‘I led my first barrampta – a green young officer fresh from Sandhurst, though not new to the country – against a village called Lashtar. It was occupied by a small though extremely warlike tribe, always at odds with their neighbours, always at odds with the government. Never, it seemed, able to learn. The chief man – the Malik – was a ferocious old devil with a very bad reputation. He decided to defend the village and there was quite a scrap. He was killed. His two sons were killed and some of his neighbours and the village was set on fire. By mistake. We were not fire-raisers.

‘I rode up to supervise the conclusion of this operation and was sitting looking on when out of the smoke there blundered a slight figure. A Pathan boy aged about thirteen. Under his arm he had a brass-bound jezail.’

‘Jezail?’

‘Yes, an old musket. It could have been a hundred years old. Loaded with God knows what – nails, bits of glass, shot even. As soon as he saw me he dropped on one knee and was about to blow me to perdition. One of my troopers galloped up, sword in hand, and knocked it out of his arms. He was about to lop the boy’s head off with his talwar…’ Prentice pointed to a trophy of arms on the wall of the adjoining room. ‘There’s a talwar.’

Joe glanced at the curved blade as long as a man’s arm with its single slicing edge.

‘I yelled at the trooper to stop and put his talwar away and then I shouted in Pushtu to the boy. I told him to stay still where he was and no harm would come to him. I got off my horse and went over to talk to him. Sad tale – he was an orphan but distantly related to and living in the household of the old devil we’d just killed. As the man’s sons had been killed this boy, who told me his name was Chedi Khan, had taken it upon himself to kill as many English soldiers as he could, starting with the commanding officer – me. Honour of the tribe. I think he was very surprised to see that I wasn’t more than a few years older than he was.

‘Difficult to know what to do with him. He had no remaining ties with that village and it was quite plain that if he stayed on there – one day sooner rather than later probably – he was going to take a successful pot shot at an English officer and get himself killed into the bargain. We discussed his options. Man to man, sitting side by side on a rock. I gave him a cigarette. He seemed very intelligent. I pointed out that his future looked bleak if he stayed on and that I could order him to be taken away with us and kept as a hostage for the good behaviour of the tribe which was a usual procedure or, and I offered him a third and pretty unusual choice, he could come with us voluntarily, giving his word of honour for his good behaviour, and when he reached the appropriate age he could train as a Scout.

‘I saw by the gleam in his eye when I mentioned this third option that the soldier’s life was the one that appealed to him and decided to take a chance. There was no way this boy was going to agree meekly to ride away with us in full view of his village. The Pathan are impressed by the grand gesture so I staged one. I kicked his musket far out of reach with a derogatory comment and handed him a Lee-Metford rifle. “This is yours,” I said. Then I got up, turned my back on him and walked away towards my troop.’

‘Good Lord! Was it loaded?’

‘Oh, yes, no use being caught with an unloaded rifle in a place like that. Subadur Amir Shah was covering him, I’d already taken that in so perhaps I wasn’t risking much. All the same, I don’t think I’d have the nerve nowadays.’

‘What did the boy do?’

‘He got to his feet, aimed the rifle straight between my shoulder blades and tracked me for several yards. He never attempted to shoot the bolt. Enjoying his power, I think. Then, when he was sure the whole tribe had witnessed this, he slung the rifle over his shoulder and marched up to the company. They unloaded his rifle, mounted him behind someone and off we went.’

‘And did he join the army?’

‘Not then and there. He was too young to start with. Badly nourished as well. Scrawny little thing with conjunctivitis. And there were signs that he’d been ill-treated for some time. We had to feed him up and doctor his wounds – cuts and burns mainly – when we got him back to camp. One of my men said, “You’ll never get rid of him. He’ll follow you to the ends of the earth and one day, watch out, he’ll decide to be revenged. That boy’s just biding his time.” ’

‘And did he try?’

‘In no way. It didn’t work out like that at all. I’ve told you he was clever, he was ingenious and extremely amusing. I saw a great future for him. There was a movement – has been for many years and still is – towards the foundation of an independent Pathan state – Pukhtunistan – and in my romantic way I saw this child perhaps one day as the first president of such an independent state. Just a dream really but I played with it in my mind. Then the question arose of what on earth to do with this boy.’

‘What did you do with him?’

Prentice grinned. ‘What any Englishman would do – I sent him to school. There’s a little community of Anglican Fathers who run a mission school in the hills. In addition to other things they were medical missionaries. Good people. I knew them well. They said they’d look after him. He didn’t want to go but I insisted. I delivered him there and left him in tears. Six months later he ran away and came back to me. I ticked him off properly, even beat him and sent him back again. Three months later he was back! It wasn’t what I’d planned but it seemed I’d got him for life. I recruited him into the Scouts and appointed him my bearer and so he remained. Till the day of his death.’

‘And the manner of his death? Was that surprising to you?’

‘Not in the least. He died trying to save Dorothy. It’s exactly what he would do. I’d left him in charge, you see.’

‘That’s a fine story,’ said Joe.

‘He was a fine man,’ said Prentice. ‘It was sad. Tragic even, but there’s no mystery about it. None whatever.’

Joe had been carried away by the man’s story. Once the icebergs of military brevity and understatement had melted and the narrative began to flow, time had passed unnoticed. He collected himself, recognising the ploy for what it was. By talking at length on a subject peripheral to the main investigation, Prentice was presenting himself as a co-operative and genial interviewee, a charming man with nothing to hide. Joe admired his skilful piece of what he decided to call trompe l’orielle and went along with it, writing notes at intervals and posing interested questions. But, at the mention of Chedi Khan’s death, he decided that the time had come to perform his own bluff.

It was his successful technique when conducting an interview to make notes assiduously on topics he was aware were not very relevant to the case. This appeared always to reassure the person he was questioning. People, even villains, he found, enjoyed telling the truth to a copper especially when they thought they were leading him by the nose. He made a point of asking a series of questions to which he knew accurate if misleading answers could freely be given. Then, at a juncture, he would smile agreeably, snap shut his notebook and put away his fountain pen. Sometimes he would let his victim get half-way to the door before, with no change in his tone, he put a further question, almost as an afterthought. In a surprisingly large number of cases he got better information from that one last question than from a previous hour’s interrogation.

He tried a variation on this technique now, never forgetting that he was dealing with a highly intelligent and ruthless man. He scribbled one last note, stretched his legs and closed his notebook. Leaning forward and lowering his voice he managed to give the impression that his next question or comment was not being recorded and was a simple exchange between two gentlemen.