Slumdog Millionaire: A Novel (15 page)

extremely difficult to be followed. Whoever is tailing you will give up.'

'OK, Colonel Sahib, I will remember that. But let me tell you the good news. I think I will be able to give you what you have been wanting from me all this while. Meet me on Friday the fourteenth in the car park behind Balsons in South Ex. It is generally quite deserted. At eight pm.

OK?'

'OK.'

The meeting ends. I hurry back to Rover before Colonel Taylor returns.

* * *

My eyes are wide open on Friday the fourteenth and my ears extra sensitive. Colonel Taylor

discloses his plans early in the morning to his wife. 'McGill, the new Commercial Attache, wants me to show him a couple of places in the city after work. So I'll be a bit late, Rebecca. Don't wait for me at dinner.'

'That's fine. The HC's wife has asked me to a bridge party, so I'll be out too,' says Mrs Taylor.

I can put two and two together. Why did Colonel Taylor lie to his wife about his meeting? He falls in my estimation that day. I feel a terrible sadness for Mrs Taylor.

* * *

After Ramu, it is Roy's turn. Colonel Taylor has caught him kissing Shanti in his bedroom.

Shanti swears on her dead mother that there is nothing going on between her and Roy
baba
and that this is the very first time Roy kissed her – and that, too, by mistake. But all her pleading is to no avail. The result is all too predictable: immediate dismissal. But at least she gets her wages.

Roy will probably get a thrashing for getting too close to the 'bloody Indians', and all his shopping in Kids Mart will be stopped. I decide not to do any cleaning in Maggie's bedroom for the next ten days as a precautionary measure.

If I had, I could probably have saved her. Because barely two weeks after Roy, his sister is in the dock. The Man Who Knows has obtained irrefutable proof that she has been smoking in her

room, despite strict instructions. Maggie tries to deny the charge, but Colonel Taylor produces the carton of cigarettes she has hidden inside her
almirah
and even the stubs she has forgotten to dispose of. That is the end of Maggie's shopping trips to Kids Mart as well.

Believe it or not, two months later Colonel Taylor catches someone else cheating. His own wife.

Mrs Rebecca Taylor. Turns out she was having an affair with someone in the Embassy. 'You

bloody bitch!' he screams at her in their bedroom. 'I am going to fix you and that half-arsed lover of yours.' I hear the sound of a slap and of something being broken, like a vase. Mrs Taylor doesn't come down for dinner that evening. Maggie and Roy also maintain a respectful distance from their father. I cannot help commiserating with Mrs Taylor. Her husband has discovered her little affair but she doesn't have an inkling of his own dirty secret. I want to spill the beans on Colonel Taylor. How he meets up with old Jeevan Kumar in deserted car parks. But those who live in glass houses cannot throw stones and the constant fear nagging me is that The Man Who Knows might find out how I pushed Shantaram through the railing. And that he might know

things about me that even I don't know.

* * *

While all these crazy things are happening in the Taylor family, Jai is getting on my nerves. His cooking has gone from bad to worse. His clear soups are clear of all taste, his curries make me worry, and even Rover will not eat his steaks. He bores me to death by talking about his stupid garage and getting the hundred and fifty thousand. I have almost made up my mind to complain about him to Colonel Taylor when tragedy strikes the family. Colonel Taylor's mother dies in Adelaide. Everyone is very sad. For the first time we see the softer side of the military officer.

'We are all going to be away for a week,' he tells Jai in a subdued tone. 'The house will be locked. You and Thomas can eat outside.' Maggie and Roy are weeping. Mrs Taylor's eyes are red. Naturally, Bhagwati is also crying. Even my eyes are misting with tears. There is only one person smiling slyly behind the kitchen wall. It is Jai.

That night, Jai breaks into the Taylors' house. He doesn't go to the children's rooms or the master bedroom. He goes straight to the Den. First he switches off the electricity at the mains. Then he short-circuits the electronic panel, cuts the padlock with a chainsaw, pushes aside the iron grille and kicks open the wooden door.

I am woken by the sound of violent screaming coming from the Taylor residence. At three am I rush into the house and discover Jai's handiwork. He is inside the Den, beating his head against the wall. 'These bastards. They live like kings and don't have a penny in the house,' he seethes.

Alarm bells are ringing in my mind. I am convinced that The Man Who Knows will find out

about Jai's treachery even while he is attending a funeral ten thousand miles away. And that I will also be implicated by association.

'Jai, you fool, what have you done?' I yell at him.

'Nothing more than what I came here to do. I am a professional thief, Thomas. Spent eight years in Tihar Jail. I thought that with all this security, that bastard Taylor was keeping the family jewels in this room. But there's not a penny here. Six months of effort has gone completely to waste. OK, I am restoring the electricity and then I'm off. I am taking the VCD player and the three-in-one in the TV room. They are crumbs, but I have to respect my profession. You can clean up after me. And if you try and call the police I will break every bone in your body.'

After Jai has gone, I look around the room. It is full of strange-looking gadgets: microphones like tiny sunflowers and miniature cameras like disembodied eyes. There are pads saying 'Cipher'

with nonsense combinations of numbers and letters. There are some books:
The Art of

Espionage, Essentials of a Good Counter Agent, Spying for Dummies.
There are papers bearing labels like 'Top Secret' and 'For Your Eyes Only', drawings of various kinds, one saying

'Advanced Technology Vessel nuclear reactor design' and another 'submarine schemata'. And there is a drawer full of miniature VHS tapes. I look at the labels on the tapes, arranged alphabetically: Ajay, Bhagwati, HC, Jeevan, Jones, Maggie, McGill, Raj, Ramesh, Rebecca,

Roy, Shanti, Stuart. And Thomas. Hidden inside the second drawer is a portable video player.

With trembling hands I pull out my tape and insert it into the player. The screen comes alive with images from my room. I see myself reclining on my bed; writing in my red diary; talking to Ramu; sleeping. I fast-forward to see whether there are any pictures of Shantaram on the tape. I then insert the tape with Mrs Taylor's name. She is sitting on her bed. A man enters

surreptitiously and takes her in his arms. I can only see his back. He kisses her long and hard.

Suddenly there is a knock and the man whirls around and looks me straight in the eye. I almost die of fright. It is the High Commissioner. I hastily take out the tape and switch off the video player. For a couple of minutes I stand absolutely still, worried that a secret camera might be in action even in this room. Then I breathe deeply. Now I know how Colonel Taylor became The Man Who Knows. He has bugged the whole house and probably the whole High Commission.

He is a spy. But I'm not Steve Nolan from
Spycatcher.
I get 1,500 rupees a month, which I have totted up to 43,500 rupees in my red diary. And I don't want all this money to remain only in a diary. I want to touch the bundles of currency, feel the smooth surface of the crisp new notes. So I will keep my mouth shut. And smile whenever Sahib and Memsahib smile.

I call up Colonel Taylor on his cellphone number. 'I am sorry to disturb you, Sir, but there has been a robbery in the house. Jai has taken away the VCD player and the three-in-one. And he also broke into the Den.'

'What???'

'Yes, Sir. I am sorry, Sir.'

'Look, Thomas, this is what I want you to do. I want you to secure the Den immediately. Take out the broken padlock. You don't have to enter the room. Just put any lock on the door and do not allow anyone to enter it. It is very important that you don't call the police. If the alarm sounds, just punch in the following code on the keypad on the door: 0007. You got it? 0007 and it will stop. I am taking a flight back immediately and should be in Delhi by tomorrow afternoon, but till I arrive I want you to make sure that no one enters the Den. Have you understood?'

'Yes, Sir.'

Colonel Taylor returns to Delhi without even attending his mother's funeral. He rushes into the Den as soon as the taxi pulls up outside the house. He comes out looking relieved. 'Thank God, nothing has been taken from the room. Well done, Thomas. I knew I could rely on you.'

* * *

Over the next six months, my life slips back into the same groove as before. A new cook is hired who has not been within a thousand miles of Tihar Jail. Bhagwati is dismissed for taking the car without permission for a wedding in his family. Maggie's new boyfriend James is discovered and banned from entering the house. Roy is caught taking drugs and given a thrashing. Mrs Taylor and her husband continue to speak to each other with icy formality. Colonel Taylor, I presume, continues to meet Jeevan Kumar in lonely alleys and deserted car parks.

* * *

Maggie and Roy are playing
Scrabble
in the living room. They ask me to join them. I have learnt many new words playing this game with them, such as 'bingle' and 'brekkie' and 'chalkie' and

'dosh' and 'skite' and 'spunk'. Maggie always wins these games. Her vocabulary is really good.

She is the only one who knows eight-letter words and once she even made a nine-letter word. I am the worst. I make words like 'go' and 'eat' and 'sing' and 'last'. Once in a blue moon, I do get six- or seven-letter words, but I still end up with the least points. Sometimes I think Roy invites me as a third player just so that he doesn't come last. Today, my letters have not been good. Lots of Xs and Js and Ks and Ls. The game is about to end. Maggie has 203 points, Roy has 175 and I have 104. My last seven letters are G, P, E, E, S, A and I. I am thinking of making 'page' or 'see'.

Then Roy uses an O from one of Maggie's words to make 'on' and I latch on to it in a flash. I put E, S, P and I before O and A, G and E after N. 'Espionage'. That's a total of seventeen points, and triple that for putting it on a red square and add fifty points for using all seven tiles. 101 points.

Take that, Maggie!

* * *

I have been hovering around the phone all day. Maggie is expecting a call from James and she has instructed me to pick up the phone before her father does from the Den. The phone finally rings at seven-fifteen pm. I lift the receiver in a flash. But Colonel Taylor has already beaten me to it. 'Hello,' he says.

There is heavy breathing at the other end. Then Jeevan Kumar's voice floats over the static. 'Meet me tomorrow, Thursday, at eight pm at the Kwality Ice Cream Shop near India Gate. I have

dynamite stuff.'

'Good,' says Colonel Taylor and disconnects the line.

Colonel Taylor sits with his stubby of Foster's in the living room, watching the latest episode of
Spycatcher.
This time Steve Nolan is in a real dilemma. He has discovered that his best friend, the one he went to college with, the one who was best man at his wedding, is a Commie spy. He is very sad. He doesn't know what to do. He sits in a bar in a dishevelled condition and drinks loads of whisky. Then the bartender tells him, 'It's a dirty world out there, but if no one agrees to do the washing, the whole country goes down the shit house.' Steve Nolan hears this and gets all charged up. He rushes to the Commie spy's house in his red Ferrari. 'You are a good man, doing a bad job,' he tells his friend, before taking out his gun. 'Friendship is important. But the country comes first. I am sorry,' he says and shoots him dead.

* * *

The next night a police jeep and an Ambassador car with flashing red lights come screeching to the house at ten pm. The same Inspector who arrested Ramu gets out, together with the

Commissioner of Police. Colonel Taylor is with them, looking like Steve Nolan in the bar.

Within ten minutes, the High Commissioner also arrives, looking very grim. 'What's all this?' he asks the Police Chief. 'Why has Colonel Taylor been declared
persona non grata
and asked to leave within forty-eight hours by the Foreign Office?'

'Well, Your Excellency, we have evidence of your officer indulging in activities incompatible with his diplomatic status. I am afraid he will have to leave the country,' the Police Chief replies.

'But what's the charge against him?'

'We caught him red-handed taking sensitive and top-secret documents from a man by the name of Jeevan Kumar, who is a clerk in the Ministry of Defence.'

Colonel Taylor looks ashen. He doesn't say these Indians are bloody fibbers. He just stands in the middle of the drawing room with his head bowed.

The High Commissioner lets out a sigh. T must say this is the first time in my long career that any of my officers has been PNG'd. And believe me, Charles is no spy. But if he has to go, he has to go.' Then he takes the Police Chief aside. 'Mr Chopra, I have sent you many cases of Black Label over the years. Can you do me a favour and answer one question?'

'Sure.'

'Just for my information, can you tell me how did you come to know about Charles's meeting today? Did this fellow Kumar lead you to him?'

'Funny you should ask. It was not Jeevan Kumar. Quite the contrary, it was one of your own guys. Called up Inspector Tyagi this morning and told him to go to India Gate at eight pm to catch Colonel Taylor receiving some secret documents.'

'I don't believe it. How can you be so sure it was an Australian?'

Inspector Tyagi steps in. 'Well, Mr Ambassador, the accent was a dead give-away. The man said something like, "G'day maite, go to India Gaite, tonight at aite." I mean, only an Australian would speak like that, wouldn't he?'

* * *

The next day, Colonel Taylor leaves Delhi alone on a Qantas flight. Mrs Taylor and the kids will follow later. I am leaving the Taylors, too. With three keyrings, six T-shirts, thirty