The Truth (17 page)

‘Are you all right in there, Mr Mabbut?’

Mabbut pulled himself up with an involuntary groan. He was lying stretched out on his bed and darkness had fallen.

Hamish Melville’s head appeared through the tent flap. His eyes
sparkled and his face was creased into a smile. He held out a water bottle.

‘You might need this.’

He watched as Mabbut drank deeply.

‘How’s the accommodation?’

‘It’s comfortable, thank you very much.’

‘These came from a disbanded Boy Scout group in Peshawar. Headmaster of the school thought them a little too Baden-Powell, you know, not quite in keeping with the times.’

Mabbut finished the water.

‘Anyway, when you’re ready, come and join us.’

Mabbut felt distinctly groggy. The water had helped, but his mouth still tasted foul and he realised he’d not cleaned his teeth for at least twenty-four hours. He found his toilet bag and toothbrush and did the best job he could. When he stepped outside he found that the campsite had been transformed. Lamps had been lit and beneath the tree where he’d relieved himself a generator thrummed. A trestle table had been set up, to one side of which was a fire over which a blackened pot was being stirred. Melville was at the table staring into a laptop. Three Indians, all young and neatly dressed in tight cotton shirts or T-shirts, sat around him. One was on a mobile, the other two were studying a map. Hearing Mabbut clear his throat, they looked up. Melville turned and called him forward with a wide introductory sweep of his arm.

‘Gentlemen, meet Keith Prynne Mabbut, citizen of the UK, born twenty-ninth March 1953. The year of the coronation,’ he noted with mock gravitas. ‘Passport number 276394702. Occupation? Well, I’m sure we’ll find that out in due course.’

He indicated the one unoccupied chair at the table.

‘Mr Mabbut, welcome to the University of Life. This is Kumar, this is Mahesh, Kinesh next to him and I’m Monsieur Steiner. From Antwerp.’

There was appreciative laughter around the table.

‘Sit down and we’ll get you a beer. Not Belgian, I’m afraid.’

Mabbut knew he was being teased but guessed that this was all part of the process, a bluff but necessary way of flushing him out. After all the game-playing of the last few days it was almost a relief,
but he was aware that, now more than ever, he needed to keep his wits about him.

One of the young men poured a beer and put the glass in front of him.

Melville tapped at his keyboard with an air of finality, closed his laptop and took in Mabbut’s beer appreciatively.

‘I’ll have one of those too, Kumar, if you don’t mind. As we have a guest.’

Food was laid on the table in a cluster of small stainless-steel bowls. Deep-fried aubergine, spinach, spiced okra, beans, lentils, pickles, yogurt and tamarind juice – ‘good for a hangover’, Melville assured him. Rice was ladled on to individual plates. Mabbut was discreetly handed a spoon, but the others, including Melville, tucked in with their fingers, moulding the rice into a ball which was then dipped in the various dishes before being popped into the mouth with a neat flick of the thumb. Melville’s long and elegant hands were well suited to this dipping and rolling and he seemed as deft at the technique as any of his Indian companions.

Mabbut decided it was time to express his gratitude to Melville, for rescuing him.

The big man shrugged.

‘There are a lot of people round here who don’t like white folks, period. And why should they? They see them arrive in their big cars with their World Bank briefcases and they know that they’re not here for a walk in the woods. They’re off to the refinery. The refinery that was built on twenty-three local villages, and surrounded by a ten-mile barbed-wire fence. The refinery that makes people’s eyes burn and their skin itch and their water taste bad.’

He threw out an arm in the general direction of the village.

‘Give or take the odd ritual sacrifice, the Kidonga are basically friendly people, Keith. They look after each other, and they look after the place where they live. They don’t want much more than to be left alone. But as they live on some of the most mineral-rich land in India that’s getting to be a little more difficult. But they know I’m on their side. They trust me. That’s why they gave you afternoon tea.’

He broke into a wheezy laugh.

‘And a cocktail, I hear.’

At this, the laughter echoed round the table.

‘A sago-palm special on your first day here. Now that
is
an honour, Keith.’

Melville’s wide shoulders shook and eventually Mabbut joined in.

‘Then there are those who pretend to be on their side,’ Melville continued, ‘while basically using them to fight their own war. Eh, Kumar?’

The stockiest of the three Indians angled his head in agreement, puffing his cheeks out as he did so.

‘You mean the Maoists?’ asked Mabbut.

Melville chewed and swallowed. Then he stood, picked up a cup and walked to a plastic bucket from which he drew water. He splashed it on his hands then nodded at Mabbut.

‘Naxalites, Maoists. Naxals. Mostly well educated, committed to the overthrow of the government, the state and pretty much everything else they don’t like. They attach themselves to the tribals, appropriate their suffering and turn it into anger. Then they turn the anger into control. And they
do
kill people. Mostly policemen, but they can be unpredictable. You just happened to wander into a village that’s one of their recent acquisitions.’

‘Farud was right, then.’

‘Farud?’

‘My guide.’

‘Some guide.’

‘He didn’t want to come up here.’

‘He didn’t have to.’

This remark hung in the air, and Mabbut was aware that the mood around the table had changed imperceptibly. He took a sideways glance at Melville and found the craggy face turned towards him, the deep blue eyes appraising him as they had done when they first met in the street in Bhubaneswar.

‘Most “lone travellers” can’t afford to hire a Toyota, Mr Mabbut.’

For a few moments only the sound of the generator broke the silence. Mabbut knew he mustn’t be stared down.

‘Well, thank you for saving our lives,’ he said quietly.

Melville’s eyes flicked across the table.

‘Thanks to Kumar, I know most of those Maoist boys.’

He pushed his plate to one side. As if at a signal, one of those who’d driven Mabbut back the previous night materialised from the darkness and began to clear the table.

‘They’re not all bad,’ Melville added. ‘We may disagree on motivation but we agree on fundamentals.’

There was a pause. Once again Mabbut felt that he was being given space to explain himself, but the moment passed. There was general movement as people got up from the table and Melville accepted a cigarette from one of the men. He squatted down and lit it using a stick at the edge of the fire, straightened up and took a deep pull. He coughed lightly but involuntarily.

‘Parval, sorry, Mr Singh, told me you were interested in the Astramex refinery.’

Mabbut flinched. What else had he told him?

‘He . . . Yes. He thought that I might be more interested in that than another day of temples.’

‘The temples here are world class.’

‘I agree. But there are maybe a little too many of them.’

Melville pushed back his hair and flicked his cigarette ash to one side.

‘Parval is quite political, you know. He has an agenda. I’m sorry if he forced it on you.’

‘Well, he was only trying to help.’

‘He must have thought you’d be interested.’

‘Yes.’

‘Because most tourists aren’t. Interested.’

Melville returned to the table, pulled a lamp up close to him and bent over the map. With his long hair, round glasses and his long beak of a nose, he looked like some ancient alchemist.

‘Maybe he thought you were a kindred spirit?’

Mabbut looked back into the darkness beyond the camp.

Singh and Melville were formidable. They both had the same incisive way of cutting through bullshit. Manoeuvring him towards
the truth. There was no way back. From now on it would have to be damage limitation.

‘I was once an environmental journalist. We sort of hit it off.’

‘A journalist?’

‘Long time ago. I wrote for local papers mainly. Some nationals. Occasionally. I did a series of stories on pollution. Chemical spills from old-fashioned plants, that sort of thing.’

‘And?’

‘And I stopped doing it. I didn’t make myself very popular.’

Melville nodded. ‘I can imagine.’

‘And my wife was more interested in a secure income than environmental glory.’

Melville leant back and began to roll himself another cigarette.

‘Family?’

‘Two children. Well, not children, young adults, I think they call them.’

‘A happy family. I envy you.’

‘That’s what I thought, but my wife thought otherwise. She’s not living with me any more.’

Melville raised an eyebrow.

‘So what are you doing now?’

Mabbut came very close to an admission, but some instinct told him to hold back.

‘Well, I’ve just finished a vanity project for an oil company. Nothing I was proud of. So yes, I thought I’d look around the world for a bit.’

Melville drew his head back in mock disapproval.

‘A vanity project for an oil company? What sort of thing’s that?’

Mabbut smiled cautiously. This was a delicate game.

‘
A History of the Sullom Voe Oil Terminal
.’

Much to Mabbut’s relief, Melville greeted this with a rich chuckle.

‘No threat to Harry Potter, then.’

‘I don’t know about that. It’s another tale of Scottish wizardry.’

Melville nodded in agreement. He took a pull on his cigarette, and as he exhaled, he frowned, as if recalling something.

‘From what I know, the Shetlanders did pretty well out of Sullom Voe.’

‘That’s true.’

‘There are plenty of people here who think that aluminium will be the saving of this place,’ Melville went on. ‘It’s a poor area, after all.’

He looked across the table. Again Mabbut had that disconcerting feeling of being mentally frisked. But he had told enough of the truth to be able to return Melville’s steady gaze.

‘So what do
you
think?’

Mabbut shrugged. ‘I’ve no idea, I’m just looking and learning.’

This seemed to amuse Melville.

‘And who’s going to look after you, now that your guide’s gone home?’

Funnily enough, this was something Mabbut hadn’t really thought about.

‘Well, I shall look after myself. There must be a tourist office in the town.’

There was a grunt of laughter from Melville.

‘This isn’t Paris.’

‘No, I suppose not.’

Melville folded up the map, took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. Then, as if he had taken a decision, he briskly stood up.

‘We can get you back to Bhubaneswar, but we’ve a little business to do on the way.’

Mabbut realised there was only one possible answer.

‘That’s great. Thanks.’

‘We start early. But then everyone does round here.’

‘I’ll be ready. And, well . . .’

It was time to take the first step towards full disclosure.

‘Yes?’

‘I just wanted to say what anyone who’s ever cared about the environment would say. It’s an honour to meet you.’

Melville’s expression hardly flickered. A hint of a smile, then he reached across the table for a pile of papers.

‘You’ll find some water in your tent.’

Mabbut nodded.

‘Thank you. And goodnight.’

He was on his way to his tent when Melville called out to him.

‘Mr Mabbut. There is one important rule. What happens here, stays here. I’m sure you understand.’

‘Of course.’

He held Melville’s eye for a beat longer than was comfortable.

‘Sleep well.’

SIX

T
he call came before dawn.

Mabbut drank in the sweet, cool smell of the morning and downed his cup of black tea. Village life was already in full swing. Smoke rose from fires, cockerels were crowing, chickens clucking, and dogs barking. Figures could be seen beyond the village limits, squatting out in the countryside, adding their contribution to the night soil. With a tinkling of bells, a line of goats was being led out of the compound by two small children. Breakfast was modest and by the time the first light had risen on the eastern horizon, the tents had been struck and the two vehicles packed up and made ready.

Melville was businesslike. The banter had gone and he communicated through a series of barked orders. Once he was satisfied, he waved Mabbut towards a jeep. It was the one in which he’d been rescued two nights earlier.