He was quiet for a moment. "The person I was protecting was killed. Drive-by outside the High Court. I was ten metres away. The bullet was faster than I was."
Priya looked at him differently after that. Not with sympathy — Rajan didn't seem like a man who wanted sympathy — but with the recognition of a shared experience. They were both carrying the weight of people they couldn't save.
Two days before the projected date for Case 3, the copycat poisoning, Vikram's team caught a break. A traffic camera in Goregaon had captured an image of a man matching Ajay Kulkarni's description entering a pharmacy three days earlier. The pharmacy — a small, independent operation in a lane behind the Western Express Highway — sold, among other things, laboratory-grade glassware and chemical handling equipment.
The pharmacist, when interviewed, confirmed the purchase: two hundred millilitres of distilled water, a packet of disposable syringes, and a small glass vial. He paid cash. He was calm, polite, and wore a surgical mask that covered half his face.
"He's preparing the delivery mechanism," Priya told her team. "Compound 1080 dissolved in distilled water, injected into sealed bottles or food packaging through the syringe. Same method as the original Malad case."
"But who's the target?" Vikram asked.
"Two young men. Brothers or close friends. In the age range fourteen to twenty-five. Probably from the western suburbs, since that's where Ajay is operating." She paused. "We can't protect every pair of brothers in western Mumbai. We need to find him before he acts."
The search intensified. Priya worked eighteen-hour days, sleeping in her office, eating only when Vikram or Rajan physically placed food in front of her. She reviewed every piece of evidence, every CCTV frame, every bank record.
On the evening before the projected date, she found it.
Not in the digital evidence. In the physical. She'd been re-examining the storage unit contents — every document, every photograph — and in a folder labelled "CASE 3 — PREPARATION," she found a receipt from a paying guest accommodation in Malad. Sunshine PG, Room 14. The receipt was two weeks old, but the booking was for three months.
He had a base. And he'd been stupid enough to use his planning files to store the receipt.
Or he wanted her to find it.
At 11 PM, Priya stood outside Sunshine PG in Malad West — a narrow, four-storey building wedged between a mobile repair shop and a sweet shop. Rajan was beside her. Vikram and a team of six officers were positioned at the back exit, the stairwell, and the street corners.
Room 14 was on the third floor. The corridor smelled of disinfectant and dal fry. The door was closed. Light leaked from under it.
Priya drew her service weapon. Rajan positioned himself on the opposite side of the door. She knocked.
No answer.
She knocked again. "Mumbai Police. Open the door."
Silence. Then a sound — something falling, glass breaking, quick footsteps.
"Go," Priya said.
Rajan shouldered the door. It gave on the second hit — cheap plywood, hollow-core. The room was small: a single bed, a desk, a window open to the night air.
Ajay Kulkarni was gone. The window led to a fire escape that dropped into a narrow alley. On the desk: a laptop (still powered on), three sealed bottles of mineral water, and a syringe.
The bottles were tested on-site. Two were clean. The third contained 50 milligrams of Compound 1080 — enough to kill two adults.
They'd stopped Case 3. But Ajay was in the wind again, and the clock was still running.
On the laptop, unlocked in his haste, Priya found what she'd dreaded most. A folder titled simply "ENDGAME." Inside: floor plans of her apartment building, shift schedules of her security detail, time-stamped photographs of Ananya walking to the bus stop, and a document — three pages, single-spaced — describing in clinical detail how he intended to stage Case 7.
Case 7 was Rhea Kapoor. The girl who disappeared from Churchgate station and was never found.
In Ajay's version, the girl who disappeared would be Ananya.
And the woman who failed to find her would be Priya.
Living with the knowledge. Forever.
