Santosh spoke slowly and clearly, keeping — or trying to keep — his emotions in check. “Dr. Uwwano, I have reason to believe that one of Dr. Jaiyen’s patients is behind a series of murders in Mumbai. I have very good reason to believe this, Dr. Uwwano, you have to trust me. I believe this person has kidnapped one of my agents. The pattern of the murders so far indicates very strongly that this person will kill my agent within the next eight or nine hours unless I can track this person down. Dr. Uwwano, I appreciate that what I am asking you may go against certain principles you hold, but I beg you, can you help me?”
There was silence for a moment at the other end of the line.
“You can ask your question, Mr. Wagh. I can only hope that circumstances allow me to answer.”
“Did Dr. Jaiyen perform gender reassignment surgery on a patient named Aditi Chopra?”
“You’ll have to give me an hour or so to check that information.”
Santosh took a deep breath, cast his eyes to the ceiling of his office. “If you could do that for me, Dr. Uwwano, I would be most grateful. You may be helping to save a young woman’s life, and possibly many other lives too.”
“I’ll see what I can do, Mr. Wagh.”
“Thank you, Dr. Uwwano,” said Santosh. He very, very gently replaced the phone on its cradle, knowing he was this close — this close — to cracking the case.
As long as he was in time to save Nisha.
Chapter 100
At least if she were to die here she would go knowing that she had put up a fight. When the chemical-soaked cloth had come over her mouth Nisha had known she was in trouble. But she had also known that in real life chloroform doesn’t work the way it does in the movies — firstly, too much of it would kill her, and secondly, she had had minutes, not seconds, before it would work and she would be rendered unconscious.
She had yelled, twisted, pulled herself up from under her assailant, dabbing with her fingertips on the carpet in the hope of retrieving her gun but then giving up and darting toward the studio, her attacker in pursuit.
She had run into the body of Devika Gulati on the gym studio floor. A dim light had illuminated the yellow garrote around Devika’s neck. Her tongue had poked slightly from between those perfect lips. Her eyes had bulged from her skull. Her death was a foul corruption of her beauty.
Nisha had fallen to her knees, feeling woozy now. She’d prayed the dose of chloroform wasn’t high enough to bring on an allergic reaction. She’d prayed she wouldn’t meet the same fate as Devika there on the studio floor. A pair of jeans-clad legs and sneakers had appeared before her eyes. Sneakers like her own, she’d realized, her brain producing random thoughts now, as her body and mind shut down and darkness descended...
“What happened when you left the orphanage, Aditi?” she called out now.
The figure was there again, she was sure of it. She was being watched.
“I need to piss,” she called.
At last her captor spoke.
“I used to piss myself at the orphanage, when Elina Xavier beat me.”
It was a man.
“Come out where I can see you. Where is Aditi? What have you done to her?”
“Where is Aditi? I am Aditi. Dr. Jaiyen saw to that. But Dr. Jaiyen became greedy. Dr. Jaiyen wanted to blackmail me. So like the others, Dr. Jaiyen had to die.”
“Come on then,” Nisha growled at him, “show yourself. You’re dying to show yourself. Show me who you are and why you hate me so much.”
He stepped out of the shadows.
Chapter 101
“Yes, Aditi Chopra came to us for gender reassignment.”
Santosh fought to stay calm, control his breathing. “What name did he leave with?”
“She left with the same name with which she arrived, Mr. Wagh.”
“Anything you tell me now — anything may help in saving people’s lives. Do you remember her?”
“Oh yes. I remember her. She was visited by a man who arrived in a large black Mercedes, quite an entourage he had.”
Nimboo. Her financier, no doubt.
“He talked about wanting to study hairdressing when he left,” Dr. Uwwano was saying. “He wanted to work in Bollywood.”
Santosh’s mind was working, thinking, He did — he did work as a hairdresser. He worked as a hairdresser to the Attorney General, which is why he was able to collect samples of his hair and leave them at the crime scenes.
“One last thing, Dr. Uwwano. While I hate to risk casting aspersions upon your colleague, I must ask — is it possible that Dr. Jaiyen could have been blackmailing Aditi?”
Uwwano’s voice was frosty now. “Well, of course it’s possible...”
“In your opinion, is it likely?”
“Dr. Jaiyen had a taste for what you might call the high life, and it doesn’t come cheap. Perhaps if she had discovered what Aditi was doing, maybe.”
Some kind of hairdresser to the stars, thought Santosh. A celebrity hairdresser. It would give him the access he needed. The film sets, to women’s houses, a face they trusted. It would make sense that Bhavna had somehow got in the way while researching her article.
“Thank you, Dr. Uwwano, thank you. You don’t know how helpful you’ve been,” he said, and was about to end the call when she stopped him.
“Do you think Aditi is responsible for those murders, Mr. Wagh?”
“I’m very sorry to say, Dr. Uwwano, but yes.”
She sighed, as though somehow not surprised. “There was something... damaged about her, even more so than... Well, many of our patients have what you might call ‘issues.’ But with Aditi, she was a beautiful girl. Now that I have reviewed her case file, I remember some of the nurses were commenting as though it was a waste of such a gorgeous creature, and of course we don’t see it that way — but in any case there was something about her beauty, as though it had caused her great hurt in the past.”
“I think you’re right, Dr. Uwwano,” agreed Santosh. “And I think that for Aditi having a sex change wasn’t enough. You’re right, her beauty had caused her great misery. In the end she took it out on all womankind.”
He finished the call, knowing he had it now. He had all the pieces except for the last one.
“Hari, where’s that mugshot?”
“Coming, boss,” called Hari from the other room.
He hobbled through to Hari’s desk just as the picture appeared on Hari’s screen.
She had been right, Dr. Uwwano. Aditi had been beautiful. She had her mother’s high cheekbones and her full mouth. She had her father’s eyes.
“Look,” he said, almost to himself, as he leaned forward, placed one hand on the screen at Aditi’s brow, cutting off her hair, another one on the lower half of her face. Left just the eyes, the rise of the nose, and the mouth.
“Look who it is,” he said.
Chapter 102
Aakash stepped out of the shadows.
Nisha stared at him, hardly able to believe her eyes, and yet... it all made sense. Her head dropped back to the mattress with frustration, surprise, and, if she was honest with herself, even relief that although she was going to die she would at least die knowing the answers to her questions.
“You don’t remember, do you?” he said.
“I remember you from the Shiva Spa, Aakash. You lied about having no celebrity clients, didn’t you?”
He smiled, almost apologetically. “I’m afraid so. But I mean from before, when you fucked up my life?”
“‘Before’? You were a woman, then?”
He pulled a face, as though smelling something bad. “Don’t remind me. Yes, I was born wearing the wrong skin. Born a woman.”