by Shamim Sarif
“Do you really?” I ask, puzzled. “How would they like a picture of you and your lover here? I mean, they’re bound to notice it when it hits the front page of the Times of India, right? And right before the election.”
“I’ll make you a list of everyone I know that’s connected,” he offers. I let him up and switch on my recording app.
“Spell out all the names,” I instruct. “And give me where you met them and when. And any addresses you have.”
He rubs his temples, trying to gather his thoughts, and starts talking into the phone. When he’s done, I put the knife back at his neck and address the bigger issue that’s troubling me.
“What does your medical company do? What goes on at India Laboratory?”
He looks surprised at the question.
“I’ve never even been there. I don’t know and I don’t care. It turns over ten million dollars a year. It’s just a payoff from Family First, a way to get money to me without transferring funds into a bank account.”
“What else is planned against those girls at the school?”
“Nothing,” Jingo says, his voice breaking. “I’m set to win the election. The truth is that the bombing of the school last week boosted my numbers and made me the front-runner. I doubt Family First needs anything else. Now, I’ve told you everything I know,” Jingo rasps. “I want to see you delete those pictures.”
“They’re on a remote server,” I say. “Where they will stay till you’ve given us more.”
The color seeps out of his face, making him look ghostly.
“What more?” he asks.
“Find out what was being manufactured or stored at the India Lab. And why it was being destroyed. I need detail.”
Jingo gives a pained sigh. “I’ll find out what you need to know. But I have to be subtle. Give me a day or two.”
“No,” I reply. “You have till eleven a.m. tomorrow. At one minute past eleven, those pictures will hit the desk of the editor of the Times. And then they’ll be uploaded to the internet.”
He looks like the hope has drained out of him. But he nods in agreement, so I let him up and he reaches for his shirt. His hands are shaking so badly that he can’t get his buttons done up. Hala hands him a burner phone.
“We’ll be watching you,” she says.
We get out of there like we’re chasing a land speed record, just in case Jingo thinks to try to follow us or call for help. Even as we rev our car away, back into the heart of the city, Hala calls Jingo on his new burner phone. He picks up straightaway and she reminds him once more that he works for us now. He agrees, his voice heavy and hoarse. However, the word of a man like Jingo is probably worth less than a couple of rupees, so Caitlin heads over to watch his house. She’ll make sure he spends the rest of the night at home and keep tabs on anyone who might come in or out, in case he calls on Family First for help. Meanwhile, I check in with Amber.
“I’ve sent you Jingo’s list of contacts that he spilled.”
“Oh, lovely,” she says, genuinely excited. “I’ll get on it right away.”
“And I gave you access to Jingo’s regular phone,” I say.
“Yes, got it. Thomas is already watching every call, message, and email,” she confirms. “Right now, he’s texting his wife to say he’s done with his campaign meeting and heading home.”
“Campaign meeting, yeah right.” I sniff. But then I notice a message on my Indian phone. “Listen, Amber, I’ve got to go. Let me know what you find.”
The message is from Riya. Naturally, I had my sound alerts turned off while we were busy breaking into Jingo’s pleasure palace, so I didn’t notice it come in.
The message is weird, though. Just a location pin that opens up to a block right behind a hospital in Juhu. Nothing else. I try calling Riya but the phone just rings and rings before going through to her voice mail. I text her back, asking for more, but no reply comes. I show it to Hala.
“Is it a live tracker?” she asks. “Does it mean her phone is there?”
I shake my head. “No, it’s static. Like, she’s sent me this address.”
“If someone else has her phone this could be a trap,” Hala says.
“Or she could be in trouble.”
Hala considers. “Direct me,” she says. “We’ll go together.”
22
THE HOSPITAL SPRAWLS OVER A couple of city blocks. There’s definitely a lot of coming and going at the emergency room. But, for the most part, the place has quietened down for the night—presumably visiting hours are over.
While Hala parks the car off a side street nearby, I try calling Riya again. Still nothing. The location pin guides us away from the main entrance of the hospital to a road that runs down the left side of it. Bypassing the hospital itself, it leads us around the back, past massive waste bins, past a delivery bay, and into a back alley that ends in a fifteen-foot-high chain-link fence. Beyond the fence is a section of the hospital that is mostly unlit. And, wouldn’t you know it, somewhere in there is where the pin lands.
“What would you do without me?” Hala says, grabbing hold of the fence. Her feet seem to find tiny bits of traction on the small holes in the wire—but she moves so fast that even when I get to watch her, it’s hard to figure out how she manages it. Within ten seconds, she has scrambled to the top. She pulls a small coil of black rope from her pocket, drops the climbing line down to me, and helps me up. Getting down the other side is a lot easier because I can hang down by my arms till I’m only ten feet off the ground. Hala jumps first, landing with grace. I follow, stumble, and dust myself off as we tread our way carefully toward the pin location. Now that we are over the fence, the alleyway leads into a dilapidated building, streaked with grime, and sporting a number of broken windows. There’s a sign above the threshold. Hala flicks on a flashlight so we can read it:
Post Mortem Center
Hala looks unhappily at me. It doesn’t make me feel great either. But more than my vague dread of walking into some kind of hospital morgue, I’m filled with worry for Riya. What could have happened to her? A breeze picks up, rattling dry leaves on the trees that line one side of the alley. On the other side a nondescript car is parked; an old Honda. The engine is still ticking slightly as it cools down, leading me to the brilliant deduction that it was parked here very recently. I take a picture of the license plate before we creep inside the front door and past an entrance hall where the wall paint peels down in tired flakes. Beyond that is a gloomy corridor that leads into rooms that look like morgues and labs. Neither of us is eager to explore down there unless we really have to. We turn to scope out the opposite side of the corridor. That passageway leads to an exterior door, which in turn leads out into an open courtyard.
Hala switches off her flashlight—because the exterior door is propped ajar and someone is outside it, hanging around. We edge closer as male voices, low and urgent, float over to us. We get within a few feet of the open door, then pull back as a burst of light suddenly floods the courtyard, illuminating the outlines of three men. One of them has opened a large furnace, and flames dance up inside, hissing into the night air. He shuts it again, making a comment to the others. Not far from them on the ground are two long objects wrapped tightly in layers of dark cloth. They are each about the size and shape of a human being. My heart drops, thinking about Riya. But both the bodies are tall and hefty—they feel more like men.
The fizz of a match inserts another small point of light into the dark, as the guy who opened the furnace now lights a cigarette. He’s dressed in a stained hospital uniform, as is the man next to him. They take turns pulling on the cigarette until the third guy, who’s in a rumpled suit, gets impatient and turns to them. He’s wearing a germ mask over his mouth and nose, and dark-framed glasses. Even in the dark, I recognize him.
“That’s Sunil, Riya’s boss,” I whisper to Hala. I give her a desperate look.
She gets it. Even though she’s been taking photos with her phone, we need a better sense o
f what’s going on here. She leans in, whispering in my ear.
“I’ll get them to move.”
“Okay.” But I stop her before she turns to go. “Do you have gloves?” I ask.
Of course, she does. Those pockets of hers are a treasure trove of handy items, perfect for those nights when you unexpectedly end up hanging around mortuaries trailing dodgy police detectives. She fishes a thin pair of silicone gloves from her cargo pants, hands them to me, then disappears back into the morgue. In the meantime, I lean in, closer to the open door, so I can hear what’s going on—not that any of these men seem particularly chatty.
Aggressively, Sunil picks the half-smoked cigarette out of the other guy’s mouth and tosses it onto the ground, stamping the heel of his shoe onto it for good measure.
“Get going,” he barks.
“Yes, sir,” replies the uniformed man. He opens up the furnace and heads for the wrapped bodies on the ground, gesturing to his pal for help. In my head, I beg Hala to hurry up with her chosen diversion. The two guys lift the first bundle, struggling under its weight. With grunts and groans they shift it toward the furnace, before managing to drop it on the ground with a graceless thud that makes even Sunil wince.
“You idiots,” he says. “You’re morgue workers. I thought you throw bodies in here all the time.”
“We’ve had a long day, sir,” says the smoker, slyly. “This is overtime. We are tired.”
Irritated, Sunil pulls a bunch of rupee notes out of his pocket and peels off a stack, then waves them at the men—actions that show up beautifully in my lenses and on the photos I’m taking with my phone.
“Here’s a bonus. But hurry up,” he clarifies. Then he looks off to his left.
“What’s that smoke?” he asks the men. The two of them look up, eagerly taking the opportunity to lower the wrapped body to the ground once more.
It’s Hala’s smoke bomb. It’s silent but it creates a ton of smog—so much that people are rarely tempted to ignore it. I watch them all panic, easing on my gloves and pulling up my face scarf while I wait.
“Go and check,” Sunil instructs the men. It’s like the two of them are competing for Laziest Employee of the Month. They slope off so reluctantly that Sunil is forced to follow, herding them toward the smoke, pulling out his gun as insurance. That gives me the chance to stride up to the furnace. It’s obviously a place for incinerating remains. I look unhappily at the wrapped bodies on the ground. I really don’t want to do this. But I have to.
Gingerly, I pull back the covering over their faces and the sight makes me recoil. Holding my breath, trying not to heave, I snap more pictures. It’s hard to describe, but whatever it is that killed them clearly caused them to suffer. Their eyes bulge from their sockets, and the dried remains of spewed blood and foam crust around their mouths. Covering them up again, I toss my gloves away and move back inside the morgue, where Hala arrives to join me.
“What did you find?” she whispers.
Before I can answer, Sunil’s voice rises out in the courtyard. He’s back with his apathetic morgue workers and he’s giving them quite the tongue-lashing. Under pressure, they hustle the first body into the furnace and then start hauling the next.
Since it looks like their work is nearly done, Hala and I hurry back through the reception area and out to the alleyway.
“I need to get into the car,” I tell her. I’m assuming that junk heap outside the morgue does belong to Sunil. If he is on the take, he’s certainly not splurging his extra cash on a sensational set of wheels. I’m carrying a tool set that has a couple of options for me to lever my way into the vehicle, and Hala offers up another—a long, thin bit of plastic, similar to a ruler. I take that one and nod my thanks.
“Stay over there and cover me,” I say, pointing to a large waste bin near the fence. With a parting good-luck pat on my shoulder, Hala disappears while I get to work breaking into Sunil’s car. I get myself onto the floor of the Honda’s back seat just moments before Sunil hurries out of the morgue.
23
FROM MY CROUCHED VANTAGE POINT in the back of the car, I watch Sunil approach. His spare frame is huddled into his jacket and he frowns as he glances about him. He pulls off the germ mask he wears, tosses it onto the ground, and unlocks the driver’s door. I drop low. He sits heavily into the car and takes a moment. A big, exhausted sigh fills the interior, creating a patch of breath steam on the windshield. Sunil lifts his glasses off his nose, rubbing at his eyes tiredly.
I shift up from the back, reaching around to place a knife blade at his throat.
“Put your hands on the wheel,” I say.
He does so, but he clearly recognizes my voice, because he turns his head, just a little, to try to catch a glimpse of me.
“Not you again,” he complains. “I’ve had enough of you stalking me.”
Sunil clearly believes there’s no other way I’d have found him here, and I don’t want to drop Riya in a pile of shit and get her fired. So I keep quiet, but that infuriates him even more.
“Tomorrow morning, I will put a restraining order on you so fast your head will spin,” he threatens.
“Go ahead. Arrest me now,” I suggest. “Take me down to the station. I’ll be happy to explain what I’ve seen here tonight.”
Sunil makes a grunting noise that sounds almost like a laugh.
“I’m attending to police business,” Sunil says.
“Please,” I say with a disbelieving snort. “Pulling out wads of cash and paying people off to burn bodies? Not much due process there.”
“Can you put that knife down?” He sighs. “As irritating as you are, even you strike me as intelligent enough not to slice the throat of a police detective.”
I move the knife back but keep it out and ready. Gingerly, Sunil shifts in his seat, turning so we can see each other better.
“May I?” he asks, pointing to a pack of cigarettes sitting on the passenger seat. I stare at him, amazed. What, like we’re buddies now, hanging out over a smoke?
“No. I hate the smell,” I say. “And you’ll die an early and painful death.”
Sunil sniffs unhappily. “That’s what my mother told me when I joined the police,” he says with some measure of irony.
“Speaking of early and painful deaths, what happened to those men?” I ask, moving on. “They were the same men you arrested this morning at India Laboratory.”
Sunil nods. “We questioned them. They wouldn’t talk. They were scared.”
“Of what?”
“Reprisals from whoever they work for. That is what I surmised,” he replies. “So, I had them transferred to a prison nearby for more intensive questioning.”
His eyes meet mine, giving me the unmistakable impression that “intensive” is a polite term for some kind of coercion.
“But when they were taken out of the police van,” Sunil continues, “they collapsed, right there on the street. Before the uniforms escorting them could even get them inside. They died on the spot. Within a couple of minutes.”
“They were killed?”
He chews at his bottom lip, scowling. “Yes and no. I mean, they were not shot or stabbed. But they both died of some internal disease at exactly the same time.”
“That doesn’t strike you as unlikely?” I ask.
“It strikes me as something to be concerned about,” he returns.
“What disease?” I push.
“Nothing the prison medical examiner could identify. But he felt it might be contagious, so I was asked to dispose of the bodies.”
“At night? For cash?” I ask.
“We cannot afford a panic in this city,” he says evenly, “and even less can we afford an actual outbreak of some unidentified virus. The Centers for Disease Control in the US opened an office here. But it has a handful of people to cover an area populated by hundreds of millions. There are no meaningful resources for this kind of thing. So, in the real world, this is how it gets dealt with. Orders of the police comm
issioner himself.”
Part of me doesn’t want to believe him, but part of me knows he might be telling the truth. In a world where law enforcement is always overstretched, and oversight is lax, shortcuts happen. Sunil reaches for his cigarettes, and lights one, without asking me this time. He drags on it like it’s the taste of relief. With his first exhale of putrid smoke, a real shudder passes through his thin shoulders.
“Why are you telling me all this?” I ask.
“Because I’m not covering anything up. Except,” he adds, “for the cover-up I just explained to you.” He has the grace to look embarrassed about the irony, at least.
“Where’s Riya?” I ask.
“I suspended her. After your joint antics today.” He seems unconcerned about her. “Why?”
“No reason. I need her home address,” I say.
“I’m not going to hand out the address of a police officer. I don’t trust you,” he says.
“I’m devastated,” I reply, deadpan. “But back to Riya. I’m really concerned. She’s not answering her cell phone.”
I cough from the acrid cigarette smoke that’s filling the car. Like a real gentleman, Sunil winds down his window and flicks his half-finished cigarette outside. Then he picks up his phone and scrolls down. “Here,” he offers. “This is her home number. That’s all I can give you.”
I get out of the car and he starts the engine and reverses back. But before he drives away, he stops to say one more thing.
“If you speak to her, tell her I asked about her,” he says. “She’s a good cop. And she’ll be even better if you leave her alone to do her work.”
I call the number that Sunil gave me before Hala and I even make it back to the car. It’s an immense relief to hear Riya’s voice when she picks up.
“Jessie! Are you okay?” is the first thing she says.
“Fine,” I reply.
“Are you sure? I’ve been terrified something happened to you since I sent you that address.”
“Why aren’t you answering your phone?” I ask.
