'Omar Khayyam will do just fine,' said Murugan. 'Thank you.'

'Good,' said Mrs Aratounian. Reaching for a glass, she poured out a careful measure of gin, then added a splash of lime cordial and an ice cube. 'So what did you do with your day, Mr Morgan?' she said, handing the glass to Murugan.

Before Murugan could answer, there was a loud burst of music from the television set, and a voice announced: 'And now we take you to our special news programme… '

'News!' Mrs Aratounian said sardonically, settling back into her sofa. 'I get more news from the sweeper-woman than I do from this thing.'

A blandly smiling man in a kurta appeared on the screen, sitting behind a bunch of drooping lilies. 'The Vice-President was in Calcutta earlier today,' he announced, 'to present the National Award to the eminent writer Saiyad Murad Husain, better known by his nom de plume, Phulboni.' Abruptly the newsreader's face disappeared from the screen, to be replaced by the Vice-President's, nodding sleepily on the stage of the Rabindra Sadan auditorium.

'Oh no,' groaned Mrs Aratounian. 'It's one of those beastly functions where everybody makes speeches. I really must get cable; everyone in the building has it but I…'

The camera swept over a large, packed auditorium, and zoomed in on the front row. Just visible at the corner of the screen were two women standing in the aisle. One of them turned briefly towards the stage before following the other woman down the aisle.

Suddenly Mrs Aratounian sat bolt upright. 'Why,' she cried excitedly, pointing at the TV set with her cane. 'There's Urmila! Imagine seeing Urmila on television! Why, I've known her since she was in school, at St Mary's Convent.'

She turned confidingly to Murugan: 'A scholarship student of course – her family could never have afforded a school like St Mary's. She was the mousiest little thing you ever saw, but lo and behold a couple of years ago she went off and got herself a job at Calcutta . "What's the world coming to," I said to her, "when I have to get my news from a chit of a girl like you?" '

The camera panned across the audience again and they had another glimpse of the two women, one a good way ahead of the other.

'Hey!' Murugan thumped his knee. 'I know those two…'

'That's Sonali Das,' Mrs Aratounian cried. 'Another of my customers at Dutton's. And such a celebrity tool'

She gave Murugan a speaking look and a half-smile. 'I could tell you a thing or two about her,' she said.

Chuckling to herself, she took a sip of her gimlet.

The camera panned to the stage and Phulboni's haggard face appeared, filling the screen. Mrs Aratounian gave a yelp of disgust. 'Oh no,' she said. 'Heaven help us; one of those pompous old windbags is going to make a speech. They're at it all day. I really must get cable; you can even get BBC I'm told…'

Suddenly the writer's hoarse, rasping voice filled the room: 'For more years than I can count I have walked the innermost streets of this most secret of cities, looking always to find her who has so long eluded me: Silence herself. I see signs of her presence everywhere I go, in images, words, glances, but only signs, nothing more…'

Mrs Aratounian tapped her cane on the floor, in annoyance. 'Didn't I warn you, Mr Morgan?' she snapped. 'And I'll wager you tuppence to a groat he'll go on absolutely for ever.'

Now Phulboni's eyes filled with tears: 'I have tried, as hard as ever a man has, to find my way to her, to throw myself before her, to join the secret circle that attends her, to take the dust of her heels to my head. By every means available, I have sought her, the ineluctable, ever-elusive mistress of the unspoken, wooed her, courted her, begged to join the circle of her initiates.'

Mrs Aratounian slammed her cane on the floor. 'Appalling,' she said. 'The man's making an utter exhibition of himself. Isn't anyone going to do anything?'

'As a tree spreads its branches,' the writer's voice continued, 'to court an invisible source of light, so every word I have ever penned has been written for her. I have sought her in words, I have sought her in deeds, most of all I have sought her in the unspoken keeping of her faith.'

Here, abruptly, the writer's face disappeared from the screen and a slide of a peaceful mountain scene appeared. But the writer's voice continued, eerily disembodied.

Mrs Aratounian gave a yelp of laughter. 'Look at that, Mr Morgan,' she said. 'They're so incompetent they can't even cut him off.'

The voice rasped on: 'If I stand before you now, in this most public of places, it is because I am on the point of desperation and know of no other way to reach her. I know that time is running out – my time and her time. I know that the crossing is nigh; I know it to be at hand… '

Even though the writer's face was no longer on the screen, it was evident that he was sobbing: '… as the hours run out, when perhaps no more than a few moments remain, knowing of no other means I make this last appeal: "Do not forget me: I have served you as best I could. Only once did I sin against the Silence, in a moment of weakness, seduced by the one I loved. Have I not been punished enough? What more remains? I beg you, I beg you, if you exist at all, and I have never for a moment doubted it – give me a sign of your presence, do not forget me, take me with you… '"

The screen flickered and the newsreader's face reappeared, sweating lightly. Forcing a smile he began: 'We apologize to our viewers… '

Mrs Aratounian struggled to her feet, went over to the television set and switched it off.

'This is the kind of nonsense you have to put up with if you don't have cable,' she said in disgust. 'Night after night. You tell me, Mr Morgan, would you ever hear rubbish like that on BBC?'

ANTAR STOPPED the answering machine and rose to his feet. It was no use regretting the loss of the document that Murugan had posted to his mailbox: if he hadn't deleted it then he would have done so soon afterwards. But possibly, just possibly, it wasn't irretrievably lost. Perhaps Ava could find a trace of it and reconstitute the document: it wasn't inconceivable. Ava knew some pretty good tricks.

Antar started for the bedroom door: there was only one way to find out.

Just as he was about to leave the bedroom, he heard a sound – a muffled sound, like a soft footfall. He spun around to face the wall. Tara 's living room lay on the far side, separated only by a couple of inches of plaster and a bricked-in door. It was uncanny how sound carried through that wall.

Perhaps Tara had come home: Antar was sure he'd heard someone. He went to the wall and knocked: ' Tara, are you back?' There was no answer.

He hurried over to his kitchen window and glanced at Tara 's apartment, across the air-shaft. The lights were still off: she didn't seem to be home. He shrugged: it must have been a damp floorboard: there was no telling, in a building as old and creaky as this one. He leaned over the sink, splashed water over his face and reached for a kitchen towel.

He went into his living room and seated himself at the keyboard. With a tap of a key he sent Ava shooting off to rummage through the accumulated memories of all his old, superseded hard disks. It was not unlikely that a binary 'ghost' of Murugan's lost E-mail message had remained somewhere within the system. Even the faintest trace would be enough: Ava would do the rest.

Moments later a hand appeared on Ava's screen, gesturing morosely, fingers half open. Ava had recently begun to learn body-language – in Egyptian dialect of course – and this was her new way of indicating a negative.

Then the gesture changed: the fingers came together, pointing upwards, in a little dipping motion. That meant wait; there's more. Her screen went blank and her voice mechanism clicked on.