"Then?"
"Then, sir?"
"Then?" the Station House Officer said again, snapping his finger towards the computer screen in front of him.
"I suppose we could have moved more quickly. Sir," said the braver of the two foot patrolmen.
"Yes, sir, maybe we could have," said the other.
"More quickly," the SHO said, his eyes fixed on the computer screen. His silent gnawing on a toothpick and the occasional sucking of a few strands of his black moustache only added to the uneasy stuffiness in the room. Just a few minutes earlier the SHO had demanded the presence of these two patrolmen so loudly that the entire chowki and a few residents from the neighbouring shops and apartments gathered in feral anticipation to see the summoned police take their walk of shame. But now the SHO remained menacingly silent.
"Sorry, sir. Really, we're sorry. We thought she was a randi. She was wearing a miniskirt, boss. We thought she'd just been knocked around by a client, you know?"
"Do I know? Do I know?" the SHO said in such a placid, wondering tone it almost disarmed his subordinates. But the more senior policemen watching from the side of the room, nudging each other in unconscious excitement that the real tamasha was about to begin, knew better. "Do I know?" he said again before violently kicking his paan-stained rubbish bin across the room. "Yes, I know! By the time sun breaks every gaand in India will know, thanks to you two! Bhhhhe. Hennn. Chodddd!" He raced from behind his desk to stand inches away from the two men and shouted again, "Bhenchod!", spewing left-over pieces of his midnight parantha onto their faces."You prod her like a dead animal with your lathi and then you talk to her like a randi! In front of students who have fancy smart phones! Who want to catch us out, make us look bad! Why were you asking such questions? Was it for your own entertainment? Huh? And why, tell me, did you take her to AIIMS? You pick her up from Mehrauli and the Max Bupa Hospital is right under your armpit, but you take her to AIIMS instead? Idiots! Why? Tell me, why? Did you maderchod take a turn with her too!" The Superintendent was shouting so loudly and so close to his subordinates' faces, the veins were bulging out of his neck with such anger, that everyone in the room - six other officers and a lingering tea boy - thought he was going to whack them.
"No, sir," was all the braver officer could manage to say before relocking his jaw into its fixed, defensive position, while looking just slightly over the shoulder of his boss.
