There’s no rest for the wicked. It was almost 2 a.m. by the time I made it back to Premchand Boral Street. Once more there was a message waiting for me, and once more I hoped it was from Suren.
Strangely it turned out to be from Annie. She’d called an hour earlier and wanted me to telephone back, no matter how late it was. I wondered what could be quite so urgent as to vex Her Ladyship at such an hour. Maybe something had waylaid her chauffeur and he hadn’t returned after dropping me off earlier in the evening. I was sure the chap was fine. With all that was going on in the city, he’d probably just gone to check up on his loved ones.
Nevertheless I lifted the receiver, gave the operator her telephone number and asked to be put through.
She answered after a single ring.
‘Annie,’ I said wearily, ‘I expect this is about your driver —’
‘Do be quiet and listen, Sam,’ she said in a tone which seemed harsh for two in the morning. ‘I need you to come to the flat. There’s been some trouble here.’
‘What sort of trouble?’
‘So far nothing too bad. A few smashed windows and the like, but I’m nervous. You know this sort of thing’s happened before. I’d appreciate it if you were to come over, just to take a look.’
I sighed to myself. I hadn’t slept since God knew when, I’d still no idea where that blasted idiot Suren was, and now Annie wanted me to soothe her nerves over a broken window. There had been a time when I’d have leapt to action at her merest word, but those days were past. I was older now, more jaded, and I was tired. Yet I could understand her concern, and she had lent me her car.
‘Annie,’ I heard myself answer, ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can.’
‘Wonderful,’ she said. ‘I’ll send the chauffeur.’
It was less wonderful than she imagined. I didn’t have the energy to explain to her that I suspected our lodgings were being watched by operatives of the security forces.
‘Tell him to wait for me outside the Shiva Temple at the College Street end of the road. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.’
I ended the call, and taking the scrap of paper with Dawson’s number out of my pocket, I memorised it, then ripped the sheet to small shreds and threw half of the pieces in the bin. The remaining pieces I took out to the balcony, threw them over the railing and watched them scatter on the breeze.
There, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something. A movement in the shadows thrown by the orange glow of ill-spaced street lamps. I peered out, focusing on a patch across the street. It was hard to make out, and I couldn’t be sure, but in my bones I felt there was someone there, watching.
I stalked back into the flat and into my bedroom, making a show of turning on the light, then five minutes later, I turned it off and closed the shutters. If someone was watching they’d assume I was finally turning in for the night. I gave it five minutes more, then grabbed my revolver, walked back through the darkened flat and out of the door.
If the girls in the brothel were surprised to see me skulk out through their courtyard again, they hid it well beneath a veil of ennui.
‘You are busy, tonight, Captain sahib,’ said Pia. ‘Or are you just plucking up the courage to visit us properly?’
‘Any more talk like that,’ I said, ‘and I’ll have the Vice Division arrest you.’
Pia fluttered her eyelids. ‘Oh please, Captain sahib. You know Singh-auntie pays the police more in a month than you earn in a year. You will only embarrass yourself.’
The girl was probably right, but I wasn’t about to admit it.
‘We’ll have to finish this conversation later, Pia,’ I said. ‘Right now I need to go visit a different sort of madam.’
The Lancia was idling on the corner of College Street beside the little conical-domed shrine to the god Shiva. It was only as I opened the door that I registered that at the wheel was not the chauffeur but Annie herself.
‘What?’ she said, noting my surprise. ‘It’s the middle of the night, Sam. You think my chauffeur is on call twenty-four hours a day? And don’t bother to get in just yet. You need to go back to your digs.’
Her demands were becoming increasingly erratic, but I decided to humour her.
‘May I ask why, exactly?’
‘Because you need to pick up some clothes for your friend, Suren.’
The sound of the stupid fool’s name sent a shock through my synapses.
‘You know where he is?’
She looked at me and rolled her eyes.
‘He’s at my flat of course. Are you sure you’re a detective?’
‘It’s late,’ I said. ‘And why does he need a change of clothes?’
‘He swapped his own with a station coolie.’