The cawing of the vultures. Bizarrely it reminded Santosh of trips to the zoo as a little boy. Huge birds with a five-foot wingspan. In the zoo you were protected by wire fencing but there was no fencing here.
Santosh shook his head. “No, Rupesh, they won’t. You work for them, not the other way around.”
“Don’t concern yourself, Santosh. You’ll be dead.”
Santosh looked at him, breathing heavily, sure now that there was nothing left of the man he had once called a friend. “The garrote killings,” he said. “You knew about those too, didn’t you?”
Rupesh smiled ruefully. “Only that the killer enjoys the benefit of Nimboo Baba’s affections. They are lovers, it seems.”
“And because the killer enjoys the affections of Nimboo Baba, and thus Munna, she also enjoys the protection of the Mumbai police, is that it?” spat Santosh.
“To be honest I couldn’t care less. It’s Baba’s lover’s thing, her pet project.”
Santosh shook his head. “And that’s why you left the room to call for backup. You weren’t calling for backup at all.”
Rupesh gave a sideways smile. “In a manner of speaking, I was.”
“You bastard. Nisha was there... Women are dying,” said Santosh with disgust.
“It ends tonight. Your man Mubeen will find two bodies.”
“Two bodies?” said Santosh.
“Gulati and your gorgeous assistant. That, I have to admit, is something of a loss to mankind.”
“So Devika Gulati isn’t the killer?” said Santosh quickly.
“Oh no,” said Rupesh.
The vultures, although they’d been agitated by the new arrivals, were now swooping closer and closer, leathery wings beating the air above their heads, their shrieking cries becoming louder and louder.
And then one dipped. It soared over Santosh’s head and he heard the rustle of air above him, flinched, hunched his shoulders, and saw as Rupesh went to ward off the vulture with his gun.
Santosh saw his chance. He drew his sword.
It was not the first time he had drawn the blade from the sheath of the cane. Most nights he worked the action. He often shook it close to his ear to listen for the telltale rattle common to cane-swords.
It was, however, the first time he had ever used the blade in anger.
But he was no swordsman. He carried the cane-sword because... Well, why not? He needed a cane, why not have it be a weapon as well? Who knows? It might come in handy on the off-chance he ever found himself staring down the barrel of a gun inside the Tower of Silence.
So he swung his blade wildly, grateful that at least it hit home.
Chapter 92
Mubeen parked behind Nisha’s Honda, jogged to the window, and cupped his hands on the glass to stare inside. Empty. He glanced across the road at the yoga studio, seeing a dim light inside, then crossed the road and tried the front door. Locked.
Where the hell were Santosh and Rupesh?
He pressed his face against the frosted glass and could make out the reception area, a desk, framed photographs, like wall smudges in the half-light...
But wait a moment. Something wasn’t right. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom he could see that a large statue of Buddha in reception lay belly-up on the floor. Yoga mats were in disarray, chairs overturned and, in fact, many of the photographs that should have hung on the wood-panelled wall were on the floor.
And through the door to the studio, covered with a white sheet, he could just see something that looked suspiciously like a body.
With a curse he stepped back from the glass, delving for his cell phone in his jeans pocket.
Santosh. No answer. Shit.
He dialed again. This time, he dialed for the cops.
Chapter 93
Rupesh yelled in pain and surprise. As he whipped his wounded hand away from the blade, his gun dropped to the stone and skidded close to the edge of the pit. Bleeding, Rupesh fell to his knees, clutching at his wrist. He was momentarily unable to believe the turn of events.
Santosh, meanwhile, was off balance. The force of the thrust had taken him onto his bad leg and he’d pitched forward, and for a moment the two men faced each other, kneeling as if enacting some bizarre greeting ritual — surrounded by rotting corpses.
“You fucker.”
Rupesh was the first to recover. Hatred blazing in his eyes, he launched himself at Santosh, shoulder-charging him backwards before he had a chance to defend with the sword, then leaping away as Santosh swung from a sitting position.
The gun. Rupesh was going for the gun. With a shout of effort, pain lancing up his body, Santosh threw himself forward using the sword as a spear point and catching Rupesh on the calf. Rupesh screamed, fell, blood already gushing from the wound on his calf. He fell across the corpse of a child, half its face shredded by the beaks of vultures. He gave a cry of revulsion as he rolled away, then kicked out as Santosh pulled himself to his knees and swung once again with the blade.
Can’t let him reach the gun, thought Santosh. If he reaches the gun that’s it.
A cloud of disturbed flies billowed from a nearby corpse as Rupesh’s heels slipped on putrefying matter. Throwing out a hand to lever himself up, he plunged it through the ribcage of an adjacent body, ripping it back out, stinking and dripping, with a scream of nausea.
Rupesh’s flailing bought Santosh a precious half-second. Getting to his feet was too much of an effort, so he pitched forward from kneeling, swiping right to left with the blade and nearly catching Rupesh a third time.
Nearly.
Rupesh dragged himself to his feet. Blood poured from the wound at his wrist and his torn trousers flapped at the gash on his leg, but he left Santosh out of reach, marooned in a sea of rotting cadavers.
“You fucker,” Rupesh cursed again, but it was as though he were talking to himself now. With a Herculean effort he hobbled toward the gun and Santosh, stranded, watched him lurch away knowing he’d played his final card. Knowing he would die here and because of that Nisha and God knows how many bomb victims would die too. He had failed. He had failed them. Just as he had failed Isha and Pravir.
By now Rupesh had reached the gun and with a shout of triumph swept it up, and whirled to face Santosh...
And overbalanced. Lost his footing. Tumbled to the stone on the edge of the pit where his prone body seemed to teeter for a second and a look of absolute horror crossed his face as he realized what was about to happen.
And he fell. He fell screaming, landing with a sickening squelch in the rotted substance that lay in the bottom of the ossuary pits.
For a moment there was silence. The vultures had been scared off by the fight, but now it was as if they sensed the presence of a wounded animal in the tower and they began to caw, even more loudly than before, swooping into the pit to investigate.
Fingers scrabbling for the sheath of his sword, Santosh reassembled his cane again and used it to lever himself upwards, and moved carefully to the edge of the pit. In the cold, white light of the moon overhead he saw Rupesh below. He lay as though pressed into the ooze by an invisible hand, one broken leg at a hideously unnatural angle and the blood from his wounds gleaming darkly in the moonlight. A frightened, pleading look in his eyes.
The first, most intrepid of the vultures landed, its huge parchment wings obscuring the upper half of Rupesh for a moment as it pecked once, twice with its beak. Rupesh then began to shriek, and the bird took flight, a strip of his facial skin in its beak.
“No, no!” screamed Rupesh. His screams were wet, the most terrifying cries Santosh had ever heard. “Please, no...”