The Midnight Palace

I’ ll never forget the night it snowed over Calcutta. The calendar at St Patrick’s Orphanage was inching towards the final days of May 1932, leaving behind one of the hottest months ever recorded in the city of palaces.

With each passing day we felt sadder and more fearful of the approaching summer, when we would all turn sixteen, for this would mean our separation and the end of the Chowbar Society, the secret club of seven members that had been our refuge during our years at the orphanage. We had grown up there with no other family than ourselves, with no other memories than the stories we told in the small hours round an open fire in the courtyard of an abandoned mansion – a large rambling ruin which stood on the corner of Cotton Street and Brabourne Road and which we’d christened the Midnight Palace. At the time, I didn’t know I would never again see the streets of my childhood, the city whose spell has haunted me to this day.

I have never returned to Calcutta, but I have always been true to the promise we all made to ourselves on the banks of the Hooghly River: the promise never to forget what we had witnessed. Time has taught me to treasure the memory of those days and to preserve the letters I received from the accursed city, for they keep the flame of my memories alive. It was through those letters that I found out our palace had been demolished and an office building erected over its ashes, and that Mr Thomas Carter, the head of St Patrick’s, had passed away after spending the last years of his life in darkness, following the fire that closed his eyes for ever.

As the years went by, I heard about the gradual disappearance of all the sites that had formed the backdrop to our lives. The fury of a city that seemed to be devouring itself and the deceptive passage of time eventually erased all trace of the Chowbar Society and its members; at which point, I began to fear that this story might be lost for ever for want of a narrator. The vagaries of fate have chosen me, the person least suited to the task, to tell the tale and unveil the secret that both bonded and separated us so many years ago in the old railway station of Jheeter’s Gate. I would have preferred someone else to have been in charge of rescuing this story, but once again life has taught me that my role is to be a witness, not the leading actor.

All these years I’ve kept the few letters sent to me by Roshan, guarding them closely because they shed light on the fate of each member of our unique society; I’ve read them over and over again, aloud, in the solitude of my study. Perhaps because somehow I felt that I had unwittingly become the repository of everything that had happened to us. Perhaps because I understood that, among that group of seven youngsters, I was always the most reluctant to take risks, the least daring, and therefore the most likely to survive.

In that spirit, and trusting that my memory won’t betray me, I will try to relive the mysterious and terrible events that took place during those four blazing days in May 1932.

It will not be easy and I beg my readers to forgive my inadequate words as I attempt to salvage that dark Calcutta summer from the past. I have done my best to reconstruct the truth, to return to those troubled days that would inevitably shape our future. All that is left for me now is to take my leave and allow the facts to speak for themselves.

I’ll never forget the fear on the faces of my friends the night it snowed in Calcutta. But, as Ben used to tell me, the best place to start a story is at the beginning …

Calcutta, May 1916

Shortly after midnight a boat emerged out of the mist that rose like a fetid curse from the surface of the Hooghly River. The faint glow of a flickering lantern attached to the mast revealed the figure of a man wrapped in a cape, rowing with difficulty towards the distant shore. Further to the east, under a blanket of leaden clouds, the outline of Fort William in the Maidan – a sort of Hyde Park carved out of tropical jungle – stood out against an endless expanse of street lamps and bonfires that spread as far as the eye could see. Calcutta.

The man stopped for a few moments to recover his breath and look back at the silhouette of Jheeter’s Gate Station rising from the shadows on the opposite bank. The further he went, the more the station made of glass and steel seemed to melt into the city – a jungle of marble mausoleums blackened by decades of neglect; naked walls once coated in ochre, blue and gold, their colours peeled away by the fury of the monsoon, leaving them blurred and faded, like watercolours dissolving in a pond.

Only the certainty that he had just a few hours to live – perhaps only a few minutes – kept him going, leaving behind in that ill-fated place the woman he had sworn to protect. As Lieutenant Peake made his last journey to Calcutta, aboard an old river boat, the rain that had arrived in the early hours of darkness was washing away every last second of his life.

While he struggled to row the boat towards the shore, the lieutenant could hear the crying of the two babies hidden inside the bilge. Peake turned his head and noticed the lights of the other boat twinkling only a hundred metres behind him. He pictured the smile of his pursuer, savouring the hunt for his prey. Relentless.

Ignoring the children’s tears of hunger and cold he applied his remaining strength to steering the boat towards the threshold that led into the ghostly labyrinth of streets. Two hundred years had been enough to transform the thick jungle growing around Kalighat into a city even God did not dare enter.

In a matter of minutes the storm looming over the city had unleashed all its fury. By mid-April and well into the month of June, the city withered in the clutches of the so-called Indian summer, with temperatures reaching up to forty degrees and a level of humidity close to saturation. But with the arrival of violent electric storms, which turned the sky into a battle scene, thermometers could plunge thirty degrees in a few moments.

The curtain of rain hid the unsteady jetties of rotten wood that dangled over the water’s edge, but Peake didn’t stop until he felt the hull hit the planks of the fishermen’s dock. Only then did he thrust the anchoring pole into the muddy riverbed and rush to extract the children, who lay wrapped in a blanket. As he took them in his arms, the crying of the babies permeated the night like a trail of blood calling out to a predator. Pressing the bundle against his chest, Peake jumped ashore.

As the rain pelted down, he saw the other boat approaching the river bank, slowly, like a funeral barge. Gripped by fear, Peake ran towards the streets bordering the southern edge of the Maidan, a district known by its privileged residents – mostly British and other Europeans – as the White Town.

He clung to one remaining hope of being able to save the children, but he was still far from the heart of North Calcutta and Aryami Bose’s house. The old lady was the only person who could help him now. Peake stopped for a moment and scanned the gloomy expanse of the Maidan, searching for the distant glow of the street lamps that flickered in the northern part of the city. The dark streets, cloaked by the storm, would be his safest hiding place. Holding the children tight, Lieutenant Peake set off again, heading east, hoping to find cover in the shadows cast by the palatial buildings of the city centre.

Moments later, the black barge that had been pursuing him came to a halt by the dock. Three men jumped ashore and moored the vessel. The small cabin door slowly opened and a dark figure wrapped in a black cloak crossed the gangplank the men had laid from the jetty, ignoring the rain. Once ashore, the figure stretched out a black-gloved hand and, pointing to the place where Peake had disappeared, gave a sinister smile.

The winding road that cut across the Maidan, rounding the fortress, had turned into a swamp under the pounding rain. Peake vaguely remembered having crossed that part of the city in the days when he was serving under Colonel Llewelyn. But that had been in broad daylight, on horseback and surrounded by an armed cavalry regiment. Ironically, fate now took him along the same stretch of open fields that had been levelled by Lord Clive in 1758 so that the cannons of Fort William could enjoy a clear line of fire in all directions. Only this time he was the target.

Lieutenant Peake ran towards an area of trees, sensing the furtive gaze of those hidden in the dark, the nocturnal inhabitants of the Maidan. He knew that nobody here would try to waylay him and snatch his cape or take the children who were crying in his arms. The invisible presences could smell death clinging to his heels, and not a soul would dare come between him and his pursuer.

Peake jumped over the railings separating the Maidan from Chowringhee Road and entered the main artery of Calcutta. The majestic avenue had been built on top of the old path which, only three hundred years earlier, had crossed the Bengali jungle southwards, leading to the temple of Kali, the Kalighat, which gave the city its name.

Because of the rain, the swarms of people who usually prowled the area at night had retreated and the city looked like a large, empty bazaar. Peake knew that the veil of rain that blurred his vision, but also shrouded him, could vanish as instantly as it had appeared. The storms that entered the Ganges Delta from the ocean quickly travelled north or west after discharging their deluge on the Bengali Peninsula, leaving behind a trail of mist and flooded streets, where children played in filthy puddles and carts ran aground in the mud like drifting ships.

The lieutenant ran along Chowringhee Road until he felt the muscles of his legs give way and he was barely able to support the weight of the babies. He could see the lights of the northern district, but he knew he would not be able to keep up this pace much longer, and Aryami Bose’s house was still a good distance away. He had to make a stop.

He paused to get his breath back under the staircase of an old textile warehouse, the walls of which were covered in official notices announcing its imminent demolition. He vaguely recalled having inspected the place years ago after some rich merchant had reported that it concealed a notorious opium den.

Now, dirty water poured down the crumbling stairs like dark blood gushing from a wound. The place seemed deserted. Lieutenant Peake lifted the children close to his face and looked into their bewildered eyes; the two babies were no longer crying, but they were trembling from the cold and the blanket that covered them was soaking. Peake held their tiny hands in his, hoping to give them some warmth as he peeped through the cracks in the staircase, keeping an eye on the streets leading off the Maidan. He couldn’t remember how many assassins his pursuer had recruited, but he knew that there were only two bullets left in his revolver, two bullets he would have to use with all the cunning he could muster – he had fired the rest of his ammunition in the tunnels of the railway station. Peake wrapped the children in the drier part of the blanket and left them lying on a bit of dry floor he spied in a hollow in the warehouse wall.

He pulled out his revolver, slowly peering round the side of the stairs. He strained his eyes and recognised the line of distant lights on the other side of the Hooghly River. The sound of hurried footsteps startled him and he moved back into the shadows.

Three men emerged from the darkness of the Maidan, the blades of their knives shining in the gloom. Peake rushed to gather the children in his arms once again and took a deep breath, aware that if he were to flee at that moment, the men would fall on him like a pack of wolves.

The lieutenant stood motionless against the wall, watching his pursuers as they stopped to search for his trail. The assassins exchanged a few mumbled words and then one signalled to the other two that they should separate. Peake shuddered as he realised that the one who had given the order was now approaching the staircase; for a split second he thought that the smell of his fear alone would lead the killer to his hiding place.

Desperately, he scanned the wall below the staircase in search of some gap through which he could escape. He knelt down by the hollow where he had left the babies a few seconds earlier and tried to dislodge some planks which were loose and softened by damp. The rotten wood yielded easily and Peake felt a breath of noxious air escape from the dilapidated building. He turned his head and saw the murderer standing only twenty metres away, at the foot of the staircase, brandishing his knife.

Peake wrapped the babies in his cape for protection and crawled through into the warehouse. A sharp pain, just above his knee, suddenly paralysed his right leg. He patted his leg with trembling hands and found a rusty nail sunk into his flesh. Stifling a scream, Peake grabbed the tip of the cold metal and pulled hard. He felt the skin tear and warm blood trickled through his fingers. A wave of nausea and pain clouded his vision. Gasping, he gathered the babies and struggled to his feet. An eerie passageway with hundreds of empty shelves spread before him. Without a moment’s hesitation, Peake ran towards the other end of the warehouse, the wounded structure creaking beneath the storm.

When peake re-emerged into the night after running hundreds of metres through the bowels of the ruined building, he discovered he was only a stone’s throw from the Tiretta Bazar, one of the commercial centres of North Calcutta. He thanked his lucky stars and set off towards the jumble of narrow streets, heading straight for the house of Aryami Bose.

It took him ten minutes to reach the home of the last woman in the Bose family line. Aryami lived alone in a sprawling house built in the Bengali style that rose amid the dense wild vegetation that had invaded the courtyard over the years, making the place look abandoned. Yet no inhabitant of North Calcutta – an area also known as the Black Town – would have dared go beyond that courtyard and enter the domain of Aryami Bose. Those who knew her loved and respected her as much as they feared her. And there wasn’t a soul in the streets of North Calcutta who hadn’t heard of Aryami Bose and her ancestry. For the people of the area she was like a spirit: an invisible and powerful presence.

Peake ran to the spearheaded gates, through the overgrown courtyard and up the cracked marble staircase that led to the front door. Holding both babies under one arm he banged repeatedly with his fist, hoping he would be heard through the storm.

The lieutenant continued to pound on the door for a good five minutes, his eyes fixed on the deserted streets behind him, fearing he would catch sight of his pursuers at any moment. When the door finally yielded, Peake turned round and was blinded by the light of a candle. A voice he hadn’t heard in five years whispered his name. He shaded his eyes with one hand and recognised the inscrutable face of Aryami Bose.

The woman read his expression and gazed down at the children, a shadow of pain passing over her face.

‘She’s dead, Aryami,’ murmured Peake. ‘She was already dead when I found her …’

Aryami closed her eyes and breathed deeply. Peake saw that the news cut deep into the lady’s heart, her worst suspicions confirmed.

‘Come in,’ she said at last, letting him pass and closing the door behind him.

Peake hurried over to a table, where he laid down the babies and removed their wet clothes. Without saying a word, Aryami fetched some dry strips of cloth and wrapped the children in them while Peake stoked the fire.

‘I’m being followed, Aryami,’ said Peake. ‘I can’t stay here.’

‘You’re wounded,’ said the woman, pointing to the gash from the nail.

‘Just a scratch,’ Peake lied. ‘It doesn’t hurt.’

Aryami moved closer to him and stretched out her hand to stroke his face.

‘You always loved her …’

Peake turned his head away and didn’t reply.

‘They could have been your children,’ said Aryami. ‘They might have had better luck.’

‘I must go, Aryami,’ the lieutenant insisted. ‘If I stay here they’ll find me. They won’t give up.’

They exchanged defeated looks, both aware of the fate that awaited Peake as soon as he returned to the streets. Aryami took his hands in hers and pressed them tightly.

‘I was never good to you,’ she said. ‘I feared for my daughter, for the life she might have had with a British officer. But I was wrong. I suppose you’ll never forgive me.’

‘It doesn’t matter any more,’ replied Peake. ‘I must go. Right now.’

He took one last look at the babies, who had settled quietly by the fire. They smiled as they looked at him, their eyes bright and filled with a playful curiosity. At last they were safe. The lieutenant walked to the door and took a deep breath. Exhaustion and the throbbing pain in his leg overwhelmed him after the few moments of rest. He had used the last reserves of his strength to bring the infants to this place, and now he wondered how he was going to face the inevitable. Outside, the rain was still lashing down but there was no sign of his pursuer or his henchmen.

‘Michael …’ said Aryami behind him.

The young man stopped but didn’t turn round.

‘She knew,’ lied Aryami. ‘She knew from the start, and I’m sure that, in some way, she felt the same for you. It was my fault. Don’t hold it against her.’

Peake replied with a nod and closed the door behind him. For a few seconds he stood there, under the rain, finally at peace with himself, then he set off to meet his pursuers. After retracing his steps back to the abandoned warehouse, he entered the dark building once more in search of a hiding place.

As he crouched in the shadows weariness and pain fused slowly into a drunken sense of calm, and his lips betrayed a faint smile. He no longer had any reason, or hope, to go on living.

The long tapered fingers in the black glove stroked the bloodstained tip of the nail poking through the broken plank near the entrance to the warehouse. Slowly, while the assassins waited in silence behind him, the slender figure, whose face was hidden under a black hood, raised the tip of one forefinger to his lips and licked the dark thick blood as if it were a drop of honey. A few seconds later the hooded figure turned towards the men he had hired a few hours earlier for a handful of coins and the promise of further pay when they’d finished the job. He pointed inside the building. The three henchmen scurried through the opening made by Lieutenant Peake a short while earlier. The hooded man smirked in the darkness.

‘You’ve chosen a sad place to die, Peake,’ he whispered to himself.

Hiding behind a column of empty crates in the depths of the warehouse, Peake watched the silhouettes of the three men as they entered the building. Although he couldn’t see him from where he stood, he was certain that their master was waiting on the other side of the wall; he could sense his presence. Peake pulled out his revolver and rotated the cylinder until one of the two bullets was aligned with the barrel, muffling the sound under his tunic. He was no longer running away from death, but he was determined not to travel this road alone.

The adrenalin coursing through his veins had eased the pain in his knee until it was just a dull, distant throb. Surprised at how calm he felt, Peake smiled again and remained motionless in his hiding place. He watched the slow advance of the three men through the passage until his executioners came to a halt about ten metres away. One of the men lifted a hand to stop the others and pointed at some stains on the ground. Peake raised his weapon to his chest, cocked the hammer, and took aim.

At a new signal, the three men separated. Two of them went sideways while the third made straight for the pile of crates, and Peake. The lieutenant counted to five, then suddenly pushed the column of boxes forward. The crates crashed down on top of his attacker while Peake ran towards the opening through which they had entered the warehouse.

One of the killers surprised him at a junction in the corridor, wielding his knife close to the lieutenant’s face. But before the thug could even blink, the barrel of Peake’s revolver was thrust under his chin.

‘Drop the knife,’ spat the lieutenant.

Seeing the ice in the lieutenant’s eyes, the man did as he was told. Peake grabbed him by his hair and, without removing his weapon, turned to the assassin’s allies, shielding his body with that of his hostage. The other two thugs moved menacingly towards Peake.

‘Lieutenant, spare us the drama and hand over what we’re looking for,’ a familiar voice murmured behind him. ‘These are honest men. With families.’

Peake turned to see the hooded man leering at him in the dark, just a few metres from where he stood.

‘I’m going to blow this man’s head off, Jawahal,’ Peake snarled.

His hostage closed his eyes, trembling.

The hooded man crossed his arms patiently and gave out a small sigh of annoyance.

‘Do so if it pleases you, Lieutenant. But that won’t get you out of here.’

‘I’m serious,’ Peake replied.

‘Of course, Lieutenant,’ said Jawahal in a conciliatory tone. ‘Shoot if you have the courage required to kill a man in cold blood and without His Majesty’s permission. Otherwise, drop the weapon, and that way we’ll be able to reach an agreement that is satisfactory to both parties.’

The two armed henchmen were standing nearby, ready to jump on Peake at the first signal from the hooded man.

‘Very well,’ Peake said at last. ‘What do you think of this agreement?’

He pushed his hostage onto the floor and, raising his revolver, turned towards the hooded man. The first shot echoed through the warehouse. Jawahal’s gloved hand emerged from the cloud of gunpowder, his palm outstretched. Peake thought he could see the crushed bullet shining in the dark, then melting slowly into a thread of liquid metal that slid through Jawahal’s fingers like a fistful of sand.

‘Bad shot, Lieutenant. Try again, only this time come closer.’

Without giving him time to move, the hooded man leaned forward and grasped the hand with which Peake was holding his weapon. He then pulled the end of the gun towards his own face until it rested between his eyes.

‘Didn’t they teach you to do it like this at the academy?’ he whispered.

‘There was a time when we were friends,’ said Peake.

Jawahal smiled with contempt.

‘That time, Lieutenant, has passed.’

‘May God forgive me,’ muttered Peake, pulling the trigger again.

In an instant that seemed endless, Peake watched as the bullet pierced Jawahal’s skull, tearing the hood off his head. For a few seconds light passed through the wound but gradually the smoking hole closed in on itself. Peake felt the revolver slipping from his fingers.

The blazing eyes of his opponent fixed themselves on his and a long black tongue flicked across the man’s lips.

‘You still don’t understand, do you, Lieutenant? Where are the babies?’

It was not a question. It was an order.

Dumb with terror, Peake shook his head.

‘As you wish.’

Jawahal squeezed Peake’s hand. The lieutenant felt the bones in his fingers being crushed under his flesh. The spasm of pain made him fall to his knees, unable to breathe.

‘Where are the babies?’ Jawahal hissed.

Peake tried to say something, but the agony spreading from the bloody stump that had been his hand paralysed his speech.

‘Are you trying to say something, Lieutenant?’ Jawahal whispered, kneeling beside him.

Peake nodded.

‘Good, good.’ His enemy smiled. ‘Frankly, I don’t find your suffering amusing. So help me put an end to it.’

‘The children are dead,’ Peake groaned.

An expression of distaste crept over Jawahal’s face.

‘You were doing so well, Lieutenant. Don’t ruin it now.’

‘They’re dead,’ Peake repeated.

Jawahal shrugged and slowly nodded his head.

‘All right,’ he conceded. ‘You leave me no choice. But before you go, let me remind you that, when Kylian’s life was in your hands, you were incapable of saving her. She died because of men like you. But those men have gone. You are the last one. The future is mine.’

Peake raised his eyes to Jawahal, and as he did so, he noticed the man’s pupils narrowing into thin slits, his golden irises blazing. With painstaking elegance, Jawahal started to remove the glove on his right hand.

‘Unfortunately you won’t live to see it,’ Jawahal added. ‘Don’t think for a second that your heroic act has served any purpose. You’re an idiot, Lieutenant Peake. You always gave me that impression, and now all you have done is confirm it. I hope there is a hell reserved especially for idiots, Peake, because that’s where I’m sending you.’

Peake closed his eyes and listened to the hiss of fire just inches from his face. Then, after a moment that seemed eternal, he felt burning fingers closing round his throat, cutting off his very last breath. In the distance he could hear the sound of that accursed train and the ghostly voices of hundreds of children howling from the flames. After that, only darkness.

One by one, Aryami Bose blew out the candles that lit up her sanctuary until only the hesitant glow of the fire remained, projecting fleeting haloes of light against the naked walls. The children were now asleep and the silence was broken only by the rain pattering against the closed shutters and the occasional crackling of the fire. Silent tears slid down Aryami’s face as she took the photograph of her daughter Kylian from the small brass and ivory box where she kept her most prized possessions.

A travelling photographer from Bombay had taken that picture some time before the wedding and hadn’t accepted any payment for it. It showed Kylian just as Aryami remembered her, with that uncanny luminosity that seemed to emanate from her. Kylian’s radiance had mesmerised all who knew her, just as it had captivated the expert eye of the photographer, who had given her the nickname by which she was still remembered: the Princess of Light.

Naturally, Kylian never became a true princess and had no kingdom other than the streets she grew up on. The day she left the Bose home to go and live with her husband, the people of Machuabazar had said farewell with tears in their eyes as they watched the white carriage carry away their Black Town princess for ever. She was scarcely more than a child at the time.

Aryami sat down next to the babies, facing the fireplace, and pressed the old photograph against her chest. Outside the storm raged on and Aryami drew on the force of its anger to help her decide what she should do next. Lieutenant Peake’s pursuer would not be content simply with killing him. The young man’s courage had earned her a few valuable minutes, which she could not waste, not even to mourn for her daughter. Experience had taught her that there would always be plenty of time to lament the errors of the past.

She put the photograph back into the box and took out a pendant she’d had made for Kylian years ago, a jewel she never had the chance to wear. It consisted of two gold circles, a sun and a moon, that fitted into one another to make a single piece. She pressed the centre of the pendant and the two parts separated. Aryami strung each half on a separate gold chain and put one round each of the babies’ necks.

As she did so, she considered the decisions she must make. There seemed to be only one way of ensuring the children’s survival: she must separate them and keep them apart, erase their past and hide their identity from the world and from themselves, however painful that might be. It was not possible for them to remain together; sooner or later they would give themselves away, and she could not take that risk. Aryami knew she had to resolve the dilemma before daybreak.

She took the babies in her arms and kissed them gently on the forehead. Their tiny hands stroked her face and fingered the tears that rolled down her cheeks. Both babies gurgled cheerfully at her, not understanding. She hugged them tight in her arms once more then placed them back in the improvised cot she had made for them.

She then lit a candle and took paper and pen. The future of her grandchildren was now in her hands. Taking a deep breath she began to write. In the background she could hear the rain easing off and the roar of the storm fading towards the north as an endless blanket of stars unfurled over Calcutta.

Having reached the age of fifty, Thomas Carter thought that the city that had been his home for the last thirty-two years had no more surprises in store for him.

In the early hours of that morning in May 1916, after one of the fiercest monsoon storms he remembered, the surprise had arrived at the door of St Patrick’s Orphanage in the form of a basket containing a baby and a sealed letter marked personal and addressed to him.

The surprise was two-fold. Firstly, nobody bothered to abandon a baby in Calcutta on the doorstep of an orphanage, for there were plenty of alleyways, rubbish dumps and wells all over the city where it could be done more easily. Secondly, nobody wrote letters of introduction like the one he received, signed and leaving no doubt as to its author.

Carter examined his spectacles against the light, breathed on them, then wiped them with an old cotton handkerchief he used for the same task at least a dozen times a day – twice as much during the Indian summer.

The baby boy was asleep downstairs, in Vendela’s bedroom. The head nurse had been keeping a watchful eye on him since he’d been examined by Dr Woodward, who’d been dragged out of his bed shortly before dawn with no other explanation than a reminder of his Hippocratic oath.

The infant was essentially healthy. He showed some signs of dehydration but didn’t seem to be suffering from any of the catalogue of ills that cut short the lives of thousands of children, denying them the right even to reach the age when they’d be able to say their mothers’ name. The only things that had come with the child were the gold pendant in the shape of a sun that Carter held between his fingers, and the letter – a document which, were he to believe its content, placed him in a very awkward situation.

Carter put the pendant in the top drawer of his desk and turned the key. Then he picked up the letter and read it for at least the tenth time. Dear Mr Carter, I feel obliged to ask for your help in the most painful of circumstances, appealing to the friendship that I know united you and my late husband for over ten years. During that time my husband never ceased to praise your honesty and the extraordinary trust you inspired in him. That is why today I beg you to heed my plea with the greatest urgency, however strange it may seem, and if possible with the greatest secrecy. The child I am obliged to hand over to you has lost both his parents. The murderer swore he would kill them and then wipe out their descendants. I cannot reveal the reasons that led this man to commit such an act, nor do I think it appropriate to do so. Suffice it to say that the discovery of the child should be kept secret. Under no circumstance should you inform the police or the British authorities, because the murderer has connections in both that would soon lead him to the boy. For obvious reasons, I cannot raise the child myself without exposing him to the same fate that befell his parents. That is why I must beg you to take care of him, give him a name and educate him according to the principles of your institution, so that he grows up to be as honest and honourable as his parents were. And it is vitally important that the child should never learn the truth about his past. I don’t have time to give you any more details, but I will remind you once more of the friendship and trust you shared with my husband in order to justify my request. When you finish reading this letter, I beg you to destroy it, together with anything that might lead to the discovery of the child. I am sorry I cannot undertake this request in person, but the seriousness of the situation prevents me from doing so. In the hope that you will make the right decision, please accept my eternal gratitude.

Aryami Bose

A knock on the door interrupted his reading. Carter removed his spectacles, carefully folded the letter and placed it in the drawer of his desk, which he then locked.

‘Come in,’ he said.

Vendela, the head nurse of St Patrick’s, put her head round the door; as usual her expression was stern and efficient. She didn’t seem to be the bearer of good news.

‘There’s a gentleman downstairs who wishes to speak to you,’ she said briefly.

Carter frowned.

‘What about?’

‘He wouldn’t give any details.’ Her tone seemed to imply that any such details were bound to be vaguely suspicious.

Vendela hesitated, then stepped into the office and closed the door behind her.

‘I think it’s about the baby,’ the nurse said anxiously. ‘I didn’t tell him anything.’

‘Have you spoken to anyone else?’ Carter enquired.

Vendela shook her head. He gave her a nod and put the key of the desk in his trouser pocket.

‘I can tell him you’re not in,’ suggested Vendela.

For a moment Carter considered the option, but decided that if Vendela’s suspicions were correct – and they usually were – it would only reinforce the impression that St Patrick’s Orphanage had something to hide. That made up his mind.

‘No. I’ll receive him, Vendela. Ask him to come in and make sure none of the staff talk to him. Absolute secrecy on this matter. All right?’

‘Understood.’

Carter heard Vendela’s footsteps as she walked down the corridor. He wiped his glasses again. Outside the rain was hammering against the windowpanes once more.

The man wore a long cloak, and his head was wrapped in a turban, which was pinned with a dark brooch shaped like a snake. He had the affected manners of a prosperous North Calcutta merchant and his features seemed vaguely Hindu, although his skin was an unhealthy colour, as if it had never been touched by sunlight. The racial melting pot of Calcutta had filled its streets with a fusion of Bengalis, Armenians, Jews, Anglo-Saxons, Chinese, Muslims and numerous other groups who had come to the land of Kali in search of fortune or refuge. The man’s face could have belonged to any of those races, or to none.

Carter could sense the stranger’s eyes burning into his back, inspecting him carefully as he poured tea into two cups on the tray Vendela had provided.

‘Do sit down,’ said Carter to the man. ‘Sugar?’

‘I’ll take it the way you take it.’

The stranger’s voice betrayed no accent or emotion of any sort. Carter swallowed hard, then fixed a friendly smile on his lips and turned round to pass his visitor the cup. A gloved hand, with long fingers sharp as claws, closed round the scalding china without a moment’s hesitation. Carter sat down in his armchair and stirred sugar into his tea.

‘I’m sorry to bother you, Mr Carter. I suppose you must be very busy, so I’ll be brief.’

Carter gave a polite nod.

‘What is the reason for your visit, Mr …?’

‘My name is Jawahal, Mr Carter,’ the stranger explained. ‘I’ll be frank. My question may seem odd to you, but have you found a child, a baby, just a few days old, either last night or today?’

Carter frowned and did his best to look surprised. Nothing too obvious, but not too subtle either.

‘A baby? I’m not sure I understand …’

Jawahal smiled broadly.

‘I don’t know where to begin. You see, it’s rather an awkward story. I trust you’ll be discreet, Mr Carter.’

‘But of course, Mr Jawahal,’ replied Carter, taking a sip of his tea.

The man, who had not tasted his cup, relaxed and launched into his tale.

‘I own a large textile business in the north of the city,’ he began. ‘I am what might be described as comfortably off. There are those who would call me wealthy, and rightly so, I suppose. I’m responsible for a number of families and I’m privileged to be able to help them as much as I can.’

‘With things the way they are, we all need to do what we can,’ said Carter, his gaze fixed on those two dark inscrutable eyes.

‘Yes, of course,’ the stranger continued. ‘The matter that brings me to your worthy institution is a painful one, and I’d like to put an end to it as soon as possible. A week ago a young girl who works in one of my factories gave birth to a baby boy. It seems that the father of the child is an Anglo-Indian rogue who disappeared as soon as he heard of the girl’s pregnancy. I’m told that the girl’s family come from Delhi. They’re Muslim, very strict, and they were not aware of the situation.’

Carter nodded gravely.

‘A couple of days ago one of my foremen told me that, in a fit of madness, the girl fled from the house where she was living with some relatives. It seems she was intending to sell the child,’ Jawahal went on. ‘Don’t get me wrong. She’s a good girl, but she was under so much pressure that she became desperate. Which isn’t so surprising – this country is just as intolerant of human weakness as yours is.’

‘And you think the baby might be here, Mr Jahawal?’ asked Carter, trying to bring him back to the subject.

‘Jawahal,’ the visitor corrected him. ‘Let me explain. Once I became aware of the circumstances I felt responsible, in a way. After all, the girl worked for me. I combed the city with a couple of trusted foremen and discovered that she had sold the child to a loathsome criminal who sells babies to professional beggars – a phenomenon that nowadays is as common as it is deplorable. We found the man, but, for reasons that are now irrelevant, he managed to escape. This happened last night, near your orphanage. I have reason to believe that, fearing what might happen to him, he may have abandoned the baby nearby.’

‘I see,’ said Carter. ‘And have you informed the local authorities of this matter, Mr Jawahal? The trafficking of children is punished severely, as you must know.’

The stranger folded his hands together and gave a little sigh.

‘I was hoping to solve this problem without having to go to those lengths,’ he said. ‘If I did that, I would implicate the young girl, and the child would be left without a father or a mother.’

Carter sized up the stranger’s story, nodding slowly and repeatedly to show he understood although he didn’t believe a single word.

‘I’m sorry I can’t be of help to you, Mr Jawahal. Unfortunately we haven’t found a baby or heard of any child being found nearby,’ Carter explained. ‘Still, if you leave me your details I’ll get in touch if I hear anything, although I’m afraid I would have to inform the authorities if the baby was abandoned outside this orphanage. That’s the law, and I can’t ignore it.’

The man stared silently at Carter for a few seconds without blinking. Carter held his gaze and didn’t alter his expression, although he could feel his stomach shrinking and his pulse accelerating, as if he were facing a snake that was about to strike. Finally the stranger gave a pleasant smile and pointed in the direction of the Raj Bhawan, the palatial government building that rose in the distance.

‘You British are admirable observers of the law, which is to your credit. Wasn’t it Lord Wellesley who, in 1799, decided to move government headquarters to that magnificent site in order to lend its laws greater weight? Or was it in 1800?’

‘I’m afraid I’m not an expert on local history,’ Carter replied, disconcerted by the sudden twist Jawahal had given the conversation.

The visitor frowned, mutely signalling his disapproval of Carter’s confessed ignorance.

‘With only two hundred and fifty years to its name, Calcutta has so little history that the least we can do is learn about it, Mr Carter. But, returning to the subject, I’d say it was in 1799. Do you know why the move was made? Wellesley, the governor general, said that India must be ruled from a palace and not from an accountants’ office; with the ideas of a prince, not those of a spice trader. Quite a vision, I’d say.’

‘Indeed,’ Carter agreed. He stood up, ready to see the visitor out.

‘All the more so in an empire in which decadence is an art form and Calcutta its main showcase,’ Jawahal added.

Carter nodded his head, not quite sure what he was agreeing with.

‘I’m sorry I’ve wasted your time, Mr Carter,’ concluded Jawahal.

‘On the contrary,’ replied Carter. ‘I’m just sorry I haven’t been of any assistance. In such circumstances we must all do what we can to help.’

‘Absolutely,’ Jawahal agreed, also standing up. ‘Once again, I appreciate your kindness. I just wanted to ask you one more question.’

‘With pleasure,’ answered Carter, although he couldn’t wait to get rid of this man.

Jawahal smiled maliciously, as if he’d read Carter’s thoughts.

‘At what age do the children you take in leave this place, Mr Carter?’

Carter couldn’t hide his surprise.

‘I hope you don’t think I’m being tactless,’ Jawahal added hurriedly. ‘If that is the case, please ignore my question. I’m just curious.’

‘No, not at all. It’s no secret. The boarders at St Patrick’s remain under our roof until the day they turn sixteen. That’s when the guardianship period ends. At that point they are considered to be adults, or so the law says, ready to take charge of their own lives. As you can see, this is a privileged institution.’

Jawahal listened attentively and appeared to be considering the matter.

‘I imagine it must be very painful for you to see them leave after having cared for them all those years,’ Jawahal observed. ‘In a way, you’re like a father to all these children.’

‘It’s my job,’ Carter lied.

‘Of course. But – if you don’t mind my asking – how do you know the real age of a child who has no parents or family? It’s a technicality, I suppose …’

‘The age of our boarders is set from the day the child is taken in, or else the institution makes an approximate calculation,’ Carter explained, feeling uncomfortable about discussing the orphanage’s procedures with the stranger.

‘Which makes you a little god, Mr Carter.’

‘That is a view I do not share,’ Carter replied dryly. Jawahal relished the displeasure on Carter’s face.

‘Forgive my audacity, Mr Carter,’ Jawahal replied. ‘It was a pleasure to meet you. I may visit in the future and make a donation to your noble institution. Perhaps I’ll return in sixteen years’ time; that way I’ll be able to meet the youngsters who become part of your large family today …’

‘It will be a pleasure to receive you then, if that is your wish,’ said Carter, leading the stranger to the door. ‘It looks like the rain has got worse. Maybe you’d prefer to wait until it dies down?’

The man turned towards Carter and his pupils glowed like two black pearls. He seemed to have been weighing up every gesture, every expression from the moment he’d entered the office, sniffing out any cracks in the story and analysing every word. Carter regretted extending his offer of hospitality. At that precise moment the only thing Carter wanted was to see the back of this individual. He didn’t care if a hurricane was laying waste to the city.

‘The rain will stop soon, Mr Carter,’ Jawahal replied. ‘Thanks all the same.’

Right on cue, Vendela was waiting in the corridor as the meeting ended, and she escorted the visitor to the exit. From the window of his office Carter watched the black figure setting off into the rain then disappearing among the narrow streets at the foot of the hill. Carter stood there for a while, looking out of his window, his eyes fixed on the Raj Bhawan, the seat of the British government. A few minutes later, just as Jawahal had predicted, the rain stopped.

Thomas Carter poured himself another cup of tea and sat in his armchair gazing out at the city. He had grown up in a place similar to the home he now managed, in Liverpool. Within the walls of that institution he had learned three things that would always serve him well: not to overvalue material comforts, to appreciate the classics and, last but not least, to recognise a liar from a mile away.

He took a leisurely sip of his tea and, in view of the fact that Calcutta could still surprise him, decided to start celebrating his fiftieth birthday. He walked over to a glass cabinet and took out the box of cigars he reserved for special occasions. Striking a match, he lit the valuable item with due calm and ceremony. Then, putting the flame to good use, he pulled Aryami Bose’s letter out of the drawer and set fire to it. While the parchment turned to ashes on a small tray with St Patrick’s initials engraved on it, Carter savoured the cigar and, in honour of Benjamin Franklin, one of his childhood heroes, decided that their new tenant would be called Ben, and that he personally would put all his energy into making sure the orphanage provided the boy with the family fate had stolen from him.

B efore I continue with my story and start describing the events that took place sixteen years later, I must take a brief moment to introduce some of its protagonists. Of course, while all of this was taking place in the streets of Calcutta, some of us had not yet been born and others were only a few days old. Yet we had one thing in common, a circumstance that would bring us together under the roof of St Patrick’s: none of us had a family or a home.

We learned to survive without either of those things. Better still, we invented our own family and created our home. It was a family and a home we had chosen freely, and neither lies nor chance had any place there. The only father the seven of us ever knew was Mr Thomas Carter, with his speeches about the wisdom to be found in the pages of Dante and Virgil; and our only mother was the city of Calcutta, whose mysteries were concealed in the streets that lay beneath the stars of the Bengali Peninsula.

The club we invented had a colourful name, the true origin of which was known only to Ben. He had christened the club at whim, although some of us had a sneaking suspicion that he’d borrowed the word from the old mail-order catalogue of some Bombay importer. Be that as it may, the Chowbar Society was set up at some point in our lives, after which the orphanage games seemed dull in comparison. By then we were cunning enough to slip out of the building in the small hours of the night, long after the venerable Vendela’s curfew, and make straight for our society’s headquarters – the top secret and supposedly haunted house which for decades had stood abandoned on the corner of Cotton Street and Brabourne Road, in the middle of the Black Town, just a few streets away from the Hooghly River.

I have to admit that the ramshackle house we proudly called the Midnight Palace (in consideration of the hour when we held our meetings) was never really haunted. The rumours about its supernatural powers arose because of our subterfuge. One of our founding members, Siraj, a full-time asthmatic and learned expert on Calcutta’s tales of ghosts, apparitions and curses, hatched a convincingly sinister legend about an alleged former resident. This helped keep our secret hideaway free of intruders.

The story, in short, was about an old tradesman who floated through the house wrapped in a white cloak. He had blazing red eyes and long wolfish fangs that rested over his lips, and he hungered after unsuspecting curious souls. The bit about the eyes and the teeth was, of course, Ben’s contribution, as he loved to concoct plots so gruesome they left Mr Carter’s classics – Sophocles and the gory Homer included – in the dust.

Despite the humorous echoes of its name, the Chowbar Society was as select and strict as any of the clubs that filled the Edwardian buildings of central Calcutta, emulating their London namesakes; their elegant lounges, where members could vegetate, brandy in hand, were the birthright of the British male elite. Our surroundings may have been less splendid, but our aim was far nobler.

The Chowbar Society had been founded with two firm objectives. The first was to guarantee each of its seven members the help, protection and unconditional support of the others, in any circumstance, danger or adversity. The second was to share the knowledge each of us acquired, so that we could equip ourselves for the day when we would have to face the world alone.

Every member had sworn upon his own name and honour (we had no close relatives to swear by) to observe those two objectives and to keep the society a secret. During the seven years of its existence no new member was ever admitted. I lie. We made one exception, but to write about that now would be to get ahead of myself …

Never was there a society whose members were more united, and whose oath carried such weight. The Chowbar Society was nothing like the clubs for wealthy gentlemen in the West End, for none of us had a home or a loved one to go to when we left the Midnight Palace. It was also very different from the ancient student societies in Cambridge, because it did admit women.

So I will begin with the first woman who pledged her oath as a founder member of the Chowbar Society, although when the ceremony took place none of us (including the person I’m alluding to, who was nine at the time) thought of her as a woman. Her name was Isobel and, as she said herself, she had been born for the stage. Isobel dreamed of becoming the successor to Sarah Bernhardt, seducing audiences from Broadway to Shaftesbury Avenue and leaving the divas of the newly formed cinema industry unemployed, both in Hollywood and Bombay. She collected newspaper cuttings and theatre programmes, wrote her own plays (‘active monologues’ she called them) and performed them for us with great success. Most outstanding were her sketches about a femme fatale on the brink of the abyss. But, beneath all the extravagance and melodrama, Isobel possessed – with the possible exception of Ben – the best brain in the group.

The best legs, however, belonged to Roshan. Nobody could run like Roshan, who had grown up in the streets of Calcutta under the tutelage of thieves, beggars and all kinds of other specimens from the jungle of poverty that flourished in the newly expanding areas to the south of the city. When the boy was eight, Thomas Carter brought him to St Patrick’s and, after a few escapes and returns, Roshan decided to stay with us. Among his many talents was that of locksmith. There wasn’t a lock on earth that wouldn’t yield to his skill.

I’ve already spoken about Siraj, our specialist in haunted houses. Leaving aside his asthma, his pale complexion and poor health, Siraj possessed an encyclopedic memory, particularly when it came to sinister stories about the city, of which there were hundreds. For the ghost stories that enhanced our special evenings, Siraj was the researcher and Ben the narrator. From the ghostly rider of Hastings House to the spectral leader of the 1857 mutiny, including the spine-chilling episode of the so-called black hole of Calcutta (where over a hundred men suffocated, after being captured in a siege at the old Fort William), there wasn’t a tall tale or gruesome incident that escaped Siraj’s archives. Needless to say, for the rest of us his passion was a cause for great joy and celebration. Unfortunately, however, Siraj had an almost unhealthy adoration for Isobel. At least once every six months his proposals for a future marriage – which were invariably refused – triggered a romantic storm within the group that aggravated the spurned lover’s asthma.

Isobel’s affections belonged exclusively to Michael, a tall skinny boy who was quiet by nature and given to long inexplicable spells of melancholy. Michael had the dubious privilege of having known, and therefore of remembering, his parents. They had died during a flood of the Ganges Delta when an overloaded barge had capsized. Michael spoke little and was a good listener. There was only one way of deciphering his thoughts: by looking at the dozens of drawings he did during the day. Ben used to say that if there was more than one Michael in the world, he’d invest all his fortune – still to be made – in the paper business.

Michael’s best friend was Seth, a strong Bengali boy with a serious expression who smiled about six times a year and even then with hesitation. Seth was a scholar of anything that came into his line of fire, a tireless devourer of Mr Carter’s classics, and keen on astronomy. When he wasn’t with us, he concentrated all his efforts on building a strange telescope, with which, according to Ben, you couldn’t even see the tips of your toes. Seth never appreciated Ben’s vaguely caustic sense of humour.

Only Ben remains, and, although I’ve left him until the end, I still find it hard to talk about him. There was a different Ben for every day. His mood changed every half-hour and he’d go from long stretches of silence, a sad expression on his face, to periods of hyperactivity that ended up exhausting us all. One day he wanted to be a writer; the following day an inventor and a mathematician; the day after that a sailor or a deep-sea diver; the rest of the time it was all of those things with a few more added. Ben invented mathematical theories that even he didn’t manage to remember and wrote such bizarre tales of adventure that he ended up destroying them a week after they were finished, embarrassed at the thought that he had penned them. He machine-gunned us constantly with elaborate ideas and complex puns which he always refused to repeat. Ben was like a bottomless trunk, full of surprises, also of mystery, light and shadow. He was, and I suppose he still is, even though we haven’t seen one another in decades, my best friend.

As for me, there’s not much to tell. Just call me Ian. I had only one dream, and it was a modest one: to study medicine and become a doctor. Fate was good to me and I was granted that wish. As Ben wrote in one of his stories, I ‘just happened to be passing by and was a witness to those events’.

I remember that in the last days of that month, May 1932, all of us – all seven members of the Chowbar Society – were going to turn sixteen. It was a fateful age, both feared and keenly anticipated by us all.

Following its statutes, St Patrick’s would return us to society when we reached sixteen so that we could grow into responsible men and women. That date held another meaning that we all understood only too well: it signified the dissolution of the Chowbar Society. From that summer onwards our paths would diverge, and despite our promises and all the kind lies we had told ourselves, we knew that it would not be long before the bond that had joined us was washed away like a sandcastle on the seashore.

I have so many memories of those years that even today I catch myself smiling at Ben’s witty remarks and the fantastic stories we shared in the Midnight Palace. But perhaps, of all the images that refuse to be swept away by the current of time, the one I recall most vividly is that of a figure I often thought I saw at night in the dormitory shared by most of the boys of St Patrick’s – a long dark room with a high vaulted ceiling reminiscent of a hospital ward. I suppose that, due to the insomnia I suffered until two years after I moved to Europe, I found myself, yet again, a spectator of everything that was going on around me while the others slept …

It was there, in that soulless dormitory, that night after night I thought I saw a pale light crossing the room. Not knowing how to react, I would try to sit up and follow the reflection until it reached the other end, and in that moment I would look at it again, just as I had dreamed I would look at it on so many other occasions. The evanescent silhouette of a woman swathed in spectral light slowly bent over the bed in which Ben was sleeping. Each time, I struggled to keep my eyes open and thought I could see the lady stroking my friend’s face in a maternal way. I gazed at her translucent oval face surrounded by a halo of diaphanous light. The lady would raise her eyes and look at me. Far from being frightened, I embraced her sad wounded look. The Princess of Light would then smile at me and, after stroking Ben’s face one more time, would dissolve into the night like a silver mist.

I always imagined that the vision I saw was the spirit of the mother Ben had never met and, somewhere in my heart, I maintained the childish hope that, if one day I managed to fall into a deep sleep, a similar apparition would also take care of me. That was the only secret I did not share with anyone, not even Ben.

Calcutta, 25 May 1932

For over thirty-five years, as head of St Patrick’s, Thomas Carter had taught his pupils literature, history and arithmetic with the confidence of a jack of all trades and master of none. The only subject he was never able to deal with properly was the subject of their departure. Year after year, the boys and girls whom the law would soon place outside the influence and protection of his institution would file past him, their faces revealing a mixture of anticipation and fear. And as he watched them walk out of the orphanage, Thomas Carter would think of their lives as the blank pages of a book in which he had written the initial chapters of a story he would never be allowed to finish.

Beneath the austere expression of a man not given to displays of emotion, nobody feared the date on which those blank books would leave his desk for ever more than Thomas Carter. They would pass into unknown hands, perhaps to more unscrupulous pens who would inscribe a sombre twist in the plot, a lifetime away from the dreams and the expectations with which his pupils undertook their solitary flight into the streets of Calcutta.

Experience had taught him to abandon any desire to find out how his students fared once he could no longer offer guidance and shelter. For Thomas Carter, saying goodbye usually went hand in hand with the bitter taste of disappointment – sooner or later he would discover that the young people who had been robbed of a past were also, it seemed, being robbed of a future.

That hot night in May, as he listened to the young people’s voices in the courtyard, where they were having a small farewell party, Thomas Carter stared at the city lights from the darkness of his office. Flocks of black clouds fled across a canopy of stars towards the horizon.

Once again he had refused the invitation to the party and instead had remained in his armchair, sitting quietly with no light other than the multicoloured reflections from the paper lanterns with which Vendela and the pupils had decorated the trees in the courtyard and the facade of St Patrick’s, as if it were a ship ready to be launched. There would be time enough to utter words of farewell in the few days remaining until he had to comply with the law and return the children to the streets from which he had rescued them.

As had become the custom in recent years, it wasn’t long before Vendela knocked on his door. For once, she came in without waiting for a reply and closed the door behind her. Carter noticed the nurse’s cheerful face and smiled in the dark.

‘We’re getting old, Vendela,’ said the headmaster.

‘You’re getting old, Thomas,’ she corrected him. ‘I’m maturing. Aren’t you coming down to the party? The kids would love to see you. I’ve reminded them you aren’t exactly the life and soul of a party … But if they haven’t listened to me for the past few years then they’re not going to start now.’

Carter lit a small lamp on his desk and gestured to Vendela to take a seat.

‘How long have we been together, Vendela?’ he asked.

‘Twenty-seven years and eight months, Mr Carter. More than I endured with my dear late husband, God rest his soul.’

Carter laughed. ‘How have you managed to put up with me all this time? Don’t hold back. Today’s a holiday and I’m in a good mood.’

Vendela shrugged and fiddled with a piece of scarlet streamer that was tangled in her hair.

‘The pay isn’t bad and I like the children. You’re not coming down, are you?’

Carter shook his head slowly.

‘I don’t want to ruin the party,’ he explained. ‘And besides, I couldn’t bear to hear another of Ben’s jokes.’

‘Ben’s very calm tonight,’ said Vendela. ‘He’s sad, I suppose. The boys have already given Ian his ticket.’

Carter’s face lit up. The members of the Chowbar Society – whose clandestine existence had been known to Carter for some time – had for months been saving money to buy a ticket on a ship to Southampton, which they planned to give to their friend Ian as a goodbye present. For years Ian had been expressing his desire to study medicine, and Mr Carter, at Ben and Isobel’s suggestion, had written to a number of English schools, supporting the boy and recommending him for a scholarship. The news of the scholarship had arrived a year ago, but the cost of the journey to London turned out to be far higher than anyone had expected.

Faced with this problem, Roshan suggested robbing the offices of a shipping company that was two blocks away from the orphanage. Siraj proposed they organise a raffle. Carter took out a sum from his meagre personal savings and Vendela did the same, but it was not enough.

So Ben decided to write a three-act play entitled The Spectres of Calcutta – a phantasmal piece of gibberish in which everyone died, including the stagehands. With Isobel playing the lead as Lady Windmare, the rest of the group performing secondary roles and an over-the-top production courtesy of Ben, it enjoyed remarkable success with its audiences – though not with its critics – in various schools in the city. As a result, enough money was collected to pay for Ian’s journey.

‘Ian had tears in his eyes when he received the gift,’ said Vendela.

‘He is a wonderful lad, a little insecure but wonderful. He’ll make good use of the ticket and the scholarship,’ said Carter proudly.

‘He asked after you. He wanted to thank you for your help.’

‘You didn’t tell him I contributed money from my own pocket, did you?’ asked Carter in alarm.

‘I did, but Ben denied it, saying you’d spent the year’s entire budget on your gambling debts.’

The noise from the party echoed through the courtyard. Carter frowned.

‘That boy is a devil. If he wasn’t about to leave, I would throw him out.’

‘You adore the boy, Thomas.’ Vendela laughed as she stood up. ‘And he knows it.’

The nurse made her way to the door, turning as she reached it. She didn’t give up easily.

‘Why don’t you come down?’

‘Goodnight, Vendela.’

‘You’re a boring old man.’

‘And proud of it …’

Recognising the futility of her task, Vendela mumbled a few words and left Carter alone. The director of St Patrick’s turned his desk lamp off and walked stealthily to the window to peer at the party through the slats of his blind. The garden was lit with flares, and lanterns cast a copper glow over the familiar smiling faces under the full moon. Although none of them knew it, they each had a one-way ticket to somewhere, but only Ian knew his destination.

‘In twenty minutes it will be midnight,’ Ben announced.

His eyes shone as he watched the firecrackers spreading a shower of golden sparks into the air.

‘I hope Siraj has some good stories tonight,’ said Isobel as she stared at the bottom of her glass, holding it up to the light as if she expected to find something in it.

‘The best,’ Roshan assured them. ‘Tonight is our last night. The end of the Chowbar Society.’

‘I wonder what will become of the Palace,’ said Seth.

For years none of them had referred to the dilapidated old house by any other name.

‘Guess,’ Ben suggested. ‘Most likely a bank. Isn’t that what they always build when they knock something down in any city? It’s the same the world over.’

Siraj had joined them and was considering Ben’s prediction.

‘They might turn it into a theatre,’ the skinny boy proposed, gazing at Isobel, the impossible object of his affection.

Ben rolled his eyes and shook his head. When it came to flattering the girl, Siraj had no dignity.

‘Maybe they won’t touch it,’ said Ian, who had been listening quietly to his friends, stealing a few quick glances at the picture Michael was drawing on a small sheet of paper.

‘What are you doing there, master?’ asked Ben.

Michael looked up from his drawing for the first time. He looked as if he had just stepped out of a faraway world. He smiled shyly and exhibited the sheet of paper.

‘It’s us,’ the club’s resident artist explained.

The six other members of the Chowbar Society examined the picture for five long seconds in silence. The first to look away from the drawing was Ben. Michael recognised the enigmatic expression that crossed his friend’s face when he suffered one of his strange attacks of melancholy.

‘Is that supposed to be my nose?’ asked Siraj. ‘I don’t have a nose like that! It looks like a fish hook!’

‘That’s exactly what you’ve got,’ Ben stated with a smile that did not fool Michael, although it may have fooled the others. ‘Don’t complain; if he’d drawn you in profile all you’d see is a straight line.’

‘Let me have a look,’ said Isobel, snatching the picture and studying it in the flickering light of a lantern. ‘Is this how you see us?’

Michael shrugged.

‘You’ve drawn yourself looking in a different direction from the rest of us,’ observed Ian.

‘Michael always looks at what others don’t see,’ said Roshan.

‘And what have you seen in us that nobody else can, Michael?’ asked Ben.

He joined Isobel and analysed the drawing. Thick pencil strokes depicted the group next to a pond in which their faces were all reflected. There was a large full moon in the sky and below it was a forest disappearing off into the distance. Ben examined the blurred faces on the water’s surface and compared them to those of the figures by the edge of the pond. Not a single one of them carried the same expression as its reflection. Isobel’s voice rescued him from his thoughts.

‘May I keep it, Michael?’ she asked.

‘Why you?’ Seth protested.

Ben placed a hand on the Bengali boy’s broad shoulders and gave him a brief intense look.

‘Let her keep it,’ he murmured.

Seth nodded and Ben patted his back affectionately. As he did so, he caught sight of an elderly woman, elegantly dressed, and a young girl of about their age, crossing the orphanage courtyard and heading towards the front door of the building.

‘Is anything the matter?’ whispered Ian, next to him.

Ben shook his head slowly.

‘We have visitors,’ he said, without taking his eyes off the woman and the young girl. ‘Or something like that …’

When Bankim knocked on his door, Thomas Carter was already aware of the arrival of the woman and her companion. He had seen them through the window as he watched the party below. He turned on the desk lamp and told his assistant to come in.

Bankim was a young man with very marked Bengali features and lively, penetrating eyes. He had grown up in the orphanage and, after working for a few years in different schools around the province, had returned to St Patrick’s as a physics and maths teacher. Bankim’s happy ending was one of the few exceptions which, year after year, gave Carter hope. To see him there as an adult, helping educate other young people in the same classrooms he had once sat in, was the best possible reward.

‘I’m sorry to bother you, Thomas,’ said Bankim. ‘But there’s a lady downstairs who says she needs to speak to you. I’ve told her you aren’t available, that we’re having a party, but she won’t listen and was most insistent, to say the least.’

Carter gave his assistant a puzzled look, then checked his watch.

‘It’s almost midnight. Who is she?’

Bankim shrugged his shoulders.

‘I don’t know, but I do know she won’t leave until she sees you.’

‘She didn’t say what she wanted?’

‘She only asked me to give you this,’ Bankim replied, handing Carter a small shiny chain. ‘She said you’d know what it was.’

Carter took the chain and examined it under his desktop lamp. Hanging from it was a gold pendant, a circle with the shape of a moon. It took a few seconds for the image to jog Carter’s memory. He closed his eyes and felt his stomach knot. He had a very similar pendant hidden in the box he kept under lock and key in his glass cabinet. A pendant he had not seen in sixteen years.

‘Is there a problem, Thomas?’ asked Bankim, visibly worried by the change in Carter’s expression.

The headmaster shook his head and smiled faintly as he put the gold chain into his shirt pocket.

‘None at all,’ he replied. ‘Ask her to come up. I’ll see her.’

Bankim eyed him with surprise, and for a moment Carter thought his former pupil was going to ask him a question he didn’t want to hear. But in the end Bankim simply nodded and left the office, gently closing the door behind him. Two minutes later Aryami Bose entered Thomas Carter’s private sanctuary, removing the veil that covered her face.

Ben looked intently at the girl as she waited under the arches of the main entrance to St Patrick’s. Bankim had returned and, after being asked to follow him, the old lady had instructed the girl in no uncertain terms to remain by the door. It was obvious the woman had come to visit Carter, and considering how lacklustre the head of the orphanage’s social life was, Ben assumed that any midnight visit from a mysterious beauty, whatever her age, must definitely be classed as unexpected. He smiled and concentrated once more on the girl. Tall and slim, she was dressed in simple though unusual clothes that looked as if they’d been made by someone with a unique personal style and obviously not bought in any old bazaar in the Black Town. Her features, which he couldn’t see clearly from where he stood, seemed to be soft and her skin was pale and luminous.

‘Anyone home?’ Ian whispered in his ear.

Ben signalled towards the girl, his eyes still transfixed.

‘It’s almost midnight,’ Ian added. ‘We’re meeting in the Palace in a few minutes. Final session, may I remind you?’

Ben nodded absently.

‘Wait a minute,’ he added and started to walk resolutely towards the girl.

‘Ben,’ Ian called behind him. ‘Not now, Ben …’ Ben ignored his friend. The curiosity he felt was stronger than all the ceremonial delights of the Chowbar Society. He adopted the saintly smile of a model pupil and walked on. The girl saw him approach and lowered her eyes.

‘Hello. I’m Mr Carter’s assistant – he’s the head of St Patrick’s,’ said Ben. ‘May I help you in any way?’

‘Actually, no … Your … colleague has already taken my grandmother to see the headmaster,’ said the girl.

‘Your grandmother?’ asked Ben. ‘I see. I hope it’s nothing serious. I mean it’s midnight and I wondered whether there was something wrong.’

She gave a weak smile and shook her head. Ben smiled back. She was not such easy prey.

‘My name is Ben,’ he said politely.

‘Sheere,’ replied the girl, looking towards the door as if she expected her grandmother to emerge at any moment.

Ben rubbed his hands.

‘Well, Sheere,’ he said. ‘While my colleague Bankim takes your grandmother to Mr Carter’s office, perhaps I can offer you some hospitality. The head always insists we be polite to visitors.’

‘Aren’t you a bit young to be the headmaster’s assistant?’ asked Sheere, avoiding the boy’s eyes.

‘Young? You flatter me. I’m just blessed with an enviable complexion, but I’ll be twenty-three soon.’

‘I never would have guessed it,’ replied Sheere.

‘It runs in the family,’ Ben explained. ‘Our skin is resistant to aging. To this day people mistake my grandfather for an altar boy.’

‘Really?’ asked Sheere, suppressing a nervous laugh.

‘So how about accepting St Patrick’s hospitality?’ Ben insisted. ‘We’re having a party for some of the kids who are about to leave us. It’s sad, but a whole new life will open up before them. It’s exciting too.’

Sheere fixed her eyes on Ben and her lips slowly formed a sceptical smile.

‘My grandmother asked me to wait here.’

Ben pointed at the door. ‘Here?’ he asked. ‘Just here?’ Sheere nodded.

‘You see …’ Ben began, waving his hands about. ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but … Well, I thought I might not have to. These things are not good for the image of the institution, but you leave me no option. There’s a structural problem. With the walls.’

The young girl looked at him in astonishment.

‘Structural?’

Ben adopted a serious expression and nodded.

‘Exactly. It’s regrettable, but here on the very spot where you’re standing, not even a month ago, Mrs Potts, our old cook, God bless her, was hit by a piece of brick that fell from the second floor and for two weeks she thought she was Moll Flanders. Imagine the scandal.’

Sheere laughed.

‘I don’t think it’s a laughing matter, if I may say so,’ said Ben, his tone icy.

‘I don’t believe a single word you’ve said. You’re not the headmaster’s assistant, you’re not twenty-three, and no cook was ever hit by a shower of bricks,’ said Sheere defiantly.

‘Are you suggesting I have provided you with inaccurate information?’

‘To put it mildly.’

Ben weighed up the situation. The first part of his strategy was on the point of floundering, so he had to think of a change of direction, and it had to be clever.

‘I may have been carried away by my imagination, but not everything I’ve said is untrue.’

‘Oh?’

‘I didn’t lie about my name. I’m called Ben. And the bit about offering you our hospitality is also true.’

Sheere gave a winning grin.

‘I’d love to accept, Ben. But I must wait here. Honestly.’

The boy adopted an expression of calm acceptance.

‘All right. I’ll wait with you,’ he announced solemnly. ‘If a brick falls, let it fall on me.’

Sheere shrugged and fixed her eyes on the door again. A long minute of silence went by. Neither of them moved or uttered a word.

‘It’s a hot night,’ said Ben at last.

Sheere turned her head. ‘Are you going to stand there all night?’

‘Let’s make a deal,’ Ben proposed. ‘Come and have a glass of ice-cold lemonade with me and my friends and then I’ll leave you in peace.’

‘I can’t, Ben. Really.’

‘We’ll only be twenty metres away,’ said Ben. ‘We could tie a little bell to the door.’

‘Is it so important for you?’ asked Sheere.

Ben nodded.

‘It’s my last week in this place. I’ve spent my whole life here and in five days’ time I’ll be alone again. Completely alone. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to spend another night like this one, among friends. You don’t know what it’s like.’

Sheere looked at him for a long while.

‘I do know,’ she said at last. ‘Take me to that lemonade.’

Once Bankim had left his office, Mr Carter poured himself a small glass of brandy and offered another to his visitor. Aryami declined and waited for Carter to sit in his armchair, with his back to the large window below which the young people were still celebrating, unaware of the icy silence that filled the headmaster’s room. Carter wet his lips and looked questioningly at the old woman. Time had not diminished the authority of her features in the slightest. Her eyes still blazed with the same fire he remembered in the woman who, so long ago, had been his best friend’s wife. They gazed at one another for a long time.

‘I’m listening,’ said Carter finally.

‘Sixteen years ago I was obliged to entrust you with a baby boy, Mr Carter,’ Aryami began in a low but firm voice. ‘It was one of the most difficult decisions of my life and I know for a fact that during these past years you have honoured the trust I put in you and haven’t let me down. During this time I never interfered with the boy’s life, for I was well aware that he wouldn’t be better off anywhere else but here, under your protection. I’ve never had the opportunity to thank you for what you’ve done for him.’

‘I was only doing my duty,’ Carter replied. ‘But I don’t think that is why you’ve come here, at this late hour.’

‘I wish I could say it was, but you’re right,’ said Aryami. ‘I’ve come here because the boy’s life is in danger.’

‘Ben.’

‘That’s the name you gave him. He owes everything he knows and everything he is to you, Mr Carter,’ said Aryami. ‘But there is something that neither you nor I can protect him from any longer: the past.’

The hands on Thomas Carter’s watch pointed towards midnight. Carter downed his brandy, then turned to glance through the window at the courtyard below. Ben was talking to a girl Carter didn’t recognise.

‘As I said earlier, I’m listening,’ Carter repeated.

Aryami sat up and, clasping her hands together in her lap, she began to tell her story …

‘For sixteen years I’ve travelled this country in search of refuge and somewhere to hide. Two weeks ago I was spending a month in the house of some relatives in Delhi, convalescing after an illness, when a letter arrived for me. Nobody could have known that my granddaughter and I were there. When I opened it, I found a blank sheet of paper inside, without a single letter written on it. I thought it might be a mistake or perhaps a joke, until I examined the envelope. It bore the postmark of Calcutta’s main post office. The ink was blurred and some of it was hard to make out, but I was able to decipher the date: 25 May 1916.

‘I put away the letter that had apparently taken sixteen years to cross India and reach the door of that house, a place to which only I had access, and I didn’t look at it again until that evening. My eyesight hadn’t played a trick on me: the date was the same, but something else had changed. The sheet of paper, which only a few hours earlier had been completely blank, now contained a single line written in red ink so fresh I smudged the writing with just a brush of my fingers. “They are no longer children, old woman. I’ve come back for what is mine. Stay out of my way.” That is what I read in the letter before throwing it into the fire.

‘I knew then who had sent it and I also knew that the moment had come when I must unearth the memories I had suppressed all these years. I don’t know whether I ever spoke to you about my daughter Kylian, Mr Carter. I’m an old woman now, awaiting the end of my life, but there was a time when I was a mother too, the mother of the most marvellous creature that ever set foot in this city.

‘I remember those days as the happiest of my life. Kylian had married one of the most brilliant men in the country and had gone to live with him in the house he had built himself in the north of the city, a house the like of which had never been seen. My daughter’s husband, Lahawaj Chandra Chatterghee, was an engineer and a writer. He was one of the first to design the telegraph network for this country, Mr Carter, one of the first to design the electric power grid that will govern the future of our cities, one of the first to build a rail network in Calcutta … One of the first in everything he decided to do.

‘But their happiness was short-lived. Chandra Chatterghee died in the horrific fire that destroyed the old Jheeter’s Gate Station, on the other side of the Hooghly River. You must have seen that building at some time? It’s completely abandoned now, but once it was one of the most glorious buildings in Calcutta – a landmark in steel construction, a labyrinth of tunnels, multiple storeys, systems for piping fresh air and for the hydraulics connecting to the rails. Engineers from the world over came to visit and admire the structure, all of it created by the engineer Chandra Chatterghee.

‘Nobody knows how it happened, but the night of its official inauguration a fire broke out in Jheeter’s Gate, and a train that was transporting over three hundred abandoned children to Bombay went up in flames and was buried in the dark tunnels dissecting the earth. Nobody came out alive. The train is still stranded somewhere deep in the shadows, in the underground network of passages on the western edge of Calcutta.

‘The night the engineer and the children died in that train was one of the worst tragedies ever to hit this city. For many, it was a sign that perpetual darkness was descending over Calcutta. There were rumours that the fire had been started by a group of British financiers who viewed the new railway line as a threat, for it would prove that transport by sea, one of the largest businesses in Calcutta since the days of Lord Clive and the colonial company, was nearing its end. The train was the future. The railway tracks were the path by which this country and this city would one day arrive at a new age, free of British domination. The night Jheeter’s Gate burnt down, those dreams turned to nightmares.

‘A few days after Chandra’s disappearance, my daughter Kylian, who was expecting her first child, was threatened by a strange character who emerged from the shadows of Calcutta, a murderer who swore he would kill the wife and descendants of the man he blamed for all his misfortunes. That man, that criminal, was responsible for the fire in which Chandra lost his life. A young officer from the British army, an ex-suitor of my daughter’s called Lieutenant Michael Peake, tried to stop the madman, but the task proved more difficult than he expected.

‘The night my daughter was due to give birth, some men broke into the house and took her away. Hired assassins. Men with no name or conscience who, for a few coins, can easily be found in the streets of this city. On the verge of despair, Lieutenant Peake spent a whole week combing Calcutta in search of my daughter. As the tense week came to a close Peake had a terrifying thought, which turned out to be true. The murderer had taken Kylian into the very bowels of the ruins of Jheeter’s Gate. There, among the filth and the remains of the tragedy, my daughter had given birth to the boy you have turned into a young man, Mr Carter.

‘She had given birth to him – to Ben – and also to his sister, whom I have tried to turn into a young woman. Just as you did with the boy, I gave the girl a name, the name her mother had always intended for her: Sheere.

‘Risking his own life, Lieutenant Peake managed to snatch the two children from the murderer’s hands. But the murderer, blind with anger, swore he’d follow their trail and kill them as soon as they reached adulthood, to wreak vengeance on their dead father, Chandra Chatterghee. That was his sole intention: to destroy every trace of the engineer’s work and his life, at any cost.

‘Kylian died promising that her soul would not rest until she knew that her children were safe. Lieutenant Peake, the man who had secretly loved her as much as her own husband, gave his life so that the promise that had sealed her lips would come true. On 25 May 1916 Lieutenant Peake managed to cross the Hooghly River and hand over the children to me. To this day I do not know what became of him.

‘I decided that the only way of saving these children was to separate them and conceal their identity and their whereabouts. You know the rest of Ben’s story better than I do. As for Sheere, I took her under my wing and set off on a long journey around the country. I raised the girl in remembrance of the great man her father was and of my daughter, the great woman who gave life to her. I never told her more than I thought was necessary. I was naive enough to think that time and space would eventually erase all traces of the past, but our footprints are never lost. When I received that letter I knew my flight had come to an end and I must return to Calcutta to warn you. I wasn’t honest in the letter I wrote to you that night, Mr Carter, but I acted according to my heart, believing deep in my soul that I was doing the right thing.

‘When I realised the murderer knew where we were, I couldn’t leave my granddaughter alone, so I took her with me and together we travelled back to Calcutta. During the entire journey I was haunted by a thought that became increasingly obvious as we approached our destination. I was convinced that now Ben and Sheere had left their childhood and become adults, the murderer had awoken once more from the darkness and was intent on carrying out his ancient promise. And I knew, with the certainty that only comes when one is close to a tragedy, that this time he would stop at nothing …’

For a long time Thomas Carter kept his eyes glued to his hands and didn’t say a word. The only reasonable thing he could think to do at the moment was to pour himself another glass of brandy and drink a solitary toast to his health.

‘You don’t believe me …’

‘I didn’t say that,’ Carter pointed out.

‘You didn’t say anything,’ said Aryami. ‘That’s what’s worrying me.’

Carter savoured the brandy and wondered what had made him wait ten years to release the heady charms of the superb spirit. Why on earth had he kept it locked away in his cabinet like some useless relic?

‘It’s not easy to believe what you’ve just told me, Aryami,’ replied Carter. ‘Put yourself in my shoes.’

‘And yet you took the boy into your care sixteen years ago.’

‘I took charge of an abandoned child, not of an improbable story. This is my duty, my job. This building is an orphanage, and I’m the head of it. That’s all there is to it.’

‘There is more to it than that, Mr Carter,’ replied Aryami. ‘At the time I did a little investigating: you never informed the authorities of Ben’s arrival. You never filed a report. There are no documents to prove that he was taken in by this institution. There must have been some reason why you acted in this way if you didn’t believe what you call this “improbable story”.’

‘I’m sorry to have to contradict you, Aryami, but such documents do exist. I may have put down other dates and other circumstances as a precaution, but this is an official institution, not a travelling circus.’

‘You haven’t answered my question,’ Aryami cut in. ‘So I’ll ask you again: what prompted you to fake Ben’s records if you didn’t believe the facts I set out in my letter?’

‘With all due respect, I don’t see why I need to reply to that question.’

Aryami looked straight into Mr Carter’s eyes but he tried to look away. The old lady smiled bitterly.

‘You’ve seen him,’ said Aryami.

‘Are we talking about a new character in the story?’

‘Who is fooling who, Mr Carter?’

The conversation seemed to have reached deadlock. Carter stood up and paced round the office under the watchful eye of Aryami Bose.

‘Supposing I believe your story,’ he said, turning towards her. ‘It’s just a supposition. What would you expect me to do now?’

‘Get Ben away from this place,’ Aryami replied emphatically. ‘Talk to him. Warn him. Help him. I’m not asking you to do anything for the boy that you haven’t already been doing for years.’

‘I need to consider this matter carefully,’ said Carter.

‘Don’t take too long. This man has waited sixteen years; perhaps he won’t mind waiting another day. Or perhaps he will.’

Carter collapsed into his armchair, defeated.

‘I had a visit from a man named Jawahal the day we found Ben,’ Carter explained. ‘He asked about the boy and I told him we didn’t know anything. Soon after, the man disappeared and was never seen again.’

‘This man uses a lot of different names and identities, but he has only one objective, Mr Carter,’ said Aryami, her steely eyes shining. ‘I haven’t crossed the whole of India to sit and watch my daughter’s children die because of the indecision of a couple of old fools, if you’ll forgive the expression.’

‘Old fool or not, I need time to think. Perhaps we’d better talk to the police.’

Aryami sighed.

‘There is no time, and it wouldn’t do any good,’ she replied harshly. ‘Tomorrow afternoon I’m leaving Calcutta with my granddaughter. Tomorrow afternoon Ben must leave this place and get as far away as possible. You have a few hours to talk to the boy and prepare everything.’

‘It’s not that simple,’ Carter objected.

‘It’s as simple as this: if you don’t talk to him, I will,’ Aryami stated, making her way to the door. ‘And pray that this man doesn’t find him before he sees the light of day.’

‘I’ll speak to Ben tomorrow,’ said Carter. ‘I can do no more.’

Aryami threw him a last glance from the doorway.

‘Tomorrow, Mr Carter, is today.’

‘A secret society?’ Sheere asked, her eyes sparkling with curiosity. ‘I thought secret societies only existed in penny dreadfuls.’

‘Siraj here could spend hours contradicting you,’ said Ian. ‘He’s our expert on the subject.’

Siraj nodded gravely, agreeing with the reference to his boundless wisdom.

‘Have you heard about the Freemasons?’ he asked.

‘Please,’ Ben butted in. ‘Sheere is going to think we’re a bunch of sorcerer apprentices.’

‘And aren’t you?’ laughed the girl.

‘No,’ said Seth solemnly. ‘The Chowbar Society is founded on two entirely worthy principles: to help one another, and to share our knowledge so we can build a better future.’

‘Isn’t that what all great enemies of humanity claim to do?’ asked Sheere.

‘Only for the last two or three thousand years,’ said Ben, interrupting again. ‘Anyway, this is a very special night for the Chowbar Society.’

‘We’re disbanding,’ said Michael.

‘Hark, the dead do speak,’ remarked Roshan, surprised to hear him talk.

Sheere looked around the group, trying to hide her amusement at the crossfire between them.

‘What Michael means is that today we’re holding the last meeting of the Chowbar Society,’ Ben explained. ‘After seven years, the final curtain.’

‘What a shame,’ said Sheere. ‘For the first time in my life I come across a real secret society, and it’s about to disband. I won’t have time to become a member.’

‘Nobody said that new members were accepted,’ said Isobel, quick as a flash. She’d been listening in to the conversation, her eyes never leaving the intruder. ‘In fact, if it hadn’t been for the resident bigmouths here who’ve already broken one of the oaths, you wouldn’t even know it existed. All they need is a glimpse of skirt and they’d sell their souls.’

Sheere offered Isobel a conciliatory smile, struck by the slight hostility in her tone. It was not easy to accept not being the only girl.

‘According to Voltaire, the worst misogynists are always women,’ said Ben casually.

‘And who the hell is Voltaire?’ snapped Isobel. ‘Only your twisted mind could come out with such rubbish.’

‘Ignorance has spoken!’ replied Ben. ‘Although perhaps Voltaire didn’t say exactly that …’

‘Stop fighting,’ Roshan intervened. ‘Isobel is right. We shouldn’t have said anything.’

Sheere watched nervously as the mood appeared to darken in a matter of seconds.

‘I don’t want to cause an argument. I’d better return to my grandmother. I’ll forget everything you’ve said,’ she stated, returning the lemonade glass to Ben.

‘Not so fast, princess,’ Isobel exclaimed behind her.

Sheere turned to face the girl.

‘Now that you know something, you might as well know everything and then keep it secret,’ she said, offering an embarrassed half-smile. ‘I’m sorry about what I said earlier.’

‘Good idea,’ said Ben. ‘Go on.’

Sheere raised her eyebrows.

‘She’ll have to pay the admission fee,’ Siraj reminded Isobel.

‘I haven’t got any money …’

‘We’re not a church – we don’t want your money,’ replied Seth. ‘The price is something else.’

Sheere scanned each face in search of an answer. Ian smiled back at her.

‘Don’t worry, it’s nothing bad,’ the boy explained. ‘The Chowbar Society holds its meetings in the dead of night at a secret location. We each pay the price of entry when we join.’

‘Where’s the secret location?’

‘It’s a palace,’ replied Isobel. ‘The Midnight Palace.’

‘Never heard of it.’

‘Nobody has except us,’ Siraj said.

‘And what is the price?’

‘A story,’ replied Ben. ‘A personal, secret story you have never told anyone else. You share it with us and then your secret will never leave the Chowbar Society.’

‘Do you have anything like that?’ asked Isobel defiantly, biting her lower lip.

Once again Sheere looked at the six boys and the girl, who were watching her cautiously. In all her years of moving around with her grandmother she had never stayed in one place long enough to make a single true friend, much less seven of them willing to listen and to invite her to be a part of something.

‘I have a story that I’m quite certain you’ve never heard,’ she said at last.

‘Right then,’ said Ben rubbing his hands. ‘Let’s get going.’

While Aryami Bose was explaining the reasons that had brought her and her granddaughter back to Calcutta after so many years of exile, the seven members of the Chowbar Society were leading Sheere through the bushes that surrounded the Midnight Palace. To the newcomer’s eyes, the palace was just a large abandoned house with a dilapidated roof through which you could see the star-studded sky. Gargoyles, columns and reliefs loomed through the sinuous shadows, the vestiges of what must once have been a stately mansion straight out of the pages of a fairy tale.

They crossed the garden via a narrow tunnel that had been hacked through the undergrowth and led straight to the main entrance of the house. A light breeze stirred the leaves and whistled through the stone arches of the Palace. Ben turned and looked at Sheere, grinning from ear to ear.

‘What do you think of it?’

‘It’s … different,’ Sheere replied, not wishing to dampen his enthusiasm.

‘Sublime,’ Ben corrected her, marching on, oblivious to any other opinion regarding the charms of the Chowbar Society’s headquarters.

Sheere smiled to herself and let him lead the way, thinking how much she would have liked to have known this group and this mansion during the years it had served as their refuge and sanctuary. The place exuded that aura of magic and dreams that rarely exists beyond the blurred memories of our early years. It didn’t matter that it was only for one night; she was looking forward to paying the admission fee to the almost extinct Chowbar Society.

‘My secret,’ she began, ‘is in fact the story of my father. The two are inseparable. I never met him, and I have no memory of him except what I learned from the lips of my grandmother and what I read in his books and notebooks. Yet, however strange this may seem to you, I’ve never felt closer to anyone in the world. Even though he died before I was born, I’m sure he will wait for me until I join him, and on that day I’ll finally be able to see for myself that he is just as I imagined him: the best man who ever existed.

‘I’m not so different from you. I didn’t grow up in an orphanage, but I’ve never known what it’s like to have a home or someone to talk to, apart from my grandmother, for longer than a month. We lived in trains, in strangers’ houses, on the streets, never having a place we could call home or somewhere to return to. During all these years the only friend I’ve had is my father. And as I’ve said, although he was never there, I discovered everything I know about him from his books and the memories of my grandmother.

‘My mother died giving birth to me, and I’ve had to live with the sorrow of having no memory of her. The only image I have is the reflection I’ve found in my father’s writings. Of all his books, including the treatises on engineering and the thick tomes I never really understood, my favourite was always a slim volume of stories called Shiva’s Tears. He wrote it just before his thirty-fifth birthday, when he was busy developing the idea of Calcutta’s first railway line and a revolutionary station made of steel he dreamed of building in the city. A small publishing house in Bombay printed only six hundred copies of the book, but my father never saw a single rupee. I have a copy. It’s a small black volume with the words “Shiva’s Tears by L. Chandra Chatterghee” embossed in gold on the spine.

‘The book is divided into three parts. The first focuses on his ideas for a new nation built on the spirit of progress, on technology, railways and electricity. He called it “My country”. The second part describes a fabulous house he planned to build for himself and his family once he’d managed to amass the fortune he longed for. He describes every corner, every room, every colour and every object in such detail that no architect’s plan could equal it. He called this part of the book “My house”. The third part, called “My mind”, is a collection of the short stories and fables he’d been writing ever since he was a boy. My favourite is the one that gives the book its title. It’s very short. Here it is…’ A long time ago Calcutta was struck down by a terrible plague that took the lives of its children, so that little by little, as the inhabitants grew older, they lost all hope for the future. To resolve the situation, Shiva set off on a long journey in search of a cure. During his travels he frequently had to confront danger. In fact, he met with so many difficulties that the journey kept him away for many years, and when he returned to Calcutta he discovered that everything had changed. In his absence, a sorcerer had come from the other end of the world bringing with him a strange remedy which he proceeded to sell to the people of Calcutta for a high price indeed: the soul of every healthy child born after that day. This is what Shiva’s eyes saw. Where once there had been a jungle of mud huts, there now rose a city so large that nobody could view it in a single glance and it faded into the horizon no matter which direction you looked. A city of palaces. Shiva was fascinated by the spectacle and decided to turn into a human being and walk through the streets of the city dressed as a beggar, so that he could get to know its new inhabitants, the children whom the sorcerer’s remedy had made possible and whose souls now belonged to him. But a great disappointment awaited Shiva. For seven days and seven nights the beggar walked through the streets of Calcutta, knocking on palace doors, but they were all slammed in his face. Nobody wanted to listen to him. People shunned him and poked fun at him. As he roamed the immense city in despair, he discovered that poverty, misery and darkness filled the hearts of its men. Such was Shiva’s sadness that on the last night he decided to abandon his city for good. As he did so, he began to weep and, without realising it, he left behind a trail of tears scattered through the jungle. At dawn Shiva’s tears turned to ice. When the men realised what they had done, they tried to make amends for their mistake by storing Shiva’s tears in a sanctuary. But, one by one, the tears melted in their hands and the city dwellers never saw ice again. From that day onwards, the curse of a terrible heat fell upon the city and the gods turned their backs on it, leaving it at the mercy of the night spirits. The few remaining righteous men prayed that, one day, Shiva’s tears might fall again from heaven and break the spell that had turned Calcutta into a doomed city.

‘Of all my father’s stories, this was always my favourite. It’s probably the simplest, but it embodies the true essence of what my father meant to me – and still does. Like the men of the doomed city, who had to pay the price for the mistakes of the past, I too await the day when Shiva’s tears will fall on me and free me of my loneliness. Meanwhile, I dream of the house my father built, first in his mind and, years later, somewhere in the north of the city. I know it still exists, although my grandmother has always denied it. She doesn’t know this, but I believe that in his book my father described the exact spot where he was planning to build it, here, in the Black Town. All these years I’ve lived with the hope of being able to walk into it one day and recognise everything I already know by heart: the library, the bedrooms, the armchair in the study …

‘So that is my story. I’ve never told anyone because I had no one to tell it to. Until today.’

As Sheere finished her tale, the darkness that reigned in the Midnight Palace helped conceal the tears of some of the members of the Chowbar Society. No one seemed ready to break the silence that infused the air following the end of her story. Sheere laughed nervously and looked at Ben.

‘So do I qualify as a member?’

‘As far as I’m concerned,’ he replied, ‘you deserve to be an honorary member.’

‘Does the house really exist, Sheere?’ asked Siraj, who was fascinated with the idea.

‘I’m sure it does,’ she replied. ‘And I’m determined to find it. The clue is somewhere in my father’s book.’

‘When?’ asked Seth. ‘When shall we start looking?’

‘Tomorrow,’ Sheere said. ‘You can help, if you want to …’

‘You’ll need someone with brains,’ Isobel remarked. ‘You can count on me.’

‘I’m an expert locksmith,’ said Roshan.

‘I can find maps in the Town Hall dating right back to the establishment of the government in 1859,’ said Seth.

‘I can find out if there’s any mystery surrounding the house,’ said Siraj. ‘It might be haunted.’

‘I can draw it exactly as it is,’ said Michael. ‘I can make plans. From the book, I mean.’

Sheere laughed and looked at Ben and Ian.

‘Fine,’ said Ben. ‘Someone will have to be the director of operations: I accept the job. Ian can put antiseptic on anyone who gets a splinter.’

‘I suppose you’re not going to accept a no,’ said Sheere.

‘We deleted the word “no” from the dictionary in the orphanage library six months ago,’ Ben declared. ‘Now you’re a member of the Chowbar Society, your problems are our problems. Company orders.’

‘I thought we were disbanding the society,’ Siraj reminded them.

‘I decree an extension due to grievous circumstances that cannot be ignored,’ said Ben, throwing his friend a withering look.

Siraj melted into the shadows.

‘All right,’ Sheere conceded, ‘but we have to go back now.’

The look with which Aryami greeted Sheere and the other members of the Chowbar Society could have frozen the surface of the Hooghly River. The elderly woman was waiting by the front of the building with Bankim, whose expression was so serious Ben immediately started dreaming up some improbable excuse to get his new friend out of the scolding that was clearly coming her way. He went ahead of the others and put on his best smile.

‘It was my fault. We just wanted to show your granddaughter the courtyard behind the building,’ he said.

Not even deigning to look at him, Aryami went straight over to Sheere.

‘I told you to wait here and not move,’ she said, her face flushed with anger.

‘We’ve only been a few metres away,’ said Ian.

Aryami looked daggers at him.

‘I didn’t ask you, young man,’ she retorted, not bothering to be polite.

‘We’re sorry to have worried you, we didn’t mean to-’ Ben insisted.

‘Leave it, Ben,’ Sheere interrupted. ‘I can speak for myself.’

The woman’s hostile expression softened for a moment. This didn’t go unnoticed by any of the young people. Aryami pointed at Ben and her face grew pale in the faint light of the lanterns dotted around the garden.

‘Are you Ben?’ she asked, lowering her voice.

The boy nodded, concealing his surprise as he met the old woman’s inscrutable gaze. There was no anger in her eyes, only sadness and anxiety. Aryami took her granddaughter by the arm.

‘We must go,’ she said. ‘Say goodbye to your friends.’

The members of the Chowbar Society nodded farewell and Sheere gave a shy smile as she walked away, her arm still held tightly by Aryami Bose. They disappeared into the dark streets of Calcutta. Ian went over to Ben, who seemed lost in thought, his eyes fixed on the retreating figures of Sheere and Aryami as they ventured into the night.

‘For a moment I thought that woman was frightened,’ said Ian.

Ben nodded, still staring.

‘Who isn’t frightened on a night like this?’

‘I think you’d all better go to bed,’ said Bankim from the doorway.

‘Is that a suggestion or an order?’ Isobel asked.

‘You know that my suggestions are always orders,’ declared Bankim, pointing to the building. ‘In.’

‘Tyrant,’ whispered Siraj to himself. ‘Enjoy your last few days.’

‘The ones who re-enlist are always the worst,’ added Roshan.

Bankim nodded happily as he watched the six boys and the girl file past him, ignoring their mumbled protests. Ben was the last one through the door and he exchanged a look with Bankim.

‘However much they complain,’ he said, ‘they’ll miss you in five days’ time.’

‘So will you, Ben,’ laughed Bankim.

‘I already do,’ he murmured to himself as he started up the staircase to the first-floor dormitories, aware that in less than a week he would no longer be counting the twenty-four steps he knew so well.

At some point in the early hours Ben woke up and thought he could feel a gust of icy air on his face. A beam of pale light flickered through the narrow pointed window. Ben reached out a hand towards his bedside table and turned the face of his watch to catch the moonlight. The hands were crossing the equator towards dawn: three o’clock in the morning.

He sighed, suspecting that sleep had deserted him, evaporating like dew in the morning sun. Perhaps the spectre of Ian’s insomnia was haunting him for a change. He closed his eyes again, conjuring up images of the party that had ended a few hours earlier, trusting they would soothe him to sleep. Just then he heard a strange sound that seemed to be whistling through the leaves of the courtyard garden.

He sat up, pulled back his sheets and walked slowly towards the window. From there he could hear the tinkling of the darkened lanterns in the branches of the trees and the distant echo of what sounded like children’s voices, laughing and talking in unison, hundreds of them. Leaning his forehead against the windowpane and peering through the condensation made by his own breath, he thought he could make out the silhouette of a slender figure standing in the middle of the courtyard, wrapped in a black cloak. The figure was staring straight at him. He jumped back in alarm, and before his very eyes the windowpane slowly cracked, starting with a small fissure in the centre that spread like a spider’s web gouged out by hundreds of invisible claws. The hairs on the back of Ben’s neck stood on end and his breathing quickened.

He looked around him. All his friends were fast asleep. Ben heard the children’s voices again and noticed that a thick mist was filtering through the cracks in the glass. He moved closer again and looked down into the courtyard. The figure was still standing there, but this time it stretched out an arm and pointed at him. Suddenly its long sharp fingers burst into flame. Ben stood there for a few seconds, gripped by the vision. Then the figure turned and began to walk away into the darkness. Ben rushed out of the dormitory.

The corridor was deserted, the only light coming from an ancient gas lamp that had survived renovation works at the orphanage a few years before. He hurtled down the stairs, across the dining halls, and emerged through the kitchen side door just in time to see the figure disappearing into the dark alleyway that led round the back of the building. The narrow alley was filled with a thick mist that seemed to rise from the sewer gratings.

Ben immersed himself in the tunnel of cold swirling fog, running for about a hundred metres until he came to a large open space to the north of St Patrick’s – a wasteland that housed both a scrap-metal dump and a citadel of empty shacks once belonging to the most deprived inhabitants of North Calcutta. Dodging the muddy puddles that covered the path through the twisting maze of burnt-out adobe huts, he advanced into the place Thomas Carter had always warned them against. The children’s voices came from somewhere deep inside that desolate swamp of poverty and filth.

Ben headed through a narrow gap between two derelict shacks, then suddenly stopped when he realised he’d found what he was looking for. Before him stretched an endless deserted plain filled with the remains of old huts enveloped by a blue mist wafting out of the darkness. The sound of the children seemed to be coming from the same spot, only this time it wasn’t laughter or nursery rhymes that Ben heard, but the terrible panicked shrieks of hundreds of trapped children. A cold gust of wind hurled him against the wall of one of the shacks, as out of the mist came the furious roar of a huge steel machine that made the earth tremble beneath his feet.

He blinked then looked again, thinking he must be hallucinating. A train was emerging from the fog, its metal armour red hot and enveloped in flames. He could see the agony on the faces of dozens of children who were trapped inside it as burning fragments rained down in all directions in a cascade of sparks. The engine itself, a majestic steel sculpture, seemed to be melting. In the driver’s cab, standing motionless amid the flames, was the same figure he had seen in the courtyard. The creature was watching Ben, with arms open wide as if to welcome him.

Ben could feel the heat of the fire on his face and he covered his ears to stifle the excruciating howls of the children. The blazing train tore across the deserted plain and Ben realised with horror that it was racing straight towards St Patrick’s like a guided missile. He ran after it, dodging the shower of sparks and molten iron, but was not able to keep up with the train as it accelerated towards the orphanage, tinting the sky scarlet as it flew by. Gasping for breath, he screamed with all his might to alert those who were sleeping peacefully in the building, unaware of the tragedy that was about to befall them. He watched in despair as the train homed in on St Patrick’s. Any moment now the engine would pulverise the orphanage and fling its inhabitants into the air. He fell to his knees and screamed one last time as he watched the train enter the rear courtyard and rush uncontrollably towards the large wall that formed the back of the building.

Ben prepared himself for the worst but could never have imagined what he would witness a fraction of a second later.

As the crazed locomotive, cloaked in a tornado of flames, crashed into the wall, it changed into an apparition of eerie lights, the entire train sinking into the red-brick wall like a shadowy serpent, disintegrating in the air and taking with it the dreadful howls of the children and the deafening roar of the engine.

Two seconds later total darkness returned, and the silhouette of the orphanage stood out, unscathed, against the distant lights of the White Town and the Maidan to the south. The last of the mist vanished into the cracks in the wall and soon there was no evidence of the phenomenon he had just witnessed. Slowly Ben walked up to the back of the building and placed his palm on the undamaged surface. An electric shock ran up his arm, throwing him to the ground. On the wall the imprint of his hand was black and smoking.

When he stood up his heart was racing and his hands shook. Breathing deeply, he dried the tears provoked by the fire. When he’d calmed down, at least partially, he walked round the building to the kitchen door. Using a trick Roshan had taught him for lifting the inside latch, Ben opened the door cautiously, then crossed the kitchen and the downstairs corridor until he reached the staircase. The orphanage was still sunk in the deepest of silences and Ben realised that nobody but he had heard the roar of the train.

He went back to the dormitory. His friends were still asleep and there was no sign of a cracked windowpane. He walked through the room and lay down on his bed, breathing heavily. Again he picked up his watch from the bedside table and checked the time. He could have sworn that he’d been out of the building for at least twenty minutes, but the watch showed the same time as when he’d woken earlier. He held it to his ear and heard the regular ticking of the mechanism. He set the watch back in its place, then tried to put some order to his thoughts. He was beginning to doubt what he had witnessed, or what he thought he’d seen. Perhaps he hadn’t left the room and he’d dreamed the whole episode. The regular breathing around him and the unharmed windowpane seemed to confirm that explanation. Or perhaps he was a victim of his own imagination. Feeling confused, he closed his eyes and tried to doze off, hoping he might fool his body by pretending to sleep.

At daybreak, just as the sun was reaching the Grey Town – the Muslim sector in the east of Calcutta – he jumped out of bed and ran out to the rear courtyard to examine the back wall once more. There were still no traces of the train. Ben was about to conclude that it had indeed all been a dream, an unusually intense one but still a dream, when out of the corner of his eye he noticed a dark stain on the wall. He drew closer and recognised the shape of his palm clearly imprinted on the bricks. He gave a deep sigh and hurried back to the dormitory to wake Ian, who for the first time in weeks had managed to fall into the arms of Morpheus, free for once of his persistent insomnia.

In the daylight the Midnight Palace lost some of its magical aura and became just a sprawling old ruin of a house that had seen better times. Viewing their favourite setting without the embellishment and mystery of the Calcutta nights could have had a stark effect on the members of the Chowbar Society, but fortunately Ben’s words softened the impact. They all listened to him in respectful silence, their expressions going from amazement to disbelief.

‘And it vanished into the wall, as if it were air?’ Seth asked.

Ben nodded.

‘That’s the strangest story you’ve told this month, Ben,’ Isobel stated.

‘It’s not a story. It’s what I saw.’

‘Nobody is doubting you, Ben,’ said Ian, ‘but we were all asleep and didn’t hear a thing. Not even me.’

‘That really is incredible,’ said Roshan. ‘Perhaps Bankim put something in the lemonade.’

‘Is nobody going to take me seriously?’ said Ben. ‘You’ve seen the handprint.’

No one replied. Ben focused on his small asthmatic comrade, the most gullible when it came to spooky stories.

‘Siraj?’

The boy looked up and gazed at the rest of the group, assessing the situation.

‘It wouldn’t be the first time something like this has been seen in Calcutta … There’s the story of Hastings House, for example.’

‘I don’t see what one thing has to do with the other,’ Isobel objected.

The story of Hastings House – formerly the governor’s residence in the province south of Calcutta – was one of Siraj’s favourite tales and probably the most emblematic of all the ghost stories that packed the annals of the city. According to local legend, on nights when there was a full moon the phantom of Warren Hastings, the first governor of Bengal, drove a ghostly carriage up to the porch of his old mansion in Alipore, where he would then search frantically for some documents that had disappeared during his chaotic rule of the city.

‘The people of Calcutta have been seeing him for decades,’ Siraj protested. ‘It’s as much a fact as the monsoon flooding the streets.’

The members of the Chowbar Society became embroiled in a heated discussion about what Ben had seen, during which only the person concerned did not intervene. A few minutes later, when all reason seemed to have flown out of the window, those taking part in the argument turned their heads to look at the figure in white that was standing in the doorway to the roofless hall, watching them in silence. One by one, they stopped talking.

‘I don’t want to interrupt …’ said Sheere shyly.

‘An interruption is most welcome,’ said Ben. ‘We were only arguing. For a change.’

‘I heard the last bit,’ Sheere admitted. ‘Did you see something last night, Ben?’

‘I don’t know any more,’ he admitted. ‘How about you? Have you managed to escape from your grandmother? I think we got you into trouble last night.’

Sheere smiled and shook her head.

‘My grandmother is a good woman, but sometimes she gets obsessed and thinks there’s danger lurking round every corner,’ Sheere explained. ‘She doesn’t know I’m here, so I can’t stay long.’

‘Why not? We were thinking of going down to the docks; you could come with us,’ said Ben, much to the surprise of the others, as this was the first they’d heard of the plan.

‘I can’t go with you, Ben. I came to say goodbye.’

‘What!’ cried various voices at once.

‘We’re leaving for Bombay tomorrow. My grandmother says this city isn’t safe and we must leave. She forbade me from seeing you again, but I didn’t want to go without saying goodbye. You’re the only friends I’ve had in ten years, even if that was just for a night.’

Ben looked at her in astonishment.

‘You’re going to Bombay?’ he exploded. ‘Why? Does your grandmother want to be a film star? This is absurd!’

‘I’m afraid it isn’t,’ Sheere said sadly. ‘I’ll only be in Calcutta for a few more hours. I hope you don’t mind if I spend some of that time with you.’

‘We’d love you to stay, Sheere,’ said Ian, speaking for all of them.

‘Just a minute,’ Ben protested. ‘What’s all this business about saying goodbye? A few more hours in Calcutta? That’s nonsense. You could spend a hundred years in this city and not understand half of what goes on here. You can’t just leave like that. Even less now that you’re a full member of the Chowbar Society.’

‘You’ll have to talk to my grandmother,’ Sheere sighed.

‘That’s exactly what I plan to do.’

‘Great idea,’ Roshan said. ‘You made a wonderful impression on her yesterday.’

‘Oh ye of little faith!’ Ben retorted. ‘What happened to our vow? As members of the society, we have to help Sheere find her father’s house. Nobody leaves this city until we’ve found it and unravelled its mysteries. And that’s that.’

‘Count me in,’ said Siraj. ‘But how are you going to do it? Are you going to threaten Sheere’s grandmother?’

‘Sometimes the word is mightier than the sword,’ Ben declared. ‘I wonder, who said that?’

‘Voltaire?’ suggested Isobel.

Ben ignored her sarcasm.

‘And which powerful words might you be using?’ asked Ian.

‘Not my own, that’s for sure,’ Ben explained. ‘The words of Mr Carter. We’ll get him to speak to your grandmother.’

Sheere looked down and shook her head despondently.

‘It won’t work, Ben. You don’t know Aryami Bose. There’s nobody as stubborn as her. It’s in her blood.’

Ben gave a feline smile, his eyes shining.

‘I’m even more stubborn. Wait till you see me in action, then you’ll change your mind.’

‘Ben, you’re going to get us into trouble again,’ said Seth.

Ben raised an eyebrow and looked at each of them in turn, crushing any hint of rebellion.

‘If anyone has anything else to say, speak now or for ever hold your peace,’ he said solemnly.

Nobody protested.

‘Good. Motion approved. Let’s go.’

Carterinserted his key in the hole and turned it twice. The lock clicked open and Carter entered the room, closing the door behind him. He didn’t feel like seeing or speaking to anyone for at least an hour. He unbuttoned his waistcoat and walked over to his armchair. It was then that he noticed a figure seated in the chair opposite and realised he was not alone. The key slipped from Carter’s fingers but didn’t hit the floor; an agile hand, sheathed in a black glove, caught it as it fell. A sharp face peered around the wing of the armchair, its lips twisted in a doglike snarl.

‘Who are you and how did you get in here?’ Carter demanded, unable to hide the tremor in his voice.

The intruder stood up and Carter felt the blood drain from his cheeks as he recognised the man who had paid him a visit sixteen years earlier. His face hadn’t aged a single day and his eyes still blazed with the ferocity the headmaster remembered. Jawahal. Clutching the key in his hand, the visitor walked over to the door and locked it. Carter gulped. The warnings Aryami Bose had given him the night before raced through his mind. Jawahal squeezed the key between his fingers and the metal bent as if it were a hairpin.

‘You don’t seem very happy to see me, Mr Carter,’ said Jawahal. ‘Don’t you remember the meeting we arranged sixteen years ago? I’ve come to make my donation.’

‘Leave this place immediately or I’ll call the police,’ Carter threatened.

‘Let’s not worry about the police for the time being. I’ll call them when I leave. Sit down and grant me the pleasure of your conversation.’

Carter sat in his armchair struggling to keep his emotions in check and appear calm and in control. Jawahal gave him a friendly smile.

‘I imagine you know why I’m here.’

‘I don’t know what you’re looking for, but you won’t find it here,’ replied Carter.

‘Maybe I will, maybe I won’t,’ said Jawahal casually. ‘I’m looking for a child who has now become a man. You know which child I mean. I’d hate to feel obliged to hurt you.’

‘Are you threatening me?’

Jawahal laughed. ‘Yes,’ he replied coldly. ‘And when I threaten someone, I mean it.’

For the first time, Carter considered the possibility of crying out for help.

‘If you’re thinking about screaming,’ said Jawahal. ‘Let me at least give you a reason to do so.’

As soon as he’d uttered those words, Jawahal spread his right hand in front of his face and calmly began to pull off the glove.

Sheere and the other members of the Chowbar Society had only just stepped into the courtyard when the windows of Thomas Carter’s office on the first floor exploded with a thunderous blast, and fragments of glass, wood and brick cascaded over the garden. For a moment the young people froze in their tracks, then they immediately rushed towards the building, ignoring the smoke and the flames issuing from the gaping hole that had opened in the facade.

When the explosion took place, Bankim was at the other end of the corridor, looking through a pile of documents he was preparing to take to Carter for his signature. The shock wave knocked him down; when he looked up through the cloud of smoke that filled the corridor, he saw that the door of the headmaster’s office had been blown off its hinges and smashed against the wall. Bankim jumped up and ran towards the source of the explosion, but as he approached he saw a black silhouette emerge, wreathed in flames. It spread its dark cloak and swooped down the corridor like a huge bat, moving at incredible speed, before it disappeared leaving behind it a trail of ash and with a sound that reminded Bankim of the furious hiss of a cobra.

Bankim found Carter lying on the floor inside the office. His face was covered in burns and his clothes were smouldering. Bankim crouched beside his mentor and tried to sit him up. The headmaster’s hands were shaking and Bankim noticed with relief that he was still breathing, albeit with difficulty. Bankim shouted for help and soon the faces of some of the boys appeared round the doorway. Ben, Ian and Seth helped him lift Carter off the floor, while the others moved rubble out of the way and prepared a space in the corridor.

‘What the hell happened?’ asked Ben.

Bankim shook his head, unable to answer, clearly still in shock. Between them they managed to carry the wounded man into the corridor while Vendela, her face as white as porcelain and a desperate look in her eyes, ran to alert the nearest hospital.

Gradually the remaining members of St Patrick’s began to appear. Nobody understood what had caused the blast and they did not recognise the body that lay scorched on the floor. Ian and Roshan formed a cordon round Mr Carter and told everyone who approached that they needed to keep the way clear.

The wait seemed infinite.

The ambulance from Calcutta General Hospital seemed to take for ever to negotiate the labyrinth of city streets and reach St Patrick’s. For another half an hour everyone waited restlessly, but just as they were beginning to give up hope, one of the doctors from the medical team came over to Bankim and the group of friends while three other medics continued to assist the victim.

When they saw the doctor approaching, they all crowded round him anxiously. He was a young man with red hair and intense eyes, and seemed decidedly competent. Or maybe they just hoped, and prayed, he would be.

‘Mr Carter has suffered serious burns and there seem to be a few broken bones, but he’s out of danger. What worries me most now are his eyes. We can’t guarantee that he’ll recover his eyesight completely, although it’s still too early to know for certain. He’ll have to be taken to the hospital so that we can sedate him properly before treating his wounds. He’ll certainly have to undergo surgery. I need someone who can authorise his admission papers.’

‘Vendela can do that,’ said Bankim.

The doctor nodded.

‘Good. There’s something else. Which of you is Ben?’

They all stared at him in surprise. Ben looked up, confused.

‘I’m Ben,’ he replied. ‘Why?’

‘He wants to speak to you,’ said the doctor, his tone implying that he’d tried to dissuade Carter and that he disapproved of his request.

Ben nodded and hurried off towards the ambulance.

‘Just one minute,’ warned the doctor. ‘Not a second longer.’

Ben went over to the stretcher on which Thomas Carter was lying and tried to smile reassuringly, but when he saw the state the headmaster was in he felt his stomach shrink and the words just wouldn’t come to his lips. One of the doctors standing behind him gave him a nudge. Ben took a deep breath and nodded.

‘Hello, Mr Carter. It’s Ben.’ He wondered whether Mr Carter could hear him.

The wounded man tilted his head slightly and raised a trembling hand. Ben took it and pressed it gently.

‘Tell that man to leave us alone,’ Carter groaned, his eyes still shut.

The doctor gave Ben a look and waited a few seconds before leaving.

‘The doctors say you’re going to get better …’ said Ben. Carter shook his head.

‘Not now, Ben.’ Each word seemed to require a titanic effort. ‘You must listen to me carefully and not interrupt. Understood?’

Ben nodded. ‘I’m listening, sir.’

Carter squeezed his hand.

‘There’s a man who is looking for you and wants to kill you, Ben. A murderer,’ Carter said, struggling to articulate his words. ‘You must believe me. This man calls himself Jawahal and he seems to think you have some connection to his past. I don’t know why he’s looking for you but I do know he’s dangerous. What he’s done to me is only a shadow of what he’s capable of. You must speak to Aryami Bose, the woman who came to the orphanage yesterday. Tell her what I’ve told you, explain what has happened. She tried to warn me, but I didn’t take her seriously. Don’t make the same mistake. Find her and talk to her. Tell her Jawahal was here. She’ll tell you what to do.’

The burnt lips of Thomas Carter closed once more and Ben felt as if the whole world was collapsing around him. What the head of St Patrick’s had confided in him seemed utterly unreal. The shock of the explosion had obviously affected Carter’s reasoning, making him imagine some kind of conspiracy and a whole host of other improbable dangers. At that moment Ben couldn’t contemplate any other explanation, especially in view of what he had dreamed the night before. Imprisoned in the claustrophobic atmosphere of the ambulance, with its cold stench of ether, he wondered for a split second whether the inhabitants of St Patrick’s were all beginning to lose their minds, himself included.

‘Did you hear me, Ben?’ Carter insisted, his voice failing. ‘Have you understood what I said?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Ben mumbled. ‘You mustn’t worry.’

Finally Carter opened his eyes and Ben realised with horror what the flames had done to them.

‘Ben, do as I said. Now.’ He was trying to shout but his voice was consumed by pain. ‘Go and see that woman. Swear to me you will.’

Ben heard footsteps behind him. The red-haired doctor grabbed his arm and began dragging him out of the ambulance. Carter’s hand slipped from Ben’s and was left suspended in mid-air.

‘That’s enough,’ yelled the doctor. ‘This man has suffered enough already.’

‘Swear you will!’ groaned Carter, reaching out to him.

The boy watched in dismay as the doctors injected another dose of sedative into the headmaster.

‘I swear, sir,’ said Ben, not knowing if Carter could still hear him. ‘I swear.’

Bankim was waiting for Ben outside. A short distance away stood the members of the Chowbar Society and everyone else who had been present when the disaster occurred. They were all watching Ben and appeared anxious and distressed. Ben approached Bankim and looked straight into his eyes, which were bloodshot from the smoke and tears.

‘Bankim, I need to know something,’ said Ben. ‘Did anyone called Jawahal visit Mr Carter?’

Bankim looked blank.

‘Nobody came today,’ replied the teacher. ‘Mr Carter spent the morning at a meeting with the Town Council and came back around twelve o’clock. Then he said he wanted to go and work in his office and didn’t want to be disturbed, not even for lunch.’

‘Are you sure he was alone when the blast occurred?’ asked Ben, praying that he’d get a positive reply.

‘Yes … I think so,’ answered Bankim, although there was a shadow of doubt in his eyes. ‘Why do you ask? What did he say?’

‘Are you completely sure, Bankim?’ Ben insisted. ‘Think carefully. It’s important.’

The teacher looked down, rubbing his forehead, as if he were trying to find the words to describe what he was barely sure of remembering.

‘About a second after the explosion I thought I saw something, or someone, come out of the office. It was all very confusing.’

‘Something or someone?’ asked Ben.

Bankim looked up and shrugged his shoulders.

‘I don’t know what it was,’ he replied. ‘Nothing I can think of can move that fast.’

‘An animal?’

‘I don’t know. It was probably just my own imagination.’

Aware of Bankim’s disdain for superstition and alleged supernatural phenomena, Ben knew the teacher would never admit to having seen something that was beyond his powers of analysis or understanding. If his mind couldn’t explain it, his eyes couldn’t see it. As simple as that.

‘If that’s the case,’ Ben insisted one last time, ‘what else did you imagine?’

Bankim looked up at the blackened gap that a few hours earlier had been Thomas Carter’s office.

‘I thought this thing was laughing,’ Bankim admitted in a whisper. ‘But I’m not going to repeat that to anyone.’

Ben nodded and, leaving Bankim by the ambulance, he walked over to his friends, who were desperate to hear about his conversation with Carter. Only Sheere observed him with visible concern, as if, deep in her heart, she alone was capable of understanding that Ben’s news would steer events down a dark and fatal path from which none of them would be able to escape.

‘We need to talk,’ said Ben calmly. ‘But not here.’

I recall that may morning as the first sign of a storm that was relentlessly closing in on us, shaping our destiny, building up behind our backs and swelling in the shadow of our complete innocence – that blessed ignorance which made us believe we were worthy of a special state of grace: because we had no past we felt we had nothing to fear from the future.

Little did we know that the jackals of misfortune were not pursuing poor Thomas Carter. Their fangs thirsted for younger blood, blood infused with the stain of a curse that could not be hidden, not even among the noisy street markets or in the depths of Calcutta’s deserted palaces.

We followed Ben to the Midnight Palace, searching for a secret place where we could listen to what he had to say. That day none of us feared that behind the strange accident and the uncertain words uttered by the scorched lips of our headmaster there might be any threat greater than that of separation and the emptiness towards which the blank pages of our future seemed to be leading us. We had yet to learn that the Devil created youth so that we could make our mistakes, and that God established maturity and old age so that we could pay for them …

I also remember that as we listened to Ben’s report of his conversation with Thomas Carter, each one of us, without exception, knew he was keeping something from us, something the wounded headmaster had confided in him. And I remember the worried expression on the faces of my friends, mirrored on my own, as we realised that, for the first time in all those years, our friend Ben had chosen to keep us in the dark.

A few minutes later he asked to speak privately with Sheere, and I thought that my best friend had just delivered the final blow to the doomed Chowbar Society. But future events would prove that, once again, I had misjudged Ben and the loyalty which our club inspired in his soul.

At the time, however, watching my friend’s face as he spoke to Sheere, I realised that the wheel of fortune had begun to turn backwards. Our opponent in the game was prepared to bet high and we didn’t have the knowledge, or experience, to match him.

In the hazy light of that humid scorching day the reliefs and gargoyles on the facade of the Chowbar Society’s secret hideout resembled wax figures melting into the walls. The sun lay hidden behind a dense bank of clouds and a suffocating mist rose from the Hooghly River, sweeping through the streets of the Black Town like the fumes from a poisoned marsh.

Ben and Sheere were talking behind two fallen roof beams in the central hall of the old mansion, while the others waited about a dozen metres away, glancing occasionally at the pair with suspicion.

‘I don’t know whether I’ve done the right thing, hiding this from my friends,’ Ben confessed to Sheere. ‘I know they’ll be upset, and it goes against the oaths of the Chowbar Society, but if there’s even the remotest possibility that there’s a murderer out there who wants to kill me, I have no intention of getting them mixed up in it. I don’t really want to involve you either, Sheere. I can’t imagine how your grandmother could be connected to all this, and until I discover what that connection is, it’s best to keep this secret to ourselves.’

Sheere nodded. It upset her to think that somehow the secret she shared with Ben would come between him and his friends, but she was also aware that things might turn out to be more serious than they imagined, and she was savouring the closeness to Ben this special link gave her.

‘I need to tell you something too, Ben,’ Sheere began. ‘This morning, when I came to say goodbye to you, I didn’t think it was important. But now things have changed. Last night, when we were returning to the house where we’ve been staying, my grandmother made me swear I would never speak to you again. She said I must forget you and that if I tried to get close to you it might end in tragedy.’

Ben sighed at the speed with which the torrent of threats against him was multiplying. Everyone, except himself, appeared to know some terrible secret that turned him into a target, the bearer of misfortune.

‘What reason did she give for saying something like that?’ asked Ben. ‘She’d never seen me before last night and I don’t think my behaviour could justify anything like that.’

‘I’m sure it has nothing to do with your behaviour,’ Sheere said. ‘She was scared. There was no anger in her words, only fear.’

‘Well, we’re going to have to find something else besides fear if we want to understand what’s going on,’ replied Ben. ‘We’ll go and see her straight away.’

He walked over to where the other members of the Chowbar Society were waiting. He could tell from their faces that they’d been discussing the matter and had come to a decision. Ben guessed who would be the spokesperson for the inevitable complaint. They all looked at Ian, who rolled his eyes and sighed.

‘Ian has something to tell you,’ Isobel stated. ‘But we all feel the same way.’

Ben faced his friends and smiled.

‘I’m listening.’

‘Well,’ Ian began. ‘The essence of what we’re trying to say-’

‘Don’t beat about the bush, Ian,’ Seth interrupted.

Ian whisked round, with all the restrained fury his placid nature allowed.

‘The term “spokesperson” means one person does the speaking, the others just shut up.’

Nobody else dared to make any more objections to his speech and Ian returned to his task.

‘As I was saying: basically, we think there’s something that doesn’t add up. You said Mr Carter told you he was attacked by some criminal who is stalking the orphanage. A criminal nobody has seen and whose motives, from what you’ve said, we can’t understand. We also don’t understand why Mr Carter asked to speak to you specifically or why you’ve been talking to Bankim and haven’t told us what it was about. You must have your reasons for keeping this secret and sharing it only with Sheere, or at least you think you do. But, to be honest, if you value our society and its aims, you should trust us and not hide anything from us.’

Ben considered Ian’s words as the rest of his friends nodded in agreement.

‘If I’ve kept anything from you it’s because I think that otherwise I might be putting your lives in danger,’ Ben explained.

‘The founding principle of this society is to help one another no matter what, not just to listen to funny stories and disappear the moment things go wrong,’ Seth protested angrily.

‘This is a society, not some girlie orchestra,’ added Siraj.

Isobel slapped the back of his head.

‘Be quiet!’ she snapped.

‘All right,’ Ben agreed. ‘All for one, and one for all. Is that what you want? The Three Musketeers?’

All eyes were trained on him as slowly, one by one, they nodded their heads.

‘OK. I’ll tell you everything I know, which isn’t much,’ said Ben.

For the next ten minutes the Chowbar Society heard the unedited version of his tale, including his conversation with Bankim and what Sheere’s grandmother had said. After his account, it was question time.

‘Has anyone ever heard of this Jawahal?’ asked Seth. ‘Siraj?’

The walking encyclopedia’s only answer was an unambiguous ‘No.’

‘Do we know whether Mr Carter could have been doing business with someone like that? Would there be anything about it in his files?’ asked Isobel.

‘We can find out,’ replied Ian. ‘Right now, the main thing is to speak to your grandmother, Sheere.’

‘I agree,’ said Roshan. ‘Let’s go and see her and then we can decide on a plan of action.’

‘Any objections to Roshan’s proposal?’ asked Ian.

A ‘no’ resounded through the ruins of the Midnight Palace.

‘Fine, let’s go.’

‘Just a minute,’ said Michael.

The friends turned to listen to the quiet pencil virtuoso who chronicled the adventures of the Chowbar Society.

‘Has it occurred to you that all this might be connected to the story you told us this morning, Ben?’

Ben gulped. He had been asking himself that same question, but hadn’t been able to find a link between the two events.

‘I don’t see a connection, Michael,’ said Seth.

The others thought about it for a while, but none of them seemed inclined to disagree with Seth.

‘I don’t think there’s a connection either,’ agreed Ben at last. ‘It must have been a dream.’

Michael looked him straight in the eye, something he hardly ever did, and held out a small drawing. Ben examined it and saw the shape of a train crossing a desolate plain dotted with run-down shacks. At the front a majestic wedge-shaped engine crowned with tall chimneys spat out steam and smoke into a sky filled with black stars. The train was swathed in flames and hundreds of ghostly faces peered through the carriage windows, their arms outstretched, howling amid the blaze. Michael had faithfully translated Ben’s words onto paper. Ben felt a shiver down his spine.

‘I don’t see, Michael …’ Ben murmured. ‘What are you driving at?’

Sheere went over to them and her face grew pale when she saw the drawing and realised the link Michael had identified between Ben’s vision and the incident at St Patrick’s.

‘The fire,’ she said softly. ‘It’s the fire.’

Aryami Bose’s home had been closed up for years, inhabited only by books and paintings, but the spectre of thousands of memories imprisoned between its walls still permeated the house.

On the way there they had agreed that the best plan would be for Sheere to go into the house first, so that she could tell Aryami what had happened and explain that the friends wanted to speak to her. Once this first phase had been completed, the members of the Chowbar Society thought it would also be better to limit the number of representatives at the meeting. The sight of seven strange youths was bound to slow her tongue. It was therefore decided that only Ian, Sheere and Ben would be present at the conversation. Once again Ian agreed to act as ambassador for the society, although he was beginning to suspect that the frequency with which he was chosen for the job had less to do with his friends’ trust in his intelligence and moderation than with his harmless appearance, which was perfect for winning over adults and authority figures. After walking through the streets of the Black Town and waiting a few minutes in the jungle-like courtyard surrounding Aryami Bose’s home, Ian and Ben entered the house at a signal from Sheere, while the others waited for their return.

Sheere led them to a room that was poorly lit by about a dozen candles floating on water inside glass containers. Drops of melted wax formed petals around the candles, dulling the reflection of the flames. The three friends sat down in front of the old lady, who gazed at them in silence from her armchair. In the darkness around them they glimpsed hangings covering the walls and shelves buried under years of dust.

Aryami waited for their eyes to meet hers and then she leaned in towards them.

‘My granddaughter told me what happened,’ said Aryami. ‘But I can’t say I’m surprised. For years I’ve lived with the fear that something like this might occur, although I never imagined it would happen in this way. First of all, you must realise that what you’ve witnessed today is only the beginning and that, after hearing me out, it will be up to you either to let these events continue or to put a stop to them. I’m old and I don’t have the courage or the strength to fight against forces that are far stronger than me and that with each passing day I find harder to understand.’

Sheere took her grandmother’s wrinkled hand and stroked it gently. Ian noticed Ben biting his nails and gave him a discreet nudge.

‘There was a time when I thought that nothing could be more powerful than love. And it’s true, love is powerful, but that power pales into insignificance next to the fire of hatred. I know these revelations aren’t exactly the best present for your sixteenth birthday – normally young people are allowed to live in blissful ignorance of the real nature of the world until they are much older – but I’m afraid you’re not going to have that privilege. I also know that you’ll doubt my words and my judgement, simply because they are those of an old woman. In recent years I’ve come to recognise that look in the eyes of my own granddaughter. The fact is that nothing is more difficult to believe than the truth; conversely, nothing seduces like the power of lies, the greater the better. It’s only natural, and you will have to find the right balance. Having said that, let me add that this particular old woman hasn’t been collecting only years; she has also collected stories, and none sadder or more terrible than the one she’s about to tell you. You have been at the heart of this story without knowing it, until today …’

‘There was a time when I too was young and did all the things young people are expected to do: marry, have children, get into debt, become disappointed and give up the dreams and principles you have always sworn to uphold. In a word, I became old. Even so, fate was generous to me, or at least that’s what I thought at the beginning: it joined my life to that of a man about whom the best and worst you could say was that he was a good person. I can’t deny it, he wasn’t exactly suave. I remember my sisters sniggering at him when he came to the house. He was rather clumsy and shy and looked as if he’d spent the last ten years of his life locked up in a library – hardly the kind of man any girl your age dreams of, Sheere.

‘My suitor was a teacher at a state school in South Calcutta. His pay was miserable and his clothes were in line with his pay. Every Saturday he would come and pick me up wearing the same suit, the only one he had, which he reserved for school meetings and for going out with me. It took six years before he could afford another one, although he never looked good in suits: he didn’t have the right frame.

‘My two sisters married smart good-looking young men who treated your grandfather with disdain and, behind his back, would throw me suggestive looks which I was supposed to interpret as invitations to enjoy the pleasures of a real man.

‘Years later, those lazy good-for-nothings ended up living off the charity of my husband, but that’s another story. Although he could see right through them – he was always able to look into the soul of anyone he dealt with – he didn’t refuse to support the bloodsuckers and pretended to have forgotten how they had mocked and scorned him when he was young. I wouldn’t have helped them but, as I said, my husband was a good person. Perhaps too good.

‘Unfortunately his health was fragile, and he left me early on, one year after the birth of our only daughter, Kylian. I had to bring her up on my own and try to teach her everything her father would have wanted her to learn. Kylian was the light that illuminated my life after the death of your grandfather. She inherited her kind nature from him, and her instinct for seeing into the hearts of others. But where your grandfather was forever clumsy and shy, Kylian radiated brightness and elegance. Her beauty began in her gestures, in her voice, in the way she moved. As a child, her words enchanted visitors and passers-by as if they were a magic spell. I remember watching her charm the merchants in the bazaar when she was only ten. It seemed to me that my girl was like a swan that had somehow emerged from the ugly duckling that was my husband. His spirit lived within her, in the most insignificant of her gestures and in the way she would sometimes stand in the porch of this house and stare quietly at the people going by, then look at me, her face deadly serious, and ask me why there were so many unfortunates in the world.

‘Soon everyone in the Black Town began to refer to her by the nickname she’d been given by a Bombay photographer: the Princess of Light. And it wasn’t long before would-be princes began to crawl out of the woodwork. Those were wonderful days, when she shared with me the absurd secrets her elegantly attired suitors confided in her, the dreadful poems they wrote to her and a whole collection of anecdotes which, had the situation gone on much longer, might have led us to believe that this city was full of nothing but halfwits. But soon a man appeared on the scene who was destined to change everything: your father, Sheere, the most intelligent, and also the strangest, man I have ever known.

‘In those days, as today, the vast majority of marriages were arranged between families, like a contract in which the wishes of the future spouses carry no weight at all. Most traditions reflect the ills of a society. All my life I had sworn that the day Kylian got married she would do so to someone she had chosen freely.

‘The first time your father came through this door, he seemed the complete opposite of the dozens of swaggering peacocks that were forever hanging around your mother. He didn’t speak much, but when he did, his words were razor-sharp and did not invite a reply. He was kind and, when he wanted, he could display a strange charm that seduced slowly but surely. Even so, your father was always distant and cold with everyone. Everyone, that is, except your mother. In her company he became a different person, vulnerable and almost childlike. I never discovered which of the two he really was, and I suppose your mother took the secret to her grave.

‘On the few occasions when he deigned to speak to me, he didn’t say much. At last he decided to ask for my consent to marry your mother, and I enquired how he intended to provide for her and what his situation was. My years on the brink of poverty with your grandfather had taught me to protect Kylian against it. I was convinced that there’s nothing like an empty stomach for destroying the myth that hunger is a noble condition.

‘Your father looked at me – keeping his real thoughts to himself, as he always did – and replied that he was an engineer and a writer. He said he was trying to obtain a post with a British construction company and that a Delhi publisher had paid him an advance on a manuscript he’d sent. All of which, once you cleared away the long words with which your father laced his talk when it suited him, smelled to me of deprivation and hardship. I told him so. He smiled, and taking my hand gently in his, he whispered these words I’ll never forget: “Mother, this is the first and last time I’ll say this. From now on, your daughter and I are in charge of our own future, and that includes providing for her and carving out a life for myself. Nobody, alive or dead, will ever be allowed to interfere. On that matter you must rest assured and trust in the love I have for her. But if worry still gives you sleepless nights, don’t let a single word, gesture or action sully the bond which, with or without your consent, will unite us for ever, because eternity would not be long enough for you to regret it.”

‘Three months later they were married, and I never spoke to your father in private again. The future proved him right, and soon he began to make a name for himself as an engineer, without abandoning his passion for literature. They moved into a house not far from here – which was demolished years ago – while he conceived what was going to be their dream home, a real palace which he designed down to the minutest detail. He planned to retire there with your mother. Nobody could imagine then what was about to happen.

‘I never really got to know him. He didn’t give me the chance, nor did he seem to be interested in opening up to anyone but your mother. He intimidated me, and when I was with him I felt quite incapable of approaching him or trying to win him over. It was impossible to know what he was thinking. I used to read his books, which your mother would bring when she came to see me, and I’d study them carefully in an effort to discover clues that might allow me to penetrate the maze of his mind. I never succeeded.

‘Your father was a mysterious man who never talked about his family or his past. Maybe that’s why I was never able to foresee the threat that hovered over him and my daughter, a threat born of that dark and unfathomable past. He never let me help him and, when disaster struck, he was as alone as he’d always been, locked in the fortress of solitude he’d made for himself. Only one person ever held the keys, during the time she shared with him: Kylian.

‘But your father, like all of us, had a past, and from that past a figure emerged who would bring darkness and tragedy upon our family.

‘When your father was young and roamed the streets of Calcutta, dreaming about numbers and mathematical formulae, he met a lonely orphan boy of his own age. At the time your father lived in the most abject poverty and, like so many children in this city, he caught one of the fevers that claim thousands of lives every year. During the rainy season the monsoon unleashed powerful storms over the Bengali Peninsula, flooding the entire Ganges Delta and the surrounding area. Year after year the salt lake that still lies to the east of the city would overflow; and when the rain ceased and the water level subsided, all the dead fish were exposed to the sun, producing a cloud of poisonous fumes which winds from the mountains in the north would then blow over Calcutta, spreading illness and death like some infernal plague.

‘That year your father was a victim of the deadly winds and he would have died had it not been for his friend Jawahal, who looked after him for twenty days in a hovel made of mud and burnt wood on the banks of the Hooghly River. When he recovered, your father swore he would always protect Jawahal and would share with him whatever the future might bring, because now his life also belonged to his friend. It was a child’s oath. A pact of blood and honour. But there was something your father didn’t know: Jawahal, his guardian angel, who was barely nine years old at the time, carried in his veins an illness far more terrible than the one that had almost taken your father’s life. An illness that would manifest itself much later, at first imperceptibly, then as surely as a death sentence: madness.

‘Years later your father was told that Jawahal’s mother had set fire to herself in front of her son as a sacrificial act to the goddess Kali, and that his mother’s mother had ended her days in a miserable cell in a lunatic asylum in Bombay. Those two events were only links in the long chain of horrors and misfortunes that characterised the history of the family. But your father was a strong person, even as a boy, and he took on the responsibility of protecting his friend, whatever the outcome of his terrible inheritance.

‘It all went well until Jawahal turned eighteen, when he cold-bloodedly murdered a wealthy trader in the bazaar, just because the man refused to sell him a large medallion on the grounds that Jawahal’s appearance made the trader doubt his solvency. Your father kept Jawahal hidden in his home for months and put his own life and future at risk by protecting him from the police, who were searching for him all over town. He succeeded, but that incident was only the start of it. A year later, on the night of the Hindu new year celebrations, Jawahal set fire to a house where about a dozen old women lived, then sat outside watching the flames until the beams collapsed and the building turned to ash. This time not even your father’s cunning was able to save Jawahal from the hands of justice.

‘There was a trial – long and terrible – at the end of which Jawahal was given a life sentence for his crimes. Your father did what he could to help him, spending all his savings on lawyers, sending clean clothes to the prison where his friend was being held, bribing the guards so they wouldn’t torment him. But the only thanks he got from Jawahal were words of hatred. He accused your father of having denounced him, of abandoning him and wanting to get rid of him. He reproached him for breaking the oath they had made years earlier and swore revenge because, as he shouted from the dock when his sentence was read out, half your father’s life belonged to him.

‘Your father hid this secret in the depths of his heart and never wanted your mother to find out about it. Time erased all trace of those events. After the wedding, the first years of married life and your father’s early success, it became just a memory, a remote episode buried in the past.

‘I remember when your mother became pregnant. Your father turned into a different person, a stranger. He bought a puppy and said he was going to train it to become a watchdog, turn it into the best nanny for his future son. And he didn’t stop talking about the house he was going to build, the plans he had for the future, a new book …

‘A month later Lieutenant Michael Peake, one of your mother’s former suitors, knocked on the door with news that would sow terror in their lives: Jawahal had set fire to the secure prison block where he was being held, and had escaped. Before fleeing he’d slit his cellmate’s throat and had used his blood to write a single word on the wall: REVENGE.

‘Peake promised that he would personally look for Jawahal and protect the couple from any possible threat. Two months went by with no sign of the escaped prisoner. Until your father’s birthday.

‘Just before sunrise a parcel was delivered to him by a beggar. It contained a large medallion – the piece that had led Jawahal to commit his first murder – and a note. In it Jawahal explained that after spying on them for a few weeks and discovering that your father was now a successful man with a dazzling wife, he wished them well and would perhaps soon pay them a visit, so that they could “share what belonged to them both, like brothers”.

‘The following days were strewn with panic. One of the sentries Peake had employed to guard the house at night was found dead. Your father’s dog was discovered at the bottom of the well in the courtyard. And every morning the walls of the house were daubed with new threats, written in blood, which Peake and his men were powerless to prevent.

‘Those were difficult days for your father. His finest work had just been built, the Jheeter’s Gate Station on the western bank of the Hooghly. It was an impressive, revolutionary steel structure, the culmination of his project to establish a railway network throughout the entire country, to encourage development of local trade and modernise the provinces so that they could eventually overcome domination by the British. That was always one of his obsessions, and he could spend hours speaking passionately about it, as if it were some divine mission he’d been entrusted with. The official opening of Jheeter’s Gate was taking place at the end of the week, and to mark the occasion it was decided to charter a train that would transport three hundred and sixty-five orphans to their new home in western India. They came from the most deprived backgrounds, and your father’s project would mean a whole new life for them. It was something he had pledged to do from the very start, his life’s dream.

‘Your mother was desperate to attend the ceremony for a few hours, and she assured your father that the protection offered by Lieutenant Peake and his men would be sufficient to keep her safe.

‘When your father climbed into the train and got the engine going that was supposed to take the children to their new home, something unexpected happened. The fire. A terrible blaze spread through the various levels of the station, fanning out along the train’s carriages so that as it entered the tunnel, the train was transformed into a rolling inferno, a molten tomb for the children who travelled inside. Your father died that night, trying to save the orphans, while his dreams vanished for ever amid the flames.

‘When your mother heard the news she almost lost you. But fate grew weary of sending misfortune to your family, and you were saved. Three days later, when she was only a few days from giving birth, Jawahal and his men burst into the house and after proclaiming that the Jheeter’s Gate tragedy had been their doing, they took your mother away.

‘Lieutenant Peake managed to survive the assault and followed them to the very bowels of the station, which by then was an accursed place nobody had set foot in since the night of the tragedy. Jawahal had left a note in the house swearing he’d kill your mother and the child she was about to deliver. But something happened that not even Jawahal had expected. It was not one child, but two. Twins. A boy and a girl. You two …’

Aryami Bose told them how Peake had managed to rescue them and bring them to her home, and how she had decided to separate them and hide them from their parents’ murderer … but neither Sheere nor Ben was listening to her any longer. Ian stared at the white faces of his best friend and the girl. They hardly blinked; the revelations they had heard from the old woman’s lips seemed to have turned them into statues. Ian heaved a deep sigh and wished he’d not been the one selected to attend this strange family reunion. He felt extremely uncomfortable, an intruder in the drama that was unfolding around his friends.

All the same, Ian swallowed his dismay and focused his thoughts on Ben. He tried to imagine the storm Aryami’s account must have unleashed inside him and he cursed the abruptness with which fear and exhaustion had made the old lady reveal events that could potentially have consequences far greater than they imagined. For the moment he tried not to think of what Ben had told him that morning about his vision of a blazing train. The pieces of the jigsaw puzzle were multiplying with terrifying speed.

He recalled the dozens of times Ben had asserted that they, the members of the Chowbar Society, were people without a past. Ian was afraid that Ben’s encounter with his own history in the gloom of that derelict house might cause him irreparable damage. They had known each other since they were small, and Ian was familiar with Ben’s episodes of melancholy and realised it was always better to support him without asking any questions or trying to read his mind. Judging from what he knew of his friend, the impressive front behind which Ben usually hid his feelings must have suffered a tremendous blow. And he was sure Ben would never want to speak about it.

Ian placed a hand gently on Ben’s shoulder, but his friend didn’t seem to notice.

Ben and Sheere, who only a few hours earlier had felt a strong bond growing between them, now seemed incapable of looking at one another, as if the new cards dealt in the game had given them an unfamiliar modesty, a primal fear of exchanging even the simplest glance.

Aryami looked anxiously at Ian. In the room silence reigned. The old woman’s eyes seemed to be begging them for forgiveness, the pardon granted the bearer of bad news. Ian tilted his head slightly, signalling to Aryami that they should leave the room. The old lady hesitated for a few seconds, but Ian stood up and offered her his hand. She accepted his help and followed him to the adjoining room, leaving Ben and Sheere alone. Ian stopped in the doorway and turned towards his friend.

‘We’ll be outside,’ he murmured.

Without looking up Ben nodded.

The members of the Chowbar Society were wilting in the crushing heat of the courtyard when they saw Ian appear through the front door, together with the old woman. The two exchanged a few words. Aryami nodded wearily and then sought the shade of an old carved-stone veranda. Ian, his expression severe, which his friends took to be a bad sign, walked over to the group and stood in the shady spot they had left for him. Aryami watched them from a few metres away, a doleful expression on her face.

‘Well?’ asked Isobel.

‘I don’t know where to begin,’ replied Ian.

‘Try the worst part,’ Seth suggested.

‘Everything is the worst part,’ said Ian.

The others went quiet and looked at him expectantly. Ian contemplated his friends and gave a weak smile.

‘Ten ears are listening,’ said Isobel.

Ian repeated what Aryami had just revealed inside the house, not omitting a single detail. The end of his narrative was dedicated exclusively to Ben and Sheere – who were still inside – and the fateful sword they had just discovered dangling over their heads.

By the time he finished, the entire membership of the Chowbar Society had forgotten the stifling heat that pressed down from the sky like some infernal punishment.

‘How did Ben take it?’ asked Roshan.

Ian frowned. ‘How would you have felt if you were him?’

‘What are we going to do now?’ asked Siraj.

‘What can we do?’ asked Ian.

‘A lot,’ Isobel stated. ‘Anything rather than sit here roasting our behinds when there’s a murderer out there trying to kill Ben. And Sheere.’

‘Anyone against?’ asked Seth.

They all answered, ‘No.’

‘Very well, Colonel,’ said Ian, looking pointedly at Isobel. ‘What are your orders?’

‘First, somebody should find out everything there is to know about this accident at Jheeter’s Gate and the engineer,’ said Isobel.

‘I can do that,’ offered Seth. ‘There must be newspaper cuttings from the time in the library of the Indian Museum. And books, probably.’

‘Seth is right,’ said Siraj. ‘The fire at Jheeter’s Gate caused a great scandal in its day, and a lot of people still remember it. There must be records on the subject. Goodness knows where, but they must exist.’

‘Then we’ll have to search for them,’ Isobel said. ‘They could be a good starting point.’

‘I’ll help Seth,’ said Michael.

Isobel nodded vigorously. ‘We must find out everything we can about this man, his life, and also the amazing house which is supposed to be somewhere near here. Tracing it might lead us to the murderer.’

‘We’ll look for the house,’ suggested Siraj, pointing at himself and Roshan.

‘If it exists, we’ll find it,’ Roshan added.

‘Fine, but don’t go inside,’ warned Isobel.

‘We didn’t intend to,’ Roshan reassured her.

‘What about me? What am I supposed to do?’ asked Ian. He couldn’t think of a task that would suit his particular skills as easily.

‘You stay here with Ben and Sheere,’ said Isobel. ‘For all we know, Ben might start getting crazy ideas into his head before we even realise it. Stay by his side and make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid. It’s not a good idea for him to be seen out on the streets with Sheere.’

Ian agreed, aware that his was the most difficult task of the whole lot.

‘We’ll meet in the Midnight Palace before it turns dark,’ Isobel concluded. ‘Any questions?’

The friends looked at one another and quickly shook their heads.

‘Good, let’s get going.’

Seth, Michael, Roshan and Siraj set off at once to carry out their respective tasks. Isobel stayed behind with Ian, quietly watching them leave through the heat haze rising from the scorched dusty streets.

‘What are you planning to do, Isobel?’ asked Ian.

Isobel turned to him and smiled mysteriously.

‘I have a hunch,’ she said.

‘I trust your hunches as much as I trust earthquakes,’ Ian replied. ‘What are you plotting?’

‘You mustn’t worry, Ian.’

‘When you say that, I worry even more.’

‘I might not get to the Palace by this evening,’ said Isobel. ‘If I haven’t appeared, do what you have to do. You always know what has to be done, Ian.’

He sighed. He was worried. He hated all this mystery and the strange glint he noticed in his friend’s eyes.

‘Look at me, Isobel,’ he ordered. She obeyed. ‘Whatever your plan is, forget it.’

‘I know how to take care of myself, Ian,’ she said with a smile.

Ian, however, could not return the smile.

‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,’ he begged. Isobel laughed.

‘I’ll do one thing you would never dare to do,’ she whispered.

Ian stared at her, mystified. Then, her eyes still shining enigmatically, she moved closer to him and brushed his lips gently with a kiss.

‘Take care, Ian,’ she said softly. ‘And don’t go dreaming …’

That was the first time Isobel had kissed him, and as he watched her disappear through the wilderness of the courtyard, Ian couldn’t help feeling a sudden and inexplicable fear that it might also be the last.

Almost an hour later Ben and Sheere emerged, their faces inscrutable but strangely calm. Sheere walked over to Aryami, who had spent all the time alone on the veranda, away from the discussions of Ian and his friends, and sat down next to her. Ben made straight for Ian.

‘Where is everybody?’ he asked.

‘We thought it would be useful to investigate this individual Jawahal,’ Ian replied.

‘So you’ve been left to babysit?’ Ben’s forced humour didn’t fool either of them.

‘Something like that. Are you all right?’ Ian motioned towards Sheere.

His friend nodded.

‘Confused, I suppose,’ Ben said at last. ‘I hate surprises.’

‘Isobel says it’s not a good idea for you two to go out and about together, and I think she’s right.’

‘Isobel is always right, except when she argues with me,’ replied Ben. ‘But I don’t think this is a safe place for us either. Even if it’s been shut up for over fifteen years, it’s still the family home. And St Patrick’s isn’t any safer, that’s fairly obvious.’

‘I think the best thing would be to go to the Palace and wait for the others there,’ said Ian.

‘Is that Isobel’s plan?’ Ben smiled.

‘Guess.’

‘Where has she gone?’

‘She wouldn’t tell me.’

‘One of her hunches?’ asked Ben, alarmed.

Ian nodded.

‘God help us.’ Ben sighed and patted his friend’s back. ‘I’m going to talk to the ladies.’

Ian turned to look at Sheere and Aryami Bose. The old lady seemed to be having a heated discussion with her granddaughter. Ben and Ian exchanged glances.

‘I suspect the grandmother is sticking to her plan of leaving for Bombay tomorrow,’ said Ben.

‘Will you go with them?’

‘I don’t intend to leave this city – ever. Even less so now.’

The two friends observed the development of the argument between grandmother and granddaughter for a few more minutes, then Ben whispered, ‘Wait for me here,’ and headed over towards them.

Aryami Bose went back into the house, leaving Ben and Sheere alone by the entrance. Sheere’s face was flushed with anger and Ben gave her a few moments until she was ready to speak. When she did, her voice shook with fury and her hands were clenched in a rigid knot.

‘She says we’re leaving tomorrow and she doesn’t want to discuss the matter any further,’ she explained. ‘She also says you should come with us, but she can’t make you.’

‘I suppose she thinks it’s for the best.’

‘That’s not what you think, is it?’

‘I’d be lying if I said I did,’ Ben admitted.

‘I’ve spent my whole life running from town to town, taking trains, ships, carts … I’ve never had my own home, my own friends or a place I could think of as mine,’ said Sheere. ‘I’m tired, Ben. I can’t keep hiding from somebody I don’t even know.’

Ben and Sheere looked at one another. After a while she spoke again.

‘She’s an old woman, Ben. She’s frightened because her life is coming to an end and she knows she won’t be able to protect us much longer. Her heart is in the right place, but running away again just isn’t an option. What use would it be to take that train to Bombay tomorrow? To get off at some random station and change our names? To beg for a roof in any old village, knowing that the following day we might have to move again?’

‘Have you said this to Aryami?’ asked Ben.

‘She won’t listen. But this time I refuse to run away. This is my home, this is my father’s city and this is where I plan to stay. And if that man comes for me I’ll stand up to him. If he wants to kill me, let him try. But if I’m to go on living, I’m not prepared to do so like some fugitive who has to give thanks every day simply for being alive. Will you help me, Ben?’

‘Of course,’ he replied.

Sheere hugged him and dried her tears with the tip of her shawl.

‘Do you know, Ben,’ she said, ‘last night, with your friends in that old house, your Midnight Palace, while I was telling you my story I kept thinking that I’d never had the opportunity to be a child. I grew up surrounded by old people, by fear and lies. The only company I had was beggars and people I met on our travels. I remember I used to invent imaginary friends and spend hours talking to them in station waiting rooms or on the long journeys we made in covered carts. Adults would look at me and smile. To them a little girl who spoke to herself seemed adorable. But it isn’t adorable, Ben. It’s not adorable to be alone, as a child or as an adult. For years I’ve wondered what other children were like, whether they had the same nightmares I had, whether they felt as miserable as I did. Whoever said that childhood is the happiest time of your life is a liar, or a fool.’

Ben observed his sister and smiled.

‘Or both,’ he joked. ‘They usually go hand in hand.’

Sheere blushed.

‘I’m sorry. I’m a chatterbox, aren’t I?’

‘No,’ said Ben. ‘I like listening to you. Besides, I’m sure we have more in common than you think.’

‘We’re brother and sister.’ Sheere laughed nervously. ‘What more do you want? Twins! It sounds so strange!’

‘Well, you can only choose your friends,’ Ben said, ‘so having family is a bonus.’

‘I’d rather you were my friend,’ said Sheere.

Ian had come over to them and was relieved to see they both seemed in good spirits. They were even cracking jokes, which, given the circumstances, was no small achievement.

‘As long as you know what you’re letting yourself in for. Ian, this young lady wants to be my friend.’

‘I wouldn’t recommend it,’ said Ian. ‘I’ve been his friend for years and look at me. Have you come to a decision?’

Ben nodded.

‘Is it what I think?’

Ben nodded again and this time Sheere joined in.

‘What is it you’ve decided?’ came Aryami Bose’s embittered voice behind them.

The three youngsters turned to see her standing motionless, half-hidden in the shadows beyond the doorway. The silence was tense.

‘We’re not taking that train tomorrow, Grandmother,’ Sheere replied eventually. ‘Not me, not Ben.’

The old woman looked at each one in turn, her eyes ablaze.

‘So the words of a few senseless children have made you forget, in just a few minutes, what I’ve been teaching you for years?’

‘No, Grandmother. It’s my own decision. And nothing in the world is going to make me change my mind.’

‘You’ll do as I say,’ retorted Aryami, although the pain of defeat could be heard in every word.

‘Please-’ Ian began politely.

‘Be quiet, child,’ snapped Aryami, her voice cold.

Ian suppressed his desire to answer back and lowered his eyes.

‘Grandmother, none of us is a child any more. That’s why I’m not taking that train,’ said Sheere. ‘And you know it.’

Aryami glared at her granddaughter but said nothing.

After a long pause she finally spoke again. ‘I’ll be waiting for both of you tomorrow at dawn, in Howrah Station.’

Sheere sighed and Ben noticed her face going red again. He touched her arm and motioned for her to drop the argument. Aryami turned away and her footsteps disappeared inside the house.

‘I can’t leave things like this,’ Sheere murmured.

Ben let go of his sister’s arm and she followed Aryami into the candlelit living room, where the old lady had sat down once more. Aryami didn’t turn her head when she came in, ignoring her granddaughter’s presence. Sheere drew closer and put her arms around her.

‘Whatever happens, Grandmother,’ she said, ‘I’ll always love you.’

Silently Aryami nodded, and her eyes filled with tears as her granddaughter walked back to the courtyard. Ben and Ian, who were waiting outside, greeted Sheere with the most optimistic expressions they could manage.

‘Where will we go?’ asked Sheere, trying to hold back her tears, her hands trembling.

‘To the best place in Calcutta,’ replied Ben. ‘The Midnight Palace.’

The last light of day was beginning to fade as Isobel caught sight of the ghostly angular structure of Jheeter’s Gate Station emerging from the mist by the river. Holding her breath she stopped to gaze at the eerie sight before her: a thick framework of hundreds of steel beams, arches and domes, a vast labyrinth of metal and glass shattered by the fire. Spanning the river to the station’s entrance on the opposite bank was an old ruined bridge.

Isobel approached the bridge and began to negotiate the rails that traversed it, a siding that led into the heart of the monumental carcass the station had become. The sleepers were rotten and black, with wild vegetation creeping over them. The rusty structure of the bridge groaned beneath her feet and Isobel noticed signs forbidding trespassers and warning of an impending demolition order. No train had crossed that bridge since the fire, and judging from its condition nobody had bothered to repair it, or even walk over it, she thought.

As the east bank of the Hooghly receded behind her and Jheeter’s Gate loomed in front of her, silhouetted against the scarlet canopy of sunset, Isobel began to toy with the idea that perhaps her decision to come to this place had not been so sensible after all. From the dark tunnels hidden in the bowels of the station came a breath of wind impregnated with ash and soot, accompanied by an acrid stench. She focused on the distant lights of the barges that ploughed the Hooghly River and tried to conjure up the company of their anonymous crews as she covered the final stretch of the bridge separating her from the station. When she reached the end she stood and looked up at the huge steel pediment before her. There, obscured by the damage from the fire but still visible, were the carved letters announcing the station’s name, like the entrance to a grandiose mausoleum: JHEETER’S GATE.

Isobel took a deep breath and readied herself to do the thing she had least wanted to do in her sixteen years of life: enter that place.

Seth and Michael wore the saintly smiles of model students as they faced the merciless scrutiny of Mr de Rozio, head librarian of the Indian Museum.

‘That’s the most ridiculous request I’ve heard in my life,’ de Rozio concluded. ‘At least since the last time you were here, Seth.’

‘Let me explain, Mr de Rozio,’ Seth improvised. ‘We know that normally you’re only open in the morning, and what my friend and I are asking you might seem a little extravagant-’

‘Coming from you, nothing is extravagant,’ de Rozio interrupted.

Seth suppressed a smile. Mr de Rozio’s caustic sarcasm was always a sign that he was interested. There was not a person on earth who knew his first name, except perhaps his mother and his wife, if in fact there was a woman in India brave enough to marry such a specimen. Beneath his Cerberus-like appearance, de Rozio had a renowned Achilles heel: his curiosity and love of gossip, albeit with an academic slant, made even the loud-mouthed women in the bazaar look like rank amateurs.

Seth and Michael eyed one another and decided to offer him some bait.

‘Mr de Rozio,’ Seth began in a melodramatic tone, ‘I shouldn’t tell you this, but I feel obliged and must rely on your well-known discretion … There are a number of crimes connected with this matter, and we very much fear there’ll be more unless we put a stop to it.’

For a few seconds the librarian’s penetrating eyes seemed to grow.

‘Are you sure Thomas Carter is aware of this?’ he enquired.

‘He’s the one who sent us here,’ replied Seth.

De Rozio observed them once more, searching their faces for clues that might betray some skulduggery.

‘And your friend …’ de Rozio retorted, pointing at Michael. ‘Why is he so quiet?’

‘He was born a mute, sir. A very sad story,’ Seth explained.

Michael gave a tiny nod as if he wished to confirm this statement. De Rozio cleared his throat tentatively.

‘You mentioned this had something to do with some crimes?’ he said with studied indifference.

‘Murders, sir,’ Seth confirmed. ‘Quite a few.’

De Rozio checked his watch and, after a few moments’ reflection, he shrugged.

‘All right,’ he conceded. ‘But let this be the last time. What’s the name of the man you want to investigate?’

‘Lahawaj Chandra Chatterghee, sir,’ Seth replied quickly.

‘The engineer? Didn’t he die in the Jheeter’s Gate fire?’

‘Yes, sir, but there was someone with him who didn’t die. Someone who is very dangerous and who started the fire. That person is still out there, ready to commit new crimes.’

De Rozio smiled. ‘Sounds vaguely interesting,’ he murmured.

Suddenly a shadow crossed the librarian’s face. De Rozio leaned his considerable bulk towards the boys and pointed at them sternly.

‘This isn’t some invention of that friend of yours?’ he asked. ‘What’s his name?’

‘Ben doesn’t know anything about this, Mr de Rozio,’ Seth reassured him. ‘We haven’t seen him for months.’

‘Just as well,’ de Rozio declared. ‘Follow me.’

With Trepidation Isobel stepped inside the station, allowing her eyes to adapt to the darkness. Tens of metres above her was the main dome, with its great arches of steel and glass. Most of the panes had melted in the flames or had simply burst, shattering into red-hot fragments that had rained down over the entire station. Dusky light filtered through cracks in the darkened metal. The platforms faded into the shadows, forming a gentle curve beneath the huge vaulted ceiling, their surface covered with the remains of burnt benches and collapsed beams.

The large station clock, which once had presided over the central platform, was now just a sombre mute sentry standing by. As she walked under its dial, Isobel noticed that the hands had dropped down towards the ground like tongues of melted wax.

Nothing seemed to have changed in that place, were it not for the traces left by years of dirt and the impact of the rainwater torrential monsoons had swept through ventilation shafts and gaps in the roof.

Isobel stopped in the centre of the grand station and gazed around her.

A fresh gust of hot humid air blew through the building, ruffling her hair and scattering specks of dust over the platforms. Isobel shivered as she scanned the black mouths of the tunnels that went underground at the far end of each platform. She wished the other members of the Chowbar Society were with her, now that the situation was beginning to look far too similar to the stories Ben liked to invent for his evenings at the Midnight Palace. Isobel felt in her pocket and pulled out the drawing Michael had made of the Chowbar Society members standing by a pond in which their faces were reflected. She smiled when she saw the picture Michael had drawn of her and wondered if this was really how he saw her. She missed her friends.

Then she heard it for the first time, far away and muffled by the murmur of the breezes that blew through those tunnels. It was the sound of distant voices, rather like the rumble of the crowds she remembered hearing years ago after she dived into the Hooghly River, the day Ben taught her how to swim underwater, only this time Isobel was sure that these were not the voices of pilgrims approaching from the depths of the tunnels. What she heard were the voices of children, hundreds of them. And they were howling in terror.

De Rozio meticulously stroked the three rolls of his regal chin and once again examined the pile of documents, cuttings and papers he had collected during various expeditions to the digestive tract of the Indian Museum’s labyrinthine library. Seth and Michael watched him with a mixture of impatience and hope.

‘Well,’ the librarian began. ‘This matter is rather more complicated than it seems. There’s quite a bit of information about this Lahawaj Chandra Chatterghee. Most of the documentation I’ve seen is not that significant, but I’d need at least a week to get the papers on this person into some sort of order.’

‘What have you found, sir?’ asked Seth.

‘A bit of everything, really,’ de Rozio explained. ‘Mr Chandra was a brilliant engineer, ahead of his time, an idealist obsessed with the idea of leaving this country with a legacy that would somehow compensate the poor for the suffering he attributed to British rule. Not very original, frankly. In short, he had all the requirements for becoming a miserable wretch. Even so, it seems he was able to navigate a sea of jealousy, conspiracy and subterfuge and even managed to convince the government to finance his golden dream: the building of a railway network that would link the main cities of the nation with the rest of the continent.

‘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.