The screen lit up. The room didn't.
Vishal sat still, elbows on the table, hands covering his mouth. He didn't blink much. The kind of stillness that only happened when the mind was racing too fast for the body to keep up.
The video played.
It was grainy, Old - school CCTV footage. Time-stamped two weeks ago. Justice Raghu Nandan's study. Same angle Vishal had stood in hours ago.
The audio crackled faintly, but the faces were clear enough.
Raghu Nandan was pacing. Hands behind his back. Tense. He turned sharply as someone entered the frame.
Manek. The businessman. Tall, heavy-set, wearing a cream kurta and holding what looked like a gift box.
Raghu Nandan said something. Muffled.
Manek replied... louder, sharper. No subtitle. Just two grown men arguing like old friends who would crossed a line.
Suddenly, Manek slammed the box on the judge's table. Papers flew out.
Raghu Nandan shouted something.
Then.... Manek stepped forward and grabbed the judge's collar.
Vishal froze.
The judge pushed him off. Manek backed away. Then pointed a finger.... said something that made Raghu Nandan pause.
And then, oddly, laugh.
Manek stormed out.
Raghu Nandan sat down, wiped his face, and picked up the scattered papers.
The video cut off.
Vishal exhaled for the first time in five minutes.
He stood, walked over to the sink in the corner, and splashed water on his face. No dramatic monologue. No deep lines of thought. Just three words whispered into his towel:
"Manek knows something."
Later that afternoon, Vishal was at a stree-side juice stall not far from his office. He hated air- conditioned cafes. Said the best information in a city was traded over "soggy paper plates and orange juice that tastes like battery acid".
He stood with on hand on the juice counter, eyes on a small file in his other hand. It was a printout of Manek's recent travel records.
Rajesh had forwarded them, reluctantly. He'd probably grumbled while hitting 'send'.
According to the file, Manek had flown to Delhi two days after the judge's death. Not for business — for a personal visit. One night stay. No photos, no records of meetings.
Suspiciously clean.
"You always read files upside down?" said a voice behind him.
Vishal turned.
Shilpa stood there, sipping her own juice, notebook under one arm, expression half amusement, half expectation.
"You following me?" Vishal asked.
"Nope," she said. "I'm just better at showing up where things get interesting."
"Juice stalls?"
"I go where the case goes."
"Then go to the gym," he muttered. "There's a case of protein theft I hear."
She ignored the jab. "You found something on the judge?"
He raised an eyebrow. "You tell me."
Shilpa grinned. "The day he died, the judge made a call to a landline registered to a publishing house in Chennai. But there's no record of any manuscript or book proposal. I checked."
That made Vishal pause.
He looked at her differently now.
"You want to be my assistant?" he asked suddenly.
Shilpa blinked. "Wait, seriously?"
"You already act like one. Might as well make it official."
"Rajesh will kill me."
"Not if we solve this first."
By late evening, they were outside Manek's private estate on the outskirts of the city. Big walls, expensive dogs, bored security guards pretending to be alert. Shilpa was in the passenger seat of Vishal's old beat-up Bolero, trying not to laugh at the cracked dashboard.
"You ever thought of upgrading?" she asked.
"I don't pay rent," he said. "You think I pay EMIs?"
Fair point.
They watched as a sleek black car drove out of the compound. Manek was in the backseat.
"He's heading somewhere," Shilpa said.
Vishal started the engine.
They followed at a distance. Down wide roads, into narrow lanes, eventually stopping outside a warehouse near the river. Not abandoned — active. Dim lights, men moving inside. Looked more like a loading dock than a business office.
They parked a few buildings away, out of sight.
Shilpa peered through a pair of old binoculars Vishal handed her.
"Why do these smell like pickle?"
"Don't ask."
Manek stepped out of his car, greeted by two men in leather jackets. Exchanged a packet. Not money. Something... square, heavy. They walked inside together.
"This isn't business," Vishal muttered.
"Illegal?" Shilpa asked.
"Definitely not yoga class."
They waited fifteen minutes.
Then Vishal got out, stretched, and walked toward the warehouse casually.
"Wait, what are you doing?" Shilpa whispered.
"Stretching my legs."
"In a crime den?!"
He turned and winked. "This is why you need cardio."