Private Delhi (Private 13)

phalt of the parking lot, and in the next instant Ibrahim followed them, keeling forward to land on top of his own heaped insides.

Chapter 101

JACK AND SANTOSH stepped out of the elevator on the fifth floor of the hospital to be confronted by Dr. Arora, who looked taken aback.

“Is there something I can do for you two gentlemen?” asked the doctor.

Jack and Santosh both looked up and down the deserted corridor, Jack’s hand inching toward the Colt slung beneath his leather jacket. “You all right?” he asked the doctor.

“Yes, I’m perfectly well, thank you. Now, I ask you again: what are you doing here?”

“Where’s Ibrahim?” said Santosh.

Arora stepped back, suddenly wary. “I’m quite sure I don’t know who you mean.”

“We’re working on a theory that Ibrahim is behind the recent spate of serial murders,” said Jack. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

“No,” smiled Arora, as though talking to a small child. “But you can be assured that if I did I would convey my suspicions to the police rather than to … well, you two gentlemen. And if you’ve quite finished, I think I should like to go home for the evening. Perhaps you would care to share the elevator?”

Silently the three men descended to the ground floor, where Dr. Arora bid them farewell then left for his car.

The Private team watched him go, frustrated that Ibrahim had evaded them and hardly able to believe that Arora was simply walking away, the butcher strolling to his Jaguar.

Jack spoke for them all when he said, “You know what, guys? I think I’d have preferred it if he’d been murdered.”

A second later there came a commotion from outside. They ran toward the noise and there found the body of Ibrahim.

Chapter 102

DR. ARORA ARRIVED home, closing the door behind him and locking it. Those people at the hospital, were they something to do with that agency Ibrahim had told him about? And while on the subject, what had gotten into Ibrahim? Why had he been acting so strangely?

On second thoughts, it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered now. Dr. Arora had made a decision. He was leaving Delhi. Let them wallow in their own filth. Let them sort it all out. He’d always said, half jokingly, that the advantage of being a single man with no kids was that you could always make a quick exit if you needed to.

Half joking. Always in the back of his mind was the fact that the same extracurricular activities that had paid for the large, well-appointed house in which he now stood, the Jaguar, five-star hotels, and high-class hookers, might also one day require him to disappear at a moment’s notice. He’d seen Heat. That De Niro quote about how you needed to be able to leave in thirty seconds if you felt the heat around the corner? Dr. Arora had taken that to heart.

But he was going to make things slightly easier for himself. He was going to leave in thirty minutes. He shrugged himself out of his jacket as he passed through the large reception hall of his home, opened the double doors that led into the dining room.

He stopped.

Laid out on the dining-room table were three large jars and a plastic funnel. Inside one of the jars was a human heart. The second was full of blood. The third one was more difficult to distinguish in the low lights of the room, but it looked like …

It was. Preserved in some kind of liquid was a large lump of skin that was pressed up against the glass, floating like a gelatinous marine specimen.

The killer. He was here. Arora turned and tried to run but a figure stepped out from behind the door, a glittering hypodermic syringe in his hand. The attacker’s arm swung in a blur. The next thing Arora saw was the floor as it rushed to meet him.

Chapter 103

ARORA AWOKE FROM the sedative—etorphine, if he wasn’t very much mistaken—to find himself taped to one of his own dining chairs and seated in a privileged position at the head of the table.

And there they were, still laid out in front of him. The jars.

Oh God.

“Are you hungry?” came a voice from behind, and he twisted his head to see the intruder move from his rear to the edge of his peripheral vision. All he saw was a man in black.

“What are you going to do to me?” he said, and was pleased to find that he sounded strong and resolute. Who knew, perhaps he could talk his way out of this.

The man gave a soft chuckle. “What I’m going to do is serve you dinner.” A black-gloved hand indicated the three jars.