Free Jani and the Greater Game (The Multiplicity Series Book 1) by Eric Brown

no shame at all in that, considering your ordeal. Hmm...”
    “I’m sorry. I wish I could be of more help.”
    “Don’t fret on that score, Miss Chatterjee.” He stared at his fingers as they drummed a tattoo on his thigh. He looked up.
    “You see, I’ll be quite frank with you... Fact is, something odd happened up there in the Kush. When we turned up a few hours later we found every man-jack of the Russians dead. Some had been shot, others... well, I won’t go into detail in polite company. But it wasn’t pretty, by all accounts. And I was wondering, as you made your way through the wreckage looking for medical supplies and food and what have you... if you saw anything?”
    She stared into his eyes. “Anything?”
    “Or rather anyone – anyone who might have occasioned the Russian casualties?”
    “I’m quite sure I saw no one, Brigadier,” she said.
    Cartwright nodded. “Of course not. And why should you? Just thought I’d ask, on the off chance, you know?”
    Jani smiled.
    “Well, I’ve wasted enough of your time already, Miss Chatterjee. I’ll leave you to get some well deserved rest. We should be in Delhi in less than an hour. Please pay my respects to your father when you see him, and thank you so much for your time.”
    He stood, bowed, and slipped from the carriage.
    Jani sat very still on the wicker chair for a time, then slid shut the door to her compartment. She went over what she had said to the brigadier. The worrying thing was that she could not adequately explain, to her own satisfaction, why she had decided not to tell Cartwright about her meeting with the bizarre prisoner, their conversation, and his subsequent actions in saving her and Lady Ellington’s skin. It was almost as if she had been willed to silence by some outside force – which was, of course, ridiculous.
    She looked through the window panel in the door, glancing up and down the corridor to ensure that she was unobserved. Then she resumed her seat and slipped a finger into the tiny pocket beneath her waistband.
    Her breath caught as she moved her finger back and forth.
    The tiny coin that Jelch had given her was gone.
    But did that mean the authorities had been through her clothing and discovered the coin? Or might there be some simpler explanation to account for the disappearance? Might the coin have been stolen, or lost when her dress was washed?
    Jani was still dwelling on this, fifty minutes later, when the train pulled into Delhi station.
     
     
    H ER FATHER’S PERSONAL driver, Mr Rai, met Jani at the station and drove south to the select area where Government officials lived in relative luxury. The streets were wide and very un-Indian: the boulevards and manicured parks reminded Jani of Paris, which she had visited last year with a fellow student.
    Mr Rai eased the car down a side-street and turned into the driveway of a sprawling bungalow set amid extensive lawns. Jani felt her throat tighten at the thought of meeting her father.
    A houseboy met her at the French windows that opened onto the lawn, a tall gangling youth with a mop of unruly hair and a bright white grin.
    Janisha stared at him as he diffidently held open the door. “Anand?” she cried. “Is it really you? No! It cannot be! But yes, it is! Anand Doshi! How you’ve grown!”
    Where was the stunted, frail-limbed houseboy she had last seen five years ago? He was still as thin as a policeman’s lathi, yes, and his hair was evidently still as resistant to the tines of a comb, but she could never mistake his winning grin for that of anyone else.
    “I am sixteen now,” he announced proudly. “And I have a part-time job in the factory of Mr Clockwork!”
    Jani passed from the searing afternoon heat into the cool shadows of the dark-timbered lounge, where a tall, ticking grandfather clock sedately calibrated eternity.
    “Mr Clockwork?” she asked as Anand trotted alongside her.
    “Oh, a master craftsman of the clockwork art!” Anand sang. “But