Now he stood in front of the late Rahul’s front door, an apartment locked and sealed with a length of police tape, and was about to let himself in when a door to the left opened and the face of a elderly neighbor appeared.
“Can I help you?” she asked, with such an admirable lack of suspicion that he opted to come clean.
“I’m a private investigator,” he said. He indicated the sealed door. “I’m looking into the death of your neighbor.”
She held herself as though to stop herself from shuddering. “Awful business.”
“Would you be willing to speak to me about it?” He shifted his weight onto his walking stick. Totem or not, it had its uses: weapon, pointer, putting elderly ladies at ease.
“You’d better come in,” she said.
In a few moments they were sitting together, drinking tea, the neighbor telling him what scant details she knew. No, she had never noticed anything unusual. No strange guests or visitors. Nothing like that. No, she hadn’t heard any odd noises. He was a good neighbor. Quiet. Kept himself to himself. Hardly ever there.
“He was a shift worker of some kind, wasn’t he?” asked Santosh.
“He worked the hospitals. A porter, I think. Orderly. Nothing medical. Nothing proper, you know. But even so, all these jobs need doing, don’t they?”
“Yes, they do,” agreed Santosh, thinking that those jobs weren’t usually well paid enough for ordinary hospital porters to be able to afford apartments. Not unless they were making something on the side. “Which hospitals did he work at, do you know?”
“No. In actual fact, I think he worked at them all at one time or another. Certainly I saw him in a number of different uniforms.”
From the inside pocket of his jacket, Santosh took Arora’s bio and showed it to the neighbor. “Did you ever see this man?”
She took a good look then shook her head. “Do you think he did it?”
“It’s just a theory at this stage.”
“What a horrible thing to do to someone,” she said, hugging herself once again.
“The eyeballs?”
“Well, not just that. The ice too.”
Santosh’s teacup rattled as he replaced it on the table. “I beg your pardon. Did you say ‘ice’?”
“Yes. When he was found—it was a colleague who found him—there were empty bags of ice in the bathroom. It had melted by that time, of course, but they think the bath was full of ice.”
Ice, thought Santosh. Like you might use to preserve an organ for transplant.
Back in the hallway—thanks made and the neighbor installed in front of the TV—Santosh broke the tape, picked the lock, and let himself into Rahul’s apartment.
It was not dissimilar to his own in terms of layout and lack of furniture. Whoever Rahul had been in life, he was not a homebody; the single armchair, TV, and coffee table in the front room suggested a person unaccustomed to spending much time in his own abode.
Along one wall was a low bookshelf; the few books on it were beach reads and bestsellers, the usual suspects. Meanwhile in the kitchen were exactly the kind of single-man ingredients and utensils that Santosh had in his own home.
Santosh thought back to Jack breaking into his apartment. Both locks had been easily picked. Had Rahul been at home when the killer had entered? Had he been asleep when the killer had filled the bath with ice? Surely not.
What did he do? Did he let himself in, fill the bath, then wait? Or did he catch Rahul unawares, knock him out, then fill the bath with ice?
Rahul was a shift worker, so it was entirely likely that he could have been asleep early, but even so.
“He would have had to bring his own ice,” Santosh said aloud. “He brought his own ice, filled the bath, and waited for Rahul to arrive. Which meant he knew Rahul’s movements. He knew what time Rahul was arriving home.”
Which meant he was targeting Rahul specifically.
Chapter 39
NIGAMBODH GHAT WAS located along the banks of the Yamuna river toward the rear of the historic Red Fort. On any given day, more than sixty corpses would be burned on Hindu cremation pyres at Nigambodh Ghat.
There was high security that day. The cremation of Nikhil Kumar was a state funeral. An honor guard in dark green turbans and red plumage led Kumar’s grief-stricken wife and son to the brick platform. His body, wrapped in homespun cloth, was placed in the sandalwood pyre, his head pointing south, as hymns from Hindu scriptures were recited. His son sprinkled water from the Ganges on the pyre before lighting it.
Among the mourners at the funeral were Jaswal, Chopra, Roy, senior bureaucrats, businessmen including Patel, and politicians from across the spectrum. Jaswal stood respectfully with his head bowed down as the flames consumed Kumar’s body. He had worn a white turban because white is the color of mourning.
Santosh had also managed to reach the venue but he chose to remain slightly away from the VIP crowd, clutching his walking stick.
As the ceremony drew to a close, Jaswal walked to his car that was part of a larger security convoy of five vehicles. He nodded to Santosh as he approached the car and Santosh got inside the vehicle along with him. Jaswal pressed a button to activate the glass screen between them and the driver.
“I think we may be dealing with something big,” said Santosh once they had privacy.
“Like what?”
“I’d rather not say at the moment.”
“Does it involve Chopra?”
“In exactly what capacity I’m unsure.”
“Give me a straight answer to a straight question, Santosh. Does it involve Chopra?”
“Yes,” admitted Santosh, stopping short of telling Jaswal that the Lieutenant Governor’s name was associated with the house at Greater Kailash. He felt a surge of irritation at the gratified look on Jaswal’s face. “This isn’t a game of political chess, Chief Minister. People are dying.”
Beneath his immaculate turban, Jaswal reddened. “Spare me the self-righteous act, Santosh. You were employed for a reason.”
“Give me leave to investigate fully. Perhaps we’ll both get the result we want,” said Santosh, hiding his distaste.
Jaswal shrugged. “Very well. Consider yourself given free rein; I’ll discuss the financial arrangements with Jack.”
Satisfied, Santosh left—and, not for the first time, he asked himself if Jaswal knew way more than he was admitting.
Chapter 40
THE KILLER STIRRED a cube of sugar into his tea. Scalding hot was the way his mother had used to make it. He never could understand how people could enjoy lukewarm tea. He sipped it and allowed his thoughts to wander back to that eventful day that had changed his life forever.
His old man had been a drunk but that hadn’t been the end of it. The bastard had been a vicious wife-beater too. Whenever he’d return home at night he would use the boy’s mother as a punching bag. Though the poor woman had found creative excuses to explain her bruises to neighbors, she’d fooled no one.
It was a dark and scary world that the boy had been born into. In fact, it had been a miracle he was born at all. His mother had been beaten so badly when she was pregnant that the boy had been born a month early.
One night his mother had been telling him stories from the Mahabharata when the asshole had staggered in, loaded out of his mind. As soon as he’d seen his wife he’d swung her around and twisted her arm behind her back. She’d screamed in agony. The boy had charged at him but he’d swung his arm crazily, catching the young boy on his lower lip, which had begun to bleed profusely. The boy had slunk away as he’d watched the Neanderthal torment his mother. Her wails had been pitiful, like those of a tortured animal.
The boy had run into the kitchen to grab something with which to attack his father. A gunny bag had been lying on the floor, tied up with jute rope. He’d untied the rope and rushed over to where his drunk father had fallen on top of his wife, about to pass out. The fall had cracked open his mother’s skull and a pool of blood had formed around he
r head.
The boy had been able to see she wasn’t breathing. Her open eyes had been unseeing. And although the boy would later cry an ocean of tears as he mourned his mother, what he’d felt in that moment had been fury. As though on autopilot, with no mind or will of his own, he’d slipped the rope around his father’s neck and pulled. The hulk had thrashed about wildly but the boy had been strong.
When his old man had stopped flailing and gone still, the boy had removed the rope and replaced it on the gunny bag. He’d climbed on the countertop to fetch a small tin box his mother kept on a high shelf in the kitchen cabinet. It had contained a little money she’d saved doing odd jobs like sewing and cooking for others. It hadn’t been much. About two hundred rupees. The boy had pocketed it.
He had then run all the way to the railway station and boarded the first train that was leaving. He’d hidden in corners and toilets and beneath bunk beds in order to avoid the ticket collector, and hadn’t gotten off the train until it reached its destination—the holy city of Varanasi.
He had no longer been a boy. He had become a killer.
Chapter 41
SANTOSH SAT AT home, watching the news but not really watching it. His bottle of whisky—as talismanic to him as his cane—rested on the upside-down box in front of him, still bearing Jack’s soap mark; his cane leaned against the threadbare sofa on which he rested, not so much sitting as slumped, and, as ever, he was lost in thought.
This case. It was most … perplexing. Everything seemed to add up and yet there were so many unanswered questions.
The news was almost over, and though there had been much coverage of Kumar’s apparent suicide and the day’s funeral there was still no word of the bodies found at Greater Kailash.
“People are dying, but nobody seems to care,” Santosh said to the room. A chill wind that rattled the window and the sound of distant Delhi traffic were the only replies.
Sighing, his eyes went back to the screen, where the news had ended and Ajoy Guha’s Carrot and Stick was just starting. There sat Ajoy Guha, looking exactly as he had at the press briefing the other day, while the topic scrolling at the bottom of the screen was “INDIA’S HEALTH CARE SECTOR: BOOM OR DOOM?” The camera panned across Guha’s guests—and suddenly Santosh was sitting up straight.
One of them was Dr. Pankaj Arora, the chief surgeon of the Delhi Memorial Hospital. He was joined by Samir Patel, the chairman of Surgiquip, and Jai Thakkar, the CEO of a large insurance company called ResQ.
“Well, how about that?” Santosh said to himself, reaching for his phone and scrolling to Nisha’s number. “Nisha?”
“Yes, boss.” He could hear Maya playing in the background.
“Are you watching Carrot and Stick?”
“I could be.”
“Put it on if you don’t mind.”
Moments later she came back. “You do realize I’ve had to turn off cartoons for this?”
“I’m sorry. I wouldn’t disturb you if it wasn’t important. Please pass my apologies to Maya. I’ll make it up to her.”
“She says she wants to see that fancy sword you keep in your cane.”
“Tell her it’s a deal.”
“Okay, well, back to the matter at hand. Who am I looking at?”
“The one on the left with the slicked-back hair.”
“Oh my God, that’s Arora.”
“The very same. Next to him is Samir Patel, chairman of Surgiquip.”
“Dodgy dealer, friend of Chopra.”
“Allegedly.”
“And the third guy?”
“That’s Jai Thakkar, the CEO of a large insurance company called ResQ.”
They stayed on the line and watched as Guha fired questions at his guests. Santosh wondered whether this was an Ajoy Guha program at all. No one seemed to be shouting or fighting.
Arora was speaking. “We make the erroneous assumption that health care is an industry,” he said pompously. “Ultimately, health care is a humanitarian service. Our objective must necessarily be to provide the healing touch to millions of Indians.”
Thakkar interjected in a high-pitched nasal voice: “But how will that ever happen if we do not have world-class hospitals and infrastructure? Spending on health care is just about five percent of India’s GDP. That’s abysmally low. We have a system that is patchy, with underfunded and overcrowded hospitals and clinics, and woefully inadequate rural coverage. It is only private participation that can overcome these limitations.”
And thus allow your private corporations to make millions, thought Santosh.
“Would you agree with that view, Mr. Patel?” asked Guha.
“We at Surgiquip have been working hand in hand with the government to upgrade Indian health care infrastructure,” said Patel. A ruby-encrusted Marte Omas pen sparkled in his shirt pocket.
Guha rolled the lozenge in his mouth, getting ready for the kill. “When you say you have been working ‘hand in hand’ with the government, are you referring to the fact that the late Health Minister, Kumar, was an investor in Surgiquip?” he asked.
Santosh was suddenly all ears. He hadn’t seen that coming. Guha was famous for throwing curveballs.
Patel’s startled expression was captured on camera as he absorbed the revelation. The vermillion mark on his forehead seemed to levitate as his eyebrows traveled north. He had no option but to answer. “That is a preposterous insinuation,” he replied.
“So are you denying his involvement in your company?” asked Guha.
“Nikhil Kumar and I were on the same page regarding the need to upgrade and improve our creaking medical infrastructure. Our relationship was entirely based on that common objective.”
“You’ve still not answered my question,” said Guha, staring into Patel’s eyes like a criminal lawyer. “Were you business partners?”
“This program was meant to discuss the overall condition of the Indian health care sector, not one specific company,” said Patel, his face reddening with anger at the persistent line of questioning by Guha.
“The nation wants to know whether the Health Minister could have been killed as part of a deeper conspiracy in the health care sector,” said Guha. “That’s why I must ask you yet again whether you were partners.”
“It is evident to me that this is about you scoring a few cheap debating points in your quest for ratings,” said Patel. “I shall not dignify the question by answering it.”
“Did you have a falling out with the Health Minister that eventually resulted in his death?” asked Guha, his fist bobbing up and down as he slammed the desk.
“You will hear from my lawyers when I sue you for libel!” shouted Patel, as Arora and Thakkar looked on. Thakkar seemed relieved that he was not in the firing line. Arora watched the scene with a steely hardness in his eyes. Patel stood up. Thakkar shifted uncomfortably in his chair.
“Where are you going, Mr. Patel?” asked Guha. “The show is not yet concluded.”
Patel ripped off his collar microphone. “You’re right, Mr. Guha. The show isn’t over yet,” he said as he stormed out of the studio.
“Nisha,” said Santosh, switching off the TV at the same time, “could you pick me up tomorrow? I’d like to pay Greater Kailash a visit.”
“Had a brainwave, boss?”
“We’ll see. Nice and early, please.”
He ended the call, about to return to his thoughts when something occurred to him: for the first time in as long as he could remember, he had not felt tempted by the bottle.
Chapter 42
SHE WAS NOT a particularly fast driver—like most newcomers to the city, she found the Delhi traffic a little intimidating—but even so, Nisha drove slowly out of respect for her passenger. From the corner of her eye she could see him staring straight ahead, impassive, his cane held tightly. The whites of his knuckles the only sign of any inner turmoil.
“So, what’s prompted this visit, then?” she asked, hoping to break the ice.
“I have a theory,?
?? he said enigmatically. “Bear with me on it, would you, Nisha? All will—or will not—become clear when we have a look at the house. Did you notice anything unusual about it the other day?”
“Well, apart from the police presence, I can’t say I did. At least we’ll have the advantage of their absence this time around.”
“You didn’t get a good look, then?”
She wondered if he was questioning her professionalism. Feeling herself tighten a little, she replied defensively: “The terms of the investigation were a little different then.”
“Quite, quite,” agreed Santosh hurriedly, putting her at ease. “Much has changed in the meantime. Much of it thanks to your investigation, Nisha. Private is fortunate to have you.”
Equilibrium restored, the two of them lapsed into silence once more, and Nisha watched the road as Santosh stared straight ahead, occasionally gazing out of the passenger window at red stone buildings flashing by, the vibrancy of Delhi just a fingertip away.
The silence—such as it was, assaulted by a constant deluge of activity from outside—was companionable, but even so, Santosh broke it, clearing his throat. “How are things at home, Nisha?”
She turned left, using the opportunity to control a sudden heartache. “Maya misses her father, of course. It’s difficult for us to come to terms with his death. I don’t suppose we ever will.”
Santosh nodded.
There was a pause.
“Tell me it gets easier, Santosh. Reassure me of that at least.”
“It does. It really does. When you learn to leave behind all the guilt and regrets, the what-ifs and what-might-have-beens. It gets easier. It’s just that getting rid of those things is the hard part. Choosing how to do it is the trick.” He gave a dry, humorless chuckle. “I can certainly help you when it comes to choosing the wrong methods.”
Nisha remembered her boss stinking of whisky first thing in the mornings. Yes, Santosh knew all about self-medication. “I have Maya,” she said. “She’s what keeps me going. Her and work, of course.”