Dutt swore under his breath. ‘We can’t. We’re late so you’ll just have to wait.’

‘I c-can’t wait!’

‘You’ll just have to – you young fool!’

‘I c-c-can’t,’ pleaded the boy. ‘And I’m n-not a fool. Y-y-you’re the fool!’

‘What did you say!’ screamed his father, unused to the boy answering back. ‘What did you call me?’ These were to be the last words he ever spoke. Sanjay caught a glimpse of the wrath in his eyes a moment before his right hand flashed, catching him across his cheek and sending him cowering into the corner. The driver, distracted for a second, saw too late the bullock cart in the middle of the road. He swung the car hard to the left, missing it by inches, but a heartbeat later saw the outline of a stationary lorry loom fast in the one headlamp beam. He had just time enough to straighten his arms to absorb the imminent impact and curse ‘Sallah!’ before the car crunched into its rear. The roof on the passenger side sheared off as it crumpled under the trailer. The steering column plunged into the driver’s midriff, crushing his ribs and organs. Straining to breathe, he heard a distant and continuous horn of a car as he tasted warm, salty blood. The engine coughed and stalled, exhaling a slow hiss.

Some minutes later, a knot of villagers emerged out of the night from a nearby hamlet. They stared with peasant fatalism at the half submerged car, until three younger men wrenched open the driver’s door to reveal him, semi-conscious and jammed behind the buckled steering wheel. In a babble of shouts and orders, one grasped his right hand, the other his elbow, the third his knee and in unison tugged until they finally hauled him out. He groaned and as they laid him on the roadside, his eyes rolled upwards and he died. A fourth villager, holding his guttering lantern aloft, peered into the back of the car. He could make out a boy, curled up and whimpering. Beside him was a severed head, its eyes half shut.