The windows to my left suddenly came alight. That had been much too quick — either the fuse box was close to the cellar where we had been imprisoned, or there was an auxiliary circuit for some of the ground floor lights. I lined up the fork with the right front tire and leaned hard into it.
I had done my best, but I was too slow and too out of shape. While I was just getting started, the side door of the house opened and Dixie came running at me. He was still holding his knife. To my terrified eyes, the gleaming blade looked about four feet long.
Dixie was moving fast and crouching forward. His lower lip was drawn down to show his bottom teeth, and I could hear his strained breathing even when he was ten yards away. No matter what Zan’s instructions might have been, Dixie was holding the knife as though injury to me was more important than capture.
The garden fork was getting nowhere — it’s not easy to pierce a rubber tire. As Dixie ran in at me I leaned back against the body of the car. My left hand raised the fork, and I sent it with one vicious underarm thrust up into his chest. It seemed like the instinctive action of a trained killer.
I saw the tines go in just below the line of his collarbone. They missed the ribs and drove deep into his chest cavity. He gasped and staggered backwards, but long before he reached the ground I had turned and was running back to the other car. Even if we were followed to the station, we had to get away from this house.
Too late.
Before I had taken five steps I heard the grating whine of an old starter motor. The engine of the car ahead misfired a couple of times, then caught and revved up hard. There was a horrible grinding of gears.
Had Ameera somehow started the car, ready for me? I knew that was a ridiculous idea, but it was the only thing I could think of.
The lights of the car came on. I could see the shape of a woman in the driver’s seat — but it was not Ameera. It was Zan. There was another moan of gears, then the car jerked into motion and was off along the drive. I ran after it. The back door handle was close to my hand. Four more steps would have done it, but Zan found second gear and the car accelerated away from me, helped by the long hill that led down towards Cuttack .
And was that Ameera, sitting up in the back seat? I could not be sure. But surely she would do something, interfere with the driver to let me catch up with them…
The car was a black, noisy dot on the road. I groaned and turned back towards the Toyota . Dixie was leaning against it now, watching the other car vanish into the darkness. Somehow he had managed to stand up, the fork still buried deep in his chest. He was bracing both hands above the tines, trying to ease them free. A trickle of dark blood had run from each round hole and made a long stain down his shirt. Still he worked at the tines, delicately and single-mindedly.
I felt sick at the sight. But Dixie might have the keys to the Toyota , and that car was my only hope. As I approached him he stood upright, away from the car, and bent forward in an amazing effort to reach for his knife. It was lying on the ground a few feet in front of him. He leaned down, grunted, and toppled sideways into a thick bush. The fork still impaled his chest.
” Dixie .” I leaned over him. There was no time for caution. “I’ll try not to hurt you worse, but I’m going to search you. Where are the car keys?”
The bush he lay in was like a sweet-smelling viburnum. The heavy, snowball-shaped blossoms obscured his legs and trunk but left his face grinning up at me in the moonlight. Blood was oozing out of his mouth, up past the loosened lower dentures and onto his chin. He was trying to speak, but at first there was only a bloodied gargle from his throat.
I knelt by him, the sap and nectar of crushed blossoms damp on my pants. “Where are the keys, Dixie ? I’ll get help for you as soon as I reach Cuttack .”
He did not speak. As I watched, his hands came up again to the fork and began to push the tines, easing them away from his body.
I tried again. ” Dixie , if the pain’s too bad to talk, try and nod your head. Do you hear me? Car keys — I have to have them.”
He glared up at me in hatred. “Not pain. Got implant. Bloody bastard.” The grunted words were barely intelligible.
I was lifting and turning him as gently as I could while I patted the pockets of his coat and trousers. His only sounds were grunts of rage, and he made weak efforts to interfere with my actions. Impatience made my fingers clumsy, and I fumbled and fumed in the darkness, my nostrils full of the scent of blood and flower blossom.
The bunch of keys was in a little leather pouch in his left-hand coat pocket. As I took them out he made a mighty effort to sit up and grabbed for my hand.
“Bloody fool. Bloody fool.” A film of blood made his neck and chin look black in the dim light. “T-Tippy — Tippy got. Worst of any. Serve you right. Bastard. Serve you right. T — T—”
Tippy. T.P.? — Leo’s bogeyman? There was no time to waste — at any moment Pudd’n could appear from inside the house. But I had to know what he was saying about Tippy.
“What about Tippy? What do you mean, Tippy got?”
He was lying back again, eyes like black pools. I shook him. ” Dixie . What about Tippy?”
He smiled again, a death’s-head mask of triumph. “Real treat for Tippy — bloody fool, you. Serve you right.” The old eyes were glazing, filming into darkness. He seemed quite immune to pain, supported by his hatred.
Another door slammed inside the house. I had to go, no matter what other information Dixie ’s brain might hold. I ran for the car. By the time I had the Toyota ’s engine running another outside light had been switched on. I didn’t wait to see who it might be. Rather than reversing I accelerated forward and drove on screaming tires right around the house and onto the road. The moonlight had been growing steadily brighter. Cuttack lay in front of me, a faint sprinkle of yellow lights. I took the car up to ninety and snaked it down the dusty ribbon of road that led towards the city center. If there was anything in my way, God help both of us.
The eight mile trip to the station was done in a few minutes. I screeched to a halt by the entrance, abandoned the car in the middle of the road, and ran towards the platforms. Cuttack Station was like a miniature version of Howrah Station in Calcutta . There were the same hundreds of people apparently living in the station, eating, drinking, and talking, even though it was one o’clock in the morning. I pushed my way rudely through them, looking for anyone in an official’s uniform. As usual, none could be found. The people near me looked curiously at my stockinged feet and dust-fouled clothes, stained with blood, sap, and pollen.
“Train to Calcutta ,” I called desperately. “Where is the train to Calcutta ?”
The sleeping and eating multitude stirred uneasily at my call, but there was no reply. I was heading towards the other side of the tracks when a tall, angular man wearing a Sikh turban stepped in front of me.
” Calcutta ? Do you want to buy a ticket?”
“I have a ticket already. When is the next train?”
Without the chance of selling me a ticket he showed much less interest. There was a shrug, a turning of the head, and an arm waved casually along the northern line.
“You just missed the last one for tonight — see its lights there? Now it is necessary to wait for the morning service: six o’clock , arrival time nine-thirty. Do you need accommodation to sleep while you wait — or a place for food or entertainment? I can provide you with all.”
I shook his hand away from my arm. Nine-thirty in Calcutta . I could do a lot better than that by road. The Toyota had nearly a full tank, and according to Chandra there were good highways all down the east coast of India .