what had been billed by the inspector as an urgent meeting, was sitting across from his guest at a table in the Gym’s breakfast room.
He could tell that Singh had not enjoyed a good night’s sleep. The NCR had been hit by three hours of load shedding, and the inspector, who lived in modest housing in Mustafabad, northeast Delhi, didn’t have a backup inverter to run his ceiling fans.
Such systems did not come cheap. The police wallah, who had six mouths to feed, couldn’t afford one on his salary and wasn’t prepared to extort the price of one from the public. His ill temper, then, was a credit to him.
“I tried calling you yesterday but seems you were out of station?” he said, his mouth half full.
“Some family business was there,” lied Puri, who was keeping his visit to Haridwar, and the fact that he had planted an undercover operative inside the ashram, strictly under wraps.
The detective quickly changed the subject.
“Since last we met I’d a run-in with a cricket bat,” said Puri, who went on to describe how he had been ambushed in Dr. Jha’s office.
“Sir, I hope you weren’t breaking and entering again,” said Singh reproachfully. He took a dim view of some of Puri’s methods.
“Nothing of the sort. The side door was perfectly open, actually. Just I surprised some intruder engaged in going through Dr. Jha’s files. How he got the better of me remains a mystery. My reflexes are like lightning.”
The faintest hint of a smile flickered across Singh’s face as he took another bite of his parantha and then asked: “Did you see who did it?”
For a moment, Puri seemed lost for words.
“My memory of events is something of a fog,” he said. “It is like I had a dream but certain details are missing. I remember someone familiar to me saying something. Just I cannot put my finger on who or what.”
“I’m sure it will come back to you, sir,” said Singh helpfully. His breakfast and salty tea seemed to be improving his temperament.
“Just I hope it is not weeks or months. So frustrating it is.”
A waiter arrived bearing a plate of idlis arranged on a banana leaf and placed it in front of Puri. He immediately cut off a portion of one of the rice patties, drowned it in coconut chutney and some spicy sambar and devoured it.
“So tell me. What is so urgent I had to come into town so early, Inspector?”
Singh, who had finished his food, wiped his hands on his napkin and placed it on the table. “Sir, the chief knows you’re investigating the Jha case,” he said with solemnity.
Puri shrugged. “That is hardly a surprise, no? Delhi is like a village with women gossiping round the water pump. Eventually everyone gets to know everyone else’s business.” He took another bite of his food.
“He knows I took you to the murder scene and he’s furious. He ordered me to meet you this morning and warn you off.”
“Then I will consider myself warned,” said Puri with a grin.
Singh sipped his tea. “But tell me, sir – strictly between us. Have you made any progress?”
“Come now, Inspector, you know I don’t have the habit of sharing my theories until they are tried and tested,” answered Puri. The truth was, though, that he still had little to go on – just a few scraps of information and a hunch or two.
Not that Puri was worried. Not especially. He had solved many a case in the past with less evidence available to him at this stage in the investigation. In India, perhaps more than anywhere else in the world, the methodology of undercover intelligence gathering established by Chanakya nearly two and a half millennia ago was often the only surefire way of solving a mystery. Patience was required.
“I know, sir, but is it really necessary to keep me completely in the dark?” asked Singh. “We’re on the same side after all. I feel useless – impotent.”
“You had the same frustrations on the ‘Pickles’ Sansi case. And look how that turned out.”
Puri was referring to his capture eight months ago of the leader of the notorious Sansi clan, who had been wanted on murder and racketeering charges.
The official version was that Singh had single-handedly tracked him down. In fact, Flush had cloned the mobile phone signature of Pickles’s mistress, an exotic dancer known as Lovely. Using SMS text messages, the detective had then lured the elusive but unsuspecting don to a midnight dalliance at the Raj Palace. Pickles had arrived at the five-star hotel expecting to enjoy, in the words of one of the detective’s saucy missives, “the full thali, big boy!” Instead, he had found himself clapped in handcuffs.
Given the Sansi clan’s fearsome reputation, Puri had not wanted his name associated with the case and allowed the inspector to take all the glory. The coup had helped greatly to further Singh’s career.
“So tell me,” said the detective as he finished his meal and pushed away his plate. “That ‘ash’ found at the scene? You’re in receipt of the lab report?”
“It turned out to be ground charcoal,” answered Singh.
If this information surprised or excited Puri, he didn’t show it.
“And what about your laughing gas theory? Any progress?”
“Nitrous oxide – that’s its proper, scientific name,” answered Singh. “It’s easy to get hold of. Doctors, dentists, all kinds of food manufacturers use it. One other thing. I talked with a chemist friend of mine and he told me the term ‘laughing gas’ is misleading. It doesn’t make people burst out laughing automatically. But it does make them feel extremely happy. And under its influence people will
“That could explain why Shivraj Sharma was the only one not to do laughter and feel like he could not move,” murmured Puri to himself.
“Oh, and I almost forgot,” added Singh quickly. “People under the influence of nitrous oxide are generally susceptible to suggestion.”
“Very good work, Inspector!” declared Puri before making a note of this.
Singh was struck for a brief moment by a sense of accomplishment. But this quickly passed.
While Puri was breakfasting at the Gym, a couple of Tube-light’s boys were keeping vigil across the street from Professor Pandey’s house in West Shalimar Bagh.
Shashi and Zia were disguised as ditchdigger wallahs, a cover they often adopted because of its simplicity and the anonymity it provided. A couple of picks and shovels and some especially dirty clothes were all that were required for props. The persona was uncomplicated, too: looking downtrodden and bored, they stared in awe at fancy cars passing by and adopted heavy Bihari accents, using phrases like “Kaisan bha?” and “Jai Ram ji ki.”
The sight of such wretched, pitifully paid laborers toiling on construction sites was common across the city, and residents paid them little heed. Delhiites had also become inured to their streets and pavements being constantly dug up. There was not a neighborhood, sector or colony where new gas lines, telecommunications cables, water mains and sewage pipes were not being laid. Trenches with corresponding piles of dirt running alongside them were as common as they had once been on the Western Front, and there was no point complaining about it. As everyone knew, Delhi’s three municipal corporations were utterly corrupt, and the police were in the pay of contractors who worked without proper licenses and in violation of basic safety standards. Even the wealthiest of Delhi’s residents had learned to save their breath and ink.
Indeed, only one of Professor Pandey’s neighbors had raised an objection when, at six o’clock yesterday morning, Shashi and Zia had started digging up the pavement outside his house. Major Randhawa – according to the brass plaque on the gatepost, formerly of the Rajput Regiment, Indian Army – had come charging out into the street in a sleeveless vest and, without so much as a ‘good morning’ or ‘sorry to bother you’, started cursing Tubelight’s operatives as if they were a couple of street dogs. He’d also seen fit to make repeated, unflattering remarks about their mothers and sisters.
In response, Shashi and Zia had struck the right balance of crushed subservience and gormlessness, and muttered something about a water-pressure gauge and working for a local contractor.
This had prompted Major Randhawa to refer unfavorably to the contractor’s mother and daughters.
“After I get hold of him he’ll not father any more children!” he’d shouted.
Pretending to be illiterate, Shashi had shown the gentleman a mobile number written down on a grimy piece of paper and told him that it belonged to their employer.
