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‘He does not think you will –’

‘– survive long enough. But if I do?’

‘Sanjay has said that you are banned from the passport factory. Your young man there, Farzad, came to see Sanjay personally, asking that he be permitted to learn from you privately. Sanjay said that he did not think –’

‘– I’d survive long enough, right, but he didn’t rule it out?’

‘No. He ordered Farzad not to contact you, or speak to you.’

‘And if I bought my own kit, and started modifying books?’

‘He does not think –’

‘Abdullah,’ I sighed, ‘I don’t care if Sanjay thinks I won’t last the winter. The only opinion I respect on that subject is my own. Just tell Sanjay, when you get a minute, that one of these days he might need a good passport from me himself. If he’s cool with it, I’d like to start making books. I’m good at it, and it’s an anarchist crime. See if you can get him to agree, okay?’

‘Jarur, brother.’

It was good to hear him call me brother, but I didn’t know if he was accepting my defection from the Company, or if his disaffection was driving him closer to my renegade side of the line.

‘You will be taking over all of Didier’s enterprises?’ he asked.

‘Not all of them. I’m letting the drugs go. The Company can pick it up, if they want. Amir can have it. And the escorts, too. They can have all of Didier’s escort strings in South Bombay. I wrote off the debts, and let everyone run free. They’re out there, doing their own things. But the Company can probably negotiate them back again, I guess.’

‘It will be done before nightfall,’ he intoned, his deep voice rumbling the syllables. ‘So, without the girls and the drugs, you will have what, exactly?’

‘All Didier’s currency touts are with me. I’ve got enough to float about fifteen of the black money traders from Flora Fountain to Colaba Market, for a month. If it ticks over, I’ll do okay. On the side, I’m specialising in watches and technology. Every street guy on the strip will bring stuff to me first, before any other buyer. I think I can make that work.’

‘Watches?’ he asked, frowning sternly.

‘There’s a lot of money in collector watches.’

‘But watches, Lin?’ he said, suddenly almost angry. ‘You were a soldier, with Khaderbhai.’

‘I’m not a soldier, Abdullah. I’m a gangster, and so are you.’

‘You were one of his sons. How can you sit here, and talk to me of watches?’

‘Okay,’ I said, trying to make it light. ‘How about we ride our bikes to Nariman Point, and I’ll sit there, and talk of watches?’

He rose from the table, left the restaurant, and strode to his motorcycle. He didn’t pay a bill in any restaurant in South Bombay. No gangster ever did. I paid, left a tip for the waiters, and caught up to him.

‘A ride is necessary,’ he said.

I followed him to Bombay University, where we parked the bikes, walked through the colonnades and leafy laneways, and entered the open playing fields called Azad Maidan, behind the campus and other buildings.

There was a fence of iron spears between the vast expanse of the playing fields and the street outside, with only one other entry point, served by a long path across the lawns to the university. The sun’s invisible lake of light reflected gold off every surface and feature.

Abdullah and I walked the fence line, side by side, just away from the shaggy weeds that gathered at the base.

It was almost exactly like the walks I’d made with other men every day, in prison, walking and talking, walking and talking in circles of years.

‘How bad has it been?’ I asked him. ‘I heard some stuff on the mountain. What’s the deal with the fire, at the Scorpion house?’

He pursed his lips. He’d anticipated that I’d ask him about the fighting in Colaba, and the fire that killed a nurse in Vishnu’s house. I knew why that nurse was in the house. I wondered if Abdullah or anyone in the Company knew that civilians were in the house. I hadn’t known, when I rang the bell, and I hadn’t told Abdullah or anyone else about it.

He let a deep breath escape through his nose, his lips pressed firmly in a rumpled frown.

‘Lin, I am going to trust you, as if you are still in the family. It is not what I should do, but it is what I must do.’

‘Abdullah, I’m a broad strokes guy, you know that. I don’t want intimate details about anything except intimacy, if I can help it. And don’t go breaking your oath for me, although I love you for it, man. Just let me know the big picture details, so I know who’s shooting at who.’

‘It was Farid,’ Abdullah said. ‘I counselled against it. Fire is indiscriminate. I wanted to discriminate, and kill them personally. All of them, once and for all. Sanjay decided to use fire. Farid set it, and the Scorpions escaped, but a nurse, who was not supposed to be there, she died in the flames.’

‘Where’s Farid now?’

‘He is still here, at Sanjay’s side. He refuses to leave the city, when it would be far wiser if he did.’

‘There’s a lot of that going around at the moment.’

‘What is going around?’