“Who threatened you?”

“Our friendly neighborhood bomber. It’s not safe for me to stay here.”

“And you were going to leave without telling me?”

“Of course not. I was coming up to see you after I’d packed.”

She looked skeptical. “Where will you go?”

“Maybe to a hotel. Someplace in the suburbs.”

“Mad or what?” she said. “I know a place where you’ll be safe.”

She took charge, instructed Ramu to make some sandwiches and fill two bottles with drinking water. Then she rushed up to the penthouse to get some things, as I inspected the damage in the flat and tried to determine what was missing. Everything appeared to be accounted for.

Barely five minutes later, she returned and announced we were leaving. I pulled ten rupees from my wallet and handed them to Ramu.

“For your meals while I’m away,” I said.

“Jaldi, Danny. Chalo,” said Sushmita. “We want to make it to the top of the ghats before dark.”

“Where are you taking me?” I asked as she drove through the Sagar Darshan gate and into the lane.

“We’re going to my house in Poona. I wrote out a telegram just now and told Sandip to send it to Willy right away to let him know we’re coming.”

I knew it wasn’t the moment to wonder about such things, but I’d distinctly heard her say the house in Poona was hers. Did she mean that legally? Or simply in a practical sense?

“Do you think it was the bomber who broke into your flat?” she asked me as we turned onto Cuffe Parade Road. “Looking for the film you shot of him?”

“Yes. I found a note on the table. It was Bikas.”

“Just be glad you weren’t there. And you’re safe now.”

But I wasn’t glad. The thought gave me chills. This was a guy who’d murdered a CID officer and bragged about it.

We made good time leaving Bombay on the Eastern Express Highway. Sushmita was a fine driver, and I was glad to be in a comfortable car. I’d ridden in the back of enough black-and-yellow taxis to know I was too tall to sit inside without banging my head on the roof every time we hit a bump. Which was about every seven feet. So the air-conditioned Mercedes felt like we were traveling in a cloud, despite the pitiful condition of the roads. Still, even with the roar of the driving rain, I could hear the constant car horns tooting at other motorists and the pedestrians about, neither of whom would pay any attention, I was sure. The aim of the nonstop honking in India was more therapeutic—a way to work out frustrations—than an effective means of moving traffic. Sushmita played the game, too, making liberal use of the horn, with no result.