Private India

Chapter 88

Nisha sat in the Honda, watching the front of Yoga Sutra. She could have sworn that there was a figure standing behind the window, looking out at her, made indistinct by the frosted glass of the frontage. It was little more than a shadow but even so — she couldn’t shake the sense that while she was watching Devika, Devika was watching her.

“Come on now,” said Nisha under her breath, “make your move.”

Her phone rang and she answered it without taking her eyes off the shadow-figure standing on the other side of the window. It was Ajay.

“What can I do for you, Ajay?”

“Plenty, but not right now. There was something I should have told you.”

The figure — it seemed to melt away from the window. Devika was on the move. Out of the front door? Nisha didn’t think so. After all, the only car parked out here was hers. There had to be a back entrance. And what was the betting Devika was about to use it to give her the slip?

“What’s that, Ajay?” she said. She was getting out of the car now, clicking it locked, reaching to the Glock at her waist and drawing it. She held it discreetly, close to her thigh, pleased to have the feel of it in her palm as she looked left and right along the near-deserted street, then trotted across the road, back toward Yoga Sutra. She tried the door.

“Right, well, it was something I should have mentioned before...” Ajay was saying, “maybe nothing important but I thought you’d like to know.”

She cradled the phone between her cheek and neck, cupped a hand at the glass and tried to peer through the window, seeing nothing inside but the vague shapes of an empty reception area, an open door leading through to the studio. No movement. No sign of Devika.

No — no, she couldn’t have lost her already.

“Actually, couldn’t this wait, Ajay?” she said with a touch of irritation. She moved to the side of the building and glanced up a narrow alley that lay between the studio and a picturesque apartment block next door. She looked more carefully at the apartments. Probably had parking at the rear. Probably parking for Yoga Sutra, too.

“It’s very quick,” said Ajay.

“Okay, then fire away,” she said, crabbing sideways down the alley, gun still held down at her leg, phone to her ear.

“It’s that information you asked for about Lara.”

“What about it?”

“The system lets you see the last person to access that information.”

She cocked her head. “Yes?”

“Well, you wouldn’t expect information like this to have been accessed for a while.”

“Maybe somebody checking up since her death, like we were?” she suggested, realizing she was speaking in a whisper now.

“Right. But as far as I can tell, I’m the only person to have looked at it since she died. I’m talking about before she died.”

“How long before she died?”

“A month or so.”

“And are you able to say who it was that accessed the information?”

There was the sound of a car engine from the far end of the alley and Nisha began to move more quickly now, cursing.

Can’t lose her. Whatever I do, I can’t lose her.

“Yes, it was Rupesh,” said Ajay.

By now she had reached the rear of the building and peered carefully around the corner. The car was reversing from garages to her left, one of the apartment block’s residents. The rear of Yoga Sutra, meanwhile, was silent. Two cars in the parking bays, a silver Mercedes and metallic-blue Audi, both exactly the kinds of cars you’d expect in an area like this. Exactly the kinds of cars you’d expect someone like Devika to be driving. Maybe she hadn’t left.

There was a rear door, a glass-panelled back entrance, the kind that stars in dark sunglasses use when they wanted to be discreet. It was ajar.

“Thanks, Ajay,” she said, even more quietly now. “That’s really, really important. I owe you one.”

“Why are we whispering?” said Ajay.

She grimaced. “The same reason I can’t talk right now.”

“Whatever you’re doing, be careful,” he said. There was no mistaking the genuine concern in his voice.

“I will be,” she whispered, ending the call, resolving to tell Santosh the news as soon as possible. Just as soon as she investigated this open door.

Coming closer now, she peered into the gap. Inside, the scented air of the yoga studio, shrouded in an after-hours darkness.

“Hello? Miss Gulati?” she said. “I wonder if I could just ask you a couple more questions.”

There was no answer. But there was a movement from inside, a shuffling sound.

“Hello?”

Nothing. She raised her Glock. Stepped into the threshold of the door. “Hello? Is everything all right, Miss Gulati? Are you all right?”

She took another step inside, then another. Squinting in the half-light, she reached into the pocket of her jeans for a small flashlight, fumbling as she pulled it out so that it fell to the carpet. Raising her Glock slightly, not taking her eyes off the corridor ahead of her, she crouched, fingers reaching for the flashlight, not liking this. Not liking it at all.

Suddenly from behind her came the slam of a door, just as her fingers gripped the flashlight and she wheeled, raising the gun and the light at the same time.

She saw the shape looming. Something hit her before she could pull the trigger and she pitched back with a cry of pain, twisting too late as something came down over her mouth and nose. She inhaled chemicals. In her pocket, her phone buzzed.

Chapter 89

“Nisha was engaged — now she’s not answering,” said Santosh impatiently. “Let’s go.”

“Santosh, we’ll go in my Jeep,” said Rupesh. “A siren might help us get there more quickly.” Santosh flashed him a grateful look, waving for Mubeen to leave.

Mubeen was already pulling away by the time Santosh and Rupesh clambered into the Assistant Commissioner’s Jeep and set off.

“Don’t worry, Santosh,” said Rupesh. “I called for backup. Nisha will be fine.”

“Thank you,” said Santosh. He clasped his cane and gazed out of the window, seeing but not seeing a riot of Mumbai color. Caught in the overspill from Colaba Causeway, the Jeep moved slowly at first, Rupesh leaning on the horn and every now and then thrusting his head out of the window to curse at cyclists and unwary pedestrians.

Santosh, meanwhile, was lost in thought. He was thinking about Aditi Chopra, unwanted child of Lara Omprakash. Had Aditi changed her name to Devika Gulati? Was she writing her biography in blood, each corpse a new chapter?

And there was something else as well. Another question hanging around on the outskirts of his mind.

They had pulled away from the main throng now, were traveling faster, but not a route Santosh recognized. Not the way to Devika Gulati’s studio.

He glanced at Rupesh. “Where are we going?”

The gun was in Rupesh’s fist before Santosh had time to react, the barrel of it pointing across the seat at him. He grimaced. Fool. What a fool — so wrapped up in the Aditi Chopra lead that he hadn’t questioned why Rupesh needed to leave the room to supposedly call for backup.

“This is something to do with Munna, isn’t it?” said Santosh. “You’re working for him now, aren’t you?”

Rupesh gave a rueful smile. “Let’s just say that this is an opportunity to mix business with the resolution of a little personal matter, Santosh.”

“Where are we going?” asked Santosh.

“You’ll find out — when we arrive,” said Rupesh.

Chapter 90

The rasp of the vultures overhead. The dry flapping of their wings in the night sky. And the stench. The terrible, terrible stench of death — of corpses laid out to rot in the sun, dozens of bodies left as carrion for the maggots and the flies and the scavenging birds that constantly circled overhead.

This was where Rupesh had brought them. To the Tower of Silence on Malabar Hill, an oasis of green within the concrete hustle and bustle of Mumbai.

But a deserted one. The Tower of Silence was where the Parsis disposed of their dead — an individual’s final act of charity, providing scavengers with food that would otherwise be destroyed. There, bodies were laid out to be shredded and eaten by the vultures that were a permanent feature of the sky above the tower.

With Santosh at gunpoint, he and Rupesh entered through an iron door on the east side — the only way in or out — and found themselves on the inside of a vast basin, a huge sunken ossuary pit in the middle.

A full moon illuminated bodies laid out on the stone, men in an outer ring, female corpses in the middle, and children in the innermost ring. Once the flesh had been pecked by vultures, and the bones bleached by the sun, the remnants would collect in the pit, where they would gradually disintegrate into fine powder.

“Go to the pit,” said Rupesh.

Though he had one hand over his mouth, Santosh was still retching at the overpowering stench of rotted flesh and bird-shit. He turned and limped toward the edge. The moon cast the stone in a silvery glow. Tendrils of light reached into the pit where a mix of festering blood and tissue and human bones lay coagulating and decomposing.

Glancing to Rupesh, he saw the other man doing the same. Supposedly, the tower could only be entered by a special class of pallbearers, who would be asleep in their quarters. How had Rupesh gained entry? Perhaps, when you counted Munna and Nimboo Baba among your friends, anything was possible.

“Alas, the story must end here, my friend,” said Rupesh. He reached into his back pocket with his left hand while his right continued to hold the Glock, pulling out something that he held up for Santosh to see. A pair of handcuffs. And in a voice from the heart of a nightmare said, “You killed them, you drunk bastard.”

For a second, Santosh forgot the stink, the vultures, the corpses at their feet, and the gun pointing at him. He simply stared at Rupesh. It was almost as though every second had been stretched into an hour. He felt woozy. Rupesh’s words echoed inside his mind as it went into flashback. “You killed them, you drunk bastard!”

And he had, hadn’t he? He had killed them.

Chapter 91

They’d left immediately after breakfast, Isha, and Pravir, happy and content. Thankfully there had been no discussion of Santosh’s extended absence from home and they’d enjoyed a wonderful break at a resort recommended by...

Rupesh’s sister.

Yes, Rupesh’s sister. Santosh and Rupesh were the best of friends: Rupesh had been godfather to his son, even filling in for Santosh at school events.

They drove. The lush green hills were partially covered by monsoon clouds and the gentle spray of rain made the view even more magical. His son, entirely absorbed in his hand-held game, was seated in the rear seat of the car as Santosh drove, wondering why he had allowed himself to ignore the most important people in his life. He vowed that he would give more time to his wife and son, become more disciplined about his own habits and split his time more evenly between work and family. He needed to take care of himself too. Exercise, eat healthily, and cut down on the alcohol.

He cast looks at Isha, seated next to him. She seemed worried, almost as though she were trying to tell him something. When she noticed him staring at her, she smiled self-consciously. Her hands were in her lap, the fingers of her left hand fiddling with the wedding ring on her right.

“Papa, look at my score!” cried his son from the rear of the car. He crouched in the footwell and held the game through the space between their seats, urging his father to take a look.

And because the boy was excited. And because, even though it was just a silly game, Santosh wanted to be a good father and tell him well done, he took his eyes off the road to look at the game.

Just for a second. That’s all it was. Enough to miss the bend.

“Watch out, Santosh!” screamed his wife, and he stamped on the brakes and wrenched at the wheel and a million thoughts crowded his head but none were enough to save them and the car spun into the thick trunks of the banyan at the crest of the turn, its horn stuck and blaring like a piercing scream.

Santosh did not know how he reached the hospital or who took him there. He had a vague recollection of dark corridors and of being wheeled on a gurney into the operating theater. He lost count of the days and nights that he was in the hospital. He also lost track of waking and dreaming, the two states mingling effortlessly to make his dreams seem eerily real and his reality a jumbled dream. The only recurrent theme was of a policeman — sometimes at his bedside, sometimes running alongside his gurney, sometimes towering over him — holding a pair of handcuffs and saying, “You killed them, you drunk bastard!”

Both dead. Him the only survivor. What he would have given for it to be the other way around.

Slowly, Santosh returned to the present. He had been staring without seeing, his gaze on the barrel of the gun, but now his eyes rose slowly to Rupesh.

“You were the cop who accused me of being drunk?” he said dreamily.

Rupesh shook his head as though dealing with a fool. “You never had time for them!” he sneered. “I was the one who was always there for them. Attending your son’s school play, lending money to Isha when you disappeared for days, comforting her when your uncaring and selfish attitude was too much for her to bear. They became my life, and you killed them.”

“You were having an affair with her?” asked Santosh quietly. He was in a state of shock. Later the news would hit home, and he’d wail with the pain of knowing Isha had been unfaithful. But right now there was nothing. Just numbness and shock.

“She was going to leave you,” said Rupesh. “But before she could do it, you cut her life short.”

“It wasn’t my fault, Rupesh,” said Santosh.

Or maybe it was.

“Papa, look at my score!”

Rupesh scoffed. “You were never there. And when you were, you were drunk. You killed them before they died.”

“If you hated me so much then why did you visit me at the hospital?” asked Santosh.

“You were in a coma for days,” replied Rupesh. “I came so I could ease my own grief by blaming you. I would stand by your bed and tell you that you had killed them. I used to hold out my handcuffs and imagine myself cuffing you.”

“You killed them, you drunk bastard,” said the cop, holding out a pair of handcuffs to Santosh.

“Isha was the finest woman I ever knew. You didn’t deserve her. She made the biggest mistake of her life when she chose you over me.”

Santosh’s head was spinning. He had met Isha through Rupesh’s sister. They had all become friends and would often go out to movies or for meals together. Santosh had never realized Rupesh had feelings for her.

“Look at you,” spat Rupesh. “Look at you now. You’re a lame drunk.”

“The doctor says my limp is psychosomatic,” said Santosh. Rupesh gave a short, contemptuous laugh but Santosh continued, “He says I don’t need the cane, but I do. The pain in my leg is as real as the pain of their loss that I feel every single day, and none of the hatred you feel for me could ever be as strong as the hatred I feel for myself. You say I was responsible. Well, maybe I was, but not because I was drunk, Rupesh, you’re wrong about that. But I made an error of judgment, that’s right. I made an error of judgment and two people I loved died. If you want revenge, you’re getting it, because if you kill me now I suffer now, but by living I suffer every day.”

Rupesh gestured with the gun, backing Santosh further toward the edge of the pit. Overhead the vultures circled, cawing, dark shapes against a gray sky, around and around. Below them in the pit, the silence of death.

“I’m afraid I have a taste for vengeance, Santosh. You remember my sister, found dead at Andheri railway station,” said Rupesh.

Santosh remembered with a twinge of shame. Too wrapped up in his own grief, he’d had no room to admit more. Hadn’t contacted Rupesh; hadn’t attended the funeral.

“Two men had taken turns raping and torturing her. Turned out they were both seventeen. They would have served three years in a remand home. Just three years for what they did to her. I couldn’t let that happen.”

“So you went to Munna?”

“I did,” replied Rupesh.

“What did he want in return?” asked Santosh.

“Nothing,” answered Rupesh. “He said he valued my friendship.”

Santosh gave a short laugh. How many times had he heard that before?

“The warden was on Munna’s payroll,” continued Rupesh. “When the boys reached the remand home, they were picked up by Munna’s men. They were taken to his weekend retreat on the outskirts of Mumbai where they were castrated in front of me. Munna had them thrown into his private lake — infested with crocodiles.”

Santosh nodded sadly. “And now you’re in deep with Munna?”

“We value each other’s friendship.”

“Then you know he has links with the Mujahideen? They could be planning an attack, Rupesh.”

Rupesh nodded. “They are. Tomorrow night.”

“Tomorrow night,” Santosh gasped. “Rupesh, we can’t allow this to happen. Please, why are we standing here when we should be out there?” He indicated across the city he loved and hated in equal measure, a city he’d once pledged to protect. And though he’d since left the Indian intelligence service, he had never rescinded that pledge, not in his heart. “We need to stop this, Rupesh,” he urged, rapping the point of his cane on the stone for emphasis.

Rupesh snorted. “God, you’re so arrogant. Why do you think I need your help? I’m quite capable of handling this myself, thanks for the kind offer. I can talk to Munna. I can talk to Nimboo Baba. They listen to me.”

The cawing of the vultures. Bizarrely it reminded Santosh of trips to the zoo as a little boy. Huge birds with a five-foot wingspan. In the zoo you were protected by wire fencing but there was no fencing here.

Santosh shook his head. “No, Rupesh, they won’t. You work for them, not the other way around.”

“Don’t concern yourself, Santosh. You’ll be dead.”

Santosh looked at him, breathing heavily, sure now that there was nothing left of the man he had once called a friend. “The garrote killings,” he said. “You knew about those too, didn’t you?”

Rupesh smiled ruefully. “Only that the killer enjoys the benefit of Nimboo Baba’s affections. They are lovers, it seems.”

“And because the killer enjoys the affections of Nimboo Baba, and thus Munna, she also enjoys the protection of the Mumbai police, is that it?” spat Santosh.

“To be honest I couldn’t care less. It’s Baba’s lover’s thing, her pet project.”

Santosh shook his head. “And that’s why you left the room to call for backup. You weren’t calling for backup at all.”

Rupesh gave a sideways smile. “In a manner of speaking, I was.”

“You bastard. Nisha was there... Women are dying,” said Santosh with disgust.

“It ends tonight. Your man Mubeen will find two bodies.”

“Two bodies?” said Santosh.

“Gulati and your gorgeous assistant. That, I have to admit, is something of a loss to mankind.”

“So Devika Gulati isn’t the killer?” said Santosh quickly.

“Oh no,” said Rupesh.

The vultures, although they’d been agitated by the new arrivals, were now swooping closer and closer, leathery wings beating the air above their heads, their shrieking cries becoming louder and louder.

And then one dipped. It soared over Santosh’s head and he heard the rustle of air above him, flinched, hunched his shoulders, and saw as Rupesh went to ward off the vulture with his gun.

Santosh saw his chance. He drew his sword.

It was not the first time he had drawn the blade from the sheath of the cane. Most nights he worked the action. He often shook it close to his ear to listen for the telltale rattle common to cane-swords.

It was, however, the first time he had ever used the blade in anger.

But he was no swordsman. He carried the cane-sword because... Well, why not? He needed a cane, why not have it be a weapon as well? Who knows? It might come in handy on the off-chance he ever found himself staring down the barrel of a gun inside the Tower of Silence.

So he swung his blade wildly, grateful that at least it hit home.

Chapter 92

Mubeen parked behind Nisha’s Honda, jogged to the window, and cupped his hands on the glass to stare inside. Empty. He glanced across the road at the yoga studio, seeing a dim light inside, then crossed the road and tried the front door. Locked.

Where the hell were Santosh and Rupesh?

He pressed his face against the frosted glass and could make out the reception area, a desk, framed photographs, like wall smudges in the half-light...

But wait a moment. Something wasn’t right. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom he could see that a large statue of Buddha in reception lay belly-up on the floor. Yoga mats were in disarray, chairs overturned and, in fact, many of the photographs that should have hung on the wood-panelled wall were on the floor.

And through the door to the studio, covered with a white sheet, he could just see something that looked suspiciously like a body.

With a curse he stepped back from the glass, delving for his cell phone in his jeans pocket.

Santosh. No answer. Shit.

He dialed again. This time, he dialed for the cops.

Chapter 93

Rupesh yelled in pain and surprise. As he whipped his wounded hand away from the blade, his gun dropped to the stone and skidded close to the edge of the pit. Bleeding, Rupesh fell to his knees, clutching at his wrist. He was momentarily unable to believe the turn of events.

Santosh, meanwhile, was off balance. The force of the thrust had taken him onto his bad leg and he’d pitched forward, and for a moment the two men faced each other, kneeling as if enacting some bizarre greeting ritual — surrounded by rotting corpses.

“You fucker.”

Rupesh was the first to recover. Hatred blazing in his eyes, he launched himself at Santosh, shoulder-charging him backwards before he had a chance to defend with the sword, then leaping away as Santosh swung from a sitting position.

The gun. Rupesh was going for the gun. With a shout of effort, pain lancing up his body, Santosh threw himself forward using the sword as a spear point and catching Rupesh on the calf. Rupesh screamed, fell, blood already gushing from the wound on his calf. He fell across the corpse of a child, half its face shredded by the beaks of vultures. He gave a cry of revulsion as he rolled away, then kicked out as Santosh pulled himself to his knees and swung once again with the blade.

Can’t let him reach the gun, thought Santosh. If he reaches the gun that’s it.

A cloud of disturbed flies billowed from a nearby corpse as Rupesh’s heels slipped on putrefying matter. Throwing out a hand to lever himself up, he plunged it through the ribcage of an adjacent body, ripping it back out, stinking and dripping, with a scream of nausea.

Rupesh’s flailing bought Santosh a precious half-second. Getting to his feet was too much of an effort, so he pitched forward from kneeling, swiping right to left with the blade and nearly catching Rupesh a third time.

Nearly.

Rupesh dragged himself to his feet. Blood poured from the wound at his wrist and his torn trousers flapped at the gash on his leg, but he left Santosh out of reach, marooned in a sea of rotting cadavers.

“You fucker,” Rupesh cursed again, but it was as though he were talking to himself now. With a Herculean effort he hobbled toward the gun and Santosh, stranded, watched him lurch away knowing he’d played his final card. Knowing he would die here and because of that Nisha and God knows how many bomb victims would die too. He had failed. He had failed them. Just as he had failed Isha and Pravir.

By now Rupesh had reached the gun and with a shout of triumph swept it up, and whirled to face Santosh...

And overbalanced. Lost his footing. Tumbled to the stone on the edge of the pit where his prone body seemed to teeter for a second and a look of absolute horror crossed his face as he realized what was about to happen.

And he fell. He fell screaming, landing with a sickening squelch in the rotted substance that lay in the bottom of the ossuary pits.

For a moment there was silence. The vultures had been scared off by the fight, but now it was as if they sensed the presence of a wounded animal in the tower and they began to caw, even more loudly than before, swooping into the pit to investigate.

Fingers scrabbling for the sheath of his sword, Santosh reassembled his cane again and used it to lever himself upwards, and moved carefully to the edge of the pit. In the cold, white light of the moon overhead he saw Rupesh below. He lay as though pressed into the ooze by an invisible hand, one broken leg at a hideously unnatural angle and the blood from his wounds gleaming darkly in the moonlight. A frightened, pleading look in his eyes.

The first, most intrepid of the vultures landed, its huge parchment wings obscuring the upper half of Rupesh for a moment as it pecked once, twice with its beak. Rupesh then began to shriek, and the bird took flight, a strip of his facial skin in its beak.

“No, no!” screamed Rupesh. His screams were wet, the most terrifying cries Santosh had ever heard. “Please, no...”

And he was still screaming as a second, and then a third vulture moved in, excited by the stink of fresh meat, and Santosh pulled himself away from the edge, the screams ringing in his ears as the vultures continued to feed.

Chapter 94

It was two in the morning, and Yoga Sutra was a hive of police activity. Overall control of the crime scene had been given to Private, and Santosh and Jack stood over the body of Devika Gulati. She wore her loose kurta pajama practice clothes and her neck had the familiar yellow garrote tied around it.

There was no Nisha, which on the one hand was good news, because there was no second body. But on the other hand, it was bad news. It meant the killer had Nisha and she would die that night, the ninth victim.

And yet her death would be a footnote if the Mujahideen’s attack went ahead.

“Oh God, Santosh, you look like shit,” said Jack.

Santosh looked at him, his eyes tired and haunted behind his glasses. “You should have seen me before my shower,” he said.

He’d been home to change. The bottle of Johnnie Walker had called out to him and he’d looked at it, known it would blot out the screams of Rupesh and the image of Isha in his arms.

But instead he’d chosen Nisha. He’d chosen Mumbai.

“I’ve spoken to Commissioner Chavan,” said Jack, his hands in his pockets. “The Rupesh business. They’re going to recover his body and obviously they’ll be launching a full investigation, but they’ve agreed to leave it twenty-four hours before they pull you in.”

Santosh nodded, grateful, as Jack added, “For what it’s worth, the Commissioner was not exactly blind to what Rupesh was doing. He told me as much over our round of golf. Truth be told, I arrived in Mumbai earlier at his specific request. I think you’ll come out of it well. Meanwhile the Commissioner assures me we have the full cooperation of the cops to find Nisha. You know Nisha — to know her is to fall in love a little bit and all these guys,” he gestured behind them at the cops moving in and out of the studio, “they all know her. Anything you want, Santosh, you shout.”

“A trace on her cell phone?”

“Done. But no dice. You need a working battery in the phone and either Aditi’s removed it or it’s flat.”

“And her RFID chip?”

Jack looked uncomfortable.

“What, Jack?”

“It’s inoperative,” said Jack quietly.

“And what does that mean?”

“It means Aditi’s probably cut it out.”

“Fuck”

There was a long pause as both men banished thoughts too terrible to contemplate.

“What about the other thing?” said Santosh in a lower voice. “Any news?”

Jack shook his head, spoke into his lapel. “Not yet. Old contacts at the Agency are working on it, but the problem is...”

“There isn’t much to go on. An international target in Mumbai...”

“It could be any one of a hundred.”

Santosh closed his eyes, wanting to open them and for it all to have been a nightmare. “Then we need to squeeze Munna. Nimboo Baba.”

Jack looked pained. “They’ll deny it, and we have nothing to connect them to it, apart from street gossip and the word of a bent cop who’s currently passing through the digestive systems of several vultures on Malabar Hill.”

“The killer,” said Santosh thoughtfully, waving the tip of his cane at the corpse by their feet. “Aditi Chopra. She’s the key to all this. If we can take her we can use her as leverage with Baba and Munna.”

Jack clapped him on the shoulder. “Then find her, my friend. Find her.”

Chapter 95

And then, much as it hurt him, much as he hated to be inside when he should have been out combing the streets for Nisha, Santosh went back to the Private HQ, recalled Mubeen and Hari too, then retired to his office — where he closed the door, picked up the phone, and dialed Nisha’s home.

Sanjeev Gandhe became very silent when he realized his wife’s boss was calling. “I’m afraid to inform you Nisha is currently missing, whereabouts unknown,” Santosh told him.

He was some kind of stockbroker type, Santosh knew. “Oh God,” he said in a small voice. “Is it something to do with the case she was working on, the strangler?”

“Mr. Gandhe, I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to say, but you can be reassured we are doing everything we can to find her.”

He wished he were as confident as he hoped he sounded. But getting off the phone, he put his head in his hands as though to massage his brain into life and all he could see were vultures tearing at skin, Isha in the arms of Rupesh, Pravir wanting him to see his high score.

Think, dammit, think.

Devika’s face had been whitened with talcum powder and in one hand she had been made to clutch a small drum, the sort of instrument used by street performers all over India. She’d been made to look like the eighth avatar of Durga — Mahagauri, who was always depicted with a fair complexion and holding a drum.

Which meant that the ninth would incorporate references to the discus, mace, conch, and lotus.

Great. They knew what to expect when they found Nisha’s corpse. The trouble was the Durga reference had no bearing on the location of the crime. At their home, at their place of work — it was all the same to Aditi. The one difference being she was holding Nisha captive.

Aditi was Nimboo Baba’s lover: “So where did the happy couple meet?” mused Santosh. “Where did you go to, Aditi? From the arms of Lara Omprakash into the clutches of Elina Xavier at the orphanage, and then...?”

There was a knock at the door. Hari stood there — a reduced Hari, his shoulders stooped, his eyes averted, a shadow of the beefy, muscular guy he’d been.

“Hello, Hari,” said Santosh, wishing that he could speak to him, wishing there was something he could say — something to ease the pain of his ordeal.

“I’ve got something, boss,” Hari said, unable to meet Santosh’s eye.

“Tell me.”

“You asked me to check the name Aditi Chopra against clients represented by Anjana Lal when she was just a lawyer, not a judge.”

Santosh looked at him. “Yes? And?”

“Anjana Lal represented her.”

“Brilliant.” Santosh hobbled excitedly over to the magnet board and his fingers moved names around, completing another section. “Look, the story continues: after leaving the orphanage Aditi fell into the clutches of Ragini Sharma, where we can assume she was forced into prostitution.

“She’s busted by Nisha. Then represented by Anjana Lal, except Anjana Lal obviously fails her...” he moved names, “and she goes to prison, where... Does she meet Devika Gulati? Does she meet Munna? Hari, I need to know if those three shared jail time. Can you get that for me?”

“I think so, boss,” said Hari from the door. He hadn’t moved over the threshold.

“My bet is they shared jail time, but for some reason Devika Gulati fell foul of Aditi, whereas Munna did not. Perhaps it was Munna who introduced her to Nimboo Baba. They became lovers. What do you—”

He turned, but Hari had gone.

Chapter 96

The clouds in her head drifted slowly away. The world gradually re-formed. And Nisha woke. Her jacket and sneakers had been taken, but otherwise she was clothed. White T-shirt and jeans.

She lay tied to an ancient, rusted four-poster bed, the kind of thing that looked as though it had been reclaimed from a dump site, her wrists and ankles secured to each corner using yellow scarves. She struggled. Then stopped and gasped as she saw what was attached to the posts by her hands and feet: a plastic frisbee was nailed by one hand, a rubber mallet with a rounded head hung near the other. On the posts near her feet were tied a conch and a lotus.

They were the four symbols — discus, mace, conch, and lotus — of the ninth and final form of Durga, Siddhidatri.

She felt a stinging on her upper back, the prickly sensation of surgical tape, and knew at once that her RFID chip had been removed. The bitch had taken it out while she was under.

Okay, okay, keep calm. They couldn’t locate her using the RFID chip but they could trace her—

Laid out on the bed by her hip was her cell phone, the battery placed neatly on top.

Bitch.

Instead Nisha tried to figure out her location by taking note of her surroundings. Above her were ominously high ceilings criss-crossed by rafters of rusting metal. She seemed to be in a massive industrial space, the hard concrete floor on all sides of the bed stretching into infinity, meeting up with exposed brick walls containing vast boarded-up windows. Huge ducts and pipes ran overhead, giving the place a creepy feel. A single naked bulb hung on a wire from an ancient beam overhead, casting an eerie glow over the bed, itself incongruous in the warehouse-like space.

She fought back tears as she remembered her adoptive parents, her husband, and her daughter. She tried not to think about them, but couldn’t help herself.

Four arms. A four-poster bed. A discus, a mace, a conch, and a lotus.

She’d been laid out here to die.

Chapter 97

Come on. Come on.

The story of Aditi’s life was forming on the board in front of him but still there were names left: Priyanka Talati, the doctor, the journalist.

“How did they piss you off, Aditi?” mumbled Santosh. “Why did they deserve to die?”

And what connected them?

Okay. Cell phone records showed that Dr. Jaiyen and Bhavna Choksi had spoken to each other. In fact, they’d spoken to each other several times on the day of Dr. Jaiyen’s death. The next day, Bhavna Choksi was also killed.

“So was it something they were cooking up between them?” Santosh asked an empty room.

Dr. Jaiyen had been in Mumbai on a personal matter, according to her colleague in Thailand, Dr. Uwwano. Maybe she was mixing work with pleasure, granting an interview to the journalist at the same time.

“Boss?”

Hari startled him, skulking in the doorway.

“Sorry, Hari, come in.”

“You were right, boss,” he said. “The jail times coincide.” Again his eyes swiveled to the floor, as though he could hardly bear to look at Santosh.

“Are you all right, Hari?” Santosh asked him.

A smile flicked on and off. “I’m fine, boss, fine.”

“What you’ve been through — nobody should have had to suffer that. You need time to recover. Later, perhaps, try to rest.”

“No,” said Hari, so quickly and so sharply that Santosh almost flinched, “I’m not resting until we’ve caught the bitch.”

“Good man,” said Santosh. He went to clap Hari on the shoulder. He’d felt reassured when Jack had done it to him, that easy brotherly way Jack had. So American. And yet he, Santosh, couldn’t bring himself to do it and instead sounded like a relic of empire: “Good man, good man. It’s most appreciated.”

The awkward moment passed, then Hari said, “The cooperation of the police is proving useful. We should have a picture of Aditi Chopra come through any second now.”

Santosh felt his pulse quicken.

Chapter 98

“Are you there?” she called.

“Aditi, isn’t it? Aditi, I know it’s you.” She raised her head from the mattress, tried to squint into the gloom at the foot of the bed. Just beyond the reach of her eyesight was a figure who stood in the shadows, watching her.

“I was an orphan too,” she called into the dark, trying to establish some kind of bond. “She abandoned you, didn’t she, to the orphanage?”

Nisha had been doing some thinking in the hours since she’d recovered consciousness.

“Lara Omprakash, the film director. The world saw her as this gorgeous, talented director, glamorous boyfriends like my boss Jack Morgan. But we know the truth about Lara, don’t we, Aditi? We know Lara for what she really was — gutless. A coward. She abandoned you, didn’t she, Aditi? Or have I got it wrong? Perhaps you know something I don’t. Perhaps Lara was simply trying to protect you. Was that what it was? Aditi?”

In reply, silence.

Nisha let her head fall back to the mattress in frustration. Then tried again. “Aditi, please, talk to me. I can help you. I know how you feel because I was an orphan too. I went to the Bombay City Orphanage. You were there, weren’t you? Elina, she was a bitch, right? Corrupt, right? You know, a lot of the grievances you have, a lot of people are going to look upon those as being perfectly justified. You’ve been treated badly, Aditi. But one thing I need to know. You’ve got to tell me, Aditi. Why me? What did I do to hurt you, Aditi, and how can I put it right?”

There was no response. There was just a titter in the darkness and then the figure moved away.

Chapter 99

The journalist and the doctor had been talking. They were talking — but about what? What did the journalist want from the doctor?

Or what did the doctor wants from the journalist?

She had a story for her, perhaps. Something she had come to Mumbai to expose.

But what? Santosh paced his office, eyes going to the remaining three names on the magnet board.

Singer.

Doctor.

Journalist.

The doctor was from Thailand. The singer spent time in Thailand. The doctor traveled from Thailand to Mumbai. The killer was a woman — a woman who wore men’s shoes, who looked like a man on the CCTV. Who clearly had the strength of a man...

Or were there two killers? Was that it?

A woman? Or a man?

And then it hit him. The mistake he had made — a question he had failed to ask.

He snatched up the lid of his laptop, retrieved a number, jabbed it into the phone, dialing incorrectly in his haste, hissing with frustration, having to dial again. He thought he knew the answers to his questions. He had to ask them anyway.

“Dr. Uwwano, please?”

Please let her be there. He glanced at his watch, realizing that he had no idea of the time, and it was morning, and Bangkok was an hour and a half ahead, so she should be at work.

“Mr. Wagh,” she said, “to what do I owe the pleasure?”

She sounded guarded. He knew he’d have to proceed carefully. “It’s... well, it’s a bit embarrassing, I’m afraid. Call myself a detective, but when we spoke the other day, there was something rather important I wasn’t quite sure of. You were telling me about the type of reconstructive work that Dr. Jaiyen was responsible for. Cosmetic surgery in the aftermath of a car crash, for example, and I’m afraid something you said hit a nerve and I rather cut you off.”

“Yes,” she said slightly impatiently. “What was it you weren’t sure about?”

“The other applications for her work: what are they?”

“Well, Mr. Wagh, really any instance in which plastic surgery might be needed. I don’t really know what you’re—”

“Gender reassignment, Dr. Uwwano. Was Dr. Jaiyen responsible for gender reassignment?”

“Yes. She was one of the country’s most skilled surgeons in that regard.”

Oh God.

Santosh spoke slowly and clearly, keeping — or trying to keep — his emotions in check. “Dr. Uwwano, I have reason to believe that one of Dr. Jaiyen’s patients is behind a series of murders in Mumbai. I have very good reason to believe this, Dr. Uwwano, you have to trust me. I believe this person has kidnapped one of my agents. The pattern of the murders so far indicates very strongly that this person will kill my agent within the next eight or nine hours unless I can track this person down. Dr. Uwwano, I appreciate that what I am asking you may go against certain principles you hold, but I beg you, can you help me?”

There was silence for a moment at the other end of the line.

“You can ask your question, Mr. Wagh. I can only hope that circumstances allow me to answer.”

“Did Dr. Jaiyen perform gender reassignment surgery on a patient named Aditi Chopra?”

“You’ll have to give me an hour or so to check that information.”

Santosh took a deep breath, cast his eyes to the ceiling of his office. “If you could do that for me, Dr. Uwwano, I would be most grateful. You may be helping to save a young woman’s life, and possibly many other lives too.”

“I’ll see what I can do, Mr. Wagh.”

“Thank you, Dr. Uwwano,” said Santosh. He very, very gently replaced the phone on its cradle, knowing he was this close — this close — to cracking the case.

As long as he was in time to save Nisha.

Chapter 100

At least if she were to die here she would go knowing that she had put up a fight. When the chemical-soaked cloth had come over her mouth Nisha had known she was in trouble. But she had also known that in real life chloroform doesn’t work the way it does in the movies — firstly, too much of it would kill her, and secondly, she had had minutes, not seconds, before it would work and she would be rendered unconscious.

She had yelled, twisted, pulled herself up from under her assailant, dabbing with her fingertips on the carpet in the hope of retrieving her gun but then giving up and darting toward the studio, her attacker in pursuit.

She had run into the body of Devika Gulati on the gym studio floor. A dim light had illuminated the yellow garrote around Devika’s neck. Her tongue had poked slightly from between those perfect lips. Her eyes had bulged from her skull. Her death was a foul corruption of her beauty.

Nisha had fallen to her knees, feeling woozy now. She’d prayed the dose of chloroform wasn’t high enough to bring on an allergic reaction. She’d prayed she wouldn’t meet the same fate as Devika there on the studio floor. A pair of jeans-clad legs and sneakers had appeared before her eyes. Sneakers like her own, she’d realized, her brain producing random thoughts now, as her body and mind shut down and darkness descended...

“What happened when you left the orphanage, Aditi?” she called out now.

The figure was there again, she was sure of it. She was being watched.

“I need to piss,” she called.

At last her captor spoke.

“I used to piss myself at the orphanage, when Elina Xavier beat me.”

It was a man.

“Come out where I can see you. Where is Aditi? What have you done to her?”

“Where is Aditi? I am Aditi. Dr. Jaiyen saw to that. But Dr. Jaiyen became greedy. Dr. Jaiyen wanted to blackmail me. So like the others, Dr. Jaiyen had to die.”

“Come on then,” Nisha growled at him, “show yourself. You’re dying to show yourself. Show me who you are and why you hate me so much.”

He stepped out of the shadows.

Chapter 101

“Yes, Aditi Chopra came to us for gender reassignment.”

Santosh fought to stay calm, control his breathing. “What name did he leave with?”

“She left with the same name with which she arrived, Mr. Wagh.”

“Anything you tell me now — anything may help in saving people’s lives. Do you remember her?”

“Oh yes. I remember her. She was visited by a man who arrived in a large black Mercedes, quite an entourage he had.”

Nimboo. Her financier, no doubt.

“He talked about wanting to study hairdressing when he left,” Dr. Uwwano was saying. “He wanted to work in Bollywood.”

Santosh’s mind was working, thinking, He did — he did work as a hairdresser. He worked as a hairdresser to the Attorney General, which is why he was able to collect samples of his hair and leave them at the crime scenes.

“One last thing, Dr. Uwwano. While I hate to risk casting aspersions upon your colleague, I must ask — is it possible that Dr. Jaiyen could have been blackmailing Aditi?”

Uwwano’s voice was frosty now. “Well, of course it’s possible...”

“In your opinion, is it likely?”

“Dr. Jaiyen had a taste for what you might call the high life, and it doesn’t come cheap. Perhaps if she had discovered what Aditi was doing, maybe.”

Some kind of hairdresser to the stars, thought Santosh. A celebrity hairdresser. It would give him the access he needed. The film sets, to women’s houses, a face they trusted. It would make sense that Bhavna had somehow got in the way while researching her article.

“Thank you, Dr. Uwwano, thank you. You don’t know how helpful you’ve been,” he said, and was about to end the call when she stopped him.

“Do you think Aditi is responsible for those murders, Mr. Wagh?”

“I’m very sorry to say, Dr. Uwwano, but yes.”

She sighed, as though somehow not surprised. “There was something... damaged about her, even more so than... Well, many of our patients have what you might call ‘issues.’ But with Aditi, she was a beautiful girl. Now that I have reviewed her case file, I remember some of the nurses were commenting as though it was a waste of such a gorgeous creature, and of course we don’t see it that way — but in any case there was something about her beauty, as though it had caused her great hurt in the past.”

“I think you’re right, Dr. Uwwano,” agreed Santosh. “And I think that for Aditi having a sex change wasn’t enough. You’re right, her beauty had caused her great misery. In the end she took it out on all womankind.”

He finished the call, knowing he had it now. He had all the pieces except for the last one.

“Hari, where’s that mugshot?”

“Coming, boss,” called Hari from the other room.

He hobbled through to Hari’s desk just as the picture appeared on Hari’s screen.

She had been right, Dr. Uwwano. Aditi had been beautiful. She had her mother’s high cheekbones and her full mouth. She had her father’s eyes.

“Look,” he said, almost to himself, as he leaned forward, placed one hand on the screen at Aditi’s brow, cutting off her hair, another one on the lower half of her face. Left just the eyes, the rise of the nose, and the mouth.

“Look who it is,” he said.

Chapter 102

Aakash stepped out of the shadows.

Nisha stared at him, hardly able to believe her eyes, and yet... it all made sense. Her head dropped back to the mattress with frustration, surprise, and, if she was honest with herself, even relief that although she was going to die she would at least die knowing the answers to her questions.

“You don’t remember, do you?” he said.

“I remember you from the Shiva Spa, Aakash. You lied about having no celebrity clients, didn’t you?”

He smiled, almost apologetically. “I’m afraid so. But I mean from before, when you fucked up my life?”

“‘Before’? You were a woman, then?”

He pulled a face, as though smelling something bad. “Don’t remind me. Yes, I was born wearing the wrong skin. Born a woman.”

“Born Aditi Chopra?”

“Very good, yes. You would have got there in the end, wouldn’t you? You know my famous mother, then?”

“And your famous father.”

Aakash chuckled and jutted his chin slightly, preening in spite of it all. He was a good-looking guy, thought Nisha. He would have been a devastatingly attractive woman.

“Back then Nalin D’Souza was a big shot in a law firm who abandoned her the moment she got pregnant. You were right about her. She was gutless. She left me at the orphanage when I was eight.”

“And she’s the source of your Durga fascination?”

“Fascination?” scoffed Aakash. He curled a lip. “Hatred is the word I think we’re looking for. Yes, Mother was a worshiper of Durga. ‘Pray to Durga if you’re ever in trouble, Aditi.’ And you know what? I did. And you know what good it did me? Fuck all. It brought me to the orphanage, where I met Elina Xavier — the enforcer from hell, who’d cane me mercilessly, hold my head under water, make me piss my pants with fear. She’d fly into a rage and try to strangle me with her bare hands.”

Strangulation, thought Nisha. That figured.

“Durga brought me the riots that burned me out of my home and took me into the clutches of Ragini Sharma. Durga brought me cops who raided the brothel. Durga brought me you, Nisha Gandhe.”

And now she understood. “Oh God. I busted you?”

“Yes!” he said, with a flourish. “Enter Nisha Gandhe, stage left, fearlessly raiding the brothel and ensuring I was prosecuted for possession of narcotics, even though the drugs weren’t mine.”

“I was a junior officer,” protested Nisha. “I was acting on the orders of my superiors.”

Aakash gave a short, dry laugh. “If you’re trying to say you haven’t earned your place as the ninth Durga, dear Nisha, then I must respectfully disagree. I kept trying to explain to you that the drugs weren’t mine, but you never listened.”

He reached into his back pocket and withdrew a yellow scarf. She felt a whimper build in her throat but stifled it.

Don’t give him the satisfaction.

Chapter 103

All around the car were spanking new structures — corporate towers shimmering with steel and glass facades. Albert Mills stood out like an eyesore, a desolate island of abandonment and neglect surrounded by a sea of prosperity.

This, though, was where a trace on Aakash’s cell phone had led them.

Santosh turned in the passenger seat. Behind him was Jack, checking his Colt, and Hari, who stared out of the window with a vacant, cloudy expression. In his lap he held his Glock, thumb stroking the safety catch.

“I don’t like the look of those guns,” said Santosh. “We need to take him alive. Aakash is the leverage we need to find out information about the attack.”

Jack nodded. “Hari?” prompted Santosh. Hari tore his gaze from the window and Santosh dreaded to think what thoughts had been plaguing him. Good God, what had they done to him?

“Yes, boss, understood,” replied Hari, with a forced smile.

A token security guard at the gate sleepily prevented their car from driving through. Rather than arguing with him, Mubeen rolled down his window and silently handed over a five-hundred-rupee note to the man. His sleepy scowl was suddenly transformed into a toothless smile and he snapped to attention, offering his smartest salute to them.

“Does anyone stay or work from here?” asked Mubeen.

“No, sahib,” replied the guard. “All the industrial sheds are absolutely empty. Only one single north-facing shed has been rented out to an upcoming beauty parlor, but no one uses this gate to get there. There is a rear entrance to the mill premises and the architects and designers come and go through that. Renovation work is yet to start.”

“Tell us how to get there,” said Mubeen.

They drove on. Santosh spoke into a walkie-talkie — speaking to an army of cops waiting half a mile away.

Chapter 104

“And your defender, that was Anjana Lal, wasn’t it?” said Nisha.

Aakash cocked his head at her. “Have you thought of becoming a detective? You’re really rather good at it.”

“And in prison you met Devika Gulati?”

He pulled another face. “Yes. Evil sex-mad bitch that she was. She violated me repeatedly in the most disgusting and demeaning manner possible.” He shuddered at the thought. “She was an angry woman — confused about her sexuality — and took out all her anger on me.”

“How did you eventually get out of her clutches?”

“Munna. I discovered a plot to kill him, told him, and received his undying gratitude in return. When I was released he arranged for me to find refuge in one of Nimboo Baba’s ashrams. For the first time in my life I was at peace.”

“You became close to Nimboo Baba?”

“Well, yes, and Nimboo Baba is a very naughty boy. He is what you’d call a pansexual, with a special liking for trans men.” Aakash pushed up the sleeves of his jacket and pointed at himself. “That’s me. So when I admitted to him that I hated women — they had tormented me for most of my life — and that I did not want to be female anymore, and I wanted to become a male, well, that sent him into a state of frothy longing. Nimboo Baba arranged for me to become a man — and in return I agreed to let him have his way with me.”

“It was in Thailand you met Priyanka Talati, wasn’t it? What did she do, Aakash? What did she do to inspire your hatred?”

He cast her a withering look. “Drunk one night, she tore at my clothes and discovered my secret. Her laughter cost her her life.” He stopped. “Oh, that’s it. We’ve reached the end. Every victim accounted for.” He smiled at her. “Even you.”

Standing by the side of the bed like an attentive nurse, he lifted her head and passed the scarf behind her neck, gathering the two ends by her throat. “I don’t usually have the chance to savor my kills like this,” he said in the tone of someone breaching a confidence. “God, some of them struggled. They really struggled.” His eyes went misty for a moment. “Mother struggled the most, especially when she knew it was me.” He let the ends of the scarf drop and with a hairdresser’s gesture he reached to pull Nisha’s hair free of it. “There,” he said. “Much better.”

“You don’t have to do this,” she said in a parched voice.

“I do,” he said dreamily. “I have to, or I shall never have peace.”

“You’ll never have peace, Aakash. You’re a troubled soul.” She looked at him with beseeching eyes. “You can’t soothe your soul with yet more pain.”

His lips twitched slightly. “Well, Nisha, we shall see, shan’t we?”

He began to tighten the garrote.

Chapter 105

Drawing his colt, Jack tiptoed up the stairs with Hari close behind him. As they approached the loft they heard two voices, one of them belonging to Nisha. At the top was a door inset with a dirty window. Raising himself up slightly he was able to peer through the dust and grime on the glass.

He saw a large warehouse space. A bed in its center. The whole scene like a film set, except there were no cameras, no guys in baseball caps hanging around, just Aakash leaning over the bed. And Nisha. Or what he could see of her at least.

And then Jack saw a flash of yellow in Aakash’s hands. He saw Nisha’s legs tauten at her bonds. The garroting had begun.

On the bed, Nisha felt the material tighten around her neck. She felt dizzy as her oxygen supply began to diminish. She was blacking out.

Jack tore open the door and took aim with the Colt. At the bed, Aakash turned just as Santosh barreled from the door behind Jack and knocked his gun arm. “No, Jack! We need him alive.”

Jack cursed and threw himself forward, covering the yards to the bed as Aakash returned to his work, straining with the effort of tightening the garrote, no longer savoring the kill but wanting to finish it fast. Jack saw Nisha’s hands and feet straining at her binding. He saw her eyes that seemed to be popping out of their sockets. In the final moment, Aakash swung with his fist but Jack caught him around the waist, using his forward impetus to take Aakash off balance. The two of them crashed to the boards of the warehouse floor.

The fight was over in a matter of seconds, Jack easily overpowering Aakash, grateful to hear Nisha cough and splutter — hurt but alive — as he planted a knee into Aakash’s back, dragged his arms behind him, and secured his wrists with a plasticuff. As he picked up Aakash to drag him away from the bed, Aakash looked up at Nisha, still coughing and spluttering, with a grin.

“You were right,” he said, “I never will find peace.”

She turned her head away, and when Santosh sliced the first of her hands free with his sword, she covered her eyes and began to cry.

Jack glanced over. “Get him out of my sight,” he told Hari. As Hari dragged Aakash away, Jack went to the bed, fishing his hip flask from his jacket pocket. He offered it to Nisha’s parched lips — maybe not the best remedy for her thirst, but a remedy all the same.

What happened next, nobody was sure. Did Aakash goad Hari? Had Hari planned it all along? The first Santosh saw of it was when he glanced toward where Hari stood with his gun trained on Aakash, and realized that Hari wasn’t simply holding Aakash captive — he was about to execute him.

Aakash knew it too. Kneeling on the ground with his hands cuffed behind his back, he looked up at Hari and he smiled, and it was as though the two men knew and shared each other’s madness.

“No!” shouted Santosh. Mubeeen and Jack, both tending to Nisha, swung around. “No, Hari, no!”

But he was too late, and the sound of the bullet reverberated high up in the rafters of the old warehouse, scaring birds that were nesting up there. Aakash’s body pitched sideways, half his skull torn away.

A moment later, another shot rang out as Hari put the gun into his own mouth and delivered himself from his suffering.

Chapter 106

Santosh and Mubeen sat in the Private India conference room. There was nothing to say. Shock, grief, and guilt hung over them.

Nisha was in hospital, sedated for shock. Alive, at least: the case hadn’t been a complete disaster. No, wait — yes, it had. Santosh stared at memos on his desk, hardly seeing them: Bhosale, the driver of the vanity van, was to bring a wrongful confinement suit against the state; the government was asking the Attorney General to step down over allegations of mismanagement of the Sir Jimmy Mehta Trust.

And these were good things. Tiny glimmers of light in the dark. Staring off into space, Santosh wondered if he was in shock. Dimly he heard the call of a drink, and knew he would answer it, and the drinker’s voice inside told him that the case going wrong had an upside, and the upside was that it gave him an excuse to drink.

He should have seen it. He should have known. Hari should never have been with them. Rest was what he had needed. Probably a shrink. And because Santosh had failed to see that, Hari was dead and Aakash, their last chance of reaching Munna and Nimboo Baba, was dead too.

“There’s one last option open to us,” Jack had said, taking off, and Santosh had thought he knew where Jack was going — to reach Munna before the news of Aakash’s death. To play their last remaining card as though it were an ace when in fact it was a two.

Santosh wondered if, after his ordeal, Hari had been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, and whether Santosh himself was, too. He thought these things with a sense of detachment, totting up the trauma of the past forty-eight hours and wondering if a human being could possibly cope with it all.

Little knowing there was more to come.

Chapter 107

“Hello, Munna.”

Jack Morgan had been shown to Munna’s usual booth at the Emerald dance bar, wondering why Munna’s goons hadn’t bothered to search him but grateful all the same. He’d have felt naked without his gun.

And in front of him sat Munna, Jabba-like, his shirt open to display the gold ropes at his sweat-glistening chest, shining with grease beneath the lights. In his lap was a very young and very strung-out girl wearing next to nothing. Lank, greasy hair, a vacant expression. She should have been at home counting teddy bears and staring longingly at posters of Bollywood pin-ups on her wall, not here.

Munna had been stroking pudgy fingers through her hair, but now he clicked his fingers. The bodyguard to his left used a remote control and the music in the booth dimmed, the bassy thump-thump coming through the walls.

“The famous Jack Morgan. Didn’t I see you on the arm of Lara Omprakash the other day?”

He gestured at a television mounted in a high corner of the booth.

Jack nodded carefully, face blank, his heart hardening.

“A beautiful girl,” added Munna slyly. “A shame what happened to her.”

Jack thrust his hands into his pockets. “You’ll be pleased to hear her killer’s now in custody.”

Munna looked at him sharply. “Is that so?”

“Sure,” said Jack. “Aakash, formerly known as Aditi Chopra. An old friend of yours, I believe?”

Munna pursed his lips. “No friend of mine.”

“No, that’s right, a friend of Nimboo Baba’s. Well, at least Aakash is singing. He’s with the cops right now, telling them everything he knows about you and Nimboo Baba. And given that he’s Nimboo Baba’s lover, I’m guessing he has a lot of dirt. Enough to put you both back inside.”

“Is that so?” said Munna. “And I suppose you’re here to tell me this because of your great regard for me? You just want the best for me, is that right, Jack?”

Jack glanced from one expressionless bodyguard to the other, and then back at Munna. This was why they hadn’t searched him. He was outnumbered, outgunned.

“No,” said Jack, shaking his head, “quite the opposite, but what I want more than your downfall is to know the whereabouts of the bomb.”

“Bomb?”

“Come on, Munna. The bomb planted by the Indian Mujahideen, aimed at an international target in Mumbai. You know where it is. I bet you could even abort it if you needed to.”

“You credit me with far too much influence.”

“Do I? Look, Munna. Let’s get down to business. Let’s you and me do a deal. You give up the bomb and I lose Aakash. I make him disappear. You let that bomb go off and I’ll nail you. I’ll nail you for everything, I’ll place you with the bomb, and the whole fucking world will want to see you hang. Give up the bomb, Munna, it’s a no-brainer.”

Munna sighed. “Jack Morgan, Jack Morgan, you have such a reputation. I expected something more from you, something more sophisticated.”

Jack felt his heart sink. That had been his last gambit. But he flashed Munna a smile, a Jack Morgan smile that said what he was really thinking, which was, Fuck. “I’m sorry to disappoint,” he said.

“Life is full of disappointments,” said Munna, as if saying “c’est la vie.” “Because this — this is your great bluff? Fuck you, Morgan, I have more contacts at the Mumbai police than you give me credit for. Your boy Hari flipped out and put a bullet in Aakash. My troubles ended there. And as for your bomb? Fuck you, I’m admitting nothing. Now get out.” A nod to his left, and the music was turned back up.

Jack swallowed, desperately trying to think.

An idea nagged at him. He let it nag, the beginnings of a dread realization beginning to form.

The gun at his hip. He felt it there.

You’re just going to let me leave, with me knowing you’re behind a bomb about to explode in Mumbai?

On Munna’s face was an odd, uneasy expression. He reached for the drink in front of him and brought it to his lips, and Jack saw the gesture for what it was: an attempt to hide duplicity. He knew that in an ocean of wrongness there was something extra wrong here...

Jack felt himself go cold, and all of a sudden he knew — he knew exactly why Munna wanted him to leave, and time slowed down. Music pounded, but for Jack it faded into the background. He was watching. His face stayed the same, but he was watching: he saw sweat glistening on Munna’s forehead, Munna’s chubby fingers stroking the hair of the girl at his side, the young strung-out girl. He saw the bodyguards, the telltale bulges in their tailored jackets, their watchful eyes, their itchy fingers.

Okay. The bodyguard who stood to the right of Munna was left-handed. He was wearing a gun beneath his right armpit, but he’d need to take a step away from Munna and the girl in order to draw and fire.

In a firefight, he would draw second. Mentally, Jack designated him Costello.

The music throbbed.

From the way he was sniffing, the guy standing to the left of Munna had recently snorted cocaine. Even so, he was right-handed. He could draw and fire across Munna and the girl with ease.

In a firefight he would draw first. Jack designated him Abbott.

And Munna? Well, Munna was sitting, so his draw would be impeded. What’s more, Jack knew that Munna’s sidearm was a gold-plated Desert Eagle, and gold-plated Desert Eagles were notoriously heavy and inaccurate. He’d have been better off carrying a wok.

In a firefight, Munna would draw a dismal third.

He had men stationed in the adjacent booths, through which you had to pass if you wanted to get in or out. No doubt the music was also loud in those booths, but they’d hear the shots and come running. Four more men, two on either side. He’d seen drinks, lots of drinks, and if one of the close protection was doing bumps it was safe to say those guys were coked up to the gunnels too.

So — seven altogether. Not great odds. But Jack had faced worse.

Actually, no. Maybe he hadn’t faced worse.

“So what are you waiting for, the great Jack Morgan?” jeered Munna, inviting him to the door of the booth with a ring-adorned hand. “Get out of here. Go find your so-called bomb.”

And you’re trying to piss me off now, aren’t you?

“I know where the bomb is,” said Jack.

Munna raised his eyebrows, as though amused by a flight of fancy. “Oh? Do tell.”

Chapter 108

The boy had run away when a mob attacked his family during the riots of 1992. Upon returning some hours later, he had found the charred remains of his father, mother, and two sisters.

A day later, members of an Islamic charity had found him lying alongside his family’s remains. He had passed out from shock, hunger, and dehydration.

The head of the charity had been the principal of an Islamic seminary, and the boy had been placed in it along with countless other orphans. He had learned all aspects of the faith, as well as English, science, and mathematics. The result was that he could eventually gain admission to a medical college in Saharanpur. Saharanpur was also home to Darul Uloom Deoband, India’s biggest and most influential center of Islamic learning.

During his second year of medical college, the boy had begun to pray five times each day at the mosque. One of the people he had prayed with had carried out some surveillance work for Pakistan’s ISI in India. The man would later become head of the Indian Mujahideen.

The boy had gradually shunned his friends at college and had begun to spend most of his time lecturing on the perceived wrongs inflicted upon the Muslim community in places such as Afghanistan, Chechnya, and Kashmir.

The process of radicalization had begun.

His name was Abdul Zafar.

Chapter 109

“HEY,” SAID MUBEEN at the door. “What are you doing?”

Dr. Zafar had been kneeling by a gurney in the storage room and, startled, he swung around. As he did so, Mubeen saw some kind of attachment to the gurneys. Wires. A stopwatch device.

And in an instant Mubeen knew where the Indian Mujahideen had planted their bomb. It was there in front of him, in the science lab of Private India.

Chapter 110

“Am I right?” asked Jack. “Is it at Private?”

“I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Munna. As though bored.

“Sure I’m right. That’s why you were so keen for me to leave. An ‘international target in Mumbai’? It’s Private, isn’t it?”

Munna looked at him, apparently deciding that he might as well reveal all. “It’s really rather clever,” he said. “Your man Mubeen has helped set up the bomb himself. Tell me — after the various autopsies he’s been performing, are there now a number of gurneys in his lab?”

Jack had no idea. Munna looked delighted. “No, of course not. I don’t suppose the great Jack Morgan concerns himself with what goes on in the lab. Oh, by the way, you have until nine and it’s currently three minutes to nine. I think you’d better make a call, don’t you?”

“Sure,” said Jack, reaching for his phone. “Good idea.” With one hand he threw his cell phone at Costello, with the other he drew his gun on Abbott.

Abbott hadn’t cleared leather when Jack’s first bullet took out his eye, spraying lumpy brain matter on the red flock wallpaper behind. Dropping to one knee, Jack whipped around, felt the air above his head shudder as Costello loosed off a wild shot, and with a two-handed grip made his reply. Costello dropped, hands at his throat, blood spurting through his fingers.

Munna lurched forward in his seat and reached behind for the waistband of his trousers, but Jack sidestepped, leaned, and kicked him once in the jaw, then planted the same foot on his chest, temporarily stopping him from moving.

The doors. They swung open at the same time, front and back. Jack put a bullet through one, swiveled at the waist, took aim and fired at the second, where a goon had just arrived and died, a look of surprise on his face and a flower of blood at his chest. Dazed, Munna was struggling beneath Jack’s foot, so Jack kicked him again. His Colt fired again, and another guard died.

Two guards left, but the booth was clear and they were staying out of sight for the time being, which gave Jack a second to regroup. He pulled Abbott’s unfired Glock from his lifeless fingers, pumped a couple of bullets at the wood surround of the door, and was rewarded with a shriek of pain from the other side.

Then came a shot and he felt the searing pain almost as soon as he heard it — a pain in his thigh, and he dropped to his knee, yelling in agony.

Chapter 111

Everything fell into place for Mubeen. He remembered the night when he had picked up the first two bodies from Cooper Hospital. He’d wondered then why he was retrieving them from there instead of JJ Hospital. Zafar must have ensured that Private India — related autopsies were assigned to him alone.

He’d insisted on being present during the autopsies.

The examination of Priyanka Talati. “Do you mind if I leave the gurney here and have it picked up later?” he had asked.

He’d been building up a store of gurneys in the lab.

And those gurneys would be packed with explosive.

Mubeen saw a digital readout that began counting down. With a shout, Dr. Abdul Zafar launched himself at Mubeen, a knife in his hand. Mubeen felt his shirt sliced open and warm blood course down his front. He grabbed at the knife hand and tried to wrench the weapon away from Zafar, but Zafar had the strength of a zealot and twisted until he was over Mubeen and pressing down with the knife, his lips pulled back over his teeth and beads of sweat popping on his forehead.

Chapter 112

Munna, with blood pouring from his nose, still dazed, grinned. But Munna hadn’t fired the shot.

It was the girl. Somehow she’d grabbed Munna’s Desert Eagle from the waistband of his pants and used it to shoot Jack.

Jack kneeled with arms like a signpost, the Glock trained on the girl, the Colt on Munna, and his eyes going from one to the other, skittishly returning to the door of the booth. He had just seconds before the last gunman got his act together.

“Drop the gun,” he told her in a faltering voice. The bullet had gone through, thank Christ for that. He’d be losing blood. It gushed down his leg, filling his shoe. He could actually feel it pouring out of him, and that wasn’t a good sign.

“Drop the gun,” he said, more loudly this time.

Conscious of one, maybe two bodyguards cowering on the other side of the booth door, waiting for the chance to take him out. Didn’t want to shoot the girl, though. Not if he could help it.

“Shoot him,” growled Munna through his teeth.

“Shut the fuck up,” snarled Jack from the side of his mouth. “Just drop the gun, darling, or I’ll have to shoot you. You hear me? I don’t want to shoot you, but I’m going to shoot you unless you drop that gun — right this fucking second.”

“Shoot him.” This helpful advice from Munna.

“I said, shut the fuck up,” shouted Jack.

And then the last bodyguard made his move. He came bundling through the door, like a man determined to die, all twitchy eyes and bared teeth, firing indiscriminately, before he’d even had a chance to take aim.

His first shot went wide, smacked harmlessly into the wall. His second ripped off the girl’s jaw and she fell in a welter of blood.

He didn’t have the chance for a third. Jack fired twice and he spun off, fell face first to the table, dead before he hit the glass.

Jack looked at the dead girl, wondering how many more innocent people were going to die today, and decided none.

Nobody else died. Not if he had anything to do with it.

He advanced on Munna.

Chapter 113

Mubeen tried to pull away. Couldn’t. He saw the bomb readout counting down. He saw Zafar’s knife inches away from his chest, the tendons in their arms standing out as they both struggled.

And then Zafar jerked, as though electricity had been passed through him, and looked down to where a blood-dripping blade sprouted from his chest.

Santosh stepped over him, already pressing a hand to Mubeen’s wound as he crouched on the blood-slicked tiles to peer at the base of the gurneys. He saw small stopwatch-like devices and looked at the timer.

They had two minutes. An injured man and a cripple in the lab.

Chapter 114

“Alone at last,” Jack snarled at Munna. “Now, what’s the protocol? Is there an abort code that can be issued remotely? A safe word? What?”

Munna blinked. “You’re bleeding, Jack,” he said, playing for time.

Jack glanced at his watch. Two minutes to nine.

“Yes. I’m bleeding and there’s a bomb about to go off in my building. So you think I give a fuck right now? You think I won’t start with your knees and move on to your dick until you tell me what I need to know to defuse that bomb?”

Munna flinched as the barrel of the gun pressed into his balls. “They issued me with an abort word to use in an emergency,” he said quickly.

“Then use it.”

Munna shook his head. “Uh-uh. They’re not going to classify this as an emergency.”

Jack dug the barrel of the Glock in harder. “What do you think?”

“I think I’m a dead man if I do it.”

“You’re a dead man if you don’t.”

He scooped up Munna’s gold-plated cell phone from the floor and tossed it into the fat man’s lap. “And don’t even think of raising the alarm, Munna, because the next call I make is to Private and if there’s no answer I’m leaving with your balls in a bag.”

Munna dialed.

Chapter 115

Twenty seconds left.

“You shouldn’t have waited,” said Mubeen. “You could have made it out without me.”

“No,” said Santosh. He thought of Isha, of Pravir, of Rupesh and Hari. Tears filled his eyes. “No, Mubeen, there was never any question of leaving you.”

Ten seconds left.

Chapter 116

“It’s done,” said Munna.

Jack dragged out his phone, dialed Private.

“I quit,” said Santosh, when at last he answered, and the line went dead.

Epilogue

“The limp?” said Jack. “Doc says it’ll clear up and I’ll be good as new. In the meantime I come with news of a clean bill of health for Mubeen and Nisha. We’re practically a full team at Private India now.”

“We?” said Santosh.

It was two weeks since the events of the foiled bomb plot. The Attorney General’s disgrace dominated newspaper headlines; Munna had apparently left the country in fear of the Mujahideen; and Nimboo Baba was said to be expecting a knock at the door any day now.

And Santosh Wagh?

Santosh Wagh had been listening to the little drinking voice, the one that called him to oblivion each day. He’d been sitting in his apartment listening to the voice, obeying the voice, defying it some days, but most days toasting its health.

“There is no ‘we,’” he told his visitor.

“You’re right. Without Santosh Wagh there is no Private India,” said Jack. “If you’re really serious about quitting, the shutters come down. The whole operation ceases to be. You want that on your conscience?”

Slowly Santosh raised his eyes to look at his boss. “That’s your tactic, is it? Emotional blackmail?”

With a sheepish smile, Jack shrugged. “I guess.”

“Well, it hasn’t worked.”

“Private India needs you, Santosh.”

“Nisha is a first-class investigator.”

“She is. Oh, she is. But she’s not Santosh Wagh.”

Santosh squeezed his eyes shut. “I don’t think I’m up to it. I think it’ll kill me.”

“Really,” said Jack, “because you know what? I think that’ll kill you.” He indicated the bottle of Johnnie Walker. “The investigation, it was tough, and nobody should have had to go through what you did. The thing at the Tower of Silence, I can’t imagine what that must have been like for you...”

Santosh closed his eyes, took a deep breath, tried to banish those images.

“...but there were times — and you’ve got to admit this, Santosh — there were times when you were on fire. There were times I swear I could see sparks coming off you. Now, be truthful, were you thinking about booze those times?”

Santosh shook his head.

“No. I swear I saw you forget to limp on occasion. You won’t believe that Private India needs you, then how about this? You need Private India.” Jack stood. “We need you back, Santosh. Do it for us. Do it for yourself. Don’t get up. I’ll see myself out.”

When Jack had gone, Santosh took a deep breath, thought for some moments about what he’d said, then poured himself a generous shot of whisky. He placed the glass on the table in front of him, sat back in the couch.

He had a choice to make.