was able to grasp a few clear sentences.
'You'd better not fail again. Get him out of the way or the deal won't go through,' Fat Throat was saying in Hindi.
'Don't worry, I'll take care of him,' replied Red Boots.
'That's what you said before and you missed.'
'I told you I'll get it done and I'll get-'
Just then Mummy felt a searing pain in her head.
The waiter had returned and asked to take her order. The effect was like having a screaming megaphone put up to her ear.
'Madam, are you all right?' asked the waiter.
Again his words boomed through her head and Mummy flinched in pain, managing to turn her hearing aid down to normal before he could ask anything else.
'Yes, yes, quite all right,' she said a little breathlessly. There was a loud ringing in her right ear and she felt dizzy. 'I think I'd better step outside. Some air is required.'
Gathering up her handbag, Mummy made her way out of the restaurant and the hotel.
She found Majnu lying back in his seat fast asleep.
'Wake up, you duffer!' screeched Mummy, banging on the window. 'What is this, huh? Dozing off on the job. Think I'm paying you to lie around? You're supposed to be keeping an eye out and such.'
'For what, madam?'
'Don't do talkback! Sit up!'
Mummy got into the back of the car and waited.
Forty minutes later, Red Boots and Fat Throat came out of the hotel, shook hands and parted ways. The latter got into a black BMW.
'You follow that car,' instructed Mummy. 'And pay attention, na!'
Soon they were heading through Sector 18. But Majnu had grown overly cautious and stayed too far back. When the BMW turned left at a light, he got stuck behind two trucks. By the time the light changed and the trucks had given way, Fat Throat's car was nowhere in sight.
'Such a simple thing I asked you to do, na! And look what happens! Ritu Auntie is doing better driving than you and she can't do reverse!' cried Mummy.
Having his driving compared to a woman's was the worst insult Majnu could imagine and he sulked in silence.
'Now, drive me back to my son's home,' she instructed. 'Tomorrow we'll pick up the trail. Challo!''
'Mr. Puri, they've taken him!' shouted Mrs. Kasliwal without so much as a hello when the detective answered his phone the next morning. She sounded more irate than panicked. 'Fifteen minutes back they came knocking without warning. There was such a scene. Media persons were running around hither and thither, invading our privacy and trampling my dahlias!'
'Please calm yourself, madam, and tell me who it is who is taking who!' said Puri, never at his most patient or sympathetic when dealing with a hysterical or melodramatic woman (and even less so at 7:45 when he was in the middle of shaving).
'My husband, of course! The police arrested him! Never could I have imagined it could happen here! Some upstart police-wallah arresting Chippy like a…a common criminal for the whole world to see.'
'On what charge?' asked the detective. But she was still talking.
'Have these people no respect for privacy, Mr. Puri? I've seen animals at the zoo behaving with more dignity!'
Mrs. Kasliwal started berating someone in the room with her. One of the servants, evidently. Puri wondered if it could be Facecream. Then suddenly, she was back.
'How this can happen, Mr. Puri? Is it legal? Surely the police can't just go around arresting respectable people and casting clouds over family reputations whenever they fancy? There has to be some cause.'
It was true that before the age of 24-hour television news, the police would never have made a show of arresting a man of Kasliwal's status. But nowadays, high-profile arrests were public spectacles. This was the cops' idea of PR-to give the impression that they were doing something other than extorting bribes from drivers.
'Madam, please tell me, with what is he charged?' asked Puri again. But Mrs. Kasliwal still wasn't listening.
'I want to know what you're going to do about this, Mr. Puri,' she continued, barely pausing for breath. 'Thus far, I must say the quality of your service is most unsatisfactory. I can't see you're getting anywhere. You came here for a few hours, asked some questions and then did a disappearing act. Have you made any progress at all?'
'Madam, will you
Mrs. Kasliwal let out an irritated tut. 'Pay attention, Mr. Puri. I told you already. Chippy has been charged with murder. Police are now saying he killed that silly servant girl Mary. But it is all lies. They're trying to cook the case.'
'Have they a body?' asked Puri calmly.
'They're saying she and the bashed-up girl in your photograph are one and the same. But it's not her. I know it.'
'Forgive me, madam, but you were not so certain when I showed it to you before,' said Puri.
Mrs. Kasliwal tutted again. 'Most certainly I was!' she said. 'I told you categorically it was not Mary. Your memory is faulty. Now, I'm going to ask K. P. Malhotra to represent Chippy. They are old friends and he's one of the best lawyers in India. He'll get him off for sure. The charges are all spurious. I'll talk to him about whether your services are still required. It could be he has his own detective.'
Puri kept the phone up to his ear, saying, 'Hello, Hello,' but realized she had hung up and that the dial pad of his mobile was now covered in shaving foam.
The detective hastily finished his ablutions and got dressed.
Had he let his client down, he wondered? Should he have seen this development coming?
Puri searched his conscience and found it clear. It was quite normal for people to lose confidence in his abilities in the middle of an investigation. To be fair, their lack of faith was understandable.
From the Kasliwals' perspective, Puri appeared to be doing nothing. They hadn't seen him down on his hands and knees scrutinizing the floors with a magnifying glass. He hadn't threatened and cajoled the servants as most other private investigators and police detectives would have done. He hadn't even stuck around in Jaipur.
But Puri's methodology, suited as it was to the Indian social environment, had always proven infallible. And it could not be rushed. As he often told his young proteges, 'You cannot boil an egg in three minutes, no?'
Nonetheless, the situation was urgent. If convicted, Kasliwal would face life imprisonment.
The detective considered an air-dash to Jaipur, but given his fear of flying and the fact that it would gain him at the most an hour, he opted instead for the 'highway.'
By eight o'clock, he and Handbrake were on the road again.
Puri sat on the backseat calling his contacts to find out more on the charges brought against his client.
A source inside the Chief Prosecutor's Office (one of his uncle's daughter's husband's brothers) told him that the arresting police officer was called Rajendra Singh Shekhawat.
Shekhawat was a 'topper'-one of the most successful detectives in the state. He was said to be young, bright, ambitious and highly adept at keeping his superiors happy.
'So where did he find the body?' Puri asked his uncle's daughter's husband's brother.
'She was found on the Ajmer Road,' he said.
'Recently?'
