The Blue Bar (Blue Mumbai #1)(13)

“Yes, sir.” Arnav moved the car into gear as the traffic let up in front of him. Arguing wouldn’t help, so he changed the subject.

“Sir, do you know Inspector Atul Gawde?”

Mhatre switched off the radio. Interesting. Arnav waited for his boss to speak.

“Why do you ask?”

Arnav spoke at length about Gawde, the inspector at the Azad Nagar station, who couldn’t close the case with a striking resemblance to the one in Aksa. Shortly after, Gawde was shunted to the Local Arms Division, a low-profile department of Mumbai Police that provided men for security arrangements at various events.

Mhatre’s face hardened, and Arnav wished he wasn’t driving and could scrutinize the other man’s expression. Arnav couldn’t say why, but his instinct warned him to weigh each word spoken from then on.

“You’re saying someone has been beheading women and leaving them in graves for all these years, in different police jurisdictions? Gawde found a body similar to the ones Dr. Meshram excavated from Aksa?”

“It is possible, sir. I remember another case from earlier, when I was a constable at the Dadar Police Station. We can’t locate that case file in the system, so I’ll try tracing the physical copy.” Arnav paused, easing his car forward from a traffic light. “What happened with Inspector Gawde, sir?”

“That was a punishment posting,” Mhatre said. “I heard whispers about not following rules.”

Silence reigned in the car until Arnav steered into a lane—the address in Dadar Mhatre had given him.

“For the moment,” Mhatre’s tone shifted to that arrogant timbre he often used when issuing an order, “I think we have more immediate priorities, Rajput. Let Taneja have his site back. Focus on the mountain of files on your desk.”

“This isn’t one body, sir. There are several. The killer could be at large and hunting women right now.”

“We don’t know that. You’re not due for a promotion for a while, but you know it all adds up. Consider this a warning.”

Fascinating man, his boss. Mhatre had just warned Arnav against conducting actual police work on women’s bones being dug up from the ground. Nothing had changed since Asha’s death.

Arnav’s phone vibrated on the dashboard, but he declined the call. He’d dial back as soon as he dropped Mhatre. It was Ali.





CHAPTER ELEVEN


ARNAV

Arnav parked his car outside Dadar Police Station. Little had changed inside the premises in more than a decade, other than the computers that had sprung up on the desks of the sub-inspectors, who typed their reports in Marathi instead of writing them by hand. Arnav discovered his old friend Tukaram hunched over one such device at the desk farthest from the door.

“On night duty as usual?” he asked the skinny man, who was hollowed out by life and a love of cheap arrack. Sub-Inspector Tukaram’s uniform hung off his shoulders.

“Keeps me from the bottle, my wife says.” Tukaram looked up and grinned. “Your assistant said you needed a file? You could have sent a constable.”

Tukaram paused to arrange for tea for Arnav, and Arnav passed him a note with the year and what he remembered of the case details. “I wanted to see you.”

Arnav had missed his friend, it was true, but Tukaram was also an invaluable resource. His remarkable memory helped him recall cases going back decades. He knew what went on with each constable and officer at his station, and many others besides.

“I keep hearing about you, you know. Don’t go thinking you’re not on my radar.” Tukaram took Arnav’s note, placed it beside him, and continued typing on his computer, a slow one-fingered tap at a time. “I’ll go get it for you after I finish this. Hmm. 2003. It will take some searching.”

“Thank you. I’ll wait.”

“You need to live it up a little, see,” his gangly friend elaborated. “It is, what, past nine on a Saturday evening and instead of roaming around Juhu-Chowpatty with a pretty-pretty girl, here you are, searching for dead people. No life in Mumbai Police, I tell you.”

“That’s true.” Arnav laughed. “I’m talking to you instead.”

Tukaram liked to tell people what he thought of them, and the more he talked, the chattier he got. Arnav needed his friend to talk today.

“What?” Tukaram’s brows shot up in mock annoyance. “Now that you’ve won two-three bravery medals, become an inspector, and served at the Crime Branch, you’re too good for old Tukaram, is it?”

“Not at all. A few minutes ago, my boss told me off for working cold cases while fresh murders pile high at my desk.”

“You have no clue when to keep your mouth shut,” the older man said. “Shoot first, ask questions later kind of man you are, Rajput. They keep transferring you. How come you’ve not been transferred these last three years? Ravi Mhatre not giving you any trouble, huh?”

“He’s all right,” Arnav said. “So far. We’ll see. I just dropped him to a whiskey-tasting night.”

While turning his car around, Arnav had spotted the large placard outside the restaurant Mhatre had entered, announcing the event in cursive script.

“There’s a man who knows his drink,” Tukaram said.

Arnav’s phone flashed with Ali’s number, so he excused himself to step outside and talk.