2. The Cover-Up

The Vellano district police station was a squat concrete building with peeling blue paint and a single ceiling fan that clicked with each rotation. Maya sat on a plastic chair opposite Inspector Arjun Sharma’s desk, her suitcase still in her grip, the dust of the mountain road clinging to her trousers. She had driven through the night, stopping only for tea at a roadside stall where the vendor told her that tourists died in the mountains every monsoon—usually from landslides, sometimes from stupidity.

Arjun Sharma was a thin man with glasses that kept slipping down his nose. He had the look of someone who had been a policeman for too long and had stopped being surprised by anything except his own paycheck. He pushed a thin file across the desk.

“The preliminary report, ma’am. We’ve classified it as accidental death. The post-mortem confirms injuries consistent with a fall from height. No signs of foul play. The homestay owner, Mr. Rajesh, cooperated fully. He’s distraught, actually.”

Maya did not open the file. She had read enough police reports to know they were written to close cases, not to open them. “Did you test the wood from the broken railing?”

Arjun blinked. “Test it for what?”

“Moisture content, insect damage, tool marks—anything that would tell you if it failed naturally or if it was weakened deliberately. Did you collect any samples?”

“The broken sections were… removed by the owner. He said they were a safety hazard and he burned them. That’s standard practice, ma’am. We don’t have forensic capacity here for wood analysis. We just note the condition.”

“He burned them,” Maya repeated, her voice flat. “And you let him.”

Arjun’s jaw tightened. “With respect, the scene was photographed. The body was recovered. The owner had no motive. Your sister was a stranger to him. This was a tragic accident in a remote area. If we investigated every falling railing in the Himalayas, we’d never have time for real crimes.”

Maya leaned forward, and something in her posture—the weary authority of a litigator who had cross-examined hostile witnesses—made Arjun shift in his seat. “Inspector, my sister was terrified of heights. She would not have gone near that deck at midnight. Someone either forced her there, or the railing was compromised in a way that she could not have anticipated. Either way, the owner destroyed evidence. That is not standard practice; that is obstruction. I am formally requesting that you reopen the investigation and issue a preservation order for the entire premises.”

Arjun sighed, removing his glasses to polish them with a handkerchief. “Ma’am, I understand your grief, but I can’t reopen a case based on your personal feelings. I need new evidence. Physical evidence. If you can find something that contradicts the initial assessment, I will file a supplementary report. But until then, my hands are tied.”

He did not say that his superior had called the previous evening, reminding him that the district minister had a personal interest in the speedy closure of all tourism-related incidents in the region. He did not say that his children’s school fees depended on his discretion. He only looked tired, and Maya, who had spent years reading juries, saw the exhaustion in his eyes and knew that he was not her enemy—he was merely a cog.

She thanked him, took the file, and left.

—

The footpath to Eagle’s Nest was steeper than she remembered from her research. The homestay appeared around a bend, its mustard-coloured walls stark against the grey granite. Rajesh was waiting at the entrance, his hands clasped in front of him, his face arranged in a mask of solemn hospitality. He offered her tea, condolences, a seat in the common area where Lena had eaten her last meal.

Maya refused the tea. She walked straight to the deck, and Rajesh followed like a shadow, chattering about how he had “done everything possible” to ensure the safety of his guests, how the accident had “destroyed” him, how he would never forgive himself even though it was “not his fault.”

The deck had been freshly washed. Maya could smell the bleach, sharp and acrid. The railing was intact—new wood, darker than the surrounding planks, had been fitted into the gap. She knelt and examined the joinery. The new slats were secured with bright new screws, their zinc heads untouched by rust. But the adjacent posts showed older, darker stains—not rot, but something else. She touched one with her fingertip and brought it to her nose. Paint. Fresh paint, applied over older, weathered paint, presumably to conceal a crack or a splinter.

“You had this repaired,” she said, not looking up.

“For safety, ma’am. The railing was damaged in the fall. I had to make it safe for my other guests.”

“You had it repaired before the police finished their investigation.”

Rajesh’s smile flickered. “The police told me I could. They said the accident was closed.”

Maya stood and faced him. She was shorter than he was, but she had the glare that had made junior associates weep. “The accident was not closed. It was provisionally classified. And you burned the original wood. That is not an act of safety; it is an act of concealment. Who helped you with the repairs?”

Rajesh took a step back. “A local carpenter. Kedar. He does odd jobs for me. He’s a good man, very skilled. He was as upset as I was when he heard what happened.”

“Where can I find him?”

“He lives in the village down the hill—Nandgaon. But I think he’s gone to the city for a few weeks. His daughter is ill. He’s very worried about her.”

Maya noted the tremor in Rajesh’s voice when he mentioned the daughter. Not guilt—perhaps sympathy. She filed it away. “And who is your inspector? The tourism officer who certified your property as safe?”

Rajesh’s face went blank. “Certification? We are in the process of obtaining it. The local tourism officer, Mr. Shah, visits regularly. He has been very helpful.”

“Helpful enough to overlook the fact that you’ve been operating without a license for—how long? Eighteen months?”

For the first time, Rajesh’s composure cracked. His eyes darted to the door of his office, where the safe was hidden under blankets. “Ma’am, I don’t know what you’re implying. We are a small family business. The paperwork is complex. We are fully compliant now.”

Maya smiled, but it was not a warm smile. “I’m not here to shut you down, Mr. Rajesh. I’m here to find out why my sister died. And I will find out, with or without your help. But if you obstruct me, I will make it my mission to have your license revoked, your property seized, and every bribe you’ve ever paid exposed in the press. Do we understand each other?”

Rajesh nodded, his face pale. He excused himself to tend to the kitchen, and Maya was left alone on the deck.

—

She walked the perimeter of the homestay, her eyes scanning the ground for anything the police had missed. The mountain air was thin and cold, and the wind carried the scent of pine and damp earth. Near the back of the building, behind a row of potted plants, she found a small shed that served as a tool store. The door was unlocked. Inside were coils of rope, a jumble of rusty nails, and a workbench cluttered with old receipts. She sifted through them, looking for any mention of Kedar or of repairs. Most were illegible, but one caught her eye—a handwritten note in Hindi, in a child’s wobbly script: “Papa—please remember to tighten the big screw on the deck. The one near the corner. It wiggles.”

Maya’s heart quickened. She pocketed the note, though she knew it might not be admissible—it was not dated, not signed, and could have been written months ago. But it was proof that someone knew about a loose screw before Lena’s fall.

She left the shed and headed down the hill toward Nandgaon, the village that Rajesh had mentioned. The path was steep, winding through terraced fields of buckwheat and millet. Women in bright saris worked the soil, their heads covered against the sun. Children ran after a stray dog, their laughter startlingly clear in the thin air.

Nandgaon was a cluster of stone houses huddled around a small temple. Maya asked three people before she found the house of Kedar—a narrow building with a tin roof and a vegetable patch out front. A woman was hanging laundry on a line. When Maya introduced herself, the woman’s face shuttered.

“My husband is not here,” she said, in halting English. “He is in Dehradun. His mother is sick. He will be back in a week.”

“I need to ask him about a repair he did at Eagle’s Nest,” Maya said gently. “It’s very important. It’s about my sister.”

The woman’s eyes welled up. She knew, of course—news travelled fast in the mountains. “My husband feels terrible,” she whispered. “He did the work in a hurry. His daughter—our youngest—she had a seizure that morning. He did not finish properly. He came home to take her to the hospital. He meant to go back the next day, but then the fall happened, and the police said it was not his fault. He has nightmares, ma’am. He cannot sleep.”

Maya felt a stab of pity, but she pushed it down. “I don’t want to blame him. I just want to know what he saw. What he remembers. Did anyone else ask him to do the repair? Did he use new wood? Did he notice anything unusual about the railing?”

The woman shook her head. “He only did what the owner told him. Rajesh gave him the wood and the screws. He said the railing was old and he wanted it reinforced before the tourist season. My husband tightened what he could, but there were so many loose boards—he could not fix them all in one morning. He left a note for Rajesh, warning him about the corner post. He told me so.”

“A note? What did it say?”

“That the screw was loose. That the post would not hold weight. He wrote it on a scrap and left it in the tool shed. Did Rajesh not find it?”

Maya remembered the child’s note in the shed—the same warning. Perhaps Kedar had dictated it to his child, or perhaps the child had copied it from him. Either way, the warning had been given. Rajesh had ignored it—or worse, he had received it and chosen not to act. Maya thanked the woman and gave her a small amount of money for tea, though the woman refused at first, then accepted with a bowed head.

As Maya turned to leave, the woman called after her. “There was another man. The day before the repair—he came to the village. He asked about the homestay. He wore a suit, like a government man. He took photographs of the deck from below. My husband saw him, but he did not speak to him.”

Maya stopped. “What did this man look like?”

“Tall. Grey hair. He had a big camera. He drove a white car with a red light on the dashboard—government car. My husband thought he was from the tourism department. But when he mentioned it to Rajesh, Rajesh said it was nobody. He said the man was just a trekker.”

A government official, taking photos of the deck the day before the repair—and Rajesh had lied about it. Maya felt the pieces begin to shift, though the picture was still blurred. She thanked the woman again and climbed back up the hill, her mind churning.

—

She returned to Eagle’s Nest in the late afternoon. Rajesh was not at the door; a teenage boy, presumably a helper, told her that the owner had gone to the main town for supplies. Maya did not believe him, but she did not argue. She went to her room—the one she had been given, the same Room 2 where Lena had slept—and locked the door.

The room was modest, with a narrow bed, a wooden wardrobe, and a window overlooking the hillside. She opened the wardrobe, expecting emptiness, but found a small cardboard box pushed to the back. Inside were Lena’s belongings: her phone (which Rajesh had given to the police, but they had returned it to the homestay for safekeeping), her sketchbook, and a small pouch of toiletries.

Maya sat on the bed and opened the sketchbook. Lena had been drawing the view from the bus—the mountains, the river, a man with a turban. The last sketch was unfinished: a rough outline of a deck, with a figure leaning against the railing. But the figure was facing inward, toward the homestay, not outward toward the view. Lena had been drawing someone standing on the deck—maybe Rajesh, maybe another guest—from the perspective of the common area. The sketch was dated the day of her arrival.

That was curious. If Lena was afraid of the deck, why was she sketching it? Unless she was not afraid—unless she had been studying it, cataloguing it, as an artist does. Or unless she had been forced to look at it for a reason.

Maya flipped to the back of the sketchbook, where Lena had written in tiny script: “Rajesh says the railing is new. But the nails are rusted. He lies about everything. I saw him giving money to a man in a white car yesterday. The man took photos of the deck. Why would a tourist take photos of a deck from below?”

Maya’s pulse quickened. Lena had seen the same man that Kedar’s wife had described—and she had noted the bribe. She had written it down, but she had not told Maya, because telling Maya would have meant admitting that she was worried, that she was investigating, that she was not as carefree as she pretended.

Maya closed the sketchbook and held it to her chest. Her sister had been smarter than she had given her credit for. Lena had sensed the danger, but she had stayed anyway—perhaps because she trusted the railing, perhaps because she trusted Rajesh’s assurances, or perhaps because she was too tired of being afraid to leave.

She placed the sketchbook in her own suitcase, along with the note from the tool shed. She then took out her phone and called Inspector Sharma, but he did not answer. She left a voicemail, telling him about the white car and the bribe, and asking him to check tourism department records for any inspector named Shah who had recently visited the area.

She was about to leave the room when she noticed something that made her blood run cold. The wardrobe door, which she had left slightly ajar, was now closed. She had not closed it. And the suitcase she had placed on the bed—her own, not Lena’s—had been unzipped. She was certain she had zipped it before going down to Nandgaon.

Someone had been in her room.

She checked the window—it was locked from the inside. The door had a simple latch that could be opened from outside with a thin blade. She had not noticed any sound, but she had been absorbed in the sketchbook. Whoever had entered had been quiet, careful, and had not taken anything—only searched.

Maya sat on the edge of the bed, her heart hammering. She was not alone in this fight. Someone in the homestay—Rajesh, or his helper, or someone else—knew she had found evidence. And they were watching her.

But she had the sketchbook, and she had the note, and she had a witness who had seen the white car. She had more than she had come with. She also had a growing certainty that Lena’s death was not an accident—that it was the end result of a chain of small corruptions, each one dismissed as unimportant, each one adding its weight until the railing gave way.

And now, someone wanted to make sure that chain remained hidden.

She packed her things, left the room, and walked out to the deck one last time. The sun was setting, painting the valley in shades of amber and violet. She stood at the repaired railing and looked down at the place where Lena had fallen. She did not feel fear; she felt a cold, clear anger. She had spent years in courtrooms fighting for clients who had been wronged by systems that were designed to protect the powerful. She had lost many of those fights. But this one, she vowed, she would not lose—not because she was stronger, but because the truth, however delayed, was still the truth.

As she turned to leave, she heard a soft shuffling behind her. It was Old Tara, the mute groundskeeper, who had appeared at the corner of the building. He looked at her with rheumy eyes and then pointed—not at the deck, not at the homestay, but up the mountain, to where a white road cut across the grey rock. He pointed, then made a gesture with his hand—a steering wheel, then a door opening, then a finger to his lips.

Maya understood: he was telling her about the white car. And he was warning her to be silent.

She nodded, and Tara vanished as quietly as he had come. She walked back to the main road, her steps sure, her mind already planning the next move. The white car belonged to someone official—Shah, or perhaps a higher power. She would find out who. And she would make them talk.

But as she reached the road and looked back at Eagle’s Nest, silhouetted against the dying sun, she felt a chill that had nothing to do with the altitude. The homestay’s windows were dark, but she could have sworn she saw a face in one of them—Rajesh’s face, watching her from the shadows of his office, his expression unreadable.

She got into her car and drove back toward Vellano town, her hands steady on the wheel, her reflection in the rearview mirror a stranger’s face. The road ahead was dark, the headlights cutting a narrow tunnel through the night. She knew she was being followed—not by a car, but by a silence, a pressure, the sense that every move she made was anticipated.

The white car was out there. And the minister’s nephew, the bribe-giver, the man who had taken photos of the deck—they were all connected. She just didn’t know how yet.

She turned on the radio to drown the silence, but all she heard was static. Then, faintly, a voice—a news bulletin about a corruption inquiry in the tourism department, involving “unlicensed homestays in the Vellano region.” The name of the minister was not mentioned, but Maya heard it anyway, in the spaces between the words.

She smiled—a grim, tight smile. Someone was already leaking. The dominoes were beginning to fall.

But she had no idea that the next domino would be her own.