‘Oh, it’s a-coming all right,’ said Innes.

‘You are sure? Everything is all right?

‘Yes, of course. It has been ordained and will surely come to pass.’ Innes stuck a Sumatra buncus in his mouth and raised a match to the tip. ‘The tide is coming in so they should be here any minute.’

Bahram found himself warming to Innes: there was something heartening about his brutish self-confidence. Your spirits are high, Mr Innes. I’m glad to see it.’

‘I am but an instrument of a higher will, Mr Moddie.’

There was a sudden shout from below stairs: it was Innes’s manservant. ‘Boat! Boat ahoy!’

‘That’ll be them,’ said Innes. ‘I’d better go down to see to the unloading. You can wait on the balcony, Mr Moddie – if you don’t mind a bit of a stinkomalee that is. You’ll get a good dekko of everything from up there.’

‘As you wish, Mr Innes.’ Bahram opened the door to the balcony and stepped outside.

With the tide in flood, the nullah had filled with water and was now at a level where a boat could easily be docked beside Innes’s godown. Glancing downwards, Bahram saw that Innes and his servant had stepped outside, and were standing on the quay, craning their necks to look up the creek. Turning his gaze in that direction, Bahram saw that a boat had slipped in from the river and was moving slowly down the narrow waterway, past the Hoppo’s office: it was a ship’s cutter, rowed by a lascar crew, and guided by two local men.

Even with the tide running high, the creek was so narrow that the cutter’s progress was painfully slow – or so at least it seemed to Bahram, whose forehead had begun to drip with sweat. When at last the boat pulled up at the quay, he breathed a deep sigh and wiped his face with the tail-end of his turban.

‘You see, Mr Moddie?’

It was Innes, standing astride the dock, triumphantly puffing on his buncus: ‘What did I tell you? All delivered, safe and sound. Is this not proof that it was predestined?’

Bahram smiled. The gambit had paid off after all; all things considered, it was remarkable how easy it had been to arrange the whole thing – and with so little risk too, without the opium ever even entering his own hong or passing through his godown. His one regret now was that he had not contracted to send more cases.

Bahram raised a hand, in congratulation. ‘Shahbash, Mr Innes! Well done!’

*

It wasn’t often that Neel had the morning to himself, and he knew exactly what he was going to do with it: it had been a while since he had last paid a visit to Asha-didi’s kitchen-boat, and his mouth began to water at the very thought of it.

This eatery was an institution among the Achhas of Canton: visiting it was almost a duty for the innumerable sepoys, serangs, lascars, shroffs, mootsuddies, gomustas, munshis and dubashes who passed through the city. This was because Asha-didi’s kitchen-boat was the one establishment, along the entire length of the Pearl River, that provided fare that an Achha could enjoy with untroubled relish, knowing that it would contain neither beef nor pork, nor any odds and ends of creatures that barked, or mewed, or slithered, or chattered in the treetops: mutton and chicken, duck and fish were the only dead animals she offered. What was more, everything was cooked in reassuringly familiar ways, with real masalas and recognizable oils, and the rice was never outlandishly soft and sticky: there was usually a biryani or a fish pulao, some daals, some green bhaajis, and a chicken curry and tawa-fried fish. Occasionally – and these were considered blessed days – there would be pakoras and puris; even vegetarian fare could be cheaply obtained at Asha-didi’s if suitable notice were provided – and hers was not the bland stuff of Canton’s monasteries, but as chatpata as anyone might wish.