Vikram Chandra - Sacred Games

'Inspector Singh?' It was Makand, poking his grey bullet-head into the corridor. 'Come in, please.' The invitation was for Sartaj only.

Inside, Anjali Mathur was seated at the dining table. She pointed at the bottle of cold water and glasses on the table. 'Sorry about keeping you outside. The case is such that we have to be very careful.'

The rest of her little army was absent from the drawing room. Searching the bedroom, perhaps. Sartaj poured himself a glassful, drank, and waited. The water was deliciously cold. He was content to drink and be quiet because he had no idea what kind of case it was. Anjali Mathur had very direct eyes, very bright, and now she was waiting for him to say something. He poured himself another glass, and drank it slowly this time, sipping. If the case was such, whatever kind of such that was, he had nothing to gain by speaking. He sipped, and looked right back at her, not contesting her stare, but casual and drinking and yet not giving way.

She shifted slightly, and settled into the faintest of smiles. 'Do you want to know what the case is?'

'You'll tell me what I need to know,' Sartaj said.

'I can't tell you very much. But I can tell you that it's very big.'

'Yes.'

'What do you feel about that?'

'It scares me.'

'You don't feel excited that you've been picked to work on a big case?'

Sartaj threw his head back and laughed. 'Excitement is one thing. But big cases can eat up small inspectors.'

She was smiling broadly now. 'But you'll work on it?'

'I do what I'm told.'

'Yes. I'm sorry I can't tell you much more about it. But let us say that it involves national security, great danger to national security.' Again, she was waiting for him to say something. 'You understand what I'm saying?'

Sartaj shrugged. 'That kind of thing seems always filmi to me. Usually the most exciting thing I do is arrest local taporis for extortion. A murder here and there.'

'This is real.'

'Okay.'

'And very big.'

'I understand.' Sartaj didn't understand much at all, but if it was the right kind of big case, perhaps it wasn't bad to be attached to it. Perhaps there was credit and commendations to be had from doing small things for a big case.

'We need more on what this Jojo and Gaitonde were doing together. What their business was together.'

'Yes.'

'You found this Jojo very fast. Shabash. But we need to know more. Press the investigation from the Gaitonde side. Follow up with his partners, his employees, anyone you can find. See what they say.'

'I'll do that.'

'I'll have this phone number for this sister checked out by someone in the Colaba station, and when we get a fix on her, you go and talk to her, see what you can get about Jojo from her.'

'I should talk to the sister?'

'Yes.'

It was impossible to investigate without changing what you were investigating, without the subjects becoming wary. And Anjali Mathur, for reasons she wasn't about to reveal, wanted very much to have her suspects think that this was a local investigation. Sartaj thought that she had a good investigator's face, curious but neutral, not giving away anything. 'Okay, madam,' he said. 'I can tell her where the sister died?'

'Yes. See if she knows anything about the sister's dealings with Gaitonde. And as before, report to me directly. Only to me. On that phone number.'

And that was it, as far as instructions and clarifications from Anjali Mathur went. Sartaj took the bottle and a glass from the table, and took it into the corridor for Katekar, who was by now quite drenched with sweat from the shoulders down the back. He was much less bothered by summer heat than Sartaj, he thought nothing of walking a couple of miles through a May afternoon, but he sweated much more. Sartaj put this heat-resistant stamina down to a lifetime of conditioning: Katekar had grown up without even fans, and so he survived heatwaves blithely. It was all a question of what you were used to. Katekar drank a glass of water. 'Are we finished with this now?' he said with a little tilt of his head over his left shoulder, towards the apartment, Jojo and Anjali Mathur.

'Not yet,' Sartaj said.

Katekar said nothing.

'Drink up,' Sartaj said, grinning. 'We have lots to do. National security depends on us.'

* * *

There was somebody else who wanted to talk about national security waiting for Sartaj at the station. His name was Wasim Zafar Ali Ahmad, and it was printed in Hindi, Urdu and English on the card that he handed to Sartaj. Under the name there was a title, 'Social Worker', and two phone numbers.

'I was surprised, inspector saab,' he said, 'when I heard that you had been twice to Navnagar and had not contacted me. I thought that maybe it was difficult to find me. I am usually not at my home. I move around a lot, for work.'

Sartaj turned the card over with his fingertips and laid it down. 'I went to Bengali Bura.' They were sitting at his desk, across from each other.

'Which is very much in Navnagar. I do a lot of work there.' He was about thirty, this long-named Ahmad, a little plump and a little tall and very confident. He had been waiting for Sartaj at the front of the station and had followed him inside, his card ready. He was wearing a black shirt with small white embroidery at the cuffs, spotless white pants and a determined expression.

'Do you know the boy who was killed?' Sartaj said.

'Yes, I had seen him sometimes.'

Sartaj had seen Ahmad too, he was sure of it. He looked familiar, and no doubt he came and went from the station, social workers often did. 'You live in Navnagar?'

'Yes. On the highway side. My family was one of the first ones there. That time, it was mostly people from UP, from Tamil Nadu. These Bangladeshis, they came later. Too many of them, but what can you do? So I work with them.'

'And you knew the apradhis? And this Bihari fellow who was their boss?'

'Only by face, inspector saab. Not enough to say hi-hello. But I know people who know them. And now this murder they have done. It is very bad. They come from outside and do bad things in our country. And they spoil the name of good people who are from here.'

He meant Indian Muslims, who suffered broad-brushed slander and hatred put abroad by Hindu fundamentalists. Sartaj sat back, rubbed at his beard. Wasim Zafar Ali Ahmad was definitely interesting. Like most so-called social workers, he wanted to move ahead, to become a big man in the area, a man with connections who would attract a clientele, a man who would be noticed by the political parties as a local organizer and volunteer and finally a potential candidate. Social workers had become MLAs and even MPs, it took a long time but it had been done many times. Ahmad had the politician's gift of mouthing clichés without sounding ridiculous. He looked intelligent enough, and maybe he had the drive and the ruthlessness. 'So,' Sartaj said, 'for the sake of the country and good citizens, you want to help me with this case?'

'Of course, inspector saab, of course.' Ahmad's happiness at being understood came from his belly, his whole body. He put his elbows on the desk and leaned forward towards Sartaj. 'I know everyone in Navnagar, and even in Bengali Bura I have lots of connections, I work with those people, I know them. So I can quietly ask, you know. Try to find out what people are saying, what people know.'

'And what do you know now? Do you know anything?'

Ahmad chortled, 'Arre, no, no, inspector saab. But I have no doubt I can find out something here and there, some little thing.' And he sat back, chubby and self-contained.

Sartaj gave in. Ahmad wasn't stupid enough to give away good tips for nothing, or his sources. 'Good,' Sartaj said. 'I will be grateful if you can render any assistance. And is there anything I can do for you?'