“You’re going to read to me now,” he said, red-faced and gasping for breath. “You’re going to read to me, do you hear?”
And despite everything, some fast-receding chink of light in Maya hoped this was all he wanted: just for her to read.
But now he was backing her into the front room. His eyes were wide and foam flecked his mouth. Indicating a chair with the knife, he made her sit and then began to tape her to it.
“Please, please, don’t hurt me,” she pleaded. “Please, please let me go back home now.”
“No... no, I can’t do that,” he told her, spraying her with saliva. “You’re staying here with me; we’re both going up together. We’ll ascend together in union, don’t you see?”
“Please, please — I’ll read my essay.”
“Fuck the essay!” he roared, and screwed it up and cast it to the floor. The light inside of Maya died.
Now the monster stood. The low light in the room skimmed along the blade he held. He shrugged off his suit jacket and with his other hand reached to his belt buckle.
“Together,” he was saying. “Together.”
And then from behind him came a movement.
Maya saw it. “Mama,” she called, but it wasn’t Nisha. And as Roy swiveled to see what was happening, the sight of the new arrival did nothing to reduce Maya’s terror. It was a man dressed all in black. Face covered by a balaclava. He carried something that Maya thought at first was another knife but then realized was a syringe. And he stepped forward and plunged it into Roy’s neck.
The Principal Secretary’s trousers fell to his ankles as he raised a hand to the side of his neck and then dropped to his knees.
The man in the balaclava stepped smartly away to allow Roy’s body to fold to the floor, before turning his gaze on Maya.
Maya was paralyzed with fear. “Please don’t hurt me,” she whimpered.
“No, no,” said the man, his tone gentle. He reached down and placed the syringe on the floor, held up his hands to show he was no longer armed. “I won’t hurt you, I promise. Is this...?” He reached for her essay, the screwed-up bits of paper belonging to another life now. “Is this yours?”
She nodded furiously.
He looked at the title page. “‘Health Care, Fair and Square?’” he read. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought he was putting on some kind of voice, as though he needed to clear his throat. “You wrote this?”
Again she nodded.
“There is hope, then,” he said. “A hope that lies with the young. Do you mind if I take it?”
She shook her head.
“Thank you.” He pushed the essay into his back pocket. “I look forward to reading it. I have a feeling I will like it. Now, I’m afraid I’m going to have to move you to another room in order that you don’t witness any more unpleasantness. I will let you go afterward, I promise. Trust me.”
Chapter 75
Lying on his front, Roy regained consciousness. The first thing he saw when he raised his head was that the girl was gone. Her seat was empty. Bits of severed tape were curled on the floor. He registered that his shirt had been taken and his trousers were around his ankles. At the same time he tried to raise himself from the floor then realized his hands were somehow pinned to the boards, outstretched on either side of him.
And then he saw the nails. Driven through both hands, deep into the wood. Blood ran from the backs of his hands and dripped to the floor. And almost as though it had been lying in wait ready to get him, the pain pounced and tore through his body, making him scream through bared teeth.
“Oh God,” he whimpered when the pain had died down. “Kumar, Patel, and now me. You’ve come for me.”
“Very astute of you. Yes, I have. I have come for you. You are my next, but by no means my last.”
“But why?”
“Really? You have to ask?”
“Kumar and Patel were in it up to their elbows, noses in the trough. But not me.”
The pain in his hands was white hot and searing, and yet he had the feeling it was merely an aperitif.
“How? Tell me how Kumar and Patel were corrupt?”
“You know!” screeched Roy. “You already know! Isn’t that why you killed them?”
“Tell me anyway.”
“Because Kumar helped fund Surgiquip and awarded them contracts in return for a backhander. He and Patel were in it together. Like I say, noses in the trough.”
“And ResQ?”
“ResQ and Surgiquip are in bed together. But it’s them, not me. I had nothing to do with it.”
The intruder crouched. He placed something on the floor that when Roy twisted his head to look he saw was a field roll. Nimble fingers untied and spread open the fabric. Scalpels glittered beneath. Roy whimpered.
“You had nothing to do with what?” asked the man in black.
“You know.”
“Say it.”
“I’m in too much pain. I can’t think straight.”
“Say it.”
“Will you let me go if—”
“Say it.” The man in black placed the heel of his palm to where the nail pierced Roy’s right hand and applied pressure. The searing pain intensified.
“All right, all right, I’ll say it! Organ harvesting. Illegal transplants. Whatever you want to call it. Patients having their organs removed then sold on. You know that. You know that. But I promise you, I had nothing to do with it.”
“You had nothing to do with it, yet you knew it went on. You did nothing to stop it.”
“Nothing yet!’ squealed Roy. “I was biding my time. Change can only come from within.”
The man in black chuckled drily. “I can’t believe you’re honestly telling me you would have tried to change things.”
“I could have. I would have. Let me go and I’ll prove it. We’ll join forces.”
“Oh yes? Just as soon as you do something about this pesky child-abuse allegation, eh? I don’t think so. If not for that then for two other reasons: one, because they are greater in number and way, way more powerful than you could ever hope to be. And two — and given what I’ve just walked into, I think this is probably the most important — because you are a deviant more interested in serving the perverted pleasures of your own flesh than helping the city you are appointed to serve. Each man on my list deserves to die, Amit Roy, but none of them deserves to die more than you.”
Roy’s eyes were wide as a gloved hand reached to select a long-handled scalpel. The hand was out of sight and he heard the cutting before he felt the pain, the scalpel piercing the flesh of his back as the man in black diligently began to peel the skin away, exposing the scarlet, fatty tissue beneath.
The pain exploded in stars in front of his eyes. Pain so fierce and intense it was all-consuming, so white and blinding it was almost perfect. Then, as the man in black went to work on his upper thighs and Roy understood that his death — from blood loss, or bodily trauma, or whatever else his attacker had in store for him — was just moments away, he accepted that this celestial pain was in fact his ascendancy in action.
And so, as the man in black pulled off his balaclava so that Roy might recognize the face of his killer, he embraced his death and went to it willingly, knowing that ultimately, and agonizing though it was, the pain of his death was preferable to the pain of his life.
Chapter 76
Black wrought-iron gates at the entrance to Roy’s home brought Nisha to a skidding halt, and she scrambled out of the Toyota, looking for another way in.
Nothing. Just a keycode panel, intercom. Sensor.
Fuck it. She dived back into the Toyota and reversed twenty yards or so, offering up a silent apology to Neel as she revved the vehicle, making herself low in the driving seat, before jamming her boot on the accelerator.