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 gunnysack 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 her 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 gunnysack. 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.”