[Inspector] Singh closed his eyes and contemplated the gloom within. Circles within circles. Would a child of one of these dead men – killed in a hol… - Shamini Flint

He didn’t bother to answer his wife and opened the newspaper instead. There was a cholera outbreak in the slums, more nuclear sabre-rattling from the governments of India and Pakistan and a riot because a Bollywood film had gone too far. Apparently, Indian morals were being compromised. Singh smiled happily. They just didn’t make the newspapers like this in Singapore.

Singh stared down at the empty clear-plastic slots and felt a profound sense of loss. These pages would remain forever empty now. No happy family, no children. Was that a bit sexist? No Nobel Prize for Chemistry, he amended.

I'm quite persuasive," said Singh, his face forbidding. "And," he amended, "she was willing to be persuaded.