The One-Layer-Up Inspector

A busy two-wheeler parking lot outside a Chennai railway station. For three months, helmets have been vanishing — one by one, from locked bikes, in front of a working CCTV that has caught nothing. The station has given up filing complaints. Into this mess walks a transfer posting: an inspector in his late thirties, uniform pressed, shoes dusty, with the unhurried half-smile of a man watching a game he has already finished. He looks at the parking lot for one long minute… then asks for one bike, one helmet, and one old mobile phone. What he does with them, the…