Joyce took tiny bites, and drank six glasses of water. While eating, they chatted with club manager Anish Butt about Mr Sekhar’s visits.
Butt, a scrawny man of about seventy with a neck wrinkled like a turkey’s, champed his nearly toothless gums and spoke at length about The Deceased, whom he had known, he said, for at least twenty years.
‘Oh yes, indeed, The Deceased’s father used to come in here and Sooti came as a boy. Then he got the job with Associated and he came on his own steam. Three, four times a week, and then the last year he used to come almost every day, on his way back from work.’
‘Was there any change?’ asked Wong. ‘Did he drink more?’
‘When he was younger, he never drank. He was a Muslim, but not religious. Then he started drinking a little bit, but not a problem. Couple of Kingfishers, that’s all.’
Joyce asked: ‘Did he come with the same people all the time?’
‘Mostly alone. Sometimes with Mr Kanagaratnum,’ he said, pointing at Ravi. ‘You become good friends, no?’
‘To some extent,’ said Ravi. ‘He was a difficult man to get to know. Not much of a talker. Once a week or so I would join him here. He never spoke of any health problems. I’m still stunned that he is dead.’
The club manager went to tend to other customers, and the three diners spent the rest of the meal talking about the relationship between the Indian firm and the Far East ones, the standard corporate chit-chat of business travellers. Joyce gave Ravi a piece of paper on which was written the name of a cosmetics company. ‘Do you know where I could get stuff from this company? They make like, totally fab eyeliner.’
Ravi was a great eater. He consumed everything that was left on the trays when Wong and McQuinnie were finished, polished off a fifth beer, patted his rice-belly and then took the young woman on a tour of the club’s facilities, which included a library and a gymnasium that was so under-used that several of the machines had never been plugged in.
Wong told them that he would wait for them in the canteen.
While he was putting on his suit-coat, he chatted briefly with the club’s oldest waiter, who had a walrus moustache that would have better suited a British major-general.
‘Please, what do you remember about Mr Sekhar’s visits?’
‘His favourite for years used to be aloo makhani and chicken korma,’ said the old man, his voice slightly muffled by the weight of hair on his upper lip and lack of teeth. ‘Lately he got this taste for vindaloos, double vindaloos and palis even. He quickly became hot-stuff king, and used to challenge the chef to make something too hot for him to eat.’
‘Did he eat alone? Or with friends?’
‘Sometimes alone, sometimes with friends. Sometimes Mr Kanagaratnum, Mr Jagdish, Mr Govind, or someone else from the company. No one could eat the killer chilli like Mr Sekhar, though. Our food is quite hot.’
‘Is,’ Wong said. He had lost all sensation in his tongue, although he considered himself an experienced eater of spicy food. ‘He drink much beer?’
‘No. Always two Kingfishers, three on special occasions.’
‘Did he ever talk to you about any problem?’
‘Business was not so good. He used to sometimes come alone and bring business papers, all numbers, and he would do sums while he ate. Once I saw him by himself and he seemed to be crying into his bhaji. He never talked to me about his problems, though.’
‘Thank you,’ said Wong as his companions returned.
That night, Wong worked in his room at Rose House until midnight. He then slept until about five o’clock when he had to rise and go to the toilet rather urgently. He stayed in the bathroom for a long while. Fortunately, he did not feel particularly ill. He suspected that the food he had eaten had not been bad, but was eliciting complaints from his stomach because of its unfamiliarity.
Dawn came slowly. Over an uneaten breakfast, Joyce was unusually silent, and was later induced to admit that she had had similar problems with her digestion.
Their host, Mrs Daswani, laughed. ‘I’m sorry, but our bacteria here in India are quite unique. It always takes visitors a few days to get used to it. Some tourists swear by a slug of whisky every night. Kills all known germs. You’ll be fine in a few hours.’
Both the visitors slumped silently in the car as they were driven to the centre