The Blue Bar (Blue Mumbai #1)(99)

“You could have talked to us.”

“Saab, when a loyal servant talks about his master, he needs protection. You have seen my phone.”

Pictures taken over decades, as insurance against a day like this one. Pictures of the boy in one of his funks with a woman’s body, blood draining from it. Dissociated, the doctor pronounced the boy, when Bilal brought him to the clinic. The doctor had no clue just how bad. The pictures showed the bodies Bilal had handed over. The heads and hands and feet he’d buried. He’d known the boy’s day of reckoning would come. Bilal had prepared for a ticket out of it.

“I know you’ve not been bought, saab. There are others, higher up, who have been. Those pictures have copies, in different places.”

The inspector sat down. “We’re getting your phone and the photographs examined. We’ll determine if they’re fake. Even if they’re genuine, the fact remains you helped him remove the dead bodies.”

“I’ve often stayed awake at nights, gathering courage. I wasn’t present any of the times he did those things. All the photos are of cleaning up—he called me later. Each time he promised it would be the last. I was scared of him, saab. He could have me put away without a trace. He tried this time.”

“Why should I believe you?”

“I won’t lie to you on Diwali evening.”

The inspector laughed. “You don’t even celebrate it, Mr. Musliyar.”

“I can lead you to the missing parts of all the dead women.”

That gave the inspector pause.

“What about this?” The inspector held up a ziplock bag. The damned blue things the boy had given Bilal so much grief about.

The police had found what the boy called his “little blue darlings.”

“He had more of them made, saab. The earrings belonged to Kittu madam. He stole them, and snickered when she fired one of her maids. Check the pictures on my phone. I occasionally found them on the women’s bodies—I missed these. He spent a few days with each of those poor women before . . . putting them out of their misery. I have more. I can tell you the shops where he had them modified with clamps. He went himself. It gave him a thrill, not being recognized.”

“You got Pia kidnapped.” The inspector spoke in a quiet tone, with the rage underneath controlled but evident.

So Bilal told him what he’d learned from snooping on the boy.

Of the boy’s arrangement with Vijayan, who supplied him the girls through Shetty. Of Vijayan asking Manu to pick up Pia, as leverage on the inspector and his woman, Tara.

Of himself—how his relative had first given him Rasool’s contact. How, over the years, Rasool had helped dump each of the bodies. How he himself had suspected that the boy was planning to get rid of him, along with Kittu madam, leading him to hire Rasool’s men for his own protection. How Vijayan’s henchmen and Rasool’s had fought over the mother and her child. The accidental explosion and fire. How Taneja had showed up on Kittu madam’s invitation.

With each word that poured out of him, Bilal felt terrified, but also lighter.

“Taneja was fool enough to try marrying Kittu madam—he thought he could use her connections and make himself untouchable. He had no idea what my boy was capable of. The boy contracted an entire shoot-out at the police station, and asked for the shooters to name Taneja.” Bilal paused and drew a long breath, then continued.

“Taneja drove up that night, quite drunk from some fancy party, because Kittu madam had asked him to meet her at the farmhouse. She had good news to share. The boy had promised to sign over the farmhouse to her. It is a big place, and Madh Island needs new resorts. Taneja would have made a killing by turning it into a fancy hotel. I made him wait in the living room—what else could I do? She was in the basement with my boy.”

“Rehaan Virani.”

“No, saab. That was not Rehaan you met. They are the same height, and both have grown their beards for their latest movie. My boy would never let Rehaan know any of it. Rehaan is not who you think he is.”

“I saw Rehaan.”

“You don’t understand, saab. I gave my word on Mr. Virani’s deathbed, to protect his boys. I’ve been bound by that promise—because without Mr. Virani I would’ve died on the streets. I didn’t tell him the truth because it would have killed him sooner.”

“What truth?” The inspector leaned forward.

“It has destroyed my boy, my Karan, all his life. Not being able to talk about it to anyone. About what Kittu madam did to him.”

“Karan Virani?”

The inspector stood up abruptly, staggering, his face carefully blank. So the police hadn’t suspected the boy at all.

Bilal asked for some clothes and a stool to prop up his legs. Once he had both, he spoke further, describing what he knew of Kittu madam. How much the boy feared her and, strangely enough, loved her.

“If Karan Virani murdered so many, he could easily have taken care of one lone woman.”

“He couldn’t, saab. When he first met her, he was fifteen, and afraid of her. I couldn’t protect him. We were terrified of the lies she’d tell his father. My master would have murdered him. Later, my boy couldn’t let Rehaan grow up without a mother. All these years, Karan couldn’t screw up the courage to kill the mother of his son. No one knows this, saab, not even Rehaan himself. Rehaan is not Karan’s stepbrother, but his son. He was born when Karan was sixteen years old.”