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The Strangler Vine (Blake and Avery) - Softcover

Buch 1 von 3: Blake and Avery

Carter, M. J.

 
9780425280744: The Strangler Vine (Blake and Avery)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0425280748 ISBN 13: 9780425280744
Verlag: BERKLEY BOOKS, 2016

Inhaltsangabe

Set in the untamed wilds of nineteenth-century colonial India, this dazzling historical thriller introduces Blake and Avery—an unforgettable investigative pair.

India, 1837: William Avery is a young soldier with few prospects except rotting away in campaigns in India; Jeremiah Blake is a secret political agent gone native, a genius at languages and disguises, disenchanted with the whole ethos of British rule, but who cannot resist the challenge of an unresolved mystery. What starts as a wild goose chase for this unlikely pair—trying to track down a missing writer who lifts the lid on Calcutta society—becomes very much more sinister as Blake and Avery get sucked into the mysterious Thuggee cult and its even more ominous suppression.

There are shades of Heart of Darkness, sly references to Conan Doyle, that bring brilliantly to life the India of the 1830s with its urban squalor, glamorous princely courts and bazaars, and the ambiguous presence of the British overlords—the officers of the East India Company—who have their own predatory ambitions beyond London's oversight.

A FINALIST FOR THE EDGAR AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL
A WASHINGTON POST NOTABLE BOOK
LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILEYS WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

M.J. Carter is the author of the Blake and Avery novels, including The Devil's Feast, The Infidel Stain, and The Strangler Vine.  A former journalist, she is also the author of two acclaimed works of nonfiction, Anthony Blunt: His Lives and George, Nicholas and Wilhelm: Three Royal Cousins and the Road to World War I. She is married with two sons and lives in London.

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Calcutta, September 1837
The palanquin lurched again to the left and I felt a fresh wave of nausea. I pushed the curtains aside in the vain hope of a current of cool air, and waited for the moment to pass. The perspiration started anew from my neck and my back, then soaked into the chafing serge of my second-best dress uniform. The dull, sour odour filled me with dejection. Our uniforms were not washed quite as often as I would have liked as it caused the fabric to disintegrate even more swiftly than it would otherwise have done.

‘Khabadur you soor!’ Take care, you swine! I shouted at the bearers, more to relieve my feelings than anything else.

‘William,’ said Frank Macpherson, ‘it will make no difference.’ Nor did it. There was no response, nor had I expected one.

Calcutta was hot. Not the infernal, burning heat of May, but rather the sticky, enervating sultriness of September. We were the only thing in the empty afternoon streets of Whitetown—it was too hot as yet for afternoon calls. It had been a relief when the monsoon had arrived in June, but the rain had persisted and persisted and now, after three months, the depredations of damp and standing water had become almost as tiresome as the raging heat before it. The city existed in a permanent state of soupy dampness. Books and possessions rotted. Diseases lurked in its miasma. Most of my acquaintances were down with fever or boils. At the Company barracks, where the walls gushed dirty brown water when it rained, there was said to be an outbreak of cholera.

Even in Tank Square, the grand heart of the city, one could smell mould in the air. As our palanquin left the square to make for the Hooghly River ghats, it semed that even the adjutant birds perching one-legged on the parapets of Government House drooped in the heat.

‘I reckon the temperature is about ninety-five degrees,’ said Frank, who knew about such things.

We were on our way to Blacktown. I had been ordered—by the Governor General’s office, no less—to deliver a letter to a civilian called Jeremiah Blake. Frank had decided to come too, for he was curious and we had neither of us ever been into Blacktown proper: it was not the place for an English gentleman. Even on its outskirts, the sides of the roads were piled with filth and refuse and gave on to open ditches carrying all imaginable kinds of effluent. It was not unusual to find animal corpses rotting in the street and rats scuttling over one’s feet.

I was ambivalent about the commission. On the one hand, any recognition from the senior ranks of the Company was gratifying, and any relief from the tedium of barrack life to be welcomed. On the other, carrying a message to some civilian gone native felt like yet another demeaning, irksome, pointless task. Besides which, I had dipped deep into my cups the night before and was suffering greatly from the consequences.

‘Damn me, it is too much,’ I said, for the millionth time, pulling again at my collar to absolutely no effect. We shifted ourselves about a little. There was not quite room enough for two in the palanquin.

‘My, my, we are ill-tempered and sore-headed this morning,’ Frank said. ‘Must have been the fish. Certainly nothing to do with the gallon of claret, nor the ten pounds you lost.’

For nine months I had been kicking my heels in Calcutta, waiting to be summoned by a cavalry regiment in north Bengal which had shown no inclination to avail itself of my services, and I was not far off hating the city. One might have supposed that being an officer in the army of the Honourable East India Company would have its compensations. But after nine months they seemed dispiritingly few, while its deficiencies were unignorable: the monstrous climate, the casual barbarities of the native population and the stiff unfriendliness of the European society. Calcutta was a city in thrall to form, status and wealth, and Frank and I were at the bottom of the pile. Keeping up appearances, whatever the expense, appeared to be the most pressing duty. We drilled in the mornings before it got too hot, and studied for the Hindoostanee diploma – which no one took very seriously. Most of the officers got by with soldier bat, a few words of Hindoostanee, and in Calcutta it was not really the thing to be seen speaking the local lingo too well. The only man I knew who had actually learnt any was sitting next to me, and Frank Macpherson had no desire to fight or command troops. He had just effected a transfer to the Political Department and his ambition was to become a magistrate or some such, running a station somewhere up country. He had already passed his diploma in Hindoostanee and was now studying Persian. He had been managing his company’s accounts and administering to his sepoys’ welfare since shortly after he had arrived. Now I envied his activity. Idleness left me enervated, lethargic and irritable.

‘I hate these damned litters, they make me ill,’ I grumbled.

‘Whereas I love them. I shall say it once more, now I am in the Political Department I shall travel India in a sedan chair and never sit on a horse again.’ Frank looked me over. ‘Oh, William, for heaven’s sake, would you rather be going to Blacktown on an errand for Government House that at the very least will keep you occupied for an afternoon? Or would you rather be dead?’

‘You know, Frank,’ I said, rubbing my temples hard to dispel the ache, ‘there are times when I think I would rather be dead.’

‘You should be ashamed to say anything so stupid,’ he said, severely. ‘You should be careful of what you wish for.’

‘I am sorry, Frank, forgive me,’ I said, instantly remorseful. ‘I am good for nothing in this state.’

I set my jaw against the throb in my temples, and smiled as much as I could manage. The truth was death came with alarming and casual ease in Calcutta. We had seen our fellow cadets taken overnight by the cholera, or a sudden fever, or some horrible unforeseen accident. One had died when a bullock cart loaded with sharpened wooden staves had collided with his horse. September was a bad month for fevers and diseases in Calcutta. The chaplain of Frank’s regiment said that though the month was but half over, he had already seen thirty burials.

‘Why they are sending me to deliver this thing I do not know.’ Frank raised an eyebrow. ‘You said you were bored.’

‘You!’

‘I simply mentioned that my able and presentable friend was at a loose end.’

He thrust a water bottle into my hands. I made a face, but drank. I had assumed I had been chosen to go to Blacktown because I was the least occupied, least sickly junior officer to hand. It had never occurred to me that Frank might have had a hand in it.

‘Besides, I wanted to have a look at Blacktown,’ he went on, ‘and I could not very well volunteer myself. And are you not curious to know who this Jeremiah Blake is?’

‘Some tragic, leprous, broken-down old creature gone native, too opium-addled to collect his own pension,’ I said heavily.

‘Mebbe,’ said Frank. ‘Ah! The scent of the ghats is pungent today.’

The palanquin drew up to the Hooghly River ghats. These are the large steps that descend to the water and pass as quays in India. The river was like Calcutta itself. From a distance, it seemed picturesque, the gilt-covered barges of the rich natives and the bumboats selling fruit and fish, and the glimpses of the graceful mansions of Garden Reach on the other side. But close to, it was a different...

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Verlag
BERKLEY BOOKS
Erscheinungsdatum
2016
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0425280748
ISBN 13 
9780425280744
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
400
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Verantwortliche Person
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