His name was Raju Waghmare.
Twenty-eight years old. Born in Latur, moved to Mumbai at sixteen for work. Construction labourer, currently employed by Asha Infrastructure. Enrolled in the Kalyani Wellness Scheme fourteen months ago. Blood type O-positive — universal donor. Tissue compatibility score with the Singhvi recipient: 94.7 out of 100.
Ninety-four point seven. She had never seen a score that high in the legitimate registry. In the Provenance system, compatibility this precise didn't happen by accident. The programme ran genetic and tissue typing on every participant at enrollment. It was, she realised with the specific nausea of a professional recognising expertise deployed in the service of atrocity, an extraordinarily sophisticated matching system. Better than anything the national registry ran.
Raju Waghmare had a photograph in his file. Standard health assessment photograph, the kind taken at enrollment. He was looking at the camera with the slightly wary, slightly cooperative expression that people from his background learned to have in institutions — not hostile, not trusting, just accommodating the necessity of the moment. A lean face. Dark eyes. A small scar on his jaw from a childhood accident.
He was scheduled to be brought in the following morning for what his file described as a "follow-up cardiac assessment." He would be sedated for the assessment. He would not wake up.
It was 2:17 AM. She had approximately six hours.
She could go to the police. The files she had were stolen — inadmissible, and her theft would be the first thing Rao's legal team would use to bury the story. Kalyani had been running this programme for years without the legal system noticing. She could go to a journalist. Same timeline problem. Raju Waghmare had six hours.
She could warn him directly. She had his address. Dharavi-adjacent, building B, third floor, room 12. Twenty minutes by auto at this time of night.
She looked at his photograph. At the slightly wary, slightly cooperative face of a twenty-eight-year-old man who was keeping a heart alive that someone else had already paid for, and did not know it, and was probably asleep right now in room 12.
She closed the laptop. Put on her shoes. Called an auto.
