Private Delhi (Private 13)

“Oh? What was it that made you raise the alarm?”

“A half-naked girl, would you believe? Screaming and running away from the house. By all accounts half the lawn had caved in and underneath it was this awful … graveyard or whatever it is they’ve found.”

“What was she doing there?”

“Most likely there with her boyfriend,” confided the woman. “Doing you know what.”

“I see.”

“And you know what?” said the woman. “There’s been absolutely no mention of this on the news or in the papers.”

“Well, exactly,” said Nisha. “I only found out via a contact in the police force.”

“It’s almost like they’re trying to hide something,” said the woman, drawing her arms across her chest and tilting her chin. She looked left and right. “I used to see a black van in the driveway.”

“Really?”

“Oh yes. It was often there.”

“Make?”

The woman gave a slight smile. “The make was a Tempo Traveller, and I know that because we used to have one, many moons ago …” She drifted off a little, evidently revisiting a past with a man in her life, possibly a family too, and Nisha felt her nostalgia keenly, thinking of her own loss.

Regretfully Nisha pulled her new friend back into the present. “I don’t suppose you got a license plate number?”

The neighbor frowned. “Well, no, I didn’t. Do you go around noting down license plate numbers?”

Nisha conceded the point then added, “Ah, but what if they’re up to no good?”

“Well, I never saw anything especially unusual. It had a red zigzag pattern running across the side, which was quite distinctive. Other than that …”

“Would you draw it for me?” asked Nisha. She passed the woman her pad and pen, and for some moments the pair stood in silence as the woman concentrated on sketching the van’s paint job.

“My drawing isn’t very good,” she said with an apologetic shrug as she handed back the pad. “But it looked something like that.”

“Thank you. Did you tell the police about the van?”

“Of course I did. Not that they were interested.”

Which figures, thought Nisha.

They spoke for some minutes more, mainly with the neighbor complaining that the house wasn’t sufficiently well maintained, and how the police hadn’t taken her concerns seriously enough. “My late husband would have taken it further. He would have done something about it, but …” She fixed Nisha with such a pained, searching look that Nisha felt as though the other woman could see inside her—as if the neighbor knew exactly what it was they had in common—and for a second she thought it might be too much to bear.

“Thank you,” Nisha stammered, only just managing to control her emotions as the two said their goodbyes and went their separate ways.

Chapter 12

THE OFFICE–RESIDENCE OF the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi, Ram Chopra, was located at Raj Niwas Marg. There in the living room, two men in oversized leather armchairs drank whisky and paid no mind to the fact that it was the middle of the day. The crisp Delhi winter made everything possible.

Ram Chopra poured more water into his whisky, added ice, and took a puff of his Cohiba cigar. Opposite, the Commissioner of Police, Rajesh Sharma, drank his whisky neat.

Both were big men who tended to dominate a room. Both had been born and brought up in the holy town of Varanasi. Otherwise the two couldn’t have been more different: while Chopra was suave and sophisticated, Sharma was unrefined and coarse, from his constantly ruffled uniform to the toothpick firmly lodged between his teeth.

Sharma had been orphaned young and fended for himself. Growing up in Varanasi had been hard, and from early on he’d known the only two options were flight or fight. He’d chosen the latter and gone from being a victim to

the most feared kid at school. The many nights of sleeping hungry had given rise to his voracious appetite and obesity in recent times.

Chopra, on the other hand, had been educated at the prestigious Mayo College and then had joined the Indian Air Force, rising to the position of wing commander. Deputized to the Central Bureau of Investigation to assist in a Defence Department investigation, he’d chosen to stay on, investigating high-profile cases involving terrorism and corruption. He’d eventually succeeded in working his way up to the top job, that of director.