Joe gaped at him in astonishment. What had Naurung senior said about his interview with the ferryman? ‘He was Indian, sahib, to the soles of his feet.’

With an impatient gesture, Prentice shook one sleeve of his baggy shirt down to his armpit, revealing a muscular brown arm. ‘No need for dye! I can appear naked before any Englishman and all he sees is an Indian. It was easy to get close to those stupid, unseeing Englishwomen. For them a brown man is a sight to make them avert their eyes, less important than a piece of furniture.’

The tone was bitter and Joe instantly seized on this. ‘You have no liking, I think, for memsahibs? You showed your victims no pity, in fact I would say that you took considerable satisfaction in killing them.’

‘No liking? I loathe them. You probably know that it is the charming English tradition for a gentleman to put aside his Indian mistress when he at length marries? When my father married a woman fresh from England, he cast my mother off though he continued to visit her. The Englishwoman, fulfilling his requirements in all other respects, did not have the children he wanted her to have. I was born to my Pathan mother and my father had the cruel notion of making his wife acknowledge me as her own. We were stationed at a very remote outpost of the far north-west and there were few to know and none to tell about his deception. My real mother was made to appear as my ayah and I grew up at her side, loving her and loving the Pathan way of life. My English mother hated me, naturally, and went out of her way to make my life uncomfortable. Indeed, she was most ingenious in her cruelties.’

‘ “Give me a child for the first seven years of his life and he is mine for ever.”-’ Joe quoted. ‘Who said that? The Jesuits, was it? And, equally, hatreds and fears acquired during those tender years would affect your life ever after.’

‘Who are you quoting? Freud? Jung? Sandilands? Spare me the psychology! I will simply say that Englishwomen with their white faces, their sharp tongues and their idle ways became anathema to me.’

‘But you married Dolly?’

‘I took a wife to further my career, Sandilands.’

‘And Midge?’ Joe hardly dare ask.

‘Oh, I think… no, I’m quite sure… that she is my daughter if that’s where you’re leading. But the child Dolly was carrying when she died… well, who knows?’

‘But the women that you killed,’ said Joe, desperately, ‘each in a different way and each in a manner that would be most terrifying to her…?’

‘And, again, you forget Chedi Khan! We pulled him out of a blazing village and the fear of fire remained with him to the end of his days…’

A picture came into Joe’s mind of the rows of fire buckets lining the corridor of the burned bungalow. Not to calm Dolly’s fears but Chedi Khan’s.

‘… and, at the last, it was fire that caught him. I think every day of what it must have cost him, the terror he must have felt as he turned back and fought his way through the flames to try to save – what? – a drunken, worthless Englishwoman!’

‘But Midge – Prentice, you must know that from that night twelve years ago, the fear of fire has been strong in Midge’s heart! You have pity for Chedi Khan and his terror, can’t you feel the same emotion for Midge?’

‘I close the circle,’ said Prentice again. ‘It is just. It has to be. She won’t be alone. My work is done and I will go with her.’

At this last chilling declaration Joe gave up all hope. At last he understood. There was no reason he could use, no persuasion, no bargaining with a fanatic who had decided to kill himself.

For some time he had been aware of slight sounds in the house behind him. Joe had raised his own voice in an attempt to cover them. Could Midge have regained consciousness? Was she listening? If so she would understand what was going on and run for help. Perhaps she would come into the room? Even that might provide just the distraction Joe needed. Such was the intensity of his thought, Prentice had been unaware of the sounds. But now he fell silent, the silence which precedes violent action. ‘ “The dreary, doubtful hours before the brazen frenzy starts”,’ thought Joe but in this case not hours so much as seconds. To cover any further sounds, Joe leapt to his feet as though in acute distress, and began to yell wildly at Prentice.

‘You bastard!’ he screamed. ‘You’d murder your daughter, and carry that as a curse through all eternity?’

The muzzle of the Luger followed Joe’s movement, trained on his abdomen.

‘You may call it murder…’

A figure appeared in the doorway. A figure holding a.22 Smith and Wesson target pistol.

Nancy rested the barrel across her left forearm and fired.

The bullet hit Prentice in the shoulder and spun him round. His gun jerked from his grip, slid across the desk and clattered to the floor on the far side. She fired again but the bullet went wide. She fired a third time, hitting him squarely in the chest. A gout of blood spewed from his mouth and trickled down his white shirt.

Joe kicked the Luger to the far side of the room, drew his own pistol covering Prentice and began, ‘Giles Prentice, I arrest…’

His words were cut short by a cry of impatience and another shot from Nancy ’s gun. She hit Prentice a second time in the chest and began to move carefully into the room, covering him every inch of the way.

Pale and haggard, Nancy gazed unwinkingly into Prentice’s eyes. Harshly she spoke to him, ‘Look at me, Prentice! Look! What are you seeing? You know so much about fear, don’t you! Are you face to face at last with your worst fear? A white-faced, sharp-tongued Englishwoman? A memsahib who hates you? A memsahib who’s just put three bullets into you and who’s about to put a fourth one in your neck?’

She raised her pistol to his neck.

Prentice rocked on his heels and seemed about to collapse. A dribble of blood flowed from each corner of his mouth. He lurched forward and groped at the desk for support, his eyes never leaving Nancy ’s face. But he did not fall. With sudden convulsive strength, he reeled towards the open door. Half staggering, half running, he fled clumsily down the passage and towards the back door and the servants’ quarters, leaving bloody hand prints on the wall, leaving a trail of blood on the floor.

With a curse, Nancy fired at his back and made to run after him.

Joe put out a restraining hand. ‘No! Leave him, Nancy! Care for the living. Midge! She’s in her room. Go and look after her. She’s drugged, unconscious, in danger!’

‘It’s all right,’ said Nancy. ‘We found her. Dickie’s with her. She’s unconscious but she’s alive. When you didn’t turn up to do your shift I checked your bungalow. Naurung had had the same thought and we guessed you’d have come here.’

‘Dickie’s here? Then – between you – get her out of here, for God’s sake! She mustn’t see this. She mustn’t wake to this!’

There was a confusion of voices and hurried footsteps in the hall. Dickie emerged from the shattered bedroom with Midge in his arms while Andrew, leaning on Naurung’s arm, limped awkwardly into the house. He stopped and looked aghast at the bloodstains, sniffing the smell of cordite, the sound of the shots still ringing in his ears.

‘ Nancy!’ he said. His voice was almost a groan. ‘ Nancy! Say you’re all right!’

Clumsily he took her in his arms while tears ran down his face.

‘I heard shooting. Oh, God! I thought you were another victim! That devil! Where is Prentice?’

‘Come with me,’ said Joe. ‘We’re going to find out. He’s gone off with four of Nancy ’s bullets in him. And Nancy – go with Dickie.’

‘Yes,’ said Naurung with sudden informality, ‘do, Bibi-ji, as the Commander says.’

‘And you, Naurung – you’re in charge here now. Let no one in. Do what you have to do.’

‘Sahib,’ said Naurung, ‘be careful. The cobra has slid into his hole.’