De Rozio studied the two boys. They were as pale as marble. The plump scholar smiled in commiseration.
‘My condolences,’ he murmured. ‘You’ve been sniffing down the wrong hole …’
Shortly afterwards, Seth and Michael were sitting on the stairs of the main entrance to the Indian Museum, watching the sunrise. A light rain had glazed the streets and they shone like sheets of liquid gold. Seth looked at his companion and showed him a coin.
‘Heads, I go and visit Aryami and you go to the prison. Tails, it’s the other way round.’
Michael nodded, his eyes half-closed. Seth tossed the coin and the circle of bronze spun in the air, catching the light, until it landed on the boy’s hand. Michael leaned over to check the result.
‘Give my regards to Aryami,’ Seth mumbled.
The night had seemed endless but finally daylight arrived at the engineer’s house. For once in his life Ian blessed the Calcutta sun, as its rays erased the shroud of darkness that had enveloped them for hours. In the dawn the house seemed less threatening. Ben and Sheere were also visibly relieved to see the morning come.
‘If there’s one good thing about this house, it’s that it’s safe,’ said Ben. ‘If our friend Jawahal had been able to get in, he would have done so already. Our father might have had some strange inclinations, but he knew how to protect a home. I suggest we try to get some sleep. The way things are looking right now, I’d rather sleep during the day and stay awake at night.’
‘I couldn’t agree with you more,’ said Ian. ‘Where shall we sleep?’
‘There are several bedrooms in the towers,’ Sheere explained. ‘We can choose.’
‘I suggest we find rooms next to each other,’ said Ben.
‘Fine,’ said Ian. ‘And it wouldn’t be a bad idea to eat something either.’
‘That can wait,’ Ben replied. ‘Later on we’ll go out and find something.’
‘How can you two be hungry?’ asked Sheere.
Ben and Ian shrugged their shoulders.
‘Elemental physiology,’ replied Ben. ‘Ask Ian. He’s the doctor.’
‘As the teacher in a Bombay school once told me,’ said Sheere, ‘the main difference between a man and a woman is that the man always puts his stomach before his heart and a woman does the opposite.’
Ben considered the theory.
‘Let me quote our favourite misogynist and professional bachelor, Mr Thomas Carter: “The real difference is that, while men’s stomachs are much larger than their brains and their hearts, women’s hearts are so small they keep leaping out of their mouths.”’
Ian seemed bemused by the exchange of such illustrious quotes.
‘Cheap philosophy,’ pronounced Sheere.
‘The cheap sort, my dear Sheere, is the only philosophy worth having,’ declared Ben.
Ian raised a hand to signal a truce.
‘Goodnight to both of you,’ he said, then headed straight for one of the towers.
Ten minutes later all three had fallen into a deep sleep from which nobody could have roused them. In the end tiredness conquered fear.
Setting off from the Indian Museum in Chowringhee Road, Seth walked south almost a kilometre downhill. He then turned east along Park Street, heading for the Beniapukur area, where the ruins of the old Curzon Fort prison stood next to the Scottish cemetery. The dilapidated graveyard had been built on what was once the official limit of the city. In those days a high mortality rate and the speed with which bodies decomposed meant that all burial grounds had to be situated outside Calcutta for reasons of public health. Ironically, although the Scots had been in control of Calcutta’s commercial activity for decades, they discovered that they couldn’t afford a place among the graves of their English neighbours, and were therefore forced to build their own cemetery. In Calcutta the wealthy refused to yield their land to anyone poorer, even after death.
As he approached what remained of the Curzon Fort prison, Seth understood why the building had not yet become another victim of the city’s cruel demolition programme. There was no need – its structure already seemed to be hanging by an invisible string, ready to topple over the crowds at the slightest attempt to alter its balance. A fire had devoured the building, carving out gaps and destroying beams and props in its fury.
Seth approached the prison entrance, wondering how on earth he was going to discover anything among the heap of charred timber and bricks. Surely the only mementos of its past would be the metal bars and cells that had been transformed in their final hours into lethal ovens from which there was no escape.
‘Have you come on a visit, boy?’ whispered a voice behind him.
Seth spun around in alarm and realised that the words had come from the lips of a ragged old man whose feet and hands were covered in large infected sores. Dark eyes watched him nervously, and the man’s face was caked in grime, his sparse white beard evidently trimmed with a knife.
‘Is this the Curzon Fort prison, sir?’ asked Seth.
The beggar’s eyes widened when he heard the polite way the boy was addressing him, and his leathery lips broke into a toothless smile.
‘What’s left of it,’ he replied. ‘Looking for accommodation?’
‘I’m looking for information,’ replied Seth, trying to smile back at the beggar in a friendly manner.
‘This world is full of ignoramuses: nobody is looking for information. Except you. So what do you want to find out, young man?’
‘Do you know this place?’
‘I live in it,’ answered the beggar. ‘Once it was my prison; today it’s my home. Providence has been generous to me.’
‘You were imprisoned in Curzon Fort?’ asked Seth, incredulous.
‘Once upon a time I made some big mistakes … and I had to pay for them.’
‘How long were you in prison, sir?’ asked Seth.
‘Right to the end.’
‘So you were here the night of the fire?’
The beggar drew aside the rags draped over his body and Seth stared in horror at the purple scars covering his chest and neck.
‘Maybe you could help me,’ continued Seth. ‘Two friends of mine are in danger. Do you remember a prisoner called Jawahal?’
The beggar closed his eyes and slowly shook his head.
‘None of us called each other by our real names,’ he explained. ‘Our name, like our freedom, was something we left by the entrance when we came here. We hoped that if we managed to keep our name separate from the horror of this place, we might be able to recover it when we left, clean and untouched by memories. It didn’t turn out that way of course …’
‘The man I’m referring to was convicted of murder,’ Seth replied. ‘He was young. He was the one who started the fire that destroyed the prison and then escaped.’
The beggar stared at him in surprise.
‘The one who started the fire? The fire started in the boiler room. An oil valve exploded. I was outside my cell, doing my work shift. That was what saved me.’