Vikram Chandra - Sacred Games

'What khabari is this? Who?'

'Never mind the khabari. Not important. What is important that the intelligent young officer got a tip this morning: that one local small-time thief called Ajay Mota had a stash of stolen mobile phones in his kholi. These are brand-new phones, you understand, taken during a break-in robbery three days ago, at a shop in Kurla.'

'Very good. So this officer goes and arrests Ajay Mota?'

'No, no, no. That is too simple, boss. No, the khabari knows where this Ajay Mota lives. But the officer doesn't reel the bastard in yet. No, he invests some time, he dresses in plain clothes, he takes the khabari, waits outside Ajay Mota's basti and gets the khabari to point out the bastard when he emerges with a bag on his shoulder. This is a risk, of course – what if Ajay Mota had gone another way? But he doesn't. The officer leaves the khabari behind, and follows Ajay Mota. Another risk, this following in busy traffic. It's not easy, but the officer has a motorbike, and Ajay Mota is in an auto. So the apradhi's auto goes along for ten minutes, then the apradhi gets off, goes into a shop. Comes out twenty minutes later, his bag over his shoulder. So now the officer takes him, khata-khat, grabs him by the collar, shows him a revolver, two slaps, you are under arrest, bhenchod, you want to co-operate? Then, without pause, the officer takes him inside the shop, shoves him through to the back, and there's the receiver, with the stolen phones in front of him. So, the officer has two arrests, the stolen goods are recovered and in Ajay Mota's bag is forty thousand rupees.'

'Only forty thousand? How many phones were there?'

Kamble laughed, and emptied his glass, and caught the last few drops on his extended tongue. He was very pleased. 'Never mind how many phones there were, Sartaj Saab. The important thing is, the bad men were caught,' he said, standing up very straight, wagging a finger. 'I need to refill my glass, boss. Again and again.' And he went, humming to himself.

Sartaj thought of Kamble's triumph as they executed the raid. Kamble was right, the bad men had been caught. Kamble himself had taken a good chunk of cash, probably about half of what was in the bag, and maybe one or two phones. The money was a reward for his excellent policing, for his alertness and his risk-taking. He had done well today, and he was celebrating. He deserved it.

The Delite raid itself was very orderly. Shambhu had the five girls waiting for arrest in an orderly row in his office. They were eating paya and making jokes about policemen and their sticks, while the rest of them went outside to their usual appointed cabbies for the ride home. They were a glittery, flashy bunch, mostly young, some of them quite lovely in their thick, big-screen make-up and their pride in the sleek curves of their waists.

Shambhu came walking towards Sartaj now, followed at a few yards by Kamble. They were friends, of a similar age, both body-builders, but where Shambhu was lean and chiselled, Kamble had bulk, rounded masses and bulges.

'All right, saab,' Shambhu said. 'Arrest away.'

One of the women constables stood by the van, and the other opened the Delite door and called. The arrestees trooped out on to the road and climbed into the back of the van, swaying up into it, their elegant heels glinting in the red light from the neon Delite sign.

'Going on that – that walk still?' Katekar said to Shambhu.

'An expedition,' Shambhu said. 'A walk is what you do when you go to the corner paan shop.'

'Expedition, yes, you're going?'

'Tomorrow.'

'Don't fall off a mountain.'

'Safer there than here, boss.'

Sartaj was watching Kamble, who was humming. He had his feet very wide apart and his shoulders thrown back and his elbows out. Sartaj walked around him. 'Tell the young officer I said, good job.'

Kamble grinned. 'I will, boss,' he said. He hummed again, and this time Sartaj could make out the song: 'Kya se kya ho gaya, dekhte dekhte '. Kamble raised his arms, ducked his head and danced a couple of steps. 'Tum pe dil aa gaya, dekhte dekhte .'

'We're going,' Sartaj said. 'Are you coming?'

'No,' Kamble said. He shrugged his head over a shoulder, back towards the Delite. 'I have an appointment.'

Not all the girls at the Delite had been arrested, or had gone home. 'Have fun,' Sartaj said.

'Boss,' Kamble said, 'I always do.'

Sartaj thumped on the side of the van, and they pulled away. 'Sartaj Saab,' he heard Shambhu calling after him, 'you could have fun too, sir. You should have fun, once in a while. Fun is good.' Kamble was laughing, Sartaj could hear him.

* * *

It was only after they were back at the station that they discovered they had arrested six dancers, not five. The girls sat in a row on a bench in the Detection Room and Sartaj realized they were six, and that the extra sixth was Manika. She lowered her head and looked at him demurely with her chunni over her head, all enormous dark eyes and shyness, and the other girls burst out laughing. Sartaj took a deep breath and walked out of the room.

'This must be Kamble and Shambhu's idea of fun,' he said to Katekar.

'I didn't have anything to do with it, sir,' Katekar said.

Katekar had on a very serious face, and Sartaj believed him. He said, 'Send them in one by one. I'll sit there.'

'Yes, sir, one by one.'

Katekar stood by the door, and the women constables brought the girls in one by one, and also retreated to the door. Sartaj wrote down the names: Sunita Singh, Anita Pawar, Rekha Kumar, Neena Sanu, Shilpa Chawla. They had the names all ready for him, and were relaxed and not perturbed by him at all, and only became hesitant when he pulled the photographs from Gaitonde's album and flipped them over one by one. Then each of them shook their heads, determined and expressionless. 'No, no, no,' Shilpa Chawla said as he showed her the photographs of the young women, the smiling come-hither poses under soft lights.

'Look at the photo before you say no,' Sartaj said. He tapped his forefinger on a young woman in a blue hat. 'Look at her.'

'I don't know her,' Shilpa Chawla said, her jaw tight. When he showed her the dead woman, who he had kept till last, Shilpa Chawla sat back in her chair and crossed her arms across her chest. 'Why are you asking me? Why are you showing me all this? I don't know who this is.' Shilpa Chawla, with her doubly starry pseudonym, was disgusted and angry and frightened, and Sartaj had no evidence that she was lying.

'All right,' he said to Katekar. 'Send in Manika.'

She was older than the others, maybe in her early thirties, although you had to pay very close attention to see that, and even then the age was mainly in her slightly weary confidence, in the forthright straightness of her back and the blunt interest she directed at him. By the door, Katekar and the women constables were grinning at each other, and Sartaj was glad that they were too far away to hear Manika.

'How are you?' she said in English.

'I have some questions to ask you, madam,' Sartaj said, and his Hindi was clipped.

'Ask,' she said. She was dark, slim, very tall, maybe five eight, and not pretty exactly, but she had dimples and she thrust out her chin and her eyes were completely alive, and she made Sartaj uneasy.

'Do you know these women?'

She flipped over the photographs, paying close attention to each one. 'Oh,' she said at the third one, 'how ugly that blouse is! Look at those frills on the sleeves, she looks like a joker. Nice-looking girl at that. Someone needs to teach her how to dress.'

'Do you know her?'

'No,' Manika said, and she took the remaining photographs from his hand and leaned back in her chair. She was wearing a black ghagra-choli with silver on it everywhere, and the front of the choli was thick with it, like armour on the thin fabric. She was the only one who had come in her dance-floor clothes. 'Who are these women, inspector saab?' Now she was demure again. 'Girls you want to make friends with?'