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  “But he doesn’t know,” I said.

  “Nobody does. But no one wants to be the person who misses out.”

  The police officer climbed back into his jeep, held on unsteadily to the top of the windscreen, and was driven off again, no doubt to another village, checking, looking. Like the journalists, he couldn’t afford to miss it if something happened. Priyanka said the feminists from Delhi would be after him, as they were in Deorala, if anything happened here, which, for him, represented a far more grim prospect than the sati itself.

  While the dust was still settling, the man with the laptop called out. “Jesus, take a look at this,” he said.

  The journalists surged across the road from the paan shop. Dutchie and I moved to the back of the crowd, Priyanka edged further forward.

  “It’s happened,” he said. “Already happened.”

  “That’s just great. Where, for Chrissake?” the BBC reporter said, his voice getting louder.

  “This has got to be a hoax,” said another journalist. “Got to be.”

  “Who’s writing this stuff, anyway?” The BBC reporter asked, swigging dismissively from his lemon Mirinda.

  “Cardamom News,” someone said. “Whoever they are when they’re at home.”

  “My editor’s going to burn me alive,” the BBC reporter whispered. The group seemed to consider his choice of words, mulling them over for a moment, wondering which way to go. Then it was decided.

  “It’s just a smokescreen,” someone else said, guiltily, not looking up.

  A few furtive glances, then more people began chipping in, embarrassed, unable to resist. It reminded me of my student days, the black humour of my first autopsy class.

  “There’s no smoke without fire.”

  “I’ve had my fingers burnt before.”

  “Out of the frying pan…”

  “If you can’t stand the heat…”

  “Shit.” The puns fell silent as the journalist with the laptop started to scroll down some new text on his screen. “They’re running an eyewitness account.” Everyone leant forward, craning to see the small screen.

  “Read it out,” someone called from the back of the crowd, but the journalist stopped before he had even started.

  “Over there,” a voice was saying quietly. “Over there.” Heads turned. In the distance, about one mile away, a plume of dark grey smoke was rising into the sky.

  “Dear God,” someone else breathed. There was a respectful pause, then pandemonium, as journalists began moving towards their cars, trying in vain not to break into an undignified run. Technicians swore as they swung tripods and cameras into the back of their jeeps and the man in the paan shop started collecting half-empty bottles.

  21

  SATI – AN EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT

  They bathe Kalawati first, soaping her bare back with a soft sponge. Her nakedness provokes little reaction from the family members who have gathered to watch in the cramped, airless room. A few moments earlier she has broken with Hindu convention and uttered her husband’s name, confirming her wish to die. “My soul is with Rajpal Lachchuram Saini. Let our ashes be as one.” In the eyes of the assembled, she has already become something supernatural, otherworldly. Sati means “virtuous woman” in Sanskrit and there is no scandal here.

  A priest passes her a towel. She steps into it, drying her young body slowly, almost sensually, while an assistant waits with her wedding finery, a vermilion lengha folded neatly over his forearm. She takes the skirt and blouse and puts them on, swaying slightly, unsteady on her feet. The priest nods anxiously at his assistant, who gives her a cup of bhang – marijuana mixed with milk and ginger – which she downs in one, her decorated hands trembling. It’s her third cup of the morning. The first she took shortly after dawn, when her sisters-in-law had painted her hands and wrists with dark, swirling patterns, using henna paste mixed with oil, lemon juice and tea. The ritual, Mehndi, was last performed on the morning of her marriage, barely ten months ago.

  One of her husband’s sisters takes Kalawati’s hand and sits her down on a fraying wicker stool, where she drapes gold necklaces round her neck. Another sister-in-law carefully fixes some rings through her ears, linking a chain from them to her nose, and then slides some bangles over her slender wrists, defying a custom that forbids widows to wear them. She is not a widow, she is a bride. More are slipped over her ankles.

  Nobody speaks. Her appearance is breathtaking.

  She stands, steadier now, turning to the priest, who daubs her high cheekbones with red minium. Earlier this morning, he mixed it with gunpowder and sulphur to hasten the end. Soon her soft skin will be exploding in the flames on the pyre outside. She takes her chunari, a long veil, and places it over her head.

  The priest presents her with a sprig of cusa herb and some sesame, which she holds in one hand. With the other she drinks some water, cupping it briefly in her decorated palm. Then the priest gives her a silver box full of untampered ochre. She opens it and applies small marks to everyone’s face. As she makes her way around the room, moving slowly from one person to the next, the priest repeats the word “Om”, over and over again, “Om, Om”. She takes pieces of jewellery – rings, bracelets, all of it gold – from one of her sisters-in-law and presents them to the priest and his assistant.

  Her time has come.

  She almost falls as she steps outside the house, struggling to draw breath. For the first time she sees the pyre that will soon become her final resting place, her wedding bed. Rajpal is already waiting for her, his putrefying body draped in a cheap white sheet. The logs are stacked up all round him. Two long bamboo poles have been laid out on the grass next to the pyre. Beyond them a group of musicians is waiting restlessly, most of them drunk. She follows the priest, who leads her round the pyre three times, accompanied by some barely audible music. As she walks, trancelike now, whether in shock or because of the bhang, she throws rice over those who follow her. She takes off her jewellery, too, distributing it piece by piece to her followers. They are looking happier, clutching their relics, believing that a year of good fortune is theirs with every step that they help her to take.

  She pauses after the third circle and glances around at everyone, looking for a crack in their expressions, some hint of a way out, but they have moved together, mentally and physically closing ranks. The priest gestures with a hand, subtly but forcibly. She steps up onto the first log. It rotates under her weight and she slips, letting out a small cry. The priest moves forward, helping her to her feet. She climbs upwards until she is on top of the pyre, her whole body shaking, and then she sinks down on her knees, next to her husband.

  Her movements have a certain momentum and the priest seizes his moment, moving quickly. As she breaks down, sobbing, one hand across her husband’s chest, kissing his sunken cheeks, the priest barks an order at his assistant, who ignites one corner of the pyre with a plastic cigarette lighter. The wood must have been soaked in paraffin because the flames flare up, knocking the assistant backwards. The woman looks up from her husband and screams, trying to get up.

  The fire is spreading too quickly.

  Moving like an overworked cook, the priest picks up a large tin of ghee and throws it unceremoniously in her direction, some of it reaching her, staining her skirt. He discards the empty tin and picks up a can of paraffin, throwing its contents on her, too. A few stinging drops get into her eyes. The hem of her skirt is already alight. She is standing now, her blouse torn, a breast exposed, but then she is suddenly on her knees again, knocked down by one of the bamboo poles.

  The priest and his assistant have positioned themselves either side of the fire and they manage to keep her pinned down with the pole, pushing it hard against her bare back. Two more people move into position with the other bamboo pole, pressing it against the calves of her legs. Her resistance is sapping. There is no dignity, no sublimation, no exclamations of Satya! Satya! Satya! such as her predecessors are said to have made. Only fear, and a fizzing noise as
the flames blister her face.

  Soon her charred body is lying still, next to her husband’s, just as was planned. The music trails off. The men slowly release their grip on the bamboo poles. They had been forced to keep them in place with their knees, such was her initial strength. But it is over now. Their ashes are as one.

  She has become Sati.

  A large crowd had gathered by the time we reached the source of the smoke. Policemen were everywhere, trying to seal off the smouldering pyre from the villagers and now from the media, as they all pressed forward. Dutchie had decided to stay behind, a good decision given what he had witnessed in recent months. The sight of charred corpses wasn’t going to heal his scars.

  The smell hit me first, kerosene and burnt butter and something else, far more pungent, slightly sweet. Pushed to one side in the mêlée I had lost sight of Priyanka. Initially I tried to fight back towards the centre of the crowd, from where the smoke was billowing, but then I felt the ground slope up beneath my feet. I was on the edge of a small mound of earth, a hillock, and I continued upwards, away from the crowds. There was a pipal tree at the top and a handful of people, villagers rather than journalists, standing in its shade. They looked at me and one of them said something in Hindi which I couldn’t follow, stabbing at the ground with a finger, as if saying “Here”. One word, though, I had no problem recognising: “angrez”. Was this the point from where Macaulay had watched flames consume the widow?

  The scene below was unlike anything I had ever witnessed. The pyre must have been burning for a while, but it was still possible to make out the dim, shimmering shapes of two human figures amongst the charred wood. I stared for a moment, transfixed as the legs of one of the bodies seemed to crumple, throwing up a shower of sparks. The police had formed a tight cordon round the pyre but the press were pushing through from every direction. Gusts of wind occasionally blew smoke through the crowds, who suddenly gasped as one of the skulls popped in the flames. Flashlights flickered down the police line. An officer grabbed a photographer’s camera and a scuffle broke out as he wielded his lathi stick. The BBC reporter was desperately trying to do a piece to camera, standing on his aluminium ladder, back to the pyre, his cameraman being jostled. Other TV crews were attempting to do the same, some of them deciding to move back and file their reports from a safer distance. The senior officer whom we had seen earlier was talking frantically on his radio. The police were losing control, already fearing the feminists.

  Then I noticed a small group of people gathered at the entrance to a hut on the far side of the pyre. It was not visible from where the reporters were massing, shielded from them by a cluster of trees. I moved twenty yards to my right to get a better view of it. There were half a dozen police officers standing outside the hut, one of them signalling to the driver of a police jeep, which was parked fifty yards away, again on the far side from the press and out of their line of sight. I watched the hut closely, trying to see what, if anything, was happening inside. For a brief moment, the policemen parted and I had a clear view. A young woman, wearing vermilion wedding finery, was sitting on a stool, a female policewoman standing next to her, one arm across the woman’s shoulders. A second later and she was gone again, hidden behind the police.

  I moved back to my original position, searching for Priyanka. As I scanned the crowd, I heard the sound of a jeep pulling away, coming from the direction of the hut where I had seen the woman. I couldn’t find Priyanka and decided to head back down the hillock and join the crowd. After ten minutes of pushing and shoving, I located her, calm in the midst of it all. Somehow she retained her dignity as the crowd surged sideways, almost knocking her over.

  “Priyanka, Priyanka,” I called, but she couldn’t hear me. I was barely ten yards away. It was bedlam. I battled my way closer and tried again. The pushing reminded me of trying to buy a beer from one of Delhi’s oddly named English Wine Shops on a Saturday afternoon.

  “Priyanka,” I said, almost shouting in her ear.

  “I have never seen anything like this,” she replied, as if we had been standing there having our conversation for hours.

  “I’ve got something. Come,” I said, putting my hand on her arm.

  “But…”

  “Come, please. Really.” I grabbed her by the elbow and pulled. “You’ll want to hear it.”

  Reluctantly she withdrew from the front line and we dropped back fifty yards to where we could hear ourselves talk.

  “The widow wasn’t burnt,” I said, watching her rearrange her salwar, sweep back her hair.

  “What do you mean, she wasn’t burnt? It’s just happened, barely thirty minutes ago. I’ve seen the bodies.”

  “And I saw her being driven away by the police, round the back there.”

  “You can’t have done,” she said, looking at the crowd, itching to return. “It’s not possible.” Her voice was losing conviction.

  “I’ve seen the bodies and I’ve seen a woman in what looked like a red wedding outfit,” I said, matter-of-factly. “Either there was more than one widow or that’s not his wife on the pyre.”

  “Raj, this is the biggest story I’ll ever cover. I must get back. I’m sorry. We’ll meet later. Here in half an hour?”

  She must have thought I was mad. I watched her walk, half run, as she returned to the fray.

  “Lemmings, the lot of them,” a familiar voice said at my shoulder. It was Dutchie.

  “I didn’t think you were coming,” I said, scanning him nervously. He looked surprisingly together, unshaken.

  “Once I heard the news I could hardly stay away, could I?” he said, raising his eyebrows. Something was wrong. Dutchie was positively relaxed.

  “What news?” I asked.

  “About Macaulay.”

  I looked at him, confused. “Is he here?”

  “Yeah, he’s here. No immediate plans to move on.” Dutchie had begun building a large spliff.

  “You’ve seen him? Where?”

  I watched him lick the cigarette paper and then he looked up, nodding in the direction of the pyre. “The body on the right.”

  “How do you know?” I asked, my mind racing. He was right; in that moment I knew he was right.

  “Unlike that lot,” he said, indicating the crowd, “I asked a few questions. Spoke to the locals. It seems Macaulay had paid off the entire village, promised them loads more money if the sati went ahead. Only the widow’s family changed their mind. Just as she was ascending the pyre. A fight broke out, somebody doused Macaulay in paraffin and he was pushed onto the logs. A match was thrown before he could get up. The rest you can see for yourself.”

  “The woman was okay, then?”

  “As far as I understand. A bit shaken up, naturally. You would be, wouldn’t you?”

  Dutchie struck a match and we both watched it fizz into life. Then he raised his celebratory spliff to his lips and started to walk over to the crowd, tossing the match away.

  “Where are you going?” I asked him.

  “One more look,” he said, grinning like the devil himself. “Just to make sure.”

  22

  There was only one thing that mattered, now Macaulay was dead, and that was getting Priyanka’s story into print before Jamie could stop us. I knew that his options were fast disappearing, but it wasn’t worth underestimating a man of his menace and resources. Priyanka was the only member of the press who knew the real identity of the angrez who had perished in the flames of someone else’s funeral pyre. As far as the rest of the pack was concerned, it was a bizarre accident involving an unknown foreign national. The story they had come for, a sensational sati, had failed to materialise, leaving them disappointed and annoyed with Cardamom News.

  Ravi drove us all back to Delhi, where Priyanka and I holed up at a family friend’s apartment in Civil Lines to write her story. Dutchie had decided to mark his personal closure by getting stoned at the source of the Ganges and had duly embarked on a tortuous pilgrimage to Gangotri, beginning at the Int
er State Bus Terminal. I envied his free spirit, and we promised to keep in touch. Over and over again, Priyanka went through what Sir Ian had told me about the Cardamom Club, the IPI files, the news wire service and the information Frank had found out about Jamie in London. Frank had become a man possessed, emailing us with more and more information squeezed from his mole, no doubt sensing that Jamie, his lifelong nemesis, would never be more vulnerable than he was now. Frank was also planning to come back to Delhi shortly, a thought that kept us going in our edgier moments.

  It was a difficult few days, as there was no knowing what course of action Jamie might be pursuing. Priyanka was up at first light, working away at her friend’s computer, and was still writing long after I had gone to bed. Even when she did slip under the sheet next to me in the early hours, she seldom slept, her mind racing, asking me to go over certain points again with her. We sent out for food, and paid the guards extra in the vain belief they might stay awake at night. I could only hope that Jamie’s powerbase had been eroded, that the sands were shifting back in Whitehall. Had Sir Ian heard about Macaulay? Where was he, and what sort of health was he in?

  On the day of Frank’s arrival, we agreed it was safe to break cover. Priyanka had finished her story and the first copies would be on the newsstands by lunchtime, making it too late for Jamie to try anything. Besides, he would be on the defensive, his position at the High Commission surely untenable once he had been exposed as a leading member of the Cardamom Club. In the late afternoon, Ravi drove us to the airport, where we waited behind buckled barriers with the card-carrying hustlers and hotel reps. On the way, we had stopped at the roadside to buy a copy of Seven Days. I couldn’t bring myself to read it, not yet, but Priyanka seemed pleased as she flicked through the pages. I glanced briefly over her shoulder at the photos of Macaulay on his island with an elephant, of Sir Ian at an official function, and of Jamie staring out from what seemed like a passport photo, his eyes as searching as ever. It was all too real at the moment, too imminent.