“It seems that she only went as far as the Imperial hotel, provided we’re talking about the same woman, which I’m pretty sure we are.”

A middle-aged English couple approached the concierge’s desk. Naresh stepped aside. While the English couple asked for a lunch recommendation in the old section of Delhi, Naresh mulled over what he thought he should do. At first he thought about rushing over to the Imperial, but then he changed his mind, realizing it had been close to an hour that Jennifer had been away, and that he might miss her, especially with no one there who could make a positive identification. He decided to stay at the Amal in hopes she was not out for the day and would soon return. At least at the Amal he had the concierges available for identification purposes.

“Thank you for your help,” the English woman said after Sumit handed her a lunch reservation. The moment the English couple turned to leave, Naresh moved in to regain his spot.

“Here’s what I’ve decided to do,” he said. “I’m going to sit here in the center of the lobby. If Miss Jennifer comes in, I want you to signal me.”

“We will be happy to do that, inspector,” Sumit said. Lakshay nodded as well.

Jennifer looked across the breakfast table at Rita Lucas and was impressed with how well the woman was holding up. When Jennifer had first arrived at the Imperial hotel, the woman had apologized for her appearance, explaining that she’d been unwilling to look at herself after being up all night, first at the hospital for a number of hours, then on the phone with family and friends.

She was a slim, pale woman, the opposite of her late husband. She reflected a kind of shy, desperate defiance in the face of the tragedy in which she’d found herself.

“He was a good man,” she was saying. “Although he could not control his eating. He tried, I have to give him credit, but he couldn’t do it, even though he was embarrassed at how he looked and embarrassed at his limitations.”

Jennifer nodded, sensing that the woman needed to talk. Jennifer got the impression that it was she more than her husband who was embarrassed and who had urged him to undergo the obesity surgery, which had now resulted in his death.

Earlier Rita had admitted that the hospital had tried to push her into making a decision about disposition of the body. She said they presented it as a suggestion at first but then became progressively more insistent. Rita admitted that had she not spoken with Jennifer first, she surely would have given in and had the body cremated.