“I’m appointed by the owner of this school. Maybe you should start thinking about it as our crime scene.”
“I don’t think so,” she says simply. She takes off her jacket and drapes it over her arm, revealing a shoulder holster containing the gun she threatened me with. It is sweltering in here.
“I’m happy to share information once we have it,” she concedes finally. “But just to be clear—I don’t have to.” She casts a suspicious glance at the desk, then at my hands. “Did you take anything?” she demands.
“Of course not,” I exclaim, as if I’m insulted at the mere idea. The detective seems to relax a bit more at my assurance. Meanwhile a tiny blue light flashes at the base of the screen of the desk computer, reminding me that its contents are uploading to Athena’s servers as we speak. At the doorway, a policeman appears and asks something in Hindi. Detective Kapoor rattles off a reply that sends him packing. Then she looks at me.
“Come with me,” she says.
I resist the urge to look at the computer again. When the upload’s complete, it should switch off and leave the desktop looking completely normal.
“You can’t stay here unsupervised,” the detective continues. “Everything is potential evidence.”
“Yes, but how long will it take the police to go through all of it?”
She starts walking, leading me away from the body of the building.
“You’re from England?” she asks.
“Wow, you really are a detective,” I say. The snark makes me feel better, but it doesn’t earn me much love from my companion. She narrows her eyes at me.
“What are the police like there?” she asks, ignoring my sarcasm.
“Bureaucratic. Overworked.”
“Well, it’s no better here, and possibly much worse,” she says. “They’ll get us what they can as soon as they can.” She turns to me. “Believe it or not, we do our best, ma’am.”
“Call me Jessie,” I offer, trying to cut through the formality and mend some fences. “Can I call you Riya?”
“No,” she says curtly. “Anyway, here in Mumbai, it’s the same as in most cities. A lot of crime, and not enough manpower.”
“And I get that,” I answer. “That’s why I’m here to help however I can.”
With my gaze, I try to convey how earnest I am, how much I want to cooperate. She watches me for a moment and then smiles suddenly. It’s a great smile and it lights up her whole face. Finally, some glimmer of a real person under the officious exterior.
“You really want to help—Jessie?”
I nod, eager to get her on my side.
“Then stay the hell out of my way,” she says abruptly. “There, that’s the exit,” she continues, pointing to the street. Just for good measure, she pauses to call over a uniformed cop. “Anil here will escort you out.”
Since Detective Kapoor threw me out, my scope for snooping around the crime scene is much more limited, but at least Amber has the computer uploads and the pictures I took of the recent plumbing maintenance that happened at the school. While she goes through everything, I hail a taxi and head over to the next district, Bandra, where the second school is located, to check in with Caitlin and Hala.
Bandra is a busy area of the city, but one that also fronts the sea. It has plenty of leafy streets too, shaded from the brutal sear of the sun. Back lanes filled with old heritage buildings, arts and crafts stores, and cool cafés create a gentle contrast to the blaring traffic on the main roads. Driving along the seafront road, I take in an old fort that rises at the edge of the foaming waves. Beyond the worn stone of the fort, the bright, clean, ultramodern Bandra-Worli Sea Link bridge stretches out effortlessly across the bay, its enormous girth laden with cars moving from one side of the city to the other.
I have the driver take me past the other school, which is currently empty, just to have a look at it. The pupils and staff have been evacuated, and police guards are set up here as well. The building is on a residential street, which is otherwise a mix of small houses and low apartment blocks. Taller blocks rise up in rings all around the school, in the immediate vicinity and then radiating out from there. Mumbai is a city where land is so much at a premium that even billionaires build their dream homes upward, in towers that reach toward the sky. Driving on from the school, we turn into a side street where Caitlin has messaged me the name of a café where we can meet.
Inside, the atmosphere is cool, freshened with air-conditioning. Both my teammates are sitting at a wide table made of polished wood. Handcrafted cushions liven up the bench seating, and art by local painters covers most of the wall space. I order a coffee before Caitlin presses me for an update.
“You get anything?” she asks.
“I got interrupted by an obnoxious police detective,” I sigh. “But Amber’s working on the hard drives from the school, and there’s this. . . .” I show her the plumber contract on my phone. She zooms in on it, looking for the date.
“They waltzed in there two days before the attack?” Caitlin frowns. “That looks more than suspicious.”
“Yeah. I want to talk to the headmistress about it.”
“Her name is Jaya,” says Caitlin. “You’ll find her at the hotel where they evacuated the girls. It’s like, five minutes from here.”
“How long are the girls going to stay there?”
“Just till tomorrow. Then they’re coming back to the school,” Caitlin says.
Hala catches my skeptical look. “Peggy’s hired private security,” she says.
“The Indian ambassador recommended them, and she trusts him,” Caitlin adds. “But she’s also got a couple of former Navy SEALs that she knows personally coming out to India from the States tomorrow.”
I smile to myself. Of course Peggy has the most highly trained military men in existence on speed dial. Why wouldn’t she?
“But still,” I wonder. “Wouldn’t a safe house be better?”
“It’s been tough to find something secure enough so far,” Caitlin replies. “Plus, even if lessons were stopped, some adults would need to be trusted to supervise them. Food and water would still have to be brought in. There would be some supply chain that could still leave Family First a way to find the girls, if they’re looking.”
“As far as we know, this attack was a one-off,” Hala reminds me.
I nod. I also know Kit is not keen to bow to terrorists by abandoning her existing school buildings. With the extra security, plus some kind of uniformed police presence, I suppose terrorists would be deterred from trying to strike the same type of target twice. I gulp down my macchiato. It’s time for me to go and interview the headmistress.
I’m reassured by the fact that it takes several minutes for me to get past the police that are guarding the hotel where the girls are currently staying. Only by cross-checking my ID with a list of trusted names that Kit has sent through will they eventually let me in to speak to the headmistress.
A uniformed officer walks me into the hotel lobby, a cozy space that is now deserted. Down one hallway, I catch a glimpse of hotel meeting rooms. The doors are ajar, and I can hear the sounds of lessons going on. The policeman leads me farther back, into the dining room, where the furniture has clearly been rearranged. Instead of intimate tables of two and four, there are now two very long tables stretching down the length of the room, transforming a hotel restaurant into a dining area that feels more like a school lunch hall. These tables are empty except for two women sitting at one end, talking. The officer points them out and leaves me to make my approach alone.