“I’ll be on my guard, Jack,” said Santosh. “But for the time being here is where I want to be. What are your plans?”
Jack pushed his hands into his jeans pockets and stood thinking for a moment, chewing his lip. “I think it’s about time I had a word with our friend Mohan Jaswal.”
The Private team went to leave but Santosh called Nisha back. She hung by the door, unwilling to meet his eye.
“It’s not just Maya who went through an ordeal the other day, is it?” said Santosh, pulling himself up in bed a little.
“You almost lost your life.”
“That’s not what I mean, and I think you know it.”
“She’s alive and unharmed, that’s the important thing. If only I could say the same for Heena.”
“For Maya things could have been much worse.”
Anger flashed across her face. “You don’t say.”
But Santosh plowed on. “Things could have been worse if not for the intervention of the killer. I can’t be the only one who feels that if this killer is targeting the men behind an organ-harvesting scheme, and if he’s killing the likes of Amit Roy, then maybe he’s doing the world a favor.”
And now she was rolling her eyes. “Oh God, not you as well. I got this from Sharma. He went as far as to insinuate that the killer and I were in league together.”
“You’re an excellent shot, Nisha.”
“It was dark. What if I’d killed him? What if I’d killed him and he turned out not to be the killer but a burglar who was in the wrong place at the wrong time?”
“We have to stop him, Nisha. The fact that he saved Maya cannot have a bearing on that.”
“I know,” she said tightly. “Can I go now, please, and get on with the business of trying to catch him?”
“Just as long as you are,” he said.
And now she rounded on him. “You’re sounding fairly sanctimonious for someone who sat on evidence! We knew Arora had links to the bodies at Greater Kailash and we haven’t done a thing about it. For all your talk about cutting off the head of the snake, we’ve done precious little cutting of any description, and in the meantime more people have died, and my little girl...”
For Nisha that was as much as she could take. Choking on her words, she wheeled, snatched open the treatment-room door and stormed out, leaving Santosh alone.
“I’m sorry,” he told the empty room, judged by the silence.
Chapter 83
Jaswal sat in his usual place in the Delhi Legislative Assembly, attempting to stay calm. The doors were covered by armed guards, strong and impassive, silent sentinels amid the ruckus. The opposition seemed to have ganged up to accuse the government of every conceivable crime. Jaswal consoled himself by stroking his beard.
The leader of the opposition, a balding, chubby man in his sixties, was attempting to have his voice heard over the din. “This government has lost the moral authority to rule. Multiple corpses of patients were discovered inside a house at Greater Kailash. We have been kept in the dark regarding who these victims were. Three key people associated with the health sector — the Health Minister, a health care tycoon, and the Health Secretary — have died in mysterious circumstances. We’re being told that Kumar committed suicide when, as anybody knows, he was murdered, just as Patel and Roy have been murdered. It is evident that there is a deeper conspiracy that the government is attempting to hush up.” He brandished a poster satirizing the recent murders, adding, “You see this? Even rabble-rousers on the streets know our system is corrupt. We demand that the Chief Minister must resign.”
Almost all seventy members of the house were on their feet, shouting at each other. The helpless speaker of the house kept urging the honorable members to sit down in order to restore order but nobody was interested in listening. Jaswal was probably the only person who remained seated and utterly quiet. He looked positively haggard.
Chapter 84
The lotus temple was a Baha’i House of Worship and an architectural symbol as striking as the Sydney Opera House. Inspired by the lotus flower, the temple was composed of twenty-seven free-standing marble-clad “petals” arranged in clusters of three to form nine sides. The nine doors to the temple led into a vast central hall more than forty meters tall and capable of holding up to two and a half thousand people.
In a corner of the massive hall sat an odd couple: TV reporter Ajoy Guha and the police chief, Sharma. A fine pair they made: the overweight, perspiring Sharma; the tall, bespectacled Guha. The meeting had been initiated by Sharma but Guha had been happy to oblige.
“So, what did you want to see me about?” he asked Sharma, regarding the cop through his wire-framed glasses.
“For a start I thought you might want to thank me for giving you the lowdown on Roy. That little scoop sparked off the most dramatic thing to happen in Delhi for years. You must be very pleased.”
Guha preened a little. “Well, if the cat wasn’t already among the pigeons it certainly is now. It’s a good time to be a newsman in the city, watching its high rollers run around like headless chickens. I suspect the security companies are pleased too.”
Sharma chuckled. “The whole city is awash with conspiracy theories, bloodlust, tales of corruption, lies, and more damned lies, and it’s only getting more and more fervent. The other day I saw a bit of graffiti that said, ‘Are they telling us the truth?’ Today I saw graffiti that said, ‘You are being lied to.’” He smirked, evidently enjoying himself.
“In such circumstances revolutions are born,” said Guha.
“It won’t go that far. You know why? Because the likes of you and me won’t let it. The current system favors you just as much as it does me. I think we’ll give the city a shake-up and see who comes tumbling out of the bag afterward. No doubt there will be changes, but all for the better, I’m sure of it.”
“In other words, changes that favor your boss, Ram Chopra.”
“You’re wrinkling your nose at the smell of dirty tricks, are you? Let me tell you, Jaswal is not above employing them himself. Rumor has it that he’s hired himself a detective agency, the Private agency, no less, to do his dirty work for him. Anyway, what does it matter to you? A scoop is a scoop.”
Guha frowned. “You might be right.”
“And now I’ve got another one for you,” said Sharma. He handed over a small package.
“What’s inside?” asked Guha.
“Details of preliminary investigations into how illegal organ removals are being carried out at the behest of a company called ResQ,” replied Sharma.
“Aha, now I see,” said Guha. “Head of ResQ is Jai Thakkar, who just happens to be good buddies with Jaswal, your boss’s mortal enemy?”
Sharma shrugged. “I say again, does it matter? Any man involved in organ harvesting is a man who needs to be stopped.”
Guha stood. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Oh, and Guha?” Sharma stared up at the journalist. “I’m continuing my investigations, so watch this space.”
Chapter 85
The two men sat at a table of the upmarket Cafe E, in the opulent surroundings of the DLF Emporio Mall, Delhi’s best luxury mall.
The well-dressed Thakkar sipped mineral water with a calm, meditative air that belied how he really felt, which, if he was honest, was a touch on the nervy side. Added to the recent spate of murders — among them his business associate Samir Patel — was the distinct sense that things were coming apart at the seams. It was an impression not helped by the somewhat harassed and bedraggled appearance of Arora, who sat opposite, an untouched coffee in front of him.