The Blue Bar (Blue Mumbai #1)(98)

“Yes, he had sent me his location, which helped us track Pia’s kidnappers.”

“He’s asked to talk only to you, sir.”

“Let’s go.” Arnav paused. “Thank you, Naik. Calling Mhatre was a good decision.”

“I noticed his prescriptions by accident, sir. Someone in my family has cancer, so I knew.”

“You saved my life.”

Naik grinned. A rare, bright smile that made her look years younger.

“Anything for you, sir,” she said, her eyes glinting.

Arnav was puzzled at this display of emotion, and let it show.

“I mean . . . it was my job, sir. Shall we go?”

The room they walked into was poorly lit, but Arnav recognized the goon. Ali had texted him a picture. He tried to ignore the bruises on the man’s neck and arms. Naik’s constables had not gone easy on him. A part of him winced in sympathetic pain; his own body was sore.

This gray area continued to discomfit Arnav. Most informers were small-time criminals, protected because they led the police to bigger fish. Naik stood beside him, calm, as if she didn’t see the suspect’s injuries.

“Saab.” One of his eyes was swollen.

“You were supposed to protect the girl.”

“I did my best, but the others had instructions to hand her over when we reached the farmhouse. Manu got the girl from somewhere. He hired me and my friends only to make the delivery.”

“To whom?”

“To the man in charge there. Bilal.”

This was news. Arnav fixed his gaze on Ali’s friend. “Are you sure?”

“He locked her up in the room, and made the payment. Please let me go. I didn’t even have a gun. I helped; I sent the location to Ali . . .”

“Did you say your boss’s name was Manu?”

“Yes, sir.”

Zoya had heard a kidnapper call the name Manu when Pia was taken.

They went back to his office, and he asked Naik about Bilal.

“We caught him trying to skip town, sir. He has handed over his phone, and requested to be a witness. We’re downloading the photos from his phone, sir.”

“What about Rehaan?”

“At his apartment. There’s a crowd of media outside his home, sir.”

“They know we want Rehaan for questioning?”

“They have asked for a press conference about last night’s events.”

Arnav checked the list of those arrested at the farmhouse, and circled Manu’s name.

“Lean on this one.” He pointed at the board. “Find out who he is working for.”

“Sure, sir. When Pia is better, she might be able to identify some of them.”

“Print out all the info we have on Rehaan and leave it on my table.”

“He has a solid alibi, sir.”

“Meaning?”

“He was with an entire crew at an outdoor filming location, all of Choti Diwali, until this morning.”

“His DNA in the black van?”

“He says the van was rented by his stepbrother. He’d borrowed it for a short while to run an errand.”

Rehaan Virani seemed to have an answer for all questions, but how did he intend to explain away the gunshot injury on his leg?

Arnav flipped open the file with the forensic photographs of the basement of the farmhouse. The steel table. The saw. The chains hanging from the wall. The bathtub. If necessary, he would send some of them to Nandini, breaking all the rules, in order to build pressure on the police via the media. They might trace the leak to him, and he could lose his job. But the world would know what went on in that farmhouse. He craved justice for Tara. She would not walk again, use her hands or arms. She had taken care of herself all her life. How would she cope with being fed and cleaned like an infant?

He called the hospital to ask for an update. Tara was sedated now, and Pia hadn’t yet woken up. He would not be ungrateful, though, not on Diwali. She was still around. She had smiled. Tara. Images of her claimed him at odd times, and since last night, he’d come to a resolve. Throw himself at her mercy, ask her if she would make him a permanent fixture. Pray like hell she wouldn’t refuse.





CHAPTER NINETY-TWO


BILAL

Bilal scratched his beard. He craved a shower, clothes, a meal—and a stool on which to rest his legs in their casts—but he must play this right in order to leave this windowless, stinking room alive. They had shut him up for hours now, in only his underwear. Mumbai Police were crooks. When he begged them to let him go, they’d offered to remove his underpants as well. He wished he could tell this Inspector Rajput they didn’t need such measures.

Bilal wanted to talk, make a clean breast of it. He’d carried it around long enough. The boy must have broken. No one could put the pieces back together this time. Bilal knew the names of the people who were sheltering the boy now, and could lead the police to him.

Inspector Arnav Singh Rajput walked in. Bilal took a good look at the inspector the boy had tried and failed to take out over the past few weeks. Rajput had his left arm in a sling. His face was bruised and swollen, eyes bloodshot.

“Bilal Musliyar,” he said, “You were instructed not to leave town.”

Bilal said, “I was afraid for my life.”