The Sultan's Tigers by Josh Lacey

please?”
    â€œYes, sir. No problem.” The driver tapped the meter and the dials reverted to a line of zeros. If he hadn’t done that, we would have had to pay the last passenger’s fare on top of ours. I didn’t know that at the time, but Uncle Harvey gave me a few tips on surviving India, and dealing with taxis was number four on the list. In case you’re wondering about the others, number one was toilets, number two was water, and number three was food, and his advice was 1) always squat, 2) only drink bottled, and 3) be very careful what you eat.
    The driver said to my uncle: “What is your destination, sir?”
    â€œThe railway station.”
    â€œComing right up, sir.”
    As we sped away from the terminal, I peered out of the back window, searching for Marko. If he’d been quick enough, the time we spent in the visa department would have given him a chance to catch up with us, taking a flight here via Mumbai or Delhi. Even if he hadn’t managed to get a ticket on another flight, had he called his friends who lived here? Or had he told J.J.’s other thugs to watch out for us? Had we been followed as we emerged from the airport?
    I was just in time to see a second car peeling away from the lines of taxis. It stayed a steady distance behind us as we drove down the road. Of course it did. We were heading out of the airport and into the center of the city. Wouldn’t anyone take the same route?
    I told my uncle what I’d seen. I’d imagined he would tell me to relax, but he actually turned around and stared thoughtfully at the taxi.
    â€œDid you see Marko?” asked my uncle.
    â€œI couldn’t see who was inside. Do you think it’s him?”
    â€œAlmost certainly not. But let’s still keep an eye on it.”
    The taxi stayed with us as we drove over a bridge, but fell behind as soon as we joined a larger highway, fading into the mass of cars and trucks jamming the road, and we soon lost sight of it.
    That seemed to satisfy my uncle, but I couldn’t help worrying about Marko. What if he followed us to Mysore, waited for us to find the tiger, and then grabbed it from us? We’d have done all the hard work and he’d walk away with the reward. I glanced behind us every few moments all the way to the station, trying to work out if we were being followed. I saw lots of taxis, but I didn’t know if any of them was the particular taxi that had left the airport at the same time as us.
    We stopped at some traffic lights. Immediately our taxi was surrounded by kids. They pushed stuff against the glass, trying to persuade us to buy sweets or drinks or newspapers. The driver waved them away like flies, but they took no notice, rapping their knuckles against the glass, trying to get our attention.
    There were more kids at every subsequent set of lights, selling more sweets and drinks and trinkets and newspapers and magazines. Often they didn’t even need to wait till we came to a red light; the traffic moved so slowly that they could just run alongside us, knocking on the glass, shouting a few words of English at us:
Hello, sir! Please, sir! You will buy, sir? You will take one, sir? Only one rupee! Very good price!
When the lights changed and the taxi started moving, the kids leaped aside, dodging through the cars and stepping onto the safety of the pavement, where they stood patiently, chatting, laughing, passing the time, waiting for the lights to go red again and give them another chance to earn some money. I’d seen some movies about India and they’d all shown scenes like these, kids crowding around cars, trying to earn a little money, but the reality was completely different from watching it on a screen. In a movie, India looked cute and fun and unusual and exciting. Up close, it looked grubby and depressing. These kids weren’t having fun. They were just trying to scrape together a few pennies to buy themselves