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 kep
t 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 befor
e 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.”