Free Truth Lake by Shakuntala Banaji

that her prayers would take effect; Kailash would somehow have to be located and recalled from the mountain provinces before the Department got wind of the mess that was brewing. How was it possible for a man to be deceived as Sinbari claimed he had been?
    Going over the conversation during his lunch hour, after arranging police protection for another dozen ministerial delegates and signing three release orders for rich young men picked up in the red light district as suspects in a kidnapping-brutality case, Hàrélal tried to recollect the tone of Sinbari's voice when he told him to call off the investigation. 
    All an unnecessary ruckus , the man had said. Most likely nothing to get so steamed up about; probably a silly trick, how do you say it, a prank, by those young environmentalists from Britain. Indeed they have no respect for tradition, no fear of authority and are merely trying to undermine my reputation. I have expressly warned my son not to contact them again. They have now left Delhi without any warning, having accomplished what they came for and must be laughing at us – but wasn't there a hint of laughter in Sinbari's own voice?
    Several things struck a false note.
    Firstly, why had Sinbari waited for his call before notifying him of the tourists' departure? Perhaps the great man was embarrassed? But then, if he was, he could simply have told his puppy, Sadrettin, to call. In his mind's eye Hàrélal saw a vision of the assistant's curiously suave face and amended the description to 'puppy with teeth'.
    Secondly, he had interrogated the youngsters together and Karmel had seen them separately; neither of them, trained for years to recognise deceit in others, had seen much wrong in the story – or at least he had not, and he hadn't bothered to read Karmel's report before sending him on his mission.
    The girl’s horror and the boy’s fear had seemed genuine. But then, they were foreigners. Foreigners were subtle. They could achieve so much technologically and commercially; why would it be too much to expect them to dissemble plausibly before the Indian police? What if they were really journalists researching some aspect of Indian life and had set the whole thing up as a test! If word of that leaked out he was finished!  He'd be a laughing stock. As yet few people other than Sinbari knew that he had sent Karmel up into the hills. So, what was he to do?
    Around him in the mess-room where he rarely ate, the sound of loud clangs reminded him that the dining hour was long over and that there were men waiting to remove his plate and to close the counter. Yet Hàrélal was not prepared to raise his eyes from the table; nor could he bear to rise and ascend in the decrepit and spit-stained elevator back to his isolated office. 
    Was Antonio Sinbari simply a busy and reliable entrepreneur, having overreacted to the tale in the first place and now attempting to minimise his role in the whole thing?  Or had Sinbari with all his wealth and local influence discovered something fresh, something that made him reluctant to link his name with the investigation and that centred around the identity of the corpse or its manner of death?
    Hàrélal pictured city-bred Kailash up in the hills without food, backup or means of communication and, for all his self-centredness, a prickle of fear inched its way up his spine.

7
     
    Free from the foreboding that plagued his chief, Karmel was sitting in the chilly sunshine beside lake Saahi, skimming stones with the boys, Chand and Sonu; around them goats grazed fitfully on the luxuriant vegetation.
    'And when do you go to school?'
    'School? We haven't been much for studies just now because it was not a good time for the animals. But we'll walk to Malundi soon, before rain starts. We go once, maybe twice in a week if the paths are dry enough. It takes three hours to get there. Four to get back. So our mother tells us only go two times. Otherwise who will take these fellows to feed? I