“It was an explosion,” Captain Sunil Gooneratne said, blowing ripples across the surface of his cup of tea. “The fishermen said it went up like fireworks. Sank fairly quickly too.”

Tusker sat across the worn metal desk and mopped the sweat from the back of his neck. He and Ian had endured an hour in the lobby of the Batticaloa police station, waving away flies with a small queue of locals who were waiting to file some complaint or other.

“Did any debris wash ashore? Any sense of how it happened?” Tusker already didn’t like the chubby captain and his indifference. He controlled his annoyance, knowing that to show exasperation would only make things worse.

“We collected a couple of life jackets and a wetsuit. Empty of course, but nothing else.” The captain smiled, as if at a joke. “I’m sure with all those scuba tanks and electronics on board, that boat was a floating bomb.”

Tusker leaned forward in his chair, a blood vessel in his neck pulsing.

Ian put a hand on Tusker’s arm and interjected. “Have you been able to examine the wreck yet? Surely that would help explain how it exploded.”

“Mr. Walsh, we are a busy police force here in Batticaloa and don’t have the time or resources to be out scuba diving.” He made it sound like it was a holiday snorkel.

“You see, here in the east, we are understaffed and have other serious matters. Surely you know, we have all these Muslims here, not like in Galle or Colombo…” He gave a knowing look at Ian and Tusker, as if they would sympathize.

After the Easter bombings, the country had descended into the same paranoid divisions that plagued Europe and the West, and there was tension between the Buddhist majority Sinhalese and the Muslim population, which was concentrated in the cities of the east coast.

Ian smiled back, ignoring Gooneratne’s thinly veiled bigotry. “What about the Navy? Or the coast guard? Wouldn’t this fall into their jurisdiction to investigate? It seems awfully suspicious that a boat would just explode.”

“This is a police matter, Mr. Walsh,” he replied. “Anyway, I told all of this already to your friend, this Dinesh from Colombo.” He stood up as if to signal their time was up. “We’ll be completing our investigation, interviewing witnesses, and will release a report when we finish.”

The police captain walked around his desk and extended his hand. “I know things in England and America work differently, but here in Sri Lanka, we have our own process. Now, thank you for your concern and your time. I have a number of other citizens who require my attention.”

Outside, Tusker was silent — fuming. “Guess it’s time to go check out the Taprobane,” Ian said.

“Yes,” Tusker said. “Let’s do that, now.”