Death in Kashmir (11 page)

The narrow metal zip-fastener was closed, but the gun had gone. And it was not until after they had carried the slim, stiff figure up the hill to the hotel, and laid it in an empty room in an unoccupied wing, out of consideration for Miss Parrish's nerves, that Sarah learned—by way of Dr Leonard's wife, Frances, who has assisted her husband to remove the dead girl's clothing, so that he and Major McKay could conduct a thorough examination to eliminate any possibility of foul play—that nothing unusual had been found. Which could only mean that the holster and its sling had also been taken, since its discovery would certainly have aroused a good deal of curiosity and speculation.

5

‘Where are you going, Sarah?' Ian's voice sounded as cheerful as ever.

‘Out,' said Sarah briefly. She pulled on her skiing gloves, and picking up her ski-sticks, stepped out of the over-heated atmosphere of the hotel lounge into the chill of the darkening afternoon.

‘Then I'll come with you and keep an eye on you.'

‘No thank you, Ian,' said Sarah, allowing him to adjust and buckle on her skis. ‘I'm only going across the
marg,
and I'd rather go by myself if you don't mind.' She drew the loops of her ski-sticks over her wrists as Ian fastened the last strap and stood up, dusting the snow off his knees.

‘Don't be silly, Sarah. I know this business has been a bit of a jolt for you, but there's no reason why you shouldn't behave in a rational manner. There's a hell of a storm coming up, and it isn't going to help the situation if you get yourself lost in it. At least let me come with you if you feel you must go mooching about the
marg.
'

Sarah said: ‘But I don't want you, Ian. And don't worry, I won't get lost. See you at tea-time—and thanks for your help.'

She slid swiftly away down the snow-covered path, gaining momentum as it dipped sharply downwards, and vanished round a curve of the hill, leaving Ian Kelly to mutter evil words and return moodily to the hotel and the subdued groups of skiers discussing the latest tragedy in the lounge.

At the bottom of the hill Sarah swung to the right, and skirting it, made for the end of the Red Run and turned up into the forest.

The sky was by now completely overcast and, although it was barely two o'clock, the day had darkened to a twilight dimness. Little gusts of wind were blowing across the open
marg,
but under the snow-ladened boughs of the forest trees the air was cold and still, as Sarah picked her way carefully between the tree trunks and presently reached the junction of the two runs where the twins had stopped that morning. Brushing the snow from a tree stump she unfastened her skis and sat down facing the slope of Blue Run, and propping her chin on her hand, thought deeply.

Of one thing only she was completely sure. Janet, like Mrs Matthews, had been murdered. Not for one moment did she believe the doctor's diagnosis of accidental death due to a fall at speed and the striking of her head against a rock. She was certain that the blow that had killed Janet had been deliberately inflicted, for to prove it, as in the case of Mrs Matthews, there was the missing gun.

The question was
how?
Sarah went back once more over that conversation with Janet in the moonlight outside the Khilanmarg hut, and once again she seemed to hear Janet's low confident laugh as she said: ‘It's all right Sarah. Don't look so horrified. I'll keep to the edge of the run, and I know the route like the back of my hand. Don't worry. There won't be a murderer waiting down there for me at this time of night.'

The edge of the run …

Sarah stood up, and carrying her skis, walked up the side of the Blue Run, keeping among the trees. Presently she crossd to the other side, and less than a minute later came upon what she was looking for: the track of a single skier on the extreme right-hand side of the run, among the tree trunks.

Turning she followed the track downhill, and at the junction of the runs stopped to fasten on her skis before picking up the trail again. It ran down the hill following the line of Blue Run, passed without pause the small scarlet blotch that marked the spot where Janet's body had lain, and continued for a couple of hundred yards until the trees thinned at the edge of the
marg;
at which point it turned right and was lost among a maze of crossing and recrossing tracks made by a beginners' class.

Pausing again, Sarah leant against a snow-powdered tree trunk and stared out across the sullen levels of the
marg
with unseeing eyes——So Janet had not been killed on the way down from Khilan after all. She had kept to one side of that treacherous, frozen run and had gone on across the open levels of the
marg,
to keep her appointment somewhere among the dark pine trees where that red spark of light had shown like a small, evil star on the previous night. That meant that she must have been killed on her way back to Khilan, her mission completed. But there was something wrong there too …

Sarah turned and glanced back at the lowering ridge of Apharwat, coldly white against the slate-grey sky, and realized as she did so that although Janet might have come down from the ski-hut by the Blue Run, she would never have returned by that route, since the quickest way down would have proved the hardest way back. She would have come by the forest path. So why had her body been found on the Blue Run?

A theory was forming itself slowly in Sarah's mind, and she leaned her head against the rough bark of the tree, and shutting her eyes, tried to visualize Gulmarg as she had seen it last night from the snowfields of Khilan, following the direction of Janet's hand pointing down at that far small speck of light.

‘About level with the Gap,' said Sarah, speaking aloud. ‘And not more than a quarter of a mile this side of it.'

She opened her eyes and turned to look in the direction of the hotel, and from there, frowning, to the lowering sky overhead. Then, with a sudden squaring of her small jaw, she set off resolutely towards the Gap.

Fifteen minutes later she was among trees again at the far side of the
marg,
and she had found what she was looking for. Halfway across, a single track had detached itself from the multitudinous tracks of the beginners' slopes and struck off alone towards a point to the right-hand side of the Gap. It was not in a direction ordinarily frequented by members of the Club, and Sarah was fairly certain that she was following the track that Janet's skis had made on the previous night.

The track herringboned up the slope below the road that runs round the edge of the golf-course, and on reaching it, followed the road for several hundred yards, before turning off up a side path between the trees: and following it, Sarah found herself standing before a rickety wooden gateway beyond which, half hidden by tree trunks and snow-laden branches, stood a low, log-built bungalow of the usual Gulmarg pattern.

The log-built ‘huts', as all houses here are called, are only occupied during the summer months. When autumn comes and the chestnut trees add their splashes of bright gold to the pine forests and the snows begin to creep down from the mountain tops, the population retreats to the houseboats and hotels of Srinagar in the valley below, and the huts remain shuttered and empty until the following May. This one was no exception—apart from the fact that there were tracks on the short path leading to the front door and that the top bar of the gate had been swept clean of snow.

At least three people had entered and left the bungalow within the last twenty-four hours. Probably more, for the track Sarah had followed was crossed by others, coming from the direction of the Gap, and there were two more leaving the gate, so close upon each other that they might almost have been a single track. Yet despite this, the house appeared completely deserted.

The roof was hidden under a thick covering of snow, and a fringe of icicles hung from the eaves. The door was closed and there were rough board shutters nailed over all but one of the windows. But the blank, rime-fringed panes of that single unshuttered window looked out, free of the encroaching trees, towards the hotel, and above it to the heights of Apharwat and the long snow slopes of Khilanmarg …

It was from this window then, thought Sarah with sudden conviction, that the light that had lured Janet to her death had shone last night. And drawing a deep breath, she pushed open the unlatched gate and walked up the path towards the house.

Her ski slipped and slithered where the tracks of those earlier visitors had hardened the snow to ice, and a sudden thin gust of wind, herald of the coming storm, blew across the
marg
and soughed among the deodars; sloughing off snow from over-weighted branches and whispering about the crude pine walls of the empty house.

Sarah tried the front door cautiously, and finding that it was not locked, took her courage in both hands and pushed it open. The hinges creaking protestingly, and suddenly, daunted by the darkness and the silence inside, she would have turned and run back down the trodden path and out into the open
marg
but for the thought of Janet setting off alone in the moonlight for that last long ski-run through the lonely woods … ‘Sarah!' apostrophized Miss Parrish, in an angry undertone, ‘you are a lousy little coward—and anyway, it can't be worse than the V-bombs!'

Unfastening her skis and leaving them beside the path, she set her teeth and stepped over the threshold of the silent house.

The air inside was stale and very cold, and the house smelt damp and musty. But there was a faint scent of cigarette smoke in the small dark hall, and another fainter smell that was barely more than the ghost of an odour: a sickly smell; sweetish, cloying and wholly unfamiliar.

Sarah wrinkled her nose and stooped to pick up a half-smoked cigarette. She touched it gingerly, almost as if she thought it might still be hot, and then dropped it back on the floor with a little grimace of disgust. The door had partially closed and now she saw that a chair stood behind it. It was an ordinary verandah chair with a wooden back and arms and a sagging cane seat, and someone had been sitting in it comparatively recently for beside it lay a couple of cigarette-stubs and a film of scattered grey ash.

There was something on the arm of the chair that made Sarah's heart leap like a trout on a line: a small, triangular splash of blood that showed wet and vivid against the unvarnished wood. But when she removed a ski-glove and put out a shrinking finger to touch it, it was not blood at all, but only a fragment of thin shiny red rubber, such as might have been torn from a child's balloon, which had caught in a crack of the wood.

The bathos of the discovery, coming on top of that terrified leap of the heart, sent her off into a sudden and uncontrollable gale of giggles that contained more than a touch of hysteria. Oh, for heaven's sake! thought Sarah, mopping her eyes with the glove, I
must
stop seeing horrors at every turn. This isn't getting me anywhere!

She controlled herself with a considerable effort, and looked about her. To the left of the hall in which she stood were three doors which when tried, proved to be either locked or bolted on the other side, while to the right a narrow passage led to another doorway, presumably a sitting-room. The passage was dark and smelt of rats, pinewood and cheap varnish, and there were marks on the uncarpeted floorboards: smears of damp and traces of discoloured snow. Sarah advanced along it cautiously, and trying the door at the end found that it was unfastened and opened easily.

When the track she had followed across the
marg
had turned up to the gate among the pine trees, she had not doubted that it was to this house that Janet had come last night. But if she had needed proof, it was here——This, then, was the room with the unshuttered window.

The trees that huddled close about the small house had left this one window clear, so that it commanded an uninterrupted view, in a direct line ahead, of the
marg,
the hotel, the rising wall of forest behind it and, higher still, the distant expanse of Khilanmarg.

There was very little furniture in the room—any upholstered item such as sofas and armchairs having presumably been stored in one of the locked rooms. But there was a small round table drawn up before that single unshuttered window, and on it, among a litter of spent matches, cigarette-ends and grey ash, stood an old but obviously serviceable Petromax lamp. The glass of the lamp was red, and the room was a degree warmer than the rest of the cold house. And once again Sarah was aware of an odd smell that mingled with the scent of stale cigarette smoke. But this time it was a different smell, and vaguely familiar. She stood still, sniffing the close, stuffy air——
Cordite!
Someone had fired a gun in that little room. Had it been Janet?

A sudden, shuddering horror of the cold, shuttered house and the locked rooms that lay at the far end of the narrow passage overcame Sarah, and turning swiftly, she closed the door behind her, shooting home the bolt with trembling fingers and shutting herself in with the scanty wooden furniture and that betraying lamp.

A low growl of thunder shuddered through the cold air and echoed among the mountains; and once again a sharp gust of wind licked across the
marg
to moan among the pine trees, rattling the window-panes and whining through a knot-hole in the pinewood wall——

No. Not a knot-hole. A bullet hole.

Sarah pulled herself together and walked quickly across the room to verify it. But she had seen too many bullet holes on too many targets to be mistaken, and she turned back to the table. The floor was a pool of shadow in the waning light, but there was a half-empty box of matches beside the lamp, and she stretched out a hand for them and lit one with unsteady fingers. A little flame flared up and sputtered weakly at the end of the match as she held it towards the floor, and a moment later it flickered out. But not before she had seen the ugly, sprawling stain that disfigured the rough planking of the dusty uncarpeted floor.