Free A Christmas Garland by Anne Perry

the distance.
    Narraway agreed, and with a brief salute he walked away from the Bibighar and its ghosts.

    K NOWLEDGE , THAT WAS THE KEY . N ARRAWAY SAT ON THE stone buttress of the old armory, now little more than apile of rubble. The wind was rising, cold-edged, tossing the leaves on the trees. Information was what mattered, and how it fit together to form meaning. Everything was a matter of putting the pieces into the right order.
    One of the difficulties was that you never knew if you had all the pieces or if something vital was still missing, something that formed the center of the picture.
    What had he overlooked? Because so far, it all made no sense. He was a soldier, not a policeman, not a lawyer. But he should still be able to understand it if he tried hard enough. He knew the people, he knew the events. Did he know them in the wrong order? Was it something missing that was wrong, or one cornerstone point that was a lie? What one change would alter it all so it fit?
    There had been no one inside the prison except Chuttur and Dhuleep. The door opened only from the outside. Grant had found it closed, had gone in and discovered the dying Chuttur, who told him that Dhuleep had escaped—that someone had engineered his escape—but he had not said who. Attwood and Peterson had then arrived, perhaps a minute later, and passed no one. Chuttur died without ever speaking again.
    The three soldiers had gone looking for Dhuleep, but found only traces of his escape, signs of where he had been. The patrol had been ambushed and killed, all but Tierney.
    The only man unaccounted for was Tallis. Tallis swore he was innocent. What was missing? Where was the lie?
    It had to be Tallis—didn’t it?
    What was the information, the knowledge that Narraway did not have? He hated the chaos that had spread like madness across India, and the tiny piece of it that jumbled and boiled in his own mind, senselessly. He hated the internal darkness of it.

    H E WAS ALLOWED IN TO SEE T ALLIS WITHOUT QUESTION , although the guards’ faces reflected a coldness, as if they imagined he was defending him because he wished to, not because he had been commanded. He hesitated, wanting to tell them how much it was against his will, then realized that would be childish. Half of what anybody did in the army was against their will. You stillshould do it to the best of your ability, and without complaining or trying to justify yourself. He was an officer; better than that was required of him. The fact that just over two years ago he had been a schoolboy was irrelevant. Many of these men had been soldiers in combat, shot at, acting with courage and loyalty at eighteen. Respect had to be earned.
    He thanked them and went into Tallis’s cell.
    Tallis stood to attention. It hadn’t been a day since Narraway had seen him, but he looked leaner, even grayer in the face. He was a man with only two or three days to live, and the shadow of that truth was stark in his eyes.
    Time was too short for niceties. They stood because there was nothing in the cell to sit on, except the floor.
    “At ease,” Narraway said. Otherwise Tallis would be obliged to remain at attention. “I’ve spoken to the three men who answered the alarm and found Chuttur Singh. He didn’t name you, but he said there was a man who came in and took him by surprise, and let Dhuleep out. And given the situation, that’s the only answer that makes any sense. Dhuleep couldn’t have opened the door from the inside himself.”
    “I know that,” Tallis said quickly. “We all know there had to be someone else, but it wasn’t me.” His voice was level, but there was desperation in his eyes. “I was counting bandages and checking what medicines we had left in the storeroom. I can’t prove it because no one else even knows what was there. I wouldn’t have been counting them if I knew myself what was there! It’s the only time I’m sorry we didn’t have some poor devil sick, in need of