After he had killed the priest, the Deliverer had run to the Ganges to bathe and wash off his sins. He had taken up the worst job — that of a “Dom.” Cremations occurred at the burning ghats throughout the day and night. After the cremation, the leftovers would be immersed into the river by the chief mourner, usually the son of the deceased. The bones did not burn completely, so the Doms were responsible for collecting the remaining bone fragments and immersing them in the river. It was a sickening and filthy job. The smell of death had seemed to permanently attach itself to his skin, no matter how many times he took a dip.
One day a young army captain had arrived at the burning ghats in order to cremate his father. He’d noticed the boy scavenging for bones when the cremation was over. The captain’s heart had gone out to the boy doing that despicable job. He’d pulled him aside and asked him his name.
“Deliverer,” the boy had replied.
“Well, Deliverer, do you go to school or do you simply deliver?” the army man had asked. “What do your parents do?”
“My parents are dead,” the boy had replied without any expression. “I work here to earn enough to feed myself.”
The army captain had taken the boy to the cantonment school and convinced the reluctant headmaster to accept him. It would be a tough slog with this one. It had taken several days just to get him clean. When food had been placed on his plate in the canteen, he had eaten ravenously like a dog, almost immersing his face in the plate. Not surprisingly, he had been picked on by one of the seniors, a cruel bully.
One day he’d found that his plate had been replaced with a dog bowl. The bully and his friends had been shouting “Woof! Woof!” as the boy looked at the bowl. He had been desperately hungry, so he’d eaten from the bowl, ignoring the howls of laughter from the bully and his friends.
At night, when he’d retired in the dormitory, he had made sure all the boys were asleep before pulling out a small fork — much smaller than an ordinary dining fork — from under his mattress. It had been presented to him by a wandering sadhu who’d been happy with the respect the boy had shown toward him.
The sadhu had explained to him all the intricacies of different types of poisons and the different ways by which human life could be expended — stabbing, decapitating, shooting, strangling, drowning, poisoning, and burning. The knowledge had been delivered with a disclaimer, though: that human life was a gift and should never be taken unjustly.
The fork that the sadhu had given him was no ordinary fork. A vegetable extract known as Abrus precatorius was mixed with powdered glass, opium, datura, onion, and alcohol to create a thick paste. Sharp spikes were then fashioned out of this paste by drying them in the sun. Once hardened, two spikes measuring less than two centimeters each would be mounted on a wooden handle to create the fork. The distance between the two mounted needles was carefully calibrated to resemble the fangs of a viper.
The Deliverer had crept up to the bully’s bed and plunged the fork into his thigh. The bully had screamed in agony but the lights of the dormitory had been off. The Deliverer had retrieved the fork and crawled back to his bed, pretending to be asleep. By the time the lights had been switched on a few minutes later, the bully had been writhing in agony.
He had been quickly transferred to the Army Hospital and was declared dead from snake bite — a common occurrence in Varanasi — six hours later.
The Indian Machiavelli, Chanakya, had said in 300 BCE, “Even if a snake is not venomous, it should pretend to be so.”
The Deliverer had stopped pretending. He knew he was venomous.
Chapter 82
Santosh lay propped up on his hospital bed, with Jack, Nisha, and Neel at his bedside. A nurse popped in to check his blood pressure and temperature then left. It had taken almost an entire day for him to emerge from his near-dead state.
“You really need to stop landing up in hospital,” joked Jack, going on to tell Santosh of the timely intervention that had stopped him from dying.
“How did you know your approach would work?” Santosh asked Neel.
“There is significant research on this subject,” replied Neel. “A case in point is the ordinary garden worm. Research shows that ninety-nine percent of garden worms die within twenty-four hours of exposure to temperatures just above freezing point. But if they are first deprived of oxygen, their survival rate is almost ninety-seven percent. Upon rewarming and reintroduction of oxygen, the worms reanimate and show normal life spans.”
Santosh thanked him with a nod. “And now we find ourselves in the lion’s den,” he said.
He looked at Nisha. After just two days off looking after Maya she’d insisted on returning to work — ignoring Jack and Neel, who’d urged her to spend more time with Maya — and she looked exhausted.
“How is Maya?” asked Santosh.
“She’s being looked after at the Oberoi,” said Nisha, flashing a tired but grateful smile at Jack.
“Little Miss Gandhe could charm the birds out of the trees,” laughed Jack. “She already has the entire staff wrapped around her little finger.”
“I can’t imagine what she’s been through,” said Santosh.
Nisha dropped her eyes. A sympathetic, respectful silence fell across the room. “She needs me at night but otherwise she doesn’t want to talk about it. She’s repressing it. Outwardly she seems fine. Like Jack says, she gives the appearance of having the time of her life, and yet she witnessed Heena’s murder. She was tied up — on the point of being assaulted by Roy. I can’t even begin to comprehend what that might do to a little girl.”
“Children are very resilient,” said Santosh. “More so than adults.”
“I hope so,” said Nisha quietly.
“And now you’re in the position of having had contact with the killer,” said Santosh.
“I saw him briefly on the drive. He was running away.”
“But you’ve formed the opinion that he’s a vigilante?”
“Yes. We’ve been assuming that it’s some kind of organized crime war going on. But what if we were talking about a personal vendetta? What if this were the family of one of the victims? What he said to Maya suggests someone driven by a desire to do...”
“Good?” said Santosh.
“In his mind at least, yes.”
“Saving Maya was a humane act, but even hit men have a moral code,” said Jack.
“It’s not just that. It’s his interest in the essay, not to mention his MO.”
“You said yourself, the gruesome murders could be a warning,” Santosh reminded her.
Jack cut in. “I gotta say, I’m warming to Nisha’s theory. The Godfather movies get it right: when organized crime cleans house they do it in one fell swoop. Boom, boom, boom. Not one at a time like this, giving the enemy time to regroup and prepare. You said yourself, Santosh, that Thakkar’s increased his security.”
“So have Jaswal and Chopra,” said Neel. “Whatever our killer’s motives, he has the great and the good of Delhi in a spin.”
“It couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch,” said Nisha tartly, earning a penetrating look from Santosh.
“There are armed guards in this very hospital, too,” noted Jack. “No doubt here to look after Dr. Arora. They’ve all got them. Nisha’s right, Santosh, this is a rogue agent we’re dealing with here.”
“Then the motive is revenge, and we must work out who is the killer’s next victim,” said Santosh.
“In the meantime, I’m not comfortable leaving you here,” said Jack. “It seems we’re investigating on two fronts now: a vengeful serial killer and an organ-harvesting operation — and they’re as defensive as each other. Someone tipped off Ibrahim about you. What’s to stop them having another go?”