and stumble into the foyer. Paramedics surround a gurney that’s being pushed past me. On it is a body—I can’t see the face since everything is covered by a white sheet, one of the hotel sheets, a shroud. He, since the body looks too long and bulky to be a she, must have died in his sleep. I must have been right about the heart attack. As I walk on I think of Ma, of finding her dead and cold in her bed.
Then I see the girl beside him: short, slight, with nut-brown hair and skin. She’s beautiful, in a striking way that’s normally seen only onstage or on-screen, not in real life. I wonder if that’s where I’ve seen her before, on television. Is she some sort of celebrity? She must be, because I’m sure I know her, I just can’t remember her name. Oddly, though, she doesn’t feel like a stranger. I feel drawn to her. I want to say something, although I imagine that famous people don’t take kindly to being bothered by chambermaids. But it’s not for that reason that I don’t stop her; it’s that she looks so shaken, so scared. And then I see why: she loves the man under the white sheet and she’s lost him.
11:57 p.m.—Bea
At some point, after she’d pulled herself from the floor, Bea must have called the ambulance, for it came, sirens wailing and lights flashing, intruding on her silence with Vali. Paramedics trying and failing to resuscitate him. The hospital. The police. The questions, respectful but unrelenting. The images, awful and insistent. And the memory of it all isn’t a merciful blur. It’s stark and sharp, every moment—the sheet pulled over Vali’s face, the harping voices over his quiet, the strangers leading her away—seared on Bea’s mind as vividly as the scar on her hand. And every thought gone from her head except the insistent refrain:
What have I done? What have I done? What have I done?
20th October
Twelve days . . .
9:45 a.m.—Liyana
The train will arrive at Cambridge station in forty-five minutes. Forty-five minutes. Liyana is sitting on a wobbly seat, contemplating whether to move to another, when her phone rings.
Her aunt. Liyana picks up. “Hey, Dagã. How are things?”
“Where the hell are you?”
“Good morning to you too,” Liyana says, fighting the urge to hang up, lest their conversation—shaping up to be an ugly one—be broadcast in stereo to the gentleman sitting beside her.
“Good morning?” her aunt squeals. “Good morning? It might be if you were here as you promised.”
Liyana coughs. Twice. “I’m”—she drops her voice to a hoarse, nasal whisper—“I’ve meant to call, but”—another cough—“I’ve been feeling too . . . weak to pick up the phone.”
Silence. Liyana feels vibrations of suspicion hum across the airwaves.
“You didn’t sound remotely ill,” Aunt Nya says, “until five seconds ago.”
“But I am. So, so ill . . .” Liyana explodes into another coughing fit.
Her train companions shift self-consciously, distancing themselves from both the spray of germs and any whiff of racism. It’s then that the train announcer decides to inform everyone that they’ll soon be pulling into Finsbury Park.
“Are you on a train?”
“Of course not,” Liyana says, attempting a tenuous tone between near death and vehement denial. “No, no. Kumiko left the radio on”—Liyana hacks up another cough—“I’m, er, too weak to get up and switch it off.”
“Oh, really?” her aunt snaps. “Well, you tell that to Mazmo, who’s sitting at the kitchen table right now, expecting you to join us for breakfast.”
Liyana curses to herself. “Shit, I’m sorry, Dagã, I totally forgot. And I . . . Kumiko and I decided to take a quick, spontaneous trip to Cambridge.”
“Cambridge?” Her aunt’s incredulous. “What on earth for?”
“To, um, see King’s College.”
“King’s College?”
“Well, Kumiko’s never seen it so—”
“All right, all right,” her aunt says with a weary sigh. “Enough excuses. Just call Mazmo and apologize, will you?”
“Yeah, of course,” Liyana says. “As soon as I’m back.”
“Now.”
Liyana sighs. “Okay, sure. I’ll call him right now.”
“Good,” Aunt Nya says, and hangs up.
11:16 a.m.—Liyana
Liyana stands outside the entrance to the Fitzwilliam Hotel, practising her lines. Miniature trees flank the flight of stone steps. Grand oak doors, with golden lion heads hanging in their centres, remain closed. Above Liyana’s head, a deep green velvet awning with the fitzwilliam hotel emblazoned in elaborate gold lettering flaps in the breeze.
Each time she reaches the end of the first sentence, the words are wiped clean again. She’d been practising on the train, mouthing them to perfection until the