Vikram Chandra - Sacred Games

* * *

There was a woman in Parulkar's cabin. Makand, the CBI man who had taken over Gaitonde's bunker, was also sitting in front of Parulkar's desk, his head as smooth as grey steel. Sartaj stood very quietly at attention until Parulkar asked him to sit down.

'They need your help, Sartaj,' Parulkar said, 'in an aspect of the Gaitonde matter.'

'Sir,' Sartaj said, and kept his back straight.

'They will tell you what they need.'

Sartaj nodded. 'Yes, sir.' He shifted in his chair towards Makand, leaned forward with what he hoped was exactly the right degree of alert eagerness. But it was the woman who spoke.

'We wanted to talk to you about Gaitonde's death.' Her voice was dry, firm. She hadn't missed a thing, had seen his automatic assumption.

'Yes,' Sartaj said. 'Yes, um, madam.'

'This is DCP Mathur,' Parulkar said. 'DCP Anjali Mathur. She is in charge of the investigation.' Sartaj could see that Parulkar was amused by her and him, by them and the ironies of the new world they were living in.

Anjali Mathur nodded, and spoke without looking at Parulkar. 'You received a call yesterday calling you to the location where you found Gaitonde?'

'Yes, madam.'

'Why you, inspector?'

'Madam?'

'Why do you think you received the call?'

'I don't know, madam.'

'Do you know Gaitonde from before?'

'No, madam.'

'Never met him?'

'No, madam.'

'Did you recognize the voice on the phone?'

'No, madam.'

'You were talking to him a long time before you got into the house.'

'We were waiting for the bulldozer, madam.'

'What did you talk about?'

'He talked, madam. He told one long story about how he started his career.'

'Yes, his career. I read your report. Did he say why he was in Mumbai?'

'No, madam.'

'Are you sure?'

'Yes, madam.'

'Did he say anything else about his purpose, about that house? Anything else at all?'

'No, madam. I'm sure.'

DCP Anjali Mathur had an interest in Gaitonde, and she was looking for details, but Sartaj had none to give her. He looked blandly at her and waited.

Finally she spoke. 'What about the dead woman? Do you know her?'

'No, madam. I don't know who she is. I wrote that in the report. Unknown female.'

'Do you have any ideas?'

There was Katekar's ready theory about filmi randis, but it was based on nothing more substantial than the dead woman's clothes. Sartaj had seen the same clothes at some very expensive clubs in the city. There was no reason to assume that the woman was a whore. 'No, madam.'

'Are you sure?'

'Yes, madam.' She was sceptical, steady in her evaluation of him, and he bore her examination evenly. He felt her come to a decision.

'Inspector, I need you to do some work for us. But first, you need to know that we are not CBI. We are with RAW. But this information is only for you. Nobody else needs to know it. Clear?'

It was not at all clear why RAW, the famed Research and Analysis Wing – with its covert mystique and its exotic reputation – should be sitting here in Parulkar's office. Ganesh Gaitonde was a big criminal, so yes, the Central Bureau of Investigation should investigate him, that made sense. But RAW was supposed to fight foreign enemies of the state outside India's borders. Why were they here, interested in Kailashpada? And this Anjali Mathur was an unlikely international secret agent. But perhaps that was the point. She had a round face, smooth, fair skin. There was no sindoor in her hair, but women no longer signalled their happily married state, Sartaj's ex-wife never had. Sartaj had the uneasy feeling of wading into swiftly pulling waters, of being spun by completely unknown currents, and so he practised Parulkar's principle of polite sarkari obsequiousness. 'Yes, madam,' he said. 'Very clear.'

'Good,' she said. 'Find out. Find out who this woman was.'

'Yes, madam.'

'You would have the local knowledge, so find out. But our interest in this is to be kept in the strictest confidence. We want you to work on this for us, you and that constable, Katekar. Only you two. And only the two of you are aware of this assignment. Nobody else in the station is to know anything. Security concerns at the highest level are involved. Is that clear?'

'Yes, madam.'

'Keep the investigation as quiet as you can. First priority, you are to find out who this woman was, what her relationship with Gaitonde was, what she was doing in that house. Second, we need to know what Gaitonde was doing in Mumbai – why he was here, how long he had been here, what he has done while he was here.'

'Yes, madam.'

'Find anyone you can who worked with him. But proceed with discretion. We can't afford a big noise about this. Keep it quiet, whatever you do. It's natural for you to have an interest in Gaitonde after you found him. So if someone asks, just say you are clearing up a few loose ends. Clear?'

'Yes, madam.'

She slid a thick envelope across the desk. It was plain white, with a phone number in black ink centred on it. 'You report to me, and only me. This envelope contains copies of the photographs from the album we found in Gaitonde's desk. And photographs of the dead woman. Also, these are keys that were in the dead woman's pocket. One looks like a door key, the other is a car key, Maruti. The third key, I don't know what it's for.' The keys were on a steel hoop.

'Yes, madam.'

'Any doubts? Any questions?'

'No, madam.'

'Call me at the number on the envelope if you have any queries, or information to report. Parulkar Saab has told me that you are one of his most dependable officers. I am sure you will produce good results.'

'Parulkar Saab is kind. I will do my best.'

'Shabash,' Parulkar said, looking quite expressionless and unreadable. 'You may leave.'

Sartaj stood up, saluted him, took the envelope and walked smartly out. Outside, in the brilliant light of the morning, he blinked and stood near the railing for a moment, hefting the envelope in his hand. So the Gaitonde incident was not yet closed. Perhaps there were coups to be counted yet, and laurels to be won. Perhaps the great Ganesh Gaitonde still had some gifts to give to Sartaj. This was all very good, being chosen to conduct this secret investigation in the interests of national security, but Sartaj was uneasy. Anjali Mathur's urgency had somehow smelt of fear. Gaitonde was dead, but his terror lived on.

Sartaj stretched, swung his shoulders from side to side and swatted away a fly that buzzed close to his face. He hurried down the staircase and went to work.

* * *

Majid Khan's office was crowded with representatives of a local traders' association. They were protesting about the shocking police inaction in the face of the flood of extortion calls their members had received in the last few months. Sartaj took a chair at the back of the room and listened to Majid soothe and calm them and ask for their help in return. 'We can't do anything if you don't call us in, if you give in and pay them,' he said. 'But tell us in a timely fashion, and we will do our best.' Fifteen minutes of this and the traders finally all rose together, shifted their paunches about and left, but not before their president, a particularly lardy paan-chewing type, managed to mention that in addition to the burden of constant fear, he had to carry so many weighty expenses for his daughter's wedding next month. Even in these hard times, the wedding was going to have to be respectably expensive, these days people expected so much, and after all, MLA Saab was coming, Ranade Saab was coming. The trader-president bowed low over Majid's hand as he shook it, but nevertheless left behind the fact of his closeness to MLA Saab, and therefore the strong possibility of his being able to cause policemen's transfers to distant and dry postings.