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director returns my card.
    ‘You need an attestation from your embassy,’ he wheezes, scratching one smooth dewlap with the tip of his pencil. Sounds like he’s got a sore throat. I’m stunned. Why didn’t Bhosle mention this requirement? Or has it been introduced since the attacks?
    ‘My embassy? But if I have to go to Delhi, it could take days.’
    He shrugs. ‘Sorry. That is the rule, only. Perhaps the consulate can have one faxed? It’s at Makers’ Chambers in Nariman Point.’
    I sense the ghost of the young Bill, hovering just out of reach. It’s hard to contain my frustration.
    Despite evoking the aura of the East India Company, Makers’ Chambers turns out to be a weather-stained 1960s concrete tower. Security is tight and the queues long. It’s getting to lunchtime before my turn comes. The young woman at the window is polite but firm. No, they can’t fax Delhi, I’ll need to go in person with my documents. I’m evidently looking disconsolate, because her expression suddenly softens.
    ‘Well, if Elphinstone will take an attestation from us,’ she eventually says conciliatingly, ‘I’ll see what we can do. You’ll have to leave your passport.’
    The fee she demands is exorbitant. Still, much more convenient than going all the way to the capital. With Christmas and New Year approaching, I’m acutely aware of the need to be efficient with my time. But will Dhavatkar accept the letter? I need to find out at once. If not, I have to book for Delhi before the holiday rush begins. But first I need to see if Bhosle’s responded to the email I sent just before leaving London, asking if we can at least speak on the phone once I get to India.
    Heading back to the archives, my tuk-tuk passes a scorched park where numerous cricket matches are underway. A huge banner hangs on the railings: ‘I cannot teach you violence. But I can teach you not to bow your head.’ Behind is a statue of the author, Gandhi dressed in a dhoti, his expression determined but benign. I wonder if it’s been put up as a riposte to the terrorists. The driver drops me at an internet café he recommends, the other side of Elphinstone. Accessing the internet involves checks, and the proprietor is suspicious that I don’t have my passport. Fortunately he knows my hotel andafter letting him use my mobile to make a confirmatory call, he nods.
    ‘Why all the questions?’
    He shrugs amiably, his smile popping in and out beneath his moustache like a nervous mouse. ‘This terrorism.’
    Over his shoulder a notice announces: ‘Phonography and Other Adult Material Not Allowed’. Phonography? I can’t help smiling. But to my intense disappointment, there’s no answer from my mysterious historian colleague. For the time being, I’m on my own.
    I walk back to the Archives. So soon on from the atrocities, early morning Mumbai seems amazingly recovered. At each intersection up what used to be Hornby Road, the main thoroughfare of British Bombay, I have to perform a St Vitus’s dance to negotiate the torrents of people and hurtling traffic. Hornby’s a canyon of imposing buildings, storey piled on storey of monsoon-patterned brick, the pavement arcades now clogged with hawkers’ stalls. High on one edifice, a bush grows precariously from the crumbly facade. Nonetheless, I quickly realise I’m in one of the great Victorian cities, grand as the centre of Glasgow or Manchester, but subtly orientalised with ironwork jalousies, miniature domes and lancet windows. Wondering how his first impressions of the city compared, I excitedly try to identify the buildings Bill would have known: the Army and Navy Stores, which doubtless supplied his uniform, the Sassoon Memorial Library, and Watson’s, the infamous Raj hotel. It looks like a slum tenement now, part of one wing collapsed, the revolutionary ironwork frame an exposed and rusty skeleton.
    As I reach Elphinstone, my mobile goes. It’s the consulate. There appears to be a problem with my