same good-natured roar of laughter.
The Maruti now went down a dusty road flanked by small, modest houses, luxurious compared to the slums on the main street. Jayesh stopped in front of one, and two kids in filthy pants appeared in the doorway, but an adult male hand forced them back inside.
Max followed Jayesh into the house. A woman in a cotton sari bade them namaste, then immediately retreated into a back room with the children. Buckets beside the table told Max the neighbourhood had no running water, at least for now. The place was clean, with minimal furnishings. A policeman’s uniform hung behind the door.
“Ashok Jaikumar works at CBI headquarters,” Jayesh explained, as the man nodded left to right as Indians do to show agreement. “He’s in on all Chief Inspector Dhaliwal’s meetings.”
Jaikumar ran his hand through his oily hair and invited the two men to sit at the table. He had on a kurta pyjama, as always when he was inside, was about thirty years old, his head held high, even lofty, as shorter men often do. He seemed proud at being questioned, rather like the finalist in a quiz show. He offered them tea and barfi, boiled-milk sweets, but the two visitors declined.
“Exactly what do you want to know?”
First, how far the investigation had got and Dhaliwal’s thoughts on it. Apparently, Dhaliwal was at his wit’s end. It resembled nothing he’d ever seen before.
“Any connection to the group that attacked Parliament?” Max asked.
“That’s what Dhaliwal’s team thought at first: Harakat-ul-Ansar — they’d intercepted some of their activists a few days before; or maybe Jaish-e-Mohammed — they’re also very active in New Delhi. The police had their inside informants, moles, in fact, and at least a general notion of the jihadis’ comings and goings, but embassies and consulates weren’t on their hit list.”
“A change of strategy, maybe?” Max asked. “I mean, who’d have thought that Lashkar-e-Taiba would one day launch an attack on Parliament?”
“Sure, especially with ammonium nitrate–based explosives. They’re a favourite with terrorists,” said Jaikumar.
“Not to mention kidnapping,” Max added.
The policeman was surprised to find Max so up-to-date on what, until now, had been kept from the media, and equally surprised to discover he knew about David’s wounds from before the bomb attack, something the investigators found intriguing, needless to say.
“What, in fact, happened between the time David and his driver left the High Commission —”
“Witnesses put it at about 4:30 p.m.,” cut in Jaikumar.
“— and the car bomb six hours later by the banks of the Yamuna on the other side of town?”
Baffled, Jaikumar shrugged. “The police are leaving no stone unturned, and Lal Krishna Advani, the minister of home affairs, is following the investigation closely. You know Inspector Dhaliwal is from Gandhinagar, in Gujarat, the same state Advani represents in Parliament, and he keeps him constantly up to date, verbally, of course, as one does with politically dangerous files like this.”
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