Her head dropped to think. “Some sort of donation thing?” she said, uncertainly. “Kumar drained of blood. This body missing organs. Like they’re being … harvested.”
“It could be, couldn’t it?” said Santosh. “It could be that our friend Dr. Arora is doing the harvesting. Now, what I want to do is find out whether there have been any similar murders. Something with a similar MO. Neel, while I’m a big believer in using the power of contacts and shoe leather, how would you feel about hacking into the National Crime Records Bureau?”
Neel felt fine about it, and as Santosh waited for the hack to begin he reflected that his belief in nurturing contacts had been inextricably linked with his drinking. Was it a coincidence that giving up booze had left him willing to explore more modern, expedient methods of information gathering?
He’d have liked to think it was a coincidence. But he knew deep down it wasn’t.
Santosh and Nisha stood at Neel’s back as he worked a laptop and desktop unit at the same time, using the laptop to launch a formal, untargeted attack on the system, the other for a more specific search.
Nisha had her arms folded across the front of her leather jacket, one foot behind the other. “Look at him go,” she teased. “Who knew we had such a nerd at Private, eh, Santosh?”
Her smile faded as Santosh looked admonishingly at her over the top of his glasses and then returned to staring into space. Neel threw her a quick look over his shoulder, eyebrows raised, and the two shared a smile. Their boss’s epic sense-of-humor fails were a shared confidence, the kind of thing they talked about in hushed tones whenever he was absent.
“Right,” said Neel after a few more moments. “Exactly what is it you’d like me to look for?”
Santosh clicked back to the present. “Let’s start with murders committed within the past six months.”
“This is Delhi. That will be a lot.”
“I haven’t finished. Murders committed within the past six months in which … parts have been removed.”
“Parts?”
“Body parts. Bits of the body. Trophies. Some piece of the victim that the killer removed and took away with him.”
Neel consulted his laptop. “We have approximately two minutes before they kick us out altogether,” he said.
“You’d better work quickly then,” said Nisha, nudging him with her elbow.
Neel scooted slightly to the right, chair wheels drumming the boards. His fingers danced on the keyboard of the desktop. Lines of information appeared. As one, Nisha and Santosh leaned forward to look more closely.
“There’s nothing,” said Neel. “Correction, there is something. Here.”
He pointed at the screen, indicating a brief murder report. The victim’s name was Rahul. He had been found in the bath.
Both eyeballs missing.
Chapter 37
THE JOURNALIST AJOY Guha leaned back in his swivel chair in the DETV editorial office, sucking contentedly on a lozenge. On shelves behind him were neatly organized files, each containing in-depth investigations into various stories. It was well known that Guha required his team to devote hundreds of hours of research before broadcasting a show on any given topic. The sole personal item on the shelves was a photograph of a woman.
He addressed his team, who had assembled in the office, some standing, some perched on the edges of desks. “The suicide of Kumar is a major story,” he said. “But we need an angle. Something unique to Carrot and Stic
k.”
“How can we be sure that it was suicide?” asked one of the team members.
“Very good,” said Guha. “Let’s look into that.”
The subordinate glowed with pride.
“There’s something I think you should see,” said a research assistant, passing Guha a bunch of papers.
“What are these?” he asked.
“Financial statements of Surgiquip India Limited,” she replied.
“Patel’s company?”