The Perplexing Theft of the Jewel in the Crown by Vaseem Khan Read Free Book Online Page B

least they’ll have a culprit. And that’s why I won’t make it out of here alive. Once they publicly confirm me as the thief, I’ll have to be silenced. Even if they find the real thief later, they’ll say I was his accomplice. You know I’m telling the truth.’
    Chopra allowed Garewal’s words to sink in, then said, ‘Why did you call me?’
    â€˜Who else could I call? No one on the force will help me. They won’t even allow me a lawyer – they say my constitutional rights have been suspended because this is a case of national security. You are the only one who can help me now, Chopra. You are a private investigator. I’ve gambled my life on you. Do you know I had to promise that guard outside a thousand rupees just to use his mobile phone to call you? If you don’t help me, I am a dead man.’
    Chopra thought Garewal would begin weeping again.
    â€˜They beat me all last night,’ Garewal whispered, his eyes dropping to the floor. ‘I think tonight they will use the electrodes.’
    Chopra thought about what he would do in Garewal’s position. He knew only too well the brutality with which his fellow officers often interrogated prisoners. And when the stakes were this high, who knew how far they would go.
    He thought of Garewal’s children. A boy and a girl. The boy would be ten by now and the girl nine. How would they fare if their father never came home again? How would they live under the shadow of a father accused of a crime that would never be forgotten?
    â€˜How did you know I would take the case?’ he asked finally.
    Hope flared in Garewal’s eyes. He stepped forward and stood under the room’s single light fixture. The light threw shadows across his haggard features. ‘Do you remember that time we chased Arun Ganga up onto the roof of the old warehouse in SEEPZ?’
    Chopra recalled the chase. In the dead of night Garewal had got a tip-off. He had roused Chopra and together they had gone into the industrial quarter known as SEEPZ, the Santacruz Electronic Export Processing Zone. The team had split up and, before Chopra knew it, he and Garewal were chasing the wanted serial murderer Ganga into a derelict warehouse.
    â€˜Do you remember, on the roof, you had Ganga in your sights? You could have shot him then and no one would have known. He was not the kind of man anyone would have shed tears over and I would never have told anyone. So why didn’t you shoot him?’
    Chopra was silent.
    â€˜You always do the right thing, old friend,’ said Garewal. ‘Well, now I need you to do the right thing by me. I need you to save my life.’
    Chopra turned as the door to the cell swung open and two men barged into the room.
    â€˜Chopra! What the hell are you doing here?’
    The words exploded from the short, portly man with bulging cheeks, pomfret eyes and a pencil moustache that looked as if it had been drawn on by a child. He was dressed in the khaki of an Indian police officer, though Chopra had never considered him worthy of the uniform.
    Suresh Rao had once been the Assistant Commissioner of Police in charge of three suburban police stations including Sahar. For many years he had been Chopra’s commanding officer; for many more years, he had been Chopra’s personal nemesis.
    The two men had never seen eye to eye. Rao represented everything that Chopra loathed in the Indian police service. A man who donned the uniform to serve himself rather than the public who had placed their trust in him.
    Following the scandal of the human trafficking ring he had heard that Rao had been hauled off by the Criminal Bureau of Investigation as part of a thorough enquiry into all those allegedly involved. But, in the perverse way of such things in Mumbai, far from having the stars ripped from his shoulder as Chopra had felt the man deserved, Rao had ended up being promoted into that same CBI unit and given the