“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.
“Come on,” said Arora. “You don’t really believe you’re going to be able to get me to eat that.”
“I’ll have help,” said the attacker, and he placed something on the table next to the jars, a piece of metal apparatus that Dr. Arora recognized as a speculum.
“Look…” the doctor tried to say, but his mouth was dry. The words wouldn’t come. He gathered himself. “Look, why are you doing this? Whatever your reasons, let’s talk about them.”
“You don’t know why I’m doing it?”
His voice was familiar. He was making an effort to disguise it but, even so, Arora recognized it. Just a question of trying to place it. If he could work out the man’s identity then maybe he could establish some kind of bond between them.
“No, I don’t know why you’re doing it,” he said. “Why don’t you tell me?”
A gloved fist slammed down on the table, and even that gesture seemed familiar to Dr. Arora. “You should know!” he spat. “You tell me. You tell me now.”
Again the voice was so familiar. It was as though the intruder’s identity was there, on the tip of Arora’s tongue, dancing around in his memory but not quite staying still long enough for him to recall it.
“Okay, okay, keep your cool,” panted Arora. “It’s the transplants, isn’t it? Are you from Ibrahim? Do you work for people who want a cut? That can be arranged. Just say the word.”
“Venal to the last. You shouldn’t judge others by your own standards. No, Dr. Arora, this has nothing to do with wanting a cut and everything to do with…Well, I suppose it’s revenge.”
Arora changed tack. “Well, I can see that you’re well informed and you’ve been told that I’m heavily involved. But you do know that’s not strictly speaking true, don’t you? I’m very much on the sidelines. It’s true, I perform operations, but the life-saving operations, not those…other ones.”
“What other ones?”
“You know…”
“No. What other ones? The other ones that Rahul told me about before I scooped out his eyes, perhaps? The other ones who were found at the house in Greater Kailash?”
“Yes, those.”
“You had nothing to do with those?”
“No.”
The man in black paused, as though mulling things over, then, as if suddenly deciding, said, “Well, I’m afraid I don’t believe you. Now, shall we begin?”
“No!” pleaded Dr. Arora. That note of strength in his voice was absent now. He strained at the tape that bound him to the chair, whipping his head back and forth as the attacker inserted the speculum between his lips. With his mouth clamped he wanted to swallow but found he couldn’t and began gagging at once. He heard the ripping of tape and saw the intruder advance, the black balaclava closing in as tape was pulled across his forehead and his head was jerked back. Arora bucked and gurgled, pulling against his bindings, but to no avail, knowing that his ordeal had only just begun—knowing only that he wanted it over with as quickly as possible.
“This won’t be swift, you do know that, don’t you?” said the intruder, as though reading his mind.
And now the man in black lifted the jar containing the heart above Arora’s head so that the doctor could see it. The screw lid jangled as gloved hands unfastened it. Next he reached into the glass with one of Arora’s own forks, speared the organ, and removed it. Preserving fluid splattered Arora’s face as the heart was taken out of view, presumably to the table, and he heard the unmistakable sound of a knife and fork at work.
“Perhaps I should have cooked it first,” said the man in black. More fluid dripped to Arora’s face as the fork reappeared, this time with a smaller morsel on the prongs.
“Patel’s heart,” explained the attacker matter-of-factly. “A bit of it, anyway. Who knew he even had one?”
Arora could only make a dry sound, trying unsuccessfully to pull away as the fork disappeared into his mouth and he felt the meat touch his tongue, a taste that was at once gamy and metallic, before it slid down his throat. He spluttered. His mouth filled with vomit. His chest heaved and he coughed, expelling just enough vomit—and possibly even a bit of the heart—to allow himself to breathe, and then again he coughed, trying to clear his airways but dragging bits of meat and vomit into his windpipe.
Another jar was opened. “This is Roy’s skin,” stated the man in black, and continued to feed him, spooning chunks of skin into his mouth and using the fork to shove them into his throat. Trying to breathe through his nose, Arora snorted like a horse, but he could feel that airway blocking too.
“Now, let’s wash it down, shall we?” said the man in black, and in the next instant Arora felt the plastic of the funnel against his teeth, the nozzle nudging it way down his throat, setting off his gag reflex. The jar containing the blood was presented to him. “Kumar’s blood.” Arora watched as hands unscrewed the lid, tossed it aside, and then began to pour the contents of the jar into the funnel.
As he poured, the man in black spoke. “This is for Rita,” he was saying. “This is for my beloved wife.”
The funnel filled. Arora felt Kumar’s blood run thickly down his throat, spill out of his mouth and over his chin, knowing he would soon drown in it. And then, as the darkness beckoned, and Dr. Arora came to the end of his wicked life, the man in black reached to remove his balaclava.
Chapter 104
A TEMPORARY OFFICE had been set up in a conference room at the Oberoi. There a police tech guy in a headset sat watching the surveillance feed from vans parked outside Arora’s and Thakkar’s houses. Opposite sat Commissioner Sharma and Nanda. All three men jumped slightly as the door to the meeting room slammed open and in burst Jack, Santosh, Nisha, and Neel.
“Well?” said Sharma, standing. “Did you pick him up?”
“You were wrong,” said Nisha bitterly, “just as I said you were. The killer is not Ibrahim. Ibrahim was his latest victim.”
Sharma seemed about to take it up with her, but Santosh was already moving in to calm the situation. “It simply means that Private’s theory currently remains the most plausible,” he said, looking quickly between Sharma and Nisha, “and it seems as though the killer is reaching the closing stages of his campaign. If we stay here for the time being, we’re perfectly situated to—”
“Hey,” said Neel from the other side of the room. He’d taken a seat beside the tech guy. “What’s this?”
The investigators clustered around his monitor. There on the feed from Dr. Arora’s residence they could see a figure leaving the grounds then crossing the street.
“Who’s that?” asked Sharma.
The figure was careful to keep his back to the camera as he stepped into a BMW parked at the curb. Rear lights flared. A moment or so later the car drew away.