Finally, the driver pulled inside, stopped in front of the house and then jumped out quickly to open the back door. As Boss stepped onto the driveway, Handbrake handed him his tiffin.
The dogs strained on their ropes, wagged their tails and whined pathetically. Puri petted them, told Handbrake (who was renting a room nearby) to be ready at nine sharp and then greeted Bahadur.
The old man, who was wearing a stocking cap with earflaps and a rough wool shawl wrapped around his neck and shoulders, was standing at attention with his back to the closed gates. He held his arms rigid at his sides.
'Ay bhai, is your heater working?' asked Puri, who had recently installed an electric heater in the sentry box in anticipation of the cold, damp smog that would soon descend upon Delhi.
'Haan-ji! Haan-ji!' called out Bahadur, saluting Puri.
'You've seen anything suspicious?'
'Nothing!'
'Very good, very good!'
Puri entered the house, swapped his shoes for his monogrammed slippers and poked his head into the living room. Rumpi was curled up on the couch in a nightie with her long hair down around her shoulders. She was engrossed in watching
There were no visitors or guests, she told her husband. Radhika, their youngest daughter, who was studying in Pune, had called earlier. Malika had gone home to her children, alcoholic husband and impossible mother-in-law. And Monica and Sweetu had gone to bed in their respective quarters.
'Where's Mummy?' asked Puri, perching on the arm of the armchair nearest the door.
'She went out a few hours ago. I haven't heard from her.'
'Did she say where she was going?'
'She mumbled something about visiting some auntie.'
'Mumbled? Mummy doesn't do mumbling. I asked you to keep an eye on her, isn't it?'
'Oh please, Chubby, I'm not one of your spies. I can't be expected to keep track of her all the time. She comes and goes as she pleases. What am I supposed to do? Lock her in the pantry?'
Puri frowned, hanging his head reflectively. His attention was drawn to the stain on the white carpet in the living room made by some prune juice Sweetu had carelessly spilled recently. It reminded him that he needed to have another word with that boy.
'I'm sorry, my dear, you're right of course,' he conceded. 'Keeping up to date on Mummy is not your responsibility. I'll try calling her myself. First I'm going upstairs to wash my face.' This was code for: 'I'm hungry and I'd like to eat in ten minutes.'
After he'd freshened up and changed into a white kurta pajama and a cloth Sandown cap, Puri went up onto the roof to check on his chilies. The plants that had been caught in the cross fire appeared to be making a full recovery.
The detective was little closer to finding out who had shot at him. His sources inside Tihar jail had heard nothing about a new contract on his life. Tubelight's boys had not been able to find any witnesses to the shooting, either.
All the evidence pointed to the shooter being an amateur, an everyday person, who would have passed unnoticed in the street.
There was only one lead and it was tentative at best: Swami Nag had apparently returned to Delhi, but his whereabouts remained unknown.
Puri picked a chili to have with his dinner and made his way downstairs. Rumpi was busy in the kitchen chopping onions and tomatoes for the bhindi. When the ingredients were ready, she added them to the already frying pods and stirred. Next, she started cooking the rotis on a round tava, expertly holding them over a naked flame so they puffed up with hot air like balloons and became nice and soft.
A plate had already been placed on the kitchen table and Puri sat down in front of it. Presently, Rumpi served him some kadi chawal, bhindi and a couple of rotis. He helped himself to the plate of sliced tomato, cucumber and red onion, over which a little chat masala had been sprinkled, and then cast around the table for some salt.
'No salt, Chubby, it's bad for your heart,' said Rumpi without turning around from the cooker.
Puri smiled to himself. Was he really that predictable?
'My dear,' he said, trying to sound charming rather than patronizing but not proving entirely successful, 'a little salt never did anyone any harm. It is hardly poison, after all. Besides, you've already cut down on the amount you're using, and we don't even have butter on our rotis any more.'
'Dr. Mohan has ruled out butter and said you have to cut down on salt. This is your life we're talking about. You want to leave me a widow so I have to shave my head and live in a cell in Varanasi and chant mantras all day long?'
'Now, my dear, I think you're being a little overdramatic. You know full well that well-to-do middle-class widows don't have to sing mantras for a living. Besides, are we going to allow Doctor-ji to ruin every last little pleasure? Should we go through life living in fear?'
Rumpi ignored him and carried on preparing the rotis.
'All I require is a one small pinch to have with my chili,' he continued. 'Is that really going to kill me?'
Rumpi sighed irritably and relented.
'You're impossible, Chubby,' she said, spooning out a little salt from one of the sections of her dabba and putting it on the side of his plate.
'Yes, I know,' he replied playfully. 'But more important, now I am also happy!'
He bit off the end of the chili, dipped it in the salt and took another bite.
For most people this would have been equivalent to touching molten lead with the tip of their tongue. The Naga Morich chili is one of the hottest in the world, two to three times as potent as the strongest jalapeno. But Puri had built up an immunity to them, so he needed hotter and hotter chilies to eat. The only way to ensure a ready supply was to propagate them himself. He had turned into a capsicum junkie and occasional dealer.
'So how is my Radhika?' asked the detective, who ate with his hands, as did the rest of the family when at home. This was a convention he prided himself on; Indians were supposed to eat that way. Somehow a meal never seemed as satisfying with cutlery. Feeling the food between your fingers was an altogether more intimate experience.
'Very fine,' answered Rumpi, who made sure her husband had everything he needed before taking her place next to him and serving herself a little kadi chawal. 'She found a good deal on one of those low-cost airlines so as to come home for Diwali. It's OK with you, or should she take the train?'
More family news followed during the meal. Their second grandchild, four-month-old Rohit, the son of their eldest daughter, Lalita, had recovered from his cold. Jagdish Uncle, one of Puri's father's four surviving brothers, had returned home from the hospital after having his gall bladder removed. And Rumpi's parents were returning from their vacation 'cottage' in Manali.
Next, she brought Puri up to date on local Gurgaon news. There had been a six-hour power cut that morning (it had been blamed on fog). An angry mob of residents had stormed the offices of the electricity company, dragged the director out and given him 'a good thrashing.' Eventually, the police had intervened using lathis and roughed up a lot of people, including many women.
Finally, Rumpi broached the delicate subject of a vacation; she wanted to go to Goa.
'Dr. Mohan said you need a break. You never stop working these days, Chubby,' she said.
'I'm quite all right, my dear. Fit as a fiddle, in fact.'
'You're not all right at all. All this stress is taking its toll. You're looking very tired these days.'
'Really, you're worrying over nothing. Now what about dessert? There's something nice?'
'Apple,' she replied curtly.
After Puri had finished eating, he washed the residue of kadi chawal from his hands in the sink, ladled out a glass of cool water from the clay pot that sat nearby and gulped it down.
Afterward in the sitting room, he turned on his recording of
