The studio and Guha’s blue jacket and red tie disappeared from view and a video of Roy sitting on a bed inside a small room appeared. He seemed to be ripping the clothes from a frightened little girl and forcing her to sit on his lap.
Chopra watched, and then switched off the TV. He stopped the treadmill, reached for his phone.
“Sharma,” he said a moment later, “were you watching Carrot and Stick?”
The police chief chuckled. “I was indeed.”
“I take it that Guha’s informant is you?”
“And I take it that the next call you make will be to Jaswal?”
“I’m glad you’re on my side, Sharma,” said Chopra.
Sharma laughed some more. “In the meantime, I’ll see to it that Roy is arrested, shall I?”
Chopra thought. “Yes, but wait an hour or so, would you?”
“And why would I want to do that?”
Chopra draped a towel around his shoulders, using a corner to wipe sweat from his brow. “Well, what would you do in Roy’s position?”
“Me?” said Sharma. “I’m no pedophile.”
Chopra sighed. “No, Sharma, I know you’re not, but just for a second try stepping outside your own rather limited mind and using something we like to call deduction, or imagination, if you prefer. What would you do if you were a pedophile who had just been exposed? If you were Amit Roy.”
“I’d kill myself.”
“Exactly. And it might just be more convenient for all concerned if he were to do exactly that. Let’s give him time to fall on his sword, shall we?”
“Consider it delayed,” said Sharma. “By the way, while you’re on the phone: Kumar.”
Chopra grinned. “The dear departed Kumar, may he rest in piss.”
Sharma sniggered. “The very same. You asked me to look into his interest in the Greater Kailash house, remember? Why he wanted the whole thing hushed up? Well, I’ve done as you asked, and it looks as though he may have been on the periphery of something going on at the hospitals.”
“He was the Minister for Health and Family Welfare. You’d expect him to be slap bang in the middle of everything going on at the hospitals.”
“Without spelling it out on an open line, I’m talking about something on the side — something with corpses as the end result. A certain donation enterprise, shall we say. You’re aware he didn’t really commit suicide, I take it?”
“It’s the worst-kept secret in the city. I’m told that social media is having a field day with the deaths of Kumar and Patel. All kinds of conspiracy theories. They were lovers, is the latest one.”
“Naturally,” growled Sharma. “But even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day, and it seems that Kumar and Patel may have had a financial relationship. Now, of course, I’d be willing to pursue this on the off chance that it leads right to the door of Jaswal, but I have a feeling that you, too, had certain business dealings with Patel of Surgiquip.”
Chopra slumped on the bars of his treadmill. Why the fuck is it these things always come to haunt you? “I may have had, yes,” he hissed, without wanting to say more on the phone. “What of it?”
“Well, your name can be linked to the house at Greater Kailash. You can be connected to Patel. You don’t want to find yourself ending up as collateral damage if and when the details of their little side business come out, do you?”
“Of course not.”
“So we can’t just start making arrests. You see what I mean?”
“I see what you mean. And thank you for your counsel, Commissioner.”
“It’s my pleasure. And going forward?”
Chopra draped the towel over his head and stepped off the treadmill. “Going forward, I plan to make life hard for Jaswal. And as far as you’re concerned, if you could continue with — discreet — investigations into what the fuck our friends with scalpels are up to, that would be very much appreciated too.”
He ended the call. Collected himself. Thanked God again that Sharma was on his side.
Then dialed Jaswal.
“What do you want?” came the reply, loaded with enough venom to make Chopra’s next question redundant.
“I was just wondering if you’d seen Carrot and Stick this evening?”
“What do you want, Chopra?” came the even more bile-filled reply.
“Well, given that you appointed a pedophile as Health Secretary, what I want is for you to tender your resignation immediately.”
Chapter 67
“What a lovely apartment,” said Roy, stepping inside. Maya skipped ahead happily; the childminder, Heena — a dried-up, middle-aged shrew if ever he’d seen one — was fixing him with the latest in a series of disapproving looks as she moved to switch on the radio and start making tea.
I’m going to have to do something about that bitch.
“Well, thank you very much for seeing us home, Mr. Roy,” she was saying, trying to get rid of him, dismiss him as if he was the hired help. “I’m sure we needn’t take up any more of your valuable time.”
“Oh, there’s no rush,” he said to her. “I’m very keen to hear our little social healer read me her essay.”
“Oh, I’m sure that can be arranged at another time, Mr. Roy,” said the middle-aged shrew, adding pointedly, “when her mother, an ex-police officer, is present.”
His phone was ringing. A text message arrived. And then another one. He pulled the handset from his trouser pocket and stared at the screen, blanching. “You’re on the news,” said one text. He dismissed an incoming call, but another one came. Another text message. This one said, “Die, pedo.” Another that said, “You better run.”
They know, he thought. The whole world knows.
And it wasn’t despondency or shame he felt, but once again a kind of exaltation. He knew now that he would need the sleeping pills he’d kept for an occasion such as this, because there was no way he could live in a society that despised his kind. But even so, he greeted the thought of his death, not with fear or resignation, but with a serenity. His suicide would not be a passing so much as an ascendancy. He would rise. His tormented soul would finally be at peace.
His being filled with joy at the thought, he failed to notice what was happening in the apartment. The news was on the radio, the lead item was the very public disgrace of Amit Roy, and the first he knew of it was Heena shrieking, “Maya, get out of here now!”
Roy came back to himself. He saw Maya come flying from her bedroom into the front room, a worried look on her face. “Heena, what’s wrong?”
“We’ve got to get out of here — he’s a monster.”
“Wait,” he said, rounding on Heena. “There’s been a terrible mistake.”
“You can tell that to the police. Maya, come over here, sweetheart, stay with me.”
“No,” said Roy. He advanced on Heena, who pulled Maya to her, placing herself between Maya and Roy as he moved toward them.
“You stay away from me,” she warned.
But her voice shook and she was stepping backward, going into the kitchen.
“I can explain,” said Roy, “really I can. You don’t need to be afraid, either of you.”
He snatched a knife from the knife block. Flipped it to hold overhand.
“Get away,” screeched Heena, and she too tried to reach for a weapon, grabbing blindly for something, anything, from the counter, protecting Maya to the last, keeping herself between the man and his prey.