The Mountain Shadow

Chapter Thirty-Three

There was no moon. Clouds hid, afraid of the dark. Stars were so bright that whenever I shut my eyes they burned sparks on the dark inside. The wind was everywhere, playful, happy to see us out there on the surface of nowhere, and the ship plunged and rose gently, as if swimming through the waves, rather than floating on them.

I’d waited three days in Madras for just such a night, as had the seventy-seven others with me. Those waiting days had shrunk to minutes: minutes before midnight, minutes before leaving the danger of the ship for the greater danger of small boats, on the open ocean.

Waves licked at the prow, streaming in salted mists all the way to the stern where I stood, dressed in dark blue fatigues and jacket, one more camouflaged bundle on the camouflaged deck.

I looked at the stars, as the ship sighed through the waves, drifting between dark night and darker sea.

Most ocean-going cargo ships are painted white, cream or pale yellow above the waterline. In the event of an emergency at sea, such as dead engines or a ruptured hull, they can be seen from far by search and rescue vessels, or aircraft.

The Mitratta, a Panamanian coastal freighter of fifty thousand tons, was painted dark blue, everywhere, and dark blue tarpaulins covered the cargo and rig on the deck.

The captain ran the bridge on instrument lights. The ship was so dark that the forward running lights seemed like tiny creatures, diving into and out of the waves.

Figures huddled together like bundles of cargo, which, of course, we were. Smuggled people smuggle their dreams with them, and they whispered to one another often, but no word could be heard. Their whispers were always just softer than the lush of the waves. Victims of war become masters of silence.

I suddenly needed company. I made my rolling way along the deck to the first of several groups. I smiled at them, teeth in the darkness. They smiled back at me, teeth in the darkness.

I sat down beside them. They began whispering again.

They were speaking in Tamil. I couldn’t understand a word, but I didn’t mind. I was in the bubble-murmur of their voices, the gentle music of it dripping shadows around us on the painted steel deck.

A figure approached, and squatted down beside me. It was Mehmood, nicknamed Mehmu, my contact on the ship.

‘It’s a young war,’ he said softly, looking at the faces of the Tamils near us on the deck. ‘The Tamil homeland in Sri Lanka is an old idea, but the young are dying for it. Can you come with me now?’

‘Sure.’

I followed him until we reached the afterdeck.

‘They don’t trust you,’ he said, lighting two cigarettes, and passing me one. ‘It’s nothing personal. They don’t know who you are, or why you’re in the group. When you’re in a situation that only ever gets worse, like theirs, everyone’s a threat, even a friend.’

‘You stay on this ship for every tour?’

‘I do. We unload the legit cargo, and I go back with the ship to Madras.’

‘I wouldn’t want to do this every month. Those patrol boats we saw weren’t far away, and they’ve got big guns.’

He laughed quietly.

‘You know anything about the Tamil Muslims in Sri Lanka?’

‘Not much.’

‘Pogroms,’ he said. ‘Look it up.’

He laughed, but it was just sadness, finding a different way to his face. He straightened up.

‘The gold and passports you’re bringing will help,’ he said. ‘We have to buy people out of prison, and then we have to get them out of Sri Lanka to tell the world about our situation. For the others, it’s a new civil war. For us, this is a war we never start, but always have to fight. For us, this isn’t a matter of nationality, it’s a matter of faith.’

Faith, again. There wasn’t any pure or noble cause in what I was doing. There was no cause but my own. I was ashamed to think it, standing next to a man who risked his life for what he believed.

The hundred-gram gold ingots I was smuggling had been melted down from jewellery that the Sanjay Company had stolen or extorted. There was blood on it already, and I was carrying it: nothing noble, and nothing pure.

But there was still a stained-glass shard of faith somewhere inside. Mehmu’s sacred mission was a job, for me, it was true, but the same dark vessel carried both of us to the same dark war. And it was a war of one, for me: one man’s freedom from a gang that was once a band of brothers.

Faith is belief without fear, and freedom is one of faith’s perfections. Standing there on that smothered deck, listening to prayers in Arabic, Hindi, English, Sinhalese and Tamil, the stars so bright those tiny suns burned my eyes, I put my faith in freedom, and asked Mehmu for my gun.

He lifted his sweater to show me the handgun, stuffed into the belt of his trousers. It was a Browning HP, standard issue to Indian Army officers. The penalties for trading in them were severe, which was why the officers who sold them to us charged a premium.

I liked Mehmu, and wished that he could come with me to Sri Lanka. He was a fit, knowledgeable thirty-year-old, fluent in six languages, and had a confident eye. I didn’t like Mehmu’s gun.

‘What’s with the cannon?’

‘It’s a bit… conspicuous, I’ll give you that,’ he replied, looking around as he handed me the weapon and a magazine.

‘Conspicuous? This thing is a zebra in a line-up.’

I checked the gun, and flipped the safety on.

‘If you’re gonna get caught with a gun in this war,’ he said, ‘it’s gotta be this one. Any other gun, they’ll go to work on you for a long time, before they drop you from a helicopter into the sea, right about here, actually.’

‘But this gun?’

‘This gun gives you a chance. The Indian Army has the island nailed down, but there’s so many freelancers everywhere now. Americans, Israelis, South Africans, and all of them are working with the Research and Analysis Wing. If the Indian Army catches you with this gun, you can try to pass yourself off as a RAW agent. It’s a long shot, but you wouldn’t be the first that got away with it. It’s the Wild East out there.’

‘So, I carry a big gun, and when they see it, because it’s so big, I talk them into believing I’m working for them, and then actually start working for them, if they let me live?’

‘It happens,’ he shrugged. ‘A lot, actually.’

‘Gimme a little gun, Mehmu. I don’t wanna kill wildebeest. I just wanna make enough noise to give me time to run away. If they catch me, I’ll ditch the gun and deny it. I’d rather do that than start working for them.’

‘But a little gun,’ he mused. ‘I always say, if you have to shoot someone in the eye to kill him, your gun’s too small.’

I looked at him for a while.

‘A small gun?’ He sniffed. ‘It’s right in the eye, man, or it’s like gravel rash, with a little gun.’

‘You don’t say.’

‘I do say. It happens. A lot, actually.’

‘You got a little gun, or not?’

‘I do,’ he mused. ‘If you’d be prepared to exchange?’

‘Show me.’

He took a small box of cartridges and a.22-calibre automatic from his jacket pockets. It was the kind of weapon designed to fit snugly next to lipstick, perfume and a credit card in a purse: a girl’s gun.

‘I’ll take it.’

We swapped guns. I checked the weapon and put it in my jacket pocket.

‘I’d wrap that lot in plastic,’ he said, tucking the Browning into his trousers again. ‘And lock it up with surgical tape.’

‘In case I end up in the water?’

‘It happens.’

‘Uh-huh?’

‘A lot, actually. What is this, your first smuggling run or what?’

I’d smuggled passports and gold to nine countries, but always by plane, and always on Czechoslovakian Airways. The communist airline was the only one in Bombay that accepted payment for tickets in rupees, and checked for weapons, but nothing else. Whatever else you had on you in transit flights, from gold bars to bundles of money, was your problem. And because nobody but Czechoslovakians actually went all the way to communist Czechoslovakia on Czechoslovakian Airways, it wasn’t their problem either.

‘I fly. Back and forth, in seventy-two hours. I don’t do ships.’

‘You don’t like ships?’

‘I don’t like power, on land or sea.’

‘Power?’

‘Power. Absolute power. The law of the sea.’

‘You mean the captain?’

‘Any captain. I think the Bounty was the last free ship.’

Voices whispered hoarsely near the piles of cargo secured to the deck. People began to stand. We saw figures moving back and forth between clusters of shadows.

‘What are they doing?’

‘They’re passing out cyanide capsules, to those who want them.’

‘People do that?’

‘A lot, actually.’

‘You know, Mehmu, the whole morale thing. You’re shit at it.’

‘You want a suicide capsule, while they’re still handing them out?’

‘See what I mean?’

‘You want one, or not?’

‘I’m more your kicking and screaming all the way type, but thanks all the same.’

The commotion on the deck increased. The ship’s first officer strode to the port side with several members of the Filipino crew. They uncovered bundles of rope-and-plank ladders, and began to roll them over the side.

‘Better get below, and get your stuff,’ Mehmu said. ‘I’ll wait for you at the ladders.’

I worked my way around the comparatively empty starboard side of the vessel to my crewman’s berth.

Wrapping the small automatic and the box of ammunition in plastic bags, I sealed them with tape and shoved them into my backpack. I pulled off my jacket and sweater, put on the heavy vest I’d hidden, and dressed again.

The vest contained twenty kilos of gold and twenty-eight blank passports. With an effort, I zipped up my jacket, and paced up and down in the cabin to adjust my step to the extra weight.

There was an open journal on the bed. I’d been trying to write a new short story. I was challenging myself with a difficult subject. It was about happy, loving people in a happy, loving place, doing happy, loving things. It wasn’t going well.

I scooped the journal, the pen and everything else on the bed into the backpack, and turned to leave. I reached out to turn off the light and caught sight of my face in a mirror, set into the door panel.

The reckless truth of travel into countries and cultures far from your own is that sometimes, you’re just rolling with the dice. Fate, the tour guide, can lead any traveller, at any moment of the journey, into a labyrinth of learning and love, or the long tunnel of a dangerous adventure. And every traveller knows those moments in the mirror: the last, long look at yourself before Okay, let’s do this.

I switched off the light, and made my way back on deck.

Lines of people were assembled at the ladders. The first officer gave the whispered command, and the smuggled people began to disembark.

I shuffled forward, last in line. A crewman was handing out life-preserver vests, and helping people to fit them.

Mehmu was standing beside him.

‘Take mine, as well,’ he said, when the crewman fitted me with a vest.

Our eyes met. He knew that if I ended up in the sea, one vest might not hold me afloat, with twenty kilos of gold on my body.

The crewman handed me a second vest, and then gave me a small metal object, and urged me forward.

‘What’s this?’ I asked, when Mehmu and I paused, away from the crowded rail.

‘It’s a clicker,’ he said.

It was a child’s toy, made from two pieces of tin that made a click-clack sound, when it was pressed. I pressed it.

Click-clack.

‘If you’re in the water,’ Mehmu said, ‘stay where you are. Keep together with the others in the water.’

‘The others?’

‘A boat will come back to the ship,’ he continued, ‘and the ship will circle you from a klick or so away, until we get the all clear.’

‘A klick or so away?’

‘When you see or hear anything, use the clicker to let them know where you are. Most people keep it in their teeth, like this, so they don’t lose it.’

He reached out, took the clicker, and held the edge of it in his teeth. My clicker was shaped like a pink dragonfly. He was looking at me with a pink dragonfly in his mouth, and he was sending me into the sea.

‘It’s from a movie,’ he said, handing back the clicker. ‘The Longest War, I think it’s called.’

‘The Longest Day.’

‘Yeah, that’s the one. Have you seen it?’

‘Yeah. Have you?’

‘No. Why?’

‘I think you should take a peek. Thanks for everything, Mehmu. It was nice sailing with you, even if I don’t like sailing.’

‘Me, too. If you run into a chunky girl, thirty years old, about five-five high, wearing a sky-blue hijab, don’t show her the little gun.’

‘You stole it off a girl?’

‘Kind of.’

‘An enemy, or a friend?’

‘Does it make a difference?’

‘Hell, yeah.’

‘It was a bit of both. She’s my wife.’

‘Your wife?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And you love her?’

‘I’m mad about her.’

‘And… if I show her the gun… she might -’

‘Shoot you,’ he said. ‘It happens. A lot, actually. She shot me once. She’s a fighter, my wife.’

‘Okay, let me get this straight. Chunky, thirty, five-five, blue hijab. Right?’

‘Right. That’s her name, in fact. Her comrade name.’

‘What?’

‘Blue Hijab. That’s her name.’

‘Her name is Blue Hijab?’

‘Yeah.’

‘O… kay. Thanks for the heads-up.’

‘No sweat,’ he smiled. ‘I warn everyone about her. She’s so dangerous, I love her to death.’

‘I hear you.’

‘And remember, there’s only one rule on the way to shore. Anyone tries to take your place on the boat, push him overboard.’

‘It happens?’

‘A lot, actually.’

‘You!’ the first officer grunted, jabbing a finger at me.

I walked to the rail, swung over, and started descending the rope-and-wood ladder.

It was much more difficult than I’d thought. The ladder swirled and swung out over the sea, forcing me to hug ropes and bits of wood like family. Then the ladder slammed back into the unyielding steel of the hull, scraping skin from unprepared fingers.

I came to the last few steps of the ladder. The three boats seemed tiny: pilot fish, hovering against the shark-hide of the freighter.

They were fishing boats, flat and open, like oversized versions of the lifeboats on the deck of the ship, but with a motor. We were still in open sea. The boat I was dropping into was already crowded. It didn’t look safe. I took the last steps, and the smell of fish, oiled into the ribs of the ship, reassured me.

Fishermen, I thought. Fishermen know the sea.

Friendly hands guided me aft, stepping over feet and small bundles. Friendly hands guided others forward. The crew was distributing the weight.

I counted twenty-three people. The crew of the freighter waved all clear, and drew up the ladders. Our tillerman shoved us away from the ship, and moved into open sea under power.

The motor was quiet, muffled by a soundproofed cabinet.

Click-clack.

A boat nearby in the darkness signalled to us. Click-clack. We all turned to see it. Click-clack, somebody signalled back. Click-clack.

‘You know what the difference is, between war and peace?’ the man sitting next to me whispered, a smile in his voice.

‘I’m guessing you’ll tell me,’ I whispered back.

‘In peace time, you sacrifice twenty to save one. In war time, you sacrifice one to save twenty.’

‘Nice try,’ I smiled.

‘You don’t agree?’

‘We don’t sacrifice for numbers. We sacrifice for love, and land.’

‘The numbers in this war, are high enough to make a difference.’

‘You were talking about war and peace.’

‘And?’

‘War has the blood on the outside. Peace has the blood on the inside, where it belongs. That’s pretty much the difference, so far as I’ve seen. War knocks the buildings down, and peace builds them up again.’

He laughed quietly, his lips closed.

‘I’m your contact,’ he said.

‘Uh-huh?’

‘I came with the boat. I’m here to make sure you get where you’re going.’

He was a little younger than I was, short and lean, with a cheeky grin that must’ve won him lips, and cost him slaps.

‘Glad to know you. How long before we make shore?’

‘Not long.’

He handed me a plastic jug and started bailing out the water that lapped into the boat with occasional waves. I joined in. People all along the shallow boat were bailing out. The tillerman laughed softly.

Click-clack.

The sea, that restless sleeper, rolled shoulders of current beneath us. Water splashed into the boat, soaking us in salt. Click-clack.

When the boats reached the shore we jumped out into waist-deep water and struggled for the beach. The boats began to pull away.

We ran for the trees. At the tree line, I looked back at the sea. Some of the slower men and women were still running, scuffing sand as they kicked and ruffled across the beach: a thing of fun, a foot race, maybe, on a sunny day, but a thing of fear that night.

There was no sign of the ship: no light but the stars.

My contact waved to me from another stand of trees. I joined him, and we moved deeper into the jungle. After a while he paused, listening.

‘What’s your name?’ I whispered, when we were sure no-one was following us.

‘No names here, man,’ he said. ‘The less you know, the better. Truth’s a sweet thing, unless someone’s cutting it out of you, and then it’s a very bitter thing. Ready to move?’

‘I’m good.’

‘There’s a truck heading south on the main road. It’ll wait for us, but it won’t wait long. The boats were a little off course. We’ve got a lot of country to pass, and not much time.’

We headed into the surrounding bushes, and in a few minutes we were moving through a swathe of jungle that ran parallel to the coast. Every now and then we glimpsed dark waves through a tree break, but after a while the sea was too far away to hear, and even the scent faded in the stronger fragrances of jungle damp.

My contact led us again and again into a smothering mass of leaves as big as elephants’ ears, to emerge on a narrow path that was invisible until he plunged us into it.

He wasn’t navigating by the stars: we couldn’t see them. His mental map of the jungle was so precise that he never hesitated in his rapid walk.

I lost him, twice. Each time I froze, listening for his step. Each time I heard nothing until he tapped me on the shoulder, and we headed off through the jungle again.

With my backpack and the smuggling vest, I was carrying thirty-five kilos. But the weight wasn’t the problem. To stop the vest from shifting, and accidentally dislodging the tablets, I’d strapped it tightly to my chest and waist. Every breath was a struggle.

We pushed through a verge of leaves and bushes onto a main road.

‘Gotta save time,’ my companion said, glancing at his watch. ‘We’ll risk a side road, for a while. Much faster. If you see any light at all, hit the trees and hide. I’ll draw it off. You stay put. You got that?’

‘Yeah,’ I puffed.

‘You want me to carry the vest, for a while?’

‘I’m good.’

‘Let me at least take the backpack,’ he whispered.

I slipped the backpack off my shoulder gratefully, and he strapped it on.

‘Okay, let’s jog.’

We ran along the rough side road in a silence so complete that the occasional animal or bird cry was shocking. Every breath strained against the constricting vest.

In truth, a Nigerian gunrunner once said to me, the smuggler only really smuggles himself. All the other stuff that he carries, it’s just an excuse, you know? By the time we reached the pickup point, my excuse was threatening to stop my heart.

‘We’re here,’ my contact said.

‘Hallelujah,’ I puffed. ‘You guys ever heard of motorcycles?’

‘Sorry, man,’ my contact smiled, handing me my backpack. ‘But I think we’re in time.’

‘You think?’ I gasped, resting my arms on my knees.

‘Have you got a gun?’ he asked.

‘Of course.’

‘Get it handy. Now.’

I unwrapped my pistol, as he checked and reloaded his ten-shot automatic. He glanced around and saw the small.22-calibre purse pistol.

‘If you run into a chunky woman, wearing a sky-blue hijab -’

‘I know. Don’t show her the gun.’

‘Fuck, man,’ he grinned. ‘You like living dangerously.’

‘Something tells me that this Blue Hijab leaves a lasting impression.’

‘She’s fine. A great comrade,’ he laughed. ‘Just don’t show her the gun.’

He glanced at his watch again, and stared into the darkness that ate the road where starlight failed.

‘If this goes south, so do you,’ he said, glancing at his watch again. ‘Head due south. This road goes to Trincomalee. Stay in the jungle, as much as you can. If you make it, report at the Castlereagh hotel. You’re booked in for two weeks. You’ll be contacted there.’

‘This is where you get off?’

‘Yeah. You won’t see me again.’

He began muttering indistinctly.

‘What?’

‘A diamond, for a pearl,’ he said.

I waited.

‘We shouldn’t be here, us Tamils. We left a diamond, Mother India, for a pearl. And no matter what we do, no matter how many of us die, it’ll never be worth it, because we gave up a diamond, for a pearl.’

‘Why do you still fight?’

‘You don’t know much about us Tamils, do you? Wait! Did you hear that?’

We listened for a while to the darkness. A small animal moved through the jungle nearby, swiftness hissing through the leaves. The jungle was silent again.

‘I’m fighting the army that trained me,’ he said softly, staring north along the road.

‘The Indian Army?’

At that time, the major military presence in Sri Lanka was the IPKF, the Indian Peace Keeping Force.

‘RAW,’ he replied. ‘They trained all of us. Bombs, weapons, tactical coordination, the whole lot.’

The Research and Analysis Wing was India’s counter-intelligence unit. It held a fearsome reputation throughout the region. RAW operatives were highly trained and motivated, and their By Any Means Necessary status gave them a licence that left a lot of questions where their commando boots landed, and not many answers.

Indian intelligence agents collected information from many sources, including the gangs. Every mafia Company in Bombay knew someone from RAW, openly or undercover, and every mafia Company knew better than to fight them.

‘And now they’re at war with us,’ my contact sighed, ruefully. ‘A diamond, crushing a pearl.’

We heard a noise, maybe the distant grating of gears, and hunkered down in the bushes, staring at the tunnel of the road. Then we heard the unmistakeable grunt and cough of a truck engine, labouring uphill.

The tall, tottering cargo truck rolled into view, and began coasting downhill toward us.

‘Is it ours?’

‘It’s ours,’ he grinned, pulling me up with him.

We walked to the edge of the road, where he waved a small blue-light torch. The truck squealed and creaked to a stop, the engine racing on idle.

As we approached, I noticed that a jeep had been driving behind the truck, lights out, and had stopped in its shadow.

My contact led me to the jeep. I glanced into the back of the truck and saw fifteen or more people sitting on bales of cotton.

‘You’re in the jeep,’ my contact said. ‘You’re a journalist, remember? Can’t have you travelling with the common folk.’

My cover name was James Davis, Canadian, a stringer for Reuters news agency. My passport and accreditation were impeccable: I’d made them myself.

We shook hands, knowing that we’d probably never see one another again, and that one or both of us would probably be dead within the year.

He leaned in close to me.

‘Remember, check in at the Castlereagh, keep a low profile, you’ll be contacted within forty-eight hours. Good luck. May Maa Durga be your guardian.’

‘And yours.’

He broke away to clamber up the tailgate of the truck and onto a cotton bale. He waved, and smiled at me.

For an instant, it looked exactly like the throne of sacks in the courtyard of the Cycle Killers, but with ghosts of war, instead of hired assassins.

I took the passenger seat of the jeep, shaking hands with the driver and the two young men sitting in the back.

The truck pulled away and the jeep followed. My contact’s face hovered in the swaying shadow, carrying him south. His eyes held mine.

People who abhor crime, as I do, often ask why men who commit crimes, as I did, do such things.

One of the big answers is that the low road is always easier, until it crumbles away beneath desire. One of the small answers is that when life and freedom are at stake, the men you meet are often exceptional. In other lives, they’d be captains of industry, or captains of armies.

In the jungle, on the run, they’re friends, because a friend is anyone prepared to die beside you. And men who’ll die beside you without even knowing you are hard to find, unless you know a lot of cops, soldiers or outlaws.

The truck turned onto a side road. Shadows closed over my contact’s face. I never saw him or heard about him again.

We rode on for twenty minutes, and then the driver stopped the jeep in a clearing, beside the road.

‘Get your passport and papers ready. We’re going through a few checkpoints. Sometimes they’re manned, sometimes, not. Things have been quiet here, for a while. Put this on.’

He handed me a dark blue flak vest with the word PRESS on the chest. The driver and the two men in the back donned flak vests, and the driver stuck a white square bearing the same word on the windshield.

We rode on past scattered cabins and shacks, and then the first large houses. What seemed to be the light of a forest fire on the horizon was the bright city, only ten kilometres away.

We passed through three unmanned checkpoints, slowing to a crawl each time, and then speeding up quickly. Skirting the city, we reached the coastal vantage point of Orr’s Hill, and the Castlereagh hotel, in just under an hour.

‘Damn lucky,’ the driver said, as he stopped the jeep in the driveway. ‘There’s a Bollywood actress doing a show tonight for the Indian troops. Guess they couldn’t tear themselves away.’

‘Thanks for your help.’

‘Don’t mention,’ he smiled. ‘May Jesus be with you, comrade.’

‘And with you.’

The jeep backed out of the driveway and sped away. The local contacts had been a Muslim, a Hindu, and a Christian, and they’d all used the word comrade. My contacts were always black market hustlers: men you knew how far to trust. The comrades were a new touch. I wondered what other surprises Sanjay had in store for me. I shouldered my backpack, and looked up at the gabled prow of the Castlereagh hotel.

It was in the white colonial style that colonial white men built for themselves, wherever they could steal gold. The gold in the vest, strapped to my chest, was coming back home to one of those colonies, and I couldn’t get rid of it fast enough.

I paused, and did a name check. A smuggler has to live in a new fake name and accent for a while, before using it. As a fugitive with a price on my head, I collected accents and practised them whenever I could.

I’m James Davis. James. My name is James Davis. Maybe not. I’m Jim Davis. Was I Jimmy, as a kid? Jim Davis, pleased to meet you. No, please, call me Jim.

When I found the fake name I could trust, I found my way into the new life I had to live for a while. The problem was simplified by war for my companion, my contact, who’d ridden away as a shadow in the back of a truck. When he wasn’t with those he loved or trusted, he had no name at all.

I climbed the granite and tile steps, crossed the wooden veranda and tapped on the filigreed glass of the main door. In a few moments, the night porter opened the door a crack.

‘Davis,’ I said, flipping easily into a Canadian accent. ‘Jim Davis. I have a reservation.’

He waved me inside, locking the door securely, and led me to the reservations desk, where he copied my passport details into a ledger that was half the size of a pool table. It took a while.

‘The kitchen is closed, sir,’ the attendant said at last, closing the book a page at a time as if he was making a bed. ‘There are very few guests at the moment. The season proper begins in three months. But there are cold snacks, and I can mix you a very nice drink, if you like. The house special.’

He walked across the large hotel reception area and switched on a lamp beside a comfortable, linen-covered couch. Moving nimbly, he crossed the room again, and opened a door leading to the bathrooms.

He switched on another light, and plucked a towel from the rail.

‘If you’d like to freshen up, sir?’ he said.

I was hungry and thirsty. I didn’t want to spend half an hour or longer creating a safe hiding-place in the hotel room for my golden vest. So long as I was wearing it, the vest was safe.

I accepted the towel, washed my face and hands, and then sat down on the couch, where a place had already been set for me.

‘I took the liberty of preparing a drink, sir,’ he said, placing a tall glass in front of me. ‘With coconut, fresh lime, a bite of ginger, a dash of bitter chocolate flakes, and a few secret ingredients of my own. If it’s not to your liking, I’ll prepare another of your choosing.’

‘So far, I’m happy to let you do the choosing, Mr – may I know your name?’

‘Ankit, sir,’ he replied. ‘My name is Ankit.’

‘A nice name. The Complete. I’m Jim.’

‘You know Indian names, sir?’

‘I know Indian names, Ankit. Where are you from?’

‘I’m from Bombay,’ he said, placing a tray of sandwiches in front of me. ‘Like you.’

He was either my contact at the hotel, or he was an enemy. I was hoping for the contact. The sandwiches looked good.

‘Wanna sit down?’

‘I can’t,’ he said, speaking softly. ‘It wouldn’t look right, if someone came in. But thank you, anyway. Are you okay?’

He meant, Did you bring any trouble with you? It was a fair question.

‘I’m good,’ I said, dropping the Canadian accent. ‘We passed through empty checkpoints. We were lucky. There’s a movie star in town, entertaining the troops.’

He relaxed, allowing himself to lean on the back of an armchair.

He was a little taller than I was, thin, perhaps forty-five years old, and had thick, grey hair. His eyes were sharp, and he was fit. I guessed that his confident, graceful movements had been learned in boxing, or some other martial art.

‘I made veg, and non-veg options,’ he said, gesturing toward the tray of sandwiches.

‘Right now I’m hungry enough to eat the napkin option. Mind if I go ahead?’

‘Eat! Eat!’ he said in Hindi. ‘I’ll fill you in, while you fill yourself in, so to speak.’

I ate everything. The cocktail was good, too. My contact, Ankit, a Hindu from Bombay in the middle of a war involving Buddhists, Muslims and other Hindus, was a good host and a valuable resource. While I ate, he listed the requirements for my two- or three-day role of journalist.

‘And most importantly, you have to report to the checkpoint every day before noon, to get stamped,’ he said in conclusion. ‘That’s a must. If you’re here for a few days, and they see a single day missing, you’ll be detained. Have you ever had the feeling that you’re not wanted?’

‘Not recently.’

‘Well, if you miss a day, and they catch you, you’re going to feel like the Universe doesn’t want you any more.’

‘Thanks, Ankit. Doesn’t anyone in this war have a sense of humour? The Universe doesn’t want me any more? That’s such a depressing thought that I insist on one more of your special cocktails, immediately.’

‘Just don’t miss that checkpoint,’ he laughed, returning to the small bar in the lounge area.

He went back to the bar several times, I guess. I lost count after the third time, because everything after that was the same thing, somehow, like watching the same leaf float past on a stream, again and again.

I wasn’t doped. Ankit was a damn good bartender: the kind who knows exactly how drunk you don’t need to be. His voice was soft, kind and patient, although I had no idea what he was saying, after a while. I forgot about the mission, and the Sanjay Company.

Flowers so big I couldn’t put my arms around them tried to press my eyes closed. I was tumbling, slowly, drifting, almost weightless, in feathered petals.

Ankit was talking.

I closed my eyes.

The white flowers became a river. It carried me to a place of peace, among the trees, where a dog ran toward me, frantic with happiness, and pawed at my chest happily.

Chapter Thirty-Four

‘Davis!’

The dog scratched and pawed at the edge of the dream, trying to claw me back to that place, that sacred space.

‘Davis!’

I opened my eyes. There was a blanket over me. I was still sitting where I’d slept, but Ankit had put a pillow behind my head, and a blanket over my chest. My hand was in my jacket pocket, holding the small automatic. A deep breath told me that the golden vest was still in place.

Okay.

There was a stranger stooping over me.

Not okay.

‘Back off, friend.’

‘Sure, sure,’ the man said, straightening up and offering his hand. ‘I’m Horst.’

‘Do you often wake people up to meet them, Horst?’

He laughed. It was loud. Too loud.

‘Okay, Horst, do me a favour. Don’t laugh like that again, until I’ve had two coffees.’

He laughed again. A lot.

‘You’re kind of a slow learner, aren’t you?’

He laughed again. Then he offered me a cup of hot coffee.

It was excellent. You can’t dislike someone who brings you good, strong coffee, when you’ve been thirty-minute drunk only four hours before.

I looked up at him.

His eyes were sun-bleached blue. His head seemed unnaturally large, to me. I thought that Ankit’s coconut lime drinks were to blame until I stood, and saw that he had an unnaturally large head.

‘That’s a big head you’ve got on you,’ I said, as I shook hands with him. ‘Ever played rugby?’

‘No,’ he laughed. ‘You can’t imagine how hard it is to find a hat that fits.’

‘No,’ I agreed. ‘I can’t. Thanks for the coffee.’

I started to walk away. It was still in the half-light. I wanted to beat the dawn to my bedroom, and sleep a little more.

‘But you have to report, at the checkpoint,’ he said. ‘And believe me, it’s much safer for us just after dawn, than at any other time, ja.’

I was still wearing the flak vest marked PRESS. He was inviting me, as a fellow journalist. If I had to do it, it was better in company. Sleep no more.

‘Who are you with?’ I asked.

‘Der Spiegel,’ he replied. ‘Well, I’m freelancing for them. And you?’

‘How long have you been here?’

‘Long enough to know the safest time to report to the checkpoint.’

‘Do I have time to wash up?’

‘Make it quick.’

I ran upstairs to my room, stripped off, had a cold shower, and was dried and re-vested in six minutes.

I came down the stairs in a jog, but found the lounge area empty. The windows of dawn light were at exactly the same intensity as the lights in the room: a light without shadows.

A soft, scraping sound stirred the stillness. Gardeners were working already.

I walked through to the long, wide veranda, directly above the open wound of lawns surrounding the hotel: a wound that the jungle ceaselessly sought to heal.

Seven servants were hard at work, hacking, chopping and spraying herbicide on the perimeter: the urban front line in the war with nature.

I watched them for a while, waiting for Horst. I could hear the jungle, speaking the wind.

Give us twenty-five years. Leave this place. Come back, after twenty-five years. You’ll see. We’ll heal it of all this pain.

‘I’d like to have a few of those fellows working for me,’ Horst said, as he came to stand beside me. ‘My girlfriend has a place in Normandy. It’s lovely, and all that, but it’s a lot of work. A couple of these guys would fix it up in no time.’

‘They’re Tamils,’ I said, watching them drift across lawns lit by hovering dew. ‘Tamils are like the Irish. They’re everywhere. You’ll find hard-working Tamils in Normandy, if you look hard enough.’

‘How do you know they’re Tamils?’ Horst asked suspiciously.

I turned to face him. I wanted another coffee.

‘They’re doing the dirty work,’ I said.

‘Oh, yeah, yeah,’ he laughed.

It wasn’t funny. I wasn’t laughing. He pinched his laugh to a frown.

‘Which agency did you say you’re with?’

‘I didn’t say.’

‘You’re a real secretive guy, aren’t you?’

‘The shooting is wallpaper. The real war is always between us, the journalists.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Horst asked nervously. ‘I just asked you who you’re with, that’s all.’

‘See, if I make friends with you, and I break a story, and then I find out you stole it from me, I’d have to hunt you down and beat you up. And that’s not good.’

He squinted at me. His eyes flared.

‘Reuters!’ he said. ‘Only you Reuters pricks are so stingy with a story.’

I wanted another coffee. Ankit appeared at my elbow. He was carrying a small glass of something.

‘I thought that a fortification might be required, sir, if you will forgive the impertinence,’ Ankit said. ‘The road you walk this morning is not kind.’

I drank the glass, discovering that it was sherry, and damn good.

‘Ankit,’ I said, ‘we just got related.’

‘Very good, sir,’ Ankit replied equably.

‘You there,’ Horst said to Ankit. ‘Can you find out, please, if any of these fellows have work permits for outside of Sri Lanka?’

I held Ankit’s response with a raised hand.

‘Are we gonna get going, Horst, before the bears wake up?’

‘Bears?’ he said, making it sound like beers. ‘There are no bears. It’s tigers, not bears. The Tamil Tigers. They’re absolutely crazy, those fucks. They all carry suicide capsules, in case they’re caught.’

‘You don’t say.’

‘They don’t seem to realise that when they do that, commit suicide like that, they make the other side even more determined to throw them out of the country.’

‘Are we gonna do this?’

‘Yeah, yeah, sure. Don’t set fire to your pants.’

‘What?’

‘Don’t set fire to your pants,’ he repeated crossly, crossing the lawn.

‘Already with the rules,’ I said, following him out onto the main road.

Fighting in Trincomalee had ceased, and a slender ceasefire had prevailed for weeks. The German staff of Der Spiegel had returned to their home offices for other assignments. Horst, an Austrian stringer, had stayed on.

He was holding out for a new story: one that he could break without competition. He was hoping, in fact, that the Tamil Tigers would launch an offensive in the area, and that his faded-blue eyes would be the first eyes on a new war.

He was a tall, healthy, well-educated young man, in love with a girl, probably a nice girl, who lived on a farm in Normandy, and he was hoping for more war in Sri Lanka. Journalism, Didier once said to Ranjit, the media baron, the cure that becomes its own disease.

‘You haven’t got a camera?’ Horst asked, after we’d walked and talked about Horst for about fifteen minutes.

‘In my experience, checkpoints are allergic to any cameras but their own.’

‘True,’ he agreed, ‘but there was a severed head on the road, yesterday. The first one for a month.’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘And… if we see another one today… I’m not going to share the pictures.’

‘Okay.’

‘It’s not my fault that you left your camera.’

‘Got it.’

‘Just, you know, so we’re straight on that, okay?’

‘I don’t want your pictures of severed heads, Horst. I don’t even want to think about them. If there’s another severed head on this road, he’s all yours.’

There was another severed head on that road, only fifty metres further along.

At first, I thought it was a trick: a pumpkin, or a squash, shoved onto a pole as a macabre joke. In a few steps, I saw that he was a dead kid, maybe sixteen or seventeen.

His head was propped on a bamboo pole, driven into the ground so that the boy’s dead face was face to face with any living face that passed, on the main road.

The eyes were shut. The mouth was wide open.

Horst was adjusting his camera.

‘I told you so,’ he said. ‘I told you so.’

I started to walk along the road. He called out to me.

‘Where are you going?’

‘Catch me up.’

‘No, no! It’s not safe, alone on this road. That’s why I wanted to walk together. You should stay with me. I mean, for your safety.’

I kept walking.

‘Two, in two days!’ Horst said, as distance lost him. ‘Something’s up. I can feel it. I knew I was right to stay.’

He was clicking his camera.

Click-clack. Click-clack.

Killing the kid was a crime, but spiking his head was a sin, and sin always demands expiation. My heart wanted to find a way to return the kid’s head to his parents, help them find the rest of him, somehow, and lay him to rest.

But I couldn’t listen to my heart. I couldn’t even lay his dead young head on the earth, which every instinct inside me cried to do. I had a vest full of gold and passports, and my own passport was as false as my journalist accreditation. I was a smuggler, on a mission, and I had to walk away.

Alone on the road I grieved for that kid, whoever he was, whatever he’d done. I walked on, finding my hard face again, trying to lose all thought of it in the jungle, bright in a brief halo of sunlight between storms.

Trees were plentiful, growing tall and strong in nurseries of shrubs and plants, some waist-high, some reaching to my shoulders.

The leaves shivered drops of the last rain onto the thick roots of the trees: devotees pouring scented oil on the feet of tree-saints, whose raised-arm branches, and million-hand leaves had prayed the storm from the sea. Without trees to pray for it, there’s no rain, Lisa once said to me, as we’d rushed out to enjoy a warm, monsoon rainstorm.

Winds from the sea pacified storm-shaken trees. Branches dipped and swayed, foaming leaves waving with the sound of surf on the shore of the sky. Birds hovered and swooped, vanishing in walls of green, and darting out again, their shadows glittering on the wet road.

Nature was healing me, as Nature does, when we let it. I stopped grieving for the lost kid beside the road, and the lost kid inside me, and I stopped saying the words severed head.

A car approached me from the north. It was a battered white sedan, with the headlights covered in stars of black tape. The driver was a woman. She was chunky. She was short. She was thirty. She was wearing a sky-blue hijab.

She stopped beside me and leaned over to roll down the window.

‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’ she demanded.

‘I -’

‘Don’t tell me.’

‘But, you just asked -’

‘Get in the car.’

‘Who are you, again?’

‘Get in the car.’

I got in the car.

‘You’re compromised,’ she said, a pinched frown of contempt looking me up and down.

‘Salaam aleikum,’ I said.

‘You’re compromised,’ she repeated.

‘Salaam aleikum,’ I said.

‘Wa aleikum salaam,’ she replied, squinting at me angrily. ‘We’ve got to get out of here.’

She drove off but in a few seconds we saw Horst, still standing beside the kid’s head, still trying to get that perfect shot. She wanted to drive on but I stopped her, some ten metres past the journalist.

‘He’ll ask questions, if I disappear from the road. Let me handle this.’

I got out of the car, and jogged back to Horst.

‘What’s going on? Who’s that with you?’

‘I’ve just heard,’ I said breathlessly. ‘Fighting has started again. I’m getting the hell out of here. You want a ride back to the hotel?’

His eyes narrowed, as he looked north on the deserted road.

‘No, see, I think I’ll hang around. You go. It’s okay.’

‘I don’t like to leave you like this, when it’s getting dangerous.’

‘No, no, I’m fine. I’ll go see what’s happening at the checkpoint. You go on.’

He fumbled with the camera, and offered his hand. I shook it.

‘Good luck,’ I said.

‘Same to you. And do me a favour? Since you’re going, keep this to yourself for as long as you can, okay?’

‘Not a problem. Bye, Horst.’

He was already walking away, preparing his camera.

Click-clack.

When I got back in the car, I saw that Blue Hijab had a pistol in her hand. She was pointing it at me.

‘All good,’ I said.

She drove off at speed, one handed. She was changing gears with the hand that held the pistol, and making me nervous enough to flinch as she nudged the lever violently with the heel of her hand.

‘What are you two, sweethearts?’ she demanded. ‘Blah, blah, blah. What did you tell him?’

‘What he wanted to hear. Are you going to shoot me?’

She seemed to consider it.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘What did you tell that man? Whose side are you on?’

‘Your side, I hope. And if you shoot me, you’ll put a hole in one of the passports.’

She swung the car into a clearing that became a parking bay amid the trees. She turned off the engine, and put both hands on the gun.

‘You think this is funny? I’m dragged from a cover that I’ve worked on for two years, to pick you up at the hotel, collect the stuff, and drive you to the airport.’

‘A cover? What are you, a spy?’

‘Shut up.’

‘Aaah… okay, who are you again?’

‘I find you on the road, alone,’ she said, staring enigmas at me. ‘Then you stop to talk to a stranger. Convince me this isn’t a mistake, or by Allah I’ll put a bullet in your head, and strip the gold off your body.’

‘If you know your Holy Koran,’ I said, ‘it should be enough for me to give you the number of a verse.’

‘What the hell?’

‘Two, two hundred and twenty-four,’ I said.

‘The Cow,’ she sneered, giving the name of the verse from the Koran. ‘Are you trying to make a point about me? Are you saying I’m fat?’

‘Of course, not. You’re… curvy.’

‘Cut it out.’

‘You started it.’

‘Back to the verse, smart guy.’

‘If you’re not a Muslim, and you’re gonna learn a few verses from the Koran, verse two, two hundred and twenty-four, is a nice place to start. And make not Allah’s name an excuse in your oaths against doing good and acting piously -’

‘- and making peace among mankind,’ she finished for me, smiling for the first time.

‘Shall we do this?’ I asked, beginning to wrestle out of my jacket.

She put the gun in a pocket of her skirt, opened the back door of the car, and began to pull the back seat upright.

There was a hiding place underneath, behind a false cover. When I handed her the vest, she did a thorough check of every pocket and each passport.

Satisfied, she put the vest into the hiding place, and concealed it with the snap-fit cover. The seat clicked back into place, and we got back in the car.

‘We’ll stop at the hotel,’ she said, driving off. ‘You have to check out. We need you to be a ghost from here.’

‘A ghost?’

‘Shut up. We’re here. Go inside, get your stuff and check out. I’ll put petrol in the car, and meet you here in fifteen minutes. Not a second more.’

‘Do you -’

‘Get out!’

I got out. I ran the steps, entered the reception area and heard my name.

‘Mr Davis!’

It was Ankit, the night-and-day porter, standing in a bay window. He had a tray in his hand.

‘I saw Blue Hijab,’ he said, as I approached him, ‘and thought you might be needing this.’

I took a long sip of the long drink.

‘They don’t call you The Complete for nothing, Ankit.’

‘One strives to please, sir. Your things are with me at the desk. You need only sign the register, when you’re ready.’

‘Let’s do it now.’

‘You’ve got a six-hour drive ahead. I’m here, if you want to take a minute to freshen up.’

When I returned, Ankit had refilled the drink, and there was a packet of sandwiches, some water, and two bottles of soft drink beside my backpack on the counter.

I gave him a small roll of money. It was about five hundred American.

‘No, I can’t take this,’ he said. ‘It’s too much.’

‘We may never see each other again, Ankit. Let’s not part fighting.’

He smiled, and put the money away.

‘The snacks will keep you going, and this might help, if things get… a little tense… with Blue Hijab.’

It was a dime of hashish, and a packet of cigarettes.

‘I should smoke hash, if things get tense with an armed, angry woman?’ I asked, accepting the gift.

‘No,’ he said. ‘She should.’

‘Blue Hijab smokes hash?’

‘Loves the stuff,’ Ankit said, packing the drinks and food into my backpack. ‘It’s like catnip. But save it, for as long as you can. She gets mean when it runs out.’

A car stopped hard outside. The horn sounded three times.

‘You should imagine that she’s Durga, the warrior goddess, mounted on a tiger, and behave accordingly.’

‘How’s that, exactly?’

‘Be respectful, devoted and afraid,’ Ankit said, wagging his head wickedly.

‘It’s been a pleasure, new-old friend. Goodbye.’

I turned at the door to see him smiling and waving. I looked back at the car to see Blue Hijab, jabbing a finger at me, the engine of the car revving.

We roared out of the driveway and onto the main road, heading south toward Colombo. She leaned forward in her seat, her arms taut and her knuckles white.

After ten minutes of listening to her teeth grinding the pepper of her temper, I decided to make conversation.

‘I met your husband, Mehmu.’

‘This is how you break a serene silence? With mention of my bloody husband?’

‘Serene? I’ve seen more serenity under interrogation.’

‘To hell with you,’ she said, but she relaxed against the seat, drained of rage. ‘I’ve been… tense. And I don’t want to get any tenser.’

I wanted to say something funny, but she had a gun.

She drove well. I studied her style for a while as she passed trucks, slowed for temporary barriers, and hit sharp corners. I love being driven by a driver I trust. It’s a rollercoaster, with fatal risk.

The windscreen was a bubble, moving through space and time. Tree shadows arched over the car as we passed, trying to comfort us as the forests ended and fenced houses became beads and baubles on another chain of civilisation.

‘I shot a man, yesterday,’ she said, after a while.

‘A friend or an enemy?’

‘Does it make a difference?’

‘Hell, yeah.’

‘He was an enemy.’

We drove in silence, for a while.

‘Did you kill him?’ I asked.

‘No.’

‘Could you have killed him?’

‘Yes.’

‘The mercy outweighs the shame,’ I said.

‘Fuck you,’ she said.

‘All that cursing isn’t exactly in line with Islam, is it?’

‘It’s in English, it doesn’t count, and I’m a Muslim communist,’ she said.

‘O… kay.’

She pulled the car into a roadside stop amid fields of flowers, sprung from sodden earth. She looked around, and turned the engine off.

‘Did Mehmu look well?’

‘He did.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah, I like him. A lot, actually.’

She sobbed, suddenly, tears falling as freely as the raindrops that began to spatter the windows.

Just as quickly she recovered, dried her eyes, and began to open the bag of sandwiches.

She cried again, and couldn’t stop: something inside her was all of it, everything at once. I didn’t know what it was: I didn’t know her.

I saw the new-moon chips of nail polish near her cuticles, the bruise on her face, about the size of a man’s ring, the cuts on her own knuckles, the fragrance of fresh soap in her clothes, hand-washed in a hotel basin, the bag on the back seat, carrying essentials for a quick escape, and the quick escape she made every time her eyes detected that I might be looking into her, and not just at her.

But observation only took me to a tough, brave, devout girl on the run, who’s meticulous in her hygiene, but won’t clean the last coloured fragment of the girl she was from her fingernails. The why of her was still a mystery, because the why of anyone only comes with connection.

I felt helpless to console her. There were tissues in the bag. I handed them to her, one at a time, until the tears dried and the sobbing stopped, as the rain all around us stopped.

We got out and stood by the car. I tipped a stream of water from a bottle into her cupped hands, so that she could wash her face.

She stood there for a while, breathing air scented by white flowers, clinging to vines all around us.

We got back in the car, and I mixed a cigarette joint. She wouldn’t pass it back to me, so I mixed another. She wouldn’t give that back either, so I made a couple more cigarettes.

Minds floated free across fields of green velvet to memory’s greener pastures: that place, inside, where the soul is always a tourist. And I don’t know what memories danced for Blue Hijab, in those minutes, but for me it was Karla, turning and twirling, as she danced at the party. Karla.

‘I’m starving,’ Blue Hijab said. ‘And by the way -’

‘I know. If I speak a word of this to anyone, you’ll shoot me.’

‘I was going to say, thank you. But damn right. Pass me a sandwich.’

She started the car, and eased it out of the parking bay.

‘You don’t want me to take over for a while?’

‘I drive,’ she said, heading out onto the highway again, at speed. ‘I always drive. Give me a sandwich.’

‘What kind do you want?’

‘Give me one of those I-don’t-give-a-fuck sandwiches. You got one of those?’

‘A whole sack, as it turns out.’

She never spoke again on the trip. Sometimes she muttered zikr, phrases spoken in remembrance of God. Once, she broke into a chorus from a song, only to fade again in a few bars.

And when we stopped, before the road swerved into the entrance of the airport in Colombo, she simply turned the engine off and stared at me, in a continuation of that long silence, as strange as it was surprisingly sad.

‘I-muh’sinina,’ I said.

‘The doers of good?’ she translated.

‘You were saying it, while you were driving.’

‘Do you have a second passport?’

‘Of course.’

‘Get the first flight out that you can. Get home, as fast as you can. Do you hear me?’

‘Get home, as fast as I can. Okay, Mummy.’

‘Be serious. Do you need anything?’

‘You never told me how the mission was compromised.’

‘And I won’t,’ she said evenly.

‘You’re tighter with a story than a Reuters correspondent. Anyone ever tell you that, Blue Hijab?’

She laughed, and I was glad to see it.

‘Go. Now.’

‘Wait,’ I said. ‘I have something to give you. But if I do, you have to promise me something.’

‘What… something?’

‘Promise me not to shoot Mehmu… again. At least, not for something connected to me. I like the guy.’

‘I married the guy,’ she snarled. ‘But okay, okay, I won’t shoot him. I’ve already shot him twice, and he never stops whining about it.’

I took the small automatic from my pocket, took the spare shells from the other pocket, and handed them to her.

‘I think he wanted me to give you this,’ I said.

She cradled the small gun in her palms.

‘Mehmu, mehboob,’ she muttered, then tucked the gun away into another of the pockets in the pleated curtain of her black skirt. ‘Thank you.’

I stood from the car, stooping to say goodbye.

‘He’s a very lucky man,’ I said. ‘Allah hafiz.’

‘Much luckier, now that I pledged not to shoot him again. Allah hafiz.’

She drove away, and I made my way on foot up the entrance ramp to the airport.

In forty-five minutes I’d checked in. I was lucky, or Blue Hijab’s timing had been perfect. I only had an hour to wait.

I found a place where I could watch the people walking past, look at the faces, study the walk, see tension or empathy, lethargy or urgency, listen to the tenor of a laugh or a shout, feel a baby’s cry ripple through the hearts of almost all who hear it: a still moment in a public space, watching and waiting for the expression or cadence that writes itself.

A man came to sit beside me. He was tall and thin, with a bushy moustache and slicked-back hair. He was wearing a yellow shirt and white trousers.

‘Hello,’ he said out loud, and then changed to a whisper. ‘We should greet one another as friends, and go to the bar. I’m your contact here. It will look less suspicious if we’re having a drink.’

He offered his hand. I took it, drawing him in closer.

‘I think you’ve made a mistake, Jack,’ I said, holding his hand fast in mine.

‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘Blue Hijab called, and gave me your description.’

I released his hand and we stood together, pretend friends.

‘Her description was perfect,’ he said. ‘She really studied you.’

‘Somehow, that doesn’t fill me with reassurance,’ I said, as we walked to the airport bar.

‘Hell, no,’ he replied, throwing an arm around my shoulder. ‘With Blue Hijab, it’s better to keep it to fuzzy recollections.’

‘What is it, with the communist connection?’

‘When you’re looking for fighters, the enemy of your enemy is a good place to start.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘I can’t say any more than that.’

We talked the waiting minutes. He told me stories that might’ve been true, and I listened with what might’ve been belief, and then I cut him off before he started a new story.

‘What’s this all about?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Nobody has an exit contact at the airport,’ I said. ‘And Blue Hijab said I was compromised. What’s going on?’

He looked me over for a while, and seemed to conclude that my patience was drifting toward a storm. It was a good call.

‘I can’t say anything,’ he said, looking away.

‘You can. And you should. What the fuck is going on?’

‘Going on?’

‘Is there a threat to me in this airport, or not? Am I in danger? Am I gonna get busted? Spit it out, or spit your teeth out.’

‘You are not in danger,’ he said quickly. ‘But you are the danger. I was sent to watch you, that you didn’t do anything crazy.’

‘Crazy?’

‘Crazy.’

‘Crazy, like, what?’

‘They didn’t say.’

‘And you didn’t ask?’

‘Nobody asks. You know that.’

We looked at one another.

‘What were you going to do, if I did something crazy?’

‘Smooth it over with the authorities, and get you out of the country and back to Bombay as quick as possible.’

‘That’s it?’

‘I swear. And I don’t know any more.’

‘Okay. Okay. I’m sorry for that crack, about spitting your teeth out. I felt like I was walking into a trap for a minute or two there.’

‘You are not in danger,’ he said comfortingly. ‘But do not go directly to your house when you return.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Just report to the Company as soon as you return.’

‘Does this have something to do with how the mission was compromised?’

‘I don’t know. Sanjay was very specific about reporting to him. Very specific. But he didn’t explain.’

My flight was called. We shook hands again, and he slipped away through the crowds.

I took my seat on the plane, and had two drinks before take-off. I’d done the job. It was over. It was my last mission for the Sanjay Company. I was free, and my heart, the fool in that castle in the sky, sang all the way to thirty thousand feet.

Chapter Thirty-Five

I arrived in Bombay late, but Leopold’s was still open, and I knew Didier would probably be there. I wanted a report. The tall, thin airport contact had told me to go directly to the Company, which was unusual. I had a standing appointment with Sanjay, twenty-four hours after I returned from any mission. It was a mandatory cooling-off period, in case I was being followed, and Sanjay never varied that routine. But nothing about the job was usual policy, and none of it made sense. Before I went to my apartment, or Sanjay, I wanted Didier to tell me everything that had happened while I’d been away, and where Lisa was staying.

And Didier gave me a report, but not there.

We took a taxi in solemn silence. Didier answered every question with a raised hand. We stopped at a quiet place, with a view of the shrine at Haji Ali.

‘Lisa is dead,’ he told me, beside the windy sea, ‘from an overdose of drugs.’

‘What? What are you saying?’

‘She is gone, Lin.’

‘From drugs? What drugs?’

‘Rohypnol,’ Didier replied sadly.

‘No. No.’

‘Yes. Yes.’

‘It’s not possible.’

How could she be dead, I thought, and me not feel it, not know it somehow, not sense it?

‘It is a fact, my friend. She is no more.’

Splinters of lost time stabbed at me. All the things I should’ve said and should’ve done with Lisa, all the minutes I didn’t use to cherish her, everything stabbed me in the chest. I wasn’t there, with her, at the end.

‘It can’t be true.’

‘Sadly, it is true, Lin.’

I felt my knees wanting to run, or give way. A world without Lisa. Didier put an arm around me. We rested against the promenade wall.

A force of life drained away from me into the air. Atoms of love separated from the Source, because the world was turning too fast to hold them. The sky was hiding behind black cloaks of cloud, and the city-light on the water was the ocean crying. Something inside me was dying, and something else, a ghost, was trying to free itself.

I choked a breath, slowing my frantic heart, and faced my friend.

‘Her family?’

‘They were here,’ he said. ‘Very nice people.’

‘Did you talk to them?’

‘I did, and they talked to me, until they found out that I was your friend, as well as Lisa’s. I am sorry to tell you, Lin, but they blame you, in part, for Lisa’s death.’

‘Me?’

‘I spoke to them about you, for you, and for you and Lisa together, but they did not believe me. They do not know you, so it is easier for them to blame a stranger than to know the truth. They left the city yesterday, with the body of our sad, sweet Lisa.’

‘She’s gone? They took her home?’

‘She’s gone, Lin. I am so sorry. I am desolate.’

Cars passed us in swarms between traffic signals, leaving the wide boulevard open and then empty again. All along the sea wall people sat alone, in couples or in families, most of them gazing at the Haji Ali shrine, floating on the sea and lit for the soul.

‘What happened? Tell me everything you know.’

‘You are sure that you are ready, my friend? Could we get drunk first?’

‘Let me have it.’

‘Could I get drunk first?’

‘Didier, come on.’

‘I loved her, too, you know,’ he said, taking a sip from his flask. ‘And I’ve been through quite an ordeal, these last few days, without you.’

He put the flask away, took his brass cigarette case from his pocket, and selected a joint. Smoking peacefully for a few moments, he offered it to me.

‘I’m good.’

‘You’re good?’ he doubted, offering the joint again.

‘I’m not good, but I’m okay. I’m… not-good-okay. Tell me what happened.’

‘It was the night after you left. I -’

‘The night after? That’s five days ago.’

‘I tried everything to find you, Lin. The Sanjay Company would not say a word, and I could not find Abdullah. I think that wherever he is, he still does not know, as you did not.’

Abdullah, my heart said. Where are you?

‘He’ll be hurt,’ I said. ‘He liked Lisa, and she always liked him.’

‘Very much so. She was his Rakhi sister.’

‘His Rakhi sister? She never told me that. And neither did he.’

A Rakhi is a simple bracelet that a girl can tie on a boy’s wrist, indicating that from that day onwards he must behave as her brother, and defend her staunchly. The bracelet is a symbol of the new brother’s victory, whenever he fights for her honour.

‘I was her Rakhi brother too, Lin.’

‘When did that happen?’

I had no idea that Lisa even participated in the Rakhi ceremony, let alone that she’d chosen Abdullah and Didier as Rakhi brothers.

‘And it is my fault that she died,’ he said quietly. ‘I failed, in my duty to protect her, while you were away.’

He smoked for a while, refusing tears. He looked at me once, and started to speak, but when our eyes met he turned away. We both knew it was true: I’d left her in his care, and he’d promised to watch over her.

A street sweeper scraped his broom against the kerb. He looked up at me, and nodded amiably. I watched him swish and step, swish and step: a bayside boulevard, measured in sweeps of a broom.

‘She pulled a prank on me,’ Didier said. ‘And it was not fair of her to do such a thing, because I trusted her.’

‘Go on.’

‘We… we were watching a selection of excellent French films, which I had chosen for her personally, when she suddenly developed a headache. She retired early to bed, and sent me out to buy a certain medicine. When I returned, I discovered that I had been tricked. I found a note, saying that she was attending a party, and would return at dawn.’

He sighed, shaking his head, as tears fell.

‘Where did she go?’

‘I learned that she was at a party for Bollywood movie stars, somewhere in Bandra. You know how many parties there are in Juhu and Bandra every night, and how late those parties run. I did not expect her to return before dawn, so I decided to remain awake, during the night, with Gemini, who never sleeps, and wait for her to call me. I left messages everywhere, including with your watchman.’

‘You’re saying what, Didier? You were supposed to keep her safe, and she’s dead, and I don’t get it, so far.’

‘You are right, Lin, to condemn me.’

Who am I, to condemn anyone? I thought. And Lisa had played a lot of tricks on me, too. A few times she’d left me wondering for a long time where she was, and what she was doing.

‘Okay, okay, Didier. I get it. Lisa knows… Lisa knew… how to escape. She was good at it. It’s not your fault. Tell me the rest of it.’

‘I left messages for her, as I said, and I went to play poker with Gemini George, at the Mahesh. I was playing cards when our Lisa died. One of the street boys sent a note to me that Lisa had just been found, dead. I was desolate.’

‘And.’

‘When the autopsy was performed -’

No. No. Lisa, cut open, organs removed. Don’t think of it. Don’t picture it, in your mind.

‘An autopsy?’

‘It was… it was not pleasant,’ Didier said. ‘The police report confirmed that she died from an overdose of tranquillisers. She was alone, when she was found.’

‘Rohypnol?’

‘Rohypnol,’ Didier frowned. ‘Did you ever know her to use it, recreationally?’

‘Never. It doesn’t make sense. She didn’t do tranqs. She hated them, as much as I do. She didn’t even like it when other people did them.’

‘The police called it suicide, at first. They think she took a fatal dose of the drug intentionally.’

‘Suicide? No way. She’s a fighter.’

‘She was a fighter, Lin. She is no more.’

Is hadn’t become was, yet. Lisa was still too strong: I could hear her teasing laugh, every time I let my mind go to her.

‘Derelict as I was in my duty, when she was alive,’ Didier said, ‘I ensured that the word suicide was removed from the record of her death. Her death is ruled as accidental, involving an accidentally fatal dose of the tranquilliser, Rohypnol. Lightning Dilip made me pay a tidy sum for it. That police station should establish itself as a bank. I would buy shares, if they did.’

‘Who found her? The nightwatchman?’

‘No, Lin, it was Karla who found her.’

‘Karla?’

‘She said that she had a late rendezvous with Lisa, at your apartment. When she arrived, she found the door open, walked inside, and found Lisa. She alerted the watchman, and he called an ambulance, and the police.’

‘Karla?’

The ground was trembling, as if the waves were sweeping over the wall and through the road in murmured secrets.

‘Yes. It was a terrible shock for her, but she was a tower of strength, as the English say.’

‘What… what was that?’

‘The police questioned Karla… quite physically, in fact. I advised her to leave the city, for some time, but she refused. It was Karla who helped Lisa’s parents through the whole of the thing.’

‘When was the last time you spoke to her?’

‘The last time? Yesterday. There was a small service for Lisa at the Afghan Church, and she was there.’

‘A service, for Lisa? Even though Lisa was gone?’

‘Yes. Karla organised it.’

It was too much, too many hits in a single round: too long to the bell and a safe corner.

‘Karla did it?’

‘She did it alone, in fact. When she mentioned the idea to me, I offered to help, but she took charge of it herself.’

‘Who else was there?’

‘Her friends from the art gallery, a few of us from Leopold’s, Kavita, Vikram, Johnny Cigar and his wife, Naveen Adair and Diva Devnani, the Zodiac Georges, and Stuart Vinson and his Norwegian girlfriend. Lisa’s parents had already left the city, with her body, so it was a quiet affair.’

‘Who spoke for Lisa?’

‘No-one spoke. We just sat, silently, and then one by one we all left the church.’

Yesterday, when I should’ve been there, with others who loved Lisa. But yesterday I was staring at a severed head, on the side of the road. Yesterday, I was being warned by my tall, thin contact at the airport not to go home.

You are not in danger, he’d said. I hadn’t been paying attention. I hadn’t realised that what he’d said was specific to me. He’d hesitated, after the first word, for just an eyelid flicker: You, are not in danger.

He was telling me that I wasn’t in danger, but that someone else was. Did he know? Did he already know that Lisa was dead, when he met me at the airport?

And then I remembered Blue Hijab’s tears, the sadness in them, the long, silent stare, when she dropped me at the airport. Did she know about Lisa?

It happened days ago. The Sanjay Company knew, for sure: they knew everything that happened in their ward. I guessed that Sanjay was worried I might find out about Lisa somehow, at the airport, and lose control. He sent the thin man, in case I found out about Lisa, and compromised his mission.

‘I have done some research, with Naveen Adair,’ Didier said, examining me closely.

The ground was moving or my knees were moving as if I was back on the deck of the Mitratta. I couldn’t focus on what Didier was saying. There was ocean-sound in most of my mind. Lisa. Lisa. Lisa.

‘Lin?’

‘Sorry, what?’

‘I have been checking some facts, with Naveen.’

‘What facts?’

‘It is not possible to determine how the Rohypnol came to be in Lisa’s hands, but we did find out who supplied it.’

‘You did? How?’

‘We examined the pills from the evidence locker, and they have very distinctive markings.’

‘You stole police evidence?’

‘No, of course not. I bought police evidence.’

‘Well done. Whose dope was it?’

He hesitated, squinting at me, a net of concern covering his face.

‘If I tell you, will you promise, truly, that you will not kill him without me?’

‘Who is it?’

‘Concannon,’ he sighed.

That slippery slide shivered through the street again. I held the wall tighter, to stop falling. I couldn’t tell if I was dizzy, or the world was unbalanced. Everything was out of sync.

I looked around me, trying to get my head straight. The night was new-moon clear. The stars were paled city light. Behind us cars passed in shoals, as fish passed in shoals before us, in the bay.

‘She was not raped,’ Didier said.

‘What… did you say?’

‘When this drug is involved, there is always a suspicion of rape,’ he said softly. ‘The police report said that there was no sign of rape. I… thought you should know that.’

I looked down at the waves, lapping and splashing on boulders at the base of the sea wall: waves cleaning shells and driftwood twigs from stony teeth, and soothing granite shoulders with patience, softened in the sea.

The waves laughed. The waves cried. That glorious living second, ending as wind, and sea, and earth: the waves laughed, and cried, calling me. I was falling, hard. I had to get a grip. I had to pull myself together. I needed my motorcycle.

‘I have to go home,’ I said.

‘Of course. I will come with you.’

‘Didier -’

‘Why do you always fight affection, Lin? It is truly your great, personal flaw.’

‘Didier -’

‘No. When a friend wants to do a loving thing, you must allow him. What is love, but this?’

What is love, but this?

The words chanted themselves to me in the taxi, and only stopped when we reached the apartment, and sat down with the nightwatchman to ask about Lisa.

He cried for her, and for what we were for him: always happy, kind and generous, on every festival and name day.

When he calmed down, he told me that Lisa had returned around an hour after midnight, with two men in a black limousine.

One of the men returned to the car, after fifteen minutes or so, and drove away. The other man left about an hour later. Karla arrived a few minutes after, and called the watchman.

‘Did you know the men?’

‘No, sir.’

‘What did they look like?’

‘One was a foreigner. He was the first one to leave. He had a loud voice. He was walking with two sticks, and he was shouting in pain, like maybe he had a broken leg.’

‘Or maybe two fresh bullet wounds in the leg,’ Didier observed.

‘Concannon. And the other man?’

‘I never saw his face. He looked away from me, and he covered his mouth with a handkerchief, coming and going.’

‘Did he have a car?’

‘No, sir. He walked away, very fast, in the direction of Navy Club.’

‘Did you get the number of the car?’

‘Yes, sir.’

He went through his logbook, and gave me the number.

‘I’m so sorry, sir. I should have -’

‘Your job is to guard the gate, not the apartments. It’s not your fault. She liked you. Very much. And I know you would’ve saved her, if you could, just like I would’ve done. It’s okay.’

I gave him a chunk of money, asked him to keep his eyes open for the cops, and climbed the steps to my apartment.

I opened the door, walked through the living room and stepped into the bedroom. That place of quarrel and love, for us, had become a tomb for Lisa, alone.

The mattress she’d bought because she liked the seahorse pattern on the cover was stripped bare, but for two pillows at the head, and a pair of Lisa’s well-worn, well-loved hemp sandals at the base.

After a minute, I stopped staring at the place where Lisa’s breath had faded, and ceased, and stopped, and died, and I moved my eyes away.

The room was clean, and empty. Everything of hers was gone. I looked at the few things of mine that remained.

The red movie poster, Antonioni’s Blow Up, art and abandon becoming death and desire, and the wooden horse head on the window sill, my belts, strung on a suit stand in the corner, the sword, in two pieces in the wall unit, and a few books.

And it was all: all there was of me in the apartment. Without Lisa’s flowers and paintings and coloured sarongs, the place we’d called home was cold, and alone. What is civilisation? Idriss once remarked. It’s a woman, free to live as she wants.

‘There is a picture of her, in death, on that bed,’ Didier said, standing in the doorway. ‘It is in the police report. Do you want to see it?’

‘No. No. Thanks.’

‘I thought it might console you,’ he said. ‘She looked very, very peaceful. As if she simply went to sleep, forever.’

We listened to the silence, echoing off the walls in our hearts. Just the thought of that picture, of her dead sleep, made my stomach churn with dread.

‘You are not safe, I am afraid, Lin,’ Didier said. ‘The police are very hot for you. If they come to know that you have returned to Bombay, they will come here, looking for you.’

He was right: right enough to shake me awake.

‘Give me a hand,’ I said, beginning to wrestle the heavy chest of drawers away from the wall.

We pushed the chest wide enough to expose the false back panel. It looked untouched. I released the cover.

‘Have you got a man you can trust to hold my guns, a lot of money, some passports and half a key of the best Kashmiri that ever rolled down the Himalayas?’

‘Yes, for ten per cent.’

‘Of the money only?’

‘Of the money.’

‘Done. Call him here.’

‘I must insist that he brings something to drink with him, Lin. Do you know how many hours it has been, since I last made contact with alcohol?’

‘You drank from your flask three minutes ago.’

‘The flask,’ he sighed, genius to child, ‘does not count. Shall I tell him to bring food, as well?’

‘I don’t want any food.’

‘Good. Food is for people who don’t have the courage to take drugs. And food kills half of the alcohol effect. There was a test done on a drunken mouse, once, or perhaps it was a drunken rat -’

‘Just call him, Didier.’

I stuffed a few bundles of rupees in one inside pocket of my denim vest, and a bundle of US dollars in the other. I cut a piece off the Kashmiri key, and put the rest back in the compartment. I strapped on my knives in their scabbards.

After snapping the cover in place, I shoved the chest against the wall again, in case someone other than Didier’s man entered the apartment.

Didier was in the open kitchen, searching through the cupboards.

‘Not even cooking sherry,’ he muttered, and then he saw me and smiled. ‘My man, Tito, will be here in half an hour. How are you, my friend?’

‘Not-good-okay,’ I said absently.

I was looking at the refrigerator. The photographs that Lisa had taped to the door, photographs of her that she’d asked me to take, were gone. Strips of clear tape remained, framing empty spaces.

She’d insisted on tape, instead of magnets. I hate magnets, she said. They’re such treacherous things.

‘Her parents,’ Didier said, ‘gathered everything that was hers, and took it with them. There were many tears.’

I went to the bathroom and washed my face with cold water. It didn’t work. I fell forward on my knees at the toilet, and emptied every dark, acid thing that was inside me.

Didier found me, and did the right guy thing. He backed away, and left me in pieces.

I washed up again, and looked into the mirror.

A photo that Lisa had pushed in the top of the mirror frame had been torn away. Lisa’s face had been ripped from the picture, and only my foolish, smiling face remained. I took it down, tore it up and threw it in the bin.

Sitting in the living room, Didier and I drank strong, black coffee, and smoked strong, black Kashmiri. It was Lisa’s stash: her perfect, heavenly high, only for the most special occasions, which was why I’d had to hide it with my things.

And when the brandy and the food arrived, with Tito, we drank a toast, with Lisa, to the loved.

Tito helped me shove the heavy chest away from the wall again.

‘Nice,’ he said, when he saw the guns, passports and money. ‘Ten per cent.’

‘Done.’

He began to stuff the bundles into a sack.

It was my safety net in the Island City, the stake I was bringing to the table as a partner with Didier: everything I owned that wasn’t in my pockets, or my pack.

Tito was about to tie the sack closed, but I stopped him.

‘Wait a minute.’

There was a place I hadn’t looked, and that the police might’ve overlooked. There was a gas-fired hot water heater in a closet. Lisa had made a shelf on top of the heater to dry out some tripping mushrooms, which a friend had brought from Germany.

I opened the door and searched on top of the panel. There was a shoebox in the back. I saw the words REASONS WHY written on the end panel.

I pulled it toward me, feeling around inside, and my hand shivered through keepsakes and pictures as if through reeds in a pond.

They were simple things: a thin, silver scarf she’d worn, the first time we met, a wind-up child’s toy, a brass Zippo lighter that Didier had given to us as a housewarming present, and that she couldn’t bear to let me use, for fear that I might lose it, which I would’ve done, a dog whistle that she used whenever we walked on Marine Drive, so she could get the attention of every dog she passed, a paperweight I’d made for her from silver rings, and a scatter of stones, shells, pictures, amulets and coins.

It was a box of nothings, bits of stuff that had no value or meaning for anyone else in the world. And isn’t that love, Lisa, I thought, looking at the box of charms. When it means nothing to anybody else, and it means everything to us, isn’t that love? Didn’t we love, Lisa? Didn’t we love?

I put the box in Tito’s sack along with the pieces of Khaderbhai’s sword and the pair of Lisa’s hemp sandals. He tied it tightly, and slung it over his shoulder.

‘What’s your family name?’ I asked him.

I was studying his face. It was an important face. He had all my worldly goods in his hands, and we’d known each other fourteen minutes. I wanted to recognise that face, no matter how it changed.

‘Deshpande,’ he said.

‘Take care of our percentages, Mr Deshpande.’

‘No tension,’ he laughed.

We shook hands. He nodded to Didier, and trotted down the stairs.

‘So, how do we kill him?’ Didier asked, pouring a measure of brandy, after Tito left.

‘Kill who?’

‘Concannon, of course.’

‘I don’t want to kill Concannon. I want to find him, and make him tell me who bought that dope off him, and gave it to Lisa.’

‘I would recommend that we do both,’ he mused.

‘I need to talk to Naveen,’ I said. ‘Can you call him, and set it up? I have to report to Sanjay, early in the afternoon. Tell Naveen I’ll meet him at five, at Afghan Church, if he can make it.’

‘Certainly. Do you know when Abdullah returns?’

‘No.’

‘You need him now, inside the Company.’

‘I know.’

I looked around the room, and into the bedroom beyond.

‘I’m gonna sleep here, tonight.’

‘Surely not?’ Didier protested. ‘It is not secure. I know a place, near Metro. The manager has a splendid collection of manias and obsessions. You will love him. Let me take you there, now.’

‘I’m gonna sleep here.’

‘You, my friend, are -’ he began, but then laughed. ‘Well, if there is no persuading you, then Didier will sleep in this place of such sadness and sorrow with you.’

‘You don’t have to -’

‘Didier insists! But on the couch, of course. And thank my foresight, in asking Tito to bring two bottles.’

I slept on the floor, beside Lisa’s bed, with the pillow that was hers. Didier slept like a child, his arms and legs flung wide, on the couch.

Morning stumbled into a cold breakfast of the food I couldn’t eat the night before, and brandy with a dash of coffee in it.

We cleaned the kitchen, and Didier joined me at the door of the apartment that he’d visited so often: that place where love had laughed for the last time.

‘I’m ashamed,’ he said softly. ‘I’m so ashamed, Lin.’

‘Shame is the past. If it isn’t now, it soon will be.’

He thought for a moment.

‘That’s one of Karla’s, isn’t it?’

‘Of course.’

We both thought, for a while.

‘When you see her -’

‘Didier.’

‘No, I was going to say, when you see Karla, be gentle with her.’

‘I’ll talk nice to Karla. I always talk nice to Karla. I want to ask her how come she was the one who found Lisa’s body. You just get all those eyes and ears of yours on Concannon, Didier. And set it up for me with Naveen. Are we good?’

I was trying to move, trying to escape from the cage of sorrow, and Didier knew it. We stood in silence for a while, staring at the empty rooms, before he spoke.

‘I am not-good-okay, my friend. Shall we… I mean, if you will permit it, I would like to say some words, for Lisa, here at this door that we will never open again.’

‘Nice idea. Go ahead.’

‘Lisa, we loved you, and you knew that, in your heart. We loved your smile, and your free mind, and your habit of dancing for no reason, and your cheating at charades, and the way you loved us all, every time you saw us. But most of all, we loved your sincerity. You never faked it, Lisa, as you Americans say. You were always the real person. If there is any essence of your spirit lingering here, come into our hearts, now, and stay with us, when we leave this place where you left us, so that we can carry you inside us, and always love you.’

‘Didier,’ I said, after a while. ‘Thank you. That was really nicely put.’

‘Of course,’ he replied, pulling me through the door, and closing it for the last time. ‘If you could only hear the words that I have prepared for you, my dear friend.’

‘You already wrote lines for when I’m dead?’ I asked, taking the stairs.

‘Didier should not be caught on the hop, as they say. Especially if it concerns a beloved friend.’

‘I… guess not. Have you composed farewells for all your beloved friends?’

‘No, Lin,’ he said, as we reached the courtyard of the building. ‘Only you. I have only written such words for you. What I said just now for Lisa, it was from my heart. And you, my still-living friend, are attracting interest from bookmakers, ready to give odds on your survival outside the Sanjay Company.’

I looked back at the apartment building. Without her body to see dead, and believe dead, the apartment we’d shared was all I had of her, and what we were. It had been a light, happy place for both of us, most of the time. But I knew that for me alone, every time I saw it would be a conversation with the ghost of God.

Chapter Thirty-Six

It was harder to get into Ranjit’s media headquarters than it was to break out of prison. After three levels of security, each one checking my VISITOR tag and none checking my metal, I finally reached his private secretary.

‘The name is Shantaram,’ I said, for the fourth time. ‘It’s a private, and personal, matter.’

She picked up a phone, spoke the mantra, and then opened the door.

Ranjit rose from his leather chair, extending his hand over the desk. The secretary left, closing the door.

‘Sit down,’ I said.

‘What do you -’

‘All that security, and no-one thought to ask me if I was carrying a gun.’

‘A gun?’ he gasped.

‘Sit down.’

He sat down, his hands floating on the glass-topped desk.

‘Where’s Karla?’

‘Karla? You’re here about Karla?’

‘Where’s Karla?’

‘Why?’

‘Pick up the phone.’

‘What?’

‘Pick up the phone, and call Karla.’

‘Why don’t… why don’t you call her?’

‘I don’t like phones. And I don’t need one, because I can make you call her for me. You see that, right?’

‘See… what?’

‘Call Karla.’

‘I -’

‘Call Karla.’

‘You call me,’ Karla’s voice said from behind me, ‘and I come.’

She was sitting in an armchair in a corner of the large office. Potted palms beside her chair had hidden her from sight.

She seemed angry, and very glad to see me. I’d walked into a fight they’d been having.

‘Hello, Karla. In the corner for bad behaviour?’

‘Ranjit and I have a new agreement,’ she said, lighting a cigarette, shafts of light and dark on her face through the palm leaves. ‘If we find ourselves in the same room, we sit as far apart as we can.’

‘Are you done here?’ I asked, staring into queens.

Ranjit laughed. I faced him. The laugh stopped so quickly that he almost choked on it.

‘What are you laughing at?’

‘I… well… I… really have no idea.’

He was terrified. It didn’t make sense. Sure, I’d mentioned a gun, but I wasn’t carrying one, and Karla was there, and she was. He was safe, but he was sweating hard.

‘You know that expression, where you tell someone they look like they’ve seen a ghost?’

‘I… I suppose,’ he replied.

‘Well, you look like the ghost.’

‘The… ghost? Whose ghost?’

‘What’s wrong with you?’

‘You… said you had a gun.’

He was shaking.

‘I said that no-one thought to ask me if I was carrying a gun. I didn’t say I had one.’

‘Well, yes… I mean, no.’

‘Is there anything you want to tell me, Ranjit?’

‘No!’ he said quickly. ‘Nothing at all.’

‘What do you know about Lisa’s death?’

‘Nothing. Nothing. The poor girl. A tragic accident. That is, I mean… nothing at all.’

‘Goodbye, Ranjit, and please don’t wait up,’ Karla said, standing, and walking to the door.

I opened the door for her and we left the office. Ranjit was still sitting in his chair, his hands splayed on the desk as if he was trying to stop it floating away.

When the elevator doors closed, she took out a flask, drank a sip, closed it and turned to me, all queens.

‘Do you think I had something to do with her death?’

‘What?’

‘The cops did. Worked me over pretty good. Only left bruises where I won’t show.’

I felt my stomach drop. Anger filled the empty inside.

‘Lightning Dilip?’

‘He sends his regards,’ she said.

The doors opened on a small crowd in the lobby. She stopped me in the doorway, blocking the people. Our faces were inches apart.

‘I didn’t have anything to do with it,’ she said. ‘I would never hurt Lisa. Or let anyone else hurt her.’

‘Of course not,’ I replied, but she was already gone.

I made my way to the desk, hurled the visitor tag across the counter, and bounced through people until I found Karla, unruffled, a little way from the front entrance.

We rode to the Bandra sea-face. She clung to my back, her face pressed into me, a ready-to-die passenger.

I could’ve gone to a dozen places closer, but I needed to ride. When we stopped, near the sea, I was as calm as the waves on the bay.

We walked that little smile of the coast in the midday heat, but we were comfortable: two foreigners who’d learned to love a sun-blessed city.

‘We had a date,’ she said, as we walked.

‘We had a date?’

‘No.’

I thought about it.

‘You and Lisa had a date?’

‘Yeah.’

We walked on for a while, and then I got it.

‘You mean, you and Lisa had a date-date?’

‘Kind of.’

‘Kind of?’

‘Kind of.’

‘There’s no kind-of date-date.’

‘There was always this… thing between us, you know -’

‘A thing, huh?’

‘On her side, sure.’

‘And this thing took you there that night?’

‘She said she wanted to have a little booze, and a lotta fun, or a lotta booze, and a little fun.’

‘I’m not understanding this.’

‘It was her plan.’

‘What plan?’

‘I said I’d go three or four drinks with her, and see what happened after that. She said you were cool with it.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah,’ she frowned.

We walked on a few more steps in silence, our shadows clinging to us, hiding from the heat.

‘And with you, and the date-date? Was that serious?’

‘Not for me,’ she smiled, and then frowned her gaze at our feet. ‘Lisa was a flirt. She couldn’t help herself. I played along, because she liked it when I did.’

‘I’m sorry, Karla. I’m sorry I wasn’t here to stop this, and to stop you being the one to find her. If I could take that from you, I would.’

‘The only beauty the past has is that it can’t be changed. There was nothing you could’ve done, and there’s nothing you can do now.’

‘It… must’ve been… so hard, finding her.’

‘The door was open,’ she said, staring at her feet. ‘She was on the bed. I thought she was asleep. Then I saw how still she was, and the bag of pills. I shook her, but she was gone. Cold. I got the watchman to call the ambulance and the cops, but she was gone, Lin. She was long gone, poor baby.’

I put my arm around her, and she settled into me, as softly as married.

‘Who was with her?’ I asked. ‘Who gave her the stuff?’

‘I don’t know, yet. I’ve been trying to find out, but I haven’t mixed in those circles for a while.’

‘When the cops… worked you over, did they let anything slip?’

‘Only that they want your ass pretty bad,’ she said. ‘That came in clear as a boot on the spine. And I could see their point. Let’s face it, you vanish from the city, and your girlfriend dies. Or was it the other way around?’

‘Wait a minute,’ I asked, pulling my arm away from her to look into her eyes. ‘You can’t think I’d hurt Lisa? You can’t think that.’

She laughed. It was the first time she’d laughed since I’d seen her in Ranjit’s office, sitting behind the plants.

‘It’s good to see you laugh, Karla.’

‘It’s the first time since I found her. I’ve been uncomfortably numb for a while, and hazing purple most of the time. Of course you wouldn’t hurt her. I wouldn’t love you, if you could.’

She turned to the sea, the wind clearing her face for the sun. The breeze made lines of sea-foam music and frothy notes on parallel waves in the mouth of the bay.

‘Karla, what the hell happened? What do you think happened?’

‘I told you, I don’t know yet. Where the fuck were you, anyway?’

Where was I?

Click-clack. Severed head. Blue Hijab.

‘I had a job. Have you heard anything from Abdullah?’

‘No, but he has my number, and he always calls me when he gets back to town.’

‘Abdullah has your number?’

‘Of course.’

‘I don’t have your number.’

‘You don’t use phones, Shantaram.’

‘That’s not the point.’

‘And the point is?’

‘Well -’

‘I’m not going back to Ranjit,’ she said quickly, not smiling.

‘What? I mean, good, but what?’

‘I’m already checked in at the Taj.’

‘The Taj?’

‘My things will arrive by evening.’

‘You’re not going home, to Ranjit?’

‘Let me tell you, if you’re gonna make a move, Shantaram, this is your time.’

The worst part of being in love with a woman who’s smarter than you are, is that you can’t stop coming back for more, which, as it happens, is also the best part.

‘What?’

‘What did you tell me, once,’ she asked, not wanting an answer, ‘about before, and after?’

‘I… ah… ’

‘After just started, Lin. After started today. You can’t go home. I won’t go home. The only question is, are you in it with me, or in it without me?’

I felt stupid not understanding what she was telling me, and looking back now, I guess I was. But I didn’t know what decisions she’d made, or why she was telling me then.

Seconds fell, pollen in the wind. It was everything. It was nothing.

‘We just lost Lisa,’ I said. ‘We just lost Lisa.’

‘Lisa would -’

She cut herself off, laughed again, and gave me about eight unhappy queens.

‘Jesus!’ she said. ‘Am I… actually… trying to talk you… into coming with me?’

‘Well, I -’

‘Fuck you,’ she said.

‘Fuck… me?’

She stood quickly, and hailed a taxi.

‘Wait a minute, Karla.’

She got in the cab, and drove away.

I sprinted to the bike, and rode too fast and too loose until I found her cab. I followed her all the way back to the Taj hotel, riding around her cab and trying to catch her eye. She never turned to look.

I parked the bike, and watched her climb the wide steps and walk into the hotel. I went to the reservations desk, and left a note for her.

I rode away from the proud galleon of the Taj hotel through rivers of traffic, and questioned every man or woman I could still trust about Concannon. I checked gambling dens, opium parlours, country liquor bars, hash hangouts and numbers-racket corners. I didn’t learn much, but street voices confirmed that Concannon was running a heroin franchise for the Scorpion Company.

Everyone called them the Scorpion Company, rather than the Scorpion Gang: everyone recognised their status as a full mafia Company.

I had to report to Sanjay. I had a standing appointment for two in the afternoon on the day after my return from Sri Lanka, whatever the date.

No doubt, Sanjay had expected me to report sooner. He wouldn’t be in a good mood. But that was okay. Since the death of his friend Salman, Sanjay didn’t have a good mood.

I parked the bike in a row of motorcycles outside KC College. I gave the parking attendant a hundred-rupee note, and asked him to keep his eyes open for dangerous types.

‘They’re college kids,’ he said in Hindi. ‘They’re all dangerous. Who knows what they’ll do next?’

‘More dangerous than the kids are.’

‘Oh, okay. You got it,’ he winked.

I walked the half-block to Sanjay’s mansion, and rang the bell. An armed Afghan guard opened the door, recognised me and ushered me inside.

I found Sanjay in the breakfast room, at the end of the house. A row of windows looked out on a distressed garden, bound by high walls. Sanjay was in his pyjamas and a dark blue dressing-gown with a monogrammed pocket.

A breakfast big enough for three big henchmen covered the table, but Sanjay was drinking tea, and smoking a cigarette.

There was only one chair in the room, and Sanjay didn’t rise from it.

‘Good work,’ he said, looking me up and down. ‘But then, you always did good work, didn’t you? Your money, for this job, will be delivered to you. All your things from the passport factory have been removed. They’re in that red case, near the front door. That leaves only goodbye. So, goodbye.’

‘How was the mission compromised? Why did I come home early?’

He stubbed out the cigarette, took a sip of tea, placed the cup very delicately on the saucer and leaned back in the chair.

‘You know why I’m glad to see you go, Lin?’ he asked.

‘Because you think I’m made for better things?’

He laughed. I’d known him for years, but I’d never heard that laugh before. It must’ve been one he saved for the right goodbye. Then he stopped laughing.

‘Because, you’re not a team player,’ he said grimly, ‘and you never will be. You’re a black sheep. Look around you. Everyone belongs to something or someone. You’re the odd man out. You don’t belong anywhere. You don’t belong to anyone. And now, you don’t belong here.’

‘Was it because Lisa died? Is that why you had a man at the airport?’

‘Like I said, you’re not a team player. There was no way to know how you’d react. You were in Madras, when it happened.’

‘When did you know?’

‘Five minutes after the cops, of course. But you had already started, and the job was too important to stop.’

‘Five minutes?’

‘You never use the phone, so I knew there was a good chance you wouldn’t come to know about it. It was my decision to keep it quiet until the job was complete, and it was my decision to have contacts for you, every step of the way.’

‘Your decision.’

‘Yes. If you don’t like it, well, you know, there’s always the fuck-you option.’

‘You didn’t tell me that my girlfriend died.’

‘You’re the one who wanted to keep her out of the family. It was your choice that we never met her, when we know the Mothers, sisters and wives of every brother in the Company.’

I looked at him, angry enough to fight him. My heart was thumping tribal music. I wondered how many times leaders lived through murderous seconds like those, without ever knowing that Death, Himself, had been lured into the room on a false alarm.

‘You still have a faint shadow of my protection,’ Sanjay said. ‘It covers you, because it would not look well for me, if a former employee was killed in the first two weeks that he left my service. But the clock is ticking. Don’t make me brush that shadow from your back sooner. Now, get the fuck out of here, and let me finish my breakfast in peace.’

I opened the door and was about to leave, but he spoke again. They always speak again: they always want the last word, even when they already had it.

‘I’m sorry about your girl,’ he said. ‘It’s a sad business. Must be hell for her family. But don’t let your feelings push you into hasty action. The Company will let you burn, the next time you fuck up.’

I left the mansion and rode to the food stands for office workers at Nariman Point. I was still angry, and hungry. Standing with dozens of others, I ate hot bread rolls, filled with eggs, fried potatoes and spiced vegetables, and drank a pint of milk.

I’d been skipping meals, and ducking sleep. I had to work out. I had to stay sharp. Every street guy in the south would know within hours that I was officially out of the Company. There were a few, with grudges, who’d only held back because I was a Company man. They could come out snapping, when they knew I was a lone wolf.

Half an hour’s ride away on that cold river of truth was a gym, in Worli. Some abandoned mill complexes had been transformed into beauty parlours and health centres. A retired gangster from the Sanjay Company, named Comanche, had set up a gym there as his home and place of business.

He was a friend, a stand-up gangster, and we’d fought with knives against rival gangs together, twice, and been cut both times. That’s stuff you don’t forget.

Comanche was a true independent, allowing members of any mafia Company to exercise in his gym, and cops as well, so long as no-one said a word against the Sanjay Company.

I stripped to jeans and boots, and pushed weight for an hour. Half an hour of shadow boxing gave me a cool-down.

The kids in the gym, all local and poor, were shy at first, although doing the young manhood thing of making sure I clearly understood they weren’t afraid. When they saw that I was okay, they joined in the shadow boxing with me, training hard.

Showered, dressed and refreshed, I looked in the spotted mirror.

My eyes were bright, and clear. Calm settled on me like flakes of autumn. When all else fails, the sign above the mirror said, steel it out.

‘You need a lat machine,’ I said to Comanche, passing him enough money to buy a new lat machine.

Comanche looked at the money.

‘That was an expensive training session,’ he said, frowning.

‘Loved every minute of it. But put a little window in there, yaar. If someone ever forces me to imagine what a snake’s asshole smells like, I now know where to start.’

‘Fuck you,’ he laughed. ‘Seriously, what’s the money for?’

‘I’m hoping you’ll consider it a membership fee.’

‘But Company men are free. You know that.’

‘I’m not with the Company any more, Comanche. I’m freelance, now.’

I hadn’t said it to anyone but a close friend, and after so long in the brotherhood it sounded strange, even in my own ears.

‘What?’

‘I’m out, Comanche.’

‘But, Lin, it’s -’

‘It’s okay. Sanjay’s good with it. Happy, in fact.’

‘Sanjay’s… Sanjay’s… good with it?’

‘I just came from there, man. He’s good with it.’

‘He is?’

‘My word.’

‘Okay.’

‘But, I’ll need a new place to train, now that I can’t use the Company gym. So, how about it? Will you have me as a member?’

He was confused and afraid, but he was a friend, and he trusted me. His face gradually softened, and he extended his hand.

‘Jarur,’ he said, shaking hands. ‘You’re welcome here. But I have to say, you’d be wiser to leave Bombay, man, under the circumstances.’

‘Maybe, brother,’ I said, walking away. ‘But would She let me go?’

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Karla will be pleased

to accept the company of Shantaram

at 8 pm, in her suite.

It was written in her hand: the precise, fluent script I liked more than any other calligraphic style I’d ever seen. I wanted to keep it, but I was trading punches with a dirty world: if an enemy put his fingers on the note, I’d want to beat him for it.

I sat on the bike, burned the note, and then rode slowly toward Afghan Church to meet with Naveen.

I parked the bike behind a nearby bus stand. When I was with the Sanjay Company, I parked on any footpath in town. As a freelancer, I parked my bike out of sight.

The commemoration nave in the church featured dusty flags and pennants, with stone inscriptions to soldiers lost in two Afghan wars.

It was a military church and a battle chapel, erected as a monument to the fallen. There were still grooves in the pews for unforgotten soldiers to rest their rifles when they prayed, before and after obeying the order to kill Afghans, a people whose language they couldn’t speak, and whose culture they couldn’t understand.

The mournful church was almost empty. An elderly lady was sitting in a rear pew, reading a novel. A man and a boy knelt on the approach to the altar. The circle of stained glass above the altar seemed to float above their heads.

Naveen Adair was examining the brass eagle supporting the Bible stand. He was young, but confident. His hands were behind his back, respectfully, but his step was strong as he paced back and forth: a young man, fully inhabiting the space of his life.

He saw me watching him, and followed me to the deserted garden behind the church.

We sat beneath a tree, on a support made of stone and cement.

It was quiet. The fading light of evening became the stained-glass light of the altar window above our heads, lighting the dark garden below with church-light.

‘I’m so sorry about Lisa, man,’ he said.

‘Me, too. Naveen, gimme a minute, will you?’

I had to be quiet, for a minute.

I had to think, for a minute.

I hadn’t stopped, to think. And now that I’d stopped to think, I was thinking.

Lisa. Lisa.

‘What did you say, Naveen?’

‘… and the police report, that’s what we know, so far,’ Naveen said.

I hadn’t heard any of it but the last words.

‘Sorry, Naveen. I’m not really with it. You’ll have to run that by me again.’

He smiled at me, a good friend, feeling bad.

‘Okay. But, listen, stand up first.’

‘Come again?’

‘Stand up, man.’

‘What for?’

‘Stand up, for fuck’s sake.’

He stood up, pulling me up with him.

‘Give me a hug,’ he said.

‘No, I’m good.’

‘All the more reason. Come on, give me a hug.’

‘I’m really, really good.’

‘Fuck it, man, your girlfriend died a week ago. Give me a hug, yaar.’

‘Naveen -’

‘Either you hug the Indian in me, or you fight the Irishman in me,’ he said. ‘There’s no other way, in a situation like this.’

He was holding his arms out. There was no other way.

He hugged me like a brother, like my brother in Australia, and it was bad.

‘Let it go,’ he said, as my tears fell on his shoulder. ‘Let it go.’

Tears, in a garden of stained light: tears on the shoulder of a volunteer brother.

‘Fuck you, Naveen.’

‘Let it go.’

I let it go, and then I let him go.

‘You feel better?’ Naveen asked.

‘Fuck you, Naveen. And yeah, I do.’

We sat down again, and he told me the little that he knew. It didn’t add much.

‘Where’s Concannon running the dope gig?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said, smiling for the first time. ‘Do you want him?’

‘I want to talk to him.’

‘Talk?’

‘Talk, then listen, while he tells me who went with him to Lisa’s that night.’

‘You don’t think it was Concannon who gave Lisa the drugs?’

‘He left, according to the watchman, after fifteen minutes. The second man was there for almost an hour. I want to know who the second man was.’

‘Okay. I’ll get on it.’

‘The watchman gave me the number of the black car they came in that night,’ I said, handing him the number I’d jotted down. ‘If you could detective out the owner for me, it would help.’

‘I’ll have the owner for you tomorrow, but it might not help. Lots of people have cars registered under other people’s names.’

‘Didier set up a place for me at the Amritsar hotel, on Metro. You can leave a message there, or I’ll be at Kayani’s, tomorrow, between one and two. Okay?’

‘You left your place?’

‘I did. And I’m not going back.’

‘Where are you going now?’

‘I have to meet Karla, at eight. I’m gonna buy a shirt, and check in at the Amritsar. What are you doing?’

‘I have to pick up Diva, at seven thirty. I’m free till then. Mind if I come along?’

‘I’d be glad of the company.’

We rolled the bike out from behind the bus stop, I kicked the engine happy, and he climbed on behind me.

‘I’ve been learning how to ride,’ he said.

‘Uh-huh.’

‘I’ve got my eye on this tricked-out vintage 350. It’s damn cool, and really fast.’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘And the racer boys have been teaching me how to stunt ride.’

‘The racer boys, huh?’

‘Yeah. Rich kids on imported Japanese bikes. They’re Diva’s friends. And good riders.’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Would you like me to show you what I can do on your bike?’

‘Naveen, don’t ever talk about my motorcycle that way again.’

‘Got it,’ he laughed. ‘But just wait till you see mine!’

We rode along Fashion Street, where a stallholder in a drive-by-shirt-shop brought a new shirt and a couple of T-shirts to the bike, and then we rolled on to the Metro Junction.

I parked the bike in an alleyway behind the hotel’s façade, which passed beneath an arch, connecting the second to fourth floors of the whole block.

The Amritsar was in a curved building that faced the junction like a cliff-face, rising from pelagian traffic swirling around the vast intersection.

At ground level, there were sporting goods shops, office supply outlets, a music store, and Kayani’s restaurant, served by the alley behind the hotel’s façade.

At the second floor and up, the whole building was connected by a network of corridors and hidden stairways, leading from shuttered street balconies to the last private apartment, at the end of a city block. If you knew your way, you could be in another postal code, in the same building, while the cops or other bad guys were still banging on the door.

It was rumoured that the Amritsar had twenty-one exits. I was happy with three. The first thing that a man on the run does in any new place is find the exits. Before I went to the desk, I explored the building with Naveen. I found three suitable hasty exits, leading to three different places on surrounding streets. Nice.

When Naveen and I reached the reception desk we found Didier, rolling dice with the hotel manager. He rose to hug me.

‘Lin,’ he whispered in the hug. ‘I am about to win a discount on your rent, before you are even a registered guest.’

‘Let’s pay the rent first,’ I whispered back, ‘and you can win the discount later.’

‘Shrewd,’ he said, pulling apart again.

I checked in with one of my false passports, and took a look at my new rooms.

There was a large living room, with a bedroom and bathroom leading from it through high, wooden doors. A kitchenette filled one corner alcove.

At the far end of the room there was an archway of French doors, leading to a shadowed balcony. I walked through, opened the shutters, and looked out at the busy junction below.

The view was superb: a giant child’s toy, wound up and whirling through its cycle of light, sound and movement. Beyond were the trees of the Bombay Gymkhana, their leafy shadows making a tunnel of the road.

I looked around me and saw that there were only short, flimsy partitions between my balcony and the two sets of rooms beside it. The rooms looked deserted.

The hotel manager was standing beside me.

‘Anyone in the next rooms?’ I asked.

‘Not at the moment, but we’ve got two parties coming tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow never comes,’ I said in Hindi. ‘We’re here now, and we’d like to take all three of these front-facing suites for a year, cash in advance.’

‘Suites?’ the manager and Didier said, at the same time.

‘Suites,’ I said. ‘All three. From tonight. A year in advance. Are we good?’

‘Hold on a minute,’ the manager said. ‘I just have to check with my greed.’

He paused, for a bit, with a thinking face, and then made up his mind.

‘What do you know,’ he said, ‘we’re suddenly unbooked.’

You’ve got to like a man who anthropomorphises his own greed: at the very least, it’s a conversation.

‘What’s your name, sir?’

‘Jaswant,’ he said. ‘Jaswant Singh. And how shall I call you, sir?’

‘Just call me baba. Is that okay?’

‘Sure, sure, baba. No problem. A year, you said? In advance?’

I paid the money, and he left us alone to go through the rooms.

We took down the temporary barriers between balconies, and walked all the way around, from hotel room to hotel room.

‘Why do you need three of these rooms, Lin? I refuse to call them suites.’

‘The walls at the ends of these balconies are sealed, Didier. If I have all three suites to myself, nobody can sneak up that way.’

‘I see,’ he said.

‘But I only need two of them. The other one is for you, Naveen, if you want it.’

‘For me?’ Naveen asked.

‘You haven’t got an office yet, have you?’

‘No. I work from my apartment.’

‘Well, now you have an office, detective, if you want it.’

He looked at Didier, who shrugged a smile.

‘This just occurred to you now?’ Naveen asked.

‘Yeah.’

‘Because you have an extra room?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I love it. You’re on,’ Naveen said, shaking my hand. ‘Nice to have you at the other end of the balcony.’

Didier joined us, placing his hands on ours.

‘This is the beginning of something very -’

‘Shit!’ Naveen said, breaking away. ‘She’ll kill me!’

‘Who will kill a detective?’ Didier demanded.

‘Diva. If I don’t pick the spoilt brat up on time, she’ll give me hell for two days. I have to run. I’ll grab a key on the way out, Lin. The room on the right, okay with you?’

It was exactly the room that I wanted him to take.

‘You got it, Naveen.’

‘You’re going to meet Karla?’ Didier asked me, as we watched him leave.

‘At eight.’

‘I have some things to do, my friend, so I will leave now. But I will be available for you later, and I will wait in the Taj for some time, if I discover any news.’

‘Thanks, Didier.’

‘It is nothing.’

‘No, I mean it. The owner of this building is your friend, and this is one of your areas, because the local don is your friend, and that’s why I’m safe here. Thanks, for everything.’

‘I love you, Lin. Please, do not suffer that I say it. We French have no chains on the heart. I love you. We will solve the mystery of sad, sweet Lisa, and then we will march on.’

He left, and I stood in each of the strange, new rooms I’d just rented for a year, on instinct. It was my first home, after the home I’d made with Lisa. I was trying to live again: trying to plant a new tree, in a new place.

I walked back to the balcony, folded my arms on the rail and watched the wheel of lights, red-yellow-white, making slow fireworks where five avenues met and dispersed.

A crow landed on my balcony for a moment, inspected me, ruffled its feathers and flew away. A group of teenagers crossed with the signal, laughing and happy, on their way to the budget shops on Fashion Street.

A distant temple bell sounded, followed by chanting. Then the Azaan rang out from somewhere nearby, clear and beautifully sung.

Is this the place? I asked myself. I wanted a place. Any place. I wanted a home.

Is this where I find it? I wanted connection. I wanted to give everything I had to one love, and be loved in return.

Is it here? I stared at the crossroad, hoping for an answer, as white, red and yellow lights made dragons from weaving lines of cars.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

I was early, and so were the stars arriving at the Taj in limousines for a gala to promote a new movie. I parked the bike beneath a palm tree, across from the hotel, waiting for snail minutes to make the long creep to eight and my appointment with Karla.

Through the wide doors of the lobby I saw the sponsor wall, with special guests posing for photographs in front of brand names that had paid them by the second. Flash, flash, turn this way, turn that way: the mug shots of the privileged, caught in the act.

The limousines stopped, the photographers hurried to other headlines, and the sponsor wall was dismantled. The spacious, gracious lobby, where great thinkers had discussed great ideas on rainy Bombay afternoons, for rainy decades, was barren and businesslike again.

To hell with early. I walked around the hotel to a back door, guarded by a man I knew, and climbed the promenade stairs to Karla’s door. I knocked, and she opened it.

Her feet were bare. She wore a black silk lounging suit. It was trousers and top all in one, sleeveless, with zip pockets, and a zip front.

Her hair was tied up in a knot behind her head. There was a thin, silver letter opener, in the shape of a Damascan sword keeping the knot together. Karla.

‘You’re early,’ she said, smiling but not inviting me in.

‘I’m always early, or late.’

‘That’s a talent, for a man in your line of not-working. You wanna come in?’

‘Sure.’

‘Rish!’ she called, over her shoulder. ‘Our interview is over.’

She pushed the door wide, and I saw Rish, one of Lisa’s partners at the gallery. He rushed forward.

‘I’m so sorry, Lin,’ he said, holding my hand in both of his. ‘It’s a terrible shock. Dear Lisa. A terrible loss. I’m… I’m just beside myself with grief.’

He squeezed past Karla, sidestepped me and scuttled away down the corridor. It was a long corridor.

‘A man who’s beside himself,’ Karla said, as Rish scuttled, ‘usually has a fool for company. Come in, Shantaram. It’s been a long day.’

She walked back into the suite and sat on the window-seat couch.

‘Make me a drink, please,’ she said, when I’d closed and locked the door. ‘I love it when I don’t make the drink.’

‘What’ll it be?’

‘I’ll have a Happy Mary.’

‘A Happy Mary?’

‘It’s a Bloody Mary, without the red corpuscles. And rocks. Lots of rocks.’

I made the drinks and brought them to sit with her.

‘Shall we toast?’ she asked.

‘To running away angry?’ I suggested.

She laughed.

‘How about to old times, Shantaram?’

‘To fallen friends,’ I countered.

‘To fallen friends,’ she agreed, clashing glasses with me.

‘You’ve gotta snap out of it,’ she said, taking a long sip of her drink, before putting it down.

‘I’m okay.’

‘Bullshit. I just gave you four leads – fool, happy, blood, and rock – and you didn’t go for any of them. That’s not you. That’s not you and me.’

‘You and me?’

She saw my mind working, and smiled.

‘Why are you so determined to find out who gave Lisa the dope?’

‘Aren’t you?’

She picked up her glass again, studied it for a while, drank off a coalminer’s finger, and turned all the queens on me.

‘If I find out who did it, or if you do, I’ll probably want to kill whoever it is. It’s the kind of true that makes people kill people. You really wanna go there?’

‘I just want to find out what happened to Lisa, that’s all. I owe her that, Karla.’

She put her palms on her thighs, let out a gasp of air, and quickly stood up.

She crossed the room to the escritoire, opened her handbag, and took out a brass cigarette case exactly like Didier’s.

With her back to me she lit a joint, and smoked it doggedly.

‘I didn’t think I’d need this, tonight,’ she muttered, between deep breaths.

My eyes moved down her body, bowing to her. Her silhouette, wrapped in black: love was shouting inside me.

‘It was either this,’ Karla said, her back still turned to me, ‘or breaking a bottle over your head.’

‘Right… what was that?’

She stubbed out the joint, took two more joints from the case, snapped it shut, dropped it into her handbag and returned to the couch.

‘Here,’ she said, shoving the two joints at me. ‘Catch up.’

‘I’m kinda high already.’

‘Fuck you, Shantaram. Smoke the fucking joints.’

‘O… kay.’

I smoked. Every time I made to say something, she pushed the joint at me again gently.

‘You know,’ I said, when she let me, ‘that’s twice you’ve said Fuck you to me, in the same day.’

‘If it’ll make you feel any better,’ she drawled, ‘say Fuck you to me, right now.’

‘No, I -’

‘Come on, get it off your chest. You’ll feel better. Say Fuck you, Karla. Say Stop fucking with me, Karla. Go on. Try it. Fuck… you… Karla.’

I looked at her.

‘I can’t,’ I said.

‘I bet you can, if you try.’

‘Can I say Fuck you to a sunset? Can I say Fuck you to a galaxy?’

She smiled at me again, but her eyes were fierce. I had no idea what she was thinking.

‘Look,’ I said, ‘let’s get something straight. I just want to know what happened to Lisa. I want some kind of resolution, for Lisa, and for us. Don’t you see that?’

‘It’s a steep slide from resolution to retribution,’ she said. ‘And a lotta people rush off that cliff.’

‘I’m not the cliff-rusher type.’

She laughed. ‘I know everything about you, Lin.’

‘Everything?’

‘Pretty much.’

‘You do, huh?’

‘Test me,’ she purred.

I laughed, and then realised that she wasn’t kidding.

‘Really?’

‘Smoke the fucking joint,’ she said.

I smoked.

‘Favourite colour,’ she began, ‘blue, with green: leaves against the sky.’

‘Damn. Okay, favourite season?’

‘Monsoon.’

‘Favourite -’

‘Hollywood movie, Casablanca, favourite Bollywood movie, Prem Qaidi, favourite food, gelato, favourite Hindi song, “Yeh Duniya Yeh Mehfil”, favourite motorcycle… your current motorcycle, blessings be upon her, your favourite perfume -’

‘Yours,’ I said, holding up my hands in surrender. ‘My favourite perfume is yours. You’re damn good.’

‘Of course I am. I’m born for you, and you’re born for me. We both know that.’

A breeze from the sea ruffled through the room, announcing itself with a flourish of sheer, silk curtains. It suddenly occurred to me that I’d been in the neighbouring suite, years before, visiting Lisa.

Am I mad? Or was it just stupid not to say the words, not to tell Karla the truth: that I didn’t understand her relationship with Ranjit, that I hadn’t found the way to open the fist my life had closed over memories of Lisa living, and thoughts of her dead? I didn’t want to be with Karla wreathed in grief. I wanted to be free, to be hers alone. And that wasn’t going to be soon.

‘Lisa was -’ I began.

‘Shut up,’ she said.

I shut up. She lit the second joint, and passed it to me. She padded over to the small bar, grabbed a chunk of cubes from the bucket, and three-quarters filled a new glass.

‘You’re supposed to put the ice in first,’ she said, pouring vodka slowly over the cubes, ‘and add the Happy Mary with attention.’

She took a sip.

‘Ah,’ she sighed. ‘That’s better.’

She thought about things for a while.

‘It’s been a damn long day,’ she said to the ceiling.

‘What happened with Ranjit, Karla?’

She flashed a look from the angry part of the feminine divine. My heart got colder in my chest. She was magnificent.

‘What did I say?’

She grit her teeth, as if putting them on display.

‘You finally peer through your shawl of sorrows to ask about me, and what I’m going through? It’s moments like these, Lin, that give Fuck you such long legs.’

‘Wait a minute. I didn’t ask you about Ranjit before, and about why you left him, because I thought it was obvious. He’s a prick. I just wanted to know if there was anything specific. Did he threaten you?’

She laughed, pretty hard, and put the glass down. She came to stand in front of me.

‘Stand up, Shantaram,’ she said.

I stood up. She put her fingers into the front of my jeans, and curled them around my belt. She pulled me toward her.

‘Sometimes,’ she said, not smiling, ‘I just don’t know what to do with you.’

I had a few suggestions, but I didn’t get to make them. She shoved me back on the window seat, and sat down beside me.

‘It’s a week, for us, since Lisa died,’ she said, ‘but it’s only yesterday, for you. I get that. We all get that. And it’s freaking you out that we don’t seem to be getting how important this is to you.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Shut up. Kiss me.’

‘What?’

‘Kiss me.’

She put her hand behind my neck and drew our lips into a soft, brief kiss, then pushed me away again.

‘Look, this isn’t about Ranjit, and it isn’t about Lisa. I know your heart can’t let go of this, because I know you, and I love you. That’s -’

‘You love me?’

‘Didn’t I just say it, before? I’m born for you, and you’re born for me. I knew it the first second I saw you again, on the mountain.’

‘I… ’

‘But I also know all your weaknesses. We’ve got a couple of them in common, which is always a good start to any relationship. But I -’

‘Relationship?’

‘What are we talking about here, Shantaram, if it isn’t us?’

‘I -’

‘Back to your weaknesses. We’ve gotta -’

‘You’re my only weakness, Karla.’

‘I’m your strength. More than half of it at the moment, it seems to me. Your weaknesses are that you whip yourself with guilt and smear yourself with shame. I’ve been waiting for you to evolve, grow up, and grow out of it.’

‘Well -’

‘You’ve made progress,’ she said, stopping me with a raised hand. ‘No doubt about that. But you’re not there yet. You’ve got self-esteem issues -’

‘Well deserved.’

‘Funny. But it’s okay. Self-esteem issues? Lightweight stuff. Nothing we can’t fix. I’m homicidal. Nobody’s perfect. But Lisa’s gone, and no amount of self-flagellation will bring her back. If it would, I’d save you the trouble, and flog you myself. I might anyway, if you don’t snap out of it.’

‘Okay, so I lost the thread, there.’

‘Let Lisa go. At least around me. I just told you that I love you. I’ve never said that to any other man. If you weren’t so numb with guilt, you’d react.’

I kissed her with everything I had, everything I was, and everything I wanted.

‘That’s better,’ she said, pushing me away again gently. ‘Right now, I can wait for my lover, but I need my friend while I wait. There’s too much happening. I need you to catch up, Shantaram, and get with the faith. I need you to trust me, because I can’t tell you anything. Not until it’s over.’

‘Why not?’

‘That’s why,’ she smiled. ‘Because you’re curious, and you’re loyal. And some of the things you hear about me, until I get this done, might sound crazy, or worse, so I need your faith.’

She meant it. She was completely sincere: no games or tricks. It was compelling, beautiful and scary. I loved it. Imagine this, I thought, all the time.

She grabbed my shirt, and pulled my face close to hers.

‘Look me in the queens, and tell me you’ve got all this,’ she commanded. ‘Because, you know what, I love you, but I’ve got too much happening, at the moment, to put up with drama from the guy I love. So, you know, tell me you got this.’

‘I got this,’ I said, diving into that pool, that green lagoon so close, so deep.

‘Good,’ she said. ‘Now get out.’

‘You say that like you mean it,’ I said, standing there, kind of floppy.

‘No, I’m just saying it while I can.’

‘But, I… ’

We walked to the door and she shoved me through, no kiss, hug or handshake. The door closed, and I walked the marble halls of the hotel alone.

What was happening? It was wrong. It was all wrong.

I sprinted back to her door and rang the bell. She answered immediately, startling me.

‘Look,’ I said, trying to get the words out quickly. ‘It’s you. It’s always been you, since the first time I -’

‘- saw you on the street,’ she interrupted me, leaning against the doorframe. ‘Smiling, and about to walk in front of a bus. I remember you were smiling at a kid on the pavement. And there was a leaping dog at your feet. Do you know anything about the Tarot?’

‘It’s that Chinese mafia gang, isn’t it?’

She laughed happily. I heard a temple bell inside.

‘I knew it, the minute I yanked you back from in front of the bus,’ she said. ‘When I looked into your eyes, all the lights went on. And time -’

‘- slowed down,’ I continued. ‘For really long seconds. And the effect -’

‘- lasted for days,’ she said, straightening up to face me. ‘Lin, I just want you to be in this with me, by believing in me, but I can’t involve you in it. Do you see?’

‘Favourite colour,’ I said, ticking an imaginary list in my hand, ‘corpuscle red.’

She relaxed against the doorway again, the too-smart smile beginning.

‘Favourite season, winter. In Basel, to be exact. Favourite movie, Key Largo, favourite food, barbecued steak, favourite song, “The Internationale”, favourite car, because you’re not into motorcycles yet, the Chevy Camaro, 1967, matt black with blood-red interior -’

She kissed me. I closed my eyes. A light hovered in my mind. The light faded in waves, falling beneath the world. Love like water, searching for the sea. Love like Time, searching for meaning. Love like all that was, and ever will be.

‘Stop it!’ she said, pushing me away.

She put the back of her hand to her lips, and wiped away the sea. I opened my mouth to speak, but she slapped me, pretty hard.

‘Don’t get killed,’ she said. ‘I want to do that again.’

‘The kiss, or the slap?’

‘Both, but maybe in a different order.’

She slammed the door in my face.

Love. Love like a marble echo in an empty hotel corridor.

Didier was waiting for me in the lobby.

‘I was rather hoping you would stay the night with Karla,’ he said as we left the hotel.

I stopped, and stared at him.

‘I only mean,’ he said, ‘that I have dangerous news. I know, now, where Concannon is making his dope business.’

The night was looking up. And I was in just the right mood.

‘How reliable is your information?’

‘He was seen there today, at three in the afternoon.’

‘Where is he?’

‘In a house owned by the Scorpions.’

‘On Marine Lines road?’

‘Yes. How do you know?’

‘I followed Vishnu and his guys there, after they slapped me around. It’s one of their hangouts.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘I’m gonna walk up to the door, and ring the bell.’

‘With a hand grenade?’ Didier asked, pondering.

‘No. You’re going to call Vishnu, and tell him that I’ll visit him, at ten tonight.’

‘What makes you think I have this Vishnu’s telephone number?’

‘Didier,’ I sighed.

‘Oh, very well, Didier has every number, of course, or can find it. But do you think it wise, to walk into the den of lions?’

‘I think he’ll want to talk. He’s a talkative guy.’

‘What makes you think he wants to talk to you, no offence?’

‘None taken. I quit the Sanjay Company, and I’m still alive. He’ll want to talk to me.’

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I will make the call.’

I watched him walk back into the hotel, and signalled one of the Sikh doormen. The man walked across the courtyard to join me at the bike.

‘Yes, baba?’ he asked, offering his hand.

I passed him some money in the handshake, as I’d done many times before.

‘For the boys, when the shift is over.’

‘Thank you, baba. There were several big functions tonight, with many distinguished guests, so not many tips. Anything I can do for you?’

‘Keep an eye on Miss Karla. If you hear anything I should know, I’m staying at the Amritsar, on Metro.’

‘Thik,’ he said, rushing to rejoin his colleagues. ‘No problem!’

Didier returned, his expression thoughtful, a fisherman studying the rain.

‘It is established,’ he said. ‘Vishnu is expecting you. We do not have much time. We need more guns, and more cartridges.’

He began to look around for a taxi.

‘I’m not taking a gun. And you’re not coming, Didier.’

‘Lin!’ he said, stamping his foot. ‘If you deny me this adventure, I will spit on your grave. And when Didier says such a thing, it is written on stone.’

‘My grave? Why am I always dying before you do?’

‘And dance on it, like Nureyev.’

‘You’d dance on my grave?’

‘Like Nureyev.’

‘Okay. You’re coming.’

‘Should we not get some others with us?’

‘Who would go?’ I asked, starting the bike.

‘Good point,’ he conceded, still looking for a taxi.

‘Get on.’

‘Pardon me?’

‘Get on the bike, Didier. I don’t want to rely on a taxi, if we have to leave that place in a hurry. Get on.’

‘But, Lin, you know about my motorcycle hysteria.’

‘Get on the bike, Didier.’

‘If cars fell over, when we got out of them, I wouldn’t ride in cars, either. It is hysteria and physics combined, you see.’

‘You don’t have motorcycle hysteria, Didier. You’re motophobic.’

‘I am?’ he asked, intrigued.

‘No doubt.’

‘Motophobic. Are you sure?’

‘It’s nothing to be ashamed of. A lot of my friends are motophobic. But it’s okay. There’s a treatment for it.’

‘There is?’

‘Get on the bike, Didier.’

Chapter Thirty-Nine

I parked the bike a block away from the mansion, and waited in the quiet side street. Moonlight wrote tree poems on the road. A thin, black cat ran through the streaks of light and shadow in front of us, sprinting to safety.

‘Thank you, Fate,’ Didier said. ‘A black cat. Of course.’

We approached the gate. I paused, looking up and down the long street. Cars passed, but it was quiet.

‘You sure you want to do this, Didier?’

‘How dare you!’ Didier said.

‘Okay. Okay. Sorry.’

I pushed open the gate, and walked to the front door. I was about to press the buzzer but Didier stopped me. He smiled, paused, and then pressed the buzzer himself.

A man approached the door. There were pieces of stained glass and frosted scroll panels on the door. I saw through the glass that he was a big man: a big man, walking slowly, with a cane. Hanuman.

He opened the door, saw me, and sneered.

‘You again,’ he said.

‘Tell me about Pakistan,’ I said.

He grabbed my shoulder as if it was a grapefruit, and shoved me along the corridor. Fit, crazy-eyed henchmen appeared from rooms at the end of the hall. Goons appeared on the stairs. Hanuman shoved me toward a door near the end of the hall.

‘Madachudh! Bahinchudh! Gandu! Saala!’ they shouted back at me, itching to rush me.

Every gun in the world is a death wish, and they were all armed, and wishing us harm. I was scared, because I hadn’t expected guns, and because outlaws, by definition, don’t go by the rules.

There was a heavy, hairy guy in a white undershirt standing closest to me in the hallway. He slowly raised a crowd pleaser, a sawn-off twelve-gauge shotgun, and pointed it at me. Hanuman frisked me. Satisfied that I wasn’t carrying a gun, he lifted my shirt to show the two knives at my back, and let the shirt fall again, stifling a yawn. The gangsters laughed, pretty hard. He turned to Didier, who stopped him with a raised palm. He took his automatic pistol from his pocket and handed it to Hanuman.

A door opened, a little way along the hallway in front of me. Vishnu walked out into the hall, standing with his men.

‘You don’t just wear out the welcome mat,’ he said calmly. ‘You cremate it. Come in, before you cause a riot.’

He walked back into the room, Hanuman shoved me forward, and we joined Vishnu in his study.

There was a mahogany desk, two plush visitor chairs and a row of wooden chairs behind them. Political and religious posters competed for space on the walls, but there were no books. A screen on the desk gave different views around the mansion, one image of security after another.

Vishnu paused at the entrance to speak with Hanuman. The tall man stooped to listen, wagging his head.

When Vishnu rejoined us he was alone. It was very confident, or very foolish. He poured three bourbons on the rocks and passed them to us, taking his place behind the desk in a high-backed office chair.

‘Mr Levy, isn’t it?’ Vishnu asked as we took our seats in front of his desk. ‘We haven’t met, but I’ve heard reports of you.’

‘Enchanté, monsieur,’ Didier replied.

‘My wife is ill,’ Vishnu said, turning to me. ‘She is being attended by our doctor, and two nurses. That’s why I keep her close to me. That’s why my men wanted to kill you, just now. Because my wife is in this house. That’s why I’m thinking about killing you. Are you quite mad, to come here?’

‘I’m sorry that your wife is ill, and that I disturbed her peace,’ I said, standing to leave. ‘I’ll find another way.’

‘You give up so easily?’ Vishnu sneered.

‘Look, Vishnu, I thought this was your gambling den, your club, I didn’t know it was your home. I’ll find another way.’

‘Sit down,’ Vishnu said. ‘Tell me what this is all about.’

‘I know how you would feel if anything happened to your wife,’ I began, sitting again, ‘because something happened to my girlfriend. She died. The man who provided the pills that killed her is under your protection. I came into your clubhouse to ask you to let me talk to him, out on the street.’

‘Why don’t you just wait for him, outside?’

‘I don’t lie in wait for people. I’m a front door guy. That’s why I asked to see you. The man’s working for you, so I’m asking.’

‘What do you want to know?’

‘I want to know what he knows. The name of the man who was with him, the one who gave my girlfriend the pills.’

‘And what could you give me in return?’

‘Whatever you ask of me, that we both think is fair.’

‘A favour?’

He laughed a grin at me.

‘It’s not a small thing,’ I said. ‘If you let me have time with this man, I’ll do anything you ask that we both think is fair. You have my word.’

‘Cigar?’ he asked.

‘No thanks.’

‘Very gracious,’ Didier said, reaching for one, and inhaling its fragrance. ‘You know, Vishnudada, if you plan to kill us, this is almost exactly how I would choose to go.’

Vishnu laughed.

‘I did something like this myself, once, when I was seventeen,’ he said, staring an unsatisfactory smile at me. ‘I carried a tray of chai glasses, all the way to the local don’s living room, put down the tray, and put my knife to the don’s throat.’

‘What happened?’ Didier asked, engrossed.

‘I told him that if his goondas didn’t stop molesting my sister, I’d come back, just as silently, and cut his throat.’

‘Did he punish you?’ Didier asked.

‘Yes, he did. He recruited me,’ Vishnu replied, taking a sip of his drink. ‘But even though it reminds me of my youthful self, I cannot approve of what you have done, in coming to my home. Who is this man, under my protection?’

‘The Irishman. Concannon.’

‘Ah, then you are too late. He is gone.’

‘He was here today, monsieur,’ Didier said quietly.

‘Yes, Mr Levy. But here today, gone tonight, that is the nature of our business, isn’t it? The Irishman left three hours ago. Where he went, or if I ever see him again, I don’t really care.’

‘Then, I’ll take my leave, and I apologise again, if I disturbed your wife.’

‘Is it true,’ he asked, waving me back into my seat, ‘that you’re no longer with the Sanjay Company?’

‘It is,’ I said.

‘If you will permit me, Vishnudada,’ Didier said, trying to change the subject, ‘you did not know this girl, who died. But I had the honour to know her. She was a jewel, a very rare human flower. Her loss is simply insupportable.’

‘And this intrusion is insupportable, Mr Levy. Order must be maintained. Rules must be obeyed.’

‘Regrettably so,’ Didier replied. ‘But love is a poor master, and a poorer slave.’

‘Shall I tell you something about the poor,’ Vishnu said, rising to top up our glasses, but keeping an eye on me.

‘With pleasure,’ Didier said, puffing the cigar.

‘If you build a nice house,’ Vishnu said, sitting again, ‘they break the floor, so they can sit in the dirt. If you build it up stronger, they bring dirt in from outside, so they can sit in the dirt again. I run a construction business. I know. What do you think, Shantaram?’

What did I think? You’re a megalomaniac, and you’ll die violently.

‘I think it sounds like you’re a man who hates the poor.’

‘Oh, come on,’ he protested. ‘Everyone hates the poor. Even the poor hate the poor. My point is that some are born to lead, and most are born to follow. You have taken a big step in the right direction.’

‘What step?’

‘Leaving the Sanjay Company. There is only one small step, now, between you and me. If you were to join me, and tell me everything you know about the Sanjay Company, you would be a leader, and not a follower. And I would make you richer than you can imagine.’

I stood up.

‘I apologise again for busting in on you. If I’d known you had family here, I wouldn’t have come. Will your men let us leave, without waking everyone upstairs?’

‘My men?’ Vishnu laughed.

‘Your men.’

‘My men won’t lay a finger on you,’ he said. ‘You have my word.’

I turned to leave, but he stopped me.

‘The Irishman isn’t the only one who knows,’ he said.

I faced him again. Didier was standing beside me.

‘There was a driver,’ he said. ‘My driver. The black car was one of mine.’

‘Yours?’

‘The Irishman borrowed it that night. He’d been shot the day before, I understand, but still insisted on going out. I let him have my driver.’

‘Where do I find this driver?’

‘He will not tell you anything,’ Vishnu said.

‘He might,’ I said through clenched teeth.

‘He’s dead. But, he did tell me everything he knew, before he died.’

‘What do you want, Vishnu?’

‘You know what I want. I want to stop the Sanjay Company from pumping weapons and bomb-makers from Pakistan into Bombay’s streets.’

‘That’s a little exaggerated -’ I began, but he cut me off, standing behind his desk with his fists on his hips.

‘You can’t deny it, because it’s happening everywhere,’ he said, raising his voice to a shout as he warmed to his theme. ‘Money from the Arabs, training in Pakistan, an army already on the move across the world. They’re about to take their first country, Afghanistan. It won’t be the last country the Islamic army takes, before this is over. If you can’t see what that means, you’re an idiot.’

‘Now you’re the one who’s disturbing your wife. I don’t want a political debate with you, Vishnu. I want the Irishman.’

‘Forget my wife, motherfucker, and forget the Irishman. Tell me what you think about all this. You’ve both been here long enough to feel the love of Mother India. Where do you stand?’

I looked at Didier. He shrugged.

‘The real fight,’ I replied, ‘is between Sunni and Shia Islam. Muslims are killing a hundred or more Muslims for every non-Muslim, one mosque and marketplace at a time. We don’t have a dog in that fight. We should stay out of it. And we definitely shouldn’t bomb or invade their countries, while they’re fighting that family feud. Or at any other time, for that matter.’

‘We Indians do have a dog in the fight,’ he said more seriously, his hands working. ‘Kashmir. That’s why they are hitting us, again and again. They want Kashmir as an independent Islamic State. Where do you stand on Kashmir?’

‘Kashmir is a war no-one can win. There should be blue United Nations helmets everywhere in Kashmir, protecting the people until it gets worked out.’

‘And would you feel the same way, if it was a state from your country?’

‘He has a point,’ Didier observed, gesturing with his cigar.

I looked at him, then back to Vishnu.

‘I don’t have a country. And I don’t have a girlfriend any more. Do you know anything that can help me find the man who killed her?’

He laughed, and his eyes flickered to the clock on the wall. It occurred to me, too late, that he was stalling.

The door opened behind us, and Lightning Dilip walked through. Six cops crowded into the room. Two cops grabbed me. Two cops grabbed Didier.

Lightning Dilip came to stand close to me, his belly bursting through his shirt.

‘I’ve been searching for you, Shantaram,’ he said. ‘I’ve got some unhappy questions to ask you.’

I looked at Vishnu. He was smiling. Lightning Dilip began to shove us toward the door.

‘Wait!’ Vishnu commanded, pointing at Didier. ‘I need Mr Levy. We have matters to discuss.’

‘Jarur!’ Lightning responded.

The cops released Didier. He looked at me, asking me with his eyes if we should fight and die, there and then. I shook my head, and he gave me a broken half-smile, sending courage into the prairie in my heart where fear was already running. It was okay. We’d both been in Lightning Dilip’s custodial care, and we both knew what to expect: the boot and the baton and exhaustion as the only mercy.

Chapter Forty

The cops dragged and shoved me out of the house. Scorpion gangsters jeered and mocked me from the stairwell. Danda kicked at me, as he slammed the door.

Eight hands and a few boots pushed me face down in the back of a jeep. They drove too fast to the Colaba police station, threw me out of the jeep, stomped on me a few times, and then dragged me into the stony courtyard.

They passed the row of offices where normal interrogations were held, and dragged me toward the under barrack, where abnormal interrogations were held.

I got up, and resisted arrest. I got in a couple of good shots, too. They didn’t like it. They slapped me around, and shoved me into one of the wide, dark cells.

There were four scared men in the cell, and I was one of them. The other three scared men, chained together in the far corner, were sitting on their haunches. Their faces were dirty, and their shirts were torn. They looked like they’d been there a while.

The cops chained me to the entry gate, low, forcing me to curl up in a ball on my knees.

Boom. A kick came out of nowhere. Hello, Lightning. Kick, punch, baton, punch, kick, kick, baton, kick, punch, punch, baton.

You beat Karla like this, you coward, I thought, finding an image I could use to lock my mind. Your karma’s waiting for you. Your karma’s waiting for you.

Then it stopped, like the last thunder, and I could hear the thudding storm rolling away.

When I thought it was safe, I risked a look and caught a glimpse of Lightning Dilip. He was staring at the three men huddled in the corner. He was breathing hard. His face was all the wrong happiness.

I got it. I was the warm-up act. The guys in the corner were the main event.

The guys in the corner got it too, and started to beg. I had time to breathe and move and check to see the damage.

I was lucky. No bones broken, nothing ruptured, arms and legs still working. It could’ve been worse, and had been before.

When Lightning Dilip went to work on the chained men, two cops uncuffed me from the gate, and took me back to the duty sergeant’s office, to decide how much of my money to keep. They took it all, of course: it cost me all I had to buy back my clothes, personal effects and knives. They threw my stuff into the road, and threw me after it, dressed in my shorts.

I stood in the deserted, late-night street beside a traffic island, picking up my clothes, one by one, until I was dressed. For a while I stayed there, staring at the police station, as you do, sometimes, out of that stubbornness born of injustice.

I was bleeding, beat up, in the middle of the fluorescent street. I could hear the screams of Lightning Dilip’s new victims. The flashing light on the corner bathed me in red with a slow heartbeat. I stared at the place where the screaming came from.

A black Ambassador car pulled to a stop beside me. The windows were down. I saw Farid in the front seat, beside a Company driver, named Shah. Faisal, Amir and Andrew DaSilva were in the back seat.

DaSilva had his elbow on the window. He reached under the dashboard of the car, and I instinctively pulled one of the knives. The gangsters laughed.

‘Here’s your money,’ DaSilva said, passing a package through the window. ‘Thirty grand. Severance pay, for the Sri Lanka run.’

I reached out to take the package, but he wouldn’t release it.

‘Two weeks, you’ve got, of Sanjay’s protection,’ he said, grinning into my eyes. ‘After that, why don’t you try to kill me, huh? And we’ll see what happens.’

‘I don’t want to kill you, Andy,’ I said, grabbing the package from his hand. ‘I have too much fun making you look bad, in front of your friends.’

‘Good one!’ Amir laughed. ‘I’m going to miss you, Lin. Challo! Let’s go!’

The black Ambassador drove away, leaving blue smoke swirling in the fluorescent haze. I put the money inside my shirt, and heard the screaming, beginning again.

A headache said hello behind my right eye. There were bruises making themselves acquainted all along my back and shoulders.

I walked back under the wide arch at the entrance, climbed the steps to the long porch and stepped into Lightning Dilip’s office.

‘Call him,’ I said to the sleepy constable watching the desk.

‘Fuck you, Shantaram,’ he said, lounging in his chair. ‘You better not let him see you in here.’

I reached inside my shirt, pulled out a few hundred-dollar bills, and threw them on the desk.

‘Call him.’

The constable snatched the notes off the desk, and ran out of the office.

Lightning Dilip was back in seconds. He didn’t know whether I wanted to make trouble, or make up with a bribe, and he didn’t know which one he wanted more. He was oily with sadism, his bulging shirt stained with sweat.

‘This must be my lucky day,’ he said, the riding crop in his hand twirling.

‘I want to bail out three prisoners.’

‘What?’

‘I want to bail out three prisoners, with cash money.’

‘Which three?’ Lightning asked, suspicion pinching his face.

‘The three you’re kicking the shit out of.’

He laughed. Why do people laugh, when you’re not trying to be funny? Oh, yeah: when you’re the joke.

‘I’m happy to do it,’ he grinned. ‘For the right price. But will it make a difference to you, to know that one of those men has raped several little girls, and I don’t know which one of them it is yet, until I get a confession? Of course, the choice is yours.’

You try to do something right. My ears were ringing, and pain was waking my face. It was the kind of angry-pain that shivers in you, and won’t stop shivering until something very good or very bad happens. The bells wouldn’t stop ringing. A child molester? Fate is Solomon, forever.

‘I’d like,’ I croaked, and then cleared my throat. ‘I’d like to pay you to stop beating the three prisoners. Have we got a deal?’

‘We would have a deal for five hundred American,’ he said, ‘whenever you find it.’

He knew he’d cleaned me out. And the constable had wisely kept the hundred-dollar notes I’d given him to himself. Dilip gasped when I pulled the notes from my shirt and threw them on the table.

‘I have eighty more prisoners upstairs,’ he said. ‘Would you like to pay me not to beat them?’

At that moment, beat up and crazy, thinking that Lisa’s body had been at that police station, and that every cop in the place had seen her dead, and knowing that Lightning Dilip had beaten Karla, probably on the same gate he chained me to, I didn’t care. I just wanted the screaming to stop for a while.

I threw some more money on the desk.

‘Tonight, everybody,’ I said.

He laughed again, scooping the money from the desk. The cops in the doorway laughed.

‘This has been a profitable night,’ he said. ‘I should beat you more often.’

I walked out of the office, and along the white porch to the steps.

I passed under the archway, leading to the street, knowing that all I’d bought was silence for one night, but that they’d be beaten the following night, and others would be beaten after them, every night.

I hadn’t stopped anything, because all the money in the world can’t buy peace, and all the cruelty won’t stop until kindness is the only king.

A black limousine pulled up in front of me, and Karla got out with Didier and Naveen. My happiness was a cheetah, running free in a savannah of solace. And pain ran away, afraid of love.

They hugged me, and settled me in the car.

‘Are you okay?’ Karla asked, her hand cool on my face.

‘I’m okay. How did you know I was out?’

‘We’ve been waiting. Didier called us, and we’ve been waiting across the road, outside Leo’s. We saw you get thrown out of the station house, and we gave you a minute.’

‘That was Karla’s idea,’ Naveen added. ‘She said Let him get his pants on in peace. Then we were just coming toward you, when the black Ambassador stopped.’

‘And then, after it left, you went back inside,’ Didier said.

‘Which seemed a little brazen,’ Naveen smiled, ‘so we waited again, getting ready to bust you out, and then you came outside.’

‘We have news,’ Didier said.

‘What news.’

‘Vishnu talked to me, after you left,’ Didier said. ‘He told me who it was, that went with Concannon to see Lisa.’

‘Who?’

‘It was Ranjit,’ Karla said flatly, taking the cigarette back from Didier.

‘Your Ranjit?’

‘Matrimonially speaking,’ she said. ‘But it looks like I could be a widow, before a divorcee.’

Ranjit? I remembered how scared he’d been, when I’d gone to his office looking for Karla. He thought I knew. That’s why he was so afraid.

‘Where is he?’

‘He skipped town,’ Karla said. ‘I’ve called all his friends. I drove them nuts, but nobody’s seen him since yesterday evening. His secretary booked a flight for him, to Delhi. He disappeared completely after he landed there. He could be anywhere.’

‘We’ll find him,’ Naveen said. ‘He’s too successful to remain discreet for long.’

Karla laughed.

‘You got that right. He’ll come up for bad air, sooner or later.’

‘You can relax now, Lin,’ Didier added, ‘for the mystery is solved.’

‘Thanks, Didier,’ I said, passing Karla her flask. ‘It’s not solved, but at least we know who can solve it.’

‘Exactly,’ Karla concluded. ‘And until we track Ranjit down, let’s focus on matters at hand. You look a little beat up, Shantaram.’

‘Sorry to intrude,’ the uniformed driver asked. ‘But may I offer you the first aid kit, sir?’

‘Is that you, Randall?’

‘It is indeed I, Mr Lin, sir. May I offer the kit, and perhaps a refreshing towel?’

‘You may, Randall,’ I said. ‘And how do you come to be steering this big, black bar around Bombay?’

‘Miss Karla offered me the opportunity to serve,’ Randall said, passing the first aid kit across the seat.

‘Knock it off, Randall,’ Karla laughed. ‘No-one serves anything but drinks and first aid in this car.’

I looked at Karla. She shrugged her shoulders, opened her hip flask, poured some vodka onto a swab of gauze, and passed the flask to me.

‘Drink up, Shantaram.’

‘Any opportunity to serve, Miss Karla,’ I said, smiling at her acquisition of the barman from the Mahesh hotel.

She cleaned up the few cuts on my face, head and wrists expertly, because she’d done it before, to a lot of soldiers. One of Karla’s best friends from the Khaderbhai Company days was a corner man, who kept fighters fighting. He’d taught her everything he knew, and she was a good corner man herself.

‘Where to, Miss Karla?’ Randall asked. ‘Although the destination is the journey, of course.’

‘Where do you want to go?’ Karla laughed, asking me.

Where did I want to go? I wanted to say goodbye to Lisa with my friends, and let a branch of grieving fall. Knowing that it was Ranjit who gave the pills to Lisa gave me the little peace that I needed for goodbye.

‘There’s something I’d like to do. And I’d like you all to do it with me, if you’re up for it.’

‘Sure, okay, certainly,’ they all said, none of them asking what it was.

‘Didier, do you think we can wake up your friend, Tito?’

‘Tito doesn’t sleep, as far as I know,’ Didier replied. ‘At least, no-one has ever actually seen him sleeping.’

‘Good. Let’s go.’

Didier gave Randall directions to the fishermen’s colony behind Colaba market. We parked beside a row of tilted handcarts and wound through dark lanes and alleys to find Tito, who was reading Durrell by kerosene lantern. He was lonely, he said, so he taxed us time: ten per cent of two hours. We smoked a joint with him, talked books, and then collected my kit.

‘What is our new destination, sir?’ Randall asked, when we were all in the car.

‘The Air India building,’ I said. ‘And a funeral in the sky.’

Chapter Forty-One

The nightwatchman remembered me, accepted some money, and sent us up to the roof of the deserted Air India building.

The red archer was turning slowly. The night was clear, the star-horizon wider than the sea. The waves below seemed fragile, their crests of foam like strips of floating seaweed, seen from our perch in the sky.

While they were admiring the archer and the view, I set about making a small fireplace. Naveen helped me gather bricks and broken tiles from the wide concrete roof. We made a base of tiles and built a small hearth around them with bricks and stones.

I’d taken a newspaper from the nightwatchman, and began screwing the pages up into small, tight balls. When it was ready, I uncovered Lisa’s box of things from the bag that Tito had kept safe.

The metal wind-up toy was a bluebird, attached to a device with finger holes like a pair of scissors. I pressed the scissors together, and the bird moved its head and sang. It was Lisa’s. She’d had it since she was a child. I gave it to Karla.

There was a yellow tube with brass fittings at the end, which held all of my old silver rings. I’d made it as a paperweight for Lisa. I gave it to Naveen. The stones, acorns, shells, amulets and coins fit inside a blue velvet jewel box. I gave it to Didier.

I tore the photographs into fragments and fed them into the fireplace, along with anything that would burn, including the hemp sandals and the box itself, marked REASONS WHY, ripped into small pieces. Her thin, silver scarf was last into the pile, curled and coiled like a snake.

I lit the lowest of the paper balls around the fire, and it caught. Didier helped it along with a swish from his flask. Karla did the same. Naveen fanned the flames with a chunk of tile.

Karla took my hand, and led me to the edge of the building where we could look at the sea.

‘Ranjit,’ I said softly.

‘Ranjit,’ she repeated softly.

‘Ranjit,’ I growled.

‘Ranjit,’ she growled back.

‘How are you holding up?’

‘I’m okay. I’ve got other things on my mind. Are you okay?’

‘Ranjit,’ I said, my teeth clenched.

‘He always liked her,’ Karla said. ‘I was so busy projecting him into the limelight that I didn’t see how close they got.’

‘You’re saying Ranjit had a thing for Lisa?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe. I never asked him anything about his sex life, and he never told me anything. Maybe it was just because we liked her so much. He’s a competitive man. But like all competitive men, his balls fell off when the going got hard.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘I’ll tell you, one day, after we find him. My problem with Ranjit isn’t important now, and it had nothing to do with Lisa. His problem was a fear of success. Surprising, how common that is. There should be a name for it.’

‘Ambition fatigue?’ I suggested.

‘I like it,’ she laughed softly. ‘What do you think Ranjit was doing with Lisa, that night?’

‘Rohypnol is a rape drug, but sometimes people take it together because they like it. So, either Ranjit is a rapist, and it went wrong, or they had a thing, and that went wrong. Thing is, I didn’t think they were that close, except that she liked his politics.’

‘His politics?’ Karla laughed, to herself.

‘How is that funny?’

‘I’ll explain it one day. How was it tonight, Shantaram, in the cage with Lightning Dilip?’

‘The usual. Short back and sides.’

‘Bad cops are bad priests,’ she said. ‘All confession, and no absolution.’

‘How are you comin’ along, Slim?’

‘I’m okay. I’ve got bruises like Rorschach tests. One of them looks like two dolphins, making love. But, you know, maybe that’s just me.’

I wanted to see the bruise. I wanted to kiss it. I wanted to beat the man who put it there.

‘The car and Randall,’ I said, ‘and staying at the Taj. It costs. I’ve got some money put away, a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I can set you up in a safe place somewhere, with the car and Randall and whatever else you need. While Ranjit’s on the loose, you should play it safe.’

‘Listen,’ she said. ‘I told you that I’ve been working with the economists and analysts at Ranjit’s paper. I made some money, and put a little aside.’

‘Yeah, but -’

I spent two years on it, with the best advice the boss’s money could buy, and quite a bit of the boss’s money.’

I remembered the bike-talk, me telling her to save money and put a down payment on a house. And she was working with professional economists and stock market analysts all the time, and didn’t say a thing. She was even sweet to me.

‘You’ve been playing the market?’

‘Not… exactly.’

‘Then what… exactly?’

‘I’ve been manipulating it.’

‘Manipulating it?’

‘A bit.’

‘How much of a bit?’

‘I used a proxy vote to leverage the theoretical worth of all of Ranjit’s shares in communications, energy, insurance and transportation, and I built a secret buying block, for sixteen minutes, and then I closed it down.’

‘A buying block?’

‘And I bought my brains out, with six guys on six phones, for sixteen minutes.’

‘Then what?’

‘I moved the stock prices in selected arm’s-length companies, where I’d already bought preferential stock.’

‘What?’

‘I rigged the market a couple of times. No big deal. I made my cut, and got the hell out.’

‘How much did you make?’

‘Three million.’

‘Rupees?’

‘Dollars.’

‘You made three million dollars on the market?’

‘I skimmed it off the market, to be precise. It’s actually not that hard, if you’re stinking rich to begin with, which I was, with Ranjit’s proxy shares. So, there’s no problem for money. I have it in four different accounts. I don’t need Ranjit’s money, or yours, Lin. I need your help.’

‘Three million? And I was talking to you about -’

‘Being a London Bombay wife,’ she ended for me. ‘I loved it. Really. And -’

‘Wait. You said you need my help?’

‘An old enemy of mine is back in town,’ she said. ‘Madame Zhou.’

‘I detest that woman, and I’ve only met her once.’

‘Detest is the doormat,’ Karla said. ‘What I feel for that woman is a whole mansion of malice.’

Madame Zhou was an influence peddler who’d sweated secrets from influential patrons of her brothel, the Palace of Happy, for more than a decade. When she drew Lisa into her maze of stained sheets, Karla got Lisa out, poured gasoline on the Palace of Happy, and burned it to the ground.

‘She put it around that she’s looking for me. And this time, it’s not just the twins.’

I knew the twins, Madame Zhou’s bodyguards and constant companions. The last time I’d seen them, they were bleeding, because I was losing a very untidy fight with them, and because Didier shot them.

‘I detest those twins, and I’ve only met them once, as a pair.’

‘This time,’ Karla said, looking out at the night, ‘she’s got personal cosmeticians with her. Two acid throwers.’

One of the retribution services offered in those years was acid-throwing. Although usually limited to so-called honour burnings, acid throwers hired themselves out for other matters, when the price was right.

‘When did she get back to Bombay?’

‘Two days ago. She found out about Lisa’s death, somehow. She knows I burned down her palace for Lisa. She wants to look me in the eyes, and laugh, before she burns me.’

Stars wandered their dark pastures. Early dawn pressed all the shadows flat. Faint light began to wake waves in brilliant peaks: seals of candescence, playing.

I turned my head slowly, so that I could look at Karla’s profile as her heart talked to the sea.

She’d been afraid, for days. She’d discovered our sweet, dead friend, and she’d been beaten by the cops, and she’d broken up with Ranjit, permanently, for whatever reason, and she had Madame Zhou’s acid throwers looking for her, and then she’d discovered that Ranjit was the one who was with Lisa, at the end.

She was the bravest girl I ever met, and I’d been so much in my own guilt and loss that I hadn’t been beside her, where I belonged, when she needed me.

‘Karla, I -’

‘Shall we do this now?’ Didier asked, from beside the small fire. ‘We are ready.’

Didier and Naveen had tended the fire well. The residue of fine ashes, cooled by fanning them out on the ground, was enough for each of us to have a handful.

We went to a corner facing the open sea, and scattered those little ashes we had of her, in the place she would’ve chosen to scatter mine.

‘Goodbye, and hello, beautiful soul,’ Karla said, as the ashes drifted from our fingers. ‘May you return, in a longer and happier life.’

We followed the wind and ashes with thoughts of her. I was so angry at Fate that I couldn’t cry.

‘Well, we’d better get out of here,’ Naveen said, cleaning up the impromptu fireplace. ‘The cleaning staff will arrive soon.’

‘Wait, guys,’ I said. ‘Madame Zhou’s back in town, with acid throwers, and she’s asking around about Karla.’

‘Acid throwers,’ Didier said, spitting the words in a shiver of dread.

‘Who’s Madame Zhou?’ Naveen asked.

‘A loathsome woman,’ Didier said, drinking the last sip from his flask. ‘Imagine a spider, the size of a small woman, and you will be very close.’

‘We’ll keep a watch on Karla round the clock,’ I suggested, ‘until we throw Madame Zhou and her acid throwers in the sea. We -’

‘I thank you, and accept your help, Didier and Naveen,’ Karla cut me off. ‘Much appreciated. But you can’t, Lin.’

‘I can’t?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because you won’t be here. You’re going away.’

‘I am?’

‘Yes.’

‘When?’

‘This morning.’

‘Goodbye, Lin,’ Didier said, rushing to hug me. ‘I never wake before the afternoon, so I fear that I will miss your departure.’

‘My departure?’

‘To the mountain,’ Karla said. ‘To stay with Idriss, for two weeks.’

‘Goodbye, Lin,’ Naveen said, hugging me. ‘See you when you get back.’

‘Wait a minute.’

They were already walking to the door. We joined them, and as the elevator doors closed, Karla sighed.

‘Every time an elevator door closes on me -’ she began.

Didier handed her a flask.

‘I thought you were out,’ she said, taking a swig.

‘It is my reserve.’

‘Will you marry me, Didier, if I can divorce Ranjit, or kill him?’

‘I’m already married to my vices, Karla dear,’ Didier replied, ‘and they’re very jealous lovers, all of them.’

‘Just my luck,’ Karla said. ‘All my guys are vices, or married to them.’

‘Which one am I?’ Naveen asked. ‘Now that I’m one of the guys.’

‘Maybe both,’ Karla said. ‘Which is why I have such high hopes for you.’

We reached Karla’s car, and Randall opened the doors. I told them that I wanted to walk back to my bike, still parked near the Scorpion house. Karla walked me to the sea wall to say goodbye.

‘Stick it out,’ she said, her palm on my chest.

Her fingers were truth, touching me.

Imagine this, every day.

‘As it happens,’ I smiled, ‘I’m a stick-it-out guy.’

She laughed. Temple bell.

‘I’d like to be beside you, when Madame Zhou pops out of the shadows.’

‘You can help me by staying two weeks up there, Lin. Let everything cool down. Let me set this in motion. Let me do what I have to do, and keep you out of it while I do it. Stay longer up there with Idriss, if you need.’

‘Longer?’

‘If you need.’

‘What about us?’

She smiled. She kissed me.

‘I’ll come and see you.’

‘When?’

‘When you least expect it,’ she said, walking back to the car.

‘What about Madame Zhou?’

‘We’ll be merciful,’ she said out the window as Randall drove away, ‘until we find her.’

I watched the car out of sight, and began to walk the sea wall promenade. Early walkers brisked elbows and ankle socks at me, too serious to look at anything but the pavement.

Morning rose behind eastern buildings, shadow-veils lifting slowly from their faces. Dogs, impatient for action, barked here and there. Flocks of pigeons tested their skills, swooping the flourish of a dancer’s dress over the path, and soaring invisible again.

I was a funeral procession of one. I could still feel the ashes on my fingers as I walked. Tiny fragments of Lisa’s life were floating across the sea, and along the promenade.

Everything leaves a mark. Every blow echoes in the forest inside. Every injustice cuts a branch, and every loss is a fallen tree. The beautiful courage of us, the hope that defines our kind, is that we go on, no matter how much life wounds us. We walk. We face the sea and the wind and the salted truth of death, and we go on.

And every step we take, every breath we spend, every wish fulfilled is a duty to those lives and loves no longer graced, as we still are, with the spark and rhythm of the Source: the soul we loved, in their eyes.