# Chapter Eighteen: The Interrogation

## Monday

We came back to the office on Monday like two people who'd robbed a bank and had to sit in the lobby.

The train dropped us at six on Sunday evening and I slept like a dead man, and then it was Monday and I was at my desk at 9:15 with my ID card around my neck and my shirt buttoned to the collar like a monk, and she walked in at 9:40 in a plain grey kurti with her hair tied back, and she did not look at me once.

That was the arrangement. We'd made it on the train. Normal. Boring. Nobody looks at anybody.

She got to her desk, said good morning to Amol, opened her laptop, and got on with it. And about forty minutes later I caught her looking at me over the top of her monitor, just for a second, and she looked away like I'd burned her.

At 11:20 my phone buzzed.

Sneha: dont look at me like that
Vickey: I'm not looking at you.
Sneha: u were looking at me like u know what i look like without clothes on
Vickey: I do know what you look like without clothes on.
Sneha: exactly. stop it.
Sneha: cafeteria. 4. sheetal wants us.

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## Tea

Sheetal was already at the corner table with her chai and her phone face-down, which is never a good sign. She's small, sharp, always cold, always with a cup in her hand, and she can read a room the way other people read a menu.

Sneha sat down across from her. I sat next to Sneha. Sheetal looked at the two of us for about four seconds without saying anything, and then she said, "So."

"So," Sneha said.

"You were both out on Friday."

"Yes."

"Same Friday."

"Yes."

Sheetal picked up her chai, took a sip, and put it down with great care, which is her version of a threat. "Were you together."

And here's the thing. I had a whole answer ready. I had a cousin's engagement and a hill station and a family thing, and I'd rehearsed it in the shower that morning, and I opened my mouth to say it, and nothing came out.

Sneha didn't even blink.

"Yes," she said. "We were together."

Sheetal sat back.

I stared at the table. My ears were on fire. …