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neighbour, dressed more for the office than the field – a member of the mayor’s office down the road, home of the local panchayat. ‘Namaste. Is Dr de Villiers present?’ he asked. Kumar’s father stood, greeted the man and swept his hand towards De Villiers, who stepped forward.
    ‘Dr de Villiers, sir, I am sorry but I have worrying news for you,’ said the man, now just inside. ‘We received a telephone call just now from a Mr Sunil, who says he is from your office in Kathmandu …’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘He went to fetch your son at Tribhuvan Airport, on time, just as planned …’
    ‘And?’ De Villiers had to interrupt. Drag the words out of this stranger.
    ‘The boy wasn’t there.’



Chapter 5
    He woke in a strange room, reeking of sandalwood and infused by music, like cats mewling, with a babel of voices from the street below. It was night, dark outside the barred windows facing the street; from the board-like bed Eli could see only wires like black snakes and a few street lamps. Someone had left a candle and matches, along with a plate of rotis and curry, on the floor next to his bed. He ignored the food but lit the candle and crossed the room to look out. Straight across were just a high wall, more wires and what he guessed were train tracks. Down the road, on the same side of the street, was a row of wrecked buildings, with tiny balconies decorated with coloured lights and, he saw, shadows moving on them. He pressed his face against the grillwork on the window, his head thick and nonsensical. A train howled from nowhere. The train. The driver with the sign. In the flicker of candlelight he wondered where the fucking hell he was.
    The shadows were women, girls more like it. Some were free on the balconies, dancing sinuously and waving to the throng of men down below, moving in a current of people, cars, bikes, rickshaws and scooters. There was shouting he couldn’t understand and a constant percussion of car horns and bicycle bells. He saw a girl’s face if she moved into the light, lots of make-up around the eyes and blood-red lips. Saris spangled with gold and beads, arms full of bracelets – there was so much glitter, it was like a celebration. With the snaky music and the boisterous voices and the girls dancing, it felt like a huge, weird party to which he hadn’t been invited. In a city somewhere. In the old part, judging from the chipped walls and faded pastels of the old stone havelis, the broken flowerpots on the balconies and, in the distance, the minarets of mosques and crenellations of an ancient fort. In India, still, he assumed. A small, pale arm, with no adornment, jutted out through the grillwork on the building next door, waving urgently. Wherever he was, he knew he had to get out.
    He moved across the room and tried the old wooden door with askeleton lock; it didn’t open. There were no sounds in the corridor, though he thought he could hear faint strains of other music, classical, from not far off – maybe Mozart, one of his mother’s favourites. Who could be listening to Mozart in this place? He pounded on the door with all his might till his fists were red and throbbing.
    As he began another round of pounding, the door opened and a huge man, long black hair flying, lunged through the transom, grabbed him and hurled him through the air. He landed on his knees and stayed there, trembling and sore, submissive. When he dared to look up he saw more of the man: a white pathan suit, gold earring, thick moustache and a pair of mirror aviators. Black motorcycle boots that could kick the shit out of you. Eli saw himself in the man’s sunglasses, a shrunken little gnome.
Now he pulls out the gun
, he thought, almost in disbelief. Which is exactly what the goonda did, pointing it straight at his head.
    ‘Stand up, Eli, relax,’ he said, waving the gun at him a few times before stuffing it under his shirt and sitting down on the frail bed. He was chewing gum, cracking it. ‘Conserve your