Private India

Chapter 38

2006

SANTOSH REMEMBERED THAT week vividly. It was impossible to forget.

Seven bomb blasts had taken place during a period of eleven minutes in Mumbai starting at 6:25 p.m. The bombs had been set off on trains running along the Western Line of the railway network and had gone off in the vicinity of suburban railway stations — Matunga, Mahim, Bandra, Khar, Jogeshwari, Bhayander, and Borivali. Pressure cookers had been used to increase the afterburn of the thermobaric explosions. During those eleven minutes, two hundred and nine people had been killed and over seven hundred injured.

The Prime Minister had called a high-level security meeting at his residence. In attendance were the Home Minister, National Security Advisor, Home Secretary, and Chiefs of the Intelligence Agencies. Accompanying the chief of RAW to that meeting was a much younger and less wise Santosh.

“Around three hundred and fifty people have been detained for questioning,” the Home Minister informed the Prime Minister.

“But do we have any serious leads?” he asked.

“The Indian Mujahideen is our strongest suspect,” said the RAW chief. “Telephone intercepts show a very high volume of calls between India and Pakistan during the period leading up to the blasts.”

“But can we be sure of Pakistani involvement?”

“May I say something, sir?” asked Santosh. The Prime Minister looked at the young man, paused for a moment, and then nodded. Santosh avoided eye contact with his boss, who had specifically instructed him to remain quiet throughout the meeting.

“Sir, the forensic science laboratory has carried out chromatography and has confirmed that a mixture of RDX and ammonium nitrate was used for the bombings. We are also fairly certain that all the explosives were planted at Churchgate railway station, the starting point of all the affected trains.”

“What is your point?” asked the Prime Minister.

“My point is that the presence of RDX indicates that there would have been some support from the ISI.”

The meeting at the Prime Minister’s residence lasted less than an hour. It wound up when an email was received by a TV channel claiming that sixteen terror operatives had been used to plant the bombs and that a local subgroup of the Indian Mujahideen had claimed responsibility.

A memorial service was held a week later in Mumbai at 6:25 p.m. local time, the exact moment that the blasts had started. The President of India raised his hand to his forehead in salute and led a two-minute silence as candles and wreaths were placed at all the affected railway stations. Santosh was at Bandra railway station at that time, his head bowed in silence.

In front of him was a crowd of people who had gathered to pay their respects to the victims. A little boy ran from his father’s grip and was about to fall from the platform onto the tracks when a young woman in uniform managed to catch him.

“Thank you — a million times,” said the grateful father to Nisha as Santosh looked on.

“Listen to your dad,” she said to the young boy. “He loves you. Just ask an orphan and she will tell you how empty life can be.”

Chapter 39

Today, school was out. The ring-round system had been implemented and the girls told to stay at home. Those who’d slipped through the net had turned up to find a notice on the school gates — and beyond the gates police cars littering the drive. And perhaps, if they looked very carefully, the black Honda Civics of the Private India team.

Inside the school, Santosh took a deep breath, leaned on his cane, and stared at the body on the bed. Nisha stood by his side, waiting for her boss to speak, for the cogs of his mind to start turning. Cops moved around them, Mubeen directing them. Camera flashes strobed the room.

“Name is Elina Xavier,” said Nisha by his side, “she’s the school principal. Or was.”

“His fourth victim,” said Santosh, almost to himself.

“He’s really getting a taste for it, isn’t he?”

“No,” said Santosh, almost sharply, “this has nothing whatsoever to do with a taste for killing. The deaths themselves... look at it...”

He took a step forward, indicating the body on the bed with the point of his cane. “The killer enjoys the act of killing, and I dare say it excites in him intense emotions, but he hasn’t changed his modus operandi. There is no experimental edge to them.”

She looked at him. “‘Experimental edge’?”

“If you enjoy painting, do you paint the same picture every time?” he asked her. “Does a photographer take the same photo?”

“But he doesn’t do the same thing each time,” said Nisha. “Each time the ritual changes.”

“Exactly,” said Santosh. His eyes gleamed. “But the ritual is post-mortem. The murder is the same each time. The art is in the ritual, and that is very important, Nisha. That tells us something. It tells us that we should be paying very close attention indeed to the ritual.”

“The eggs,” said Nisha.

“Indeed, the eggs. And the heat. You notice how hot it is in the room?”

Nisha nodded.

“It’s a story he’s telling us, Nisha,” said Santosh, turning to leave. “And he’ll keep on going until he reaches the end of his tale.”

Chapter 40

Jack Morgan was seated on a folding director’s chair while the director herself ran around barking instructions like a woman possessed. The movie involved a star-studded cast and Lara Omprakash was at her cajoling best, attempting to squeeze the finest performances out of her actors.

Lara had suggested that Jack drop in and spend the day with her at Film City, an integrated complex boasting several studios, recording rooms, gardens, lakes, theaters, and open ground for larger custom-built sets.

The shot neared completion. Lara shouted: “Cut! It’s a wrap,” and high-fived the executive producer.

“Let’s have some lunch while we still can,” she said to Jack, leading him away from the buzzing set to her luxurious vanity van. “I have to shoot a cameo appearance for the film and will be needed by makeup and wardrobe in a short while.”

The van had been customized for her on a truck chassis fourteen meters long that could be compressed to half the size when it was on the road. The vanity offered Lara the comfort of a lounge, kitchenette, gym, office, bedroom, and washroom.

The driver of the van — Bhosale — switched on the generator that powered the beast and asked if she needed anything. Lara tipped him and told him to go have his lunch as she and Jack settled down in the lounge. She opened the refrigerator and took out a chilled beer for Jack and an orange juice for herself. “My cook has prepared Greek salad, quiche, chicken and mayo sandwiches, and banana bread,” she said, pulling out the food and placing it on a walnut-veneered dining table.

Jack helped himself to the beer and settled into a plush leather massage chair. Lara laughed. “You always loved being massaged,” she joked.

“And you were always happy to offer the service,” retorted Jack, smiling. It was evident that the two had shared substantially more than a business relationship.

Lara put down her glass on the table and sat next to Jack on one of the arms of the massage chair. She reached over and began to knead his shoulders. Jack felt the tension in his muscles easing.

“Why didn’t you stay on with me in LA?” he asked softly.

“You knew that I would eventually leave,” replied Lara. “Mumbai, Bollywood... this is my life. Yes, what we had was great while it lasted, Jack, but I could never have made LA my life.”

She slipped into the chair until she was in Jack’s lap. He held her in his arms as she snuggled into his body. A moment later their lips were locked in a passionate kiss. Jack’s hands moved toward Lara’s breasts. Unexpectedly, she broke away, got up, adjusted her clothes, and ran her fingers through her hair.

“What happened?” he asked, slightly bewildered.

“This place isn’t private enough,” said Lara. “I feel as though we’re being watched. Let’s meet for dinner at my place where we can carry on our conversation.” She smiled.

“What conversation?” asked Jack playfully, reaching for a sandwich.

Fifteen minutes later, he was comfortably ensconced in the chauffeur-driven Mercedes-Benz that Santosh had arranged for him, and around an hour later he was back at the Private India office.

In Santosh’s room he plonked himself down on one of the visitors’ chairs. Santosh was his usual gloomy self. He began to pace around the moment Jack sat down.

“What’s the matter?” Jack asked curiously.

“Were you just with Lara Omprakash?” Santosh inquired.

“Yes. I left her about an hour ago. I’m meeting her later tonight though.”

Santosh remained quiet and contemplative. After a substantial pause he said, “I need to tell you something, Jack.”

“Sure, Santosh, what’s the matter?” asked Jack, leaning forward in his chair.

“I have just had a call from Rupesh,” replied Santosh, choosing his words carefully. “Around thirty minutes ago, Lara Omprakash was discovered — strangled — inside her vanity van.”

Chapter 41

The drive to Film City passed in silence. Jack was in shock. A part of him was simply unable to believe that Lara had been killed. He had tried to convince himself over many years that what they had was just a casual fling, but seeing her in Mumbai had awakened feelings that he could not understand. He was not in control of himself, and Jack Morgan — ex-marine — hated that.

Jack, Santosh, and Nisha reached Lara’s vanity van and saw that the police had taped off the entire area. Rupesh was standing at the door, barking orders to his men. The place was swarming with khaki-clad policemen.

Rupesh wordlessly made way for them to enter. On the sofa inside the lounge of the vanity van was the body of Lara Omprakash. She was dressed in the same clothes that she had been wearing during the morning shoot — jeans with an Indian-silk kurta top. The familiar yellow garrote was around her neck and a bluish hue in her skin at the point of strangulation was discernible. Her body had been left in a semi-upright position on the sofa.

“What’s that on her lap?” asked Santosh, his eyes scanning the crime scene almost in slow motion. “What is it?”

Nisha kneeled down near Lara’s body and looked at the object on her lap. It was a plastic baby doll. One of the hands of the doll had been tied to Lara’s with string so that it would not fall off.

What’s inside your sick, perverted mind? thought Santosh. Why was Lara Omprakash your fifth victim? Is there a predetermined order in which you are proceeding? How are you choosing them? What do these symbols mean? How do you...?

Jack’s voice brought Santosh out of his trance. “Where is the driver?” he asked. “When I was here earlier, Lara tipped him and told him to go have his lunch.”

“He’s missing,” replied Rupesh. “We’ve put out an alert to trace him.”

There was an uncomfortable pause. Turning to Santosh, Rupesh said, “I cannot allow this investigation to remain with Private India any longer.”

“Why?” asked Santosh.

“Your boss — Mr. Morgan — spent the first half of the day with Lara Omprakash,” replied Rupesh. “He was in her vanity van for quite some time before he left. I have no option but to include him as a possible suspect. That being the case, leaving this investigation with Private India would create a conflict of interest.”

“You’ve got to be joking, Rupesh,” said Santosh. “Jack was not even in India during the previous murders. He reached here only on the day of the Filmfare Awards.”

“Ah, but that isn’t true,” said Rupesh. “Information I have received from immigration authorities at Chhatrapati Shivaji Airport shows that Mr. Morgan arrived a full two days before the Filmfare Awards. In fact, he was here in town when the first murder was committed — Sunday night.”

“Is this true, Jack?” said Santosh softly.

His boss nodded silently.

“What brought you here on Sunday? And why did you keep it a secret from me?” asked Santosh.

“I’m not at liberty to discuss that at the present moment,” said Jack, staring intently and rather defiantly at Rupesh.

The policeman had a triumphant look on his face. “I shall need you to surrender your passport to me, Mr. Morgan. You are not at liberty to leave the country till such time as our investigations are complete. Is that clear?”

Jack reached inside his jacket and handed over his passport to Rupesh without demur.

“I will need all the evidence and investigation reports that you have accumulated so far in this case,” Rupesh instructed Santosh. “Where are Mubeen and Hari?”

“They’re still bagging evidence at the principal’s cottage in the girls’ school,” explained Nisha. “They should be back in the office within an hour.”

“Fine. I shall expect all information to be fully shared with my team at headquarters no later than today,” replied Rupesh, placing Jack’s passport into his pocket and simultaneously searching for something else. He was unable to find what he was looking for. Calling out to one of his constables, he barked an order.

“Bring the tobacco,” he said as he escorted the Private India team out of the van.

Chapter 42

The two men strolled along Chowpatty Beach. It was evident that they were not friends, more likely business acquaintances. Chowpatty Beach, though, was an odd choice of location for a business meeting.

Apart from Juhu Beach in the suburbs, Chowpatty had always been Mumbai’s favorite leisure area. During working hours it remained the haunt of the contentedly jobless, who would nap under the canopy of its dwarfish trees. At sunset, though, its character turned distinctly carnival-like, with children screaming for Ferris wheel spins and pony rides. There was entertainment for adults too. Pavement astrologers, palmists, and fortune-tellers would target hapless tourists and for a fee tell them whatever they wanted to hear. Monkey shows, street plays, tightrope walkers, and gymnasts displaying incredible yogic positions would take over the beach, while at the other end a row of bhelpuri shops selling Mumbai’s most famous street snack — roasted puffed rice and fried semolina, drenched in sweet-and-sour chutney — would do brisk sales as hordes of hungry visitors took time off from the drudgery of their day-to-day lives.

It was unexpected to catch sight of Santosh strolling along the beach with an unidentified man. His companion was enjoying a kulfi — a traditional Indian ice cream — on a stick. The man was neatly dressed in a short-sleeved shirt, casual cotton slacks, and soft leather loafers. He wore all the accessories of a privileged lifestyle — designer sunglasses, expensive wristwatch, and pen. Such things usually acted like magnets for the pickpockets and petty thieves that dominated the Chowpatty stretch, but this particular man would never be a target. Every beggar, performer, and pickpocket in the crowd knew that it would be foolish to target the man in question.

There was only one peculiarity that made him distinct from the rest. It was the fact that his left arm had been amputated at the elbow. The story of the man’s rise to his present position was almost the stuff of legend and the street dwellers talked of it with awe.

Escaping from a drunk and violent father in the rural heartland, he had arrived in Mumbai on a train as an eleven-year-old boy. When he had got off the train at Mumbai Central station, he had been tired, disoriented, and broke. He had spent the next couple of hours begging for food until, miraculously, a middle-aged couple had approached him. They had given him hot tea and samosas, promising him that they would help him earn a better life. Unfortunately, he had not realized that the food was drugged.

He had soon been placed in a taxi and taken to one of the municipal hospitals of Mumbai, where a doctor had been bribed to amputate his healthy arm. He had been deliberately handicapped so that he could be used as an object of pity, begging at street corners, traffic lights, and the religious sites of Mumbai. This was part of an organized racket known as the begging syndicate, and the boy spent the next five years of his life doing precisely that. At the end of each day, his handler would round up the unfortunate kids he had put on the streets and siphon off the daily take, leaving them with next to nothing.

Unlike the hundreds of other kids who were mutilated, blinded, or maimed so that they could be used in this way, this particular boy had a unique talent. He was a great team leader. He was soon able to organize all the teenage boys of his area into a cohesive group and was thus able to send their handler packing. When the bosses of the syndicate got word of this, they sent in their thugs to intimidate the kids. It was the thugs who ended up with wounds inflicted by acid-filled bulbs flung at them by the kids. The boy who had started out as a victim had himself morphed into a gang leader.

The boy, however, had remained a Robin Hood at heart. Unlike the ruthless customs of the begging syndicate, the boy’s methods included sharing fifty percent of the take with each beggar. If the weekly take was lower than average, then the beggar would have to make up the loss the following week. Repeated drops in take meant expulsion from the group and being permanently barred from those areas that they controlled. In effect, it was old-fashioned carrot-and-stick theory, a management system of incentives and disincentives. The beggars who worked in his team were not allowed access to solvents, alcohol, or charras — Afghan hashish laced with opium — whereas under the syndicate glue-sniffing, drink, and drugs had been encouraged so as to keep the kids under control.

Over the next eight years, almost all key areas of Mumbai became his territory and the beggar unwittingly turned CEO. Santosh had met him while investigating a case during his days at RAW and had cultivated him as an important resource. The well-dressed amputee — along with his team of over ten thousand beggars — now constituted Santosh’s eyes and ears in Mumbai. He was the reason that Santosh could walk the streets at any time of the day or night without having to watch his back.

Santosh silently handed over a photograph of the cap-wearing individual caught on CCTV exiting Kanya Jaiyen’s hotel room. “Could you pass that around to the boys and let me know if this chap shows up?”

The man did not look at the photograph. He simply folded it and placed it in his shirt pocket.

“Any information regarding our mutual friend?” asked Santosh.

“That rascal Rupesh has tried everything in the book to break me but he has been spectacularly unsuccessful,” said the other man, grinning broadly. “He thinks that I don’t know about his dealings on the side with Munna. But I know for a fact that Munna wants to control not only Mumbai’s drugs, gambling, liquor, and prostitution but also the city’s begging network. I ain’t ceding my territory quite that easily.”

“Rupesh is on Munna’s payroll?” asked Santosh.

“Can’t be sure, but they have met a few times,” said the young man slyly, accepting a packet of cash from Santosh. “Munna met with a man who is known to be a member of the Indian Mujahideen. My boys told me that Munna told him to fuck off... almost threw him out of his car.”

Why would an Indian Mujahideen member wish to meet Munna? wondered Santosh as he continued strolling along the beach with his amputee associate.

Chapter 43

I allow the water to run. It fills the old tub noisily. The sound of splashing reverberates through the room. I shut off the faucet once the water reaches the brim and kneel down in front of the tub, placing my hands on its edge. I lean forward and allow my face to touch the water. I allow my head to be immersed entirely. I leave my eyes open so that I can see beneath the surface and feel the sensation. Baptism!

The truth is that human lungs were never designed to squeeze oxygen from water. But for someone struggling below the surface, it is an instinctive reaction to draw water into the larynx. The irony, of course, is that the water intake only serves to cut off the supply of life-giving oxygen, thus resulting in death. Birth, death, and rebirth... baptism!

I hold my breath to prevent the water from hitting my lungs and force myself to stay immersed. There is no struggle, no panic. I am fully conscious and entirely in control. I count the seconds quietly in my head. These days I can count to two hundred and fifty without passing out. I pull my head out of the water and suck in air gratefully.

One only realizes the value of air when one is deprived of it and one only begins to value life in the face of death.

I actually feel sorry for Jack Morgan. So many raging hormones within... desperately yearning for union with the warm, inviting body of dear Lara, only to be served up her cold corpse instead. Deprivation yet again. What a tragic turn of events!

I look up at my wall. The front-page story is fixed on it with sticky tape. I am in the limelight now... that gift to the editor did the trick. Someday I will be even more celebrated and they will worship me like a deity. My mother always predicted that I would be famous.

One day a neighborhood child snatched my toy. My mother held me to her chest and calmed me down. She then made me look into her mirror. “Do you see your face?” she asked. “It’s so very beautiful. It will take you places.”

But those moments were few and far between.

Yes, Mother, I am famous now. Just like you predicted. I am living my dream... or is it your nightmare?

Chapter 44

The mood at Private India was somber. The senior team had assembled in the conference room at Jack’s request.

“First of all, I must clarify the fact that I knew Lara from her days in LA,” he began. “My initial contact with her was on a case, but once the assignment was over we ended up becoming friends and soon we were romantically involved. There was absolutely nothing I wouldn’t do to protect Lara.”

“Jack, you are embarrassing us. Not a single person in this room believes that you are a suspect,” said Santosh, absentmindedly playing with his walking cane. “The suspicion is only in Rupesh’s mind.”

“The news from the grapevine,” began Nisha, “is that Rupesh’s boss — the Mumbai Police Commissioner — put pressure on him to hand over the investigation to Private India initially even though Rupesh personally was against it.”

“That seems strange,” said Santosh. “Rupesh called the Commissioner while I waited. It was he who sought permission for us to take the lead.”

“Rupesh wanted to retain control of the investigation,” said Nisha. “It was the Commissioner who was keen to pass it on to Private India.”

“Even so, how does that make a difference?” asked Jack.

“Well,” replied Nisha, “the Commissioner has now been kicked upstairs and will soon be taking over as Director General of Police — a nonjob if ever there was one! Rupesh was simply waiting for an opportunity to snatch the case from us. With the Commissioner going, your presence in Lara’s van on the day of her murder was the perfect excuse for him to act.”

“Be that as it may,” said Jack, “this case is no longer just another investigation for Private India. This is now personal. I have lost one of my dearest friends and we are not going to give up on finding the perpetrator, irrespective of whether we’re officially on the case or not.”

“Rupesh wants us to submit all our findings and reports to him in the next few hours,” Nisha reminded them.

“And so we shall,” interjected Santosh. “Give him whatever he wants, but make sure that you have copies and backups of everything so that our own investigation can continue — with or without Rupesh’s blessing.”

“What about the evidence collected from Principal Elina Xavier’s murder scene?” asked Mubeen.

“Expedite your analysis so that you can return the physical evidence to Rupesh. As usual, retain copies of your findings,” replied Santosh, nudging Jack to get up.

He wanted their boss to return to his hotel and get some rest. Jack was staying at the Taj Mahal Hotel and Santosh’s apartment was close by, less than a ten-minute walk from the Private India office in Colaba.

The streets wore a festive look because most of Mumbai was celebrating Navratri — the Festival of Nine Nights — an extravaganza to honor the power of the Hindu mother goddess Durga. All along their route, small kiosks and makeshift temples had been erected and were decked out with flowers and bright electric lights.

“C’mon, I’ll show you what Navratri celebration is all about before I drop you off at the hotel,” said Santosh, grasping Jack’s elbow to steer him into some open ground. Hundreds of young men and women had gathered there to dance the Dandiya — a form of dancing traditionally performed during the festival. Jack noticed that the men and women, each holding two short sticks in their hands, were dancing in concentric circles. On every fourth beat the sticks would clash together in order to complement the music in the background.

In one corner of the ground a huge canopy had been constructed, under which sat a massive statue of Durga. Around the statue hundreds of worshipers sang devotional songs, danced, lit earthen lamps or incense, offered flowers, and recited prayers. The expression on Durga’s face was angry. Jack was curious despite his dazed and drained condition after Lara’s death.

“Durga, despite the terrifying imagery with which she is depicted, is not a malevolent deity,” explained Santosh patiently. “For the ancient Hindu seers she was simply the goddess of time and transformation, who could help one understand the cycle of creation, life, death, and rebirth. To the uneducated, however, she was something entirely different. The Durga of medieval times was thirsty for human blood and could only be satisfied through human or animal sacrifice.”

Santosh continued to explain the characteristics of Durga to Jack as he stood transfixed before the large statue. At that moment Santosh saw something that he had been missing all along. It sent shivers down his spine.

Chapter 45

“What’s the matter, Santosh?” asked Jack, realizing suddenly that they had been standing in front of the statue for a long time. Santosh seemed to be staring fixedly at the idol’s hands.

His heart was beating wildly as he grabbed Jack’s arm like a man possessed, hurried out of the celebration grounds and hailed a cab — wildly waving it down with his walking stick. He was still waving it inside the cab, urging the driver to get a move on.

“I thought you wanted to walk,” began Jack, but Santosh ignored his boss.

“Take us to the Town Hall, and there’s an extra fifty in it for you if we’re there within five minutes... five minutes!” he instructed the cabbie. He then took out his cell phone and dialed Nisha, barking instructions. Jack was left wondering if there was some truth in the rumors that he had appointed a lunatic as his Indian bureau chief.

With its vintage parquet floors, grand spiral staircases, wrought-iron loggias, and exquisite marble statues of forgotten city fathers, the white-colonnaded Town Hall was perhaps one of the most splendid and imposing of Mumbai’s heritage monuments. The cabbie dropped them off at the base of the stairs leading up to the magnificent building. Nisha arrived at the same time in another cab.

“Why have we come here?” she asked breathlessly, having run part of the way due to the urgency of Santosh’s summons.

“It’s not the Town Hall that we’re interested in,” he said as they began walking up the stairs. “This particular building also houses the Asiatic Society, which has a collection of close to one million books, some of them priceless antiques. We should easily find the one that I need.”

The Asiatic Library had separate sections housing different treasures. An impressive numismatic collection of over a thousand ancient coins including a rare gold mohur belonging to the most famous Mughal emperor — Akbar — was also housed in the building. Of course, the collection was not open to public view but the library was accessible to all. Santosh ignored the direction signs and headed for the reading room, the fading grandeur of which attracted many senior citizens who sat under the ancient ceiling fans poring over local newspapers.

“What are we looking for?” asked Nisha, as they entered the library and headed toward the central desk.

“Tell the chief librarian that we need a book by M. D. Jayant and Naveen Gupta,” replied Santosh. “I can’t remember the title but it’s an illustrated book that explains the nine avatars of Durga.” Nisha returned a couple of minutes later with a slip of paper on which the librarian had written the rack number where the book could be found.

Having located The Nine Durga Avatars of Hinduism, they sat down at an illuminated desk. Nisha began to read aloud the relevant passages to both men as softly as she could.

“The mother goddess — Durga — has three basic forms and each of these has three manifestations thus resulting in a total of nine avatars. Each night of the nine-day festival of Navratri is dedicated to one of the nine avatars—”

“Yes, yes, I know that,” said Santosh impatiently. “I want to know what each avatar looks like.”

Nisha quickly leafed through the book and found the chapter that described the first avatar of Durga. She was known by the name Shailputri. Turning the pages further, they saw an illustration showing what Shailputri looked like. There was a moment of hushed awe when they saw the image of the avatar holding a trident in one hand and a lotus flower in the other.

“Look at that,” said Santosh, pointing to the mount of the goddess. Nisha and Jack looked at the picture more closely. Santosh was spot on. Shailputri was shown mounted and seated on a bull. The first victim at the Marine Bay Plaza. Nisha felt her heart racing as the theory that Santosh was proposing dawned upon her.

Chapter 46

“There is only one way to find out if my instincts are correct,” said Santosh. “Let’s check out each of the nine avatars of Durga. Each one!”

Nisha quickly flipped the page and found that the second avatar was called Brahamcharini. She was pictured with one hand holding a water pot, and another holding a rosary.

“This ties in perfectly with the murder of Bhavna Choksi,” said Nisha excitedly.

“Let’s go further,” instructed Jack, realizing that Santosh’s insight might possibly have cracked the case wide open.

Nisha browsed the pages to find the third avatar, Chandraghanta. This avatar of Durga was shown riding a tiger. She was holding a bell and had a semicircular moon painted on her forehead.

“Priyanka Talati,” whispered Nisha to Jack.

“Actually, it turns out I was right in another little observation too,” said Santosh.

“In what way?” asked Nisha.

“The name Chandraghanta is a combination of two words — chandra and ghanta,” he replied. “The first means moon and the second bell. The murder of Priyanka happened on a Monday — the day of the moon. The night of the murder as per the almanac was a half-moon night. The half-moon is also a symbolic representation of a bell.”

Jack took the book from Nisha and turned the pages to check the fourth form of Durga. The avatar was called Kushmanda. Below the image in the book was a brief explanation.

“The name Kushmanda is derived from two separate Sanskrit words,” Jack read out, “kushma, which means warmth; and anda, which refers to the cosmic egg. So Kushmanda is considered to be the creator of the egg-shaped universe.”

“Elina Xavier was left on her bed with a dozen eggs placed in an oval pattern around her,” Nisha confirmed.

“There was something else about that murder scene,” said Santosh. “The temperature in the room had been set as high as possible, remember? Which ties in with the association with warmth.”

Jack hurriedly turned the page to the fifth form of Durga. Her name was Skandamata. She was depicted as holding her son — an infant — on her lap.

“Lara...” Jack sighed, slumping in his seat.

“What are the remaining forms of Durga?” asked Santosh. “After all, we know that she has nine forms, right?”

Nisha took the book back from Jack and hastily turned the pages to find the next avatar. “Here she is.” Nisha was pointing to an illustration of a goddess mounted on a lion. “Apparently this form is known as Katyayani.”

She flipped over the pages and showed Jack and Santosh the next image — Kaalratri — a terrifying form of Durga. With a bluish-black complexion, long and disheveled hair, and seated on a donkey, this form was shown holding a bunch of thorns in her hand.

The eighth avatar was Mahagauri, depicted with a fair complexion and holding a drum. Finally, the ninth incarnation — known as Siddhidatri — was shown with four arms holding a discus, a mace, a conch, and a lotus.

“Four forms still left. It means that we should expect four more murders,” said Santosh grimly.

Chapter 47

“If we know that the murderer is killing according to the nine incarnations of Durga, can’t we use this information to warn people?” asked Nisha.

“How?” replied Santosh. “Knowing what the symbols mean tells us absolutely nothing about how the killer is choosing his victims. Nothing! For all we know, the bastard could be standing in a supermarket or on a street corner, randomly choosing targets.”

“So what deductions can we make from what we know?” asked Jack.

“Well, one thing is certain,” said Santosh. “Given that all the victims are depicted as incarnations of the goddess Durga, we can be fairly certain that all the future targets will also be women.”

“All five previous killings have been in Mumbai, which means that the city constitutes a comfort zone for the killer,” added Jack.

“There’s something in the thuggee story that is also relevant to our investigation,” said Santosh. “For most of the cult members, killing was a religious duty. They often saw their murders as a means of worship. Almost the equivalent of human sacrifice.”

“Why the yellow scarf?” asked Nisha. “What does that have to do with Durga?”

“I think I know the answer to that one,” replied Santosh. “I remember my grandmother recounting to me a legend in which Durga once fought a ferocious demon. Unfortunately, each drop of the monster’s blood would spawn yet another monster. Durga finally created two men, each armed with yellow scarves, and ordered them to strangle the demons — in effect killing the monsters without allowing them to multiply. I assume that the thuggee tradition of yellow scarves has its genesis in that story.”

He took a deep breath as he tried to clear his head. “We know that at the first three murder sites the security apparatus belonged to Xilon. There was no CCTV system at the girls’ school or in Lara’s van. What have we found out about Xilon?” he asked Nisha.

“The company was created by a retired armed forces man — squeaky-clean track record. The reason that Xilon was at all three initial murder sites was because they have a monopoly of sorts... they control around two-thirds of the security business in Mumbai.”

“What about the company’s employees?” asked Santosh.

“I am still looking into individual employee records,” said Nisha. “Two of the senior engineers are on leave and one hasn’t reported in for a couple of days.”

“Find out about the missing employee,” said Santosh, his antennae picking up on a possible angle.

“Sure, I’ll get on it first thing tomorrow.”

The library was almost empty at this hour. Most of the senior citizens who had been perusing newspapers and magazines in the public reading room had left. Any sound made within the imposing space was amplified by its high ceilings and marble pillars. Santosh’s excitement caused his voice to rise and echo. In the center of the generously proportioned room the old librarian sat in his wooden chair, dozing off intermittently, absorbing snatches of conversation emanating from the table occupied by the Private India team.

They fell silent as Jack and Nisha stared across the table at Santosh, who seemed to be lost in thought, his lips moving as his mind chewed over the latest developments.

As they waited for the great detective’s next pronouncement they cast amused glances at each other. Nisha, aware of Jack’s hugely magnetic charm, felt herself redden all of a sudden, and was grateful when Santosh looked up from the book at them, his eyes shining with excitement.

“He’s not being worshipful to Durga,” he told them. “The trinkets he attaches to them, they’re not respectful tokens, they’re silly toys. A Viking helmet, for God’s sakes. This is not some kind of veneration, it’s a desecration. Why? Because our man hates women. He’s not just killing women, he’s killing womankind.”

Chapter 48

The sea of humanity dressed in white was overwhelming. It was high noon and the weather was hot and muggy but that had not deterred over a hundred thousand devotees from gathering in open ground on the outskirts of Mumbai. A roar of approval erupted from the crowd as Nimboo Baba pressed his palms together and greeted his followers with the traditional Indian greeting, “Namaste.”

Nimboo Baba had been born Nimesh in the holy city of Benares, by the banks of the Ganges. His family had moved to Delhi and Nimesh had been placed in a municipal school from which he had dropped out in the fourth grade. Having run away from his parents, he did everything he could in order to survive on the streets. He had sold newspapers on the pavements, washed cars at parking lots, prepared tea on railway station platforms, and even picked pockets. One day he had met a wandering ascetic and had been miraculously transformed.

The stories cranked out many years later by Nimboo Baba’s PR machinery would go on to say that a sage had visited Nimesh’s parents on the day that he had been born and had gifted them with a lemon. Apparently he had told them that, while a lemon was sour, it had incredible curative properties. “Your son shall be like a lemon — a healing medication — for the world,” the sage had supposedly said.

In Hindi, the word for lemon was nimboo and thus Nimesh the pickpocket would soon become Nimboo Baba the great spiritual master. He opened his first ashram — a meditation center — in Delhi. His evening sermons, during which he would use ordinary examples and simple language, began to be attended by ever-increasing numbers. Over the next two decades, Nimboo Baba would open over a hundred such ashrams in India and would claim to have over twenty million disciples, including followers from the United States, Europe, and the Far East.

The man waited in the cool, air-conditioned interior of his black Mercedes-Benz for Nimboo Baba’s sermon to be over. When it was time for the Baba to exit the grounds and head over to the luxury suite that was permanently booked for his comfort at a prominent Mumbai hotel, he chose to get into the waiting car instead.

Munna offered Nimboo Baba a bottle of chilled mineral water from the small refrigerator built into the armrest. The godman accepted it and quickly gulped down the contents. “These sermons leave my throat parched,” he complained.

“Given the amount of land and money that you have amassed from your sermons, I imagined you would never thirst for anything,” replied Munna, with a twinkle in his eyes. Nimboo Baba laughed. The only one who could speak to him so openly was Munna.

What was never mentioned in the PR material published by the Baba’s marketing machinery was the fact that his outfit acted as a massive money-laundering center for Munna’s ill-gotten wealth. Millions of rupees from illicit operations found their way as “donations” into Nimboo Baba’s ashrams, from where they were converted into legal assets such as land, buildings, bank balances, and legitimate businesses. A perfect instance of Hindu — Muslim partnership.

Munna’s association with Nimboo Baba went back several years, to the time when Munna had been attempting to establish his supremacy in Mumbai’s underworld. On one particular evening he had been injured during a shoot-out with a rival gang. Wounded and bleeding, Munna had sought refuge in one of Nimboo Baba’s ashrams. The Baba had kept the police away and ensured that Munna was provided with medical attention. That day had been the genesis of a symbiotic relationship between the two men, the guru providing occasional advice and spiritual wisdom — besides a nifty way of laundering Munna’s money — and Munna providing financial support to the Baba.

“How is my special disciple getting along?” asked Nimboo Baba. “I hope you are assisting in every way that you can after the Thailand return.”

“Getting along rather well, I would say,” replied Munna. “And yes, I am happy to help. How are your dealings with the Attorney General progressing?”

Nimboo Baba laughed. “He’s up to his neck in gambling debts. I have been bailing him out whenever he needs me to.”

“Good,” replied Munna. “With him so indebted to you, we continue to have leverage. I must tell my betting managers to keep taking wagers from him.”

“He was the country’s top-earning lawyer before he accepted the Attorney General’s position. Where did all his money go?” asked Nimboo Baba.

“Men who are very active in their professional lives tend to be equally active in their personal ones,” offered Munna sagely. “He changes his woman almost every month. Expensive proposition.”

Chapter 49

Rupesh left his Jeep to navigate the last few yards on foot. His team briskly jogged ahead of him. Rupesh felt his shoes squelch in the muck along the banks of the canal. Scrap-metal houses bordered the sewer that lazily flowed through the slum, carrying a thick sludge of floating plastic bags, bottles, chemicals, garbage, and tons of human and animal excrement. Asia’s largest slum — Dharavi — was spread over a square mile of Mumbai and over a million wretched souls called it home.

“Do we know the exact house where he was spotted?” asked Rupesh, keeping up with his men.

“Yes, we do, sir. This lane is the recycling area of Dharavi, full of small workshops that reprocess paper, tin cans, plastic, and cardboard. Toward the end of the lane is the bootlegging operation that our informer told us about. He’s holed up there.” Rupesh looked at his watch. It was ten minutes past midnight.

They reached the target shed in a few minutes. It was single-storey and ramshackle with a footprint of less than a couple of hundred square feet. Patched together from rusting and mismatched corrugated-metal sheets, the windows and door were simply jagged holes cut through the tinwork. The stench from the brew could be detected from far away in spite of the overhanging and all-pervading stink of sewage that thickly enveloped Dharavi.

Rupesh’s advance party had already brought the operation to a standstill and all the men working there had been rounded up. In the center of the shed stood a massive vat in which country liquor was being adulterated with industrial methylated spirit, batteries, cockroaches, cashew husks, and orange peel. Rupesh placed a kerchief over his nose and mouth as he headed over to the single man who had been cuffed and made to stand apart from the others.

“Thought you could get away, eh?” asked Rupesh, delivering a near jaw-breaking slap to the terrified man’s face and drawing blood from his mouth.

“Believe me, sahib, I ran because of fear. I am innocent,” protested the cuffed man nervously. It was Bhosale, driver of Lara Omprakash’s vanity van.

A crowd had gathered outside the bootlegging hut and Rupesh’s men were using batons to keep them at a distance. Among the rounded-up men was one who looked more menacing than the others. Rupesh motioned him over.

“Your shithole of an operation only functions because I choose to look the other way,” he said, carefully avoiding using Munna’s name. “But if I find you harboring a murderer again, I shall crush your balls with a walnut cracker. Is that fucking clear, motherfucker?”

The leader nodded warily. No point getting busted by the cops. The stock of deadly hooch that was inside the premises had a street value of a million rupees.

“Tell your goons outside to clear the way,” instructed Rupesh to the bootlegger as he seized Bhosale by the scruff of his neck and shoved him toward the waiting police Jeep.

Once inside the vehicle, Rupesh cranked up the engine and the Jeep took off like a rocket. There were a sub-inspector, two constables, and Bhosale inside it with him. The vehicle weaved through the dark and empty streets of Mumbai as they headed toward the distant suburb of Mira-Bhayandar.

“Where are we going?” asked Bhosale nervously, sandwiched between the two constables on the back seat of the Jeep.

“It’s party time, my friend,” replied Rupesh. “I do not want you to think that the Mumbai police are poor hosts. We are capable of showing our guests a good time.”

Most of the development of the Mira-Bhayandar area had happened on the eastern side of the railway line, whereas to the west it was still covered by mangroves and salt pans. Rupesh brought the vehicle to a halt in the compound of a construction site on the east side. At this time of night it was empty.

Rupesh got out of the Jeep and signaled his subordinates to follow along with Bhosale. They passed cement mixers, earth movers, piles of construction materials, and stacked-up scaffolding beams until they reached a temporary construction elevator, which was little more than an iron cage boarded up with plywood.

Bhosale anxiously surveyed his surroundings, his eyes darting about like frightened mice, as the rickety contraption creaked its way up to the seventh floor — the last to be constructed thus far.

“Laundry time,” barked Rupesh. He took a large pinch of tobacco from his pouch and placed it in his mouth. The two constables removed Bhosale’s handcuffs, grabbed him by his underarms, and swung him over the side of the incomplete building.

“Hang him out to dry,” said Rupesh with a grin on his face. The constables allowed Bhosale to grasp the edge of the concrete slab with his fingers as his body dangled from the seventh floor.

Bhosale looked down at the distant earth beneath his suspended feet and felt a warm sensation in his crotch. He had peed involuntarily. “Help!” he pleaded, feeling his fingers losing strength. “I beg you to spare my life, sahib.”

Rupesh and his men watched Bhosale’s fingers turn white as he struggled to keep himself alive. Rupesh moved to the edge and gently placed one foot on the prisoner’s left hand.

“As of now, I have only rested my foot on your hand,” he said softly, enjoying the kick of the tobacco in his mouth. “In the next few seconds your fingers will feel my entire weight. I shall then step on your right hand. You will howl for mercy but I shall not listen. You are scum and I shall be overjoyed when you fall into your muddy grave.”

“Please, sahib,” howled Bhosale. “I’ll do anything. Mercy! Please!”

“I simply want your confession, nothing more, nothing less. Give me a full disclosure and I shall step away,” promised Rupesh. He then began to apply more pressure to Bhosale’s hand.

Chapter 50

The weather was hot and humid when Ragini Sharma, the opposition MLA — Member of the Legislative Assembly — from Alibaug constituency and a potential aspirant for the post of Minister for Women and Child Development, gathered along with thousands of women supporters at Chowpatty Beach and marched to Azad Maidan. The march was a protest against a violent gang rape that had taken place a few days previously in Mumbai. Ragini Sharma was demanding the resignation of the state’s Home Minister.

Ragini’s party only had permission to hold a protest meeting at Azad Maidan — an open area of ground in the heart of South Mumbai — not a rally. Ragini Sharma had chosen to defy that ruling and declared that her supporters would march along with her even though it would lead to road blockages and traffic snarls at several places during peak travel hours in the country’s commercial capital.

Addressing a crowd of over a hundred thousand supporters — men, women, and children — at Azad Maidan, Ragini Sharma took center stage with confidence and grace. After greeting her supporters, she said, “According to the government’s own statistics, a woman is now raped in India every twenty minutes. Even though the number of sex offenses has increased, the number of convictions is falling. Why do we have an incompetent Home Minister at the helm? Isn’t it time for us to send this spineless government packing?”

The crowd roared its approval as Ragini warmed to her theme. “Two days ago, a young woman of twenty was gang-raped by seven men from her neighborhood. Her attackers filmed the assault on their cell phones. Should we allow such monsters to walk the streets of Mumbai? When will we be in a position to guarantee safety and security to the women of this city?”

Ragini waved to the gathered crowd and raised her folded hands in a gesture of humility. She knew that this political rally was a reaffirmation of her own strength. Assembly elections in the state were less than a year away and Ragini realized that she stood a fighting chance of becoming an influential voice in the fractured political landscape.

She looked at her watch. She had to be back at her constituency within a couple of hours. She nodded to her team that it was time to bring the public meeting to an end. Toward the rear of the crowd stood a young man dressed simply in an open-collar shirt, jeans, sneakers, and cap. He realized that Ragini Sharma’s public gathering was winding down and decided that he needed to move quickly so that he could reach her destination before she did.

Chapter 51

The relationship between hunter and prey is unique. It’s almost like unrequited love because one party hardly feels anything at all. Ask a stalker about his relationship with the one he stalks and you will begin to understand the intense yearning that I have to live with.

I have been stalking you but you do not seem to notice my presence. What a shame! Later tonight, my face will be firmly emblazoned on the retinas of your eyes. You will be incapable of forgetting it — forever.

I was seated in the visitors’ gallery of the Legislative Assembly when you rose to address the speaker during question hour. I was among the crowd that listened to you with rapt attention at Azad Maidan. You have so much concern in your heart for the poor and downtrodden women of Mumbai! Your words almost brought tears to my eyes! You know that I’m fibbing, right? Just like I know that you don’t give a rat’s ass about the exploited women who live in this hellhole.

I was way ahead of your car with the flashing red beacon as I drove from the public meeting to your constituency home in Alibaug, on the outskirts of Mumbai. So very nice of you to drop in and check on your constituents. I wonder how many of them will attend your funeral, Ragini Sharma?

I am quietly working along with the team that is planting saplings in the front garden of your bungalow. Luckily, all the workers are temporary hires and do not recognize each other. I am wearing a casual labourer’s dirty clothes and my head is covered with a soiled cap to protect me from the harsh sun. I ensure that I keep my cap lowered so that my face remains mostly hidden from the prying eyes of the policemen in your security detail. I am invisible to you and your men.

Your arrival in the constituency results in a long line of people queuing up to request favors and dispensations. It is late by the time you retire for the night. By that time I have already moved into your bedroom.

You are completely unaware of my presence. A good hunter must wait patiently for hours, not allowing the prey to pick up the slightest suspicious scent. I am lying in wait for you — right under your bed — up toward the headboard so that my feet are not visible.

Your maid walks in to deliver your customary glass of milk and then leaves. You toss and turn for a while, reading a Mills & Boon in bed, but after twenty minutes you switch off the lights.

I wait for another hour to ensure that you are fast asleep before I crawl out from under the bed. In one rubber-gloved hand I hold a yellow scarf and in the other I carry a rolled-up wall calendar and a specimen bag. It’s time for me to get some work done.

Sleep, whore, sleep, slut... deeper... deeper... breathing shut.

Sleep, bitch, sleep, cunt... deeper... deeper... while I hunt.

Chapter 52

Yellow garrote strangler arrested, screamed the headline of the Afternoon Mirror. The byline was that of Bhavna Choksi’s chain-smoking editor, Jamini.

Rupesh leaned back in his swivel chair and placed his feet on his desk. He peered through the angle formed by his shoes to observe the expression on Santosh’s face as the Private India chief perused the article. Besides the other details, special prominence had been given to the photograph of ACP Rupesh Desai, mentioned as the no-nonsense cop who had captured the killer.

“Policing is about keeping as many balls as one can in the air while simultaneously protecting one’s own,” remarked Rupesh as he smiled at Santosh.

“This is crap, and you know it,” Santosh replied, throwing down the newspaper on the desk.

“Is it only crap because I solved a case that your fancy team with all its sophisticated methods couldn’t?” asked Rupesh slyly.

“It’s not about that—” began Santosh.

“Then what exactly is it about, my friend? I thought we had a clear understanding that all credit for solving this case would be mine alone. Since when did you begin to fancy the spotlight?”

“I am more than happy to let you have all the publicity you want, Rupesh,” said Santosh. “But please do remember that I know what extra-legal methods are used to extract confessions. Most importantly, the driver — Bhosale — had no motive for murder at all.” He thumped his walking cane on the floor to emphasize his point.

“He may have been blackmailing his boss, Lara Omprakash,” argued Rupesh. “He may have known some of her secrets. Possibly he wanted more money and she refused. He killed her in a fit of rage.” Rupesh seemed determined to make the jigsaw puzzle pieces fit together even if he had to hammer and chisel them into place.

“Nisha has managed to get hold of an extract from the security register in Film City, where Lara’s movie was being filmed,” Santosh told him. “It would be worthwhile for you to have a look at it.”

Rupesh took the list and glanced at it casually. “What exactly do you want me to see?”

“The list shows the date and time that any given vehicle passes through the main gate of Film City,” explained Santosh. “The security agency is duty bound to log all registration numbers, time in, and time out.”

“So?” asked Rupesh.

“Look at the registration number highlighted in yellow. It’s Lara Omprakash’s vanity van. You will see that it was there several times during the past few days,” explained Santosh.

“Why are you wasting my time like this?” complained Rupesh. “The city wanted the killer nabbed. He’s safely in a lock-up.”

Santosh ignored this comment. “The problem,” he continued, “is that your hypothesis is unable to explain how the fuck this man — your prime suspect — could have been driving Lara Omprakash’s vanity van in and out of Film City on Sunday night when Kanya Jaiyen was murdered, as well as on Monday night when Priyanka Talati was killed!”

Chapter 53

The thick green strip that separated most of Mumbai’s coastline from the Arabian Sea was almost entirely submerged at high tide. It was only when the waters receded that the band of vegetation would become visible. Clusters of densely packed trees criss-crossed by slender creeks constituted Mumbai’s natural defense barrier against floods — the mangroves.

A small fishing boat dropped anchor near the trees with their dark, waxy leaves and finger-like aerial roots. Two men jumped off the boat into the knee-deep water and began wading toward land, holding a basket between them. To any casual observer they would have resembled fishermen hauling their catch back to shore. Their actual purpose was a lot more sinister.

Once safely on land, they were greeted by a third, delicate and gaunt-looking man who had been patiently awaiting their arrival. “As-salam alaykum,” said the waiting man to the two boatmen.

“Wa alaykumu s-salam,” they replied, carefully lowering the basket onto dry ground.

“Do you have the entire consignment with you?” asked the waiting Mujahideen man.

“Thirty kilos. Have a look,” said one of the boatmen as he pulled off the plastic sheet that covered the basket. Inside it were several small wrapped parcels containing a white crystalline solid. It was not a drug-smuggling operation that was underway in the mangroves of Mumbai. The cargo was far more deadly: a consignment of a nitramine commonly known as RDX.

The three men quickly lifted the basket and hauled it over to the waiting vehicle. “Are you sure you will not be stopped by the cops?” asked one of the boatmen.

The Mujahideen man raised his hands to the heavens. “Insha Allah, there should be no problems. We’re hoping to rid the world of a satanic organization that prevents us from achieving our holy and pure aims. With Allah on our side, how can there be any obstacles in the way?”

“Is your access in place?” asked one of the boatmen.

“He is ready and willing. He hates the Americans more than we do,” said the thin man, getting into the driver’s seat of the vehicle.

The two boatmen took their leave and waded back into the water. The small craft would help them reach a fishing trawler anchored in the Arabian Sea. The trawler would take them back to their point of origin — Karachi, Pakistan.

Chapter 54

The house belonging to Ragini Sharma, the Honorable MLA from Alibaug constituency, was a hive of activity. A company of armed police had been deployed around the perimeter in order to keep her political supporters at a distance. Unfortunately rumors of her death had leaked out and a mob of Sharma’s constituents stood shouting slogans of support near the gate.

Within the bungalow grounds were parked several police vehicles, some marked and some unmarked. All the staff, including security personnel, gardeners, cook, and maid, had been assembled by Rupesh’s subordinates and were being questioned. The bungalow had been cordoned off with security tape and a further roll of police tape had been unfurled outside Ragini Sharma’s bedroom door.

Inside lay the corpse of the politician, her bed sheets showing clear signs of a struggle. Ragini Sharma had fought back, it seemed. Like many middle-aged women in India, she slept in the blouse and petticoat of her saree, finding these inner garments much more comfortable than nightclothes. Around her neck was the now-familiar yellow garrote embedded within a bluish band of discolored skin.

Santosh looked around the room. “Did we find any surveillance equipment?”

“Negative,” replied Hari as he continued checking the room. “The Alibaug region has erratic power supply. It would not have been possible to run sensitive cameras and data recorders. The killer possibly knew that this house did not have an electronic security system in place.”

“Any luck with trace evidence?” asked Santosh. He walked over to Mubeen, who was busy swabbing Ragini Sharma’s face. Nisha watched from the sidelines, staring intently at the victim’s face.

Noticing her concentration, Santosh said, “What’s the matter? Seen something?”

Nisha remained quiet. Where had she seen this woman before? Was it simple familiarity with the face of a public figure or was it a faded memory? The harder she tried, the more her memory seemed to fail her. Her thoughts were interrupted by Mubeen.

“The killer spat on the school principal’s face,” he announced. “I’m checking to see if there has been a repeat performance here.”

“You never told me that you found saliva on Elina Xavier,” reprimanded Santosh, his usual contemplative expression turning into a scowl.

“In addition to the usual strand of hair,” replied Mubeen. “The saliva sample was infinitesimally small so I wasn’t sure if it would lead to anything. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that it actually belonged to the killer. Someone had tried to clean it off with bleach but missed an exceedingly small trace that landed on one eyebrow. The chances of finding the killer’s DNA here are much greater. This victim fought back, so there’s a chance we may find interesting evidence under her fingernails. Hello, what have we here?”

“What have you found?” asked Santosh, forgetting his irritation.

Mubeen bent down to look at the pillow with a magnifying glass. Pulling out a pair of forensic forceps, he placed his find into a small specimen bag. Holding it up proudly to Santosh, he said, “We now have something that could help us. We have a strand of hair!”

“Big deal,” retorted Santosh. “We’ve found the same goddamn hair at all the murder sites.”

“Yes, but I can see that this one seems to be almost complete. I think that some part of the root is intact,” said Mubeen.

Santosh took the bag from him and looked carefully at the hair inside. It was short and black with nothing unique to mark it out. Turning his gaze toward the pillow and pointing with his cane to a piece of paper sticking out from underneath, he asked, “What is that under there?”

“I haven’t had a chance to examine it closely because the victim’s head is still on the pillow,” said Mubeen, “but it seems to be a page from a wall calendar.”

“Pull it out,” instructed Santosh. “I need to see it.”

Even though Mubeen would have preferred to wait and carry out each task in scientific sequence, he did not wish to aggravate his boss, who already looked irritable and impatient. Mubeen took a photograph of the position of Ragini Sharma’s head on the pillow and then gently lifted it. Reaching out with his other hand, he pulled out what Santosh wanted. He handed it over wordlessly to his boss, who took hold of it in his rubber-gloved hands.

Santosh stared at the paper. It was indeed a wall calendar — a cheap one that had no glossy photographs or aesthetic value. It simply set aside a page for each month. Working days were shown in black numerals and weekends and national holidays in red. The calendar had been left with the pages turned to the month of July.

Rupesh appeared behind Santosh and looked over his shoulder. “What have you found?” he asked. It had been a tough decision to allow Private India back into the investigation but pragmatism had won, for the moment at least. The clincher had been Munna’s phone call: “Get them back into the investigation. Don’t ask me why.”

“It’s a wall calendar,” replied Santosh. “It was left under her pillow with the pages turned to the month of July. If you notice, the days starting from July twenty-third have been circled.”

Why these dates? thought Santosh. Why July, not January or June? And why the twenty-third in particular? His mind went into overdrive as he attempted to figure out the answer to the riddle. Rupesh took the calendar from him and looked carefully at the circled dates.

Santosh suddenly spoke up. It was as though a light bulb had gone on inside his head. “I’m willing to bet that all the dates in the next month up to the twenty-second of August are also marked like that,” he said, leaning on his walking stick to ease the strain on his injured leg.

Rupesh flipped the page of the calendar and saw that Santosh was right, as usual. All the dates up to and including August 22 were circled.

“What is the significance of these dates?” he asked in frustration. “They have nothing to do with the dates of our murders. It’s currently October.”

“Ah, but these dates have everything to do with this particular murder,” replied Santosh. “They are the IAU boundaries within the tropical zodiac.”

“IAU?” asked Nisha.

“International Astronomical Union,” replied Santosh, “the internationally recognized authority for assigning designations to celestial bodies.” He found nothing strange about the fact that he was aware of that particular obscure piece of information.

“Zodiac?” asked Rupesh incredulously. “This nut job is killing according to astrologically auspicious dates?”

“No,” replied Santosh, exasperated by Rupesh’s lack of intellect. “The period from July twenty-third to August twenty-second constitutes the tropical zodiac of Leo. What is the symbol for Leo? The lion! This is the killer’s sixth victim. The sixth manifestation of Durga is Katyayani and she is always depicted seated on a lion!”

Chapter 55

The stretch of the city from Bhendi Bazaar to Mohammed Ali Road was entirely illuminated each night during the holy Islamic festival of Ramadan. Food lanes were doing brisk business at the end of the day’s fasting. They would continue turning out copious quantities of their wares throughout the night.

In a small workshop a few yards away a blacksmith was firing up his acetylene torch, the tip glowing incandescent as the old man welded metal tubes back in place. Standing watch over the process was the thin man from the Indian Mujahideen and his partner.

“I still cannot understand why you need the sealed ends of the tubes to be openable,” said the blacksmith, clamping the tube with tongs over his anvil in order to strike it.

“I’m not paying you to fucking ask me stupid questions,” said the Mujahideen angrily. “Just get the job done so that we can get out of here.” He winked at his partner, who seemed overly nervous.

“This is not going to happen quickly,” the blacksmith retaliated. “It can take multiple rounds of heating and reheating. I suggest you come back in a day or two. Leave the material here with me.”

“We’re not going anywhere,” said the Mujahideen. “Just keep hammering away. We’ll sit here and watch.”

“I can’t afford to hammer when the metal’s cold. It will end up creating a cold shunt that weakens the work,” argued the blacksmith earnestly. The Mujahideen man exhaled in exasperation. Why the fuck did the best workmen always turn out to be a pain in the ass? Why was this old man asking questions that would put him in danger of being killed? The thin man counted slowly in his head, forcing himself to calm down. His first priority was getting this stuff fabricated. He would decide how to deal with the blacksmith later.

He glanced at his partner, who was fidgeting nervously. These educated types were the worst of the lot. No guts, no glory. Just lots of jittery arguments and spineless behavior.

As the two men watched the blacksmith they fell into a sort of trance. There was a Zen-like beauty to hammering hot metal into shape. It was evident that the blacksmith was a perfectionist, hammering, heating, and polishing until he achieved a perfect factory finish. Every few minutes he would clean the anvil and unclutter his surroundings before going back to his painstaking work.

“Take your time,” said the Mujahideen. “We can’t afford mistakes.”

“There are no mistakes in my profession, sir,” replied the blacksmith, sweat trickling down his face. “Unlike a piece of wood which can turn out too short when you cut it, if a piece of metal is botched, we simply wait, reheat, and give it another go. There are always second chances — both in metal and in men.”

Chapter 56

“Where are you, Jack?” asked Santosh over the phone. “I have been trying to reach you all morning.”

“I’m at the Willingdon Club,” Jack replied. “Enjoying a glass of beer after playing eighteen holes of golf.”

“You never play golf,” said Santosh suspiciously.

“I figured that I needed to start,” shot back Jack. “Especially given the fact that an old friend invited me over.”

“How many old friends do you have in Mumbai?” asked Santosh, persisting with his interrogation of his boss.

“What did you want to talk to me about?” asked Jack, changing the subject smoothly.

“Do you have your cell phone scrambler with you?” asked Santosh.

“Yes. Give me a sec,” said Jack, plugging the unit into the USB port of his phone. All employees of the Private organization globally used the encryption tool. Governments and agencies around the world were snooping on every form of communication and they could ill afford the possible consequences of any leak.

“A sixth victim has been discovered,” began Santosh, and detailed the findings for him.

“The killer is working quickly,” Jack observed grimly.

“True,” replied Santosh. “Dr. Kanya Jaiyen was killed on Sunday night, Bhavna Choksi on Monday morning, Priyanka Talati on Monday night, the school principal — Elina Xavier — on Wednesday night, Lara Omprakash on Thursday afternoon, and the MLA, Ragini Sharma, last night — Friday.”

“Why the hurry, I wonder?” said Jack.

“The Festival of Navratri is a celebration of nine nights. The murderer clearly hopes to be done before the end of that period,” replied Santosh. Jack could detect a note of worry in the normally imperturbable voice of his India bureau chief.

Chapter 57

“Lara Omprakash, victim of ligature strangulation,” said Mubeen into his microphone as he completed the autopsy with Dr. Zafar by his side. “Victim has a tattoo of a Hindu deity on her right upper arm. Her pelvis shows signs of contraction from a previous injury.

“As regards the school principal, Mrs. Elina Xavier,” he continued, “I have been able to find trace amounts of saliva on her eyebrow. It’s possible that there may have been more on her face but that has been wiped off with bleach. I cannot use RFLP, an accurate and reliable test but one requiring a relatively large amount of DNA material. I now plan to use the PCR method, which allows for testing on very small amounts of DNA from biological samples.

“The sixth victim — Ragini Sharma — seems to have fought back. Extraction and amplification of cellular material found under her fingernails is being carried out. It is my hope that the biological material transferred during the struggle, if any, may be adequate to genotype reportable mixtures.

“Yellow scarves used for strangulation have been recovered from all six victims. In addition, a seventh was found in the car belonging to Nisha Gandhe and an eighth was sent to the editor of the Afternoon Mirror. All eight scarves have been passed on to Hari Padhi to conduct microscopic, stain, burn, and solvent tests, in order to be sure that all of them belong to the same fiber, dye, and manufacture family.”

After shutting off the microphone, he and Zafar scrubbed up and placed the gurneys in the lab storage unit. Zafar headed back to Cooper Hospital while Mubeen left the lab for Hari’s office. Knowing the speed at which his colleague worked, it was quite possible that he would already have results to share, reasoned Mubeen.

Hari’s office was empty, though, and according to the receptionist he’d stepped out half an hour earlier for a smoke in the alley. Long smoke. Back at the empty office Mubeen swept his gaze over the tangle of cables, wires, computers, and instrumentation, wondering how Hari was able to make any sense of it all. He scanned the desk to see if his colleague had typed up a report containing his forensic analysis of the yellow scarves. No luck.

Mubeen tried the desk drawer but it was empty except for an electronic frame displaying a digital photograph of a pretty woman. Hari was unmarried. As far as Mubeen knew, there was no serious relationship either. The woman had been photographed seated casually on a couch with legs crossed, holding a coffee mug. She was wearing a black vest and a pair of faded jeans. There was something very sensual about her. Mubeen wondered whether it was her dusky complexion or her shoulder-length curly black hair that gave such an impression.

He put away the digital photo frame and closed the drawer. Next he opened the small cabinet beneath to check Hari’s files. On a lower shelf were specimen bags containing the eight scarves that had been given to Hari for testing. Mubeen took them out and placed them on the desktop.

Each specimen bag had been clearly marked with the name of the victim and the date and time of the sample collection — Kanya Jaiyen, Bhavna Choksi, Priyanka Talati, Elina Xavier, Lara Omprakash, and Ragini Sharma. One more specimen bag contained the scarf that had been found tied to the steering wheel inside Nisha’s car, and yet another held the one that had been sent to the tabloid editor. Mubeen counted the bags. That was odd...

“What are you up to?” demanded a voice behind him.

He spun around to see Santosh in the doorway, looking suspiciously at Mubeen. “Why are you looking through Hari’s stuff?”

Chapter 58

Mubeen stuttered, “I... I came to find Hari but he’s... he’s out.”

“That still doesn’t answer my question,” said Santosh, continuing to stare suspiciously at him.

“I came looking to see if he had completed his examination and analysis of the scarves. There should have been eight specimen bags in all,” replied Mubeen. “Surprisingly, there are nine.”

Santosh crossed to the desk where the bags had been laid out, counting them for himself. Indeed there were nine bags, not eight. He put aside the bags containing the scarves that had been used for killing the six victims. He then separated the bag containing the scarf that had been found in Nisha’s car and the one sent to the newspaper editor. He stared at the ninth specimen bag. It was slightly bulkier than the others and was unmarked.

Santosh held up the ninth specimen bag for inspection.

“The bag contains three scarves, identical to the other eight,” said Mubeen. “These three seem to be freshly laundered and pressed. I’m wondering... where did Hari get them from?”

And I’m wondering whether the extra sample bag was placed here by you, Mubeen, thought Santosh to himself, angry that he was beginning to suspect one of his own team.

Chapter 59

“His phone is switched off,” said Nisha as she put her smartphone on the table and looked at Santosh.

He, Jack, Nisha, and Mubeen sat in the conference room. The discovery of the extra scarves in Hari’s office had created a dilemma. Was there an innocent explanation or was he now a suspect?

“We could activate the chip,” said Santosh, looking at Jack.

All employees of the Private organization were required to be fitted with a small locator chip embedded under the skin of the upper back. It had helped save countless lives because it enabled their team to locate them during emergencies. In order to prevent misuse, however, only Jack Morgan had the power to activate and authorize tracking.

“What if there is a simple explanation? What if he went out and bought additional scarves in order to use them as comparison samples? What if he isn’t absconding but has simply decided to take some time off for a romantic tryst with the woman whose photo is inside his desk drawer?” was Jack’s response. Turning to Santosh, he asked, “What is your opinion? Should I activate Hari’s RFID chip?”

Santosh pondered the question. Was there an innocent explanation — or was Hari a suspect? And what about Mubeen? Santosh remained thoughtful and silent for a minute before replying. “On the night when Nisha and I went to meet Priyanka Talati’s producer at Blue Magic Tantra records, I invited Hari to join us. He asked to be excused, saying he had to meet someone. My gut tells me that he needed to be on his own so he could place the yellow scarf in Nisha’s car while we were inside.”

“That is circumstantial evidence, Santosh,” replied Jack. “We can’t suspect one of our own based upon conjecture.”

“Where is the digital photo frame from Hari’s desk?” asked Santosh. Mubeen passed it over. The rest of the team watched as Santosh ran his fingers over the frame containing the picture of the young woman in Hari’s life. He was at his obsessive and compulsive best, and Jack knew better than to ask too many questions.

Within a few minutes Santosh had found a small, almost imperceptible toggle switch. The electronic frame could be used to display either a single photo in static mode or several sequentially in presentation mode. The toggle switch on the rear of the frame determined the mode.

Santosh flicked the toggle and the frame blinked and reset itself. It then went into presentation mode. Hari did not have too many pictures — only two, actually. They appeared on the frame alternately. One was that of the pretty woman on the couch. The other was a representation of the Hindu goddess Durga holding a human head in one of her many hands.

Chapter 60

The man kept his head down as he made his way toward passport control, his leather satchel slung over his shoulder. Holding his ticket, boarding card, Indian embarkation form, and passport in one hand, and a switched-off cell phone in the other, he presented his papers to the immigration officer.

The officer looked at the passport, plugged some information into the computer terminal in front of him, and asked the passenger to move to the center of the counter so that a digital photograph of him could be dumped into the database. He then picked up a rubber stamp and proceeded to stamp the passport and embarkation form. Handing back the papers, he wished the passenger a pleasant flight.

His flight had already been announced and the man hurried along to clear the long security queue. He presented the security officer with a small laminated card that indicated he was fitted with a pacemaker, thus avoiding the X-ray scanners. It was another ten minutes by the time he’d cleared security and his flight listing had begun to blink green on the information displays.

The man ran toward gate 11A. He hurriedly presented his boarding card to the Emirates Airlines representative, who smiled at him and requested him to board immediately, given that they were running late.

Relieved at having boarded the flight, the man found his window seat in the economy section and settled down after placing his leather satchel in the overhead luggage bin. He looked at his watch. The flight should have taken off twenty minutes earlier but the aerobridge had still not been pulled away. He took off his shoes and closed his eyes. A little nap would prepare him better.

He felt the irritation of a mild rash caused by the adhesive tape on his upper back. Under his shirt was a piece of thick metallic foil around five inches square. It was held in place by duct tape. RFID tags — used as implantable devices for humans and pets — were relatively resistant to shielding, but thick metallic foil could prevent detection in most cases.

Chapter 61

He was seated on a damp concrete floor. The heat and humidity of the cell coupled with total darkness was claustrophobic — almost terrifyingly so. Hanging over the place was the conspicuous stink of stale piss.

He felt something brush his toes. He squinted his eyes to catch a glimpse of a furry rodent, its eyes gleaming red in the dark. He hated rats and kicked away the pest only to be greeted by several squeaks. The area was infested with them and it seemed as though they were getting ready to gang up on him.

He shuddered as he felt sweat trickle down his naked back. He realized then that he had no clothes on. The sudden loud clanging of the steel gate being opened was strangely comforting for a moment, although a strong sense of foreboding bubbled within him.

“Welcome to the Mumbai Hilton,” said Rupesh, switching on a naked light bulb inside the cell. “I thought you might like a little room service.” Hari screwed up his eyes to cope with the sudden brightness. His heart was racing wildly and he could hear every thump it made in his chest. Thankfully, the bright light and additional human presence sent the rats scurrying off to more secure territory.

Hari desperately tried to recall the events that had brought him here. He had been comfortably ensconced in his aircraft seat, having a catnap while awaiting a take-off that never happened. “Any idea what’s causing the delay?” he had asked the passenger next to him when he woke from his slumber. Before the gentleman could reply, one of the flight attendants had come up to Hari’s seat, greeting him by the assumed identity on his ticket and passport. “Mr. Hari Pandit?” she’d asked. “There are some police officers on the aerobridge just outside the entrance to this aircraft. They say that they must talk to you immediately.” A couple of minutes later, he had found himself being led away in handcuffs from the aircraft and into a police van.

Rupesh was holding a small portable DVD player in his hands. He bent down and set it on the cell floor next to Hari. “This is a small orientation video that will help you understand what we do with people who do not cooperate,” he said, pressing the play button. Hari felt the pit of his stomach give way as he saw ghastly images of inmates being beaten till they coughed blood, prisoners being administered electric shocks on their genitals, and detainees being suspended from ceiling fans or forced to drink gallons of water. He had thought that police brutality was only the stuff of Bollywood movies — reel life, not real life. Apparently he’d been mistaken.

Ten minutes later Rupesh snapped the DVD player’s lid shut. “I hope you enjoyed the inflight entertainment, even though your flight to Dubai had to be abandoned. Now, will you confess to these murders?” he asked as he rolled up his sleeves. “Or do I need to make you the star attraction of a future video clip?”

Chapter 62

Santosh sat slumped over his desk. The decision to put out a red-corner alert for Hari through Rupesh had left him drained.

Apparently Hari had adopted an alias to book his airline tickets, using a fudged passport created for him by a dodgy travel agent in Lamington Road. He had kept his cell phone powered off and had cloaked his RFID locator chip with a strip of metallic foil. For several hours Santosh and his team had lost all contact with him, but then Santosh had remembered something. Calling a number from his phone’s speed-dial, he had spoken to his amputee friend. “Tell me, if I wanted to flee the country under a false identity, who would be the best chap for a passport?”

He knew the way that Rupesh and his men worked once an arrest was made. He shut his eyes in a vain attempt to block out thoughts of what the police would do to Hari.

There was still a part of Santosh that wanted to trust Hari. He opened his eyes, stood up, opened the cabinet behind his desk, and pulled out a bottle of Johnnie Walker. After pouring three fingers of the golden liquid into a glass, he gulped it down like a thirsty desert traveler arriving at an oasis. Back at his desk, Santosh placed the bottle in front of him. He slipped into a stupor and his nightmare returned.

The soundtrack to it was from a Broadway musical, The Phantom of the Opera. It was playing on the car stereo because Isha loved it. The drive back to Mumbai was a picturesque one with a monsoon mist hanging over the distant hills. Pravir had insisted on buying a new cartridge for his hand-held game console and was contentedly battling demons on its tiny screen. Santosh was happy. It had been a peaceful break. He looked across at his wife. Even after ten years of marriage she looked as ravishingly beautiful as the day that he had married her. She smiled back when she realized that he was staring at her. Santosh tried to set aside his worries about the emotional distance that had developed between them. He would balance work and family going forward and would ensure that his wife had no reason to feel isolated or abandoned.

“Papa, look at—” Pravir began to say from the rear of the car when the hairpin turn appeared from nowhere. The car smashed headlong into the thick banyan by the edge of the road. After a few seconds of screeching tires and a gut-wrenching sound of collision there was silence. Santosh remained slumped over the steering wheel. Then darkness. Hospital corridors. “Another ten units of blood, stat! I’m losing him... blood pressure is dropping!” Running alongside the gurney was a cop holding a pair of handcuffs. “You killed them, you drunk bastard!”

“No, I did not!” shouted Santosh, a thin trickle of saliva dribbling from the corner of his mouth and onto his desk.

He struggled with the policeman who had pounced on him. The cop was trying to pin him to the ground and cuff his hands behind his back. “Let go of me,” yelled Santosh as he fended off his assailant.

“Wake up, boss!” urged Nisha as she attempted to take hold of his flailing arms. He woke from his ordeal, embarrassed that Nisha had seen him in that state. He was relieved that the nightmare had ended but also knew that it would return. It always did.

He clumsily attempted to remove the bottle of whisky from his desk, forgetting the obvious fact that Nisha would have observed it while he was in deep slumber. “Mubeen has some important information for you,” she said, helping Santosh up from his chair. “Let me get you some coffee before we go to the conference room, though,” she said, a hint of concern in her voice.

Twenty minutes later Santosh was in the conference room with Jack, Nisha, and Mubeen. “Even if Hari is involved, he must have had an accomplice,” said Mubeen.

“Why?” asked Santosh. He gratefully took a gulp of the scalding black coffee that Nisha had placed in front of him.

“You remember that there was bleach and saliva on Elina Xavier’s eyebrow? Well, I managed to extract DNA from it. Given that India has no national DNA database, I’m now trying to run a match against several other databases, including one belonging to the Mumbai police as well as Private’s own directory.”

“But why the accomplice theory?” asked Santosh.

“While I cannot yet positively tell you whose DNA it is, I can definitely tell you whose it isn’t,” replied Mubeen. “The DNA is not Hari’s. We already have his sequence on record. The person who killed Elina Xavier and left DNA on her face was someone else.”

“It could belong to the victim herself,” suggested Nisha.

“The DNA is not that of Elina Xavier, nor does it match that of any other victim. It is completely different. Either Hari is not involved, or if he is then he is working alongside someone else.”

“What about the previous injury to Lara Omprakash?” asked Nisha. “Any thoughts on that?”

“What previous injury?” asked Santosh.

Nisha read aloud from the report: “Lara Omprakash, victim of ligature strangulation... Victim has a tattoo of a Hindu deity on her right upper arm. Her pelvis shows signs of contraction from a previous injury.”

“Ah, let’s not read too much into that,” said Mubeen. “Women can often injure the pelvis during childbirth.”

“Childbirth?” said Santosh. “That’s interesting.”

“Because she had no children?” said Mubeen. His eyes were soulful. The two men, both left childless by a cruel fate, shared an unspoken moment.

Santosh looked away. “No,” he said, “Lara Omprakash had no children. Or at least, none that we know of.”

Chapter 63

Nisha Gandhe was no fool. Perhaps there were times when her looks had held her back; when she’d been seen as nothing more than a pretty face, but she’d had to work hard to overcome that, and after all, there were more difficult crosses to bear.

There were also times when her looks could be a distinct advantage. And she wasn’t above using them to get what she wanted.

Like now. At home in her apartment in Mumbai’s Cuffe Parade, a desirable abode that was testament more to her husband’s stockbroker salary than to what she received from Private, she ended the call with Santosh. Then took the phone to the study in order to make her next call. It was a call that required her to be... well, she hesitated to use the word “flirtatious,” but it was as good a word as any. And innocent though it was, she didn’t particularly want to Sanjeev to hear. After all, why rock the boat? Family life was her solace. As an adopted child who thanked the Almighty for her loving husband and a beautiful daughter, she knew its importance better than anyone.

“Nisha Gandhe,” said the voice on the other end of the line. “Would that be the same Nisha Gandhe, ex of Mumbai CID? Gorgeous smile? Tragically unavailable?”

She grinned. “If that is the same Ajay, municipal records wizard, then yes, indeed it is. It’s good to hear your voice, Ajay.”

“And yours. Especially if you’ve dumped your rich husband and decided to take up with a lowly municipal fixer?”

“Sadly not, Ajay. I was thinking more along the lines of a favor.”

He made pretend-grumbling sounds but she imagined him reaching for a pen and paper. “You could have come to the office to request this, you know. Then I would have had the benefit of the famous Nisha perch.”

She felt herself color. “That’s a thing?”

“What can I say? It’s a thing.”

“Okay,” she smiled, “I don’t really think I want to know. But the reason I can’t come in person is because this is strictly off the record, just you and me.”

“I see,” he said. “Private and confidential, eh?”

“Very good. Don’t give up the day job. Are you ready?”

“Fire away.”

“It’s the director Lara Omprakash.”

“As in, the recently deceased director Lara Omprakash.”

“The very same. She was apparently childless, but the post-mortem examination reveals she may have given birth.”

“Got you.”

“Thanks, Ajay.”

She left the study. Tonight the family was watching television in the living room and sharing a pizza. Sanjeev was indulging in his favorite pastime — channel surfing — much to the chagrin of Nisha and her daughter. Why were men never interested in what was happening on the selected channel but always interested in what else could be happening on some other channel?

“Hold it right there,” said Nisha before Sanjeev could change the channel once again. It was the local news carrying a bulletin regarding the life and times of Ragini Sharma. The bulletin was less than two minutes long but the file footage was supplemented by black-and-white photographs of the early days of the politician.

“Why are we watching this?” complained Nisha’s daughter. “I want to watch Hannah Montana.”

“Just a minute, sweetheart. I need to see this because of work.”

She continued to stare at the screen as old photographs appeared within the montage, accompanied by melancholy music and a hushed voiceover. Where had she seen that face before?

And then the penny dropped.

Chapter 64

“She was no social worker,” said Nisha emphatically. “Unless ‘social worker’ is a euphemism for ‘madam.’”

“Think carefully, Nisha,” said Santosh. “The incident that you mentioned was a long time ago. You could be mistaken.”

“I am absolutely certain. I never forget a face. It was her,” replied Nisha adamantly.

“Let’s go over this once more,” he said slowly. “Take your time and don’t leave out even the smallest detail.”

Nisha took a deep breath and began narrating her story once again. “When I had just joined the police service, I was initially posted to the Anti-Vice Squad. I distinctly remember we received a tip-off that a batch of young girls was being held captive at one of the establishments in Falkland Road, in the notorious red-light district of Mumbai.”

“And what happened next?”

“We raided the establishment,” answered Nisha, “and found several girls — most of them minors — inside the place. Some of them had already been forced into sex with male customers.”

“What did you do once you were inside?” asked Santosh.

“We rescued the girls and took them to a remand home. A couple of them were found in possession of drugs and were arrested. We also filed charges against the owner of the brothel — the madam.”

“And you believe that the madam was none other than Ragini Sharma?” asked Santosh incredulously.

“She was little more than a prostitute with an entrepreneurial flair,” said Nisha. “She had succeeded in networking with several powerful politicians whose perverted needs she served. It was because of her political clout that the charges against her were subsequently dropped, much against my wishes.”

“How did she leave behind the brothel and become a member of the legislature?” asked Santosh.

“She claimed that she was protecting the girls and offering them shelter,” replied Nisha. “A massive cover-up exercise was undertaken to reinvent her profile. I remember reading a newspaper report that referred to her as a social worker, someone who helped poor and downtrodden women.”

“And you think that it was all a cover? That she was actually encouraging prostitution?” asked Santosh.

“Oh, absolutely,” said Nisha, nodding her head vigorously. “The transformation from prostitute to brothel owner, then from social worker to politician, was a gradual one. At each stage she was careful to erase as much of her past as possible. I would never have made the connection if I had not seen those old photos of her on the news. Over the past few years she’s consciously cultivated a different — more mature — look. Shorter hair, traditional sarees, spectacles... but the photographs of her in her youth gave her away.”

“I still find it hard to believe that a mainstream political party would accept her as a candidate, given her past,” objected Santosh, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

“Stranger things have happened in Indian politics,” argued Nisha. “Over thirty percent of Members of Parliament have criminal cases pending against them. The figure is even higher in the state assemblies. Phoolan Devi, the famous Bandit Queen, who had killed twenty-two villagers in cold blood during her life as a dacoit, was subsequently elected to parliament even though she had thirty criminal cases conducted against her. Ragini Sharma pales in comparison.”

Chapter 65

It was late and Mumbai’s oldest red-light district hummed with activity.

Kamathipura had begun life as a “comfort zone” for British troops in the 1880s and was now a fourteen-lane district densely packed with dilapidated buildings and precariously balanced hutments, almost every one of them a brothel. They teemed with young girls, many kidnapped from country villages or sold into the sex trade by their own families. Drug addiction, alcohol abuse, STDs, and HIV — they all abounded in an area that over fifty thousand prostitutes euphemistically called home.

“Do you recall which one it was?” asked Santosh, as they weaved through a street overcrowded with vendors, tea stalls, and beggars.

“I shall never forget it,” Nisha replied. Some of the girls that she had rescued that night had been less than twelve years old. She pointed him in the right direction.

“I know that you are perfectly capable of taking care of yourself, but in this area any woman who makes eye contact with a male is considered fair game. Walk quickly and keep your head down,” instructed Santosh. They hurried toward the premises Nisha had already pointed out.

A few minutes later they entered a near-derelict building and began to climb a precarious staircase that creaked with each step they took. On the landing, a group of gaudily dressed women stood with dubious male companions waiting for bedrooms to be vacated.

“Hey, babe, how about a blow job?” asked a drunk with bloodshot eyes. He reeked of sweat and alcohol and ogled Nisha with a smirk. He held a bottle of cheap liquor in one hand, and as they passed he reached to grab Nisha’s behind with the other...

Nisha whirled, brought her knee into his groin and stepped away as the boozehound doubled over with pain, groaning on the bare boards. She shot Santosh a look, as though to say, “How’s that for fair game?” and he just managed to suppress a smile in return, hurrying her on instead. There wasn’t time for all this.

Now she led them to a room where, seated on a large red artificial-leather sofa, was the brothel’s queen bee, busy stuffing a mixture of betel nut and tobacco into her mouth. She looked suspiciously at Santosh and Nisha as they approached, then raised painted eyebrows as Santosh delved for his wallet and placed five crisp thousand-rupee notes into her hands.

The madam looked at the cash. She looked back at Santosh and Nisha, standing before her, and slowly smiled, revealing betel-nut-stained teeth.

“What sort of girl do you want?” she asked Santosh. “Someone to provide a threesome along with your girlfriend?”

“I’m not here as a customer,” he replied. “I just need a few simple questions answered.”

The madam looked at him distrustfully. “You a cop?” she asked. “If you are, you can have your money back.”

“I’m not a policeman,” said Santosh. “My colleague and I are writing a book about women who made it big but started out in the world of prostitution. I was wondering whether you could tell us something about Ragini Sharma.”

The madam eyed them both as though she didn’t believe a word they said, but even so she tucked the cash into her blouse. Leaning over the arm of the sofa, she spat chewed-up betel nut into a brass spittoon on the floor then wiped brown slaver from her mouth.

“That bitch!”

“I take it you knew her personally?” said Santosh, resting on his cane to ease the pressure on his bad leg. He wished his head would stop pounding. That his mouth wasn’t so dry.

“You could say that,” blurted the madam. “She took extra pride in getting her thugs to ‘inaugurate’ the new girls. I was one of the girls broken in by her goons. She may show herself off as being a mighty respectable politician these days, but she’s just a dirty whore! She used to fuck her clients; now she’s trying to fuck the entire country!” The madam had obviously not watched the evening news or read the news reports regarding Ragini Sharma’s death.

“Why didn’t you leak her story to the press?” asked Nisha. “Why did you keep quiet?”

She curled a lip. “When I first came to Kamathipura, I was fifteen. I was abducted, caged, abused, beaten, and raped repeatedly until I was broken in. There was nothing that I wanted more desperately than to be reunited with my family. Each night I would sob uncontrollably as I remembered my parents, my siblings, and my home in Uttar Pradesh.”

The madam took another betel leaf and delicately layered it with lime, catechu, betel nut, cardamom, and tobacco. She placed it in her mouth contentedly and continued: “One night, I was able to escape from my imprisonment. I ran to Mumbai Central railway station and boarded a train for my home village. But when I reached home, my parents refused to acknowledge that I was their daughter. They said I was a woman of loose moral character — a liability. I realized that I had not been kidnapped. It was they who had sold me into prostitution. I took the first train back to Mumbai and returned to the very establishment that had pimped me. There was no looking back for me after that.”

“Ragini Sharma accepted you back?” asked Santosh.

She nodded. “A bitch she may have been. But she took me back when I had no home. I owed her for that at least.”

“And then?” pressed Nisha.

“I became one of her best-earning girls,” recalled the madam. “I was often sent to take care of her special political friends too. She welcomed me with open arms... so long as she knew I’d welcome new customers with open legs!”

“What prompted her to enter politics?” asked Santosh.

“She was especially close to someone high up in the government. She was soon serving the needs of several other politicians. I suppose it’s possible that she called in a favor,” replied the madam with a yawn.

She leaned and spat betel-nut mulch into her spittoon, the interview over.

On their way back down the creaking stairs they passed Mr. Blow Job, still nursing his swollen nuts and bruised ego. As they left the depressing and hopeless place and made their way toward Grant Road, they each privately breathed a grateful sigh of relief.

“It is said that politics is the second-oldest profession in the world but that it bears a close resemblance to the oldest,” said Santosh. “It seems that Ragini Sharma mastered both.”

Chapter 66

“You’re not going to like this,” said Mubeen, entering Santosh’s office.

“Go ahead,” replied Santosh. “I’m a big boy.”

“The hair we found on Ragini Sharma’s pillow? I was able to extract DNA from the root. I then ran it against several databases. I ended up with a match, but you’re not going to believe whose it is,” said Mubeen anxiously.

“Given that the root was intact,” said Santosh, “I would have expected the hair to belong to the victim, Ragini Sharma.”

Mubeen handed over a single A4 printout to him: details gleaned from a database at the...

“India Fertility Clinic and IVF Center?” Santosh started. “You found a match using a hacked database?” Mubeen had been right. He didn’t like it.

Mubeen shrugged. “There’s no national database, so...”

“You hacked.”

“It’s called cooperation, not hacking,” replied the medical examiner defensively.

Santosh shook his head then looked at the printout once again. Sure enough, they had a match. The DNA from the hair found on Ragini Sharma’s pillow — it belonged to a clinic sperm donor.

“There’s something else you need to know,” said Mubeen.

Santosh looked up from the printout. “Yes?”

“In the entire series of killings we only found two DNA samples — the hair on Ragini Sharma’s pillow and the saliva on Elina Xavier’s eyebrow. We thought we had a possible third sample under Ragini Sharma’s fingernails because she seemed to have fought back, but the material turned out to be dirt.”

“Go on,” said Santosh curiously.

“I expected the DNA from the hair to match the DNA from the saliva on Xavier, given that both murders were apparently committed by the same killer,” continued Mubeen.

“They’re not the same?” queried Santosh.

“They’re not,” replied Mubeen. “But they are related.”

Santosh’s eyes traveled down to the bottom of the page. Saw the name there.

Nalin D’Souza.

Chapter 67

The property was long abandoned, its grounds so mud-soaked and choked with weeds that she was forced to park the car by the side of the deserted road and cover the last mile on foot.

And she wished that time wasn’t against them, and that she could have made this trip in the daylight hours.

Ahead of her loomed the crumbling building, painted gray by the moonlight. The roof had caved in, she realized as she came closer. The rear of the building seemed to have been burned down, the walls black with the marks of an inferno. All the windows were either cracked or covered in a thick coat of dust and grime. Behind them was utter darkness and a strange eeriness.

A solid door made from Burma teak had been subjected to years of adolescent graffiti. A rusted chain and padlock held it shut and a couple of speckled lizards stood guard on the smooth stone framing the teak. Nisha’s torch beam sent them scurrying for cover as it illuminated a faded signboard above the door.

Bombay City Orphanage, it said, and below that in smaller letters: ESTABLISHED 1891 BY THE SIR JIMMY MEHTA TRUST. She snapped a picture of it with her smartphone.

There was part of her that wanted to turn away from this sinister place. It dredged up memories of her own childhood, of a dead mother and an absent father. Adopted by a loving couple with strong middle-class values, she had been well educated and her adoptive parents had supported her endeavor to join the police force. But privately she always felt the absence of her biological parents.

Anyway. Enough. She shrugged off the memories to focus on the task at hand.

Would there be anything worth examining inside the ramshackle place? She could almost hear her own thoughts in the ominously silent ruins of the neglected establishment. Except for the chirping of crickets there was no sound to be heard, the nearest dwellings over a mile away. The land that had been donated to the orphanage trust was along the fringes of the long stretch of dark and forbidding mangroves that bordered Malad Creek.

She didn’t have a warrant but given the building’s state of disrepair she decided to take her chances and picked a rock from the ground to hammer against the rusting padlock. The blows reverberated in the stillness, shattering the creepy calm, and the rusted lock fell with a clunk to the porch floor.

Taking a deep breath, Nisha kicked open the door then slipped inside, listening. All was quiet.

So how come she had the feeling that she wasn’t alone?

She ran her flashlight beam over what turned out to be a colonial-style entrance lobby. Years of neglect had resulted in a heavy layer of dust everywhere and she brought a kerchief to her face as she moved the light. To her right was a doorway leading to smaller office rooms; to her left empty hooks and patches of fading plaster spoke of pictures removed from the wall.

In front of her was a wide staircase leading to the floor above. She stepped toward it, then jumped as startled pigeons suddenly took to the air, the flapping of their wings loud as explosions in the damp silence.

Her heart hammered in her chest and she fought to control her breathing, almost laughing. She decided that if it came to a straight choice between a drunk demanding a blow job and pigeons, she’d take the drunk any day.

Now she took the steps, gingerly, praying the creaking floorboards wouldn’t give way. She reached the first floor where a large room was filled with old rusting bed frames. Once upon a time it would have been a dormitory filled with children — children with no parents. Children like her.

Lost in thought, she didn’t sense what was behind her until it was too late, and a blow from behind sent her sprawling to the floor.

Chapter 68

Surrounded by his entourage, the Attorney General made his way across the plaza outside the courtroom of the Chief Justice with an almost majestic swagger.

The legal guardian of the rights of 1.2 billion Indians and occupying a constitutionally mandated rank devised to keep him at one remove from the contemptible politics of New Delhi, the Attorney General was known to be an inexhaustible worker with an incredible memory for facts, a complete mastery of the law, and an ability to direct senior judges effortlessly.

He was also a master at negotiating his way through the corridors of power. Having arrived in New Delhi as an outsider, he had taken to the country’s political capital like a fish to water. Realizing quickly that one often had to play the man rather than the ball, he had become good friends with the Prime Minister’s political advisor. And having achieved that, seemingly there was nothing and no one that the Attorney General could not maneuver in New Delhi and beyond.

He crossed the plaza, headed to his white Ambassador car bearing a red beacon on the roof, and asked his driver to take him to his chambers at Motilal Nehru Marg. His entourage bundled themselves into a second car and followed. As he settled into the uncomfortable rear bench seat — standard government issue — his phone rang. He looked at the number flashing on his screen. It was the Director of the CBI — the Central Bureau of Investigation.

He took the call.

“We have tried our best,” began the Director. “In my opinion nothing can be traced back to you.”

“How sure are you?” asked the Attorney General softly.

“I’ve had several men assigned to the matter. Unfortunately it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

“I cannot afford to have this come out. The stakes are too bloody high.”

“I understand completely,” said the Director. “I shall do my best to keep it under wraps.”

“I appreciate that,” the Attorney General told him.

It was fortuitous that the Director of the CBI was under a cloud and needed all the help he could get to hold on to his position. The Attorney General had promised him he would speak to the Prime Minister’s political advisor and swing matters his way.

The Attorney General smiled as he disconnected the call. It was always good doing business with people whose interests were aligned with one’s own.

Chapter 69

Hurt, Nisha twisted and in the bouncing beam of the flashlight caught a glimpse of her assailant. A grubby man wearing filthy shorts and a ripped vest, his hair was long, reaching his shoulders. In his upraised hand was a short club of some kind, ready for another attack.

“Who are you?” he demanded, advancing on her.

But she was in no mood to answer questions. The pigeons were terrifying, but grimy guys with big sticks she could deal with.

As he advanced she dazzled him with the torch and pivoted at the same time, sweeping his legs from beneath him.

The club spun off as he fell badly, and with a shout of pain so loud she didn’t even bother drawing her gun. In a second she was astride him, pinning him to the floor and dazzling him again with the flashlight. Now she saw him for what he was: a grimy, broken-down old man. She felt mildly nauseous as she was hit by the stench of his unwashed body and bad breath. On his clothes was the odor of cheap alcohol and stale tobacco smoke.

“We can do this either the easy way or the hard way,” hissed Nisha. “Answer a few questions for me and I leave you with enough cash for a tipple. Play tough and I leave you with busted kneecaps.”

He blinked in the light, his eyes adjusting. “Why? Who are you?”

“My name is Nisha Gandhe and I’m an investigator,” she replied, out of breath. “I was hoping that a visit to this place would help me find out a little more about Elina Xavier.”

“Why do you want to know?” he asked cautiously.

“She was murdered a few days ago and research into her background showed that she had once been the headmistress of this orphanage,” replied Nisha. “Why don’t you begin by telling me who you are and what you’re doing here?”

“I used to be the night guard for the orphanage,” he said, lips loosened by the promise of more booze. “I stayed here until the place shut down during the Mumbai riots.”

“Why would the riots affect an orphanage?”

Pinned beneath her, he still managed a shrug. “Riot’s a riot. Riot doesn’t care what it destroys.”

“And what are you doing here now?”

Again he shrugged. “It’s here or the streets.”

“And you were an employee during the years when Elina Xavier was the headmistress here?”

“Sure,” said the man. “I was officially employed here at that time. She was a real tight-ass, that one.”

“What do you mean?” asked Nisha curiously.

“She had all the trustees wrapped around her little finger. She could do whatever she wanted and get away with it because they were all on her side. She was arrogant and bossy with everyone here.”

“How was she with the children?”

“She was a harsh taskmaster, demanding discipline, courteousness, and hard work from the kids.”

“Anything else that I should know?” asked Nisha, tightening her grip on his wrists.

“There were rumors... but I never saw it happen,” said the man suddenly.

“Rumors about what?” asked Nisha.

“That she beat the children,” he said uncomfortably. “I remember hearing them crying and screaming at night, but I was never sure whether it was because of Xavier.”

“Was there any evidence to suggest that she abused the children?”

“The housekeeper who cleaned the dormitory would talk of soiled sheets and bloody welts,” replied the man cautiously, “but then that woman hated Xavier. I could never be sure what to believe.”

“Why didn’t the trustees take action? Why would they sit by quietly if there were instances of abuse?”

“The chief trustee was a powerful man. I can’t remember his name now but he was very well connected, the bugger. Xavier was bonking him. In her younger days she was quite a looker,” winked the deadbeat.

Nisha thought about what the man had just said and released his arms. Getting off him, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a five-hundred-rupee bill that she handed over to him wordlessly. She then turned around and made her way out of that dark and evil place that still seemed to echo with the cries and screams of orphans.

Chapter 70

On the Wednesday that Elina Xavier, the school principal, had been murdered, she had spent the better part of the day in Mahim Church.

She had shuffled her way through the crowds gathered for prayers. Although it was a Catholic parish, few people in Mumbai called it St Michael’s Church. For the average Mumbaikar — as Mumbai residents called themselves — it was simply known as Mahim Church after the area in which it was located, a place where not only Christians but also Hindus, Muslims, Parsis, Buddhists, and Sikhs could gather to pray.

It was believed that visiting the church on nine consecutive Wednesdays would result in wishes being granted — and this was Elina’s ninth. She had been diagnosed with leukemia a year previously but her doctors were now telling her that the disease was in remission after bone-marrow transplants, dialysis, and multiple rounds of chemotherapy. All she had wanted was her life back. Hence her desperate call for help to the Lord each Wednesday.

Father Luis had seen Elina Xavier and looked at his watch. She had specifically requested to say confession today. It seemed as though she had needed to get a few things that were bothering her off her chest. He had gestured to her to enter the confessional. Elina had pulled herself together, taken a deep breath, and followed him to the box, taking her place on the opposite side of the screen.

Wearing a pale blue dress and dark blue shoes, she had carried a smart white calfskin handbag and had had a dignified air about her. It had been obvious that she must have been eye-catching before age and illness had taken their toll.

She had pulled a piece of paper out of her purse.

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been many years since my last confession,” Elina had said, kneeling down.

“Go ahead, Elina,” Father Luis had said.

“As you know, I used to manage the Bombay City Orphanage that was established by the Sir Jimmy Mehta Trust,” she had begun.

“Yes, I do recall that,” Father Luis had said through the screen.

“I did not do my duty, Father,” Elina had said, her eyes welling up.

“Why do you say that?” he had asked gently.

“I was in love with the chief trustee. He was a married man and I was determined to break up his marriage and become his wife. Our adulterous relationship continued for a couple of years.”

“I sense there is something more than this that you wish to confess,” Father Luis had said. He spoke with the experience of many years.

“I was so caught up in the affair that I allowed the orphanage’s funds to be embezzled by him. Eventually it had to shut down and is closed to this day,” Elina had replied.

“Be that as it may, you continued looking after the children while the orphanage lasted. That must count for something,” Father Luis had said sympathetically.

“But that’s just it. I was terrible to them. In particular, after I found out that I had been used like a whore by the chief trustee, I was overcome by rage. I began taking it out on the children who were in my charge.”

“How?” Father Luis had asked.

“I would beat them with a rod, often till the welts bled. I would hold their heads under water to discipline them. Sometimes I would fly into a fit of rage if they had wet their beds and would almost strangle them. I was worse than a witch.”

“If that was the case, how did you get your present position as the principal of such a well-respected girls’ school?”

Elina’s hands had trembled. “I blackmailed the chief trustee. I told him that the orphanage had closed down because of his financial misdeeds. I also had evidence of our sexual relationship, which I threatened to expose to his wife.”

“And in return, he managed to get you a plum post so that you would keep your mouth shut?”

“Precisely — at the girls’ school. Luckily for me, there had been an instance of teen pregnancy there and a reporter from the Afternoon Mirror was chasing the story. I went to her office, screamed at her, and told her that I would get the girl’s parents to sue her for defamation if she printed anything. The threat worked and the paper dropped the piece. I became the darling of the board of trustees.”

“And was your old friend among them?”

“Yes,” Elina had replied. “He is still on the board but we rarely talk. I got married to the gym instructor at the school but my husband died a few years later from cirrhosis. I settled down into my role and made a new life for myself.”

“So why this confession, then?” Father Luis had asked.

“I was diagnosed with leukemia a year ago. Don’t worry... it’s in remission. I realize that I need to make a full confession so that I can stop walking around bearing the guilt of my past sins. I need a fresh start, Father.”

He had nodded. “And are you actually repentant for your sins?”

Elina had picked up the piece of paper that she had pulled out of her purse and had begun reading: “O God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee and I detest all my sins because of Thy just punishments, but most of all because they offend Thee, my God, who art all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace, to sin no more and avoid the near occasions of sin. Amen.”

Father Luis had thought about what Elina had said for a moment. He had sighed before making the sign of the cross, closing his eyes, and speaking.

“Do you reject sin so as to live in the freedom of God’s children?” he had asked.

“I do,” Elina had replied.

“Do you reject Satan, father of sin and prince of darkness?”

“I do.”

“Do you believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth?”

“I do.”

“Do you believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was born of the Virgin Mary, was crucified, died, and was buried, rose from the dead, and is now seated at the right hand of the Father?”

“I do.”

“Do you believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting?”

“I do.”

“In that case, may our Lord Jesus Christ absolve you; and by His authority I absolve you from every bond of excommunication... I absolve you of your sins in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

The priest had opened his eyes to look though the screen at Elina. She had already left.

Chapter 71

Hari Padhi looked up at the naked bulb hanging from the ceiling and wondered whether the wire would support his weight if he tried to hang himself. Doing that would be preferable to the alternatives on offer.

If only he could get to it.

He lay naked and spreadeagled on the bare table, his hands and feet tied securely to the corners with prickly jute twine. After tying him down to the table, the disinterested cop had left, the cell door clanging noisily shut.

And now he counted the seconds and minutes as he waited, staring at the bulb. The silence in the cell was deafening and intense fear coupled with exhaustion began to tell on him. Softly, he wept.

Suddenly there was a loud noise, a flurry of activity, and Rupesh appeared by his side. Noticing the tears, the cop took out his kerchief from his pocket and wiped Hari’s face almost tenderly.

“Shhh. Don’t worry,” he whispered. “In a short while it will all be over,” he said, his tobacco-scented breath wafting into Hari’s nostrils.

Rupesh’s assistant plugged something into the power outlet immediately next to the prison cell. It was a simple yet brutally effective device — a long electrical cord with a plug at one end and splayed copper wires at the other.

“Are you ready?” asked Rupesh as he waited for the constable to turn on the power supply. The worried-looking constable ran over to him and wordlessly handed over the naked end of the long cord.

Holding the wire in his hand, Rupesh looked at Hari’s terrified face. He then began patiently to explain what he was about to do. “My electric prod has two electrodes of different polarity a short distance apart so that a circuit will be created via your testicles. You will feel extreme pain and distress because I shall keep the voltage high and the current low. I shall keep increasing the current if I do not hear what I want from you.

“Shall we begin?” asked Rupesh rhetorically as he placed one of the wires on Hari’s privates. Hari shut his eyes in terror as he waited for the circuit to be completed.

The ringing of the phone was almost deafening. Muttering a few choice expletives, Rupesh was forced to hand over the electrical cord to the constable in order to take the call. He listened carefully to the sub-inspector who was calling from a house in South Mumbai.

Hanging up, Rupesh looked at Hari and began to laugh almost demonically. “You have the devil’s luck, my friend,” he said as he left the prison cell hurriedly, his constable in tow.

Chapter 72

Munna sat in a comfortable recliner in a private VIP box at Wankhede Stadium. This was the usual venue for premier cricket matches in Mumbai and where one sat was a clear indicator of where one stood in the city’s pecking order.

Wankhede was packed to capacity today. Forty-five thousand spectators crammed the seven stands around the field. The high and mighty, however, were seated in thirty-seven special air-conditioned boxes.

Seated in Munna’s private box were politicians, businessmen, and movie stars. Money had the ability to make everyone and everything look respectable — including Munna and his shady organization. For the forty-five thousand cricket fans seated in the stands, cricket was all about passion and entertainment. For Munna, it was simply business. He chuckled to himself as he thought about the fact that very little happened on the pitch without his say-so.

Munna’s betting syndicate controlled the spot-fixing market in Indian cricket. Spot-fixing was different from match-fixing, given that it related to isolated incidents as opposed to the entire outcome of a match. With years of experience Munna had fine-tuned the art. For instance, a no-ball, wide delivery, or getting out for single-digit runs did not require all eleven players to be part of the fix. A single player was sufficient to achieve that. Munna’s gambling and betting empire ran by receiving bets on such individual events within a match. The result was that India had become the biggest hub for cricket betting across the world.

Seated next to Munna was a short, dark, and chubby man, wearing designer sunglasses. Munna flicked open his box of Marlboro Lights, but before he could reach for his gold lighter the man in shades had reached out with his own.

Public places were designated no-smoking zones but no one dared point that out to Munna. The chubby man nodded respectfully as his boss took a few more puffs and stubbed out the cigarette when his cell phone began to ring.

“Bol,” said Munna in Hindi. “Speak.”

The voice at the other end said something that seemed to upset Munna, but only momentarily. He recovered quickly as he spoke firmly into his phone.

“Signal that motherfucker batsman that if he does not get bowled out in the next twenty seconds, his wife will receive the photos we took of him with the shady lady from Romania.”

Disconnecting the call, he turned to his deputy from Thailand and said, “Who was the great man who said that if you’ve got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow?”

Chapter 73

The attorney general waited on the phone for his bookie to register the bet. A minute later the man was back on the line.

“I have cleared it, sir. Your credit limit is back in place,” said the bookie. “What type of bet would you like to place? Head to Head, Top Runscorer, Next Man Out, Highest First Ten Overs, Race to Ten Runs or Innings/Match Runs?”

“Next Man Out,” said the Attorney General.

“Currently Sriram and Rajmohan are the two batsmen at the wicket,” said the bookie, looking at his television screen.

“Sriram,” said the Attorney General.

“Odds are three to one,” said the bookie.

“One million,” said the Attorney General.

“Done,” said the bookie.

When the Attorney General had hung up, the bookie informed his boss of the additional bet. “Keep Nimboo Baba informed,” said Munna. “He will finance it.”

Chapter 74

The bungalow on Narayan Dabholkar Road in tony South Mumbai had been built in the colonial style. It provided generous accommodation for whoever happened to be occupying the post of Chief Justice of the High Court of Bombay. The current resident was the Honorable Mrs. Justice Anjana Lal. Unfortunately, she was dead.

Her Honor had not appeared in her chambers on Sunday morning. She was one of the rare judges who worked for a couple of hours each Sunday in order to review the week’s cause list. It was common for Her Honor to arrive in her chambers by 10 a.m. and to spend the morning going through affidavits, petitions, replies, and appeals until noon, at which time she would proceed to her club for a weekly game of bridge accompanied by lunch.

Her court clerk, a plump, red-faced man, had tried to reach her on the phone but had failed. He had driven over to her bungalow because it had been so uncharacteristic of Her Honor to not inform him of any deviation from her printed schedule.

Upon reaching her official residence, he had found the guard at the gate in a deep slumber. No amount of prodding could stir him and the clerk had huffed his way into the house to find it empty except for the senior butler, busy preparing tea in the pantry. The clerk had asked the butler’s help in forcing open Her Honor’s bedroom door after repeated knocking had failed to elicit a response from within.

They had found her lying on the floor, dressed in loose, white, hand-woven cotton pajamas and top, the clothes that she usually wore in order to complete her morning yoga and meditation. Her body had been placed on the floor, her hair deliberately disheveled and her face blackened with charcoal. Tied tightly around her neck had been a yellow scarf. The court clerk had collapsed from shock upon seeing the corpse and it had been left to the butler to inform the Malabar Hill police station of events.

The sub-inspector had arrived within five minutes of the phone call, given that the crime involved a high-ranking dignitary of Mumbai. Seeing the yellow garrote, he had phoned Rupesh and awaited his arrival before allowing his men to touch anything. Rupesh had arrived a few minutes before Santosh, Nisha, and Mubeen.

Santosh circled the body like a sniffer hound. It didn’t help because it disturbed Mubeen, who was attempting to take high-resolution photos of the late judge.

“See her hands,” Santosh said to Rupesh excitedly. “She has been made to hold a tangle of barbed wire.”

Before Rupesh could respond, Santosh used his cane to point to a small piece of paper sticking out from underneath the corpse. “Roll her over slightly and check that,” he instructed Mubeen.

Trained to work in a scientific and methodical manner, Mubeen retorted, “Let me get the photos done first. I’ll move her as soon as I have documented her position.”

“You will do as I ask,” replied Santosh sternly. “I really don’t care what sequence you have planned... tell me what’s on that piece of paper, hmm... donkey?” It was a meant to be a question but sounded like a derogatory remark. Santosh was an obsessive — compulsive pain in the ass, but he had never used disparaging terms toward colleagues in the past.

Feeling irritated, Mubeen bent over in order to examine the paper that Santosh was pointing to. “It has been taped to a safety pin and the pin has been fastened to her pajamas.”

“Can you discern if there is anything printed or written on the paper?” asked Santosh, the urgency in his voice palpable to all.

“It seems like a picture... an image of an animal’s tail,” replied Mubeen, gently lifting the paper at the corner with his forceps so that he could look at the side facing the floor.

“Precisely!” exclaimed Santosh triumphantly. “That image isn’t just any animal’s tail. It’s the tail of a donkey. As a kid, did you ever play pin the tail on the donkey?”

Chapter 75

Did you ever play pin the tail on the donkey? It’s rather common at children’s birthday parties. A picture of a donkey with its tail missing is taped to a wall at a height that can easily be reached by the kids. Each child is blindfolded turn by turn and handed a paper tail with a pushpin poked through it. The blindfolded child is then spun around until disoriented and left free to make their way to the wall and pin the tail on the donkey. Interesting game, isn’t it? I never played it as a child but decided to play it as an adult this morning.

Getting into the judge’s house was child’s play. They leave a single guard at the gate to provide security for a colonial mansion! Usually the guard is fast asleep by the early-morning hours. Placing a chloroform-soaked kerchief over his nose required no effort at all on my part. He was out for the count within a few seconds.

The judge’s downfall was her precise routine. It was common knowledge that she was an early riser and woke each morning at precisely 6 a.m. to complete a one-hour schedule of yoga and meditation. She spent the next hour reading legal briefs until 8 a.m., when her butler would bring her the newspapers along with her tea. By 9:30 a.m. she would be showered and ready to step into the official car that would take her to the High Court in the old Fort district of Mumbai. Anyone observing the judge’s schedule would know that she was at her most vulnerable at 5 a.m. when the house was entirely devoid of staff.

The seventh avatar of Durga is Kaalratri. She has a dark complexion and frizzy hair, and in one of her hands holds a bunch of iron thorns. She is depicted as seated on a donkey, hence my pin-the-tail joke! In any case, Her Ladyship was devoid of any intellect and had simply risen through the ranks because of her influential network of friends. If you ask me, she was nothing more than a donkey herself.

Chapter 76

“Wasn’t Justice Anjana Lal married?” asked Santosh.

“Yes, but her husband and daughter were in New Delhi attending a wedding in the extended family,” replied Rupesh.

“So it’s possible that the perp has been keeping track of the family and chose a day when the judge would be alone at home,” reasoned Santosh. “Our strangler also knew when Bhavna Choksi’s boyfriend was out of India.”

“The killer stalks the targets beforehand?” asked Nisha. “Or was it simply someone who knew the judge?”

“The butler — what do we know about him?” queried Santosh.

“He’s a permanent fixture here,” replied Nisha. “He is the chief caretaker of the bungalow and has been attached to the property for over twenty-five years. He personally takes care of every Chief Justice who occupies this residence. Apparently he has served seventeen during this period. He has a staff of ten — including a cook and several gardeners — serving under him.”

“Any visitors either yesterday or today that we know about?”

“I spoke with the butler,” replied Nisha. “The judge was feeling slightly under the weather yesterday and her GP had dropped in to see her in the evening. I have obtained his name as well as the address of his clinic.”

“Anyone else?”

“The judge was very particular about her yoga sessions in the mornings. Usually her teacher came in at six a.m. three days of the week. We have no idea whether her instructor came in today or not,” said Nisha.

“What about her cases?” asked Santosh, turning to Rupesh. “Do we know which were currently being decided by the judge?”

“I have asked for a full list from her clerk,” Rupesh replied. “She was a tough judge and showed little leniency in her pronouncements. It’s possible that she may have created a few enemies along the way.”

“I would suggest that we should look at not only the pending cases but also recent judgments delivered by her,” said Santosh. “Someone who felt wronged could have done this.”

“Sure,” replied Rupesh. “I’ll put someone from the High Court Registrar’s office on to compiling the information.” He took leave of the Private India team and got into his Jeep. Instead of going to HQ, he headed toward Arthur Road Jail, also known as Mumbai Central Prison.

Mumbai’s largest and oldest prison, it was built in 1926 to occupy around two acres of land in the congested area between Mahalaxmi and Chinchpokli railway stations. The prison was originally designed to accommodate eight hundred prisoners, but densely packed with inmates the average population at any given time exceeded two thousand. Cells designed to house fifty prisoners were crammed with two hundred each. Inmates were forced to sleep in awkward positions on lice-infested blankets and the result was a high rate of tuberculosis among the prison population. Arthur Road was India’s most feared jail because of the notorious cruelty of its overseers. While petty criminals were routinely mistreated, incarcerated members of crime syndicates were able to bribe guards and officers and even remotely manage their underworld activities from within. Arthur Road was nothing short of hell on earth.

Rupesh entered the cell that held Hari Padhi in solitary confinement. He was lying semi-comatose on a moth-infested blanket. Rupesh kneeled down near him, yanked him up by his hair, and whispered into his ear, “You got lucky, thuggee boy... a murder happened while you were enjoying police hospitality.”

Exhausted and terrified, Hari nodded mutely, staring at Rupesh with tired — almost lifeless — eyes.

“I’m letting you go, but you should know that I can have you back here in no time. And, with your background, no one will believe you — including that pretty little thing you are fucking on the side. Do you understand?” asked Rupesh.

Hari nodded meekly.

“So you are now a free man. But here are the terms on which I’m letting you go...” explained Rupesh patiently.

Chapter 77

Nisha reached the office in Worli a few minutes before closing time. What she would do for an Ajay-type figure now. She looked once again at the board that read Office of the Charity Commissioner, and crossed her fingers that she would be able to find what she was looking for. As was to be expected, most of the staff had left before closing hour. It was a well-known fact that Indian government servants reached their offices late and made up for it by leaving early.

A solitary senior clerk was still at his desk and looked up from the file on his desk as she approached. “I was hoping that you could assist me,” said Nisha tentatively, slipping a couple of thousands into his hand.

The man looked at the cash and pocketed it quickly. “What do you want?” he asked.

“Do all charitable trusts have to be registered here in this office?”

“Under section eighteen, sub-clause one of the Bombay Public Trusts Act of 1950, it is the duty of the trustee of a public trust to make an application for the registration of the trust at the Office of the Charity Commissioner,” replied the clerk mechanically. “So the answer is yes, registration is mandatory.”

“And is it possible to access the records of a given trust?”

“All trusts are required to submit their audited statement of accounts with this office. Information about income, expenditure, asset block, and trustees can be gathered from the annual audited statements submitted to the authority,” replied the clerk, almost rattling off the rule book. “What type of trust are you looking into?”

“I don’t understand,” replied Nisha. “You mean that there are various types?”

“There are Hindu religious trusts, Muslim trusts, those registered via trust deed, Parsi trusts, and Christian trusts. If you tell me the name of the trust in question, I should be able to assist you.”

“It was established in 1891 and called the Sir Jimmy Mehta Trust,” said Nisha, pulling up the photograph of the orphanage signboard on her smartphone and handing it over to the clerk.

He scrutinized the photo for a moment. “Ah, that’s a Parsi trust. It would have been registered under the previous act — the Indian Trusts Act of 1882. Accessing information on that one is a little more complicated.”

Nisha pulled out some more cash that she handed over to him. “I was hoping that you could make it simple for me,” she said. The clerk smiled. It would be a happy Diwali season for him.

“Wait here,” he said. “I’ll need to consult the index first. From that I should be able to pull the file number. What sort of information are you looking for?”

“I need to know when the trust shut down and why. I also need to know who the trustees were,” said Nisha. Then she sat down on one of the uncomfortable visitors’ chairs and waited.

Chapter 78

The attorney general entered his bedroom on tiptoe to avoid disturbing his wife. His aim was to avoid having to answer any awkward questions. A quick shower was in order.

He was out of luck. “Is that you, baby?” asked his wife, sitting up in bed and switching on the bedside lamp.

“Yes,” he replied. “Sorry, I got delayed in the office. That oil-exploration block case comes up tomorrow in the Supreme Court. The entire team had to work late.”

“What’s her name, you bastard?” asked his wife furiously. “Elina Xavier, Ragini Sharma, Devika Gulati, or something else?”

“That’s unfair, dear,” he answered. “I have had an extra long workday and I don’t need this badgering.”

“Oh, poor thing! You must be so tired... having fucked every woman inside your office and outside of it!”

“I’m going for a shower,” said the Attorney General.

He was heading to the bathroom when a small vase whizzed by him and smashed into the door. “You are an animal! Strange thing is that whenever I want it, you can’t seem to bloody get it up!”

“Is everything my fault?” he asked. “We did try for a child several times through the IVF route. What more do you want of me?”

“Love,” said his wife, dropping her head back into the pillow and breaking down.

Nalin stopped in his tracks for a minute, wondering about his next move. Then he went over to the bathroom door, opened it, and went inside for a shower.

Chapter 79

“Any luck on finding the missing employee at Xilon Security Services?” asked Santosh as he continued to read the note prepared for him by Nisha. It concerned the thuggee cult and the subsequent discrimination that they had faced in India, even a hundred years after their downfall.

“I just saw a Reuters piece indicating that an unidentified body has been discovered in Shakti Mills,” Nisha said.

“Shakti Mills? Isn’t Xilon’s office close by?” asked Santosh.

“Absolutely. Xilon has refurbished an old industrial shed that lies along the road that is now called Shakti Mills Lane.”

“Text Rupesh,” instructed Santosh. “There is a high probability that the body is that of the missing employee.”

“How can you be so sure? There wasn’t even a yellow scarf at the murder scene or Reuters would have headlined it,” Nisha objected.

Santosh shrugged his shoulders. He often found it tiresome to explain how he had figured out certain things that eventually panned out to be true. “This particular killing is not for public consumption, thus no scarf.”

He went back to reading the note in front of him.

“Are you telling me that Hari belongs to one such tribe?” asked Santosh, looking up from the note at Nisha, who had been busy texting Rupesh.

“Precisely,” she replied. “His surname is Padhi, right? But his birth certificate doesn’t show that. His name is given there as Hari Paradhi. And Paradhi is the name of one of the criminal tribes listed by the British in 1871.”

“Are you certain?” asked Santosh. “Absolutely sure?”

“Paradhis, Kanjars, Nats, Sansis, Kabutras, Banjaras, and countless others feature on the list. Hari changed his surname later in life so that he would be able to escape discrimination,” Nisha explained. “The truth is that he could not have murdered Mrs. Justice Anjana Lal. He was in custody when the murder happened.”

“But he could have been part of a team that is jointly executing these murders, couldn’t he?” asked Santosh. “The Thugs were known to work in groups, right?”

“Hari’s DNA was not present in either of the two samples at the crime scenes,” said Nisha, placing a small shopping bag on Santosh’s desk. “Have a look inside.”

Santosh picked up the bag and peered in. It contained several scarves, all of them identical to the ones that had been used in the murders. They were also indistinguishable from the extra scarves that had been found in Hari’s desk by Mubeen. “Where did you get these?” asked Santosh curiously.

“Outside a famous Durga temple in Mumbai,” replied Nisha. “Hari goes there every week to pray. A scarf or stole is a very normal offering to the deity. It is not unusual for Hari to have extra scarves lying around.”

“Why didn’t he simply tell us that? Why hold back and increase suspicion where none was required?” wondered Santosh, getting up from the desk and pacing the room in his usual hyperactive manner.

“Because he was ashamed of belonging to one of the so-called criminal tribes,” replied Nisha. “He is having an affair with a young woman — the one whose picture we saw in his photo frame. It’s possible that he didn’t want her to know his background.”

“Fool!” muttered Santosh. “In this day and age, does anyone care that your ancestors may have belonged to a criminal tribe?”

“Simply repealing a discriminatory law has not changed the fact that members of these communities are still treated unfairly. The ones who manage to become educated and find employment usually try to dissociate themselves from anything that could link them to their own communities.”

Santosh turned very quiet. He limped over to the couch in the corner of his office, lay down, and shut his eyes.

“What are you thinking?” asked Nisha, slightly worried.

“Figuring out how to apologize to Hari and convince him to come back to Private India,” replied her boss softly.

Chapter 80

I am sipping from my cup of freshly brewed coffee as I scan the morning newspaper. The body of an unidentified man was found inside the abandoned Shakti Mills premises in Lower Parel, reads the article.

Alas, Mr. Patel is not one of the trophies that I can publicly take credit for. For every act that happens onstage, some events must happen behind the scenes. This was a backstage event.

In fact, Mr. Patel was one of my first victims. It’s just that the incompetent cops did not find his body until several days later, hence the news item today.

Patel was very punctual, though. He had promised to be at Shakti Mills by seven o’clock in the evening and he was there a few minutes before that. I was waiting for him inside the shed, leaning against an old concrete tank that once must have contained dyes and pigments of all hues for fabric to be dipped in. He approached me hesitantly.

“Do you have it?” I asked.

“Do you have the money?” replied Patel.

I quickly opened the brown Manila envelope and showed him five neat bundles of one-thousand-rupee notes, a grand total of half a million.

Patel reached into his pocket and took out a 128GB USB flash drive. “It contains the plans and wiring of all the locations that we manage in Mumbai,” he said. “It also contains the passwords and master codes that allow remote access where such access is permitted.”

I wordlessly handed over the Manila envelope to him as I pocketed the flash drive.

“Don’t you want to verify the contents?” asked Patel.

“No,” I lied. “I trust you.”

He thanked me for the money and turned around, walking toward the exit. I attacked the moment that he had his back to me. The rock I held collided with the back of his head. The envelope containing the cash fell from his hands as he tumbled to the ground. He gasped for air as I bent over him and gripped my hands tightly around his neck.

“I don’t need to verify the contents because I have no intention of paying you,” I said sarcastically as I let go of his neck for a moment and pulled him up by his arms. He had been stunned by the ferocity of my initial attack and was babbling incoherently, pitifully pleading with me to spare his life.

I pulled him to the edge of the concrete tank that was filled with old rainwater. It was covered with a thick sludge owing to the abundant moss that had grown on the surface among the nasty-looking engine oil, turning to neon-green slime. Holding his head in my hands, I pushed his face into the murky water. Patel struggled valiantly and I allowed him to raise his head for a few quick gasps before forcing it back into the tank.

“Holding your breath?” I asked mockingly, obviously not expecting a reply. Patel’s respiratory system, in an attempt to protect itself, had initiated involuntary holding of breath but it was evident to me that water would soon enter his mouth, forcing his epiglottis to close over his airway. It was a matter of time before his body would shut itself down due to oxygen deprivation.

I suddenly felt him give a few violent jerks. Hypoxic convulsions. In a few seconds it was all over. I pulled him out and laid him on the ground in order to empty his pockets of his wallet, visiting-card case, kerchief, keys, and coins.

I looked at his visiting cards. Mr. Mayank Patel, Senior Engineer, Xilon Security Services. Pity that someone who brags about protecting hundreds of homes and establishments could not protect himself, I thought to myself as I quickly lifted him by his legs and tipped his corpse into the filthy slime of the tank.

Chapter 81

Santosh answered his phone immediately when he saw that the caller was Rupesh.

“What the fuck are you guys at Private India up to?” yelled Rupesh angrily. Santosh moved the phone some distance away from his ear and switched to speakerphone mode so that Nisha could also hear the conversation.

“I don’t know what you are talking about, Rupesh,” said Santosh truthfully.

“Why didn’t you tell me that you were investigating the goddamn Attorney General of India?” Rupesh demanded. “Why must I get a kick in the nuts from the Home Minister with a suggestion that I should lay off?” Santosh could visualize Rupesh’s face, his lips red with tobacco, the spittle shooting forth from his mouth as he yelled.

Santosh shrugged. “I wouldn’t say he was investigated, as such...”

“Then what’s this I hear about you having illegally accessed his DNA records?” asked Rupesh.

“We had no idea that the hair on Ragini Sharma’s pillow would throw up a match. In previous crime scenes the hairs that we found could not be used for DNA extraction,” Santosh answered calmly. “It was a matter of chance that our database search produced a match with the hair found at Ragini Sharma’s home. It happened to be the DNA of a sperm donor at an IVF clinic. That donor turned out to be the Attorney General. His sequence was on the clinic’s computer because he and his wife had been trying to have a baby through the IVF route. It’s not like we specifically went out looking to pin the blame on him.”

“You should have informed me of all developments,” insisted Rupesh. “The political shit from above lands on me, not you!”

“Since we are talking, Rupesh,” said Santosh gently, “there is something else that you should know.”

“What?” asked Rupesh, cooling down.

“You arranged for us to obtain a list of all case files that Mrs. Justice Anjana Lal had either delivered orders in or partially heard. You remember?”

“Yes. What of it?”

“Well, it seems that one of the cases she had been hearing pertained to a case of corruption brought against the twelve trustees of a charitable foundation called the Sir Jimmy Mehta Trust.”

“And?” asked Rupesh, curious now.

“The foundation was established by a wealthy Parsi banker. It ran several charitable projects including a children’s orphanage in Mumbai. Unfortunately, the trustees were accused of siphoning off a substantial part of the endowment.”

Santosh could see Nisha scribbling on a piece of paper. She passed it to Santosh. It read, AG was chief trustee.

“What does that have to do with our case?” asked Rupesh, faking ignorance.

“One of the twelve trustees was the Attorney General. In fact, he was the chief trustee in later days. The case was pending in Justice Anjana Lal’s court and if she had found the trustees guilty, such a ruling would have invalidated his appointment to the office of the country’s highest law officer.”

There was a pause at the other end of the line. Rupesh was figuring out how he would get himself out of the mess they had created by their investigation.

“Are you still there?” asked Santosh, knowing full well that Rupesh was still on the phone.

“Yes, I’m here.”

“What do you suggest that I should do in this matter?” asked Santosh innocently.

“Give me some time to think it over,” replied Rupesh. Santosh knew that he meant: Let me discuss the matter with my political masters.

Chapter 82

“The yoga instructor,” gasped Nisha, looking up from the computer on which PrivatePattern, the organization’s analysis tool, had created several relationship maps.

“What?” asked Santosh.

“The yoga instructor who visited the judge’s home three times per week was also the instructor to Priyanka Talati and Lara Omprakash.”

“Interesting,” murmured Santosh, getting up from his chair and walking over to check the output on Nisha’s computer.

“Even more interesting,” said Nisha, “is the fact that our murdered journalist was scheduled to meet this same yoga instructor — Devika Gulati — as part of her investigation into people who work alongside celebrities.”

“Do you know where we can find her?”

“She has a yoga studio in Walkeshwar,” replied Nisha. “And there’s something else,” she added, reading an email from police HQ. “The overall build and clothing of the unidentified man at Shakti Mills matches with the description of the missing engineer from Xilon Security. Could this be our perp?”

“He’s not our perpetrator. Let them find out the extent of decomposition of the corpse,” replied Santosh. “I’m pretty certain that this engineer would have been killed before the other murders happened. He was used by the perp to obtain CCTV, security, and access details, and eliminated after he was no longer of any use.”

“Should I ask Hari to go to N. M. Joshi Marg police station and check the man’s belongings and crime-scene report?”

“Sure,” replied Santosh. “Speaking of Hari, how is he doing?”

“He’s come to work today after your chat with him yesterday,” said Nisha. “There’s still an uncomfortable silence between us, though. I’m feeling lousy that we allowed Rupesh to arrest him and subject him to the third degree.”

“I know what you mean,” said Santosh. “It will take a while for him to open up to me. In the meantime, please try to communicate with him. Ask Mubeen to help.”

“Sure, I’ll try.”

Chapter 83

Devika Gulati ran Yoga Sutra, a stylish studio in upmarket Walkeshwar.

Nisha parked outside, giving the building an appraising look. Under Mumbai’s property development rules, it was illegal to build within five hundred meters of the coastline. Yet Yoga Sutra was almost on the edge of the sea, no doubt with glorious views of Marine Drive and the Arabian Sea.

“So how did you swing that, eh?” said Nisha to herself, getting out of her car.

But she already knew the answer. In Mumbai any rule could be broken — as long as you had the right friends. A quick Google search had shown her what Devika Gulati looked like. And with those looks and that figure, she probably had no difficulty making friends.

Catty, Nisha, she thought. Catty. (But true.)

Not just one of Mumbai’s most exclusive areas, Walkeshwar was also surprisingly quiet. The governor lived here. So did several Mumbai billionaires. Even so, what little street noise there was disappeared as Nisha stepped into the serene inner sanctum of Yoga Sutra.

In the reception area, a large statue of Buddha had been adorned with flowers and Japanese incense, while faint strains of eastern meditative chants created a soothing vibe. Through tastefully frosted glass, Nisha could see the main studio, where women on yoga mats were making the traditional bridge pose. Urging them on, even more curvaceous in the flesh than she had been on Google Images, was Devika Gulati.

Nisha’s gaze traveled further. She’d been right about those amazing views.

“Devika’s class finishes in ten minutes,” smiled the receptionist. “I’ll inform her you’re here.”

“Thank you.”

She took a seat opposite a wood-paneled wall and studied autographed photographs of Devika with an assortment of celebrities — actors, musicians, authors, politicians, businessmen, and bureaucrats. Among the photographs were images of Lara Omprakash and Priyanka Talati. Reaching forward, Nisha picked up a Mumbai society magazine from a coffee table and began to flick through it, stopping when she came across a familiar face.

She almost didn’t recognize him without the expression of irritation on his face, and then it clicked. It was Aakash, “just Aakash,” brandishing a comb and a pair of scissors as though they were deadly weapons. According to the magazine he was Mumbai’s “Hot Shot Hair Guru,” with an “ever-expanding celebrity client list.”

So they’d fallen for it too, she thought, smiling. And then something occurred to her. Unless... what if he’d been lying to her and Santosh? What if he really did have a celebrity client list? And then she was dragged from her thoughts as the door to the main studio opened and yoga students began to leave.

Devika Gulati appeared. Seeing off the last of her pupils with a smile and clasped hands, she turned her attention to Nisha, and though her poise remained, the smile faded, and she became businesslike as she moved across reception to greet her guest. The two shook hands and Devika gave Nisha a deliberately appraising up-and-down look that ended with an almost imperceptible tilt of the nose, as though she... approved of Nisha.

“Sorry I kept you waiting,” Devika said politely, leading the way to a private office. She seemed to waft rather than move, Nisha noticed.

Devika settled into a patterned sofa that bore handwoven Hindu motifs on the cushions. She waved a hand at a slightly less comfortable-looking chair opposite and Nisha took it, suppressing a smile, knowing they were playing games here.

“So, how may I help you?” asked Devika. One arm was across the back of the sofa, and her legs were crossed at the knee. She was so... arranged.

“Mrs. Justice Anjana Lal,” began Nisha. “Were you with her on Sunday morning?”

“No. I visited her on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays,” replied Devika. “She performed her yoga routine independently on the remaining days of the week.”

“Could you please tell me where you were on Sunday morning?”

“That’s easy. I returned on Sunday evening from Bangalore where I had gone to conduct a health and wellness seminar for a spa,” replied Devika. “My secretary will be happy to share my travel itinerary and ticket copies with you.”

“Did you know Priyanka Talati and Lara Omprakash?” asked Nisha, taking notes on her smartphone.

“Lara was a regular. I had known her for many years,” replied Devika. “Priyanka was a newbie. I had been assigned by her music company to help her shape up for a music video that she was getting ready to shoot. It’s terrible what happened to both ladies,” she added, almost as an afterthought.

“Where were you during the night that Priyanka Talati was killed?” asked Nisha. “Monday, between eleven p.m. and midnight?”

Devika stood, crossed to a desk and punched a number on the intercom. “Fiona, please check my diary and tell me what my schedule was on Monday evening,” she requested.

Within a few minutes the receptionist walked in with Devika’s diary. “You were attending the launch of the new spa at Hiranandani Gardens,” she said, leaving the diary with Devika and withdrawing.

“Ah, yes,” said Devika. “It was a dinner hosted by the owner of the Gordon Crest Hotel to celebrate the opening of their new spa. I am a consultant for the project so my presence was required.”

“Until what time were you there?”

“I left a little after midnight.”

“Did you go straight home?”

“No, I was with a friend and we stopped for a drink at the J. W. Marriott Hotel before he left me at my house.”

“May I know the name of your friend?” asked Nisha.

Devika smiled thinly. “Everyone knows his name. He is Nalin D’Souza, the Attorney General of India.”

Chapter 84

Nisha left Yoga Sutra, her mind fizzing. Not only did she now know how Devika Gulati had secured such a prime piece of Mumbai real estate, but the name of the Attorney General had cropped up once again — surely too much of a coincidence?

As she reached her car her phone rang. It was Ajay calling from the BMC — Bombay Municipal Corporation — office.

“Hello, Nisha,” he said.

Her eyes went automatically to the steering wheel where the yellow scarf had been tied. Next she craned over her shoulder to check the back seat was empty. Satisfied there were no surprises in store, she clicked the central locking.

“Well,” she said, “if it isn’t my favorite municipal fixer. I was thinking about you just the other day...”

“In the shower, I hope.”

“Ajay,” she chided. “I’m a married woman. No, it was in the Charity Commission.”

“Oh, those bent bastards. Let me guess. Good looks and a winning smile got you nowhere?”

“It was cold, hard cash or nothing.”

“What if I were to tell you that my services come with a price too?”

She pulled the seatbelt across herself, clicking it into place. “I’d tell you to stop pushing your luck and tell me what you’ve got to tell me.”

“Okay. Are you ready for this? Your Lara Omprakash childbirth query. Now, it took a bit of digging because it turned out that Lara Omprakash is a stage name. Her real name was Jamuna Chopra.”

“Right...” said Nisha.

“And Jamuna Chopra did indeed have a child when she was just out of her teens. June twelfth, 1984.”

“You’re a genius,” said Nisha.

“I’m glad it’s been recognized at last.”

“What else? Who was the father?”

“Father unknown. Child’s name Aditi Chopra.”

“Oh?” said Nisha. “A girl?”

“Absolutely. Gender: female.”

“Okay. I wonder if you could—”

“Tell you if Aditi has married or died?”

She grinned. “You know me too well.”

“I’m wasted in this job, aren’t I? The answer’s no. Not under that name anyway.”

“Ajay, I think I love you,” she said.

“If only...” he sighed.

“But Lara Omprakash was childless,” said Santosh moments later when she called him, still parked in the road outside.

“Obviously not,” she said.

“So what happened to the child?”

“Maybe nothing. Maybe Lara just kept her out of the limelight and Aditi Chopra is living with a husband and kids somewhere nice, enjoying the good life.”

“Maybe,” said Santosh doubtfully. “And maybe not. Our victims seem to specialize in double lives. I’ve just been looking at the Mumbai crime records and it turns out that Devika Gulati is not what she seems either. She spent several years in prison on account of drug charges.”

“Really?” Nisha gasped, trying to marry the two images. On the one hand, a jailbird. On the other, the diaphanous, model-like creature she’d just met.

What’s more...

“She’s friends with the Attorney General,” added Nisha.

“Now there’s a name that keeps cropping up.”

“Exactly. He’s her alibi for the night.”

“And she is his.”

“You think she’s covering for him?”

“It’s possible,” said Santosh. “I tell you what. Go back in there, confront her with what we know about her criminal record, and that name — Aditi Chopra — put it to her.”

“Got it,” she said.

“And Nisha?”

“Yes?”

“Be careful.”

“Will do, boss.”

Chapter 85

Santosh was thoughtful when he ended the call, his pulse quickening, feeling that familiar buzz — not of having cracked the case, but of being about to. A sense of the pieces falling into place.

He stood and leaned on his cane as he limped over to the magnet board. He’d kept it updated since the first two murders, record cards bearing the victims’ names, placed in the order in which the bodies had been found. There had been an average of one a night for the past seven nights. And if he was right, and the murders were an obscene caricature of the goddess Durga, then there would be two more, an eighth and a ninth victim. Tonight and tomorrow night.

Connections, he told himself. Look for connections.

Moving over, he gazed at the name Lara Omprakash. Her tattoo made her the only victim with a direct connection to the goddess Durga. The fact that she’d had a baby — this Aditi Chopra — might or might not be significant.

Double lives. Victims with double lives.

He moved the name Lara Omprakash to one side, placing it at the top of the right-hand side of the board.

What if Lara Omprakash had her child, Aditi, but for whatever reason had given the girl up? Where might she have taken the girl?

To an orphanage? He reached for the name Elina Xavier, taking it out of the victims’ order and adding it to the new one on the right-hand side.

But the orphanage had been gutted during the Mumbai riots, and the orphans presumably turned out onto the streets, where they would have been easy prey for pimps and human traffickers. People like...

Ragini Sharma, perhaps?

He stood gazing at what was looking less like a roll-call of victims and more like the beginning of a life story, wondering if he was on to something or if it was just the workings of a tired and overactive imagination—

“Ahem,” came a voice from the door.

Santosh snatched for his cane as he whirled, seeing Rupesh in the doorway.

“Rupesh,” he said, carefully, “you surprised me.”

“So it would appear,” said Rupesh. His hands were thrust into his trouser pockets as he stepped into the office. “Your man Mubeen let me in. That boy needs his beard trimming.” He stopped. “Hard at work, I see,” he said, gesturing with his chin at the magnet board.

“Working on some ideas,” said Santosh, waving a hand as though it were nothing, when in fact his brain simmered with possibilities. He stepped over to his desk. “What can I do for you?”

“You could start by giving me the promised case updates,” smiled Rupesh, looking carefully at the magnet board. He glanced out of the open door. “Is the lovely Nisha not here?”

“She’s chasing a lead.”

“Is she?”

“I think we’re close to cracking this, Rupesh. If you could just wait a day or so for the status report.”

“How about you tell me who your number-one suspect is? And please, Santosh, don’t say the Attorney General.”

“It’s the Attorney General,” said Santosh, enjoying the look that passed across Rupesh’s face.

Chapter 86

Nisha returned to the yoga studio, passed Fiona the receptionist, saying, “Just one more minute of her time if I could,” and ignoring the protests, knocked quickly on the door of Devika Gulati’s office, waited for “Come,” then let herself in.

Devika, who had been expecting Fiona, looked startled to see the investigator return. “Did you forget something?”

“No. Did you?”

“I’m quite sure I have no idea what you mean.”

“What I mean is, why didn’t you tell me you’d spent time in prison on drug charges?” asked Nisha brightly.

Devika gave a short dry laugh. “You never asked,” she replied. “Why on earth would I volunteer information like that?”

“But now it’s out in the open,” said Nisha, “why don’t you tell me about it?”

Devika’s eyes were hard. “You seem very well informed. Why do you need me to tell you?”

“I could pull the file,” fibbed Nisha, “but I think I’d like to hear it from you.”

Devika’s smile widened. “I don’t think so. I don’t think you could ‘pull the file’ just like that. That, after all, is the sort of thing policemen do, and...” she gave Nisha a look of fake sympathy, “you’re not a policeman. So be a good girl and leave my office.”

“Sure,” said Nisha with a grin, “I’ll do that, go home, log on to social media, start spreadin’ the news...”

Devika’s face flared, a look in her eyes that made Nisha glad of the pressure of the Glock at her hip. And then, as quickly as it had appeared, the yoga guru’s anger died down and she gave a quick, gracious nod, as though defeated by a superior opponent. She waved Nisha to a chair opposite.

“I was young. And a fool,” she began. “A terrible combination. I left home and joined a psychedelic rock band. Headzone, they were called. Drugs, booze, and sex were all part of the territory. So much so that I was busted for possession.”

“Possession of what?” said Nisha.

“Smack.”

Nisha made a surprised O with her mouth.

“A kilo of it,” added Devika.

“A kilo?” said Nisha. “Why so much if you were just a user?”

Devika stood and walked behind Nisha’s chair. Nisha felt herself tense, grateful that she was able to see Devika’s reflection in a picture that hung opposite. On the pretext of shifting in her chair she brought her hand to the waistband of her trousers, reassured by her gun there.

“I was smuggling it for my lover — the singer in Headzone.”

Nisha watched in the picture’s reflection as Devika threw up her hands at her own naive stupidity.

“So why didn’t you tell the authorities that the stuff did not belong to you?”

“Headzone’s management had contacts with a man named Munna. I expect you know him.”

Oh, Nisha knew Munna all right. The rather few cops in Mumbai who wanted to see Munna behind bars were those not on his payroll.

“The management told me that they would ensure the police recorded the quantity as less than a kilo, in which case I’d serve less than six months. They also assured me they’d get Munna to have a chat with the police to suspend my sentence. I went along with it.”

“But that’s not how events played out, right?”

“Precisely,” answered Devika. “The consignment was more than a kilo and I was given the maximum sentence. Headzone cut off all communication with me — apparently I left the band because of creative differences. I’d been tricked by them: Headzone, Munna, Nimboo Baba... they hung me out to dry.”

“Nimboo Baba?” said Nisha. “What on earth does he have to do with it?”

“He works for — or with — Munna. He’s Munna’s money man.” She chuckled at the alliteration.

“How much time did you get?” asked Nisha. She watched Devika carefully in the reflection.

“I was awarded the maximum sentence under the Act — ten years. A stupid mistake had cost me a decade of my life,” said Devika softly.

“And that’s why you’re telling me this, is it?” said Nisha. “You want payback?”

“Maybe,” replied Devika airily. “Maybe if you chose to act upon the information I’ve given you the outcome would be satisfactory for me, yes.”

“Why now? Why not years ago?”

Devika fixed her with a look. “I expect you have heard the rumors that Nalin D’Souza has a fondness for making wild bets.”

Nisha spread her hands. Hadn’t everyone?

“Well, those rumors are true,” said Devika. “Nalin D’Souza owes Nimboo Baba millions. And I am in love with Nalin D’Souza. The downfall of Nimboo Baba would be my gift to him.”

Nisha nodded. “One more thing,” she said. “I have a name. I wonder if it might mean anything to you?”

“Yes?”

“Aditi Chopra.”

Chapter 87

“She turned white, boss, I swear,” said Nisha excitedly, back in her car. “Denied all knowledge of Aditi Chopra. But it was written all over her face. She was lying, I swear it.”

“Excellent,” said Santosh. Rupesh had taken a seat on the other side of the desk. With his arms behind his head, he listened to Santosh’s side of the conversation with interest. “What else did she have to say?”

“Very interesting stuff indeed,” said Nisha. “The jail time was drugs-related, and mixed up in it all were Munna and Nimboo Baba.”

“Right,” said Santosh carefully. He looked across the desk at Rupesh, who smiled back.

Was that it? In the car, Nisha pulled a face. She’d been expecting a better reaction at the mention of Munna. Some kind of reaction at least. “And Nimboo Baba,” she added, for emphasis.

“Right,” said Santosh, who was thinking that the rumors were right, that Munna and Nimboo Baba were partners. Across the desk, Rupesh was keeping his face blank. Who else could Munna and Nimboo Baba count as a business partner? Santosh wondered.

In her car, Nisha frowned. Then, glancing to her left, she saw the door to Yoga Sutra open and Fiona exit. By the look of her bag she was leaving for the night.

Next, the Yoga Sutra signage, a pastel yellow, blinked off. No doubt about it, Devika Gulati was shutting up shop early for the day.

“She’s closing,” she told Santosh.

“Early?”

“Oh yes.”

“Perhaps we’ve spooked her. Wherever she goes, follow her.”

“Right.”

They ended the call.

“Interesting developments?” asked Rupesh.

Santosh shrugged, saved from having to explain himself by Mubeen who had just entered his office in a hurry.

“You have to see this,” Mubeen exclaimed breathlessly.

“What?” asked Santosh.

“You remember we recovered saliva from the school principal’s eyebrow?”

Santosh nodded. He glanced at Rupesh. “Yes.”

“Well, humans have forty-six chromosomes. They come in twenty-three pairs in addition to some mitochondrial DNA,” began Mubeen.

“Why are you telling me this?” asked Santosh impatiently.

“Because twenty-two pairs are irrelevant. It is only the twenty-third pair that threw up this remarkable result,” gushed Mubeen, oblivious to Santosh’s irritation.

“What result?”

“There is absolutely nothing in the mitochondrial DNA and twenty-two chromosome pairs that can tell you whether a given sample of DNA came from a male or a female,” babbled Mubeen. “The genetic difference between males and females lies in the last chromosome pair — the sex chromosomes. Women have two X chromosomes, while men have one X chromosome and one Y chromosome.”

“And?” said Santosh, warming up to Mubeen’s excitement.

“I tested the sample for the presence of Y chromosome genetic material. I did not find any.”

“Tell me in simple language what that means,” said Santosh, his face flushed with excitement.

“The DNA we found on Elina Xavier is female DNA. Your murderer is a woman.”

“A woman?” repeated Rupesh. “The killer is a woman?”

“Devika Gulati,” snapped Santosh. He clicked his fingers at Mubeen.

Rupesh had stood. “I’ll call for backup at once,” he said, and hurried out of the room, his phone to his ear.

Santosh watched him go then whirled, his hand at his forehead. A woman? But the killer was anti-women. He hated women. His mission was one of destruction of women — the destruction of strong, successful women: a doctor, a pop star, a film director — and not out of envy, oh no, everything about the ritual of the killings, the corruption of the Durga symbols, suggested that his was a mission to desecrate women.

And all this time it wasn’t a he, but a she...

How? It didn’t make sense.

He’d thought the killer was a man. He’d assumed the killer was a man. The figure caught on CCTV looked like a man, the MO was that of a man who had a deep-seated hatred for women, but what if... what if it was a woman?

Just now he’d assumed that Devika was covering for D’Souza. But what if he were covering for her? What if she were killing on his orders? After all, he had good reason to kill Anjana Lal.

Or maybe there were two killers. Strangers on a Train-type stuff. One of the killers was Nalin D’Souza, the other was Devika Gulati.

“There’s something else,” Mubeen was saying, watching his boss carefully. “The DNA from the hair belonging to Nalin D’Souza tells us that he is this particular female’s father.”

Santosh froze. He glanced out into the main operations room where Rupesh stood at the far side, his back to the office as he made his call.

“The Attorney General is the killer’s father?” he whispered to Mubeen.

“It would seem so, sir, yes.”

Santosh hobbled over to the board. “Okay, let’s think about this. What if Nalin D’Souza was Aditi’s father, Lara Omprakash the mother? But Lara turned her over to the orphanage, where she was brutalized by Elina Xavier.” Santosh was pointing to the magnet board. “That’s motive for two of the murders.”

“It would make the Attorney General a potential victim,” said Rupesh from the doorway. Santosh grimaced, fearing the worst, but Rupesh was brushing past him to the magnet board, forgetting to strut for once, intrigued by what he was witnessing.

“It would, wouldn’t it?” Santosh said, looking at his old friend, and for a moment it was as though the two of them had forgotten their differences.

“Mubeen,” he said, without taking his eyes off the board, both he and Rupesh gazing intently at it now, “run the name Aditi Chopra through PrivateTracker.”

Mubeen left them and for a few moments Santosh and Rupesh stood, each lost in thought.

“No,” said Santosh, “I don’t think so somehow — I don’t think D’Souza is a potential victim, not in the way we’re thinking: the yellow garrote, the icons. It’s women — women who are the targets.”

“What about Mayank Patel, the security guy?”

“True,” said Santosh. “But that was a killing of convenience. To hide his...” he corrected himself, “her tracks. There was no ritualistic element. And I don’t think she’d allow the Attorney General to die in such a prosaic manner, not if our theory is correct. If we’re right,” he waved a hand at the magnet board with its emerging pattern, “and this has something to do with avenging the injustices of the past, then she’d have something special planned for the Attorney General. Something special that won’t interrupt the pattern.”

Something struck him, and gripping his cane, he hobbled to the other side of the desk, flipping up the lid of a laptop and hammering at the keyboard until he straightened with a triumphant noise.

“She bought the shoes,” he said. “An ‘A. Chopra’ is on the list of fulfilled orders for the Oakley shoes.”

Rupesh frowned, though his eyes shone. “Right. Well, I don’t understand what you’re talking about and we’ll have words about that presently, but for the time being why don’t you explain what you mean.”

“I mean she was trying to set D’Souza up. The shoes, the hair. That’s it,” he exclaimed, and his cane was a drumbeat on the floor as he moved over to the magnet board and raised the stick to point at the names.

“Lara Omprakash was Aditi’s mother. Let’s say Lara gave her away to the orphanage, where she came into the orbit of Elina Xavier. But the orphanage burned and she was turned out on the street, only to be picked up by Ragini Sharma. Didn’t Nisha say...?”

Something struck him.

Something that turned his skin cold.

“Oh dear God,” he said.

“Sir.” Mubeen had arrived at the door. “I have a match for Aditi Chopra on PrivateTracker.”

“It’s an arrest, isn’t it?” said Santosh. He closed his eyes.

“Yes, sir.”

“And the arresting officer,” said Santosh, “it’s Nisha Gandhe, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir.”

She’d been sent the yellow garrote.

Nisha was the next victim.