Tarquin Hall - The Case of the Missing Servant

There he gulped down a protein shake.

At 6:30, Bunty, his one-thousand-rupee-per-hour personal trainer arrived and, for the next thirty minutes, put Gupta through his paces in his personal gym.

Afterward, the BPO executive had a shower and then changed into a smart business suit and tie.

At 7:30, he took the lift down to the underground car park to his BMW. Pavan, the car-saaf-wallah, had finished washing and waxing the blue paintwork to perfection, and for this he received payment of twenty rupees.

The car sparkled in the early morning sunshine as the driver pulled out of the gates and took the turning for the NOIDA expressway toll road. He did not have to fight too hard for space amid the frenetic traffic. Given the Beemer's Brahmanical status at the top of India's vehicular caste system (bicyclists being the dalits of the road), few cars dared to cut in front of it or venture too close lest they contaminate its uncorrupted, venerated bodywork.

Gupta, meanwhile, sat on the backseat with the automatic windows closed and the air-conditioning on, blissfully isolated from the diesel fumes and wretched hawkers. He kept half an eye on his in-car LCD TV, which was tuned to a morning business program, while reading his overnight emails from Hong Kong on his BlackBerry. He also put in calls to New York, Mumbai and Singapore.

At the main gate to Analytix Technologies, Gupta's employers, the guards stood to attention as the BMW left the dusty, bumpy feed road and glided over the pristine tarmac of the car park, pulling up at the entrance to the glass-paneled office block.

Briefcase in hand, Gupta took the elevator up to his office on the executive floor.

He stayed inside the building all day.

For lunch, he ate a dosa at his desk.

At precisely 8:15 in the evening, he left work, having already changed into his golf kit-green mock turtleneck, long Greg Norman plaid trousers and a Tiger Woods cap.

Gupta reached the Golden Greens Golf Course at 8:30 and teed off with a senior futures manager, Pramod Patel.

He scored an eagle on the fifth, a birdie on the eighth and finished seven under par.

Back in the clubhouse, he had a Diet Coke at the bar and, shortly after ten o'clock, returned home.

There he changed out of his golf clothes, took another shower and spent an hour talking on the phone, first with his parents and then his fiancee.

He fell asleep watching the second day of the Vallarta Golf Cup in Mexico.

"I bet all he dreams are about little white balls," Flush muttered to himself as he sat in his white van, which was parked near Celestial Tower, listening to his mark snoring.

A week of surveillance had thrown up nothing incriminating. Gupta's bank and phone records were clean. He had not visited any porn sites. He was not in touch with illegal bookies. He had not made any big unaccounted-for cash withdrawals.

When he wasn't working, playing golf or sitting on his automatic toilet, Gupta went to the Great Place Mall, where he liked to watch sappy Bollywood love stories in the super luxury Gold Class Lounge cinema and buy organic handmade lavender soap at Lush.

Flush was growing increasingly frustrated with his failure to dish up the dirt. Seeing middle-class Indians living such ostentatious lives while the vast majority of the population survived on next to nothing riled him. He wanted badly to put a dent in Mahinder Gupta's perfect life.

The only glimmer of hope was the unmarked bottle of yellow liquid Mrs. Duggal had discovered in the medicine cabinet.

But what could it be? Was he HIV positive, perhaps?

One thing was for sure: he was not taking recreational drugs. Gupta had not had contact with any of the hundreds of dealers now operating in Delhi.

"He's not even had pizza delivered, Boss," Flush had reported to Puri at the end of another fruitless day.

After returning from Jharkhand and leaving Mary and her father with Rumpi, Puri drove to his office.

Sitting behind his desk and feeling especially pleased with himself, he sent Door Stop, the office boy, to fetch him a couple of mutton kathi rolls with extra chutney. These he devoured in a matter of minutes, ever vigilant about getting incriminating grease spots on his safari suit, and then got back to work.

His first call was to Tubelight, whom he informed about his success in Jharkhand-"A master stroke" was how he described his triumph. He also shared his plan, which did not involve breaking the good news to the Kasliwals just yet.

"I've something else in mind," he said. "What's Bobby been up to?"

"Doing timepass," said Tubelight. "He's hardly come out of his room. Facecream says he's depressed. Had a big argument with his mother."

"What about?"

"She couldn't tell, but there was a good deal of shouting. That apart, he's gone to the Central Jail to visit his Papa every day."

Next, Puri talked to Brigadier Kapoor to assure him that that the investigation was "very much ongoing." He promptly received a harangue on how he wasn't doing enough and should try harder.

Finally, Puri turned his attention to the small matter of the attempt on his life and put in a few more calls to some of the informers and contacts to find out if they'd heard anything useful.

One, a senior officer at the CBI whom the detective had helped on a couple of cases in the past, ruled out Puri's top suspect, Swami Nag. There had been a confirmed sighting of the fraudster at a Dubai racetrack on the very day of the shooting, so he had not been in Delhi as previously thought.

"Unless of course His Holiness can bilocate and be in two places at once," joked the officer.

No one else had any leads.

Exhausted from the overnight train journey from Ranchi, Puri tilted back in his comfortable executive chair, put his feet up on the desk and closed his eyes.

In seconds, he was fast asleep and dreaming.

He found himself standing before the legendary walls of Patliputra, the ancient capital of the Maurya Empire, with its 64 gates and 570 towers. Nearby, under an ancient peepul tree sat a sagely figure with a shaven head, ponytail and an earring in one ear. Across his forehead were drawn three parallel white lines denoting his detachment from the material world.

Puri recognized him as his guru, Chanakya, and went and knelt before him.

"Guru-ji," he said, touching his feet. "Such an honor it is. Please give me your blessings."

"Who are you?" asked Chanakya, busy writing his great treatise.

"I'm Vish Puri, founder and director of Most Private Investigators Ltd. and the best detective in India," he answered, a little hurt that the sage had never heard of him.

"How do you know you are the best?" asked Chanakya.

"Guru-ji, I am the winner of the Super Sleuth World Federation of Detectives award for 1999. Also, I was on the cover of India Today magazine. It's a distinction no other Indian detective has achieved to date."

"I see," said Chanakya with an enigmatic smile. "So why have you come to me for help? What can I, a simple man, do for you?"

"Guru-ji, someone tried to kill me and I need help in finding whoever it was," explained Puri.

Chanakya closed his eyes and gave the detective's request some thought. It seemed like an age before he opened them again and said, "Do not fear, Vish Puri. You will receive the help you need. But you must accept you don't have power over all things. All of us require a helping hand from time to time."

"Thank you, Guru-ji! Thank you! I'm most grateful to you. But please, tell me, how will I be helped?"

Before Chanakya could answer, Elizabeth Rani's voice broke in. She was calling him over the intercom. Puri woke with a start.

"Sir, I've the test back from the laboratory. Should I bring it?"