'Do you know, Mr Kumar, that I followed you last night from your house in South Ex all the way to the sweet shop, and you didn't have a clue?' says Colonel Taylor.
Jeevan Kumar is sweating profusely and is clearly fidgety. He seems very contrite. 'Oh, I am really sorry, Colonel Sahib. I will be more careful in the future. I know people should not see us together.'
'Of course, Mr Kumar, that goes without saying. But if you continue to be lax about your security I am afraid we will have to terminate these face-to-face meetings. Just remember a simple rule: CYTLYT.'
'CYTLYT?'
'Yes. Confuse Your Trail, Lose Your Tail. It's actually quite simple. What it means is that you must never take a direct route to your destination. Change roads, change cars, duck into one shop, come out of another, anything to confuse your trail. Once you do that, you make it 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.