Angel of the Dark

David Ishag already knew he was in love. For him, it was instantaneous. But once Sarah Jane agreed to go out with him, it had taken him a month to persuade her that she felt the same way. Just when he’d started to believe it was never going to happen for him, that the tabloids were right when they said he simply wasn’t the marrying type, David had found the woman of his dreams. He was sublimely, ridiculously happy.

The buzzer rang. “Someone here to see you, Mr. Ishag. A young lady.”

David’s heart soared. Sarah Jane! They weren’t supposed to see each other till dinner tonight. After she’d accepted his marriage proposal last week—David had wanted to fly her to the perfect romantic location, Mauritius or at the very least Goa, to pop the question, but Sarah Jane point-blank refused to take time off work, so in the end he was forced to produce the ring over dinner at Schwan’s—they had a lot to discuss. But David knew that if he had to wait another six hours to see her, he wouldn’t get a stroke of work done today. He was delighted she’d bothered to come all this way, leaving her beloved classroom.

But when the office door opened, David’s heart sank. Not Sarah Jane. Elizabeth Cameron. My lawyer. He’d totally forgotten about their meeting.

Elizabeth Cameron smiled. “Thank you for seeing me at such short notice.”

David tried hard to maintain his professional demeanor, but the disappointment was etched on his face. “Not at all, Elizabeth. What can I do for you?”

Elizabeth Cameron was blond, attractive and ambitious. A promising young lawyer, she knew how important a big client like David Ishag was to her firm, not to mention to her own career. Please, please don’t let him shoot the messenger.

“It’s not good news, I’m afraid. Ms. Hughes has returned the documents to us. Unsigned.”

“Oh.”

If David Ishag looked surprised, it was because he was. The papers in question were a fairly standard prenuptial agreement. Sarah Jane was the one who’d wanted a quick wedding, somewhere private and low-key, with no elaborate preparations. “As soon as you sort out the legals, we’ll do it” had been her exact words.

“Are you sure she understood what the papers were?”

Elizabeth Cameron shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “Quite sure. She read them thoroughly. I handed them over myself. Her response was…well, it was…” She trawled her memory banks for an appropriate word. Forthright…pithy…

“Spit it out, girl,” said David with uncharacteristic anger. “What did she say? Exactly.”

The lawyer swallowed hard. “Well now…exactly…she said she wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man on earth. She said I could give you back your wretched contract, along with this.” Reaching out her hand, she pressed an exquisite Bombay sapphire-and-diamond engagement ring into David’s palm. “If I’m being completely honest, she did then suggest that you might like to, quote, stick, unquote, both the ring and the documents up your—”

“Yes, yes, I get the picture.” David was already on his feet. “Where was she when you saw her? At the school?”

Elizabeth Cameron nodded glumly. “I’m not sure I’d go rushing straight over there, though. She was very, very angry. Speaking as a woman now, not as your attorney…you might want to give her a chance to cool down first.”

“Sound advice, I’m sure,” said David, pulling on his coat. “Unfortunately I’m completely incapable of taking it. You see, Ms. Cameron, the trouble is, I love this woman. And if she doesn’t marry me, I’m going to have to jump out a window. You’ll see yourself out?”

SARAH JANE’S COLLEAGUES HAD NEVER SEEN her so angry. In fact, they’d never seen her angry at all.

Sinéad, the teaching assistant, said, “It’s probably just a misunderstanding.”

Rachel, the headmistress, said, “Take the day if you need to, Sarah. Go and sort it out.”

But Sarah Jane didn’t want to “take the day.” She wanted to take an ice pick to David Ishag’s skull. Yes, theirs had been a whirlwind romance. And yes, in many ways they were still getting to know each other. But if David thought, dreamed, that she was going to begin their marriage by signing some horrible, legal insurance policy, clearly he didn’t know her at all.

The school where Sarah Jane taught was a one-room building, really little more than a long shed, in the heart of the Dharavi slums. Over a million people lived in this fetid network of alleys and makeshift shelters, spread over half a square mile between Mahim in Mumbai’s east and Sion in the west. Two-thirds of that number were children, less than five percent of whom received any formal education at all. The two hundred kids who crammed into Sarah Jane’s school building every day were the chosen few, delighted to be there, eager to learn and, in many cases, remarkably bright. Despite the lack of facilities and the hundred-degree-plus heat in which they worked, Sarah Jane and her colleagues considered theirs to be a dream job.

Meeting David hadn’t changed that. His daily life might have been about as far removed from h

ers as it could possibly be. But that was one of the things Sarah Jane loved about India. It was a place of extremes, a place where a love affair like theirs might actually work. Of course, it was probably easier for her to take the sanguine view, from the bottom looking up, than it was for David, with the world at his feet. He might be dark-skinned, and have Raj as a middle name, but when it came to living and working among the poor and dispossessed, Sarah Jane was already far more Indian than he was. David had visited Sarah’s school only once. The fear on his face on that occasion as they walked through Dharavi had amused Sarah Jane hugely.

This was his second visit. Walking into the packed schoolroom, he looked even more terrified than he’d looked the first time, but for quite a different reason.

“Can we talk?”

Two hundred chattering kids fell silent in unison. Ms. Hughes’s beau was from another planet, rich and handsome and wearing a suit that none of their parents could have afforded if they’d worked a lifetime.

“No.”

“Please, Sarah. It’s important. I don’t know what Elizabeth said to you but—”

“Don’t blame your lawyer!” Sarah Jane shot back. “You sent her.”