The Blue Bar (Blue Mumbai #1)(8)
“We’ll be there the next time this Rasool Bhai makes a move.” Shinde picked up another leg of tandoori chicken, ready to take a bite. “We’ll catch his men red-handed when they are up to their tricks at Versova.”
Rasool Bhai was Rasool Mohsin. Bhai, brother. Except in Mumbai the word held altogether different meanings. A hooligan, a gang boss like Rasool, or a famous don like Vijayan, a part of the underworld, who escaped by either skirting the law or making the evidence disappear.
“Let’s not talk about you and your encounters at the dinner table, Shinde,” Nandini cut in. “You don’t need a journalist on your tail now, do you?”
Shinde had developed the reputation for being an “encounter specialist”—because of the goons he’d shot in his career—a sobriquet made famous by numerous Bollywood movies in which a Mumbai inspector captured a don and his gunmen and staged a shoot-out, executing them before they reached the courts. Shinde had taken over as the senior inspector at the Versova Police Station less than a year ago, and aimed to make his mark in the new jurisdiction.
While Shinde responded with a smart repartee of his own—asking Nandini to set aside her journalism at home—Arnav spooned food into his mouth, the spiced lentils garnished with coriander, the way he liked, the way Tara used to make them. Tara loved the tang of coriander and often bought bunches of the herb, filling his parents’ old bungalow kitchen with the refreshing lemony fragrance.
She would insist they eat in bed—fry up a batch of potato and vegetable fritters and make him feed her the warm, crunchy snacks dipped in coriander chutney. He would remind her they were both working out, dieting. As a constable in those days, who was to sit for internal exams for promotions, he needed to be in peak condition. She’d laugh, tell him she’d added mint to the chutney, a digestive. That even her fritters were fried in healthy oil.
“Hold my waist,” she’d order him as he helped train her to do push-ups. She hadn’t said so in as many words, but she longed to be an actress and followed their diets. He’d lie on a mat and let her practice push-ups on top of him, balancing on his shoulders. A game at first. Then, not a game after they kissed and it all turned into a different kind of workout.
A slap on Arnav’s shoulders made him cough, and he blinked. When Shinde spoke, Arnav made himself focus on his friend’s words.
“Why don’t you answer?” Shinde said. “Your girlfriend has gone to so much trouble, shouldn’t you give her a compliment at least?”
“Yes.” Arnav gazed at Nandini, who laughed at what Vaeeni had just said. He wanted to ask Shinde if he gave his wife compliments, too. Shinde was right, though. Nandini was his girlfriend, and deserved all the praise. Tara was long gone. Even had she remained in his life, she couldn’t have been here—she was too forthright to be like Vaeeni, too unpolished to be Nandini’s equal.
It irked him that each time he found a woman’s dead body, he wondered if that was the sort of end she’d come to. If it was the reason she’d vanished.
“I’ll call you,” Arnav said, once he’d helped Nandini clear up. Shinde and his family had left an hour earlier.
“I’m the one who calls you. Stay tonight?”
“Can’t right now. Maybe next week?”
“All right,” she said, pausing when she spotted the packet of his unwashed uniform on the table.
“I’ll get it washed. Come back once you’re off duty.”
“You know I’m on a case.” He picked up the packet.
“All the more reason to leave it here. I’ll have it laundered. Come and sleep here when you’re not in the office. Stewing by yourself won’t do you any good.”
“Quit nagging.” He moved out of her arms. “You’re not my wife.”
He regretted the words as soon as they’d left his mouth. She wasn’t, but only because he hadn’t asked her in the two years they’d known each other.
“I’m sorry.” He stroked her waist. “Thanks for dinner, and for inviting Shinde’s family. See you soon.”
He hated who he’d become: a man with no family, no desire for one. Content to receive without giving anything in return, other than in bed. But by the time he’d taken the lift downstairs and called to check in at the police station, any stray thoughts of Nandini had vanished. All he remembered was the victim, a headless body turning into mud, and the informer Ali, who’d promised to call back soon.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ARNAV
Arnav sipped a cup of strong black tea as he listened to his team’s reports. He should have stayed back at Nandini’s last evening, not returned to the office near midnight. But as Shinde said, Arnav couldn’t keep away from cases involving dead or missing women. He spent each spare minute working them, often to the detriment of others.
He’d combed through his old notes to pinpoint the exact date of the case he’d remembered helping with as a constable at Dadar Police Station—a woman’s bones, without the head, hands, and feet.
Once all the officers had reeled off their updates, Arnav passed a slip of paper to Naik. “On the Aksa case, look up the files from Dadar Police Station from August 2003.”
“Right, sir. No luck so far, so this will help.”