Then he moves on.

A hundred paces later, I see a dog with a Boxer’s face and a Terrier’s scraggly body—a street mongrel. When it sees us, its tail wags and it whimpers and sidewinds to Malik, who crouches down. “Hey, Bones. How you doing, boy?”

The dog sniffs and dances around him. Malik reaches inside his coat pocket and drags out a wrapped package smeared in blood. He tears it open and pulls out a strip of meat, and the dog snatches it from him. Malik scratches him under his chin.

“She here, Bones?”

The dog looks at Malik, scoffs the last morsel and barks once. Then it skitters away and turns and waits, watching us. We follow down the alley and turn into another, and then another. Finally, we come to a place filled with overturned bins and, against a wall, what looks like a one-man canvas khaki tent. Outside the flap sits a crumpled paper cup holding a few bronze coins. Malik scans the alley.

“This is it,” he says, nodding at the tent. “This is where you’ll find Mother. It doesn’t look like much, I know, but that’s the cover. In you go.”

“In there?” The tent is small and so battered and thin, I reckon a light breeze will lift it off the ground and send it jack-knifing away.

Malik shrugs. “The mind sees what it wants to see.”

“What does that even mean?”

“Don’t worry,” he says. “We’ll be here. Waiting.”

I hesitate, unsure.

“You’ll be fine,” Malik adds. “In the multiverse, nobody knows more than Mother.” He jerks his thumb at Vidhan, grinning. “Not even brainbox over there.”

“I don’t know,” I say, hanging back, feeling anxious.

“You’re not doing this for you,” Malik says. “You’re doing it for her. For Bea.”

He knows where to stick the knife.

I duck in through the doorway.

The tent is dark and clammy, the air close. It smells of mould. I feel my way, heart thumping, head bent, eyes adjusting to the gloom. No movement. No sound of breathing but my own. I see a patch of pale light and crawl towards it. The light grows and the dark corners fall away, and now it feels as if the one-man tent has expanded into a much bigger space. I can’t even touch the roof, which, seconds ago, was tight over my head. As I walk in deeper, towards the light, the darkness recedes and the space grows larger. I hear bubbling sounds and the air now tastes sweet and smoky. Above me, the tent roof is now high and vaulted, supported on tall metal poles. Wreathes of smoke drift through the space and, ghosting beyond the smoke, I see a figure.

A woman.

18