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“What do you mean?” I asked.
“He likes to do things by the book, and according to him, we’re so out of the book that we can’t even see the book. You’re going to have to make some calls, DV.”
I groaned at the very thought. I had pull with the Director General of the Goa Police because I had helped him nab a Russian mob boss who was using Goan shores to smuggle rocket launchers and ammo into the country. But the moment I made that call, every cop on the case was going to be against us, and I’d bet my last penny they’d leak the whole story to the press by this time tomorrow.
“Let’s try this the hard way first,” I suggested, as I led the way into the Station.
We knocked on Inspector Machhendra Sawant’s door and waited for him to invite us in. We had to make him feel like he was the boss here, and that we were cooperating with the investigation fully.
“Come in,” he called out brusquely.
We walked in and introduced ourselves. I was very careful to not mention my royal title because it was meaningless here. Inspector Sawant leaned back in his chair and studied us with a barely concealed sneer.
“Welcome to our humble police station, Maharaj Ji,” he said, with open mockery. “Please, take a seat and tell me whom you want me to beat up for you today. Goa Police is at your service.”
He had clearly done his homework, and no matter what I did, he had made up his mind against me. He assumed that I was here to use my clout to shut down the case, and while he wasn’t completely wrong, he wasn’t completely right either. I had no intention of interfering with his case, as long as he didn’t drag Tasha into it for no reason.
I flashed him my most polite smile and settled into the chair that he had indicated, while Samar and Jaideep stood behind me at attention.
“Arre, nahi, Inspector Saheb. We’re here to offer our help,” I replied, with emphasis on the royal ‘we’.
The middle-aged Inspector harrumphed loudly.
“The police don’t need the help of a bunch of ragtag vigilantes, Raja Saheb. We know exactly what we’re doing,” he retorted.
I forbore from mentioning that this bunch of ‘ragtag vigilantes’ could unscramble his whole crime scene in the time it took for his inexperienced constables to unzip their pants and take a piss. From what I’d heard, the only policing they did was bandobast during church processions and filing the occasional unsolved missing tourist report.
“I’m sure you do, Inspector. We’re here to cooperate with your team since we were the ones who stumbled upon the body.”
“Yes… you did, didn’t you? About an hour before you called in the death,” he pointed out coldly. “The neighbours told us how you people broke down the door in your search for Vishal Agarwal. So, tell me, Your Highness. Did it take your men an hour to string him up from the fan?”
I did my best not to rise to the bait.
“We had nothing to do with his death, and you know it! It was suicide.”
“Was it, really? Only the post-mortem will tell. The report will be on my desk by morning.”
“That’s good. It will prove that Vishal was already dead when we broke his door down.”
“Yes… to punish him for what he did to your fiancé. But here’s what I don’t get, Your Highness. I don’t read the gossip columns much, but my Sub-Inspector is addicted to Page 3 almost as much as he’s addicted to Gutkha, and he claims that you’re not engaged to Princess Tasha anymore. So I really don’t understand why you’re here with these goondas,” drawled Inspector Sawant, with a disparaging glance at Samar and Jaideep, who didn’t so much as twitch in the face of this insult. They were holding it down, and I had to do the same. I couldn’t allow this smug bastard to rile me.
“We might not be engaged anymore, Inspector, but we are still very good friends,” I replied calmly.
“Would you say you’re the kind of friends who would kill for each other?”
I shot him a cold smile.
“Killing is for savages, Inspector Saheb. We prefer to follow the letter of the law.”
He smirked at me as he propped his stubbly chin on one hand.
“And yet, when someone sent her a dead chicken, you called in your band of boys, instead of calling the police. It’s hard not to take that sort of thing personally.”
“Ah, but my band of boys was already on the scene in a personal capacity. We were there to visit Tasha. As her friends, not her security detail. And friends do look out for each other.”
“Do they? We don’t seem to move in the same circles, then, because I don’t have any friends who would try to intimidate someone to the point of driving them to suicide on my behalf,” said the Inspector.
So that was the line they were taking. At least he wasn’t fixating on Tasha alone.
