Private Delhi

Chapter 1

The killer emptied the final bag of ice into the bath and shut off the cold tap.

With the tub full he stood back to admire his handiwork, watching his breath bloom. Winter in Delhi, it was cold, but the temperature in the small bathroom was even lower than outside and falling fast, just the way he wanted it.

From outside came the sound of footsteps on the stairs and the killer moved quickly. His victim was early but that was fine, he was prepared, and in a heartbeat he left the bathroom and crossed the front room of the apartment, scooping his hypodermic syringe from a table as he passed. A scratching sound announced the key in the lock and the victim opened the door.

The killer attacked from behind, grabbing the victim, pulling him into the room, and smothering a cry of surprise with one gloved hand. He used the syringe and for a second the victim struggled, then went limp. The killer let him drop to the carpet, checked the corridor outside, and then kicked the door shut. He bent to the victim and began to undress him.

Ten minutes later the victim awoke, naked and gasping in the bath. The bathroom light was off and his eyes hadn’t yet adjusted to the gloom but he heard the clicking of the ice cubes and knew instantly where he was. His arms had been hoisted overhead, handcuffed to the taps; submerged in the ice, his feet and knees were bound. As he began to struggle he heard someone enter the room and then a gloved hand pushed his head beneath the cubes. He inhaled icy water, feeling his airways fill and his heart constrict with the shock of the sudden cold. When the hand allowed him back to the surface, his coughs and splutters were punctuated by the violent chattering of his teeth.

The figure loomed over him, a shadow in the darkened bathroom. “You’ll feel it in your toes and fingertips first,” he said. “Tingling. Then numbness. That’s your body redirecting resources to protect the vital organs. Clever thing, the body, it can adapt quickly. If you were an Inuit, an Aborigine, even a Tibetan Buddhist monk, then withstanding this kind of cold would be simple for you, but you’re not those things, you’re...”

The killer moved into view. In his hand was the victim’s name badge, taken from his shirt. “Rahul,” he read, and then tossed it into the bath. “Oh, I do apologize. I’m sure you know all about the effects of cold on the human body. You know all about the slow shutting down of the various functions, how the brain dies before the heart.”

“Who are you?” managed Rahul. He squinted. “Do I know you?” The attacker’s voice was familiar somehow.

“I don’t know,” said the attacker. “Do you?” He perched on the edge of the bath and Rahul could see he wore all black, including a black balaclava. Opaque surgical gloves seemed to shine dully in the gloom, giving him the appearance of an evil mime.

“You’re wondering why I’m here,” said the man, as though reading his thoughts. He smiled and removed from his pocket a tiny little tool that he showed to Rahul. “Are you familiar with a procedure called enucleation?”

Chapter 2

Jack Morgan enjoyed risk. Why else would he be standing outside this door at 4 a.m., barely daring to breathe as he used a tiny lubricating spray on the lock and then went to work with his pick, nudging interior tumblers into place?

But not blind risk.

Again, that was the reason the owner of the world-renowned Private investigation agency had arrived in Delhi two days earlier than his official schedule predicted, and more discreetly than usual. It was because he liked his risk with a little forethought.

He liked calculated risk.

He slid into the darkened apartment like a shadow. From his pocket he took a rubber doorstop, closed the front door as far as he could without making a sound, and then wedged it.

Next he listened. For close to five minutes Jack stood in silence by the door, letting his eyes adjust and taking in the scant furniture — a sofa, a television, an upturned packing crate for a coffee table — but more than anything, listening — listening to the noise that emanated from the bedroom.

What he heard was the sound of a man enduring a fitful sleep, a man who mewled with the pain of nightmares.

Jack trod noiselessly through the apartment. In the kitchen he opened the fridge door and peered inside. Nothing. Back in the front room he went to the upturned crate.

On it stood a bottle of whisky. Johnnie Walker.

Oh, Santosh, thought Jack to himself. Tell me you haven’t.

From the bedroom the sound of Santosh Wagh’s nightmares increased, so Jack Morgan finished his work and let himself out of the apartment and into the chill Delhi morning.

Chapter 3

In the upmarket area of Greater Kailash in South Delhi, in a row of homes, a young couple stood at the gate of an abandoned house.

“This is it,” said the boy, his breath fogging in Delhi’s winter air.

“Are you sure?” asked the girl at his side.

“Sure I’m sure,” he replied. “C’mon, let’s go inside.”

They climbed over the gate easily and made their way through overgrown grass to the front door. Padlocked. But the boy used a pick to crack the lock in less than two minutes. Not bad for an amateur, he thought to himself.

He went to open the door, but it wouldn’t budge.

“What’s wrong?” asked the girl. She was shivering and cold and desperately wishing they’d decided to go to the cinema instead of opting to make out here.

The boy was puzzled. “I thought it was unlocked...”

“What do we do now, then?” said the girl.

Like all young men governed by their libido, the boy wasn’t about to give up easily. Yes, it was cold, but he’d come armed with a blanket and the garden was sufficiently overgrown to screen them from the street.

“We don’t need to go inside. Let’s just stay out here,” the boy suggested.

“But it’s so cold,” she gasped.

“We’ll soon warm each other up,” he assured her, leading her to an area close to the front of the house. The grass was damp but he covered it with the blanket from his backpack, and the foliage not only screened them but also protected them from the chill breeze. She tried to imagine that they had found themselves a secret garden, and when he produced a spliff, it sealed the deal.

They sat and spent some minutes in relaxed, agreeable silence as they smoked the spliff, listening to the muted sounds of the city drifting to them through the trees. Then they lay down and began kissing. In a few moments they were making love, cocooned in weed-induced sexual bliss.

“What’s that?” she said.

“What’s what?” he asked, irritated.

“That noise.” Then her senses sharpened. “It’s the ground. The ground is—”

She didn’t get to finish her sentence. Suddenly it was as though the grass were trying to swallow them. Subsidence. A sinkhole. Something. Either way, the earth gave way beneath them, and the two lovebirds crashed through the lawn and into a nightmare beneath.

Chapter 4

Dazed, the girl pulled herself to her hands and knees, coughing and gagging at a sudden stench, a mix of caustic chemicals and something else. Something truly stomach-turning.

The floor was rough concrete. She was in a low-ceilinged basement. A gray patch of light in the ceiling indicated where they’d fallen through. Plasterboard, turf, and rotted wooden beams hung down as though in the aftermath of a storm.

And pulling himself up back through the hole was her boyfriend.

“Hey,” she called. “Where are you...?”

But he was gone.

Naked, wincing in pain, and consumed with a creeping sense of something being terribly, terribly wrong, the girl looked around, her eyesight adjusting to the gloom. She saw gas masks and coveralls hanging from pegs. A small chainsaw. Dotted around the concrete floor was a series of plastic barrels with some kind of toxic chemical fumes rising from each one. And even in her traumatized state she realized it was those fumes that had eroded the ceiling structure enough for it to collapse.

And then she saw other things too. They seemed to appear out of the darkness. A table, like a butcher’s block, with a huge meat cleaver protruding from the bloodstained wood. And from the plastic barrels protruded hands and feet, the skin bubbling and burning as though being subjected to great heat.

Bile rising, she knew what was happening here. She knew exactly what was happening here.

Chapter 5

A Charnel House, thought the Commissioner of Police, Rajesh Sharma, when he returned to the office the next day, with the stink of chemicals and decomposition clinging to him. Rarely had he been quite so grateful to leave a crime scene. Those poor bastards who’d had to stay.

The call had come in at around eleven o’clock the night before. A neighbor had heard screaming, looked out, and seen a terrified young woman, her clothes in disarray, running away from the house.

A short while later it was sealed off. The team had been inside for eight hours and would be there for many more days. They had determined the perp was using hydrofluoric acid to dissolve the bodies in plastic tubs. There was no way of counting how many, but say one for each barrel, that made eleven at least. Quite a death toll. What’s more, it didn’t take into account any corpses that might already have been disposed of.

But here was the bit that had really taken Sharma by surprise: the house was owned by the Delhi state government.

Mass murder. On government property. He would have to ensure the press did not get hold of this story; in fact, he’d have to make sure the news reached as few ears as possible.

Sharma had washed his hands. He’d rubbed at his face. But he could still smell the corpses as he sat behind his desk at police headquarters and greeted his guest.

The man who took a seat opposite was Nikhil Kumar, the Honorable Minister for Health and Family Welfare. Photoshoot-perfect, not a strand of jet-black hair out of place, Kumar wore simple khaki slacks, an Egyptian cotton shirt, a Canali blazer, and comfortable soft-leather loafers. His very presence made Sharma feel overweight and scruffy by comparison. Well, let’s face it, he was overweight and scruffy. But Kumar made him feel even more so.

“What can I do for you, sir?” Sharma asked the minister. It paid to be courteous to ministers.

“Thank you for seeing me at such short notice,” said Kumar.

“I’m happy to help. What’s on your mind?”

“I am given to understand that your men searched a house in Greater Kailash today. I was wondering if you could share some information regarding what you found.”

Sharma tried not to let his irritation show as he considered his response. On the one hand he wanted to keep Kumar sweet; on the other, experience had taught him that it was always better to keep politicians out of police inquiries.

“How about you tell me what your interest in this matter is?” he said. “And how you found out about it?”

“As I’m sure you’re about to remind me, I have no jurisdiction with the police. You and I stand on the battlements of two opposing forts in the same city. But I have contacts, and I find out what I can. You want to prevent leaks, run a tighter ship.”

Sharma chortled. “This is your way of buttering me up, is it, Minister? Coming into my office and criticizing the way I run my police force?”

“Let me be frank with you,” said Kumar. “It may not be wise to delve too deeply into this case.”

“Minister, we’ve got at least eleven potential murders here.” He was about to reveal he knew the building was owned by the state but stopped himself, deciding to keep his powder dry. “While I appreciate the need for discretion, we will be delving as deeply as we need to in order to discover the truth.”

“Suffice to say that you would be adequately compensated,” said Kumar.

Sharma was taken aback. “For what?”

“For your cooperation.”

Sharma sat back and made Kumar wait for a response. “I tell you what, Minister — you leave now, and I’ll think about your offer.”

Sharma watched with satisfaction as Kumar stood and tried to leave the office with as much dignity as he could regain.

Only when the door had closed did Sharma allow himself a smile. This was what they called an opportunity. And when life gives you lemons...

Chapter 6

Santosh Wagh opened the front door of his home to find Jack Morgan on the doorstep.

“Santosh!” said Jack, and before Santosh could react he had stepped inside.

As ever, Santosh was happy to see his boss. The thing with Jack was that as soon as he appeared, whatever the time, whatever the place, you were simply a guest in his world. It was impossible not to feel reassured by it. It wasn’t just the gun Jack carried; it wasn’t just the fact that Jack was enormously wealthy and could boast powerful and high-profile friends. It was just Jack, being Jack.

“Welcome to my humble abode,” said Santosh. Looking around, he saw his living quarters through Jack’s eyes: hardly furnished, dark, and a little fusty. “I would give you a tour, but I believe you know your way around already.”

“I don’t follow,” said Jack quizzically.

“Years ago when you hired me you told me you thought I was an exceptional detective. Did you really think you could break into my apartment and I wouldn’t notice?”

Jack relaxed, allowing himself a smile. The game was up. “Well, I’m an exceptional cat burglar, so I played the odds. How did you know?”

Santosh’s cane clicked on the wooden floor as he made his way to the kitchen and then returned with a bottle of whisky that he placed on his makeshift table. He pointed to the bottle with the tip of his cane. “Perhaps you’d like to check it.”

Jack leaned forward, holding Santosh’s gaze as he reached for the bottle, inverted it, and studied the almost invisible mark he had made with a small bar of hotel soap two nights before.

“It’s just as it was the other night,” he said, replacing the bottle. “And I’m pleased to see it.”

Santosh blinked slowly. “Not nearly as pleased as I am.”

“I had to check, Santosh. I had to know.”

“You could have asked me.”

“But addicts lie. That’s what they do. Besides, why even have it in the house if you don’t plan to drink it?”

The answer was that Santosh preferred to face temptation head-on. He would spend hours just staring at the bottle. It was for that reason, not his renowned detective skills, that he had seen the soap mark, and having spotted it he’d studied his front-door lock and detected the odor of lubricant. One phone call to Private HQ later and his suspicions had been confirmed.

Jack had been checking up on him.

But of course he couldn’t blame Jack for that. Private was the world’s biggest investigation agency, with offices in Los Angeles, London, Berlin, Sydney, Paris, Rio, Mumbai, and, most recently, Delhi. Jack had invested a huge amount of faith in Santosh by making him Private’s chief of operations in India.

Santosh had been an agent with the Research and Analysis Wing, India’s external intelligence agency, when investigations into the 2006 Mumbai train blasts had brought him into contact with Jack. It had been only a matter of time before he’d recruited Santosh to establish Private in Mumbai. Setting up Private’s office in Mumbai had been challenging; his last case had almost killed him and at the very least it had looked as though he might have lost his ongoing battle with the bottle.

Jack had come to his rescue by persuading him to go to rehab, the Cabin in Thailand. Six months later, Jack had persuaded Santosh to move to Delhi to establish Private in the capital.

So Jack had to know that Santosh was still in control of his addiction. And he was. The bottle of whisky had hung around his home untouched for the whole three months he’d been there. Every day Santosh had resisted the temptation to open it and banish his private pain. And every day it got a little easier.

Privately, though, he worried if he could truly operate without it. He worried that his brain might not be able to make the same leaps of logic it once had; he worried that kicking the booze might make him a worse detective, not a better one. These were just a few of the things keeping him awake at night.

“I don’t drink it,” he told Jack. “That’s the important thing.”

Chapter 7

Jack loved to drive in Delhi. First of all he always made sure to hire an old car, one that already had its fair share of bumps and scrapes, and then he’d climb in, wind down the window, and plunge headlong into the sheer mayhem of one of his favorite cities.

He liked to drive fast. Or at least as fast as he dared, leaning on the horn like a local and winding his way through lines of buses, scooters, cyclists, and auto rickshaws, past glass-fronted buildings and ancient temples, broken-down housing and luxury hotels with glove-wearing staff at the gates. Delhi was a vibrant, colorful mix of cultures old and new. A genuine melting pot. To Jack it felt as though Delhi’s entire history — Hindu Rajputs, Muslim Mughals, and Christian Englishmen — all came to him through the open window of the car, and he breathed it all in — good and bad — breathing its very essence.

At times like that, Jack felt most alive. Blessed. He thought that being Jack Morgan in Delhi was just about the best thing you could be in this world.

Usually, that is.

But not today. Because one thing stronger than his love for driving fast through Delhi was his respect for Santosh Wagh. It was in a car accident that the investigator had lost his wife and child, Isha and Pravir. So, for that reason, Jack drove slowly, with the window closed.

As they made their way through the streets Jack cast a sideways glance at his passenger, a man he was proud to call a friend.

In his early fifties, Santosh looked older than his age. Sleep deprivation and alcohol abuse had taken their toll. His salt-and-pepper stubble was more salt than pepper and the brown wool jacket with leather patches at the elbows gave him the look of a university professor. His eyeglasses were unfashionable and his scarf should have been replaced years earlier. Not that he seemed to care. Aloof and cerebral, permanently ruminative, Santosh was far too preoccupied to care about such trivial matters.

“Tell me about Delhi’s political makeup,” Jack asked him, more to keep his passenger’s mind off the journey than genuine ignorance on his part.

Santosh cleared his throat. “Delhi’s a strange place. It’s not only a state in the Indian federation but also India’s capital — like Washington, DC. The city’s government is split down the middle: civic administration is managed by the Chief Minister, Mohan Jaswal, while law and order is managed by the Lieutenant Governor, Ram Chopra.”

Jack slowed to allow a pair of motorbikes to pass, and then immediately regretted it when a cab and an auto rickshaw nipped in front of him as well. Any other day... he thought ruefully.

“The Chief Minister and the Lieutenant Governor. Do they see eye to eye?” he asked Santosh.

“Jaswal and Chopra?” mused Santosh. “Do they see eye to eye? Now there’s a good question. Before I answer it, how about you tell me which one of them we’re due to meet.”

Jack laughed. He loved to see Santosh’s mind working. “I tell you what, my brainy friend. How about you tell me what the beef is all about, and then I’ll tell you which one we’re due to see.”

“Very well,” said Santosh. “The answer to your question is no, Jaswal and Chopra do not see eye to eye. As Chief Minister and Lieutenant Governor respectively, they’re supposed to run Delhi in partnership, but the fact of the matter is they agree on nothing. There is what you might call a difference of opinion when it comes to interpreting the rules of their partnership.”

“They hate each other?”

“Pretty much. A jurisdictional war is not the best path to a lasting friendship.”

“One of them would dearly like to put one over on the other?”

“As a means of wresting complete control, no doubt.” Santosh flinched slightly as a pedestrian passed too close to their car. “Now, how about you tell me which one it is?”

“Chief Minister Mohan Jaswal.”

Santosh nodded. “Has he told you why?”

“Nope. Just that he wants to meet. He asked for both of us. What do you know about him?”

“Jaswal started his career with the army and was part of the Indian Peace Keeping Force sent to Sri Lanka in 1987. He opted for early retirement upon his return — traumatized at seeing Tamil Tigers blowing themselves up with explosives strapped to their chests.

“He then became a journalist for the Indian Times in Mumbai, working as the newspaper’s senior correspondent in New York. A plum posting that most would have coveted. But not Jaswal. He returned to India to enter the political arena, claiming he wanted to ‘make a difference.’

“We were acquainted in the days when he was a journalist and I was with the Research and Analysis Wing. He used to try to pump me for information.”

“Were you friendly?”

Santosh looked at Jack. “I didn’t particularly trust him, if that’s what you mean.”

Chapter 8

The Chief Minister’s Residence at Motilal Nehru Marg occupied over three acres of Delhi’s prime real estate, a sprawling white-stuccoed bungalow reminiscent of the colonial era, surrounded by sweeping lawns.

Santosh and Jack stepped out of the battered Fiat and into the cold Delhi air, where Jaswal’s secretary waited for them. They were whisked inside without any of the usual security checks, and then ushered into a book-lined study where the Chief Minister, Mohan Jaswal, sat behind his desk.

Now in his early sixties, Jaswal had a youthful vigor that belied his age. He had not an ounce of fat on his body and he sported a neatly trimmed white mustache. His crisp white kurta pajama and sky-blue turban indicated his Sikh faith.

“Good to meet you, Mr. Morgan,” he said, and the two men shook hands.

“Just Jack is fine.”

And then to Santosh, Jaswal said, “It’s been years.”

“I know,” replied Santosh curtly.

There was an awkward moment between the two acquaintances, broken only when Jaswal invited them to sit. Tea was served and more pleasantries exchanged: yes, it was cold outside; yes, Jack Morgan had been to Delhi many times before; yes, he was delighted to set up a bureau in the city; no, Santosh had not lived here for very long. Just three months.

All the while the two men from Private sipped their Kashmiri tea, answered Jaswal’s questions politely, and waited for him to get to the point of the meeting.

“I need you to handle an exceptionally delicate matter,” the Chief Minister said at last.

They waited for him to continue as he took a puff from a bronchodilator. “I hear news of a gruesome discovery at a house in Greater Kailash,” he said. “Any more than that, however, is being kept a secret from me.”

Questions forming, Jack leaned forward before stopping himself and sitting back to watch Santosh take the lead.

“What sort of gruesome discovery?” asked Santosh, thanking Jack with the merest incline of his head. His hands were knotted together on the head of his cane; his heart beat just that tiny bit faster. Ushered in to see the Chief Minister, he’d wondered if this might turn out to be a dry, political request. Evidently not.

“Bodies,” sniffed Jaswal. “Up to a dozen of them, in various states of... decomposition. It seems they were being melted down in some way.”

“Some kind of corrosive involved?”

“It would seem that way. Body parts were found in thick barrels full of the stuff.”

Jack shifted forward. He and Santosh exchanged a look. “What sort of barrels?” asked Santosh.

“Plastic, as far as I’m aware,” said Jaswal.

“Hydrofluoric acid,” Santosh and Jack said in unison. Even Santosh allowed himself a thin smile at that one.

“That’s significant, is it?” asked Jaswal, looking from one to the other.

“Very,” said Santosh. “It tells us that whoever is responsible is concerned firstly with hiding the identity of the victims and secondly with disposing of the corpses. In that specific order. Which means that the identity of the victims is extremely important.”

Jaswal raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t that always the case?”

“Not at all. For many serial killers the process of killing is what defines the act; the choice of victim can be random, based only on the ability to fulfill that need. It’s what often makes them so hard to catch.” He threw a look at Jaswal. “What’s your particular interest in this discovery? Over and above curiosity.”

“The house in which this... grisly operation was discovered is government property.”

“And yet you’re not being given any information?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time.”

For a moment or so, Santosh seemed to be lost in his thoughts before he collected himself and addressed Jaswal once more. “Do you believe Ram Chopra is the one suppressing information?”

Jaswal shot Santosh a wintry smile. “What do you think?”

“What I think is irrelevant. It’s what you think that is important.”

“Point taken. And the answer is yes, I do.”

“Why?”

“That’s one of the things I’d like you to find out.”

“Of course. But let me rephrase the question. Why might Ram Chopra want to keep you in the dark regarding the discovery at Greater Kailash?”

“Possibly to wrong-foot me, make me appear ill-informed. Possibly something more.”

“How did you find out about the bodies?” Jack asked.

“Police tip-off,” said Jaswal. “Nobody directly involved with the case. I’m afraid you’ll be on your own with this one.”

Santosh looked at Jaswal, knowing that if Private accepted this job then Jack would jet off and it would be he, Santosh, who entered the lion’s den.

Santosh was intrigued. Bodies. Hidden motives. It would be messy. Just the way he liked it.

On the other hand, there was something about the case that troubled him. But he couldn’t pin down what it was.

Chapter 9

Santosh was relieved to leave Jack with Jaswal. Finances were not his strong suit. Haggling, negotiating, “doing business” even less so. Besides, as soon as Jack had finished with Jaswal he was flying back to the States. And Santosh had a crime to solve.

A cab dropped him off on the outskirts of Mehrauli, home to Private Delhi, and he went the rest of the way to the office on foot, his cane tapping briskly and a new spring in his step as he passed quaint shops, restaurants, and pubs near the twelfth-century Qutb Minar tower.

He came to an antiques shop tucked away in the old quarter, bell tinkling as he went inside. He nodded to the proprietor and passed through the shop to a door at the back.

Through that he entered a clinical-looking anteroom, bare save for a second door and a retina-scan unit. Santosh bent slightly for the scan and the door slid open, allowing him to access the Private Delhi office.

The office was well hidden for good reason. The Mumbai team had helped Indian law enforcement agencies solve key cases related to attacks by Pakistani terror groups on Indian soil. Both the Mumbai and Delhi offices were on the radar of Pakistan-based jihadi outfits. It was vital to keep the office impregnable. As was the protocol in Mumbai, established clients of Private India communicated with the firm via a dedicated and secure helpline. The screening process for any new clients was rigorous. Investigators from Private visited clients at their homes and offices instead of the other way round. Private’s sanctum remained invisible to the world outside.

Inside, polished marble floors were complemented by a bright-yellow staircase connecting the two levels of the office. White acrylic dome lights hung from exposed beams. Santosh greeted the receptionist and crossed the floor where junior investigators handled routine cases, and then took the stairs to his office.

The first member of the team he saw was Nisha Gandhe, his indefatigable assistant. In her mid-forties, Nisha was still capable of making heads turn. The gym and yoga kept her in good shape. But her beauty could not hide a permanent sadness in her eyes.

It had been a tumultuous six months since her abduction by a serial killer in Mumbai. She had still been struggling with the trauma when her husband, Sanjeev, a successful Mumbai stockbroker, had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

Two months later, Sanjeev had lost his battle with the disease. So when Private had opened in Delhi, Nisha and her daughter, Maya, had taken up Jack’s offer of a fresh start and had joined Santosh.

Santosh beckoned her into his office, calling Neel Mehra in too. Neel was a brilliant criminologist. In his thirties and dashingly handsome, he attracted the attention of women around him. However, not much escaped the sharp eyes of the Private Delhi investigative team and both Santosh and Nisha had worked out on their own that Neel was gay. With homosexuality still technically illegal in India, his two superiors respected Neel’s privacy.

Five minutes later, Nisha and Neel had been briefed. Half an hour after that they had scattered to the winds, flushed with the thrill of a new case, and Santosh’s phone was ringing — Jack was on his way over.

Chapter 10

“How did it go with Jaswal after I left?” asked Santosh.

Jack sat opposite, lounging in an office chair, one knee pulled up and resting on the edge of Santosh’s desk. Admin staff from the floor below found excuses to pass the office window, hardly bothering to disguise their curiosity as they craned to see inside. Everybody wanted a look at the great Jack Morgan. It was like having Salman Khan or Tom Cruise in the office.

“It went well,” said Jack. “Terms were agreed. Don’t tell me you’re interested to know the finer points?”

“Not really,” said Santosh.

“What, then? You look even more pensive than usual, which, I have to be honest, is normally pretty pensive.”

“What were your impressions of him?” asked Santosh.

“I thought he was a well-dressed little weasel. But he could potentially be an important weasel. If we’re to establish the agency in the city then we’re going to need friends in high places, and he would be a friend in a very high place.”

“But his friendship comes with a price. If the friend of my friend is my enemy then the friend of my enemy is also my enemy.”

Bemused, Jack shook his head. “In English please, Santosh.”

“I’m thinking from Ram Chopra’s perspective. He and Jaswal are enemies. If Chopra discovers we’re working for Jaswal then he won’t see Private as a friend, but rather an enemy, and as he’s Lieutenant Governor that effectively cancels out the advantage of being in with Jaswal.”

Jack beamed. “Then be discreet, Santosh.” He leaned forward, hoisted a cup of coffee from the desk, and took a long gulp. “That’s why I employed you, after all.”

Santosh gave a tight smile. “Well, yes and no. As we’ve often discussed, you employed me for my investigative skills.” He inclined his head modestly. “Such as they are. What you didn’t employ me for was my political diplomacy. I can tell you now, I do not possess such skills. What concerns me about this case, Jack, is that I’m not being asked to solve a crime so much as collect political leverage for Jaswal — a man I trust as much as I would a hungry tiger.”

Jack shrugged, failing to see a problem. Santosh tried again. “Am I investigating murders or gathering information to help political rivals?” he asked simply.

“In this case, it’s one and the same,” answered Jack.

Santosh stared at him. “I thought you might say something like that.”

Chapter 11

Nisha stood in the street in Greater Kailash, gazing through the chain-link fence at the crime scene.

A call to the police had proved fruitless. Just as expected, the shutters had come down. As Santosh had warned her, no one in Sharma’s police department would help them now. Sharma reported to Chopra. With Chopra and Jaswal at loggerheads, working for Jaswal meant they would have no help from the police.

So she’d decided to pay Greater Kailash a visit.

The house and its grounds were just as they had looked online: neglected, unkempt, but otherwise an unremarkable home in a street full of unremarkable homes. There was one important distinction — the police presence. Uniformed officers guarded the door, while others stood near the polythene tape that marked out where the ground had given way into the grim scene below.

Careful not to attract the attention of those on the other side of the fence, Nisha began to take pictures, methodically working her way across the front of the house. At the same time she watched where she put her feet, knowing only too well that—

Ah.

Something the cops inside had missed. Nisha had quit the Mumbai Police’s Criminal Investigation Department to work alongside Santosh, and what she knew from her time on the force was that cops had a tendency to see only what was in front of them. It was one of the reasons she’d been so keen to work with an investigator like Santosh. A detective with the ability to think outside the box.

Or, in this case, look on the other side of the wire fence.

She bent to pick up a cigarette butt that seemed out of place among the usual detritus on the ground. The filter wasn’t the usual brown, but silver, plus it bore a beautiful crest in black.

“Can I help you?” came a voice from above. She looked up to see an older woman standing over her.

Nisha stood, held out her hand to shake, and switched on her most dazzling smile. “I suppose you could say I’m a bit of a ghoul,” she said. “My name’s Nisha. I run a Delhi crime blog. I wonder: would you be willing to speak to me? For my blog, I mean. Do you live around here?”

Something in Nisha’s manner seemed to have a positive effect on the woman. Her scowl subsiding, she said, “I do. Opposite. In fact, it was me who called the police.”

“Oh? What was it that made you raise the alarm?”

“A half-naked girl, would you believe? Screaming and running away from the house. By all accounts half the lawn had caved in and underneath it was this awful... graveyard or whatever it is they’ve found.”

“What was she doing there?”

“Most likely there with her boyfriend,” confided the woman. “Doing you know what.”

“I see.”

“And you know what?” said the woman. “There’s been absolutely no mention of this on the news or in the papers.”

“Well, exactly,” said Nisha. “I only found out via a contact in the police force.”

“It’s almost like they’re trying to hide something,” said the woman, drawing her arms across her chest and tilting her chin. She looked left and right. “I used to see a black van in the driveway.”

“Really?”

“Oh yes. It was often there.”

“Make?”

The woman gave a slight smile. “The make was a Tempo Traveller, and I know that because we used to have one, many moons ago...” She drifted off a little, evidently revisiting a past with a man in her life, possibly a family too, and Nisha felt her nostalgia keenly, thinking of her own loss.

Regretfully Nisha pulled her new friend back into the present. “I don’t suppose you got a license plate number?”

The neighbor frowned. “Well, no, I didn’t. Do you go around noting down license plate numbers?”

Nisha conceded the point then added, “Ah, but what if they’re up to no good?”

“Well, I never saw anything especially unusual. It had a red zigzag pattern running across the side, which was quite distinctive. Other than that...”

“Would you draw it for me?” asked Nisha. She passed the woman her pad and pen, and for some moments the pair stood in silence as the woman concentrated on sketching the van’s paint job.

“My drawing isn’t very good,” she said with an apologetic shrug as she handed back the pad. “But it looked something like that.”

“Thank you. Did you tell the police about the van?”

“Of course I did. Not that they were interested.”

Which figures, thought Nisha.

They spoke for some minutes more, mainly with the neighbor complaining that the house wasn’t sufficiently well maintained, and how the police hadn’t taken her concerns seriously enough. “My late husband would have taken it further. He would have done something about it, but...” She fixed Nisha with such a pained, searching look that Nisha felt as though the other woman could see inside her — as if the neighbor knew exactly what it was they had in common — and for a second she thought it might be too much to bear.

“Thank you,” Nisha stammered, only just managing to control her emotions as the two said their goodbyes and went their separate ways.

Chapter 12

The office — residence of the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi, Ram Chopra, was located at Raj Niwas Marg. There in the living room, two men in oversized leather armchairs drank whisky and paid no mind to the fact that it was the middle of the day. The crisp Delhi winter made everything possible.

Ram Chopra poured more water into his whisky, added ice, and took a puff of his Cohiba cigar. Opposite, the Commissioner of Police, Rajesh Sharma, drank his whisky neat.

Both were big men who tended to dominate a room. Both had been born and brought up in the holy town of Varanasi. Otherwise the two couldn’t have been more different: while Chopra was suave and sophisticated, Sharma was unrefined and coarse, from his constantly ruffled uniform to the toothpick firmly lodged between his teeth.

Sharma had been orphaned young and fended for himself. Growing up in Varanasi had been hard, and from early on he’d known the only two options were flight or fight. He’d chosen the latter and gone from being a victim to the most feared kid at school. The many nights of sleeping hungry had given rise to his voracious appetite and obesity in recent times.

Chopra, on the other hand, had been educated at the prestigious Mayo College and then had joined the Indian Air Force, rising to the position of wing commander. Deputized to the Central Bureau of Investigation to assist in a Defence Department investigation, he’d chosen to stay on, investigating high-profile cases involving terrorism and corruption. He’d eventually succeeded in working his way up to the top job, that of director.

His get-it-done approach had made the Prime Minister a fan. Upon his retirement, the position of Lieutenant Governor had been made available to him as a post-retirement sop.

And now he ran Delhi. Or would, if not for the constant interference of Mohan Jaswal, Nikhil Kumar, and Co. Still, it kept life interesting. Chopra would be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy a bit of conflict every now and then. It was something else he had in common with his overweight, whisky-swilling friend opposite.

He regarded Sharma through a cloud of blue cigar smoke, feeling pleasantly sleepy and guessing the Police Commissioner felt the same way. “These body parts found in the basement at Greater Kailash,” he said. “Any new developments?”

“Investigations continue,” replied Sharma.

“One would hope so,” said Chopra. With some effort he leaned forward to place his cigar on the edge of the solid silver ashtray. The ash needed to fall gently on its own. Aficionados would never tap a cigar.

“But there’s something else,” said Sharma.

“Yes?” asked Chopra.

“Kumar wants the matter hushed up. The prick visited me, offering me a bribe.”

“I see. Well, if Kumar wants this kept quiet then perhaps it might be fun to see that the case receives maximum publicity.”

But Sharma wasn’t smiling. “You might not want that, Lieutenant Governor.”

Chopra squinted at Sharma through the smoke. “Oh yes? Why so?”

“I’ll show you.”

Intrigued, Chopra watched Sharma ease himself from the armchair — no easy task — and cross to a briefcase he’d brought with him. The big cop extracted a folder, returned to Chopra, and passed him a photograph.

“This is the house where the bodies were found?” asked Chopra.

“It is.”

Chopra studied the photograph a second time then handed it back. “In that case, I concur with our friend Kumar. It might not be prudent to raise public awareness at this stage.”

Sharma’s chin settled into his chest. “I thought you’d say that. I’ve already taken steps to ensure the investigation is as low-key as possible.”

“Nevertheless, I’d be interested to know why Kumar wants this kept quiet. You can look into that for me, can you?”

“I can.”

“Thank you. You can be certain I shall be most grateful for your efforts.”

“There’s something else,” said Sharma, opening the folder once more.

“Yes?”

“I hear Jaswal wants you to approve the appointment of Amit Roy as Principal Secretary in Kumar’s ministry.”

“He does.”

“Are you going to do it?”

“I haven’t decided yet.” Chopra grinned. “Jaswal hates to be kept waiting, so...”

“You thought you’d keep him waiting.”

“Quite.”

“I have something here that might help make up your mind. Have a look at this,” said Sharma, handing over the folder.

“What is it?”

“It’s as many reasons as you want why it’s a bad idea to promote Amit Roy.”

In the folder were photographs of Amit Roy with young girls. Children. Chopra didn’t bother leafing through the lot. He got the idea. He dropped the folder back on the table between them.

“This changes nothing,” he said.

“But it’s incontrovertible evidence that Amit Roy is a pedophile. The very worst kind.”

“Exactly. And it’s for that reason that I plan to let the appointment go through.”

“Why?” asked Sharma.

“The bodies at the Greater Kailash house could put Jaswal in a fix. Having an animal like Roy as Health Secretary could put him in an even bigger fix. My thanks for bringing these things to my attention, Sharma. I shall approve Roy’s promotion at once.”

Chapter 13

Nisha’s hunt for a black Tempo Traveller van sporting a zigzag pattern had taken her to the Regional Transport Office. The visit had cost Private India the price of a bribe, but for that Nisha had been given the name of a workshop, Truckomatic, that might customize vans.

Fifteen minutes later she entered Truckomatic, a large industrial paint shop that rang to the sound of pneumatic lifts and sprays. According to the owner — a gym bunny who gave Nisha a long look up and down before deigning to speak to her — Truckomatic customized over a hundred vehicles each month.

Nisha showed him her pad. “Something like that,” she said. “I was wondering whether you’ve anything similar.”

“Sure,” grinned the owner. “For around two hundred customers at last count. We have a catalog of around a thousand concepts. This is one of the more popular ones.”

“This one was on a Tempo Traveller,” probed Nisha.

“That certainly narrows it down.”

“Does it narrow it down enough that you could give me a list of customers?” asked Nisha.

The owner grinned again. “Give me a few days and I could, I suppose. But what’s in it for me?”

Nisha sighed and reached for her pocketbook, thanking God for Private’s no-questions-asked expenses policy.

Chapter 14

“I’ve never seen this cigarette before,” said Nisha, placing the butt she’d found on Neel’s spotless white table. “Can you find out which brand it is?”

“Easily done,” said Neel, crossing to his bookshelf. He scanned the various medical and scientific journals and catalogues until he laid his hands on the book he was looking for. He brought it back to the table.

“What is it?” asked Nisha.

“You see, Sherlock Holmes had his power of deduction, Superman had his X-ray vision, Dick Tracy used his two-way wrist radio, but Bob Bourhill depended on cigarette butts.”

“Bob Bourhill?” asked Nisha.

“A sleuth tasked with figuring out the cause of fires in the forests of Oregon. He spent years cataloging cigarettes, cigars, and cigarette butts. He’s the acknowledged expert in this narrow but important field.”

Neel used a magnifying glass to examine the butt and then consulted his book.

“Bourhill codified the characteristics of cigarette butts across the world and his book on the subject is updated each year. If it isn’t in the book, then it doesn’t exist. Ah, here we go... This one is a very exclusive brand. It’s by a company called the Chancellor Tobacco Company in England. The cigarette is called Treasurer Luxury White. Very expensive. Only sold in England and only at exclusive locations. Not available through ordinary retail channels, and certainly not in India.”

Nisha grinned. “Remind me to thank Bob Bourhill when I see him.”

Chapter 15

The small ground-floor apartment in Vasant Vihar was ideal for Nisha, her eleven-year-old daughter, Maya, and their maid, Heena. It had been pricey — Vasant Vihar was an expensive area and property prices in Delhi had gone through the roof — but Sanjeev had left her with money and, having bought the apartment, Nisha had saved the rest. Financially she was well off.

But for all that, nothing could fill the emotional hole Sanjeev had left. It was as though his absence were a malignant presence. Like a shadow in their lives. And it was with them now as they sat at the dining table, finishing a dinner prepared by Heena. It was an unspoken thing. We wish Papa were here. Telling stupid jokes or singing to himself or even just being grumpy. Whatever. We wish Papa were here.

Not for the first time, Nisha thanked her lucky stars for Heena. Without Heena she couldn’t work. And there were times that Nisha thought work was the only thing that allowed her to cope with losing Sanjeev.

Heena was also blessed with the ability to know when Nisha and Maya needed a little mother — daughter time. Like now, as she cleared the table and left them to settle down into the living-room sofa.

“Why couldn’t we just get pizza from that new place down the street?” asked Maya, snuggling into her mother. A cartoon was on TV but neither was really watching it.

“Junk food. Not good for either of us,” replied Nisha. “Better to eat healthy home-cooked meals prepared by Heena.”

Nisha felt her daughter’s shoulders shake, the all-too-familiar signal that tears were imminent, and all Nisha could do was hold her and try to cuddle the pain away.

“I miss Papa,” said Maya, the tears now rolling down her cheeks. “I miss the times he took us out for pizza and ice cream. I don’t want the pizza or ice cream. I just want Papa back.”

“I know, baby, I miss him too,” said Nisha, thinking, God, so much. I miss him so much.

“I feel so lonely,” whimpered Maya. “You’re always working.” The pain in her little girl’s voice, and the bald truth of the statement, made Nisha feel wretched. “But at least when you were late, it was Dad who would tuck me into bed. Now there’s only Heena. The apartment feels so cold and empty.”

Nisha hugged Maya tighter and thumbed tears from her face. “Tell you what,” she said. “On the weekend, we’ll go out. How about a movie followed by pizza?”

Sniffing, Maya nodded and Nisha felt bowled over by her bravery. This frail little thing, forced to cope with so much at such a young age. “You and I make a great team,” she said into Maya’s hair. “I promise that we’ll take a holiday together in the hills soon. What do you think about Shimla? It’s not too far from Delhi.”

“The last time you said that, we had to cancel the holiday because of work,” said Maya, and Nisha cringed at the memory.

“No cancellations this time, I promise,” she said.

Maya brightened up more. Nisha passed her a box of tissues to wipe away her tears.

“Now, what about that essay you were supposed to write for your school competition? The one about how to improve the health of Delhi’s citizens?” asked Nisha.

Maya rolled her eyes. “It was due earlier today. It’s already been submitted.”

“I see. And does it have a title, this masterwork?”

“It’s called ‘Health Care, Fair and Square?’ It’s about how everybody should have access to health care whether they’re rich or poor, young or old, whatever their nationality. How we should treat health care a bit more like we do education, so more people get a fair shot.”

Nisha awarded Maya with an impressed look. “Wow, well, that’s very, very commendable, Maya. I’m delighted. Can I have a copy to read?”

“I saved one,” beamed Maya. She fetched it then snuggled back into position. “I’m pretty pleased with it, actually. Especially as most people have just talked about, like, how many hospitals there are in the city and stuff.”

“Yours has got a bit more substance,” said Nisha, leafing through the A4 pages.

“Well, I don’t want to be big-headed, but...”

“You’re going to be anyway.”

“Yeah,” laughed Maya. “Fingers crossed I’ll win.”

“You never know.”

“The prize is being handed out by some real bigwig, a guy called Amit Roy from the government.”

“Very good. With any luck you’ll meet him.”

Mother and daughter cuddled on the couch, hugging each other in a home that felt empty. The winter winds of Delhi howled outside and the branches of the Indian lilac tree that touched their living-room window tapped a rat-a-tat-tat rhythm on the pane.

With Maya snoring gently beside her, Nisha lifted the essay to read but had only got through a few sentences before she felt her eyelids grow heavy.

She laid it down, guiltily, promising herself she’d return to it first thing.

Chapter 16

The killer was disappointed. Rahul’s murder had been relegated to a short piece in the newspaper. Little more than a sidenote.

What disappointed him even more — though of course he was not in the slightest bit surprised — was the fact that no publicity had been given to the find in Greater Kailash. All those corpses. All that evidence. It should have been the lead item on the news. And yet there had been nothing.

The usual suspects were once again covering their asses. But he knew who they were; he had done his research.

Arranged on the surface before him was a series of photographs, a selection of Delhi’s great and good. Men who would whimper when they died. The killer was choosing his next victim. He knew the method, of course.

Now to decide who died next.

Chapter 17

Delhi’s governmental hub was the Secretariat, based in the area known as Indraprastha Estate. There, Chief Minister Mohan Jaswal was to preside over a press briefing.

Santosh sat alone, one eye on the lectern at the front of the room from where Jaswal would conduct the press conference, another on the journalists around him. To his left sat Ajoy Guha, a familiar face from DETV. Broadcasting from Delhi’s media hub at Noida, and boasting twice the viewership of the other news channels put together, DETV was known for its fierce reporting, outspoken views, and hard-hitting investigations, and the fiercest and most outspoken show of all was Guha’s Carrot and Stick.

Guha was tall and lanky with slightly thinning hair and a narrow face accentuated by wire-framed glasses. He sat scribbling into a notebook. Santosh admired his methodical approach. You didn’t become the country’s highest-paid news anchor for nothing, he reasoned.

Guha stopped writing and put the notebook away. He took out a box of Nature’s Way lozenges and popped one in his mouth.

Next Santosh saw Jaswal, standing just outside the door. The Chief Minister took a puff of his bronchodilator then entered, approaching the lectern and adjusting the microphone.

He wore a pale yellow turban, color-coordinated with the kerchief in his pocket. Perfect for TV cameras. There were advantages to being Sikh — the turban and white beard instantly caught the attention.

Like the seasoned campaigner he was, he began to field questions from the press. Innocuous queries at first. Camera flashes went off like little bombs. Santosh watched with interest as the conference rumbled on, wondering if the issue of the corpses in Greater Kailash would come up.

And then India’s most fearless reporter weighed in.

“Just one final question, sir,” said Guha, waving a sheaf of papers. “I have with me copies of police reports indicating that up to eleven corpses were discovered in the basement of a house in Greater Kailash. The question to you, Chief Minister, is this: why didn’t you tell us?”

Who leaked? wondered Santosh. Let’s see how Jaswal gets himself out of this.

Jaswal didn’t miss a beat. “Neither the police nor the Lieutenant Governor have informed me of this matter,” he said.

Good play, thought Santosh. It wasn’t a lie but it wasn’t quite the whole truth either.

At the lectern, Jaswal went on, raising a statesmanlike finger to make a point. “But if what you say is true then heads will roll,” he said.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the Chief Minister has another official engagement and hence the press conference must end here,” said the press secretary as Jaswal turned to leave. There was a mad scramble as reporters fired off further questions while cameras whirred and flashed.

Santosh followed Jaswal out. He needed a few minutes with him.

Chapter 18

In his office, Jaswal seethed. “Who is feeding them information, Santosh? Why is it that my own sources of information are being throttled, yet a... toad like Guha knows all about it?”

Santosh gave a small shrug.

Jaswal reddened. “But this is what I’m paying you to find out.”

“Are you? I thought we were being paid to look into the murders.”

“Anything. Just bring me anything.”

“In order for you to make political capital out of it? I’m not sure that’s Private’s style.”

“Jack Morgan has no such qualms. If the ethics of the investigation bother you, I suggest you take it up with him. Better still, why not just get on with the case, find the killer, and leave the rest to me. Then we’ll all be happy.”

Santosh nodded. The man was right. It wasn’t up to Santosh to question why they were investigating, nor what the long-term ramifications might be. It was up to him to get on with the investigation and try to find the killer or killers. Let the politicians slug it out between themselves afterward.

Outside the building he met Nisha, fresh from procuring information at the Public Works Department.

“How did it go?” he asked.

“They huffed and puffed but I fluttered my eyelashes, opened my purse, and got the information I needed.”

Santosh stopped and adjusted his scarf. “Go on,” he said.

“Okay, well, the house at Greater Kailash is no ordinary house.”

“Apart from the fact that there was a corpse-disposal factory in the basement,” said Santosh drily.

“Yeah, apart from that. Get this — it was last occupied by the director of the Central Bureau of Investigation. No one has been allocated the house for the past three years, something to do with a missing structural stability certificate.”

“I see,” said Santosh, chin raised, eyes gleaming behind his glasses.

“So I need to find out who was heading the Central Bureau of Investigation three years ago,” said Nisha.

“There’s no need. I can tell you. It was the present Lieutenant Governor, Chopra,” replied Santosh, whose memory for such information had not diminished.

Nisha whistled. “Then we have a prime suspect.”

Santosh shook his head. “Chopra is a killer who hid the bodies in his own basement? No, Nisha. Somehow I don’t think it will be that easy. If only it were. But one thing we do know is why Chopra and Sharma are blocking information from reaching Jaswal. It’s not because they hope to hurt Jaswal, it’s because the truth is potentially embarrassing for Chopra.”

“Are you going to tell Jaswal?” she asked.

“I should, shouldn’t I? Given that our original brief was to find that out for him. Except that just now he asked me to continue looking into the murders and for the time being that’s exactly what I plan to do.”

Chapter 19

Her visitor’s pass bounced against her chest as Nisha strode through the open-plan offices of the Indian Times on Parliament Street.

Pratish rose from his cubicle to meet her with a peck on the cheek. In response she gave him a hug and for a moment the two old friends simply enjoyed seeing one another again.

“How have you been, Pratt?” she asked him, taking the seat he indicated.

He pulled a face.

“Oh dear,” said Nisha. “Want to share?”

For the next few minutes they talked: he about his messy divorce, bitchy ex, and grueling hours at the paper; she about losing Sanjeev and the difficulty of caring for Maya.

“We make a fine pair,” he said at last. “Now, I don’t suppose you came here just to trade hardships. What do you need?”

“Political gossip,” said Nisha. “You are, after all, the foremost authority.”

He preened. “Subject?” he asked.

“Ram Chopra,” replied Nisha.

Pratt whistled. “Smooth operator. Rather hoity-toity... smokes Cohibas like a chimney. Speaks the Queen’s English with greater flair than Englishmen. Can’t stand Jaswal.”

The mention of Chopra’s Cohibas made Nisha frown. “Does he ever smoke cigarettes?”

“Not to my knowledge. The cigar is something of a trademark. Why?”

“Nothing. It doesn’t matter. What about Jaswal?”

“Ah! One of our own. You know he used to work for this paper? Our Chief Minister was a hack for the Indian Times. Who knows, maybe I’ll be Chief Minister one day. Anyway, he hates Chopra’s guts. Mutual antagonism.”

“Who are Chopra’s friends?” asked Nisha.

“Follow me,” he said, and led the way to the archive room, where he typed “Ram Chopra” into a terminal that gave reel number references. Next he switched on the reader and fed a reel onto the spindle, carefully threading the film under the small rollers. He began advancing the film using manual knobs.

Moments later he had the image he was looking for: Chopra, Honorable Minister for Health and Family Welfare Nikhil Kumar, and another man in a bush shirt.

“Who’s that?” asked Nisha, indicating the third guy.

“Samir Patel, the chairman of Surgiquip, one of the largest Indian health care equipment companies. Most of the new hospitals in India have used Surgiquip’s services and technology — and according to my sources, that’s because Chopra swung a huge deal in favor of Surgiquip. Kumar’s in on it too. Eyebrows were raised. Jaswal was livid, especially with Kumar being part of his cabinet. But the matter remained buried.”

As Nisha left Pratt with a kiss and a promise to meet again soon, her mind raced. So — Delhi’s Lieutenant Governor, Ram Chopra, was the last to occupy a house in which body parts had been discovered. Chopra was at war with Jaswal. And Chopra was dirty — doing shady deals with medical corporations.

Somehow all this was connected, she knew. But how? What Private needed was a break in this case.

They were about to get one.

Chapter 20

Neel Mehra adjusted his jacket and muffler in the mirror of the entrance foyer of the Olive Bar and Kitchen. He wanted to look good for Ash. It had been a long time.

He headed into the open courtyard, where outdoor heaters compensated for the cold weather and diners nibbled on thin-crust pizzas and sipped chilled Sancerre. There waiting for him was Ash — Dr. Ashish Lal, the police medical examiner.

Ash was only a few years senior to Neel, but thanks to his gray sideburns and dark circles beneath his eyes he looked a lot older — one of the perks of working for the police department and bosses like Sharma.

The two had met at the Department of Forensic Medicine at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. Neel had been working on a difficult case that needed a complicated diagnostic test to be performed. The only one capable of handling it had been Ash. The two had become friends, then lovers. Neel was the younger, more desirable of the two men, but Ash had been something of a mentor to him. A strong, lasting relationship had formed.

“Thanks for seeing me at short notice, Ash,” said Neel, taking a seat.

Ash smiled and poured Neel a glass of wine, and for a moment or so the two regarded each other, both stirred by the other’s presence. “I’m happy to help,” smiled Ash, breaking the spell. “But this particular meeting never happened. You know why.” He joined the fingers of his hands together — almost like two spiders performing push-ups against one another.

“My lips are sealed,” said Neel, taking a sip of his wine.

“It’s about the house at Greater Kailash, isn’t it?”

“It is.”

“And your interest?”

Neel gave a theatrical look left and right. “Can I let you into a secret?”

“Isn’t that the purpose of our meeting?”

“The purpose of our meeting is so that we can trade secrets.”

“Ah, well then, you better tell me yours before I divulge any of mine.”

The waiter arrived, and the conversation paused as pizzas were ordered, and — Ash looked over the table with inquiring eyes — yes, “another bottle of Sancerre, please.”

“So, your secret?” asked Ash.

Neel saw a new light in his friend’s eyes and was gratified to think it was he who had put it there. “Private Delhi is looking into the bodies at Greater Kailash.”

“I see. On whose dollar?”

“Now we really are into the territory of secrets. If I tell you that, do you have details of the investigation to trade?”

Ash shrugged. “Well, as the medical examiner on the case I do indeed have some details. However, they are very scant. The killer is not only extremely good at covering his own tracks but also those of his victims. There’s one cadaver that’s slightly better preserved than the others. I’ll be examining it over the next couple of days.”

“And do you think you’ll be at liberty to share your findings?”

Ash smiled. “I certainly won’t be at liberty to do that, no.” His smile broadened lasciviously. “But I might just do it all the same.”

“That would be very much appreciated. Anything else you can tell me?”

Ash nodded. “I have something that might be of interest to you. I’m still curious to know who’s employing Private, though.”

“It’ll go no further?”

“Of course not. But you better hurry. Our pizzas will be here soon. Not to mention that second bottle of wine.” Ash’s tiredness seemed to have disappeared.

“We’re being employed by Mohan Jaswal.”

Ash smiled, rolled his eyes. “Figures,” he said. “And I suppose Jaswal is keen to catch the killer, is he?”

“As I’m sure you can guess, Jaswal is far more concerned with putting one over on Chopra or making sure Chopra doesn’t put one over on him. We’re stuck someplace in the middle. Such is life. But what else is it you’ve discovered?”

Ash pulled a face. “Like I say, it’s precious little.” He reached into his jacket, retrieved a small plastic bag from his inside pocket, and placed it on the table between them. Inside was a tiny piece of fabric. “How do you fancy analyzing that on some of that fancy gadgetry you have at Private?”

“You scratch my back...”

Ash twinkled. “I’ll happily scratch yours.”

Neel pocketed the evidence bag. “You’ve had a good look at it, presumably.”

“I have.”

“And?”

“And I’m fairly sure I know what it is. I’d be interested to see if you concur.”

“Give me a clue. We’re trying to catch a killer here, not play forensic noughts and crosses.”

“All right, then. You win. I think it’s a piece of a hospital gown.”

Chapter 21

“I think he’s right,” said Neel the following day.

He was hunched over a powerful microscope, scrutinizing the tiny piece of fabric given to him the previous night. The thought of Ash made him stop suddenly and he raised his head from the eyepiece, allowing himself a smile of remembrance, and then went back to the job at hand.

Behind him stood Nisha and Santosh. “You think it’s a piece of hospital gown?” said Santosh, leaning forward, hands clasped over the head of his cane.

“I do.”

“That is very interesting,” said Santosh. “It means we have a connection.”

“We do?” said Nisha.

“May I?” said Santosh. He laid his cane on the table, shifted his glasses to the top of his head, and took over from Neel at the microscope. For some moments there was silence, broken only by Santosh murmuring his agreement that yes, it was a fragment of hospital gown. “Here,” he said to Neel, bidding him scrutinize the evidence again. “Do you see traces of a black marking?”

Neel looked, then nodded. “You think you know what they are?”

“Dhobi marks,” said Santosh. “Some public hospitals don’t do their own laundry. They outsource the job to teams of dhobis, a specific community that specializes in washing clothes the traditional Indian way — soaking them in hot water and then flogging them against laundry stones in vast open-air concrete pens. Each dhobi uses indelible ink to mark the garments to stop them going missing. So where there is a dhobi mark, there has to be a dhobi. Finding that dhobi will reveal which hospitals those bodies came from.”

“And that’s the connection,” said Nisha, stepping forward. “It’s hospitals, isn’t it? Ram Chopra is doing deals with medical companies. Fragments of a hospital gown found at Greater Kailash...”

“Precisely,” said Santosh.

“Then surely this brings Chopra even further into the frame?” pressed Nisha. “Or... maybe not Chopra himself, then at least his associates. Whatever his dealings with Surgiquip, perhaps they’re being blocked and this is him cleaning house?”

“Maybe,” said Santosh. “It would be convenient, wouldn’t it?”

Nisha rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Just because it seems obvious doesn’t mean it can’t be the truth.”

“Noted,” said Santosh. “But the important thing is we now have a thread, and we have to keep pulling at it and see what unravels.”

He waved his hands at Neel and Nisha like a crazed scientist releasing his flying instruments of death. “Go. Go. Keep pulling that thread.”

Chapter 22

Santosh asked the taxi driver to drop him off near the main gate of the Delhi Memorial Hospital. He heard barking and wondered why a hospital needed guard dogs as well as security officers.

He took the elevator to the tenth floor. It was one of Delhi’s largest hospitals and was part of the state government’s health service. It had over five hundred beds but the corridors were usually to be found overflowing with patients awaiting a free bed. Santosh tuned out wailing babies as he knocked on the door to the office of the chief administrator — a South Indian man whose full name was an awe-inspiring Mangalampalli Gopalamenon Thekkaparambil, everyone simply called him MGT. He and Santosh had known each other at college although they hadn’t really been friends. In those days MGT had hung out with either the stoned or the drunk. Santosh had been neither.

“Come in,” announced the voice from inside and Santosh entered, instantly reminded by the stench that MGT was a chain smoker. Out of deference to his visitor, MGT was moving an ashtray from his desktop and waving ineffectually at smoke that still hung in the air.

“Good to see you, Santosh,” he said, reaching to shake Santosh’s hand. He was tall and lanky, with a full head of jet-black hair and a stubbled chin.

“You too,” said Santosh. “Why in heaven’s name do you have guard dogs at the gate?”

“Oh, there’s a separate VIP wing in the hospital,” answered MGT. “Usually top politicians. We need dogs to protect the dogs.” He laughed, revealing stained yellow teeth, and then changed the subject with the expertise of a true bureaucrat. “So what was it that you wanted to meet me about?”

“Private has been recruited by a medical services firm to find out the average turnaround time of hospital beds in India,” said Santosh. “I was hoping you could help me with that.”

“That’s privileged information, Santosh.”

MGT’s secretary knocked, entered, and handed him a small slip of paper. He looked at it, opened his desk drawer with a key, and placed the slip inside, locking the drawer afterward. Santosh watched impassively, wondering what was so important it needed locking away.

MGT fixed Santosh with a hard stare. “Why don’t you stop bullshitting and tell me why you’re really here?”

Rumbled. “Apologies, MGT — old habits die hard,” he said, shifting in his seat. “Can you keep a secret?”

MGT gave a slightly noncommittal shrug. “Try me.”

“This is about murder,” said Santosh and, careful not to reveal too many salient details, went on to explain his theory concerning the body parts at Greater Kailash.

“A serial killer at large?” asked MGT, his eyes widening theatrically.

“It’s one of the ideas I’m working on, yes. Whatever the motive, the fact remains that there’s a common theme.”

“And what would you like me to do about it?”

Santosh looked sharply at him. “Well, I thought you might appreciate being informed.”

MGT gave a tight smile. “You wondered if we might have a killer stalking the corridors of the hospital?”

Santosh felt himself shunted to the back foot, not somewhere he liked to be, especially as he wasn’t sure whether MGT was mocking him or not. He pressed on. “As well as thinking you might like to know, I also wondered whether anything I might say would have any relevance to you; whether it might ring any bells?”

“Well, I’m afraid it doesn’t.”

“I see. And this doesn’t worry you, this...”

“Theory of yours? No, Santosh, funnily enough it doesn’t.”

Chapter 23

Amit Roy, THE new Principal Secretary of the Department of Health and Family Welfare, looked at the material on his desk yet again. He took his time over it, like a man eager to commit its contents to memory, which was exactly what he was. He hated getting rid of the stuff but there was no other option: keeping it was a security risk.

Once more he scanned the various photographs laid out on his desk, arranged side by side and in neat rows, like a fleshy tarot reading. A smile played on his lips as he recalled the moments portrayed. His hands wandered and he closed his eyes to allow his fantasies to play out, revisiting the screams, the pleadings, the sheer transgressive pleasure known only to his kind.

But enough. He tore himself away, thinking again how he hated to dispose of such precious things but knowing it was a necessity, and then gathered the material from his desk and scooped it into a carrier bag. He went into his back garden, where a barbecue unit sat, and he opened the hood. Into that went the photographs. Save them, urged an inner voice. Save one at least. But no. He doused the lot with lighter fluid, lit a match, and watched his prized possessions burn.

Chapter 24

Nikhil Kumar tapped at the keys of his laptop. Even in the dead of night he was perfectly turned out in a well-pressed kurta and pajama, his hair neatly brushed, his skin radiant from the exfoliating face wash he used every night.

He was drafting another letter to Jaswal requesting that Roy be transferred. He had no option but to type the letter himself because he simply could not dictate it to the department stenographer. The entire ministry leaked like a sieve and anything he dictated invariably reached everyone else before the intended recipient.

He was in his ground-floor study, which opened into the living room of his official residence at Mayur Vihar, a residential zone of East Delhi located just east of the Yamuna river. Two policemen were on guard at the driveway gate, and his wife and son were asleep in a bedroom on the upper floor. His son, only eight years old, always managed to find reasons why he couldn’t sleep in his own bed, and Kumar’s wife would fly into one of her famous temper tantrums if ever Kumar suggested he try harder.

He typed on. At the gate the two policemen stamped their feet to warm themselves in the cold.

All were oblivious to what was happening in the garden.

Chapter 25

Toward the rear of the house was a vegetable and herb garden managed by Mrs. Kumar. In one corner was a manhole topped by a solid cast-iron cover. The manhole cover received a little nudge from below and, once it had popped up, was gently pushed to one side.

An intruder dressed in black protective clothing — gloves, boots, and helmet — emerged. On his back was a rucksack containing the tools of his trade. He headed to the service entrance of the house that opened into the kitchen. He tried the door. Locked.

He removed his helmet, boots, and gloves and deposited them near the door. Pulling out a pair of surgical gloves from his rucksack, he snapped them on and removed a lock-picker’s tool containing the twelve most commonly used picks. Choosing two of the twelve, he unlocked the door in less than a minute.

He tiptoed into the kitchen in his socks. Empty. Kumar’s servants had retired for the night. He reached into his bag, first for the balaclava and then, when that was fitted, his hypodermic syringe. Then he crossed to nudge open the door, seeing Kumar hunched over his computer, his back to the doorway.

But the hinges were old, and the door squeaked as it opened.

Chapter 26

Kumar swiveled in his chair, irritated, expecting to see his wife, son, a member of staff or security — an unwelcome presence, interrupting his train of thought.

But it was none of those. The figure in the doorway was dressed in black, complete with balaclava covering all but his eyes, and his nose and lips that protruded obscenely through the mouth hole. And for a second, frozen by shock, Kumar dithered, unable to decide whether to scream for help or make a dash for the panic button, when what he should have done was both at the same time. The intruder lurched forward. At that moment Kumar saw what he held. A hypodermic syringe, whose needle was jabbed into his neck.

And for Kumar, the lights went out.

When he regained consciousness it was to find that he’d been duct-taped to his office chair and moved to the other side of the desk. The man in black stood before him, still wearing his balaclava. Using a flashlight, the intruder checked Kumar’s pupils and then stepped back, satisfied, his eyes gleaming in the eye holes of the balaclava, his bulging lips wet.

“I injected you with etorphine, an opioid possessing three thousand times the analgesic potency of morphine,” he said. “I find it very useful indeed. However, I’m not going to give you the pleasure of dying while you’re asleep. No, you must be fully awake.”

The attacker was disguising his voice, yet there was something familiar about it.

“Who are you?” managed Kumar. He was wondering if there’d been enough noise to rouse his sleeping family. Probably not. He was too weak to scream now. The intruder was clearly no madman. He gave every indication of having a well-thought-out plan. It was this more than anything that terrified Kumar. Here he was in a house surrounded by staff and security and yet he was going to die.

But not yet.

“Who are you?” he repeated. “I know you, don’t I? If you’re going to kill me then why not reveal yourself to me? Tell me what you want.”

“Tell you what I want? Very well. I want you, who has done so much taking, to give.”

“What are you talking about, ‘give’? Give what?”

“I’ll show you.” The attacker turned to reach into a small rucksack, retrieving a pair of blood bags, each attached to a length of surgical hose and a needle. He arranged the bags on the floor at Kumar’s feet. It was only then that Kumar realized his arms had been duct-taped a certain way, palms upward, like a man offering a peace settlement.

The only light in the room was the glow of the laptop screen. In the gloom of his office Kumar looked down to see his attacker peering up at him, and he gazed into the man’s eyes hoping to see some shred of mercy or pity, but found none.

“Please don’t do this,” he whimpered. “I’m a very powerful man. There is so much I can do for you. Name it. Name your price.”

“I have already named my price, Honorable Minister for Health and Family Welfare. I have already named it. You are about to pay it. You ask if there is anything you can do for me — the answer is no, you have already done enough. You are corrupt and venal and you have done enough.”

The intruder rose, and in his hand he held one of the needles. Kumar’s struggles were futile as the intruder used his index and middle fingers to tap up a vein in Kumar’s left forearm. The radial artery. In went the first needle. Blood flowed along the opaque medical tube and began to fill the bag below.

“Please...”

But the man in black was not listening. He was now holding the other needle, repeating the process in the other arm.

“Are you feeling your heart rate increasing?” he said, and drew over a second chair in order to sit opposite Kumar and watch the show. Kumar could indeed feel his heart beating rapidly, suddenly accompanied by a clammy sensation.

“You will now feel dizzy,” said the man in black.

Again, that voice. Kumar recognized the voice.

“Soon you will turn pale. Then shortness of breath will kick in. Once your blood pressure has dropped far enough, you will lose consciousness. Anywhere between twenty and thirty minutes’ time.”

Kumar watched helplessly as the man in black moved over to dismiss the screensaver of his laptop and read the letter on his screen. “Very interesting,” he said after some moments. “Very interesting indeed.”

And then he deleted the letter. Next he began opening other documents, reading emails, pleased at what he learned.

Ten minutes passed. The only sound in the room was Kumar’s whimpering, and even that began to fade as he felt his strength recede. As the blood was taken from him so was the will to live, as though his spirit and soul were being taken too. Suddenly he was gripped by a desire to say sorry for everything he had done, but knew the sudden need for what it was — a hypocritical, self-serving reaction to his imminent death. A need to salve his conscience.

His eyelids began to flutter. His blood flowed into the bags more slowly now. With it went hope. With it went everything he had ever been or ever would be. With it came the end.

And then, just as he was about to die, the man in black leaned forward in his chair, took hold of the balaclava from the bottom, and peeled it up over his face.

The last word Kumar ever said was “You.”

Chapter 27

The bell kept ringing. It was a big brass bell splashed in blood. And it was clanging because a swaying corpse was suspended from it.

Shut up, thought Santosh, but the bell kept clanging. Louder than ever.

It took a few more minutes for him to realize he’d been having another nightmare. With a gasp, he pulled himself from its claws, reaching for his glasses on the nightstand. He put them on and then saw the time on his bedside clock. Six in the morning, and the bell in his nightmare was really the ringing of his cell phone. He took the call. Neel.

“Nikhil Kumar is dead,” said Neel. “Just got the news.”

“Murdered?” asked Santosh.

“Let’s put it this way: the circumstances are highly suspicious,” replied Neel.

Santosh felt a headache lurking behind his eyes. There was throbbing in his head. While working in Mumbai, he had used to drink himself into a stupor before crashing out on the couch. Rehab had advised him to take sedatives instead, and in place of the whisky hangover he had one from the sedatives. At least the whisky had been enjoyable.

“I’ll meet you there in half an hour,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “Have you informed Nisha?”

Chapter 28

The crime-scene unit was at the house, but temporarily too preoccupied to register Private entering. In keeping with the Sherlock Holmes maxim of hiding in plain sight, the three investigators simply walked in as though they had a perfect right to be there, and at their head, Santosh crossed the entrance hall and entered the downstairs office quickly, knowing that despite what Holmes said, it wouldn’t be long before they were challenged.

The sight in the office brought him up short. In the midst of the scene-of-crime officers in protective suits and masks was the victim, Nikhil Kumar. Wearing elegant pajamas, he’d been taped to a chair but his head lolled on his chest and by the look of him — his skin a grotesque chalky color — he had been drained of blood.

According to Neel — in other words, according to Neel’s contact, Ash — Kumar’s wife had discovered her husband’s body early in the morning. Not finding him in the bedroom, she had assumed he would be asleep on the couch in his study. She had brewed him a mug of tea and carried it into the study, only to be greeted by his exsanguinated corpse.

Neel and Nisha entered the room behind Santosh. The investigators were paying them more attention now, exchanging puzzled glances. A challenge was imminent, Santosh knew, and he moved forward to inspect the corpse, noting the way in which the arms had been bound, not to mention the pinpricks that indicated where the blood had been taken. At the same time he ever-so-casually brushed the laptop on the desk to get rid of the screensaver, but the screen was blank. That’s odd, he thought. Laptop on, but no document, no web page showing.

“Excuse me...” said a SOCO.

But then from the doorway came the raised voice of Sharma: “Who the fuck allowed you inside?”

Santosh turned to see the corpulent, red-faced figure of the police chief.

“Why?” asked Santosh. “Is this your house?” He had no plans to reveal that it was Ash who’d tipped off Neel about Kumar’s death. Ash stood beside Sharma and Santosh could see the nervousness on the medical examiner’s face.

“It’s a goddamn crime scene!” shouted Sharma, indignant. “I need all of you to get the fuck out of here, right now!”

At the same time, Neel snapped on his gloves and strode into the study confidently. Ash shouted after him, “Hey, you can’t go inside there. I’ll have you booked for interfering with a crime scene!”

To the uninitiated the altercation between Ash and Neel was a mere shouting match, but to those in the know — Santosh and Nisha — it was a choreographed argument that served two purposes: first, it would ensure that Sharma didn’t suspect Ash of leaking information; second, it would give Santosh time to observe the crime scene.

Santosh seized the opportunity to do a walkabout, leaving the house while Neel and Ash kept up their bickering. He looked at the main gate. A small guardhouse was located to the right of it. It would have been impossible for someone to enter with guards on duty at night. Unless it was an inside job.

He looked at the walls that surrounded the house. They were around six feet high, and solid iron spikes, each about a foot long, were grouted at the top. Glass shards had been embedded into the top surface of the wall. Thin cables ran between the iron spikes. Santosh noticed little yellow signs indicating electrified cables. Difficult for someone to clamber over the wall without doing serious damage to themselves.

He walked to the rear garden and looked at the neat little rows of herbs and vegetables that Mrs. Kumar had planted. Something was out of place. He examined the soil. In one corner it had been disturbed. Santosh gazed at it a little longer. It seemed to be a cylindrical pattern with a rounded end. The manhole cover. If it were shifted sideways, wouldn’t it create a similar pattern?

He bent down and grasped the manhole cover. He pulled and it came off easily. He removed his worn scarf and tied it to the underside handle of the cover. He then gently nudged the cover back into place.

Santosh made his way around the house, carefully observing the doors and windows. Nothing had been broken or tampered with. The intruder would have picked a lock to get inside. Which one? Front or rear? The manhole was toward the rear and the main door at the front was visible from the gatehouse. More likely that the killer had used the kitchen door.

“You have exactly five seconds to get the hell out of here before I ask my men to arrest you,” came Sharma’s voice from behind. He had noticed Santosh’s absence from the study and had stormed outside to find him.

Santosh turned. His breath bloomed in the garden. “Whoever executed this murder planned it perfectly. Lots of preparation went into it.”

“Murder? Who says it’s murder?” bawled Sharma. “Looks like suicide to me. Yes, let’s go with that.”

“He duct-taped himself to the chair?” asked Santosh.

“I don’t need your fucking help, Wagh. Now get out before I take you into custody.”

Chapter 29

“Who had motive to kill Kumar?” asked Santosh as he, Nisha, and Neel made their way to Neel’s Toyota. “Who were his enemies?”

“Every politician has hundreds,” replied Nisha. “But no one hated Kumar more than Jaswal.”

“And who were his friends? Often, real enemies may appear like friends and vice versa,” said Santosh.

Nisha took a folded piece of paper from her shirt pocket and handed it to Santosh. It was a printout of a photograph that showed Kumar with Patel and Chopra.

Chapter 30

Nisha looked at the six names on her smartphone yet again. They were the six remaining Truckomatic customers who needed to be traced. She ran a Google search on each and then she made the first call.

“Hello, could you put me through to your administration department?” she asked brightly.

“Anyone specifically?” asked the switchboard operator.

“No,” replied Nisha. “I need to discuss an insurance policy that is due for renewal on one of your company’s vehicles.”

After a few minutes of elevator music, another voice came on the line. “How can I help you?” asked the man.

“Hello, my name is Sherry,” lied Nisha. “The insurance policy on a black van owned by your company is about to expire and I was wondering if you would be interested in renewing it at a lower rate with us.”

“Black van? You mean our vanity van?”

“Yes, that’s the one,” replied Nisha. “My company can beat your current premium.”

“Do you charge extra for operating the vehicle outside city limits?”

“We usually do,” said Nisha. “But we could look at other ways to compensate for that. Is your vehicle used extensively outside Delhi?”

“Almost entirely,” replied the man. “The van is used whenever we have distant shoots, which is most of the time. It’s hardly ever in Delhi.”

Nisha repeated the process. It turned out that an airline used their van as a shuttle for their staff and it remained in service 24/7; a hotel had their van stationed in the entrance portico; and a pharmaceutical company stored theirs in Chandigarh, 250 kilometers away from Delhi.

Nisha crossed off the four companies and then turned her attention to the two names of individuals left on her list. One was a Bollywood actress. Nisha spoke to her secretary and confirmed that the customized van remained in Mumbai.

“Why did you register it in Delhi?” asked Nisha.

“Because Mumbai has lifetime tax while Delhi has annual road tax,” said the secretary. “Substantial cost saving.”

That left only one name — a “Mr. Arora.” She picked up the phone and dialed the number.

A receptionist answered saying, “Dr. Pankaj Arora’s office. May I help you?”

Chapter 31

“Who is this Dr. Pankaj Arora?” asked Santosh.

Nisha read aloud from the online biography. “Dr. Pankaj Arora, chief surgeon, Delhi Memorial Hospital. After completing his Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery... blah, blah, blah... He worked for several years as general surgeon at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, New Delhi... blah, blah, blah... currently chief surgeon of Delhi Memorial Hospital.”

She showed him a printed page, complete with shot of Arora. His dark hair was slicked back, and an ill-fitting grin revealed a large gap in his front teeth.

“Good work,” said Santosh. “This heightens my suspicions about Delhi Memorial Hospital. It’s closest to the Greater Kailash house where the bodies were discovered. Now we find that Arora’s van could have been spotted at the house. Any information on my college classmate MGT?”

“Leave it with me,” said Nisha.

Chapter 32

The role of the Irrigation and Flood Control Department was to protect Delhi from floods and provide drainage but, as with every other government department, it had the body of a Hummer and the engine of a lawnmower. Getting anything moving was next to impossible.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Wagh?” asked the superintendent engineer, after Santosh had made his way through a maze of corridors and bureaucrats to his office.

“I believe the drainage system of Delhi was used to access a house and commit a crime,” said Santosh, scratching his salt-and-pepper stubble. “I was wondering if you could tell me how someone might go about getting a detailed drainage map?”

The superintendent engineer opened a cabinet drawer, took out a rolled-up paper, and handed it to Santosh. “No special effort required. Anyone can get a copy of Delhi’s drainage map, for a fee.”

“And does the department maintain a record of those who paid the fee?” asked Santosh.

“Sure,” said the engineer. “But all we have is a name in a register. If someone supplied a false name, we’d have no way of knowing.”

Chapter 33

Shortly afterward, Santosh found himself at the Indian Medical Association for a meeting set up through the doctor in charge of his rehab at the Cabin in Thailand. Dr. Singh was Indian and his nephew was the president of the association.

Santosh asked directions to the president’s office and was soon making his acquaintance.

“Thank you for agreeing to meet with me. I know you’re busy,” said Santosh when the small talk had all but dried up. “So I’ll get to the point. Could you tell me more about Mangalampalli Gopalamenon Thekkaparambil?”

“The chief administrator of Delhi Memorial Hospital?” asked the president. “Sad story. Capable man. Tragic, though. Lost his only child when the boy was just nine.”

“How?”

“Wilson’s disease.”

“What is that?” asked Santosh.

“A genetic disorder,” replied the president. “Copper accumulates in the body’s tissues. It manifests as liver problems.”

“Rare?”

“Very. One in a hundred people is a carrier. The disease strikes only when both parents are carriers.”

“Is there no cure?”

“Sometimes a possible solution is a liver transplant. Unfortunately this was not an option in this case.”

“Why?” asked Santosh. “Either of the parents could have donated part of their livers, no?”

“The mother died a couple of years after childbirth,” replied the president. “The only possible course was for MGT to donate. Unfortunately he was a serious drinker on the verge of cirrhosis at that time.”

“No cadaver donations possible?”

“They waited, but sadly the boy died before an organ could be procured.”

Santosh nodded, his vision clouding a little as he thought of Isha and Pravir.

Chapter 34

Back on the street, Santosh considered hailing a cab but took a look at the traffic — the constant noise and movement, each blare on a horn signaling a near miss, a driver on the edge — and he found himself cringing away from the idea, his mind still on the accident that had killed his family.

He was back there. In the car with Isha and Pravir. He was driving and from the back, Pravir called, “Papa, look at my score!”

Pravir was playing a hand-held video game. Just a silly game. And because Santosh had pledged to be a better father, to pay more attention to his loved ones, he took his eyes off the road. Not really to look at the screen, more to simply acknowledge his son, congratulate him.

Either way, he took his eyes off the darkened, winding road for just a second, maybe not even that. But it was long enough to miss the bend.

Santosh had never been a particularly good driver. His mind was rarely “in the moment,” which, ironically enough, was part of the reason he needed to consciously pay more attention to his family. And it was the reason his reaction time was slower than it might have been.

In short, he was not the sort of driver who could afford to take his eyes off the road.

And for that he had paid: Isha and Pravir both dead, him in the hospital. For a long time after that he had walked with a limp until he’d been told that the injury was psychosomatic. He’d lost the limp; he’d kept the cane. There were psychological scars that would never heal.

So he walked, and as he did so, he thought how they had that in common, he and MGT: they had both lost their families. Both for avoidable reasons. If Santosh had not taken his eyes off the road then Isha and Pravir would be alive. If MGT had not been such a heavy drinker, then...

He stopped. Pedestrians flowed around him; one or two insults were tossed his way but he didn’t care because it was as though light had suddenly flooded his mind.

Could it be?

He fumbled for his phone, called Neel, dispensed with the pleasantries: “The bodies at Greater Kailash. Did you say there was one that was better preserved than the others?”

“Yes. Ash was due to examine it any day now.”

“Can you call him? Ask him how he’s got on?”

“He’s working. That might prove difficult for him.”

“If you wouldn’t mind,” insisted Santosh. “There’s one thing I’m desperate to learn.”

“What is it?”

“I want to know if the body still has all its internal organs.”

“I see,” said Neel, commendably unflappable. “Something tells me you already know the answer.”

“I suspect I know the answer. See if you can confirm it for me by the time I reach the office.”

Chapter 35

“Hello,” said Ash, cautiously.

“Can you talk?”

“Um, not really. I’m busy...”

Neel sensed Ash was on the move, probably finding somewhere private to talk. Sure enough, when he next spoke he sounded out of breath, hissing, “What are you doing ringing me at work?”

“Well, firstly I wanted to say how much I enjoyed the other night.”

Ash softened. “Good. I had a great time too.”

“And secondly...”

“Of course, there’s a secondly.”

“Secondly, I wanted to ask if you’d conducted the post-mortem on the intact cadaver.”

“I can’t talk about that,” hissed Ash. “The walls have ears.”

“Can you confirm something for me either way, yes or no?”

“Go on.”

“Were the organs intact?”

Ash gave a small, impressed chuckle. “No.”

“What was gone?”

There was a pause, as though Ash had waited for someone to pass in a corridor, and Neel held his breath. “Ash? Are you there?” he prompted. “Which organs were missing?”

Ash cleared his throat. “All,” he said.

Chapter 36

“Well?”

Santosh had burst onto the top floor of Private, cane tucked beneath his arm as he threaded his way between desks to where Nisha and Neel stood waiting.

“Ash had conducted the examination,” said Neel, relishing the moment.

The end of the cane swung his way. “And?” said Santosh. His eyes glittered. His blood was up.

“All the vital organs were missing. All of them.”

“I knew it.”

Santosh was as close to happy or excited as Neel or Nisha had ever seen him, and they couldn’t resist trading a quick eyebrows-raised look. In a second, though, their boss had switched back to stern-mentor mode, targeting Nisha this time.

“What do you think? Tell me what conclusions you draw.”

Her head dropped to think. “Some sort of donation thing?” she said, uncertainly. “Kumar drained of blood. This body missing organs. Like they’re being... harvested.”

“It could be, couldn’t it?” said Santosh. “It could be that our friend Dr. Arora is doing the harvesting. Now, what I want to do is find out whether there have been any similar murders. Something with a similar MO. Neel, while I’m a big believer in using the power of contacts and shoe leather, how would you feel about hacking into the National Crime Records Bureau?”

Neel felt fine about it, and as Santosh waited for the hack to begin he reflected that his belief in nurturing contacts had been inextricably linked with his drinking. Was it a coincidence that giving up booze had left him willing to explore more modern, expedient methods of information gathering?

He’d have liked to think it was a coincidence. But he knew deep down it wasn’t.

Santosh and Nisha stood at Neel’s back as he worked a laptop and desktop unit at the same time, using the laptop to launch a formal, untargeted attack on the system, the other for a more specific search.

Nisha had her arms folded across the front of her leather jacket, one foot behind the other. “Look at him go,” she teased. “Who knew we had such a nerd at Private, eh, Santosh?”

Her smile faded as Santosh looked admonishingly at her over the top of his glasses and then returned to staring into space. Neel threw her a quick look over his shoulder, eyebrows raised, and the two shared a smile. Their boss’s epic sense-of-humor fails were a shared confidence, the kind of thing they talked about in hushed tones whenever he was absent.

“Right,” said Neel after a few more moments. “Exactly what is it you’d like me to look for?”

Santosh clicked back to the present. “Let’s start with murders committed within the past six months.”

“This is Delhi. That will be a lot.”

“I haven’t finished. Murders committed within the past six months in which... parts have been removed.”

“Parts?”

“Body parts. Bits of the body. Trophies. Some piece of the victim that the killer removed and took away with him.”

Neel consulted his laptop. “We have approximately two minutes before they kick us out altogether,” he said.

“You’d better work quickly then,” said Nisha, nudging him with her elbow.

Neel scooted slightly to the right, chair wheels drumming the boards. His fingers danced on the keyboard of the desktop. Lines of information appeared. As one, Nisha and Santosh leaned forward to look more closely.

“There’s nothing,” said Neel. “Correction, there is something. Here.”

He pointed at the screen, indicating a brief murder report. The victim’s name was Rahul. He had been found in the bath.

Both eyeballs missing.

Chapter 37

The journalist Ajoy Guha leaned back in his swivel chair in the DETV editorial office, sucking contentedly on a lozenge. On shelves behind him were neatly organized files, each containing in-depth investigations into various stories. It was well known that Guha required his team to devote hundreds of hours of research before broadcasting a show on any given topic. The sole personal item on the shelves was a photograph of a woman.

He addressed his team, who had assembled in the office, some standing, some perched on the edges of desks. “The suicide of Kumar is a major story,” he said. “But we need an angle. Something unique to Carrot and Stick.”

“How can we be sure that it was suicide?” asked one of the team members.

“Very good,” said Guha. “Let’s look into that.”

The subordinate glowed with pride.

“There’s something I think you should see,” said a research assistant, passing Guha a bunch of papers.

“What are these?” he asked.

“Financial statements of Surgiquip India Limited,” she replied.

“Patel’s company?”

She nodded. “One of the largest investors in Surgiquip is an anonymous fund based in the Bahamas. Some of the directors of the fund are known friends of Kumar. There’s every reason to believe that the money invested in Surgiquip also included Kumar’s money. Effectively, Kumar was Patel’s partner and, given his official position, was in a position to favor Surgiquip.”

Guha rolled the lozenge inside his mouth as he contemplated the implications of that information. “Let’s find an excuse to get Patel into the studio,” he said. “We can rip apart those connections once he’s in our hands.”

“Do you think that’s wise?” asked the show’s producer. “Some of these companies are our lifeblood. Without advertising bucks, we’re nothing.”

“These people need to be exposed,” said Guha. “You can be either a news channel or a profitable business. You can’t be both.”

Chapter 38

Looking more closely into Rahul’s death, the first thing Santosh had discovered was that there were very few details available. Contacts in the force had supplied him with a time of death — sometime between 9 p.m. and midnight — and Rahul’s occupation — shift worker — and that was it.

Now he stood in front of the late Rahul’s front door, an apartment locked and sealed with a length of police tape, and was about to let himself in when a door to the left opened and the face of a elderly neighbor appeared.

“Can I help you?” she asked, with such an admirable lack of suspicion that he opted to come clean.

“I’m a private investigator,” he said. He indicated the sealed door. “I’m looking into the death of your neighbor.”

She held herself as though to stop herself from shuddering. “Awful business.”

“Would you be willing to speak to me about it?” He shifted his weight onto his walking stick. Totem or not, it had its uses: weapon, pointer, putting elderly ladies at ease.

“You’d better come in,” she said.

In a few moments they were sitting together, drinking tea, the neighbor telling him what scant details she knew. No, she had never noticed anything unusual. No strange guests or visitors. Nothing like that. No, she hadn’t heard any odd noises. He was a good neighbor. Quiet. Kept himself to himself. Hardly ever there.

“He was a shift worker of some kind, wasn’t he?” asked Santosh.

“He worked the hospitals. A porter, I think. Orderly. Nothing medical. Nothing proper, you know. But even so, all these jobs need doing, don’t they?”

“Yes, they do,” agreed Santosh, thinking that those jobs weren’t usually well paid enough for ordinary hospital porters to be able to afford apartments. Not unless they were making something on the side. “Which hospitals did he work at, do you know?”

“No. In actual fact, I think he worked at them all at one time or another. Certainly I saw him in a number of different uniforms.”

From the inside pocket of his jacket, Santosh took Arora’s bio and showed it to the neighbor. “Did you ever see this man?”

She took a good look then shook her head. “Do you think he did it?”

“It’s just a theory at this stage.”

“What a horrible thing to do to someone,” she said, hugging herself once again.

“The eyeballs?”

“Well, not just that. The ice too.”

Santosh’s teacup rattled as he replaced it on the table. “I beg your pardon. Did you say ‘ice’?”

“Yes. When he was found — it was a colleague who found him — there were empty bags of ice in the bathroom. It had melted by that time, of course, but they think the bath was full of ice.”

Ice, thought Santosh. Like you might use to preserve an organ for transplant.

Back in the hallway — thanks made and the neighbor installed in front of the TV — Santosh broke the tape, picked the lock, and let himself into Rahul’s apartment.

It was not dissimilar to his own in terms of layout and lack of furniture. Whoever Rahul had been in life, he was not a homebody; the single armchair, TV, and coffee table in the front room suggested a person unaccustomed to spending much time in his own abode.

Along one wall was a low bookshelf; the few books on it were beach reads and bestsellers, the usual suspects. Meanwhile in the kitchen were exactly the kind of single-man ingredients and utensils that Santosh had in his own home.

Santosh thought back to Jack breaking into his apartment. Both locks had been easily picked. Had Rahul been at home when the killer had entered? Had he been asleep when the killer had filled the bath with ice? Surely not.

What did he do? Did he let himself in, fill the bath, then wait? Or did he catch Rahul unawares, knock him out, then fill the bath with ice?

Rahul was a shift worker, so it was entirely likely that he could have been asleep early, but even so.

“He would have had to bring his own ice,” Santosh said aloud. “He brought his own ice, filled the bath, and waited for Rahul to arrive. Which meant he knew Rahul’s movements. He knew what time Rahul was arriving home.”

Which meant he was targeting Rahul specifically.

Chapter 39

Nigambodh Ghat was located along the banks of the Yamuna river toward the rear of the historic Red Fort. On any given day, more than sixty corpses would be burned on Hindu cremation pyres at Nigambodh Ghat.

There was high security that day. The cremation of Nikhil Kumar was a state funeral. An honor guard in dark green turbans and red plumage led Kumar’s grief-stricken wife and son to the brick platform. His body, wrapped in homespun cloth, was placed in the sandalwood pyre, his head pointing south, as hymns from Hindu scriptures were recited. His son sprinkled water from the Ganges on the pyre before lighting it.

Among the mourners at the funeral were Jaswal, Chopra, Roy, senior bureaucrats, businessmen including Patel, and politicians from across the spectrum. Jaswal stood respectfully with his head bowed down as the flames consumed Kumar’s body. He had worn a white turban because white is the color of mourning.

Santosh had also managed to reach the venue but he chose to remain slightly away from the VIP crowd, clutching his walking stick.

As the ceremony drew to a close, Jaswal walked to his car that was part of a larger security convoy of five vehicles. He nodded to Santosh as he approached the car and Santosh got inside the vehicle along with him. Jaswal pressed a button to activate the glass screen between them and the driver.

“I think we may be dealing with something big,” said Santosh once they had privacy.

“Like what?”

“I’d rather not say at the moment.”

“Does it involve Chopra?”

“In exactly what capacity I’m unsure.”

“Give me a straight answer to a straight question, Santosh. Does it involve Chopra?”

“Yes,” admitted Santosh, stopping short of telling Jaswal that the Lieutenant Governor’s name was associated with the house at Greater Kailash. He felt a surge of irritation at the gratified look on Jaswal’s face. “This isn’t a game of political chess, Chief Minister. People are dying.”

Beneath his immaculate turban, Jaswal reddened. “Spare me the self-righteous act, Santosh. You were employed for a reason.”

“Give me leave to investigate fully. Perhaps we’ll both get the result we want,” said Santosh, hiding his distaste.

Jaswal shrugged. “Very well. Consider yourself given free rein; I’ll discuss the financial arrangements with Jack.”

Satisfied, Santosh left — and, not for the first time, he asked himself if Jaswal knew way more than he was admitting.

Chapter 40

The killer stirred a cube of sugar into his tea. Scalding hot was the way his mother had used to make it. He never could understand how people could enjoy lukewarm tea. He sipped it and allowed his thoughts to wander back to that eventful day that had changed his life forever.

His old man had been a drunk but that hadn’t been the end of it. The bastard had been a vicious wife-beater too. Whenever he’d return home at night he would use the boy’s mother as a punching bag. Though the poor woman had found creative excuses to explain her bruises to neighbors, she’d fooled no one.

It was a dark and scary world that the boy had been born into. In fact, it had been a miracle he was born at all. His mother had been beaten so badly when she was pregnant that the boy had been born a month early.

One night his mother had been telling him stories from the Mahabharata when the asshole had staggered in, loaded out of his mind. As soon as he’d seen his wife he’d swung her around and twisted her arm behind her back. She’d screamed in agony. The boy had charged at him but he’d swung his arm crazily, catching the young boy on his lower lip, which had begun to bleed profusely. The boy had slunk away as he’d watched the Neanderthal torment his mother. Her wails had been pitiful, like those of a tortured animal.

The boy had run into the kitchen to grab something with which to attack his father. A gunny bag had been lying on the floor, tied up with jute rope. He’d untied the rope and rushed over to where his drunk father had fallen on top of his wife, about to pass out. The fall had cracked open his mother’s skull and a pool of blood had formed around her head.

The boy had been able to see she wasn’t breathing. Her open eyes had been unseeing. And although the boy would later cry an ocean of tears as he mourned his mother, what he’d felt in that moment had been fury. As though on autopilot, with no mind or will of his own, he’d slipped the rope around his father’s neck and pulled. The hulk had thrashed about wildly but the boy had been strong.

When his old man had stopped flailing and gone still, the boy had removed the rope and replaced it on the gunny bag. He’d climbed on the countertop to fetch a small tin box his mother kept on a high shelf in the kitchen cabinet. It had contained a little money she’d saved doing odd jobs like sewing and cooking for others. It hadn’t been much. About two hundred rupees. The boy had pocketed it.

He had then run all the way to the railway station and boarded the first train that was leaving. He’d hidden in corners and toilets and beneath bunk beds in order to avoid the ticket collector, and hadn’t gotten off the train until it reached its destination — the holy city of Varanasi.

He had no longer been a boy. He had become a killer.

Chapter 41

Santosh sat at home, watching the news but not really watching it. His bottle of whisky — as talismanic to him as his cane — rested on the upside-down box in front of him, still bearing Jack’s soap mark; his cane leaned against the threadbare sofa on which he rested, not so much sitting as slumped, and, as ever, he was lost in thought.

This case. It was most... perplexing. Everything seemed to add up and yet there were so many unanswered questions.

The news was almost over, and though there had been much coverage of Kumar’s apparent suicide and the day’s funeral there was still no word of the bodies found at Greater Kailash.

“People are dying, but nobody seems to care,” Santosh said to the room. A chill wind that rattled the window and the sound of distant Delhi traffic were the only replies.

Sighing, his eyes went back to the screen, where the news had ended and Ajoy Guha’s Carrot and Stick was just starting. There sat Ajoy Guha, looking exactly as he had at the press briefing the other day, while the topic scrolling at the bottom of the screen was “INDIA’S HEALTH CARE SECTOR: BOOM OR DOOM?” The camera panned across Guha’s guests — and suddenly Santosh was sitting up straight.

One of them was Dr. Pankaj Arora, the chief surgeon of the Delhi Memorial Hospital. He was joined by Samir Patel, the chairman of Surgiquip, and Jai Thakkar, the CEO of a large insurance company called ResQ.

“Well, how about that?” Santosh said to himself, reaching for his phone and scrolling to Nisha’s number. “Nisha?”

“Yes, boss.” He could hear Maya playing in the background.

“Are you watching Carrot and Stick?”

“I could be.”

“Put it on if you don’t mind.”

Moments later she came back. “You do realize I’ve had to turn off cartoons for this?”

“I’m sorry. I wouldn’t disturb you if it wasn’t important. Please pass my apologies to Maya. I’ll make it up to her.”

“She says she wants to see that fancy sword you keep in your cane.”

“Tell her it’s a deal.”

“Okay, well, back to the matter at hand. Who am I looking at?”

“The one on the left with the slicked-back hair.”

“Oh my God, that’s Arora.”

“The very same. Next to him is Samir Patel, chairman of Surgiquip.”

“Dodgy dealer, friend of Chopra.”

“Allegedly.”

“And the third guy?”

“That’s Jai Thakkar, the CEO of a large insurance company called ResQ.”

They stayed on the line and watched as Guha fired questions at his guests. Santosh wondered whether this was an Ajoy Guha program at all. No one seemed to be shouting or fighting.

Arora was speaking. “We make the erroneous assumption that health care is an industry,” he said pompously. “Ultimately, health care is a humanitarian service. Our objective must necessarily be to provide the healing touch to millions of Indians.”

Thakkar interjected in a high-pitched nasal voice: “But how will that ever happen if we do not have world-class hospitals and infrastructure? Spending on health care is just about five percent of India’s GDP. That’s abysmally low. We have a system that is patchy, with underfunded and overcrowded hospitals and clinics, and woefully inadequate rural coverage. It is only private participation that can overcome these limitations.”

And thus allow your private corporations to make millions, thought Santosh.

“Would you agree with that view, Mr. Patel?” asked Guha.

“We at Surgiquip have been working hand in hand with the government to upgrade Indian health care infrastructure,” said Patel. A ruby-encrusted Marte Omas pen sparkled in his shirt pocket.

Guha rolled the lozenge in his mouth, getting ready for the kill. “When you say you have been working ‘hand in hand’ with the government, are you referring to the fact that the late Health Minister, Kumar, was an investor in Surgiquip?” he asked.

Santosh was suddenly all ears. He hadn’t seen that coming. Guha was famous for throwing curveballs.

Patel’s startled expression was captured on camera as he absorbed the revelation. The vermillion mark on his forehead seemed to levitate as his eyebrows traveled north. He had no option but to answer. “That is a preposterous insinuation,” he replied.

“So are you denying his involvement in your company?” asked Guha.

“Nikhil Kumar and I were on the same page regarding the need to upgrade and improve our creaking medical infrastructure. Our relationship was entirely based on that common objective.”

“You’ve still not answered my question,” said Guha, staring into Patel’s eyes like a criminal lawyer. “Were you business partners?”

“This program was meant to discuss the overall condition of the Indian health care sector, not one specific company,” said Patel, his face reddening with anger at the persistent line of questioning by Guha.

“The nation wants to know whether the Health Minister could have been killed as part of a deeper conspiracy in the health care sector,” said Guha. “That’s why I must ask you yet again whether you were partners.”

“It is evident to me that this is about you scoring a few cheap debating points in your quest for ratings,” said Patel. “I shall not dignify the question by answering it.”

“Did you have a falling out with the Health Minister that eventually resulted in his death?” asked Guha, his fist bobbing up and down as he slammed the desk.

“You will hear from my lawyers when I sue you for libel!” shouted Patel, as Arora and Thakkar looked on. Thakkar seemed relieved that he was not in the firing line. Arora watched the scene with a steely hardness in his eyes. Patel stood up. Thakkar shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

“Where are you going, Mr. Patel?” asked Guha. “The show is not yet concluded.”

Patel ripped off his collar microphone. “You’re right, Mr. Guha. The show isn’t over yet,” he said as he stormed out of the studio.

“Nisha,” said Santosh, switching off the TV at the same time, “could you pick me up tomorrow? I’d like to pay Greater Kailash a visit.”

“Had a brainwave, boss?”

“We’ll see. Nice and early, please.”

He ended the call, about to return to his thoughts when something occurred to him: for the first time in as long as he could remember, he had not felt tempted by the bottle.

Chapter 42

She was not a particularly fast driver — like most newcomers to the city, she found the Delhi traffic a little intimidating — but even so, Nisha drove slowly out of respect for her passenger. From the corner of her eye she could see him staring straight ahead, impassive, his cane held tightly. The whites of his knuckles the only sign of any inner turmoil.

“So, what’s prompted this visit, then?” she asked, hoping to break the ice.

“I have a theory,” he said enigmatically. “Bear with me on it, would you, Nisha? All will — or will not — become clear when we have a look at the house. Did you notice anything unusual about it the other day?”

“Well, apart from the police presence, I can’t say I did. At least we’ll have the advantage of their absence this time around.”

“You didn’t get a good look, then?”

She wondered if he was questioning her professionalism. Feeling herself tighten a little, she replied defensively: “The terms of the investigation were a little different then.”

“Quite, quite,” agreed Santosh hurriedly, putting her at ease. “Much has changed in the meantime. Much of it thanks to your investigation, Nisha. Private is fortunate to have you.”

Equilibrium restored, the two of them lapsed into silence once more, and Nisha watched the road as Santosh stared straight ahead, occasionally gazing out of the passenger window at red stone buildings flashing by, the vibrancy of Delhi just a fingertip away.

The silence — such as it was, assaulted by a constant deluge of activity from outside — was companionable, but even so, Santosh broke it, clearing his throat. “How are things at home, Nisha?”

She turned left, using the opportunity to control a sudden heartache. “Maya misses her father, of course. It’s difficult for us to come to terms with his death. I don’t suppose we ever will.”

Santosh nodded.

There was a pause.

“Tell me it gets easier, Santosh. Reassure me of that at least.”

“It does. It really does. When you learn to leave behind all the guilt and regrets, the what-ifs and what-might-have-beens. It gets easier. It’s just that getting rid of those things is the hard part. Choosing how to do it is the trick.” He gave a dry, humorless chuckle. “I can certainly help you when it comes to choosing the wrong methods.”

Nisha remembered her boss stinking of whisky first thing in the mornings. Yes, Santosh knew all about self-medication. “I have Maya,” she said. “She’s what keeps me going. Her and work, of course.”

“As long as the balance is right,” said Santosh, and Nisha felt a little stab of guilt in return. They both knew full well that the balance was rarely right.

By now they had arrived at Greater Kailash. The house was just as Nisha remembered it, except of course the police were no longer there, just plastic incident tape that fluttered across the front door and bordered a hole in the front garden.

“Here’s where I spoke to the neighbor,” said Nisha when they had pulled to the curb and stepped out, and were standing on the sidewalk.

“Strange comings and goings,” mused Santosh, looking up and down what was a thoroughly unremarkable street. “A black van registered to Dr. Arora. The coincidences are piling up. And yet they refuse to form a cohesive, logical conclusion. Come on.”

He led the way to the house, where they made their way through the front gate and into the garden.

“I didn’t get this far before,” Nisha said with a trace of apology.

“It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter,” insisted Santosh with a raised finger. “Our remit was different then. Besides—” But then he stopped. “Oh, that’s interesting.”

He was heading off the path that led to the front door and onto the grass. Then stopped and knelt down.

Once again, Nisha was half surprised, half amused at how sprightly Santosh was, despite the cane he always carried.

“Look,” he said. And Nisha found her attention directed to a bald patch in the grass.

“Yes?”

“Something’s been taken from here.”

Santosh stood. His head twitched this way and that as though he was looking for something in the overgrown garden, and then he was setting off with great strides toward the far corner. There they found another bald patch, similar to the first.

“Something has been taken from here,” he repeated. He pointed with the cane from one empty patch to another. “My hunch is we’ll find two, maybe more of these, and that they are — or were — some kind of surveillance, security device.”

“A laser mesh trap.”

“Possibly.”

“But one that’s been removed.”

“Exactly.” Santosh’s eyes sparkled. “And do you know what? I’d bet my life that it was disguised to look like something different, a sprinkler or something. That girl the neighbor saw running away, who fell through the subsidence and into the cellar below — she and her boyfriend presumably triggered the warning system. Some kind of cleanup team came and removed the equipment.”

“Why not remove the bodies?”

“No time. The neighbor had already called the police — the regular police.”

Then Nisha said, “Something’s occurred to me.”

Santosh looked at her. “Let’s hear it.”

It was her turn to lead him across the grass to where the incident tape marked out the courting couple’s unfortunate entrance into the basement. They peered into the basement below but there was nothing to see. Forensics had taken everything; crime-scene cleanup teams had done the rest. Not a single shred of evidence would be left.

But then, that wasn’t where Nisha and Santosh’s interest lay.

“They went through here, yes?” Nisha said. “And given that the neighbor saw the girl’s clothes in disarray, we can be reasonably sure what they were up to at the time.”

“Yes.”

“Well, why here? Why outside on a cold night?”

Santosh nodded almost happily. “Of course, Nisha, of course. A neglected, near-derelict, and very obviously empty house — they would have tried to get in first.”

“Break a window, pick a lock.”

Together they strode to the front door of the house and within seconds they spotted that almost out of sight, close to the door, was a clean space. Something removed.

“A mailbox, perhaps?” said Santosh. “Or some kind of entry panel disguised to look like a mailbox. Our libidinous friends tried to get in, failed, so found a spot over there. It was just dumb luck and no doubt the fact that the acid had weakened the structure that they fell through. Otherwise, this was a virtually impregnable facility.”

“Was this what you were expecting?” asked Nisha.

“Something like this, yes. Something to confirm my suspicion that we’re dealing with a large conspiracy here, an outfit that is evidently well funded and blessed with top-level access.”

“And their business?”

“Organ harvesting.”

They looked at one another, both knowing what the other was thinking: this was big and Private was getting close to being out of its depth. They hurried back to the car, both glowing with the thrill of their discoveries.

“There are still so many imponderables,” said Santosh. “Why was Kumar killed?”

“Because he was getting in the way. Whatever this outfit is doing, the Health Minister was either blocking it, threatening it, or wanting a slice — and so he paid with his life.”

“He certainly did. Drained of blood like that. But why like that, do you think? Why in such an attention-grabbing manner? Why not just a bullet in the back of the head?”

“As a grisly warning to those in the know.”

“It could be,” said Santosh. “It could be.”

Nisha started the engine. “So we have a name: Dr. Pankaj Arora. Isn’t that enough to take to Jaswal? Or the police?”

“Not until we can be sure who’s involved and who’s not,” sighed Santosh. “It could be that Jaswal is involved at some level.”

“We need to put a stop to it, Santosh,” warned Nisha. “People are dying.”

But Santosh shook his head, resolute. “I understand, and we must work quickly. But even more people will die if we reveal our findings prematurely. There’s no point in standing on the tail of the snake, Nisha. We need to cut off its head.”