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passport. Have I ever lost one? I struggle to remember. Yes, once in Carcassonne. But it was found and returned. Not before I’d had a new one issued, I suddenly recall. The man’s voice is distinctly suspicious.
    ‘The system’s registering a problem, only. We’ll have to look into it.’
    To my intense frustration, he can give me no time frame. I feel marooned, the hours already ticking away uselessly, eating into what little time I have. I jog up the stairs to the archives to be told Dhavatkar’s not returned from lunch. His subordinate’s charming, but has an accent so thick it takes me a while to understand that he’s inviting me to park myself at a desk in the archives while I wait. He leads me to a dusty room the size of a squash court, with floor-to-ceiling bookcases and perhaps a dozen carrels. The tall windows at the far end are nailed shut above piles of what look like ancient mail sacks, dusty and forlorn. A couple of ceiling fans tick listlessly, tugging the stale air up and down. Some desks are occupied, others stacked with pyramids of reserved material. I can’t resist opening the ledgers on the table I’m shown to. They’re written in beautiful faded copperplate, regular as print, and concern shipping in the 1790s. Perhaps some clerk in the original Maker’s Chambers produced them? Ink has bled through the pages and the paper’s brittle. Worried I’ll cause further damage, I push them to one side and take out my pad to scribble some bullet points. What I’m after all seems hopelessly broad: Indian Police, Hoors, Satara, Parallel Government. How am I even going to get started?
    Soon the supervisor approaches to say the director may not be returning at all today. He’s unwell. I’m thoroughly demoralised now. I’ve invested so much in this trip, financially and emotionally, and seem to have come to a complete dead end before I’ve even begun. The feeling’s made worse by awareness that right here, under my nose, are the documents which will unlock Bill’s past. Dhavatkar might be off for days. What if he refuses the attestation when he returns? But without my passport, I can’t book for Delhi. It takes me a moment to understand that the man’s saying I’m welcome to wait, just in case, though I can’t order any material. Hungry, heat-sappedand with jet lag weighing again, I ponder going back to the hotel to eat and rest. But I can’t face the steamy, teeming streets just yet. I decide to read for an hour to take my mind off things, until it cools down.
    How different my entire trip might have been if I’d left then. Almost as soon as I’ve taken Nirad Chaudhuri’s Autobiography of an Unknown Indian out of my bag, a tall, angular man flops into the adjoining carrel. Opening a daunting-looking set of leather-bound reports, he begins writing furiously. He’s around sixty, with lank salt-and-pepper hair and a walrus moustache. He glances up with droopy eyes and smiles briefly, before returning to his task. Eventually, I lay my book down and prepare to leave. My neighbour glances at the cover.
    ‘Ah, Nirad Chaudhuri, so good on the problems facing historians in India,’ he mutters approvingly. ‘What brings you here? For Chaudhuri you need Calcutta.’
    ‘Actually, I’m researching the Indian Police in Bombay in the 1930s and 40s.’
    His tawny eyes light up. I give a brief account.
    ‘Your father’s name?’
    I offer my visiting card. His gaze lingers a moment, then he stands up briskly, a gangling man in a white Nehru shirt, faded blue slacks and outsize trainers. A faint fragrance of flowery cologne. ‘Do you have time for chai?’ I warm to him.
    In the Elphinstone canteen, he extends his hand a little circumspectly, as if it’s an unfamiliar manouevre. ‘Rajeev Divekar.’
    He orders glasses of tea. When they come, a fly bobs just below the milky surface of mine. I pretend to sip while he fiddles with my card.
    ‘Does the name mean something?’
    When he nods, I almost