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“And now?” inquired Kapoor, later that day. They were back in the cyber-crime section, Smita and her colleagues taking them through what they’d found. The matrix of time, location, 3G accounts, and account holder’s age had offered up a list of hits which they were currently working their way through.
It’s just a matter of time, the two detectives were being assured. That one of the hard-cores used his or her cell phone was the first mistake Angulimala had made.
“He won’t get away this time,” said Smita confidently.
Kapoor digested this in silence, then repeated his question to his superior officer, whose abstraction had been noted by everyone in the room.
“Sir,” said Smita, and the DCP finally looked up.
“No, no,” he said. “It all sounds very good. You’ve all been working very hard indeed.”
“We have,” affirmed Smita. “None of us went home last night.”
Kapoor raised his eyebrows in her direction, and she blushed. “I don’t think a roomful of Indian Police Service officers need a chaperone, sir.”
“I agree,” said Kapoor drily. “I was just thinking how clean you look, after a night spent here.”
She shrugged. “A loaded handbag and a lavatory mirror can work wonders, sir.”
Her colleagues laughed and Kapoor smiled, while the DCP stared off into space.
“Sir,” prompted Kapoor gently.
With an effort, the DCP roused himself. “I’m sorry. I was busy too. Last night.”
The others waited.
“I think, with the data you’re collecting, we’ll have an arrest very soon. Perhaps as soon as tonight.”
The younger cops waited for more information to be volunteered, but none was forthcoming. Smita looked at Kapoor for help because nobody had mentioned a time frame for resolution, but the DCP had retreated behind a wall again. Kapoor sighed and waited and indicated, by leaning back and closing his eyes, that the others should curb their impatience and do the same.
Presently, the DCP looked around, felt for his cigarettes, motioned to Kapoor to follow him. They shared a meditative smoke on a balcony overlooking the city. Traffic bristled under them. Off in the near distance, the huge stacks of a thermal power plant lurked over the burgeoning river. Humayun’s Tomb, massively red in the cloudy day, lay off to one side. Kapoor watched his smoke disappear and felt the city flow below and heard the dark kites whirl screeching against the sky.
Tonight? inquired Kapoor.
Tonight, nodded Dayal.
“What exactly is going to happen?”
Dayal looked at him, then away. “I’m not entirely sure.”
“Does the Colonel indeed have a role to play?”
“It would seem so.”
“Has this been a setup from the start?”
“Possibly.”
“To what end?”
Dayal looked at his old friend and colleague, the city’s gray mass behind him. “I don’t know,” he said.
“And the Colonel? Who is she?”
“I don’t know,” repeated Dayal.
Kapoor digested this as he turned to the city, leaning his elbows on a rail almost blackened by soot from the power plant’s chimneys and the slow-moving traffic below. And so, to spare his friend the embarrassment of three straight nonanswers, he asked: “Can she end this finger-fucker’s roll? Tonight? Really?”
The DCP nodded, a gesture the other man couldn’t see. “I think she can. I think she will.”
“And you? What are you going to do?”
“I’m going over there to see her. Hopefully he’ll be there. Ready and waiting.”
“Do you need me?”
“I don’t think that’s part of the plan.”
Kapoor thought about that, then repeated: “And you, boss? What are you going to do?”
The DCP looked at his friend’s back, still turned to him as the other man studied the darkening city.
“My father told me,” continued Kapoor, “when I was still ambitious and young in the force, that I should know my own limits and choose my friends with care. That the friendship of powerful people carries a price. They don’t do favors for free. Not for people like us.”
The DCP listened disconsolately.
“He was a small man. Small dreams. Five years of village school. A refugee. My being a policeman was the height of his ambition.”
The DCP closed his eyes and rubbed them with one hand.
“I was going to tell you that I hope you know what you’re doing. For all of us.”
“But?”
“I don’t need to. I’ve been lucky with my friends.”
The DCP considered the weight of what had just been laid on him as Smita walked out onto the balcony. Kapoor finally turned to face them both. She stood quietly with her back to the door till Kapoor offered her a cigarette, which she thought about before shaking her head.
“You don’t smoke?” asked the DCP.
“I do,” admitted the younger officer. “But that isn’t my brand. And I don’t think I know you two well enough to have a smoke with you.” The three of them grinned in unison.
“So tell me, sir,” said Smita quietly. “What’s going on?”
The two elder policemen looked at her in surprise, then at each other. Kapoor shrugged once, elaborately, then went back to leaning on the railing. The DCP sighed.
“I’ll be needing a match from you people by tonight.”
Smita nodded slowly. She knew it wasn’t a request.
“Will this match be for an arrest, sir, or for confirmation?”
The DCP studied his junior’s face for a moment, then nodded without saying anything.
“I see,” said Smita. And then, recklessly: “Does that woman have anything to do with this?”
“I really don’t see how that’s any of your business.”
Smita nodded again, a hot flush at her cheeks. She turned to leave.
“Smita,”
