“Why would you not even try it?”

“Because…”

Because you played a sport that was drug tested constantly.

Because you didn’t see the need for it.

Because it was illegal.

“You should try it.”

“You think?”

“Yes – I actually think you need to try it.”

“What makes you say that?”

“It’s good to open your mind, don’t you think?”

13.3

Late at night, after everyone on the slab had finally settled down to sleep, Max went for one last walk. He liked to see who was still out and about. It was comforting to feel he wasn’t the only one wandering around the place lost in thought.

He walked around the back of the Taj., and looked in on Leopolds Restaurant where the faces changed but the bloated mass of hip, young tourists looked the same, with one hand wrapped around a beer of some kind and the other desperately clutching the ubiquitous cell-phone.

He moved on, and eventually stopped at one of the small shops in the darker, more forbidding side-streets to have a quiet cup of tea and watch the movement of the poor. If he was ever to write, the poor would be the heroes of his work. And here, because it was so open, he could watch them day and night. He loved their natural resilience, the strength and stamina in their struggle to survive.

A man suddenly appeared beside him.

“Sadhu outside,” he said. “He wants you to smoke cheelum with him.”

Max was shocked, he’d forgotten about sadhus. He’d been obsessed with Shard. He couldn’t get over the fact that the old man had known Kirsten’s name. That was the killer. All the other little facts – like his age and so on didn’t matter at all. They were all on record. Anybody who put in a bit of effort could have found out all that. But Kirsten – it seemed to Max that no human being could have come up with that name. Producing that name was some kind of magic.

“Tell him I don’t smoke.”

The man looked at Max as if to say – “are you crazy?”

“Well… I don’t,” Max added.