Daisy's Long Road Home. Merryn Allingham
It was her own wild hope that he’d been sent to Brighton where her mother had nursed Indian soldiers back to life. A wild hope that Karan had known her mother and, even wilder, that he had known her mother’s lover and therefore her own father. Grayson had warned her it was an impossible quest and she must learn to accept that he was right. She had discovered nothing; more than that she had received a warning not even to try. Suri had been a little too knowledgeable about her and the thought made her deeply uneasy.
His warning was still reverberating in her head when she walked up the veranda steps of number six Tamarind Drive and bent her mind to the next problem: how to explain her long absence this morning to Grayson and Mike. The expedition had taken much longer than she’d expected and they would have returned for lunch an hour ago and be worried to find her gone without a word of explanation.
As she came through the door, Grayson’s face lit with relief.
‘Thank God, Daisy. We were just about to send out a search party. Ahmed had no idea where you’d gone.’
‘I thought I’d take a drive in the country.’ Her tone was airy, as though this was the most natural thing to do in the middle of the day in the middle of an Indian summer. If she’d hoped to deflect disapproval, she’d hoped wrongly. But it was Mike, rather than Grayson, who appeared the most annoyed.
‘A drive in the country? In this weather? If that’s so, you need your head examined. Grayson wasn’t joking when he said we were about to launch a search. We could have had the entire Jasirapur police force looking for you. And why exactly?’
She was taken aback by his vehemence, but put it down to genuine concern. ‘I’m sorry, Mike. Truly, I never meant to worry either of you. I hadn’t realised I’d gone so far or that it would be quite so hot. I had to take shelter for a while, that’s why I’m so late.’
Grayson looked at her steadily. ‘You know Rajasthan better than that, Daisy. It’s April. It’s hot. What could be so important that you’d risk driving under a burning sun for so long?’
‘It wasn’t important,’ she said quietly. ‘I was mistaken.’
She was relieved when he walked to the table and rang the small brass bell to tell Ahmed they were ready to eat at last. He wasn’t going to pursue the matter, not in front of Mike she thought, but she was sure that once they were alone he’d want to know just where she had been.
They ate the entire meal without speaking a word. It was clear that Mike was still furious with her, while Grayson seemed lost in his own thoughts. But when Ahmed had cleared the plates and set out three individual dishes of crème caramel, he broke his silence.
‘This may be the time to tell you both that I’ve decided to leave tomorrow.’
She saw that Mike looked shocked, as shocked as she felt.
‘I think I’ve worked out the general direction Javinder took,’ Grayson said coolly, ‘and I don’t want to waste more time hanging around Jasirapur.’
‘But all you know is that he took off travelling north, and you’re not even sure of that.’ She was amazed that he would try to follow the young man on such meagre information.
‘I think I can probably narrow it down a little more now.’
‘But how?’
Grayson spread his hands wide and gave a rueful smile. ‘It’s taken a while but, over the last few days, odds and ends have come my way. You know how it is.’ That was the problem; she didn’t know.
‘More instinct, Gray?’ Mike put in, a grim look on his face. ‘What you’re proposing is madness.’
‘You’d be surprised at how helpful instinct can be. It’s often more reliable than paid sources.’
‘You can’t really be serious.’ Mike’s face had turned blood red.
But, when Grayson didn’t reply, he appeared to make an attempt at swallowing the anger he evidently felt and, when he spoke, it was in a coaxing tone. ‘Look, the paperwork can go hang for a few days. In any case, I’m not finding anything in the office that’s remotely useful. Let me come out and about with you—we’ll dig around locally together. With both of us on the job, we’re more likely to uncover something.’
‘I appreciate the offer, but I’ve waited long enough. At this very moment Javinder may be hurt, ill even. And definitely in trouble or he’d have found a way of contacting us. So speed is important. I’m pretty sure I’ll pick up other intelligence as I go.’
When his friend gave another impatient shake of the head, Grayson held up his hand as if to stem the flow of condemnation coming his way. ‘I know you’re worried, but you shouldn’t be. I’m going to be fine and don’t forget, I’ll have you here, back at the sharp end. That gives me confidence.’
She could see that Mike wasn’t convinced, and neither was she. The thought that Grayson would be leaving the next day filled her with mild panic. She didn’t want to be left behind in Jasirapur with only an irate Mike for company. She got up and began clearing the bowls onto the tray that Ahmed had left. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Mike’s hand reach out and seize one of the spoons from the table. As she looked up, he rapped it loudly against the wooden surface to gain their attention.
‘Aren’t you going to make any attempt to stop him going on this mad journey, Daisy?’ The angry red flush had died but Mike’s lips were compressed into a thin line. ‘It’s the least you could do. After all, you must be here for some reason.’
She was astonished. The attack had come from out of nowhere and it was a struggle to defend herself. ‘I’m here for my own reasons,’ was all she managed.
‘That’s clear enough,’ he said bitingly.
‘I don’t understand. Just what are you accusing me of?’
‘There’s no accusation, though if you choose to interpret it that way, you can. Put simply, I’m unsure just why you thought it a good idea to gatecrash this trip. It certainly wasn’t to help. In fact, judging by the scare you gave us today, just the opposite.’
‘Mike, please …’ Grayson began, but his colleague had pushed his chair roughly back from the table and picked up the battered briefcase he never seemed without. ‘I’m going back to the office. I’ve work to do.’ And he banged out of the door.
Grayson stood for a minute, watching after him, then turned to face her, his dark blue eyes troubled. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what that was about. He’s not himself, it’s clear enough.’
She cut his apology short. ‘It’s fine. It really doesn’t matter.’
And it didn’t. She’d wondered before if Mike resented her coming on this journey and it seemed that she’d been right. He resented her badly. She was sorry for it but there was little she could do. In time, his antagonism might soften. She certainly hoped so. Living with that degree of animosity would be far from easy. But other than being open and friendly in her dealings with him, she could do nothing to improve matters. What she must do, though, was to make this trip to India count. Over their silent lunch, she had begun to toy with a new idea, and when Grayson followed in his colleague’s footsteps and she was left alone in the house, she set to thinking it through.
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