Time seemed to freeze. Inspector Sawant's smile was a predator's grin, cold and utterly certain. He had won. He had patiently built his case, bypassing the corrupt street-level cops like Malvankar, and now he had Harsh Patel dead to rights. The alcove, once a symbol of hustle and triumph, was now a crime scene waiting to be declared.
Harsh's mind, usually a whirlwind of calculation, went blank with pure, undiluted panic. There was no escape down the dead-end alley. No story to tell. Sawant had Ghorpade. It was over.
But then, a single, desperate thought cut through the terror. It was a memory, sharp and clear: Kersi. The "respectable" shop owner he had publicly humiliated and destroyed. The man whose business was seized, whose reputation was in tatters. A man with nothing left to lose, and a burning, venomous hatred for Harsh Patel.
Sawant took a step forward, his hand moving to the pair of handcuffs clipped to his belt.
The movement broke Harsh's paralysis. He didn't run. He didn't plead. He did the only thing he could do: he attacked.
"Inspector!" Harsh's voice rang out, loud and startlingly clear, cutting through the tense silence of the alley. He took a step towards Sawant, his hands spread in a gesture of frantic, desperate cooperation. "Thank God you're here! I was just coming to find you!"
Sawant froze, his confidence flickering for a fraction of a second, replaced by pure confusion. This was not the reaction he expected. He expected cowering, denial, a desperate flight. Not this.
"Don't move, Patel," Sawant growled, recovering, his hand closing on the cuffs.
"No, you don't understand!" Harsh pressed on, his voice a masterclass in panicked relief. He stopped a few feet from the Inspector, his eyes wide. "It's Kersi! That bastard, Kersi! I should have known he wouldn't just disappear!"
Sawant's eyes narrowed. "What are you talking about?"
"The diesel! The illegal diesel!" Harsh said, the words tumbling out in a convincing rush. "I heard the whispers, same as you! I knew someone was moving stolen fuel, undercutting the market. It was bad for my business! So I asked around. My scrap dealer, Rao, he hears things." Harsh gestured wildly to Rao, who stood frozen, his face a mask of utter bewilderment.
Harsh plowed on, building the lie with every breath. "He heard it was Ghorpade. So I went to see Ghorpade last night. I confronted him! I told him he was a fool, that he'd get us all arrested! And he laughed! He said he had a powerful new partner. A partner who had a grudge against me. He said... he said the business was Kersi's revenge!"
He let the name hang in the air, a perfect, poisonous seed of doubt.
Sawant was silent, but his grip on the handcuffs had loosened. His mind, trained for patterns and motives, was working. It made a twisted kind of sense. Kersi was ruined. He had the technical knowledge to fiddle with fuel. He had a monumental grudge. And revenge was a classic motive.
"It's brilliant, when you think about it," Harsh continued, layering on the performance, shaking his head in a show of grudging admiration. "He uses Ghorpade, a man you already suspect, as his front. He gets his revenge on me by bringing trouble to my doorstep, and he makes a fortune doing it! He must be getting the fuel from somewhere else, maybe through his old contacts on Lamington Road..."
Harsh was throwing everything at the wall, watching Sawant's face, searching for the moment the Inspector bit.
"Why are you telling me this?" Sawant asked, his voice still hard, but the certainty was gone. He was intrigued.
"Because I don't want to go down for his crime!" Harsh exclaimed, the picture of outraged innocence. "I built this business from nothing, Inspector! Honestly! I'm just a repairman. Check my books! Everything is from repairs and small electronics. I don't know anything about diesel! But if Kersi is running this operation, he won't stop until he frames me for it. You have to stop him!"
It was a breathtaking audacity. To stand in front of the one honest cop in the city and not only lie through his teeth but redirect his entire investigation.
Sawant stared at him for a long, agonizing minute. The sounds of the market seemed to fade away. Harsh held his breath, his heart threatening to beat out of his chest.
Finally, Sawant's hand moved away from the handcuffs. He let out a short, sharp breath that was almost a laugh of disbelief. "Kersi." He said the name like he was tasting it. "I should have known that weasel wouldn't slink away quietly."
He took a step back, his eyes still boring into Harsh. "Don't leave the city, Patel. I'm not done with you. Your books will be audited. But if what you're saying is true..." He let the sentence hang, the threat implicit.
Without another word, he turned, got into his Ambassador, and drove away.
Harsh stood rooted to the spot, his entire body trembling with the aftershock of adrenaline. He had done it. He had looked into the abyss and talked his way out of it.
Prakash Rao finally stumbled over to him, his face still pale. "Harsh Bhai... you... you blamed it on a ruined man..."
"He is ruined," Harsh said, his voice quiet and cold, all the false panic gone, replaced by a grim survivalist's resolve. "And he would have done the same to me in a heartbeat. This way, he's useful."
He turned and walked back towards the alcove, his legs feeling like jelly. He had escaped Sawant. But the cost felt heavier than any bribe he'd ever paid. He had sold a piece of his soul to buy another day of freedom.
The trap had been sprung, but he had managed to throw another body into it before it closed on his own.
The relief was temporary. The war was far from over. In fact, it had just become more personal, and more dangerous, than ever.
(Chapter End)