“Nurse!” he called. “Let’s put him in 1016 and get me an electric blanket. We’ll need heat packs for his abdomen and groin.” They wheeled Santosh toward the designated room. Neel and Jack followed, disregarding the rules that prevented visitors—no way in hell they were going to leave Santosh now.
“What the fuck’s going on, Neel?” whispered Jack. “Santosh has no pulse.”
“He’s gone into forced hibernation,” explained Neel. The doors of the treatment room swished shut behind them. “There was limited oxygen inside the refrigeration unit. The combination of freezing temperatures and low oxygen resulted in suspended animation—a sudden halting of chemical reactions.”
They watched, feeling suddenly useless as nurses covered Santosh, cranked up the central heating of the room, and slipped an oxygen mask over his face. Hot-water bottles were placed under his blanket and heart and blood pressure monitoring equipment was hooked up.
“There are plenty of examples of humans who appeared frozen to death,” said Neel, to reassure himself as much as Jack. “They had no heartbeat and were clinically dead but they were successfully revived after spending hours without a pulse in extremely cold conditions.”
Chapter 74
AMIT ROY PASSED through the gates of his house, glanced in his rearview, and saw them slide shut behind him. The Audi came to a stop haphazardly on the gravel in front of the house, and for a moment he simply sat there, panting, trying to process the sudden turn of events.
And the feeling—this feeling: giddy, dizzy, a great rush of profound internal energy. Having barely recovered from the unexpected euphoria of killing the old woman, he now had the little girl to look forward to, all the while basking in the knowledge that she, his last victim, would be his best; that he would ascend in such superlative circumstances.
His one problem was lack of time. It had been an hour
or so since the broadcast. Sharma would no doubt be dispatching his men to execute a high-profile arrest, complete with news footage as he was led in cuffs to the squad car. His gates would keep the press at bay for the time being, but they wouldn’t deter cops with a warrant.
Meantime he emerged from his reverie with the realization that his phone was still ringing. Had it ever stopped? Looking at the screen: no. There were twenty-five missed calls. God knew how many text messages.
“Well, fuck you!” he cried, then stepped into the chill night and slammed his phone to the gravel, stamping on it again and again. “Fuck you!” he screamed at the sky, grinding the phone under his shoe, alive with the thrill of his emancipation. “Fuck you, all of you, every single one of you!” he bellowed, his voice cracking with the effort.
And then he went to open the trunk.
Inside cowered Maya Gandhe. Having killed the interfering childminder, he had grabbed the girl and carried her kicking and screaming out to his car, thrown her in the trunk, not caring if the Gandhes’ neighbors saw what was happening. It hardly mattered now, and though she’d mewled and thumped at the trunk lid all the way home, as with his cell phone he’d simply tuned out the noise.
Now she screamed again, in shock and fear, this time at the deranged apparition looming over her, this terrifying man who responded to her cries not with reassurance or even anger, but by joining her, so that for a moment they both yelled into the night until the sheer strangeness of the situation tipped her over into silence.
Now he reached in and yanked her bodily from the trunk, a demented strength to him as he manhandled her into the house, leaving the Audi on the gravel drive, its engine still running.
In the kitchen he bundled her to the floor and she screamed with new fear and pain as he reached into a kitchen drawer for a knife and a roll of tape. From his inside jacket pocket he took her essay.
“You’re going to read to me now,” he said, red-faced and gasping for breath. “You’re going to read to me, do you hear?”
And despite everything, some fast-receding chink of light in Maya hoped this was all he wanted: just for her to read.
But now he was backing her into the front room. His eyes were wide and foam flecked his mouth. Indicating a chair with the knife, he made her sit and then began to tape her to it.
“Please, please, don’t hurt me,” she pleaded. “Please, please let me go back home now.”
“No—no, I can’t do that,” he told her, spraying her with saliva. “You’re staying here with me; we’re both going up together. We’ll ascend together in union, don’t you see?”
“Please, please—I’ll read my essay.”
“Fuck the essay!” he roared, and screwed it up and cast it to the floor. The light inside of Maya died.
Now the monster stood. The low light in the room skimmed along the blade he held. He shrugged off his suit jacket and with his other hand reached to his belt buckle.
“Together,” he was saying. “Together.”
And then from behind him came a movement.
Maya saw it. “Mama,” she called, but it wasn’t Nisha. And as Roy swiveled to see what was happening, the sight of the new arrival did nothing to reduce Maya’s terror. It was a man dressed all in black. Face covered by a balaclava. He carried something that Maya thought at first was another knife but then realized was a syringe. And he stepped forward and plunged it into Roy’s neck.
The Principal Secretary’s trousers fell to his ankles as he raised a hand to the side of his neck and then dropped to his knees.
The man in the balaclava stepped smartly away to allow Roy’s body to fold to the floor, before turning his gaze on Maya.