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“If you hated me so much then why did you visit me at the hospital?” asked Santosh.
“You were in a coma for days,” replied Rupesh. “I came so I could ease my own grief by blaming you. I would stand by your bed and tell you that you had killed them. I used to hold out my handcuffs and imagine myself cuffing you.”
“You killed them, you drunk bastard,” said the cop, holding out a pair of handcuffs to Santosh.
“Isha was the finest woman I ever knew. You didn’t deserve her. She made the biggest mistake of her life when she chose you over me.”
Santosh’s head was spinning. He had met Isha through Rupesh’s sister. They had all become friends and would often go out to movies or for meals together. Santosh had never realized Rupesh had feelings for her.
“Look at you,” spat Rupesh. “Look at you now. You’re a lame drunk.”
“The doctor says my limp is psychosomatic,” said Santosh. Rupesh gave a short, contemptuous laugh but Santosh continued, “He says I don’t need the cane, but I do. The pain in my leg is as real as the pain of their loss that I feel every single day, and none of the hatred you feel for me could ever be as strong as the hatred I feel for myself. You say I was responsible. Well, maybe I was, but not because I was drunk, Rupesh, you’re wrong about that. But I made an error of judgment, that’s right. I made an error of judgment and two people I loved died. If you want revenge, you’re getting it, because if you kill me now I suffer now, but by living I suffer every day.”
Rupesh gestured with the gun, backing Santosh further toward the edge of the pit. Overhead the vultures circled, cawing, dark shapes against a gray sky, around and around. Below them in the pit, the silence of death.
“I’m afraid I have a taste for vengeance, Santosh. You remember my sister, found dead at Andheri railway station,” said Rupesh.
Santosh remembered with a twinge of shame. Too wrapped up in his own grief, he’d had no room to admit more. Hadn’t contacted Rupesh; hadn’t attended the funeral.
“Two men had taken turns raping and torturing her. Turned out they were both seventeen. They would have served three years in a remand home. Just three years for what they did to her. I couldn’t let that happen.”
“So you went to Munna?”
“I did,” replied Rupesh.
“What did he want in return?” asked Santosh.
“Nothing,” answered Rupesh. “He said he valued my friendship.”
Santosh gave a short laugh. How many times had he heard that before?
“The warden was on Munna’s payroll,” continued Rupesh. “When the boys reached the remand home, they were picked up by Munna’s men. They were taken to his weekend retreat on the outskirts of Mumbai where they were castrated in front of me. Munna had them thrown into his private lake—infested with crocodiles.”
Santosh nodded sadly. “And now you’re in deep with Munna?”
“We value each other’s friendship.”
“Then you know he has links with the Mujahideen? They could be planning an attack, Rupesh.”
Rupesh nodded. “They are. Tomorrow night.”
“Tomorrow night,” Santosh gasped. “Rupesh, we can’t allow this to happen. Please, why are we standing here when we should be out there?” He indicated across the city he loved and hated in equal measure, a city he’d once pledged to protect. And though he’d since left the Indian intelligence service, he had never rescinded that pledge, not in his heart. “We need to stop this, Rupesh,” he urged, rapping the point of his cane on the stone for emphasis.
Rupesh snorted. “God, you’re so arrogant. Why do you think I need your help? I’m quite capable of handling this myself, thanks for the kind offer. I can talk to Munna. I can talk to Nimboo Baba. They listen to me.”
The cawing of the vultures. Bizarrely it reminded Santosh of trips to the zoo as a little boy. Huge birds with a five-foot wingspan. In the zoo you were protected by wire fencing but there was no fencing here.
Santosh shook his head. “No, Rupesh, they won’t. You work for them, not the other way around.”
“Don’t concern yourself, Santosh. You’ll be dead.”
Santosh looked at him, breathing heavily, sure now that there was nothing left of the man he had once called a friend. “The garrote killings,” he said. “You knew about those too, didn’t you?”
Rupesh smiled ruefully. “Only that the killer enjoys the benefit of Nimboo Baba’s affections. They are lovers, it seems.”
“And because t
he killer enjoys the affections of Nimboo Baba, and thus Munna, she also enjoys the protection of the Mumbai police, is that it?” spat Santosh.
