Ananya had moved into the quiet residential colony only three weeks ago. The flat was small, two rooms and a narrow kitchen, on the second floor of an old building where the paint peeled and the staircase smelled of damp concrete. She was twenty-six, newly transferred for work, and still learning the streets around her. Most evenings she came home after dark, arms full of grocery bags, keys jingling in her hand.

Mr. Verma lived next door. Sixty-eight years old, retired from some government post, he always wore the same white kurta-pajama and kept his grey hair neatly combed. The first time he spoke to her he was standing in the corridor with a newspaper under his arm.