“Yeah, thanks, I get how that works, Amber.”
“Well, within the past week, he’s also geo-linked to three places that he’s been with his family, including his father. So, I’m hopeful that the next time Hassan hangs out with his son, we’ll get an alert on the son’s social media.”
I smile. “You’re a genius.”
“Yes, it does feel that way, doesn’t it?” Amber says.
“And modest too,” I add.
“I’ll let you know when I have anything more,” she says, and hangs up.
I make it to the hotel just after Kit and Peggy have checked in. On the street outside the driveway, reporters and TV cameras jostle for position. I hope they are here waiting for some Bollywood superstar to emerge and not hoping to get pictures of my mother on her way to see the deceased girls’ families or the schools.
I stop in at Kit’s room. She greets me with a long, hard hug. It’s clear from her bloodshot eyes, shadowed with dark circles, that she’s hardly slept, and when she pulls back to look at me, her face holds a manic, strained energy that I haven’t seen in her since the days when she was drinking. When alcohol was the only way she felt some relief from the sharp edges of pain. It makes me very uneasy.
“Mum, are you okay?”
“Fine.”
“Are those paparazzi outside waiting for you?” I ask.
“Like vultures circling their prey,” she remarks, disconsolate.
“I’m sorry.”
She waves off my concern. “Here, give me a hand, Jess.”
She turns away and starts dragging a sofa across the polished wood floor. The hotel room that she has is miles bigger than mine, a suite really, with enough space to hold a small soccer match and possibly a stand for the audience too.
“Mum, not this again . . . ,” I plead. But I go over to help her.
Once Kit is happy with the placement of the sofa, she makes me help turn the desk around. She does this often when she travels—rearranges hotel rooms to facilitate the flow of chi, or positive energy. It’s a feng shui thing, and I’m not convinced it makes any kind of difference, but Kit looks so stressed out at the moment that I just keep quiet and help out.
Next, she starts unpacking. I help her hang up floaty shirts and printed jackets. Along with them are a couple of white shalwar kameez outfits—long tunics that go over fitted trousers.
“These are nice,” I say, trying to cheer her up, but it seems like I fail epically because Kit sits heavily on the end of the bed and just starts to cry.
“They’re for the condolence visits and the funerals,” she says, her voice breaking. Sitting beside her, I put my arm around her, but it feels pretty meaningless and not much help compared to the grief, or guilt, she’s going through. Finally, the weeping subsides, and I take her hand.
“When did you last eat anything?” I ask.
She shrugs.
“Mum?”
“I can’t remember.”
“Then let’s get Peggy and find some food.”
An hour later Kit’s taken us all out to a small restaurant with a patio that’s open to the baking late-afternoon sun. A long line of commuters and local residents stands waiting for their turn to be served for takeout, but Peggy has managed to grab us a table, and within minutes, a waiter deposits our food in front of us. We are each given a large thali platter. Arranged upon it are lots of small bowls filled with different vegetarian curries—smoky lentils, chopped eggplant, paneer cheese, and spiced cauliflower. On the side are dishes of rice, pale green coconut chutney, and paratha bread, hot out of the oven and oozing with butter.
“This looks divine,” Peggy says, surveying her plate.
“I’ve been coming to this place since the nineties,” Kit says. She’s been to India tons of times, for the schools that she founded, but also from years ago, when she was searching for enlightenment but mainly found dodgy gurus. I’m super hungry. Peggy watches with a small smile as I tuck into my meal. I glance up at her, questioningly.
“How does this fit with your diet sheet, Jessie?”
Li’s nutritionist provides Caitlin, Hala, and me with an individual eating plan that gives us perfectly measured amounts of each food group, tailored to our specific body shape, blood types, metabolism, and general food tolerances. It’s all wrapped up in a sexy app that Li has had coded in-house that combines data on our sleep, movement, heart rate, and body temperature, all of which is taken from a regular tracking ring. It’s all very impressive and we’re all super fit, but sometimes you just need that burrito, or a bag of fish and chips. Or rice and curry.
“I don’t think there’s anything here that’s off-limits,” I say.
My brazen lie makes Kit smile at least, and even though she only nibbles at her plate, the food seems to help restore my mother a little too. Meanwhile, I ask Peggy if there’s any news on Jake Graham.
“On the face of it, he still doesn’t have enough for us to panic about. But he’s persistent,” Peggy sighs. “He called me and left a message, just yesterday.”
“Did he say what he wants?” I ask.
“No.”
“But it was right after he came to see me,” says Kit. She falls silent, brooding.
“Amber’s still working on it,” Peggy says, trying to be upbeat. “There’s no point tying ourselves in knots. We all have enough on our plates right now.”
I nod. Just as I contemplate starting in on Kit’s leftovers, a new message from Amber comes into my earpiece. I’ve been wearing the comms unit since after our last conversation, to make sure I don’t miss anything.
“Is it Hassan?” I ask.
“Yes, I’ve found him,” she replies. “His son just checked in on social to say he’s helping his father by working after school. It appears that Hassan owns a small car repair place over in the Santacruz area of the city.”
“So, he’s there now?”
“Right now. I’ve sent details to all of you. Caitlin’s going to stay and keep an eye on the girls at the hotel, but Hala will meet you there.”
I arrive at the car repair shop by auto-rickshaw. Rickshaws are just that bit narrower and more nimble than a taxi, and I don’t want to risk losing our target by being snared in traffic jams. On the way over, I imagine how it would go if I shared the information we just gained on Hassan and his whereabouts with the police, with Riya. The problem is, even if the police manage to get to him, whatever they learn would never be passed back to us. And Hassan is most likely a cog in a big Family First wheel. And it is Family First that we really want to cripple. Delivering the man who may have planted the bomb and giving him a big, splashy trial would be a huge win for the police in Mumbai—but the truth is that people like Hassan are the hired hands who execute the strategy. We need to find out who’s pulling the strings.
The garage is wide and deep, with two cars cranked up so that mechanics can work beneath them. Several other cars are scattered around, with their hoods open. Hala joins me outside the place. She and Caitlin hired motorbikes and she’s managed to arrive ten minutes ahead of me, giving her time to spot and watch Hassan.
“He’s the one in the banana shirt and shades,” she says. Indeed, Hassan is in oversized sunglasses and a short-sleeved yellow shirt with green bananas printed all over it. It’s a depressingly memorable style choice. Currently, Hassan seems like he’s on a break. He lounges against the back wall of the garage, chugging back a bottle of orange soda, and talking to a young boy in overalls, possibly his son. After a minute, the boy slides beneath one of the cars to work on it, and Hassan leans down to give him some advice. Then he finishes his soda and saunters out toward the front, toward us, where he stretches and takes in the street, which is jam-packed with cars inching slowly along.