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The mourners were not plentiful on the day of the funeral. Charvik Sharma had not been a popular man in this life, having dedicated very little time to cultivating and maintaining relationships. Sahil, his eldest, watched the people move about in respectful silence, occasionally stopping with one of

'Why do we have to sit on the hill?’ Zach said. ‘Why can’t we go in like everyone else?’ He’d asked this question every year for three years running, and he always got the same response. ‘Because we can't afford it,’ his father said. Zach had heard these five words more times than h

Over the airport the sky yawns wide, grey-brown with rainclouds gently weeping. As we land from Mumbai, this wide prospect dismays me. Has Calcutta grown up too? But it’s the same old diesel-stinking, sunshine-yellow Ambassador taxi that carries Ma and Mohan and me cross-town. The same old doub

Larissa, you are looking good. A fine specimen. Half the size, you have been told. Half the weight of your previous self, and you believe them, more or less. You feel able to obey orders and to love yourself a little bit more. And nobody knows. Your duty is well and truly done. The little ones â€

The world’s unhappiest billionaire was born on 12 April 1974, in a hospital in Vienna. He was named Markus. His mother was named Katja. His father remained at home. Home was number thirty-seven Neugrabenstrasse, an inauspicious flat on the top floor of a Viennese suburb. The flat may as well ha

'Mum! David’s kicked the ball into the tulips!’ Spring 1965. I am seven. And a bit of a snitch. Upstairs, a curtain is scraped back and Mum appears, wagging finger completely at odds with the twinkle in her eyes. David gets away with murder now. Which is very annoying to my seven-year-old

It wasn’t until she found the arm on the kitchen table, wrapped in a length of muslin up to the wrist, the hand exposed and the index finger pointing at her usual seat at the kitchen table, that Lucy started to have suspicions. Joe came down for breakfast five minutes later, groggy with sleep and

The deadline was all he could hear. ‘Midnight tonight.’ Those two words resounded again and again in his head. There was no respite. 180 days and nights had passed since he’d watched one ball follow another, and another. Each one branded with his number. The first five numbers formed his date