The Midnight Palace - Carlos Ruiz Zafon [45]
‘Chandra believed that this would mark the end of the commercial and political monopoly that had begun in the days of Lord Clive and the Company, when trade was limited to using river and maritime transport. It would allow the people of India slowly to regain control over their country’s wealth. But you didn’t have to be an engineer to realise that things would never turn out that way.’
‘Is there anything about a character called Jawahal?’ asked Seth. ‘He was a childhood friend of the engineer. He went on trial a few times. I think the cases were quite notorious.’
‘There must be something somewhere, but there’s a mountain of documents to sort through. Why don’t you come back in a couple of weeks? By then I’ll have had a chance to put this mess into some kind of order.’
‘We can’t wait two weeks, sir,’ said Michael.
De Rozio stared at them severely.
‘Wasn’t your friend supposed to be a mute?’
Michael stepped forward, his expression dead serious and worth at least a thousand words.
‘This is a matter of life and death, sir,’ said Michael. ‘The lives of two people are in danger.’
De Rozio saw the intensity in Michael’s eyes and nodded, vaguely bewildered. Seth didn’t lose a second.
‘We’ll help you search through the material,’ he offered.
‘You two? I don’t know … When?’
‘Right now,’ replied Michael.
‘Do you know the codes for the library index cards?’ de Rozio asked.
‘Like the alphabet,’ lied Seth.
THE SUN DIPPED BEHIND the broken glass panes on the western side of Jheeter’s Gate. A few seconds later Isobel watched, hypnotised, as hundreds of horizontal blades of light sliced through the shadows of the station. The howling voices grew in intensity and soon Isobel could hear them echoing round the dome. The ground began to shake under her feet and she noticed shards of glass falling from above. A sudden pain seared along her left forearm. When she touched the spot warm blood slid through her fingers. She ran towards one end of the station, covering her face with her hands.
As she took shelter under a staircase that led to the upper levels she noticed a large waiting room in front of her. Burnt wooden benches were strewn across the floor and the walls were covered with strange crudely drawn pictures. They seemed to represent deformed human shapes, demonic figures with long wolfish claws and eyes that popped out of their heads. The shaking beneath her feet was now intense, and Isobel approached the mouth of one of the tunnels. A blast of burning air scorched her face and she rubbed her eyes, unable to believe what she was seeing.
From the very depths of the tunnel emerged a glowing train covered in flames. Isobel flung herself to the ground as the train crossed the station with a deafening roar, metal grating against metal, accompanied by the yells of hundreds of children trapped in the flames. She lay there, her eyes closed, paralysed with terror, until the sound of the train died away.
Isobel raised her head and looked around her. The station was empty except for a cloud of steam that slowly lifted, tinted dark red by the afterglow of the sun. In front of her, barely half a metre away, was a puddle of some dark sticky substance. For a moment Isobel thought she could see the reflection of a face on its surface, the luminous sad face of a woman enveloped in light who was calling to her. She stretched out a hand towards the image and found the tips of her fingers soaked in the thick warm fluid. Blood. Isobel jerked her hand away and wiped her fingers on her dress as the vision slowly vanished. Gasping for breath, she dragged herself as far as the wall and leaned against it to recover.
After a minute she stood up again and looked around the station. The evening light was fading fast and soon night would be upon her. A single thought took hold of her: she didn’t want to wait for that moment