“Hurry!” Facecream urged Flush, grabbing him by the arm. “They’re coming.”
They ran through the car park, watched by a group of bewildered-looking devotees, and pushed past the chowki-dars on duty at the main gate.
A local bus bound for Haridwar happened to be passing along the road and they jumped on board.
Looking back as it pulled away, Facecream saw their pursuers sprinting after them, shouting for the driver to stop, but getting left behind.
“We’d better jump off at the next bazaar,” she suggested. “Til get a change of clothes and we’ll hire a car.”
They took a minute to catch their breath. Then Flush said: “I waited for you on the side of the residence hall at five like you told me to do, but the helicopter landed and I had to hide. Who was that lunatic with the gun?”
“That’s Maharaj Swami’s number two,” explained Facecream.
She went on to describe in a whisper what she had found in the Godman’s room.
“But Swaroop smashed the data key and the tapes, so now we’ve got nothing.”
Flush grinned. “Have faith,” he said.
Twenty-One
Rumpi rose at five-thirty the next morning. She checked in on Jaiya, who was still sleeping soundly in her room, and then went downstairs to make herself the glass of warm water with lemon juice and black salt that constituted an essential part of her morning ritual.
The photographs from the godh bharai party had come back from the shop yesterday evening and for a while she had sat at the kitchen table looking through them again with a contented smile. Monika joined her from the servant quarters, admired the pictures herself, giggled about funny things people had done and said during the baby shower and started making the tea. While the milk, cardamoms and black Darjeeling leaves boiled, she talked excitedly about the Saif Ali Khan movie she had watched the night before. Naturally the plot sounded extremely convoluted and the actor had taken off his shirt at almost every opportunity.
Rumpi switched on the radio and listened to the headlines on All India Radio as she started to prepare aloo paranthas, Jaiya’s favorite.
First, she added jeera, chili and turmeric powder to the boiled aloo and then mixed the atta in a bowl with a little water until it turned into dough. Then, while Monika mopped the floor, Rumpi heated her tava and retrieved the ghee from the fridge.
Puri’s wife often found that she did her best thinking while cooking. She had never completely understood why – there was something about preparing food that was relaxing, therapeutic even – but often, while she stood chopping ginger or stirring the paalak paneer, some name she’d had trouble remembering earlier would suddenly pop into her head or a solution to a problem would miraculously bubble up to the surface.
This morning, it was the act of making little dough balls, stuffing them with a potato mixture and rolling them out into flat disks that led – not immediately, it should be said – to the identification of the mastermind behind the kitty party robbery.
When this eureka moment came, Rumpi stopped what she was doing, quickly washed her hands, told Monika to finish preparing breakfast and then reached for the phone.
First she called Arti of Arti’s Beauty Parlor and asked for Uma’s number, saying that she needed to ask her about some recipe.
It took Rumpi more than five minutes to get Arti off the line. Then she called her beautician.
“Uma? That’s you? This is Puri Madam this side. Hello? Hello? Can you hear me?” She had to raise her voice. “I said this is Puri Madam. Yes, that’s right. Good morning. Sorry to call you so early. Tell me, you’ll reach work at what time? Hello? Hello?”
Practically shouting now: “Uma? You’ll reach work at what time, exactly? It’s your off? I see. Actually, something important has come up. You’ll be at home? What’s your address, Uma, I need to see you. No, no, nothing bad, I promise. Something I want to ask you. I would need only five minutes of your time…”
Next Rumpi called her mother-in-law.
Yesterday, Mummy-ji, who had refused to give up the investigation, had spent the day following Lily Arora around Delhi.
The kitty party hostess had lunched with a handsome young man who wore expensive shoes and had driven her to a luxurious farmhouse in Najafgarh, where the two had spent a couple of hours.
Expensive Shoes had turned out to be a party organizer who was helping Lily Arora plan her husband’s surprise sixtieth birthday party. The kind of money she was spending on the function was far in excess of the amount that had been stolen and Mummy had concluded that the Aroras could not be facing any kind of financial difficulties.
“Something we’ve overlooked is there, na,” she’d told Rumpi in the evening. “One lady is hiding something, that is for sure.”
Rumpi had reminded her mother-in-law that she was no longer involved in the investigation.
Now she had to backtrack.
“I think I know who it is,” she said. “Last night I was watching the news and there was a story about how an accountant who audits several big companies has been accused of profiting from insider information. Then this morning something Uma told me the other day suddenly clicked.”
“It came to you while cooking, is it?” asked Mummy.
“While I was preparing the paranthas.”
“That is always the way.”
Uma lived in Chhatarpur, a vast warren of three-story apartment blocks. Although ‘completed’ in the past three years, they looked half-finished – bare brickwork, missing window frames, loose cinder blocks in place of missing steps leading up to missing front entrances. The heat, humidity, pollution and monsoon rains, together with the streaks of paan spit and urine on the walls, also conspired to make the buildings look twenty years older.
Twenty-five hundred rupees a month, almost half her monthly salary, rented Uma three small rooms. The living room – all often feet across – doubled as a bedroom for her husband, herself and their three children. The kitchen was half that size and comprised a two-ring stove and a fridge that stood idle because the electricity supply was too sporadic and too expensive. There was also a toilet and a small washing area, but water had to be brought from a bore well in the street, which was shared by three buildings – twenty-seven families altogether.
The rooms, though, were clean, with the TV lovingly draped in a piece of fabric to keep off the dust and the family’s shoes stacked on a rack next to the door.
A metal cabinet with glass doors contained a few effigies and her three children’s school textbooks. Pride of place was given to a china tea set, a Diwali gift from a nice Swiss client who had been going to Arti’s Beauty Parlor for years.
As Mummy and Rumpi sat squeezed together on the two-seater settee, Uma carefully retrieved the teapot and, cradling it in one arm, carried it into the kitchen.
When she returned, the spout was steaming and she filled three cups with hot milky chai. A plate of biscuits was also placed on the small coffee table.
Uma sat down on a stool, making all sorts of apologies for not having something more substantial to serve them, or more comfortable furniture for them to sit on, and for how hot it was (the family relied on an overhead fan, which thankfully was on).
Recognizing Uma’s embarrassment and awkwardness at having to entertain well-to-do guests, Rumpi and Mummy sought to put her at ease, admiring the cups and saucers, complimenting the tea and repeating that it was they who were sorry for imposing upon her on her one day off.
Small chat ensued. Where are the kids? Off at school. Is that Doll in the picture? Yes, she’s already nine and very bright; recently she came in at the top of her class in English. How is the rest of the family? Everyone is well. And work? Ticking along.
But Uma was not her normal relaxed, chatty self. Clients never came to visit her at home. It had to be
