The fizz of a match inserts another small point of light into the dark, as the guy who opened the furnace now lights a cigarette. He’s dressed in a stained hospital uniform, as is the man next to him. They take turns pulling on the cigarette until the third guy, who’s in a rumpled suit, gets impatient and turns to them. He’s wearing a germ mask over his mouth and nose, and dark-framed glasses. Even in the dark, I recognize him.
“That’s Sunil, Riya’s boss,” I whisper to Hala. I give her a desperate look.
She gets it. Even though she’s been taking photos with her phone, we need a better sense of what’s going on here. She leans in, whispering in my ear.
“I’ll get them to move.”
“Okay.” But I stop her before she turns to go. “Do you have gloves?” I ask.
Of course, she does. Those pockets of hers are a treasure trove of handy items, perfect for those nights when you unexpectedly end up hanging around mortuaries trailing dodgy police detectives. She fishes a thin pair of silicone gloves from her cargo pants, hands them to me, then disappears back into the morgue. In the meantime, I lean in, closer to the open door, so I can hear what’s going on—not that any of these men seem particularly chatty.
Aggressively, Sunil picks the half-smoked cigarette out of the other guy’s mouth and tosses it onto the ground, stamping the heel of his shoe onto it for good measure.
“Get going,” he barks.
“Yes, sir,” replies the uniformed man. He opens up the furnace and heads for the wrapped bodies on the ground, gesturing to his pal for help. In my head, I beg Hala to hurry up with her chosen diversion. The two guys lift the first bundle, struggling under its weight. With grunts and groans they shift it toward the furnace, before managing to drop it on the ground with a graceless thud that makes even Sunil wince.
“You idiots,” he says. “You’re morgue workers. I thought you throw bodies in here all the time.”
“We’ve had a long day, sir,” says the smoker, slyly. “This is overtime. We are tired.”
Irritated, Sunil pulls a bunch of rupee notes out of his pocket and peels off a stack, then waves them at the men—actions that show up beautifully in my lenses and on the photos I’m taking with my phone.
“Here’s a bonus. But hurry up,” he clarifies. Then he looks off to his left.
“What’s that smoke?” he asks the men. The two of them look up, eagerly taking the opportunity to lower the wrapped body to the ground once more.
It’s Hala’s smoke bomb. It’s silent but it creates a ton of smog—so much that people are rarely tempted to ignore it. I watch them all panic, easing on my gloves and pulling up my face scarf while I wait.
“Go and check,” Sunil instructs the men. It’s like the two of them are competing for Laziest Employee of the Month. They slope off so reluctantly that Sunil is forced to follow, herding them toward the smoke, pulling out his gun as insurance. That gives me the chance to stride up to the furnace. It’s obviously a place for incinerating remains. I look unhappily at the wrapped bodies on the ground. I really don’t want to do this. But I have to.
Gingerly, I pull back the covering over their faces and the sight makes me recoil. Holding my breath, trying not to heave, I snap more pictures. It’s hard to describe, but whatever it is that killed them clearly caused them to suffer. Their eyes bulge from their sockets, and the dried remains of spewed blood and foam crust around their mouths. Covering them up again, I toss my gloves away and move back inside the morgue, where Hala arrives to join me.
“What did you find?” she whispers.
Before I can answer, Sunil’s voice rises out in the courtyard. He’s back with his apathetic morgue workers and he’s giving them quite the tongue-lashing. Under pressure, they hustle the first body into the furnace and then start hauling the next.
Since it looks like their work is nearly done, Hala and I hurry back through the reception area and out to the alleyway.
“I need to get into the car,” I tell her. I’m assuming that junk heap outside the morgue does belong to Sunil. If he is on the take, he’s certainly not splurging his extra cash on a sensational set of wheels. I’m carrying a tool set that has a couple of options for me to lever my way into the vehicle, and Hala offers up another—a long, thin bit of plastic, similar to a ruler. I take that one and nod my thanks.
“Stay over there and cover me,” I say, pointing to a large waste bin near the fence. With a parting good-luck pat on my shoulder, Hala disappears while I get to work breaking into Sunil’s car. I get myself onto the floor of the Honda’s back seat just moments before Sunil hurries out of the morgue.
23
FROM MY CROUCHED VANTAGE POINT in the back of the car, I watch Sunil approach. His spare frame is huddled into his jacket and he frowns as he glances about him. He pulls off the germ mask he wears, tosses it onto
