In the heart of the rains the shola forests were at their greenest. Before light the next morning Sukumar set out for Hallikere, some thirty kilometres off, to find the Malenadu Coffee Shop.
It was shut.
He asked along the lanes, gathered what directions he could to the owner's house, and made his way through the wet streets. And there, standing at a little distance, was a thing he knew at once — Babu Poojary's milk van.
Babu had supplied milk to the hillside these eight months past, and Gulabi had bought from him all that while and grown fond of him. More than that, Sukumar now remembered with perfect clearness: Babu had been present when the brothers had spoken of the temple at Kalasa. Babu had known they would be gone.
The pieces came together.
Sukumar went to the house and found Babu there, with his wife, Shyla. The colour left Babu's face the instant he saw who stood at his door — the face of a man who knows, at last, that he is found.
Sukumar put it to him plainly, and braced himself for the worst. But Babu did not run, and he did not lie. He only looked at Sukumar for a long moment, and then he said a strange thing.
"She told me you would come," Babu said quietly. "She said it would be you, and no one else. Come, then. She is waiting for you at Karwar."
And so the three of them — Sukumar, Babu, and Shyla — set out together over the ghats, down toward the coast.