Madhu came to the HQ as if he were coming to confess a crime he hadn't decided on yet.
Varun had brought him by the back path after dark, through the thin line of trees behind the HQ garden. No uniform, no rifle, just his turban pulled low and an old shawl over his shoulders. At the service door he paused, eyes searching for a trap that didn't appear.
Inside, the library lamps were low. Shelves rose on three sides, full of leather and paper. Jinnah sat by the desk, coat off, tie loosened, as though he had been pulled out of work rather than waiting for this.
Madhu stopped on the threshold, bare feet hesitant on polished floor.
"Come in," Jinnah said. "Close the door."
Varun shut it softly and remained outside, as instructed.
For a moment, they simply looked at each other: barrister and bandit, both tired in different kinds of ways.
"You know who I am," Jinnah said.
"Yes, Janab," Madhu replied. His voice was roughened by tobacco and canal dust. "The whole district knows. The courts, too."
"And I know who you are," Jinnah said. "The police descriptions are colourful. So are the stories in the tea shops."
He let that hang for a heartbeat, then added, "I also know your son is alive."
Something flickered in Madhu's face—shame, pride, gratitude, all tangled.
"He is well," he said quietly. "Runs around more than he should. My wife says your nurse-sahiba scolded him even after the fever broke. Like he was her own boy."
"Mary scolds everyone," Jinnah said. "That is how she shows affection."
There was the faintest twitch at the corner of Madhu's mouth.
Bilal shifted in the back of Jinnah's mind. Good. Pull him halfway out of the jungle first. Then talk terms.
"You are not here because of your son," Jinnah said. "You are here because I need a pair of eyes that does not wear a uniform."
Madhu's shoulders tensed.
"If you want me to stop raiding Govt. godowns, Janab," he said, "say it plainly. I will find some other way to—"
"I am not talking about Govt. godowns," Jinnah cut in. "I am talking about the men who burn village looms and carry off girls."
The air in the room changed.
"I do not do that work," Madhu said at once, almost offended. "Not for anyone."
"I know," Jinnah said. "That is why you are here and not chained in a cell."
He leaned back slightly, fingers steepled.
"Those fires," he went on, "are not just hunger. They are messages. They have patterns. Routes. I can see the burn scars on the map. I cannot see the paths in the dark between them. You can."
Madhu hesitated. His hands were rough, scarred from rope and cane.
"If I start asking questions," he said slowly, "people will think I want a share. Or that I speak to the police."
"You will not ask," Jinnah said. "You will watch. When they hit a village, you will not join, you will not stop them. You will wait, and you and your people will follow from a distance. You will watch which canal road they take, which grove they vanish into, which haveli they avoid or visit. Then you will bring me that path, step by step. No heroes, no gunfights. Just eyes."
Turn him into a camera, Bilal murmured. One with a family and a conscience.
Madhu frowned. "And if they see me?"
"Then you will run in the opposite direction," Jinnah said dryly. "I am not asking you to die in my service. I am asking you to do what you already do, but with a different purpose."
Madhu studied him.
"What do I get?" he asked bluntly. "Not sweet words, Janab. Sweet words don't feed children."
"Three things," Jinnah said. "First, no Farabi post will waste bullets on you or your men if you stay away from my villages when they burn. Second, when you bring me truth, I will not hand that truth to the first police officer who wants to hang you quickly and file a report. Third…"
He paused, then continued.
"Third, when the day comes that you are tired of this life, you will come to me first. Not to some clerk. Not to a sub-inspector. To me. And I will find work that uses your legs and your eyes and your stubbornness for wages instead of warrant notices."
Madhu's jaw clenched. For a second he looked younger, almost like the boy whose land had been taken.
"And if I lie?" he asked.
"Then," Jinnah said, "I will know, sooner or later. And I will make sure the Government hangs the right neck with great efficiency. I am a very efficient man, Madhu."
Bilal's tone in his head was almost amused. That, at least, they can never accuse you of lying about.
Silence stretched, thick with all the things neither of them said: about lost fields, about zaildars and their petty kingdoms, about sons who lived when they should have died.
At last Madhu inclined his head.
"Tell me," he said, "where to start watching."
He brought the report twelve nights later.
Not on paper. On his tongue.
They met again in the library, later than before, the house silent except for a distant clock and the murmur of the night watch changing shifts.
"They do not melt into the jungle like ghosts," Madhu said. "They are not as clever as that."
He crouched by the map laid out on Jinnah's desk, one grimy finger tracing lines across Sandalbar and beyond.
"Here," he tapped near Chak Panj, "they burn the looms and run along the distributary, like anyone would think. But then they turn off, behind this mango grove. There is an old cart track there, half used. It leads to this canal bridge."
His finger slid.
"Cross here, then they do not go to their own villages. They go between villages. To this cluster of old wells."
He tapped again.
"There, they split. Half go to Hayat Khan's dera. Half towards Ratan Singh's lands."
Jinnah felt a cold, unsurprised anger slide into place.
Hayat Khan. Ratan Singh. Neighbouring zaildars who were always a little too quick to complain about Farabi "high-handedness", a little too polished when talking to the British, a little too ready with sympathy for "poor, misguided elements."
"Are you certain?" he asked.
Madhu looked up, offended again.
"I know the smell of a landlord's kitchen," he said. "Their men eat well after a raid. Hayat's dera had fresh meat that night. Ratan's had lanterns burning past midnight. Their men washed soot off their hands in the yard. You want me to draw the smell for you as well?"
Bilal whistled softly in Jinnah's head. Your bandits are somebody else's private militia. Congratulations. You've just put faces to the "jungles" in your speech.
"And they pay you?" Jinnah asked.
Madhu's mouth twisted.
"They tried," he said. "Sent a man to talk. Said there was plenty of work for someone like me, if I stopped wasting my time on godowns and started sending messages for them."
"And you?"
"I told him," Madhu said, "if I must live dirty, I will choose my own dirt. Not theirs."
For a moment, Jinnah simply watched him, weighing.
"You have done what I asked," he said at last. "You have your side of the bargain. No Farabi will shoot you by accident. And if you come under my banner, you will find my eyes close conveniently at certain places."
Madhu nodded once.
"And Hayat Khan and Ratan Singh?" he asked. "What will you do with them?"
Jinnah looked down at the map, seeing not just villages and canals now, but the lines of patronage, debt, fear.
"What I always do," he said. "I will prepare a case."
Bilal's voice was cooler now. Careful. You poke two zaildars at once, you do not just make enemies. You shake the whole British-brokered ladder.
"Not yet in court," Jinnah murmured, half to himself. "First in their own minds. Let them feel watched. Let them know the jungle is whispering in my ear now as clearly as it whispers in theirs."
He folded the map slowly.
"Thank you," he said to Madhu. "You may go."
Madhu rose.
"If any more paths appear," he said, "I will bring them. I have no love for men who steal girls and burn looms. Even a bandit has rules."
He slipped out as quietly as he had come.
When the door closed, only Jinnah and his thoughts remained.
So now you know, Bilal said. Your neat experiment sits between canal and jungle, and both sides have landlords with teeth.
"Yes," Jinnah said aloud into the empty library.
He poured himself a glass of water, drank, and set it down with care.
"But I am less sure," he added softly, "that the enemy is only on one side of the law."