"The conversation was in this room," she said. "There was a conversation. And then something happened. I'm at the edge of it." She looked at the nightstand. "Inspector. The key. You said there was a key under the body. The old-type key. Have you run the manufacturer's mark?"
"Yes," Nair said. "It matches a lock type used by a residential building in Malleswaram. Older building, early 1990s construction, those key types are now rare." She paused. "We're checking the building's registration."
"The Malleswaram building," she said. And something in her — not a memory, an orientation, the compass that knew direction before the eyes found it — turned toward that address like a needle finding north. "I know that building," she said.
"You do?" Nair said.
"I don't know how yet," she said. "But I do."
