Games Traitors Play

market of brightly lit shops selling souvenirs and incense that hung heavily in the air. Further on, they passed the Golden Lotus Pond, a bathing pool on the stepped sides of which pilgrims and worshippers washed and chatted. Marchant was alert now, his senses heightened, on the lookout for other agencies. Because Meena was leading the operation to find Dhar’s mother, he had been momentarily entranced by the temple’s sights and sounds, let them carry him back to his childhood in Delhi.

Their plan was a simple one. If Meena’s colleagues were right, Dhar’s mother, Shushma, was selling devotional candles in the hall outside the Shrine of Lord Sundareswarar, Shiva himself. She had been there for the past two days, making the small clay pots at night and filling them with ghee, or clarified butter, and wicks during the day. The CIA had not wanted to alert the Indian authorities to her whereabouts, preferring to interview her in the West, so Meena could not call on local police support. And the temple surrounds made it impossible to seize her against her will, even if she was sedated. Instead, the operation would be low-key and discreet, not words Langley was familiar with; but this was Meena’s job, and she had insisted on it.

Marchant would strike up a conversation with Shushma in his rusty Hindi, explaining who he was and that she was in danger. Better to come with him back to Britain, where waterboarding was still off the menu, than be seized by the CIA. After he had walked her out of the temple complex, they would drive her to a disused airfield east of Madurai where Meena had arranged for a plane to take her to the UK.

It was a risk, but there weren’t many options. Legoland’s profilers had given Marchant a brief psychological assessment of Shushma, which he’d read on the plane. Their conclusion was that she was on her own, abandoned by her husband and wanted by the authorities, and that the thought of being protected by Daniel Marchant, son of the man whom she had once loved and who had financially supported her, would prove sufficiently comforting for her to cooperate.

Marchant wasn’t so sure as he passed a small statue of Hanuman the monkey god — covered in ghee and worn smooth with endless touching — and then turned into the hall that led to Shiva’s shrine. Ahead of him was an imposing icon of Nandi, Shiva’s bull. As a non-Hindu, this was as far as he was allowed to go. Several foreign tourists had entered the hall at the same time as him, one of them peering into the shrine to try to get a glimpse of the holy shivalingam that lay within. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted another foreigner moving away in the darkness, disappearing beyond a statue that he recognised as Nataraja, Shiva as lord of the dance. His father had always kept a small bronze one beside his bed.

Marchant looked again at where the foreigner had been standing, and saw that Meena had clocked him too. She nodded in the direction of the shrine entrance and then moved towards Nataraja. The deal was that he would focus on Shushma while she dealt with any outside interest. He joined a queue of people waiting to collect their ghee candles and enter the shrine. It wasn’t easy in the darkness, but he caught a glimpse of the woman who was handing out the candles to the devotees. She had shaved her head and was wearing a threadbare kurta. Outside the temple complex she could have been mistaken for a beggar.

As he drew near to the front of the queue, Marchant glanced behind him, but he couldn’t see Meena. He was on his own, just how he preferred it. As far as he could tell, the people around him needn’t give him any cause for alarm. His only worry was the priest up ahead at the shrine entrance. The chatty couple in front had travelled from Bangalore, and the extended family immediately behind him were from Chennai. Both had expressed their friendly concern that he wouldn’t be permitted to enter the shrine for darshan.

‘The priests, they are very strict about this sort of thing, you know,’ the man from Bangalore had said. But Marchant had reassured them, explaining that he was just there for the atmosphere. In the darkness, he had calculated that he wouldn’t be turned away before he reached Shushma.

Suddenly he was at the front of the queue, standing before her. They exchanged eye contact, and he could already see surprise in Shushma’s eyes, which was just what he wanted. She glanced across at the priest, who was wearing a white lunghi bordered with green and gold, and a sacred thread slung diagonally across his bare chest. He was too busy with a big party of devotees to have noticed a foreigner apparently trying to talk his way into the shrine.

‘Sorry, Hindus only,’ Shushma said, in surprisingly good English. He remembered that she had worked at the British High Commission for a year. He studied her for a moment, tracing her features, thinking that his father had once looked into the same big eyes. She was undeniably beautiful. Marchant’s mother had never been a big influence in his life. If she had, he imagined he would feel some hostility towards the woman who had slept with his father and was standing before him now. Instead, he felt only warmth. And pity. Her small features had a filigree fragility about them.

‘You need to come with me, now,’ he said quietly. ‘Your life is in danger.’ Shushma dropped the candle she was holding. The yellow ghee spread out across the table. ‘Don’t be alarmed, please. I’m here to help you. Look at me.’

She fumbled with the spilt candle and slowly raised her eyes.

‘Who are you?’ she asked. Was there a flicker of recognition? Marchant detected a growing restlessness in the queue behind him.

‘I’m not with the police,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m Daniel, Stephen Marchant’s son.’

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Meena moved quickly back through the hall, following the foreigner at a safe distance. He looked Russian to her. Something about his manner, the tan socks on his shoeless feet. When he passed the Golden Lotus Pond, he broke into the open and pulled out a mobile phone. Meena dropped back and did the same, calling her CIA colleague who was still stationed outside the east gate.

‘We’re bringing her out in five,’ she said.

‘Your taxi’s waiting,’ he replied.

‘And we’ve got company,’ she added.

She hung up and rang her colleague at the Lakshmi idol. The signal was faint, but he heard enough to make his way quickly towards the Golden Lotus Pond, picking up another colleague, who was posing as a market-stall seller, along the way. They knew what to do. Delay the Russian for as long as possible, accuse him of taking photos without a camera ticket. Anything. Just play up the paperwork, Meena had told them.

‘How can I trust you?’ Shushma asked, glancing around her again, but Marchant sensed that she already believed he was who he said he was.

‘My father used to keep a Nataraja on his bedside table in Delhi,’ he said. She looked at the icon across the hall, and then back at Marchant. It was a gamble. He didn’t know where his father and Shushma had made love, where they had conceived Dhar, but there was a chance it had been in his parents’ bedroom in Delhi.

Shushma stared at him, this time tracing his features, recognising in them the man she had once loved.

‘I have been in danger most of my life.’

‘The Americans want to ask you some questions. We’d rather you talk to us, in London.’

‘I don’t know where my son is,’ she said. ‘If that’s what you want.’

‘I’m sure you have no idea. But the Americans won’t believe you. Trust me, I know. Please, we have to go. The east entrance.’

Shushma paused for a moment and then went over to talk to another female temple worker, who was lifting candles out of boxes in the shadows. After a brief exchange, the woman came up to the table and began to hand out candles to the devotees who had grown increasingly agitated in the queue. Shushma said something to her in Hindi, touched her forearm and then made her way out of the hall, followed a few yards behind by Marchant.

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