At college, Arjun Mishra had the room across from Ana’s. Then a devout boy with a liking for overalls, he had possessed an unfailing sense of what was ‘fishy’ or ‘fancy’, these being the words he used to express his disapproval. At their university, which catered to foreigners in Tokyo, they were both scholarship students among wealthier peers. Yet three years after graduation, when she telephoned her old friend, he was living the high life in ritzy Azabu. He worked in IT for a large Japanese bank and rented an apartment whose rent, he was proud to say, was more than Priya Vajpayee’s whole monthly pay-packet (Priya having been, at college, the student marked out for success).

It was a humid night in July, just past ten o’clock. ‘So, Ana,’ Arjun boomed. ‘How is your great life?’ An hour and a half later, she fronted up to his building—a steel plate gave its name as the Imperial Satellite—and, entering, took the lift up to the eighth floor. In jeans and a T-shirt and with freshly combed-back hair, he opened the door with a blast from the air conditioning unit. Letting her in, he gave her a key and a thick fold of yen ‘for groceries or whatever’.