Santosh stared at the paper. It was indeed a wall calendar—a cheap one that had no glossy photographs or aesthetic value. It simply set aside a page for each month. Working days were shown in black numerals and weekends and national holidays in red. The calendar had been left with the pages turned to the month of July.
Rupesh appeared behind Santosh and looked over his shoulder. “What have you found?” he asked. It had been a tough decision to allow Private India back into the investigation but pragmatism had won, for the moment at least. The clincher had been Munna’s phone call: “Get them back into the investigation. Don’t ask me why.”
“It’s a wall calendar,” replied Santosh. “It was left under her pillow with the pages turned to the month of July. If you notice, the days starting from July twenty-third have been circled.”
Why these dates? thought Santosh. Why July, not January or June? And why the twenty-third in particular? His mind went into overdrive as he attempted to figure out the answer to the riddle. Rupesh took the calendar from him and looked carefully at the circled dates.
Santosh suddenly spoke up. It was as though a light bulb had gone on inside his head. “I’m willing to bet that all the dates in the next month up to the twenty-second of August are also marked like that,” he said, leaning on his walking stick to ease the strain on his injured leg.
Rupesh flipped the page of the calendar and saw that Santosh was right, as usual. All the dates up to and includin
g August 22 were circled.
“What is the significance of these dates?” he asked in frustration. “They have nothing to do with the dates of our murders. It’s currently October.”
“Ah, but these dates have everything to do with this particular murder,” replied Santosh. “They are the IAU boundaries within the tropical zodiac.”
“IAU?” asked Nisha.
“International Astronomical Union,” replied Santosh, “the internationally recognized authority for assigning designations to celestial bodies.” He found nothing strange about the fact that he was aware of that particular obscure piece of information.
“Zodiac?” asked Rupesh incredulously. “This nut job is killing according to astrologically auspicious dates?”
“No,” replied Santosh, exasperated by Rupesh’s lack of intellect. “The period from July twenty-third to August twenty-second constitutes the tropical zodiac of Leo. What is the symbol for Leo? The lion! This is the killer’s sixth victim. The sixth manifestation of Durga is Katyayani and she is always depicted seated on a lion!”
Chapter 55
THE STRETCH OF the city from Bhendi Bazaar to Mohammed Ali Road was entirely illuminated each night during the holy Islamic festival of Ramadan. Food lanes were doing brisk business at the end of the day’s fasting. They would continue turning out copious quantities of their wares throughout the night.
In a small workshop a few yards away a blacksmith was firing up his acetylene torch, the tip glowing incandescent as the old man welded metal tubes back in place. Standing watch over the process was the thin man from the Indian Mujahideen and his partner.
“I still cannot understand why you need the sealed ends of the tubes to be openable,” said the blacksmith, clamping the tube with tongs over his anvil in order to strike it.
“I’m not paying you to fucking ask me stupid questions,” said the Mujahideen angrily. “Just get the job done so that we can get out of here.” He winked at his partner, who seemed overly nervous.
“This is not going to happen quickly,” the blacksmith retaliated. “It can take multiple rounds of heating and reheating. I suggest you come back in a day or two. Leave the material here with me.”
“We’re not going anywhere,” said the Mujahideen. “Just keep hammering away. We’ll sit here and watch.”
“I can’t afford to hammer when the metal’s cold. It will end up creating a cold shunt that weakens the work,” argued the blacksmith earnestly. The Mujahideen man exhaled in exasperation. Why the fuck did the best workmen always turn out to be a pain in the ass? Why was this old man asking questions that would put him in danger of being killed? The thin man counted slowly in his head, forcing himself to calm down. His first priority was getting this stuff fabricated. He would decide how to deal with the blacksmith later.
He glanced at his partner, who was fidgeting nervously. These educated types were the worst of the lot. No guts, no glory. Just lots of jittery arguments and spineless behavior.
As the two men watched the blacksmith they fell into a sort of trance. There was a Zen-like beauty to hammering hot metal into shape. It was evident that the blacksmith was a perfectionist, hammering, heating, and polishing until he achieved a perfect factory finish. Every few minutes he would clean the anvil and unclutter his surroundings before going back to his painstaking work.
“Take your time,” said the Mujahideen. “We can’t afford mistakes.”
“There are no mistakes in my profession, sir,” replied the blacksmith, sweat trickling down his face. “Unlike a piece of wood which can turn out too short when you cut it, if a piece of metal is botched, we simply wait, reheat, and give it another go. There are always second chances—both in metal and in men.”
Chapter 56
“WHERE ARE YOU, Jack?” asked Santosh over the phone. “I have been trying to reach you all morning.”
“I’m at the Willingdon Club,” Jack replied. “Enjoying a glass of beer after playing eighteen holes of golf.”
“You never play golf,” said Santosh suspiciously.
“I figured that I needed to start,” shot back Jack. “Especially given the fact that an old friend invited me over.”