‘Will Veda ever forgive me?’
‘Stop sitting around like a stone … get to work …’
Maya scrambled onto her feet, turned on the bedroom lights and pulled out her pad. Those first notes that she had made in the chapel just six days ago—six days that felt like a millennia—had been stolen when she was attacked in St Paul’s.
She tried to remember what she had written the first time. Then she struck out the clues that had been solved.
Mosaic
Saints in stained glass windows
Screen behind altar?Altar
Lamps
Piano
She then pulled out the pictures of the altar. This was a large, flat stone on a wooden stand. The stand had basic, geometric carvings, much too simple to hold any symbolism. Maya counted the shapes and peered at the fuzzy picture. Could something be tucked away in a crack or cubbyhole?
She didn’t think so. Father Lorenzo didn’t seem like a man who would leave anything to chance. His clues were obvious to those seeking them.
The Greek Key Pattern mosaic had pointed the way to the first key.
The words ‘To you I will give the key of heaven’, inscribed in Latin on the stained-glass window, had led to the second key.
The third clue, too, was probably staring at them in the face. But what?
Maya turned her attention to the photos of the glass lamps, fitted into graceful wrought-iron holders and suspended from long chains. They looked elegant, but there was nothing to indicate that they held a secret. She would have to go back to the chapel and check.
Maya hummed tunelessly and turned to the picture of the piano. It was like any other piano she had ever seen. Brown and big and designed to torment unmusical children. It reminded her of those mortifying classes years ago, when misguided Mrs Anand had insisted that Maya ‘learn an instrument’.
Every Tuesday evening, Maya would walk towards Old Cuffe Parade on leaden legs. Her teacher was a kind woman named Mrs Rodricks, who conducted classes in her faded, genteel drawing room, filled with china knick knacks, papier mache flowers and crocheted cushion covers.
Mrs Rodricks was first patient, then exasperated and finally blunt. ‘Maya is so gifted in other ways,’ she told Mrs Anand, after one particularly ghastly class involving a piece about a circus clown. ‘But she just doesn’t have a very good ear. I don’t think we should push her.’
Even today, whenever she saw Mrs Rodricks buying fruit or standing at the bus stop, she gave her a jaunty wave and bright smile. Mrs Rodricks always looked a tad shifty.
Still, all that was irrelevant. Maya stuffed the pictures back into her bag and switched off the lights. Before getting into bed, she checked the window across the compound. It was dark and firmly shut – and again Maya wondered whether the menacing silhouette had been a figment of her imagination. Over the last few days, the lines between the real and the imaginary seemed to have obscured.
Exhausted, she sank into bed, snuggled under her quilt and tried to sleep. But something kept tapping at her consciousness —like a persistent knock on the door—keeping her awake and restless.
Not Sanath.
Not Veda.
Not those twisted horns that sprouted from Amara’s head.
Not even her father’s problem.
The more she tried to nab the thought, the quicker it scampered away. It was only when she was almost asleep that the answer came to her – half as a dream, half as a memory of her six-year-old self with clumsy sweaty hands.
Her hands kept fumbling on the keys of the piano. Keys. Keys. Keys.
Maya jerked into wakefulness with a hammering heart.
She had found the final clue in the chapel.
CHAPTER 37
Sundays are not the best days for shopping expeditions. Inevitably, the store with the most tempting display is closed. And you usually plonk down a thousand rupees for a pair of sandals in the neighbouring shop, while wondering if you’d have found a better bargain next door.
Still, Lola was bobbing with enthusiasm. ‘I thought you would ditch,’ she chattered at Bullet Train speed when they met at Kemps Corner. ‘I’ve got all sorts of things to show you.’
Maya had almost ditched. She felt too blue about her father’s job, too guilty to spend money happily, and too agitated about the third key. But she needed the shoes and she needed to see Lola.
Lola was carrying a stuffed neon yellow backpack. It looked fat enough to be holding a pregnant pig.
‘What’s in there?’ Maya asked.
Lola shook her head and launched into a popular song of the moment as she skipped into a shop.
‘Wait ’til you’re announced
We’ve not yet lost all our graces
The hounds will stay in chains
Look upon your greatness’
Lola sang with her usual verve. But the lyrics superimposed disturbing images onto an ordinary Sunday morning.
Maya wrapped her arms tightly around herself. She imagined huge greyhounds straining against their chains and ready to pounce. A bit like the Shadows.
Lola looked around the shop for a few minutes and declared, ‘Nothing. Come, next shop.’
Maya followed Lola and the putative pregnant pig out of the shop. She needed the shoes desperately, but she couldn’t afford to spend ages on them. Or, for that matter, pots of money.
Lola, unfortunately, seemed in no hurry. She coldly rejected two more shops, and Maya started to despair. There were many hidden advantages to being a nerd.
‘Lola, there were some okay shoes there,’ she said. ‘We could have looked …’
‘It was like Bling Central in there,’ Lola scoffed. ‘Are you going for a college social or a wedding mehendi? Just follow my lead. I’ve done loads of research. And if there’s one thing I know, it’s shoes. Ahhh, THIS is the shop … I can feel it in me bones …’
She lead the way, a determined figure in pink embroidered juttis and a peppermint green t-shirt. Maya followed with a groan. ‘It better be. I really need to talk to you. And I need your help …’
‘Don’t worry. I have a fab feeling about this shop. Oooh. Look at those shiny yellow shoes with the heels. Are you comfortable with heels?’
‘Small ones, I guess. And anyway I don’t think yellow is very practical.’
‘Don’t use the words practical and shoes in a single sentence,’ Lola wailed. ‘I feel offended. Now silence, the master is at work.’
Lola strolled around for a bit, before asking the salesman to fetch two pairs in Size 36. Maya tried on the buckled black Mary Janes first. Before she could say a word, Lola said a firm, ‘No.’
The other shoes that Lola had chosen were strappy sandals in brown and black. Maya slipped them on and stood up. The heels made her nervous, but after a few tentative steps she revelled in the extra inches and the unfamiliar feeling of glamour. She nodded and Lola beamed.
Ten minutes later they left the shop – Maya with the most alluring shoes she had ever owned, and Lola with the shiny yellow pair. Then they walked under the Kemps Corner flyover and entered the air-conditioned haven of Crosswords.
For once, Maya ignored the books on display and walked straight up the stairs to the little café. She ordered chilled, fruity drinks for both of them and waited for Lola to find a spot for the backpack. ‘Lola, I don’t even know where to start,’ she said finally. ‘So much has happened. Sanath has asked me to go with him to the social.’
Lola hooted so loudly that two waiters came scurrying with alarmed expressions. ‘Everything OK, ma’am?’ they asked, bumbling around.
‘What. When. How. Seriously. You sly witch.’
‘Yesterday. I was seriously surprised. And I still don’t know why he asked me.’
‘Maybe because he like likes you?’
‘That’s not very likely, is it? I’m still in school. I’m not half as pretty as all the other girls at St Paul’s. I’m not at all cool. I don’t know how to dress and the moment I’m near him I become
a halfwit.’
Lola shook her head. ‘When you dress nicely you look great. When you stop thinking of yourself as a mouse you look great. You’re clever and nice, and that shines out of you. Stop running yourself down. Believe in yourself just a little.’
‘Anyway, this is not so important,’ Maya muttered. ‘All sorts of other stuff’s happened. The keys—’
‘Not so important?’ Lola declared. ‘Sanath asked you to the social and it’s not so important? Are you like mad? This is a Mills and Boons coming to life. I’m so envious.’
‘A lot of other stuff has happened. Scary stuff,’ Maya said, and waited while the waiter placed the tall, frosted glasses in front of them. ‘Horrible stuff. I really need to tell you about it.’
‘Won’t Veda get all sniffy if you tell me about the great key hunt?’ Lola interrupted, taking a sip of her drink. ‘Maybe it’s like better if I don’t know. She really doesn’t trust me.’
‘Actually, things have become very messy,’ Maya said. She looked around the little café, but nobody looked like a Shadow or spy. Most of the tables were occupied by children, digging into carrot cakes and stuffing themselves with enormous cookies, while their mothers looked sleep-deprived and clutched huge cups of coffee.
Maya started her story, and Lola’s eyes turned from saucers to truck tyres when Maya reached the bit about Mr Anand. She didn’t seem particularly appalled by Maya’s behaviour. ‘I know you kind of did the wrong thing,’ she said airily. ‘But it was also sort of the right thing. I would do it for my dad in like the blink of an eye. So don’t worry about it. Veda will understand.’
Maya shook her head. ‘I don’t know about that. But will you help find the third key? Please? I don’t think I can do it alone.’
Lola sat up. ‘You know where it is?’ she whispered, casting a dirty look at a little boy in a Superman outfit who was trying to climb onto the table.
‘I think I know where to start looking, at least,’ Maya said. ‘I know we had planned to go home. But can we stop at St Paul’s for a few minutes on the way?’
‘Okay,’ Lola said, glaring at a girl with two pigtails who’d been hanging around, trying to swipe the sugar. The child was wearing one of those pink tutus that seemed to be everywhere at the moment.
‘Let’s go like now,’ Lola announced darkly. ‘Before I attack a couple of brats with a fork.’
Superman opened his mouth to bawl. The ballerina girl stared with expressionless eyes.
Maya and Lola took advantage of the calm before the teary storm to grab their bags and vamoose.
CHAPTER 38
The moment they stepped into the hushed chapel at St Paul’s, Maya experienced a pang of déjà vu.
Last Sunday, she and Veda had come here to find the clues that Father Lorenzo had hidden. And now here she was again, this time with Lola.
Maya remembered how terrified she had been seven days ago. That hadn’t changed. A hard marble of fear rolled around in her stomach. Only, she was no longer so petrified of the creatures who skulked behind the pillars and dark windows. What paralysed her was the amorphous, nameless evil that seemed to lurk at the edges. Sometimes there, sometimes not.
It was a subtle and manipulative intelligence much more sinister than the designer-clad zombies who wandered these corridors.
Lola read her thoughts. ‘It’s funny. I can imagine Owais jumping on you and knocking you down,’ she mused as they walked through the faint, dusty light to the piano. ‘I can see Minty and Amara poisoning a dog even. But I can’t see them manipulating Pratik Purohit and getting him to sack your father. They just aren’t that clever.’
‘Of all of them, the Girl with the Green Eyes gives me the willies,’ Maya said. ‘She and Pratik Purohit make a creepy couple. Anyway, let’s hurry.’
She lifted the piano lid and looked at the white and black keys. They looked disappointingly like any other piano keys on the planet. They also sounded like any other piano keys on the planet. Suddenly, her brainwave of the night before didn’t seem quite so brainy.
‘Now what?’ Lola asked, lifting the top, peeping into the belly of the instrument and studying the hammers. ‘I’ve never seen this before.’
Maya peered too. Maybe there was a key stuck in a corner or a piece of paper with a helpful clue. But that was not Father Lorenzo’s style. ‘No luck,’ she said, flopping down on the rectangular piano stool.
The stool yowled like a cat in pain and Maya leapt up.
Both girls gaped at the stool and Maya giggled. ‘It’s just like the one at my piano teacher’s. I think it has a lid, and a compartment for storing music. And very rusty hinges.’
She lifted the lid of the stool, which did the dying-cat thing again. Inside was a stack of yellowing books. ‘The Church Pianist’, ‘Easy Hymns’, ‘The Essential Collection of Church Music’.
Lola pulled out the books, one by one, and shook them. Then Maya leafed through them. But there was nothing there besides music. ‘This is the last book,’ Lola said, lifting out a decrepit book with an orange cover. ‘Reflejo Espanol. That sounds Spanish. Gosh, it’s falling apart.’
‘Spanish? Father Lorenzo was Spanish,’ Maya said, her pulse quickening. ‘Is there anything in the book? Any … I don’t know … clue?’
Lola turned the pages one by one. They were brown and brittle and made tiny tsssk-tsssr sounds as they reluctantly separated from each other. ‘No map leading us straight to the treasure,’ she moaned, only half joking. ‘This is a pretty tedious business.’
Maya took over, turning the pages slowly. The rows of crochets and quavers yanked her back to the bad old days in Mrs Rodrick’s apartment. It was when she reached the last page that sudden excitement flared in her chest.
A sheet of manuscript paper was stuck on the inside cover of the book. On it were faded blue music notes, written by a long-ago hand.
Lola looked over Maya’s shoulder. ‘What’s that?’ she demanded.
Maya shrugged. She fumbled for her iPhone, switched on the torch and shone it on the notes. At the bottom of the sheet, almost as an afterthought, was a small, cramped scrawl. Maya strained to read the old-fashioned writing. ‘A … A Musical … Key’.
Maya took a deep breath. Once again, she could sense a presence brushing against her like a faint breeze. ‘It’s a clue,’ she whispered. ‘Now to figure out what it means.’
Lola scrutinised the paper. ‘But you know music,’ she remarked.
Maya stared at the sheet again. Each line had just a single bar and it looked even more basic than the ‘Twinkle, twinkle’ kind of tunes that she used to play. ‘I went for piano classes when I was a kid. I don’t remember a thing. How are we ever going to figure this out?’
‘Easy,’ Lola said, prising off the sheet of paper from the book. ‘All we need to do is find someone who like knows music. Maybe your piano teacher?’
‘Mrs Rodricks? She’s hardly the clue-cracking type!’
‘She doesn’t have to crack clues. She just has to read the music or play it or tell us what it means or whatever.’
Maya began to fold the paper to stow in her bag, when she spotted a faint pencil sketch on the other side. It looked like a blank grid made up of many small squares. Beneath it, again, was Father Lorenzo’s cramped writing – too small and hasty to read in the half-light. ‘Ugggh,’ Maya said, squinting uselessly. ‘I wish Veda was here. Anyway, we’ll try this later. Let’s just go home.’
‘Let’s,’ Lola agreed, as Maya put the fragile sheet of paper into her bag. ‘St Paul’s is great, but not on a Sunday morning.’
They were about to push open the heavy, wooden door when it swung open by itself. Maya jumped and Lola chirruped like a flustered sparrow. Standing silhouetted against the noonday glare was a bright, white figure. Father D’Gama.
Maya could hear her heart pounding in the tense silence. ‘What is it about the chapel that you find so interesting?’ he asked in a low, sarcastic voice. ‘I really wonder.’
‘We �
�� we … just wanted to pray,’ Lola said feebly.
‘How commendable and spiritual of you. You must forgive me for doubting your intentions. I had no idea that playing the piano was part of your devotions.’
Maya and Lola stared open-mouthed at the priest. How could he possibly know what they had been doing in the chapel?
Father D’Gama sensed their bewilderment. ‘CCTV,’ he said, moving aside so the girls could pass. ‘Modern technology is a wonderful thing.’
He continued watching till they crossed the quadrangle and vanished into the dark doorway. Maya could still feel the tingle of unfriendly eyes on her back all the way to Pine View.
CHAPTER 39
Mr and Mrs Anand had gone for a wedding. Old Mr Vaidya’s grandson was getting married and the entire building had been invited to the mehendi ceremony. Maya had declined. The smell of henna made her queasy.
A big bowl sat in the microwave and a salad studded with baby tomatoes sat in the fridge. Maya and Lola heaped Pasta-Chicken Bake onto their plates and ate a quick lunch. ‘In a million years I didn’t think of CCTV. Do you think Brother Francis and Father D’Gama have been tracking our every move? It might explain …’
‘Stop,’ Lola said, as they headed for the bedroom. ‘We’ll get to all that. But first please let’s decide about the social.’
Maya was about to protest, when she saw Lola’s eager pixie grin. ‘OK, but quick,’ she said, then felt rotten that she was being so ungracious. ‘What I mean is … Wow.’
Lola had unzipped the pregnant-pig backpack and was tugging out an embarrassment of riches. A voluminous bundle of aqua—more blue than green, but constantly changing its mind —poofed out on the bed. Lola shook out the endless yards of fabric and revealed a swirly, glimmering skirt. ‘It’s one of those full circle skirts, perfect for the ’60s,’ she said, looking smug.
‘It’s amazing,’ Maya whispered in awe. ‘Where did you find it?’
‘It’s only art silk,’ Lola shrugged. ‘Actually, we all had these made last year for our big school concert in Bangalore. We were all in a dance. Will you wear it to the social?’
What Maya Saw Page 23
