Under the Burning Clouds Read online

  As she circumnavigated the Consulate, checking the paths and committing the layout to memory, she considered simply attempting to leave. After all, she might be wrong; perhaps she was not a prisoner after all.

  She approached the bridge, with its guard of three infantrymen. Before she had even moved to within twenty yards they had noticed her and stirred. She decided not to press the point and gave them a wide berth, clearly signalling that it was not her intention to attempt to cross.

  A little further on she paused at the water’s edge to watch some ducks. Pretending to sneeze, she glanced back. They had resumed their previous positions, but one of them still looked in her direction.

  That settled the matter.

  vi

  “You are Miss Anderson.” It wasn’t a question.

  The Consulate had a communal dining area for its staff, but to call it a refectory was to do it an injustice. It was probably on a par with the very best restaurants and offered an extensive menu, though not à la carte.

  Maliha was in the middle of her evening meal of trout with a mix of vegetables when the fellow simply walked up and began to speak. She swallowed what was in her mouth, though it was not fully chewed, put a smile on her face and looked up.

  She was not impressed by what she saw. He was middle-aged and quite portly. He had a bold moustache and had tried to disguise his partial loss of head hair by combing long strands of what remained across it. His suit was a very good fit for his frame but, all physical attributes apart, he leered and his eyes were not on her face but her décolletage.

  “You have me at a disadvantage, sir,” she said. In the periphery of her vision she could see heads turning in their direction. Apparently his behaviour was noteworthy.

  “Geoffrey Penn,” he said. His face bulged as if it were packed with pillows beneath the skin, and his eyes disappeared into the folds. Maliha could not help but imagine a frog. She knew he had been in the room when she entered and, if she was not mistaken, he had been consuming his dessert by the window.

  Now that she recalled it, he had spent an inordinate amount of time looking at her. Others had looked up—after all, this was a preserve of masculinity—but they were polite enough to look away once normal curiosity had been satisfied. Mr Penn, however, had watched her in the mirror.

  In the time she had taken to be seated and have her order delivered, he had finished his dessert, had a liqueur, a coffee and a cigar. The air was thick with the smoke of cigars, cigarettes and pipes; it floated in layers and streams through the room. It seemed a requirement of the male staff that they breathe the fumes of burning tobacco.

  “I do apologise, Mr Penn, but I seem to be in the middle of my meal.”

  “Yes, appalling manners, I know,” he said with an unctuous smile. “But I had to talk to you.”

  “Perhaps when I’ve finished?”

  “Too kind,” he said. “I’ll be in the library.”

  She nodded and glanced at the clock standing in the corner. “As you wish. Perhaps nine o’clock?”

  “Nine o’clock then.” He gave her a hint of a bow and left the table.

  Frowning, she returned her attention to her meal, ignoring the glances from the other diners.

  She lingered over the coffee, watching the men go in and out, listening to the murmur of their voices. It was Saturday, but the staff was always on duty. A pity.

  It was not just a matter of getting out of the building and back into the city, it was how she was going to get to the Sigiriya. But she understood the problem: she simply needed more information and, as soon as she had everything she needed, the plan would fall into place. For now it was sufficient just to have a goal.

  But time pressed.

  The clock chimed the three-quarter hour. She stood and made her way out into the passage. Taking it at a leisurely pace, she made her way round the front of the building to the library, situated in the other wing. It took her less than five minutes, so it was well before nine when she pushed open the door and entered.

  The walls were lined with shelves and stacked with the books one would expect. There were several armchairs and sofas suitable for reading, as well as three tables and two writing desks. Other than that, it was empty. She preferred to arrive early—it meant that she could choose where to stand or sit.

  Of course, it was completely inappropriate for her to meet a man in a secluded place without a chaperone. However, she doubted anyone would care; the colour of her skin meant she was not considered a lady.

  She chose to examine the bookshelves near the window. These were occupied by volumes of maps and encyclopaedias. She ran her fingers along the books, feeling the rough texture of the spines. She stopped at a slim volume entitled An Atlas of the Known Regions of Venus.

  She slid it from between the others and laid it on a table. It cracked slightly as she opened it, as if she was the first. She went through the pages, studying each for a moment and then moving on. It was her skill and her curse, the ability to recall anything she saw with perfect clarity.

  Not that the atlas revealed a great deal. The greater portion of Venus was still unexplored and the constant mists and clouds made the mapping process very slow. There was only one major landmass—which was at least the size of Europe, Asia and Africa combined—stretching in a bent ellipse around three-quarters of the surface.

  The rest was occupied by one major ocean, except this was dotted with islands large and small. One page noted that all depth-soundings suggested the sea was no more than a few fathoms deep across the entirety of its surface.

  The major British population centre, the city of Regina, was located near the north pole, that being the coolest part of the planet. The lowest temperatures exceeded a typical day in India and the humidity was like a constant monsoon.

  The atlas included plates of the flora and fauna: the great fungus forests; monstrous creatures like the giant reptiles dug from the ground at Whitby; smaller, wolf-like animals that ran in packs; and so many more. It was said that nothing native to Venus was not inimical to human life.

  And yet we still colonised it.

  As did Terence Timmons and his fleet of vessels, which carried naïve African farmers who thought they were going to Australia. How could she possibly find them with an entire planet to search?

  The door opened and the bulk of Geoffrey Penn negotiated the gap between door and frame. He shut the door behind him. She took the opportunity to close the atlas and return it to its place.

  vii

  Geoffrey Penn’s walk was almost a waddle, there was so much mass he had to move. She concluded that she would be completely safe, since she would have no difficulty outrunning him if she should be called upon to do so. He made his way between the furniture and stopped opposite her across the table.

  “Kind of you to agree to meet with me, Miss Anderson,” he said. She recognised a hint of Yorkshire in his voice, but it had been smoothed out by years in the Civil Service.

  “Not at all, Mr Penn,” she said. “Being trapped in the Consulate means that nothing that can fill my time is unwelcome. Shall we sit?”

  He did not so much reply as grunt.

  “Trapped?”

  “I am prevented from leaving,” she said. “So yes, I feel the term ‘trapped’ is valid, and it is less provocative than ‘imprisoned’.”

  She was not entirely sure whether this was the correct approach to take with a man she did not know, who might even be working for her adversary, when she was not aware of his position.

  “Yes, well, can’t say I know anything about that,” he said, shifting his weight uncomfortably. “It was you I was interested in, you see, Miss Anderson, and your cases.”

  “My cases?” she said. “You mean like Conan Doyle’s fictitious detective, Sherlock Holmes?”

  “Yes, exactly so, you see.” He hesitated. “I am an admirer.”

  “Well, Mr Penn, for one thing I have not had many cases, and I am not fictitious.”

  “Precisely,
Miss Anderson.” His delight leaked through the layers of fat in the form of a childlike smile. “You are real, your cases are real—does that not make it so much more interesting?”

  “Honestly, Mr Penn, I’m afraid you may have misunderstood. I do not enjoy what I do.” Even as she said it, she knew it to be a falsehood. “What I mean to say is that they involve real people, death and horror; they are not some intellectual game in the mind of an author.”

  She could see from the look in his eyes that her words were having precisely the opposite effect to what she intended. He was not put off by their truth—it excited him.

  She sighed. “What is that you want from me, Mr Penn?”

  “Call me Geoffrey.”

  “I do not believe I will. It is not personal but I do not think we should become intimate.”

  “Are you really prevented from leaving?”

  She nodded her response.

  He looked thoughtful and his eyes kept dropping from her face to her chest. It was quite uncomfortable; she could not imagine what was going through his mind. Or worse, she was quite able to imagine.

  Something occurred to her. “To what extent are you privy to the facts of my encounter with Guru Nadesh?”

  A look of embarrassment came over his face which told her all she needed to know about that. Both Detective Forsyth and Valentine had made private reports which were not included in the general files about the death of the Guru. Those reports contained details of how she had persuaded the man to confess his crimes.

  It seemed that Geoffrey Penn had used his position to read those reports and, while neither of her friends would have been prurient in their descriptions, they would not have omitted the fact that she had gained the Guru’s confidence by becoming one of his students, being naked with him and letting him touch her.

  Here was a man she did not know, who knew her history in intimate detail.

  “What is it you want from me?” she said again. “And what will you do in exchange?”

  “I cannot help you escape,” he said quickly.

  “Let me know your demand first, Geoffrey,” she said, trying to suppress the aggressive tone that Valentine had told her she adopted all too easily. “But be aware, I will not do anything that might be considered indelicate.”

  He looked horrified, though possibly a little disappointed as well. He did not respond. If she was not mistaken there was a battle going on inside the man.

  “I said ‘nothing indelicate’, Mr Penn.”

  “No, of course, I would not suggest such a thing.”

  His words belied the look in his eyes, and the location to which they were directed said quite the opposite.

  “Are you married, Mr Penn?”

  “I do not have that pleasure, Miss Anderson.” The look of sorrow in his face was enough to break a woman’s heart. But clearly it never had.

  “I am going to be completely honest with you, Mr Penn,” she said. “I know what you most desire and I cannot give that to you. Nor anything even close to it.”

  He appeared horrified that she might be able to see into his soul. But she had seen true horror and there was little he could imagine she had not either seen or experienced. Saying these things did not embarrass her.

  “But I will permit a kiss.”

  “A kiss?” His voice caught in his throat and the words barely emerged whole. “What do you want in return?”

  “You have access to records?”

  He hesitated sufficiently for Maliha to think he was going to deny it, but not admitting that he had seen the private records would have made him a liar. He nodded.

  “I want to see every record you have on Terence Timmons.”

  He nodded.

  “And I need them tonight.”

  “I don’t know—”

  “Tonight, Mr Penn,” she said. “I am going to retire now, but I will find that I cannot sleep at about two o’clock and I will return here to find something to read. I hope I will find something very interesting on this very table.”

  He nodded again. “And the kiss?” Once more it was as if his voice had deserted him and the words came out as barely more than a croak.

  “If you are here then, it will be possible to bestow the favour.”

  She knew that would guarantee he carried out his half of the bargain. After all, she was not going to get dressed to come down; she would be wearing only her dressing gown. He would see her feet, her ankles as well, no doubt, and a more interesting version of her upper torso.

  As she headed upstairs she wondered what she had become that she would sell her body to achieve her aims. Was she any different to Amita, or Riette’s mother, Akua? It is only a kiss, she thought to herself, with a man who will always lack for female companionship. But even as she thought it she knew it to be no more than a rationalisation. She was prostituting herself.

  viii

  She had no alarm clock, so instead she spent the night sitting in the dark or pacing. The lights of Johannesburg faded out one by one, save for the electric street lights that burned through the night.

  She had the window open to allow cooler air to circulate. Night sounds filled the room. The voice of what may have been a fox called in its penetrating shriek. Owls of different types made themselves known.

  The sky was clear and brilliant with stars shimmering against the black. Here in the Transvaal, the Victoria Voidstation that hung above the Fortress in Ceylon was not visible, even though her windows were facing the right direction. If she could have looked to the east, the now-defunct Albert Station would be hanging motionless above the horizon. The third station in the triangle that enclosed the globe, Elizabeth, sat above the Pacific Ocean. She had never seen it.

  The clock chimed the half hour. She realised she had been dozing and looked at her watch to see the hour, but it was too dark. She stood stiffly and went into the dressing room. She closed the door, turned her head away and switched on the light. Even behind her shut and averted eyes she was dazzled by red.

  She waited for them to adjust and then opened them cautiously. It was half-past one. Leaving the light on, but with the door pulled almost shut to provide minimal illumination, she made her way across to the bathroom, where she washed her face and applied a light dusting of sweet-smelling talc to her neck and under-arms. Finally she freshened her mouth with tooth powder. If she was going to repay him with a kiss, she would make it as pleasant an experience for him as she could.

  There was a sound from the bedroom, something slapping gently on the exposed wooden floor near the walls. It could have been bare feet but it sounded too light. She looked around for a weapon, but there was nothing of any size except the loofah.

  She pushed the bathroom door shut and slid the bolt into place as protection.

  “Who’s there?” she called.

  There was a pause then a small voice said, “Goddess?”

  Maliha pulled the bolt and flung the door open, taking care not to let it bang noisily against the wall. In the half-light, two shadowy figures stood near the window, one half the size of the other.

  She almost ran across the carpet and threw her arms around them. She found her eyes tearing up, though she had no idea why. She crouched and hugged them close. They were both wet, but Maliha did not pull away. Lilith returned her hug, clinging to her neck. Izak did not, but neither did he pull away.

  “We’ve come to rescue you, Goddess,” said Lilith in a whisper.

  “Mama Kosi said we should come. See if you want to leave,” Izak said. “She said you were caught by the crushers.” He glanced around. “If I was in this prison, I would stay.”

  “We can talk later,” she said, still clinging to them as if they were her only lifeline. She could not quite understand it. “I have to meet someone.”

  “Mr Valentine?” asked Lilith.

  “No, Valentine is gone,” she said. “This is a man who has information.”

  “We should come,” said Izak. “Mama Kosi said we should protect yo
u.”

  Maliha let them go; she noted Izak stagger a little as she released him. “What’s wrong, Izak?”

  He said nothing. Lilith gave him a moment and then answered. “The bad people shot him in the leg.”

  “Scratched me is all.”

  “Izak, you should have let someone else come.”

  “We told Mama Kosi we are your people now, only we can come.”

  Maliha sat back on her haunches. What have I done?

  “You can’t come. I will be safe,” she said. “I may be a prisoner but they won’t hurt me.”

  Izak looked at her though in the dim light his face was unreadable. Pinpricks of illumination reflected in his eyes. It reminded her of the infected child in the diamond mine. She shivered.

  “But as soon as I have learnt what he can show me, I will return.” She stood up and straightened her dressing gown, which was damp from hugging the children. The wetness had soaked through to her skin and tightened the belt. “Just wait here. I will be an hour.”

  She left the room as the clock chimed the three-quarter hour.

  The corridors of the Consulate were dark, but there was sufficient light filtering through the windows to guide her. The library was in the opposite wing and two floors below. She navigated to the other side of the building and then took the smaller set of stairs down.

  The place was quiet as the grave. The only guards were outside; after all, there was no reason to think there were any threats inside. She did not relish the prospect of swimming the moat as the children must have done. What possessed Mama Kosi to send children?

  There was no light showing beneath the library door. She turned the handle and pushed it open. She slid inside and shut it behind her. The place was pitch-black. The curtains must be drawn.

  She could smell his sweat in the room, overlaying old tobacco smoke.

  “Mr Penn?”

  “Miss Anderson.” His voice came from the right. It sounded drowsy; perhaps he had been sleeping in a chair.

  “Do you have what I asked for?”

  “I have what I could gather.”

  A gas lamp went on. It was a good choice, since it would throw the least light but still allow her to read. She gathered up a rug and placed it against the bottom of the door to prevent any light leakage.