ali may have fled – what’s its name?’ Joe asked.

‘Mmm . . . let me think . . . Surigargh! That’s it. Surigargh.’

‘I’ve heard of that somewhere,’ said Joe. ‘Isn’t it the maharaja’s own native village?’

‘So they say.’ Stuart fell silent for a moment, eyeing Joe with speculation.

‘And a whole day’s camel ride away, you said?’

The two men looked at each other and grinned.

‘Thought you’d never get around to asking,’ said Stuart. ‘Plane’s ready. Be delighted to take you up. The Jenny can reduce a day to a half-hour there and a half-hour back.’ He looked at his watch. ‘We could be back in time for tiffin or luncheon if you prefer. We could even land if you want to go in and lean on the headman. There’s a stretch of roadway we can use.’

Joe watched as Stuart gave a surprised Ahmed instructions in Hindi. Ahmed was putting a few finishing touches to the aircraft, spanner in hand, checking on the tightness of a screw, running a sinewy finger along the cables to test their tautness. Joe pictured his brother Ali performing just this ritual yesterday.

‘The things I do for Sir George and Merry England,’ he muttered between clenched teeth.

As they collected their flying helmets and water bottles from the hangar Stuart talked easily about his hurriedly conceived flight plan. ‘We’ll do a circuit over the town – make out that we’re a couple of airborne trippers, just sightseeing. Nothing untoward in that – everybody does it. Even HM Vyvyan made it known that, if invited, she might not be minded to decline the offer of a short spin over the kingdom!’

‘HM?’ Joe asked.

‘Her High and Mightiness!’ Stuart said cheerfully. ‘That’s what I call her! She’s everything the word “memsahib” calls to mind, aren’t I right? Ambitious, too. I think she thinks she’s in training for the position of Vicereine . . . hope someone remembered to tell poor old Claude!’

Joe was startled. ‘You’re not serious? Claude as Viceroy? I don’t see it!’

‘Not a chance, of course! The guy’s talented . . . not quite in the Curzon league – who is? – though playing the same game, I’d say. But he loses points on pedigree. You British are still overly impressed by a dukedom or an earldom and all Claude has is a father-in-law who is believed to be a baronet of some sort. Claude’s grandfather made quite a fortune for himself in trade as far as I can work out. His son promptly spent the fortune and Claude hangs on to a threadbare family estate back home in Wiltshire, working his way up the ladder of foreign politics and respectability. That’s the way he sees the world going.’

‘How do you know all this?’ Joe asked.

‘Told me once in his cups – only time I’ve ever seen him under the influence of anything but his wife.’

Stuart’s expression turned serious for a moment. ‘And who’s to say he’s wrong? The world’s changing so fast it makes me giddy! Even out here. And it’s the clever and the adaptable who’ll come out on top. Make your plans, Joe! I have!’

Before they came within earshot of the patient Ahmed who stood at the ready, hand on the propeller, Joe asked, ‘This Surigargh. You were saying, the native village of Udai and his brother Zalim . . .’

‘Yes. That’s so. And it’s also the home of Udai’s favourite concubine, Lal Bai, the mother of Bahadur. Lal Bai means Ruby Girl. She’s known throughout the state for her love of jewellery. Has the finest collection of rubies in the land, they say. You ought to try to meet her, Joe. They say she’s quite a woman!

Chapter Twelve

Lal Bai hurried down a dark corridor of the Old Palace, red skirt swirling, sandalled feet crunching over shards of broken jewellery. A pile of cheap glass bangles ceremonially broken in grief at the death of the Yuvaraj annoyed her and, impatient, she kicked them out of her way. Gewgaws! Her own jewels were safely hidden away in the toshakhana and there was no chance that she would be expected to sacrifice them according to custom. Lal Bai lived and survived by her own rules.

Why should the women of the zenana give up their pretty things in honour of a man who never visited them? They’d had little time, in any case, to restock their trinket boxes after the funeral of the first son. And Prithvi was not popular. That Angrez wife of his had kept him well away from the harem and even his mad old mother complained she had hardly seen her son since his marriage.

Now his body was being prepared for the burning ghat by the bai-bands. Before the sun set the Jats would carry the bier to the pyre of sandalwood. They would kindle the flames and feed them with cotton oil and camphor and remain in attendance at the samshan until the fire had burned itself out. Then they would remove what was left of the body and throw it into the river. Lal Bai pictured the scene in all its satisfying detail. Prithvi Singh would go to join his brother. Lal Bai smiled in triumph, hastily flicking the tail of her dopatta over her face. So near her goal she could risk no report of disloyal conduct. There were eyes everywhere in this maze and not all were dimmed by tears. She could imagine the relish disguised by false regret in the voice of a treacherous eunuch as he gained audience with the ruler: ‘How it pains me, hukham, to speak of such a matter – and you will tear out my tongue if it runs away with me – but on the very day of the funeral of the Yuvaraj, your servant Lal Bai was observed laughing and dancing in the palace . . .’

She bowed her head and went on her way. Her behaviour had been correct and in accordance with her low status. She had crept in to look at the corpse, had scattered rice and marigolds over it and had even thrown in a token glass bangle or two. The room where the body was displayed was hot and uncomfortably full of women weeping and ululating. Musicians beat out a sombre hymn for the dead, drugged heads nodding in time with the insistent, repeated tune. All the palace women had passed through except for his wife. The widow should even now be cutting off her hair, putting on black clothes and preparing to retreat into an obscure room in a distant part of the palace where she would eat meatless dishes from tin thali for the rest of her life – if anyone remembered to feed her. But where was the Angrez?

Going to parties in the Old Palace with the rest of the unclean. Sharing the bed of the latest ferenghi to arrive. A spasm of hatred made her slim shoulders quiver. She would never be able to understand the tastes of these foreigners who were made so welcome at the palace. This tall dark one with the gaze like a lance and the body of a Rajput, the police-sahib whose arrival she had observed through a slatted window, had rejected the attentions of Padmini. Well-named Padmini – the Lotus, the girl she had herself trained in the arts of pleasure. Zalim had been angry but Lal Bai had defended the girl. If the foreigner preferred the company of a drunken white whore to that of the most talented girl in the kingdom he was not worth their attention. They could discount him.

And the she-camel who had spent the night in his room – what was she to make of her? While the body of her husband grew cold and stiff. Shameless whore! Unholy! Lal Bai resolved to speak to Udai Singh about this behaviour as soon as she saw him again. And, after the mourning was over, she was sure she would see him again.