was cornered by an Indian journalist, judging by the notebook the man whipped out of his jacket pocket. Max took the opportunity to pounce on Vandana, who was taken aback. “What are you doing here? They know who you are now. The police were tipped off.”
It had to be Luc Roberge. He was quicker than expected. Max would have to act swiftly. He dragged Vandana behind a banana tree. He knew his brusqueness was off-putting, but there was no time for politeness and etiquette.
“What is this charade, and who exactly do you think you’re fooling?” he said.
Vandana looked up at him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“David and his inner conflict, feeling torn and clamming up …”
She frowned. “What …?”
“Your little trysts at the foot of the Himalayas. Kathmandu.”
“There’s never been anything between David and me.”
“You rushed over to his place the day after the attack, and you knew about the safe under the stairs. It wasn’t the first time you’d been there.”
“What safe?”
“You were in a real hurry to open it. What were you looking for? Letters, notes, messages? Things to implicate you personally with David, things that would compromise you with the police if they started rifling through the young diplomat’s past.”
Vandana stared at him in amazement. “You’re out of your mind!” She started to leave, but Max blocked the way.
“An affair? A little slip-up, maybe? But it was still going on when you went to Kathmandu. Otherwise, David would have postponed the trip till after Montreal.”
Max heard a murmur behind him and turned to see two security agents blend into the crowd. Don Miguel was already hurrying over to them, his hair flying. Max couldn’t hear what they said to him, but he could guess: they couldn’t have been admitted without his government’s permission. They were explaining to him while sweeping the room with their eyes. There was no doubt about what they were looking for. Max. He grabbed Vandana’s arm and rushed her out to the garden.
“I want to know what happened between you and David in Kathmandu.”
“Nothing happened … nothing at all.”
“Look, David’s dead, so please stop lying to me, okay? I’m not here to preach at you.”
By now, the Indian police were being accompanied by embassy employees, as they jostled their way through the crowd, which was intrigued and entertained by it all. In a few seconds, they’d be here.
“What happened in Kathmandu?” he repeated.
Vandana stared fixedly at him and appeared to hesitate. He’d been right to insist.
“I went by myself,” she confessed after a long pause. “David didn’t come with me.”
“He stayed in Delhi?”
“I don’t know, but after the bombing, when Juliette started saying he’d changed after Nepal, I realized he hadn’t been with her as I thought.”
“Did you tell the police?”
“No. I didn’t want Juliette to get involved.”
“Another woman?”
She shook her head. “Juliette and David were in love. He’d never do that. Never. Not with me or anyone else.”
Max looked at her for a long time. He felt sorry he’d accused her.
“Does the name Tourigny mean anything to you?”
“No, nothing. Who’s that?”
Loud voices emerged from the crowd as three policemen joined the others to everyone’s delight.
“You haven’t a hope of getting out of here,” Vandana said, but Max just smiled.
“Don’t worry. I’m used to this.” And he snaked through the guests at the bottom of the garden and out to the alley by an opening he’d spotted in his previous reconnaissance. It was deserted and dark, and though he wanted to run, he settled into a brisk walk and never looked back. At the corner, he wondered which way to go, but then his attention was caught by the coughing of a rickshaw motor drawn to its potential customer.
“Aray! Rickshaw, sahib? Rickshaw?”
Max climbed inside and sat down without even dickering about the fare, something the Lonely Planet he bought at Heathrow had expressly told him never to do.
No way Max was going back to the Oberoi, of course. The cops were certainly sitting on it. It was by showing his photo to taxi drivers that they had probably traced him to the Spanish ambassador. The rickshaw skirted India Gate and headed for Tilak Marg.
“Do you want to stay at my place?” asked Jayesh over the phone. That could work, but it would compromise the young Indian. He’d thought about hiding out at the inn on Akbar Road, if it still existed, but the police would certainly check there.
“Some place discreet, Jayesh. Better if it’s one where Westerners hang out.”
After a moment’s silence, Jayesh said, “Ask the driver to let you off near the Jama Mosque. Facing it is a small alley leading to the Chawri Bazaar.”
Max relayed the address to the driver, who then branched off onto a side road. Suddenly the landscape was different, as Embassy Row and the Ministerial Quarter yielded to a true Indian city, offhand and neglected, a sort of random set of building blocks that, by some miracle, barely held together. Here, unlike the new city, the people were in control of the streets, families sleeping outdoors on charpai, a sort of bed they put away in the daytime. Then the avenue narrowed imperceptibly and became a long and winding thread of mud past the shops all barred up for the night. Occasionally they encountered a beggar, one of those who slept in the train station until the police turfed them out to wander the streets in search of shelter. This city was the complete opposite of what one saw in the daytime, astonishingly silent and tranquil, and it would stay that way until the mosques called the faithful to prayer just before dawn: “Never forget, neighbours, that Delhi, Old Delhi is, above all, Muslim!”
Max pictured Bhargava, the “James Bond of Hinduness,” dreaming that he could silence these muezzins forever. Send these circumcisees packing to their brothers and accomplices in Pakistan, or anywhere!
There was no missing the red door, Jayesh told him. Behind it was a bright — too bright — illumination, probably neon, and a hand-painted sign announced LIVERPOOL GUEST HOUSE: CLEAN SHEETS. CLEAN SHOWERS. The night watchman was napping on a worn-out mattress behind the reception counter, an older man with ruffled hair and teeth reddened with betel juice. Max signed the tea-stained register but didn’t even have to present his passport. The porter showed no surprise that this guest looked utterly unlike his usual customers, whom Max saw early next morning on the sun-flooded terrace. The hotel was a refuge for hippies in wraparound longyis and oversized pyjamas — escapees from the West, bigger than life, hairy, and probably fried, smoking bidis and nodding incessantly. Max smiled. Jayesh was right. The police couldn’t even imagine this place.
