Chapter 2 The Seventh Experiment
By late morning, the heat in Mangalore had turned aggressive.
It pressed down from above and rose from the pavement at the same time, trapping sound between surfaces that refused to absorb it. Vendors shouted prices they no longer expected anyone to bargain over. Oil snapped and hissed in shallow pans. Metal rang against metal as trams crawled through intersections that had quietly given up on order.
Raghava moved through it without hurry.
He didn't weave. He didn't rush gaps. He let the city move around him, attention drifting not toward the loudest sounds but toward the uneven spaces between them. Places where rhythm broke for no obvious reason.
Arjun followed a step behind. His eyes stayed higher, scanning rooftops, windows, alley mouths. Old habits. Different training.
"So," Arjun said, adjusting his cuffs. "Name?"
"Aadhish Rao," Raghava replied. "Instrument restorer."
"Victim?"
Raghava shook his head once. "Not yet."
They turned into a narrow lane where traffic noise thinned out abruptly, as if someone had closed a door behind them. The air changed. Heavier. Saturated with sandalwood, varnish, and the faint bitterness of old glue.
A weathered board hung above a recessed doorway, its paint cracked and sun-bleached.
Aadhish Rao – Instrument Restorer
The door stood slightly ajar.
Arjun reached it first, pushing it open with two fingers. It moved easily.
Unlocked.
Inside, dust floated through angled shafts of sunlight from high-set windows. The workshop was orderly in a way that suggested routine rather than recent cleaning. Tools aligned by size. Shelves numbered and labeled. Cloths folded, not discarded.
Nothing disturbed.
Except what wasn't there.
Raghava stopped at the threshold.
He didn't step inside immediately.
"He's not here," he said.
Arjun had already moved past him, crouching near the central worktable. An empty flute stand rested against the wall, its outline sharply impressed into the wood beneath, darker than the surrounding surface. He flicked on a penlight and angled it low.
"There's heat along the edge," Arjun said. "Here."
Raghava stepped closer, careful where he placed his feet. He knelt beside the stand but didn't touch it. His attention went to the wall behind it instead.
The plaster wasn't cracked. It wasn't scorched.
It was marked.
Faint circular impressions spread outward, each ring slightly weaker than the last. Even spacing. No overlap. No randomness.
Raghava raised his hand toward the wall, then paused. He shifted his angle, watching how the light caught the surface.
"Electrical?" Arjun asked.
Raghava brought his hand closer, stopping just short of contact. Warmth reached him anyway.
"It didn't spread," he said. "And it stopped on its own."
Arjun straightened slightly. "Heat doesn't usually do that."
Raghava didn't respond. He stood and took in the room again.
The shelves.The racks.The other instruments.
Untouched.
He walked the perimeter once, slow, eyes level. He didn't linger on the empty space. He lingered on everything else.
"It chose," he said at last.
Arjun turned toward him. "Choose what?"
"Only one thing," Raghava replied. "Nothing else."
They worked outward through the afternoon.
Dealers who specialized in old instruments. Repairmen who had shared workspaces with Rao years ago. Collectors who knew the difference between value and function.
No one had seen Rao leave.No one had handled the flute.No one had heard anything unusual.
By the time the sun dipped lower, the answers hadn't multiplied. They had narrowed.
Outside, Raghava accepted a cup of tea from a roadside stall. He took a sip, considered it, then set it aside untouched.
Arjun noticed. "Not drinking it?"
"Later," Raghava said.
He looked across the street.
"Did anyone talk to the samosa vendor?"
Arjun frowned. "Why?"
"Because Rao ate there every day at four," Raghava replied. "Same order. Same table."
"And?"
"And he never skipped."
They crossed back.
The vendor wiped his hands on a cloth and nodded slowly as Raghava asked.
"Strange day," the man said. "Rao didn't come. But he left this."
He reached beneath the counter and produced a folded scrap of parchment, edges darkened as if exposed to heat.
"Said it was for 'the listener,'" the vendor added.
Raghava unfolded it carefully.
Spirals marked the surface. Uneven. Hand-drawn. Repeated.
Arjun's jaw tightened. "That pattern again."
Raghava nodded once.
"Not decoration," he said. "A trail."
He folded the parchment and slipped it into his pocket.
"Where does it go?" Arjun asked.
Raghava looked down the lane, past the shopfronts and into the industrial blocks where the city's noise thinned into something harder to place.
"Rao's old factory," he said. "Whatever this is started there."