The Setting Sun (12 page)

He looks embarrassed. ‘Missing, only.’

It takes a moment to register. ‘Surely not the whole run?’

‘Already not here when I arrived in 2004.’

‘But Shinde must have seen them,’ I splutter, ‘you’ve got his list. Where have they been moved?’

‘I don’t know, sir. Sorry.’ He returns my list.

I’m thrown. Instinct tells me those files would be much the best place to look for Bill’s reports and for the British view of the Parallel Government and its methods. They must be
here, in some dark corner of this cavernous building, tied up in musty mailbags to ‘protect’ them.

‘I will make more inquiries. But meanwhile, you can maybe find more of the material you want under other headings? What about “Special Crimes”? I can have them ready for you after lunch.’

When I return in the early afternoon, Walawalkar’s station is empty. However, a pile of files is waiting at my desk. While waiting for my friendly archivist to reappear, a man I haven’t seen before passes by. I’m instinctively wary. He’s about thirty, with a feeble moustache and shifty eyes. His formal white shirt, with black lacework patterning, gives him the air of a Mexican country-and-western singer. From time to time he passes through the annexe, gazing suspiciously about. Finally, he stops and asks what I’m doing. When I tell him I’m researching the Parallel Government, his face lights up.

‘A glorious chapter of our history,’ he enthuses.

I feel we’ve broken the ice, and regret judging him so hastily. Towards the end of the afternoon, however, he approaches once again.

‘Who has given you permission to work here?’

I’m startled. ‘Assistant Commissioner Poel.’

It’s his turn to look surprised. ‘When?’

‘A couple of days ago.’

‘He is not here today.’

‘I know. He’s in Nagpur. He didn’t say I can only work here while he’s in the building.’

The man’s nonplussed for a moment. ‘I cannot check your story.’

‘What about asking Mr Walawalkar?’

‘He leaves early on Friday. Then he is on holidays.’

Why on earth didn’t Walawalkar mention his plans?

‘I’m in charge in the interim.’

Oh no. I suspect no one’s looking for the ‘Terrorism’ files now. My interrogator disappears, returning a short while later
with a thick orange file. Opening it, he shows me various letters addressed to the Assistant Chief Secretary, Home Department, copied to the SIB, from researchers requesting access to the old Special Branch archives. ‘Where is yours?’

‘I went to Mantrale. They told me to come here and ask,’ I lie.

‘Who told you?’

‘I didn’t get his name. On the seventh floor, I think.’

‘Where is the rule? Show me the rule.’

I stare at him, perplexed. ‘Which rule?’

‘That says you can enter without permission.’

I wonder if he’s related to the obstructive man at the Home Department. ‘Why not phone Mr Poel?’

The man looks outraged at the suggestion.

‘Give me his number, I’ll call him,’ I backtrack placatingly.

‘Mobile is confidential,’ my tormentor says sternly. ‘Without written permission, no notes are to be taken away.’

I’m flabbergasted. Who knows when Poel will be back? I’m in danger of wasting two full days of research. Exasperation generates my scheme.

‘OK, whatever you say. The attendant’s supposed to be bringing up “Strikes and Labour Unrest” before closing time. Can you call the stacks and tell him not to bother? I’ll get my notes in order for you.’

He can’t resist the invitation to order someone else around. As soon as I hear him on the internal phone next door, I arrange some of my jottings from Shinde in a neat pile on my desk. I can always go back to the University library and retrieve the information I need. I hastily gather the notes I’ve taken here in the SIB and stick them in my bag. Then I scarper out the side door. Haring down the staircase, I half expect to hear police whistles. But I reach the gate, where I’m waved through by the affable constable, who seems disappointed I won’t be lingering for our usual chat about London. Out on the street, I congratulate myself on my quick thinking.

Then I wonder if I’ve been so clever after all. Perhaps I’ve made trouble for Poel, and he won’t let me back in as a consequence.

Returning to the hotel, I feel increasingly deflated. Fascinating though my researches have been, I haven’t made any progress in addressing the accusations against Bill. Nor have I found any evidence about his time in Sindh. Indeed, I’ve seen nothing which might account for the blank period in his
History of Services
record. The disappearance of the ‘Terrorism’ files is very disheartening, although it may explain why Professor Bhosle has not been able to find Bill’s secret Memorandum. Until Poel gets back, there’s no possibility of returning to the SIB. Given that I’ve largely drawn blanks at Elphinstone, Mantrale and Police HQ in turn, I seem to be completely stuck. I need to consult Rajeev.

The following morning I catch a cab to the address he’s given me, and find myself outside a once-lovely Art Deco building off a tree-lined avenue close to railway tracks. Trains jangle in and out of Churchgate, their passengers crammed precariously on the carriage steps. My host comes out when I pull his bell, looking a little pale. Floor tiles lead in intricate abstract patterns along the communal corridor, which smells of stale cooking oil, towards a beautiful brass and hardwood lift. Rajeev opens the door of his apartment and shows me in to what he calls his day room, a study with a single, bolster-strewn bed, waist-high stacks of yellowed newspapers, haphazard bookcases, a couple of upright chairs at a desk. Incongruously, Elvis blares from something I haven’t seen for years: an enormous chrome-effect ghetto blaster. Rajeev catches my startled look.

‘Nothing like the King when you’re feeling blue,’ he affirms. ‘Sit, sit,’ he urges, turning it down and motioning me to a chair.

‘Wife still unwell?’

Rajeev shakes his head. ‘Better, thanks. No, a friend wounded in the recent attacks has just died.’

‘I’m really sorry.’

‘He’s not the first. They killed the president of the Gymkhana Club, to which I belong. At the Taj. And my dear friend Kamte. He was one of the policemen ambushed outside Cama hospital. His grandfather was in the IP at the same time as Moore-Gilbert. They’d certainly have known each other.’

‘How awful for you, Rajeev.’

His habitual gentleness evaporates in a scowl. ‘Those bearded bandit bastards, what do they hope to achieve?’

‘Well, one’s been caught, perhaps we’ll soon find out?’

He shrugs unhappily ‘Here, I dug out the grandfather’s book. You can borrow it.’

What? I can barely contain my curiosity. If the elder Kamte knew Bill, perhaps there’ll be something about him in the work Rajeev places before me.
From Them to Us
, its battered cover proclaims. But my host’s still looking upset, so I put it away in my bag for later. Rajeev sighs.

‘You know, I’m glad I’m coming to the end of my career. Such bungling, you wouldn’t believe. Three intercepted signals, sent at monthly intervals, warning of the attacks.’

My ears prick up. ‘You saw them?’

Rajeev looks momentarily nonplussed. ‘Friends, contacts,’ he then says.

‘But if there was intelligence, why didn’t they prevent it?’

‘The signals only said luxury hotels would be attacked. Not which ones or when. You can’t lock down a city like Mumbai. Anyway, sometimes these messages are sent to deliberately mislead.’

‘Where did they come from?’

‘Pakistan, though they deny everything.’

‘Is it all really about Kashmir?’ Some of the media have hinted at this. As I understand it, the wound’s been festering since the 1940s, when the British gave its Hindu ruler the
choice of joining India or Pakistan at Independence. Defying his Muslim subjects, the overwhelming majority, the Rajah chose India. Imperial law gave him the constitutional right to do so, and this remains the basis of India’s claim to the region. Its military, many assert, enforce that claim by behaving like an army of occupation, and is responsible for innumerable abuses.

Rajeev guffaws dismissively. ‘Of course certain people will say so. Obfuscation. But it’s partly our fault as well.’

‘Why?’

My host launches a diatribe against the incompetence of the authorities. Federal and state agencies are in competition, depriving each other of crucial intelligence. The Navy blames the coastguard and the coastguard blames the inshore marine police. No one will take any responsibility.

‘Mumbai will never be the same,’ he concludes mournfully. ‘Everyone stays at home in the evening now. How can you trust anything? I was at a wedding at the Taj myself, just days before the attacks.’

While we talk, a woman comes in with bowls of spicy-smelling tomato soup and toast. She says nothing; whether this is Rajeev’s wife or a servant, I can’t tell. We eat and have tea, during which my host tells me more about the IP officers who lived upstairs. We’re interrupted by his mobile going off. He glances at it before letting it ring and ring.

‘Don’t mind me,’ I murmur.

He shakes his head. ‘I don’t pick up unless I recognise the caller. I wait a while, then sms them to text their message.’

I’m puzzled, but Rajeev diverts my attention by asking how the research is going. He grimaces sympathetically when I describe what happened yesterday. But his face lights up when I mention Poel.

‘I know him. And Commissioner Sivanandan. I’ll try to find out when Poel gets back. I’m sure he can sort it all out.’

He’s impressively well connected. My host leans forward with a teasing look. ‘Look at this now.’

He pushes across a slab of a book. It’s a coffee-table-format tome on the Maharashtra Police, produced – Rajeev says – to mark the centenary of the modern force in 2006, though its roots go back almost a century earlier. Abundantly illustrated, there are several photos from the 1930s and 40s. Some are riot scenes, one showing a young white police officer and a dozen Indian constables, wooden lathis drawn, facing an ocean of angry faces across a street strewn with bottles and stones. The European’s features are indistinct, but I think immediately of Bill and his injuries. There are some recent shots of the training school in Nasik on which I also linger. Why, here’s the old IP mess Bill and Poel would have frequented. Towards the back, a scrap of paper sticks out.

‘Look carefully,’ Rajeev urges with a smile.

The page opens at a formal portrait of a man in his fifties, with long beaky nose and hooded eyes. The caption reads: ‘Emmanuel Sumitra Modak, Commissioner of Police, Maharashtra State, 1972–5.’

‘I don’t understand, Rajeev.’ But the name’s somehow familiar.

‘E.S. Modak was assistant superintendent of police in Satara the whole time your father worked there.’

Of course. His name came up occasionally in the SIB archives. If only I’d known, I’d have paid more attention. I greedily examine the photograph. The face is highly intelligent but the expression’s guarded, the lips pale and thin.

‘And,’ Rajeev grins, ‘it appears he might still be alive.’

Jaw-dropping. ‘But you said all my father’s contemporaries had died.’

He grimaces apologetically.

‘Where is he?’

‘Somewhere in Pune. Now I don’t want to get your hopes up. I haven’t heard anything about him myself since 2001.’ He glances heavenwards. ‘Which is why I thought he’d gone up, like all the others. My contact says he was ill a few years ago,
so bad he had to go to Rhode Island, where his son lives, for treatment. He doesn’t know one way or the other what the result was. But someone thinks they sighted him a couple of months ago.’

‘How old would he be?’

‘Eighty-seven, eighty-eight. He joined the IP two years after your father.’

Bill would have been ninety next year if he’d survived. That’s forty-five years he was cheated out of, half a life.

‘We’re trying to get hold of his address. Assuming he’s alive and has all his faculties, he’ll know a lot more about your father and the Parallel Government than you’ll find in the archives.’ He scowls. ‘Still no answer from this Bhosle to your emails?’

I shake my head.

‘If the worst comes to the worst, Modak’s widow may still be around. She should remember something of those times. She was a fair bit younger, I recall.’

‘I don’t know how to thank you, Rajeev.’

‘Most happy to help. But first we’ve got to run down where he lives – or used to live.’

I nod.

‘So what are your plans now?’

I shrug.

‘I’ll try and find out when Poel gets back. What about getting away yourself for a few days? You could do worse than start with Nasik. That’s where your father seems to have spent most time, if he didn’t go to Sindh. The training school’s well worth a visit. Ask for Mrs Goel, the director.’ He laughs enigmatically. ‘But don’t say I sent you.’

I wonder if there’s anyone Rajeev doesn’t know. But why the disclaimer? ‘Perhaps I should head straight for Pune?’

My host considers a moment, before shaking his head. ‘Better to wait until we’re sure about Modak. From Nasik, you’re only a few hours north of Pune by bus and while
you’re looking round there, we can carry on hunting for Modak.’