The office smelt of mildew and stale coffee.

Walking up to the lanky, green-haired receptionist, Abhijat asked to see the manager. The boy grunted irritably, glanced up from his phone, took one look at Abhijat, and visibly swallowed whatever cheeky riposte had been bubbling in his throat. He pointed Abhijat to a tiny waiting room and ran off to look for his boss.

Abhijat took a seat at the larger of the two tables in the waiting room and began flipping through an old magazine lying in a corner. For an electrical company, the place wasn’t particularly well lit.

A few minutes later, a short, balding man with beady eyes and a protruding belly entered the room. With a friendly nod, he sat down across from Abhijat. He guessed he was in the presence of the manager.

“So, Mr. Dixit, I gather your company won the last tender for electrical maintenance work at the Parliament House,” Abhijat said, once the initial greetings had been exchanged.

The man nodded, looking nervously around the room. Abhijat surmised he had heard about the fire, but said nothing. Dixit looked harmless enough, but Abhijat didn’t want to part with more information than he had to.

He cleared his throat and continued, “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I understand that your firm did much of the electrical rewiring work during the last renovation of the Prime Minister’s office?”

Mr. Dixit blinked. “Yes, yes. But that was over six months ago.”

This was news to Abhijat, but he tried not to let his surprise show. “And can you give me a list of the people who had access to the PM’s office during that time? I suppose you have records of the team that worked on that project?”

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“Of course we do,” Dixit frowned. “In fact, most of them are here in the office right now. We vet all our employees most thoroughly, I can assure you.”

“Most of them?” Abhijat raised an eyebrow.

“Well, some of them were contract workers, of course.” He coughed, stalling. “It was a very big project, the biggest we’d ever handled. We didn’t have the manpower to handle everything ourselves. Most of the people who worked on the ministers’ offices were our own employees, though. Only four or five were independent contractors.”

“Four? Or five?”

“Five, to be exact.”

“Can you give me their details? Addresses and phone numbers, to begin with.”

Dixit nodded vigorously, looking relieved. “Of course. Right away. I’ll be right back.” He sprang to his feet and left the room hurriedly.

Minutes passed before the green-haired boy stepped through the door, carrying a handful of damp manila folders. “Dixit sir said we can send you the digital records if you’ll leave your email at the reception,” he said, handing Abhijat the folders.

“That’ll be very helpful,” he smiled up at the boy, accepting the files. “Tell me, how long have you been working here?”

“A little over a year,” he frowned. “Why?”

“So, you were here about six months ago, when this company did some work over at the Parliament House?”

The boy nodded. “Of course. It got quite crazy around here. Busiest we’ve ever been.” He chuckled. “The bonuses were worth it, though.”

“I’m sure they were. I hear Mr. Dixit hired independent contractors to handle some of the work back then. Do you remember any of them? Anyone who seemed...suspicious, maybe?”

The boy frowned and scratched his head. “Nothing like that. There were the Vardhan brothers, of course, who kept sneaking into the kitchen. And well...”

“What?”

“Uh...nothing.” He bit his lip. “Nothing important, anyway.”

“Would it feel more important if there was a hundred bucks to be had at the end of it?”

The boy grinned. “For two hundred it’d feel positively indispensable.”

“You’ve got yourself a deal.”