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any run-ins with the Marxist government. When Comrade Pillai
arrived, he was ushered into the seat that Baby Kochamma had
only recently vacated. Inspector Thomas Mathew showed him
Baby Kochamma‟s First Information Report. The two men had a
conversation. Brief, cryptic, to the point. As though they had
exchanged numbers and not words. No explanations seemed
necessary. They were not friends, Comrade Pillai and Inspector
Thomas Mathew, and they didn‟t trust each other. But they
understood each other perfectly. They were both men whom
childhood had abandoned without a trace. Men without curiosity.
Without doubt. Both in their own way truly, terrifyingly adult.
They looked out at the world and never wondered how it worked,
because they knew. They worked it. They were mechanics who
serviced different parts of the same machine.
Comrade Pillai told Inspector Thomas Mathew that he was
acquainted with Velutha, but oI~TIitted to mention that Velutha
was a member of the Communist Party or that Velutha had
knocked on his door late the previous night, which made Comrade
Pillai the last person to have seen Velutha before he disappeared.
Nor, though he knew it to be untrue, did Comrade Pillai refute the
allegation of attempted rape in Baby Kochamma‟s First
Information Report He merely assured Inspector Thomas Mathew
that as far as he was concerned Velutha did not have the patronage
or the protection of the Communist Party. That he was on his own.
After Comrade Pillai left, Inspector Thomas Mathew went
over their conversation in his mind, teasing it, testing its logic,
looking for loopholes. When he was satisfied, he instructed his
men.
Meanwhile, Baby Kochamma returned to Ayemenem. The
Plymouth was parked in the driveway. Margaret Kochamma and
Chacko were back from Cochin.
Sophie Mol was laid out on the chaise longue.