“I left a little after midnight.”
“Did you go straight home?”
“No, I was with a friend and we stopped for a drink at the J. W. Marriott Hotel before he left me at my house.”
“May I know the name of your friend?” asked Nisha.
Devika smiled thinly. “Everyone knows his name. He is Nalin D’Souza, the Attorney General of India.”
Chapter 84
Nisha left Yoga Sutra, her mind fizzing. Not only did she now know how Devika Gulati had secured such a prime piece of Mumbai real estate, but the name of the Attorney General had cropped up once again — surely too much of a coincidence?
As she reached her car her phone rang. It was Ajay calling from the BMC — Bombay Municipal Corporation — office.
“Hello, Nisha,” he said.
Her eyes went automatically to the steering wheel where the yellow scarf had been tied. Next she craned over her shoulder to check the back seat was empty. Satisfied there were no surprises in store, she clicked the central locking.
“Well,” she said, “if it isn’t my favorite municipal fixer. I was thinking about you just the other day...”
“In the shower, I hope.”
“Ajay,” she chided. “I’m a married woman. No, it was in the Charity Commission.”
“Oh, those bent bastards. Let me guess. Good looks and a winning smile got you nowhere?”
“It was cold, hard cash or nothing.”
“What if I were to tell you that my services come with a price too?”
She pulled the seatbelt across herself, clicking it into place. “I’d tell you to stop pushing your luck and tell me what you’ve got to tell me.”
“Okay. Are you ready for this? Your Lara Omprakash childbirth query. Now, it took a bit of digging because it turned out that Lara Omprakash is a stage name. Her real name was Jamuna Chopra.”
“Right...” said Nisha.
“And Jamuna Chopra did indeed have a child when she was just out of her teens. June twelfth, 1984.”
“You’re a genius,” said Nisha.
“I’m glad it’s been recognized at last.”
“What else? Who was the father?”
“Father unknown. Child’s name Aditi Chopra.”
“Oh?” said Nisha. “A girl?”
“Absolutely. Gender: female.”
“Okay. I wonder if you could—”
“Tell you if Aditi has married or died?”
She grinned. “You know me too well.”
“I’m wasted in this job, aren’t I? The answer’s no. Not under that name anyway.”
“Ajay, I think I love you,” she said.
“If only...” he sighed.
“But Lara Omprakash was childless,” said Santosh moments later when she called him, still parked in the road outside.
“Obviously not,” she said.
“So what happened to the child?”
“Maybe nothing. Maybe Lara just kept her out of the limelight and Aditi Chopra is living with a husband and kids somewhere nice, enjoying the good life.”
“Maybe,” said Santosh doubtfully. “And maybe not. Our victims seem to specialize in double lives. I’ve just been looking at the Mumbai crime records and it turns out that Devika Gulati is not what she seems either. She spent several years in prison on account of drug charges.”
“Really?” Nisha gasped, trying to marry the two images. On the one hand, a jailbird. On the other, the diaphanous, model-like creature she’d just met.
What’s more...
“She’s friends with the Attorney General,” added Nisha.
“Now there’s a name that keeps cropping up.”
“Exactly. He’s her alibi for the night.”
“And she is his.”
“You think she’s covering for him?”
“It’s possible,” said Santosh. “I tell you what. Go back in there, confront her with what we know about her criminal record, and that name — Aditi Chopra — put it to her.”
“Got it,” she said.
“And Nisha?”
“Yes?”
“Be careful.”
“Will do, boss.”
Chapter 85
Santosh was thoughtful when he ended the call, his pulse quickening, feeling that familiar buzz — not of having cracked the case, but of being about to. A sense of the pieces falling into place.
He stood and leaned on his cane as he limped over to the magnet board. He’d kept it updated since the first two murders, record cards bearing the victims’ names, placed in the order in which the bodies had been found. There had been an average of one a night for the past seven nights. And if he was right, and the murders were an obscene caricature of the goddess Durga, then there would be two more, an eighth and a ninth victim. Tonight and tomorrow night.
Connections, he told himself. Look for connections.
Moving over, he gazed at the name Lara Omprakash. Her tattoo made her the only victim with a direct connection to the goddess Durga. The fact that she’d had a baby — this Aditi Chopra — might or might not be significant.
Double lives. Victims with double lives.
He moved the name Lara Omprakash to one side, placing it at the top of the right-hand side of the board.
What if Lara Omprakash had her child, Aditi, but for whatever reason had given the girl up? Where might she have taken the girl?
To an orphanage? He reached for the name Elina Xavier, taking it out of the victims’ order and adding it to the new one on the right-hand side.
But the orphanage had been gutted during the Mumbai riots, and the orphans presumably turned out onto the streets, where they would have been easy prey for pimps and human traffickers. People like...
Ragini Sharma, perhaps?
He stood gazing at what was looking less like a roll-call of victims and more like the beginning of a life story, wondering if he was on to something or if it was just the workings of a tired and overactive imagination—
“Ahem,” came a voice from the door.
Santosh snatched for his cane as he whirled, seeing Rupesh in the doorway.
“Rupesh,” he said, carefully, “you surprised me.”
“So it would appear,” said Rupesh. His hands were thrust into his trouser pockets as he stepped into the office. “Your man Mubeen let me in. That boy needs his beard trimming.” He stopped. “Hard at work, I see,” he said, gesturing with his chin at the magnet board.
“Working on some ideas,” said Santosh, waving a hand as though it were nothing, when in fact his brain simmered with possibilities. He stepped over to his desk. “What can I do for you?”
“You could start by giving me the promised case updates,” smiled Rupesh, looking carefully at the magnet board. He glanced out of the open door. “Is the lovely Nisha not here?”
“She’s chasing a lead.”
“Is she?”
“I think we’re close to cracking this, Rupesh. If you could just wait a day or so for the status report.”
“How about you tell me who your number-one suspect is? And please, Santosh, don’t say the Attorney General.”
“It’s the Attorney General,” said Santosh, enjoying the look that passed across Rupesh’s face.
Chapter 86
Nisha returned to the yoga studio, passed Fiona the receptionist, saying, “Just one more minute of her time if I could,” and ignoring the protests, knocked quickly on the door of Devika Gulati’s office, waited for “Come,” then let herself in.
Devika, who had been expecting Fiona, looked startled to see the investigator return. “Did you forget something?”
“No. Did you?”