And there were four other men. Clearly not Gonds. Three were dark-skinned, with curly hair. Maybe they were from Andhra. There were a lot of Telugu leaders among the Maoists. The fourth, Patnaik saw, was indeed short, thin, with short grey hair. He was wearing an old sweater and trousers. He wasn’t much to look at.

Maoist leader, eh? Patnaik thought. Must be an intellectual.

Patnaik smiled. Ghosh had told him to be a New Policeman, so he would try this. The group looked at him and the armed policemen who had surrounded the courtyard and was silent.

‘Mishra?’

The Maoist leader looked at him.

‘Yes, that is me.’

‘Oh, it is, is it?’

Patnaik’s smile grew even broader.

‘Very good,’ he said. ‘Very good. Search them. And you Gonds, now you have really been talking to Maoists, haven’t you? And, that too, their top leaders.’

One of the Maoists opened his mouth to say something, but the leader gestured with his hand, and he shut up.

The policemen went over the four visitors, and over the Gonds, just to be sure, but nobody was carrying a weapon. They did have a lot of papers lying on the table.

‘Good. You men, gather up all these papers,’ said Patnaik.

Then he took a handcuff from a constable standing nearby. It was an old-fashioned handcuff, made of thick steel, with big chain links between the cuffs, and a rope attached to one end. He walked over to Mishra, who was still seated and looking at him. Patnaik patted the Maoist leader’s shoulder and smiled again. He was getting better at being a New Policeman.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Patnaik. ‘We will not beat you. Not much, at least. Mishra, you are under arrest.’

Then he slipped the handcuffs on the Maoist’s hands. Patnaik made everyone stand up and called one of his constables who was standing nearby with a camera. A mobile phone would have worked just as well, but a proper camera was better. Patnaik was old-fashioned in these things. And Ghosh had told him to take a lot of photos. Image was important.

Patnaik thought of the headlines in newspapers, with the photos. ‘Top cop catches Maoist big fish,’ he thought. That sounded really good. Big fish.

There was even a Gond boy with the group, sitting on the floor.

‘Mishra, you have been recruiting children also, is it? Preparing the Gonds for war against the government? Very good, very good. Come, we must go to Balangir now.’

And very gently, smiling all the time, Patnaik led the arrested men outside and into the vans. The policemen even put the boy in one of them. Patnaik made Mishra sit in his car. He wanted to watch the Maoist leader all the way back to Balangir.