Rana’s smile finally died. He looked at her not with anger, but with pity. “Inspector, you are from Darjeeling, yes? Pretty hills. You should go back. In Delhi, stones are not just stones. They are witnesses. And witnesses have a habit of disappearing.”
Later that night, she went home to her rented room in Mukherjee Nagar. She took out a small diary and wrote Dr. Mehta’s name. Then she wrote the rickshaw puller’s name—he had been called Babu, she learned. Below them, she wrote Case No. 47 . She had forty-six others in the same diary. delhi crime
“Inspector,” he said, smiling. “I heard about Dr. Mehta. Tragic. But Delhi is a dangerous city. You know how it is. Too many migrants. Too much gareebi .” Rana’s smile finally died
“Find the rest of him,” she said.
“Ma’am, did he have enemies?”
The bag was a blue Nike duffel, the kind sold on every footpath from Karol Bagh to Lajpat Nagar. Inside, wrapped in a torn Dawn newspaper, was a man’s left hand. The fingers were long, soft. A pianist, maybe. Or a pickpocket. Pretty hills