They crossed over to a boot black’s stand and Carter greeted the swarm of little Indian boys who appeared to be loosely in charge of it. He settled into the chair and stuck out his feet.

‘Clever chaps, these young ’uns,’ he said. ‘Movable stand, you see. They roll it around and set up shop wherever they see a puddle. Never entirely sure they don’t actually create the puddles!’

Five minutes later the chattering group were prepared to release Carter’s feet, now sporting boots a platoon-sergeant would have passed as acceptable. Carter offered a handful of annas to the oldest boy and, laughing, spoke to him briefly in Hindustani. They strolled on, dropping into two or three more shops on their way back to police headquarters.

Seated once again in Carter’s office, Joe remarked, ‘I didn’t spot your men!’

‘Yes, you did!’ said Carter cheerily. ‘There were six of them. The tallest came up to your belt and you gave them each a cigarette!’

‘The shoe blacks!’ Joe began to laugh. ‘What is this? Simla’s answer to the Baker Street Irregulars?’

‘Just that! They’re actually all the sons of Sir George’s head gardener. Sir George set them up with the equipment and they’re doing well – they make a decent living at the shoe blacking and then they’re on a police retainer. It’s amazing what they get to hear! People, even those you’d think would know better, seem to assume that young Indian shoe blacks must be deaf and stupid. Not at all! They’re as smart as whips! And they can go practically anywhere and no one notices them. It’s a good arrangement.’

‘Will they know what to do?’

‘Oh, yes. I passed them the word about the shop light signal. They’ll follow whoever comes out with the blue box to the ends of the earth if they have to. All we have to do now is wait.’

‘I don’t think we’ll have to wait long,’ said Joe. ‘There’s an urgency about this last demand – don’t you think? A huge amount called for… I’d say this could well be a last request before he calls it a day. Rumours, uncertainties may have got to his ears. I think, Carter, our man is planning to grab his loot and run. And, I’ll tell you something else – Alice seems to have been caught up in the urgency too. She was out and about pretty early this morning, wasn’t she? She must have got her demand note at crack of dawn, or perhaps even during the night, and gone straight off to Robertson’s shop.’

‘And now I’ll tell you something, Sandilands,’ said Carter. ‘Before she was at the jeweller’s she was here. We’d hardly opened up when she came in asking to see me. Rather an odd request. I was hoping you could shed some light on it as you seem to have got so close to her last night. She wanted to cast an eye over the newspaper list of the Beaune casualties. She said that you’d told her she could.’

‘Did she now?’ said Joe, an edge of concern in his voice. ‘I don’t like this, Carter. She’s moving too fast for us. You didn’t let her take it away, did you?’

‘Of course not! In fact I was so suspicious of her intentions I sat with her and watched her closely while she read it.’

‘And?’

‘Very interesting! She pretended to read the news report of the crash first but it was clear to me that it was the list of the casualties she had really come to check on. Her eyes were continually veering sideways to the right-hand side of the page where the lists are printed.’

Carter got up and retrieved the paper from a locked file. He spread it out on the table between them. ‘Now, whatever she saw printed there had quite an effect on her. She turned pale, she started to breathe faster, she was agitated. No doubt about that. I had to send for a glass of water for her. Look at it more closely, Joe. I’ve had another look and I must say no name leaps out at me. What do you see?’

Joe looked again. Somewhere concealed in this list of English and French casualties was a name which had dramatic importance for Isobel Newton. But surely not? How could she be threatened by someone who had died so long ago? None of these names had any power to harm her. So what then had she seen in these lists?

‘Oh, my God!’ Joe groaned. ‘What bloody idiots we’ve been! Charlie! I now know what people mean when they call us the Defective Force! Get Simpson here! Where the devil is Simpson? You’ve not let him go back to Delhi, have you? We must see him!’

‘No, it’s all right, Joe,’ said Carter in puzzlement. ‘I decided it might not be quite safe to put him in the hotel after all – I put him up with me and Meg. He’s at my bungalow helping Meg to peg a rug. Hang on – I’ll give Meg a ring. We’ve got a telephone installed. We can get him over here in a few minutes. I’ll send a sergeant over with a rickshaw. But tell me, Joe, what have you seen? What did Alice see?’

‘Nothing,’ said Joe. ‘And that’s the whole point. It’s what she didn’t see that’s important!’

Chapter Nineteen

«^»

Ten-year-old Raghu Mitra stubbed out his cigarette and handed his tin of polish and his brushes and his polishing cloth to a smaller brother. Without a word spoken the two youngest boys took charge of the shoe black stall and the four bigger ones, apparently bored with the business for the moment, took out a yellow ball and began to play catch across the street to the vociferous objections of the rickshaw runners passing between them. Seconds ago the lights had gone out in the window of the jeweller’s shop just as Carter Sahib had said they would.

A man emerged from the shop and set off down the Mall in an easterly direction. A Hindu in white turban, white baggy trousers and white overshirt, he strode out, looking neither to left nor right, unconcerned and unafraid. A man on legitimate business. A man of the bazaar, Raghu guessed, commissioned to carry a parcel which Carter Sahib was very interested in. And that bulge over his right hip would no doubt be the parcel in question. Whooping and hollering and bumping into the messenger, the boys chased their ball down the street. An observant onlooker might have noticed that while two boys ran ahead of their quarry, in whom they showed not the slightest interest, two lagged behind. But he would have had to be a very observant onlooker.

Nearing Christ Church, the boys put away their ball and began to play tag, weaving in and out of the crowds but always keeping their man loosely in the centre of their group, prepared to wheel and turn and change direction like leaves in the wind. Their target made straight for the big main doors of the cathedral and went unhesitatingly in. Raghu made to follow him but was chased away by a doorman. He and one brother remained playing around the doors while the two remaining boys circled the cathedral, keeping an eye on the rear doorway.

Two minutes later the Indian they had followed came out, blinking, into the sunlight. The bulge at his right hip had disappeared. At a flick of Raghu’s hand, his second brother set off to follow the man. Raghu waited. After a while three Europeans came out. Two of them, a sahib and memsahib and tourists by the look of them, wandered off in the direction of the Mall. The third paused, looked to left and right, scanning the large paved concourse in front of the church, and then started to walk casually away. He had a bulge in the left pocket of his smartly cut trousers, Raghu noticed. With a piercing whistle to summon his brothers from the rear door, he set off, trotting ahead of the man back down the Mall. They were following a well-rehearsed surveillance drill devised by Charlie Carter’s Havildar of Police.

As he scampered along he committed to memory the appearance of the European. Carter Sahib himself had taught him this drill. Height: medium, as tall as Raghu’s father. Hair: dark and shiny. Eyes: he hadn’t been close enough to see but he guessed black. Clothes: sahib clothes. Not military. Age: always a problem to guess the age of a European but he would have thought young – in his early twenties.