As I empty my bag, I look at myself in the chipped mirror that sits over the sink. My hair is much darker now, almost black. It looks natural but my skin still feels too pale for this ruse to work, surrounded as I am by Indians with a richer skin tone. But there’s not much I can do about that now, other than inserting dark brown contact lenses to cover the green color of my eyes. I pull on the items that Amber had delivered to my room—khaki pants and standard lace-up shoes that pinch at my toes. Next, I button on a khaki shirt with chest pockets and epaulets. It fits snugly on top of my skinny T-shirt. Lastly, I try on a navy cap carrying an embroidered logo on the front, and the words “Mumbai Police” on the side. I tug the cap down, trying to hide as much of my face as I can. Thrusting my jeans and boots into my backpack, I head out into the street, trying to look as if I know where I’m going.
Walking with an air of confidence, I circle around toward the school, looking for an entry point. There are police on all the corners of the building, while at the front gates, TV news vans, photographers, and reporters jostle for position. There’s certainly plenty of confusion there, and because of that, a possible way to slip in, unnoticed, but it also feels very exposed. Then, from the corner of my eye I see a police van pull up to a side street. A group of twelve officers, a couple of them women, jump down and wait to be deployed. I sidle closer as someone senior in plain clothes comes over to them and barks some instructions in Hindi. They all start moving, briskly, toward the school, and as they duck under the police tape, I step in alongside them and move inside too. There’s a sense of urgency to everyone’s movements, which means no one stops to talk or look much at each other, thank goodness. I don’t wear out my luck though. As soon as I can, I drop back, a little behind the others, and duck into the first doorway that I find.
I’ve been briefed that there are eight classrooms in the three-story whitewashed structure, as well as a computer room, music room, and, upstairs, several dorms for the girls, who are all boarders, since they often come from smaller towns and villages some distance from Mumbai. The place is empty, now, of course. I’m in a corridor that leads away from the classrooms. Much farther ahead, I can see more police tape hanging in limp ribbons around the section of the building where the explosion must have happened. There’s a pit in my stomach as I think about the devastation that so recently occurred there. I make myself turn away and focus. Putting my head into each doorway, I find a large kitchen, mostly intact, and next door to the kitchen are the rooms I’m looking for—administrative offices.
It’s not my job to crash the heart of the crime scene and potentially mess up forensic evidence. That needs the police, coroners, and a whole host of pathologists—and, presumably, they are all hard at work this morning. What I’m looking for is any information about the running of the school. Who works here, who might have been a recent hire, who might have been a temp worker. Anyone who could have been in on this plan; anyone who may intentionally, or even inadvertently, have given the bombers access.
It’s also important that I don’t get caught impersonating a police officer. Most jurisdictions find that unpalatable, to say the least. In any event, my disguise has already done its job, allowing me to get into the crime scene. Swiftly, I pull off the police uniform, revealing just my T-shirt. Then I pull my jeans back on. I step back into the kitchen and hide the uniform by stuffing it deep inside the back of a washing machine that’s under the sink. Lastly, I remove the brown contact lenses. Then I turn my attention to the offices.
I hack open the desktop computer and start uploads of the data to a secure cloud server; a server that is monitored directly by Amber in London. Then I start working through the sheets of paper on the desk and in the drawers. There’s even a filing cabinet—how irritatingly retro in a cloud storage world. Like I have time to filter through the paper crammed inside. And it’s going to be hard enough getting out of here under the radar without dragging stacks of files along with me.
Sitting at the desk, I quickly become absorbed in recent paperwork tossed in a tray, perhaps waiting to be filed. It details annual maintenance work completed just two days earlier by a local plumbing company. I snap some photos of the documents, then slip my phone back into my pocket and lean down to check inside the desk. And it’s while I’m down there, my head deep in a drawer, that I hear the click of a gun safety being removed. I freeze.
“Put your hands where I can see them,” a voice says softly.
6
I OBEY, RAISING MY HANDS high and moving my head extremely slowly back up above the desk. A young woman stands there, aiming a gun at my chest. But she’s not in a police uniform. She wears a navy pantsuit over a crisp white shirt. Under her jacket a badge of some kind gleams.
“Look, I’m terribly sorry,” I say, dusting off my own British accent but dialing it up a bit, to help me sound like a fish out of water. I throw in a gulp and stutter too, like I’ve never seen a real gun before. “I work for Kit Love. She sent me here, and I couldn’t find anyone to ask permission from, so I just came in. . . .”
“Hands on your head. Interlace your fingers,” the woman commands.
I do as she asks. “Can I show you my ID?” I try again. My hand slips down from my head to reach for it, but a jerk of her weapon persuades me not to.
“Get up and stand facing the wall,” she says. Once I’m there, she approaches, still holding me at gunpoint.
“Where’s your ID?” she asks.
“Back pocket of my jeans.”
She pats down my pockets and extracts the fake ID that Amber gave me. On it is a fictional name—Jessica Flynn—instead of my real name, Jennifer Archer. It means I still get to be called Jessie, though, which makes my life easier; at least I don’t have to train myself to respond to a name that’s completely new to me. The ID also has a different date of birth, one that puts me a little older than I really am. The woman gives a sound of acknowledgment.
“We were told by Kit’s office to expect you, Jessica. You can turn around,” she says, holstering her weapon.
I turn and offer her my hand. “Kit has asked me to oversee the investigation.”
“Detective Riya Kapoor,” she says, ignoring my hand. I drop it, taken aback. She is probably mid- to late twenties, my height, slim with wide, brown eyes and improbably long lashes. Her dark hair is pulled back into a loose ponytail and she wears no makeup, making her look even more youthful.
“You seem very young for a detective,” I say, taking a gamble that charm might be my best strategy.
“You seem very young—and not very bright—for an investigator,” she returns.
So much for the introductions. I cross my arms, a bit riled.
“Tell me, Detective, did you flunk out of etiquette school, or is it just your job that’s made you cynical?”
She raises an eyebrow at me. “Why don’t I ask the questions?” she says. “And the obvious one is—why are you prowling around my crime scene, disturbing evidence?”
“Your crime scene?”
She bristles. “I’m one of the detectives assigned to this case. And you are not allowed in here until the police investigation is over.”