Jani and the Great Pursuit by Eric Brown

Author:Eric Brown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Steampunk
Publisher: Rebellion Publishing Ltd

CHAPTER

FOURTEEN

Back in Harley Street? – A guest of the British –

A meeting with MI5 – Jani does a deal –

“I would like to see Lord Consett...”

JANI’S FIRST NOTION on awakening was that she was back in the Harley Street surgery, recaptured by the Russians.

She was in a comfortable bed with cool linen sheets drawn up to her chin. She blinked up at the magnolia-coloured ceiling, then sat up in panic and stared about her. She wasn’t in the hospital room of old, but in a sumptuously furnished and decorated bedroom, with a cream carpet, cream and mauve striped flock wallpaper and heavy velvet curtains at the bay window. Paintings by Constable adorned the walls, and an ornate walnut dresser stood against the wall at the foot of the bed. It looked like a bedroom in a country house, and through the window she made out the distant tops of oak trees and a blue sky.

She swivelled and planted her bare feet in the thick carpet. She was wearing a plain white nightgown, and as before her clothes were neatly folded and stacked in a bedside cabinet. She moved to the window and looked out.

Indeed she was in a country house, with a gravelled drive bisecting an immaculate lawn. Trees surrounded the garden, beyond which were high stone walls. Through the tall iron gates at the end of the drive she made out farmland alternating with patches of woodland.

She moved to a basin in the corner of the room, feeling woozy with the after-effects of the drug that had knocked her out. She splashed her face and, feeling a little better, returned to the bed and dressed.

She was imprisoned again – but by whom? Had the Russians recaptured her? Or had the British apprehended Alfie and Anand and spirited her away?

At the thought of her friends, her heart leapt. What had become of them in the early hours of the morning, when her abductors had halted the truck? She recalled hearing muffled shouts, the cab door opening, but after that nothing. Had Alfie and Anand managed to get away, or were they imprisoned here too?

She crossed to the door and tried the handle, expecting the door to be locked. She was surprised when the handle turned and the door opened. She peered into a corridor which gave on to a railed landing, furnished with occasional tables bearing sprays of fresh flowers. As in her room, art works lined the walls, this time by Gainsborough and Turner.

Cautiously she stepped from the room, padded along to the landing and peered over the rail. On either side, a grand staircase swept down to a black and white chequered marble hallway; the front door stood open, admitting the summer breeze and birdsong.

A door opened behind her, making her jump, and she turned to see a middle-aged woman in a mauve two-piece with pearls step out and smile at her through a pair of pince nez. “Miss Chatterjee, up at last, are we? Excellent. Now, please make yourself at home.

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