She grimaced. “The same reason I can’t talk right now.”
“Whatever you’re doing, be careful,” he said. There was no mistaking the genuine concern in his voice.
“I will be,” she whispered, ending the call, resolving to tell Santosh the news as soon as possible. Just as soon as she investigated this open door.
Coming closer now, she peered into the gap. Inside, the scented air of the yoga studio, shrouded in an after-hours darkness.
“Hello? Miss Gulati?” she said. “I wonder if I could just ask you a couple more questions.”
There was no answer. But there was a movement from inside, a shuffling sound.
“Hello?”
Nothing. She raised her Glock. Stepped into the threshold of the door. “Hello? Is everything all right, Miss Gulati? Are you all right?”
She took another step inside, then another. Squinting in the half-light, she reached into the pocket of her jeans for a small flashlight, fumbling as she pulled it out so that it fell to the carpet. Raising her Glock slightly, not taking her eyes off the corridor ahead of her, she crouched, fingers reaching for the flashlight, not liking this. Not liking it at all.
Suddenly from behind her came the slam of a door, just as her fingers gripped the flashlight and she wheeled, raising the gun and the light at the same time.
She saw the shape looming. Something hit her before she could pull the trigger and she pitched back with a cry of pain, twisting too late as something came down over her mouth and nose. She inhaled chemicals. In her pocket, her phone buzzed.
Chapter 89
“NISHA WAS ENGAGED—NOW she’s not answering,” said Santosh impatiently. “Let’s go.”
“Santosh, we’ll go in my Jeep,” said Rupesh. “A siren might help us get there more quickly.” Santosh flashed him a grateful look, waving for Mubeen to leave.
Mubeen was already pulling away by the time Santosh and Rupesh clambered into the Assistant Commissioner’s Jeep and set off.
“Don’t worry, Santosh,” said Rupesh. “I called for backup. Nisha will be fine.”
“Thank you,” said Santosh. He clasped his cane and gazed out of the window, seeing but not seeing a riot of Mumbai color. Caught in the overspill from Colaba Causeway, the Jeep moved slowly at first, Rupesh leaning on the horn and every now and then thrusting his head out of the window to curse at cyclists and unwary pedestrians.
Santosh, meanwhile, was lost in thought. He was thinking about Aditi Chopra, unwanted child of Lara Omprakash. Had Aditi changed her name to Devika Gulati? Was she writing her biography in blood, each corpse a new chapter?
And there was something else as well. Another question hanging around on the outskirts of his mind.
They had pulled away from the main throng now, were traveling faster, but not a route Santosh recognized. Not the way to Devika Gulati’s studio.
He glanced at Rupesh. “Where are we going?”
The gun was in Rupesh’s fist before Santosh had time to react, the barrel of it pointing across the seat at him. He grimaced. Fool. What a fool—so wrapped up in the Aditi Chopra lead that he hadn’t questioned why Rupesh needed to leave the room to supposedly call for backup.
“This is something to do with Munna, isn’t it?” said Santosh. “You’re working for him now, aren’t you?”
Rupesh gave a rueful smile. “Let’s just say that this is an opportunity to mix business with the resolution of a little personal matter, Santosh.”
“Where are we going?” asked Santosh.
“You’ll find out—when we arrive,” said Rupesh.
Chapter 90
THE RASP OF the vultures overhead. The dry flapping of their wings in the night sky. And the stench. The terrible, terrible stench of death—of corpses laid out to rot in the sun, dozens of bodies left as carrion for the maggots and the flies and the scavenging birds that constantly circled overhead.
This was where Rupesh had brought them. To the Tower of Silence on Malabar Hill, an oasis of green within the concrete hustle and bustle of Mumbai.
But a deserted one. The Tower of Silence was where the Parsis disposed of their dead—an individual’s final act of charity, providing scavengers with food that would otherwise be destroyed. There, bodies were laid out to be shredded and eaten by the vultures that were a permanent feature of the sky above the tower.