The beggar tilted his head to one side but then nodded.
‘That may be so, son. But what does it matter any more? I wouldn’t worry about your friends. There’s not much this man, Jawahal, can do to them now.’
Seth frowned. ‘Why do you say that?’
The beggar laughed.
‘The night of the fire I was even younger than you are now. In fact, I was the youngest in the prison. This man, whoever he was, must be well over a hundred by now.’
Seth rubbed his temples, totally confused.
‘Just a moment,’ he said. ‘Didn’t the prison burn down in 1916?’
‘1916?’ The beggar laughed again. ‘Dear boy, what are you going on about? Curzon Fort burnt down in the early hours of 26 April 1857. Seventy-five years ago.’
Seth stared open-mouthed at the beggar, who was studying him with curiosity and some concern at his evident dismay.
‘What’s your name?’ the man asked.
‘Seth, sir,’ replied the boy, whose face had gone pale.
‘I’m sorry I haven’t been able to help you, Seth.’
‘You have,’ replied Seth. ‘Now how can I help you?’
The beggar’s eyes shone and he smiled bitterly.
‘Can you make time go backwards, Seth?’ The beggar stared at the palms of his hands.
Seth shook his head.
‘Then you can’t help me … Go back to your friends, Seth. But don’t forget me.’
‘I won’t, sir.’
Michael stopped by the entrance to the street that led to Aryami Bose’s house and stared in shock at the smoking ruins of what had once been the old lady’s home. People had drifted in from the streets and were standing in the courtyard, watching in silence as the police searched the debris and questioned the neighbours. Michael hurried over and pushed through the circle of onlookers. A police officer stopped him.
‘I’m sorry, lad. You can’t come through.’
Michael looked over the policeman’s shoulder and saw two of the man’s colleagues lifting a fallen beam that was still glowing.
‘What about the woman who lives in the house?’ asked Michael.
The policeman seemed suspicious. ‘You knew her?’
‘She’s my friends’ grandmother,’ Michael replied. ‘Where is she? Is she dead?’
The officer observed him impassively for a few seconds then shook his head.
‘We can’t find any trace of her,’ he said. ‘One of the neighbours says he saw someone running down the street shortly after the flames burst through the roof. But I’ve already told you more than I should. Off you go now.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Michael. He made his way back through the mass that was gathering in the hope of some gruesome discovery.
Once he was free of the crowd, Michael examined the adjacent buildings, trying to guess where the old lady might have fled. Both ends of the street merged into the Black Town, with its tangle of buildings, bazaars and palaces. Aryami Bose could be anywhere.
For a few moments Michael considered the options, then finally decided to head for the banks of the Hooghly River, to the west. There thousands of pilgrims immersed themselves in the sacred waters of the Ganges, hoping heaven might purify them, although mostly they received only fevers and diseases in return.
With the sun beating down on him, Michael wove his way through the throng that flooded the streets, a constant gabble of merchants, quarrels and unheeded prayers. The voice of Calcutta. Some twenty metres behind him a figure wrapped in a dark shawl peered out from an alleyway and began to follow him through the crowd.
Ian opened his eyes with the absolute certainty that his persistent insomnia would allow him no more than a few hours’ respite, despite the exhaustion brought about by recent events. Judging from the quality of the light bathing the room in the western tower of the engineer’s house, he calculated that it must be somewhere around mid-afternoon. The hunger pangs that had assaulted him at dawn had returned with a vengeance, making him grit his teeth. As Ben used to joke, parodying the words of the writer Tagore, whose castle was only a short distance away: when the stomach speaks, the wise man listens.
As Ian slipped quietly from the room, he noticed with some envy that Ben and Sheere were still enjoying the sleep of the righteous. He suspected that when they woke up even Sheere would be prepared to swallow the first edible object within reach, and as far as Ben was concerned, there was no doubt whatsoever. Ian imagined his best friend was probably busy dreaming about a tray of gastronomic delights and a sumptuous dessert of chhena sweets – a mixture of lime juice and boiled milk that all sweet-toothed Bengalis adored.
Aware that he had already been granted more sleep than expected, he decided to venture out in search of provisions with which to placate his hunger and that of his friends. With a bit of luck he’d be back before either of them had even had time to yawn.
As he crossed the large hall containing the model town and made for the spiral staircase, he was pleased to see that in daylight the house looked considerably less menacing and that nothing else had changed. Ian noticed that the building was remarkably efficient at insulating them from the soaring temperatures outside. It wasn’t hard to imagine the stifling heat beyond those walls, yet the engineer’s house felt almost spring-like. Downstairs, he walked through some of the galaxies on the floor mosaic then opened the door to the outside world, hoping he wouldn’t forget the combination of the eccentric lock that sealed Chandra Chatterghee’s sanctuary.
The sun beat down mercilessly on the dense vegetation of the garden. The lake, which the night before had resembled a sheet of polished ebony, now threw bright reflections against the front of the house. Ian walked towards the secret tunnel beneath the wooden bridge and entered the passageway. Before its pungent stench could fill his lungs, he was out again, passing through the entry that led to the street. There, he threw an imaginary coin in the air and decided to begin his search for food by heading west.
As he walked along, humming to himself, he could never have imagined that behind him the four circles of the combination lock had slowly started to turn again, and that this time the four-letter word they would form when set in a vertical line was not Dido, but the name of a goddess much closer to home: Kali.
In his dreams Ben thought he heard a crash. He woke to find the room in total darkness. His first thought, in his initial daze after waking abruptly from a long deep sleep, was that night must have fallen and they had slept for over twelve hours. But a moment later he heard the dry thud again and realised that the room wasn’t dark because it was night-time; something was happening in the house. The shutters were slamming shut like the tightly sealed sluice gates of a canal. Ben jumped out of bed and ran to the door in search of his friends.
‘Ben!’ he heard Sheere yelling.
He raced over to her room and opened the door. His sister was standing behind it, trembling and unable to move. Ben hugged her and led her out of the room, watching in horror as, one by one, the windows of the house were blocked out.
‘Ben,’ Sheere whispered. ‘Something came into my room while I was sleeping and touched me.’
Ben felt a shudder run through his body. He led Sheere to the middle of the room containing the model of the city. Seconds later they were surrounded by nothing but darkness. Ben put his arms round Sheere and told her to remain silent as he scanned the room for any hint of movement. He couldn’t make anything out in the dark, but they could both hear a murmur that seemed to be invading the structure of the house, a sound like tiny animals scuttling under the floors and between the walls.
‘What’s that, Ben?’ whispered Sheere.
Before her brother could find an answer, something else stole the words from his lips. Little by little the lights in the model city were coming on, and the two siblings witnessed the birth of a nocturnal Calcutta. Ben gulped and Sheere clung on to him tightly. In the middle of the model the headlights of the little train flashed and its wheels slowly began to turn.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ hissed Ben, guiding Sheere frantically towards the staircase that led to the ground floor. ‘Now!’
They had only taken a few steps when they saw a circle of fire boring a hole through the door of the room where Sheere had been sleeping. In an instant the flames had consumed the wood, like a red-hot coal passing through a sheet of paper. Ben’s feet were rooted to the floor as he watched blazing footsteps coming towards them from the doorway.
‘Run!’ he shouted, pushing his sister towards the staircase. ‘Go on!’
Sheere hurled herself down the stairs while Ben remained glued to the spot, right in the path of the fiery footsteps. He felt a breath of hot air impregnated with the stench of burnt paraffin against his face as a footstep fell only centimetres from his feet. Two red pupils glowed in the dark like red-hot irons, and Ben felt a fiery claw clamping his right arm. In an instant it had burnt right through his shirt-sleeve and scorched his skin.
‘It is not yet time for us to meet,’ whispered a piercing cavernous voice. ‘Get out of my way.’
Before Ben could react, the iron grip had shoved him aside and sent him sprawling to the floor. Ben touched his wounded arm then looked up to see an incandescent vision descending the spiral staircase, destroying it as it went.