“As far as we know, this attack was a one-off,” Hala reminds me.
I nod. I also know Kit is not keen to bow to terrorists by abandoning her existing school buildings. With the extra security, plus some kind of uniformed police presence, I suppose terrorists would be deterred from trying to strike the same type of target twice. I gulp down my macchiato. It’s time for me to go and interview the headmistress.
I’m reassured by the fact that it takes several minutes for me to get past the police that are guarding the hotel where the girls are currently staying. Only by cross-checking my ID with a list of trusted names that Kit has sent through will they eventually let me in to speak to the headmistress.
A uniformed officer walks me into the hotel lobby, a cozy space that is now deserted. Down one hallway, I catch a glimpse of hotel meeting rooms. The doors are ajar, and I can hear the sounds of lessons going on. The policeman leads me farther back, into the dining room, where the furniture has clearly been rearranged. Instead of intimate tables of two and four, there are now two very long tables stretching down the length of the room, transforming a hotel restaurant into a dining area that feels more like a school lunch hall. These tables are empty except for two women sitting at one end, talking. The officer points them out and leaves me to make my approach alone.
I can tell immediately which of the two is Jaya, the headmistress, because the other woman is none other than Riya Kapoor, the detective who so recently put me in my place. Great. I take a breath and stride over, holding out my hand and introducing myself to Jaya. In my mind, I’d painted the headmistress as stern and ancient, but the reality is that she is probably late thirties, no more than five feet tall, somewhat round, and carrying so much nervous energy that even while she just sits here, it feels as if the edges of her are slightly blurred. Her eyes are rimmed with red, probably from exhaustion and crying.
“So marvelous to meet you, Jessie-ma’am,” Jaya says. She grasps my hand firmly and has a ready smile. “And I am so deeply, deeply sorry that this tragedy has occurred, and on my watch.”
“It’s not your fault,” I assure her. “And I’m sorry for your loss. The girls . . .”
As tears spring to her eyes, Jaya looks for distraction and turns to her companion.
“This is Detective Kapoor,” she says, introducing us.
“We’ve met,” the detective says to her before turning to me. “And, you can call me Riya.”
“Are you sure?” I ask, deadpan. “I don’t want to rush our relationship, you know, if you’re not ready. . . .”
Riya tosses out a tight smile before fixing me with a focused stare. “What are you doing here?” she demands.
“I have some questions for Jaya,” I reply.
“Great. I’d love to hear them,” Riya says, pulling a notebook from the inside of her suit jacket.
Suppressing a sigh, I sit down beside her, so that we are both opposite the headmistress, who’s keen to offer me a beverage. I decline, politely. Nevertheless, small glasses of milky tea appear before us within minutes. Riya picks hers up and knocks it back quickly, while I focus on Jaya.
“Can you tell me if there was any maintenance done at either school recently? Like, annual checks or any equipment that needed servicing . . .”
Jaya nearly bounces out of her chair. “Yes, yes, there was. The detective just asked me the same. There was a plumbing company that came to the school just a few days ago.”
I don’t feel I ought to whip out my purloined photos of the contract right in front of Riya, so I ask Jaya for the company name. No surprise, it’s the same one that I found the paperwork for.
“Is this a company you used before?”
She nods. Not that using an established firm means anything at all. It would be the easiest thing in the world to pay off the contracted workers to go and have lunch while someone else dressed in their overalls got access to the schools. Or for any company to hire in a temp worker.
Jaya looks stricken. “It didn’t connect for me as a problem. Till now.”
“It still might mean nothing,” Riya reassures her.
“Did your staff take any copy of an ID for the maintenance men?” I continue.
“It was only one man, and yes. Our practice is to take an ID copy and a cell phone number for anyone who enters the building where the girls are. It’s routine but we always do it.”
Riya looks at me, as if she’s just ever so slightly impressed that my opening questions were not completely idiotic. I take a sip of my tea, which is a troubling combination of scalding hot and tooth-achingly sweet.
“They scan the ID and store it digitally on the desktop computer in the office,” Riya says. Clearly, she’s decided she may as well save me the same line of questioning she’s just gone through. “I sent our tech guys in there just now to find it but the folder it should be in doesn’t have anything new from the past few weeks.”
Jaya wrings her hands. “I hope the administrator didn’t fail to follow procedure,” she says.
“I’ll talk to your admin person next,” Riya tells her. “Unless you want to?” she adds dryly, looking at me.
“Nice of you to ask,” I comment. “Does this mean you’re starting to trust me?”
“Not in the least. I was being sarcastic,” she returns.
I feel like she’s always got me on the defensive. She’s still watching me, and somehow her gaze makes me self-conscious. I pull out my phone and ask Riya to let me know what she finds out. Whether she will bother to keep me updated or not, I can’t be sure yet, but I give her my
