Island of Death (9 page)

Hilda’s smile disappeared. The Doctor stroked his chin with the back of his forefinger. He must be careful. She was beginning to suspect that he wasn’t just making conversation.

‘Relatively speaking, it’s more like the collective unconscious of Jung - or of Assagioli. In ultimate terms, I should have tended towards a comparison with the Beloved of the Sufis.’

The Doctor nodded. It was as he’d thought. ‘But that would mean that you are equating the divinity of your Skang with God!’

Hilda looked at him over the top of her glasses. ‘And would you have the intellectual arrogance to tell me that I am wrong?’

They were getting into very deep waters here. A change of course. ‘What about the physical aspect?’

Dame Hilda frowned slightly. ‘I don’t follow you.’

‘What is the significance of its... or should I say,
his
demonic appearance?’

Now Hilda was taking him very seriously. ‘The word Skang is a shortening - a simplification - of his Indian name. And like many Indian Gods, he must first and foremost be a destroyer.’

The Doctor nodded. ‘Shiva - and his wife Kali, with her necklace of skulls.’

‘The Skang in the fierceness of his embrace pierces the very heart and mind - and the fire of his sublime love burns away the egotistical dross it finds there. And with that purification, the devotee vanishes forever in the ecstasy of divine union.’

The Doctor looked at her in amazement. Where had the severely rational philosopher, the supreme sceptic of her generation, disappeared to? The fervour in her voice, and the glow in her eyes made it abundantly clear. She actually believed it all to be true!

‘Mm... And how is this unity made manifest to your devoted followers?’ The Doctor was doing his best to sound no more than mildly interested; the implication being that this was nothing but the idle curiosity of an old academic acquaintance.

But the attempt was in vain. Hilda’s expression changed from paradoxical absorbed openness to a stiff normality. ‘We have our rituals, our ceremonies... Now, Doctor, I’m sure you’ll understand...’

Had he given away too much?

‘Of course, of course,’ he said, getting to his feet.

Mother Hilda watched as the bearer showed him out, platitudes of empty politeness hanging in the air. Her social smile faded, leaving a slight frown. A moment later, a decision made, she rose and hurried inside the bungalow.

‘Will!’ she called. ‘Where are you?’

He appeared at the door of his office.

‘Good,’ she said. ‘Now listen carefully. There’s been a change of plan.’

Were the crew all members of the cult? It might make a difference, thought Sarah, as she watched them swarming about the quayside, loading crates and boxes of all sorts and sizes onto wooden pallets, which were then hoisted aboard by crane-things; derricks weren’t they called? The crew were all wearing white, certainly, but then so did sailors the world over when they were in the sunnier climes. White uniforms, like the Navy, or one of the posh cruise lines. This was no tramp steamer.

So far, so good. At least she’d managed to get into the dock area. Sarah’s experience in an earlier trip to the East (tracking down the Brewster boy to Bangkok, after he’d staged an unconvincing suicide) had taught her the universal way of getting what you wanted. A hundred rupee note, judiciously folded and surreptitiously slipped into the hand of the security guard on the gate, had done the trick, just as she’d expected.

But now what? She wanted to find out two things - when the
Skang
was sailing, and where to. She took a deep breath and marched out of the shadow of the customs shed to the gangway, and straight up it, as confidently as she could manage.

Nobody seemed to be on guard; and the few people she could see on this deck, down nearer the bow, were far too busy to notice her. Now then... she needed to find the central hub of all this activity - the purser’s office, perhaps? There’d bound to be all the info she needed there.

Where would it be? For’d, probably, in the area underneath the bridge... or might it be amidships, where the passengers would congregate? Feeling a little smug about her nautical expertise, she turned into the first doorway she came to, which was in fact about halfway down the deck.

‘And where do you think you’re going?’

She swung round, her heart thumping. The speaker, a large female with close-cropped hair and a clipboard, who looked as if she’d be more at home in a prison than a luxury yacht, stood behind the open door at a table covered with papers.

‘How did you get on board?’

‘I... I just walked up the gangway. I’ve... I’ve come from the ashram.’

‘Is that so? What’s the password then?’

Oh, thank you, Jeremy! ‘Open your heart!’

A grunt. She didn’t seem to be taking the advice.

‘Very well. What is it you want?’

Sarah’s mind was working so fast that she could almost feel the wheels going round. ‘Oh... I’ve got a message.’

‘Give it to me, then.’

‘No, I mean, Brother Alex said I was to talk to the Mate...’

Did she believe it? Didn’t look like it, judging by the tight lips.

‘So if you’d just tell me where I can find him...’Sarah went on desperately.

‘The First Officer?’ She looked over Sarah’s shoulder and a gleam of spite appeared in her cold eyes. ‘You’re in luck... Mr Gorridge!’ she called out. ‘There’s someone here who wants to speak to you. A message from... Brother Alex, was it?’

Oh Lor’!

Mr Gorridge came in from the upper deck. ‘What is it?’ His face twitched. ‘Please be quick. We’re behind schedule already. Who is Brother Alex?’

A wild hope. This could be the chance she’d been looking for. ‘Oh... Mother Hilda has put Brother Alex in charge of getting everybody on board...’ What was the word? Oh, yes.

‘Embarkation. You know? And he would like you to give him an idea of... well... when he can get going.’

A snort of disgust from the prison warder; and the First Officer wasn’t any more pleased.

‘You’d never believe it!’ he said. ‘I’ve made it perfectly clear from the start. I cannot accept any passengers earlier than two hours before we slip. And that means 1500, and not a second before. Okay?’ He screwed up his face and pulled at his nose as if he was trying to stop himself sneezing. ‘Now, what was I doing? Oh yes...’ He looked at his watch. ‘Oh, God!’ he said and turned to go.

Well, that wasn’t much use.

‘At this rate,’ said Mr Gorridge as he disappeared, ‘we’ll be lucky to be ready by a
week
tomorrow!’

Thank you, Mr Gorridge! Thank you very much!

‘Don’t you see? It must mean that they’re going to sail away tomorrow afternoon. The whole batch. At five o’clock!’

‘Very good, Sarah. Very good indeed,’ said the Brigadier.

‘And
that
means, Doctor, that your softly, softly, catch monkey approach is kaput.’

The Doctor took another mouthful of chicken curry.

‘Curious flavour,’ he said. ‘I haven’t tasted anything like it since a sneg stew I had in a little bistro on Sirius Two.’

‘What’s a sneg?’ asked Sarah, despite herself, her mouth full of buffburger.

‘A type of hairy newt,’ said the Doctor.

‘Do you like the taste?’ said Ron (who doubled as chef and waiter), as he passed by with a tray of dirty dishes from another table. He turned back at the kitchen door. ‘If you promise not to tell anybody... A large dollop of chocolate powder, that’s my secret ingredient. Takes the edge off the heat of the curry.

Of course, some like it hot!’ he added, and with a cheeky toss of his head and a giggle, he disappeared into the kitchen.

‘Hmm. So that’s what’s wrong with it,’ said the Brigadier, sprinkling his curry with a generous spoonful of chopped green chillies from the dish in the centre of the table. ‘You’re changing the subject again, Doctor,’ he went on. ‘You’ll no doubt be delighted to know that, thanks to the intervention of the British High Commissioner, Major Chatterjee and I will be paying this Mother Hilda a visit first thing tomorrow morning. She has some serious questions to answer.’

‘Indeed? You have no more direct evidence to link the deaths with the Skang cult now than you had in London.’

‘I don’t need it. There’s sufficient circumstantial evidence for a proper investigation. And that would be impossible if they were to take to the high seas. Until this whole thing is cleared up, they won’t be going anywhere.’

‘And how do you think you’re going to stop them?’ asked the Doctor.

‘Not by having a bit of a chit-chat about philosophy,’ replied the Brigadier, who had received the Doctor’s report with some impatience. ‘I have here...’ he produced from his inside pocket an official-looking envelope, ‘...something which will stop them in their tracks!’

‘Bully for you. It must be a very powerful bit of paper.’

‘It is indeed. An injunction from a High Court judge.’

‘And if they defy you?’

‘They’ll be arrested. All the organisers. I gather from Chatterjee that those in charge come from some twenty different countries. We’ll bag the lot of them.’

‘I’ll believe that when I see it,’ said the Doctor.

Here they go again, thought Sarah, and then she was struck by an appalling notion. What was so special about London? If there was a Skang creature hidden away in South Hill Park Square, why not in every country where the cult had a base? They could be looking at twenty of them, not just the one! ‘Hang on!’ she said urgently, interrupting an irritable exchange concerning the efficiency of the Indian police -

indeed of any police, anywhere.

She told them her thought.

‘Well of course,’ said the Doctor. ‘I’d taken it for granted that we’d all understood that. Why do you think I’ve been treading so carefully? As far as Earth is concerned, these are alien beings, and clearly inimical. The leaders of the cult are either in league with them or being controlled by them. With so much at stake, these people will stop at nothing.’

It was apparently as new a thought to the Brigadier as it had been to Sarah.

‘In that case,’ he said, ‘it makes it all the more imperative that we take the strongest action possible. The Major is picking me up at nine o’clock. This has got to be settled once and for all!’

‘Sorry Sarah,’ he went on, ‘on an occasion like this, three’s a crowd. Er... that is to say...’ He’d caught the lift of the Doctor’s eyebrow.

So they were going off without her. Right. She hadn’t told them the whole of her idea. She’d remembered the gut-clenching thought she’d had when she first saw the
Skang.
If there were twenty of the things, where were they hidden?

There could be only one answer.

She’d got onto the ship once. What was to stop her getting on board again?

Major Chatterjee arrived to pick the Doctor and the Brigadier up in a battered old Land Rover - not with a squad of police-men in tow, but with a large army sergeant with a fierce Kitchener moustache and a UNIT flash on his shoulder.

So the UNIT presence in Bombay wasn’t confined to one individual after all, thought the Brigadier. Including the driver, there were at least two more members. Hardly enough to take twenty people in charge. Twenty at least.

For a moment, he felt a pang of nostalgia for the UNIT team back home; for the most part ex-SAS professionals, who had helped him solve so many problems in the past. He stole a glance at the sergeant. That moustache would put the fear of God into anyone. At least his presence would show they meant business.

Not that you would have known it, from the Major’s conversation.

‘From what city are you coming, Doctor?’ said the Major, as they bumped over the potholes. ‘I have had a training secondment in your beautiful country some years ago, and went swanning the length and breadth of it.’

‘Oh, I’ve lived in so many different places,’ replied the Doctor, ‘I’ve lost count.’

‘Indeed? I gather that Brigadier-General Lethbridge-Stewart is Scotch born - oh, pardon me, Scottish!’

The man was just showing off his English! the Brigadier thought. ‘Just plain Brigadier, Chatterjee. Not a general...’

‘Yet...’ he added under his breath.

Swerving to avoid a skinny cow, they swung round the corner and arrived outside the main entrance to the ashram.

‘Gracious me!’ said the Major.

The gate was wide open, and nobody was there to greet them or, for that matter, to hinder them. They drove straight in.

Not a soul.

They pulled up in the square outside the main block, which housed the offices, the canteen and so on. There was no sign of life save the sound of a bird that sounded like a half-hearted curlew. Even the fountain in the middle of the square was silenced.

‘This is absurd,’ said the Brigadier, climbing out.

‘I should have foreseen this,’ said the Doctor behind him.

‘Maybe you were right, Lethbridge-Stewart. I would appear to have frightened them off myself.’

Major Chatterjee joined them. ‘We must make all haste to the docks. These naughty people must not be evading our grasp.’