It Happened on Scrabble Sunday

by Vas, Mahita;

  “No, thanks. No suckling pig. My father and I were thinking maybe a seven-course meal. Soup; roast pork belly; duck or chicken, braised; steamed fish; prawns, maybe cooked in a spicy sauce; shitake mushrooms; braised noodles and steamed rice. How does that sound? Do you have time?”

  “Seven-course only? Normally Chinese meal is ten-course, minimum eight-course.”

  “Yes, we know, but our cook is also preparing a few dishes. Seven courses will be plenty.”

  “No problem but now quite late. You tell your maid help me. You give me three hundred dollars plus taxi money. I go market buy things.”

  Ashwin handed Sharon six fifty-dollar notes. “Here’s three hundred. Please get a receipt from the stallholders.” Ashwin noticed Sharon had not finished her drink. “Why don’t you finish your drink? It’s a hot day, you need to load up on liquid.”

  Sharon emptied the glass before standing up. She immediately held out her hand to balance herself.

  “Are you okay, Sharon? You don’t look well. Maybe you should sit down for a while.”

  Sharon nodded. “I … I okay. Must go market.” She fell back down on her chair, placed her arm on the table, and her head flopped over her arm.

  “Sharon?” Ashwin shook her shoulder. “Sharon? What’s happened to you? Do you need to lie down?”

  Sharon looked dazed. Slurring, she asked, “You have bed?”

  Ashwin helped her to the second room and laid her on the floor. “No bed. This is more than you deserve.”

  Uday crept out of the master room and met Ashwin at the doorway. Ashwin snapped his fingers. “She’s out, Dad.”

  “Are you absolutely, one-hundred percent sure? No chance of her waking up soon?”

  “I mixed a little GHB—that club drug I told you about—and vodka into her water, which I flavoured with elderflower cordial. The guy I got the GHB from said vodka makes it more potent. Sharon would not have tasted the vodka. That was a really good idea, Dad, to have her climb part of the way. Anyone would need a drink after that.”

  “What time are your men coming?”

  “I’ll be picking them up at two. One of them only finishes work at one-thirty. The room is perfectly cold, so it’s fine.”

  “What do you mean it’s fine? They won’t be here for three hours! What do we do until then?”

  “We’re going to need the time. Dad, think about this carefully. Are you sure you don’t want to know about the two rapists and Sharon’s yellow-haired girlfriend? Because if you do, we’ll need time to get that information out of Sharon. But if you just want Sharon and Tamara dealt with, then we’ll need to start soon.”

  Uday bored into Ashwin’s eyes. “Yes, I just want Sharon and Tamara dealt with. Dead. Absolutely sure. How do you think we can exact revenge on the other three without entangling ourselves in the disappearance of Sharon and, in due course, Tamara? Are you so bloodthirsty before even committing your first crime?”

  “You’re right, Dad. Besides, as you’d mentioned last night, harming or killing them won’t bring Lavi back to being the same young woman she was when she left home on Sunday afternoon.”

  “Especially as they were probably simple-minded lowlifes roped in by Sharon to do her dirty deed for compensation, which clearly would’ve come from Tamara. These two are the ones who should pay. With their lives!”

  Ashwin nodded. “In that case, I’ll have to get cracking. There’s a time to kill and that time has come.”

  “What? No, Ashwin! You’re not supposed to do the killing yourself. What’s the point of hiring those two men?”

  “Your suggestion to use migrant workers was excellent, Dad, but it’s hard to go around making discreet enquiries about something like this. Seeing Lavi’s condition deteriorating made me want to strangle those two myself. I wanted the pleasure of seeing in their eyes the same fear they must have seen in Lavi’s eyes. I decided to ask for help just with the chopping, cooking and disposal. It was not as hard as I’d expected.”

  “I hope these men know exactly what they need to do. How did you find them, by the way? I mean, how did you know which man to approach?”

  “I knew from my volunteer work with migrant workers that a number of them are holed up in makeshift shelters on the second and third storeys of those shophouses off Serangoon Road. Last night, I started at Cuff Road but no luck there. Tried a few other places as I walked down towards the temple. They’re mostly decent fellows, out here to earn a living. There wasn’t anyone whose situation was desperate enough for them to sell their souls to a devil like me. I found one of the men, Perumal, at a shelter along Desker Road. At around seven last evening, both sides of the street were teeming with men who seemed to be out of work. Some were on breaks, but according to Perumal, they had all lodged reports with the Ministry of Manpower and were waiting for their cases to be heard.”

  “What kind of reports? Were they injured? We read a lot about such cases. Too many, frankly, for a supposedly developed country.”

  “Many were injured, a few very badly. They were waiting for compensation and many were caught in salary disputes.”

  “Ah, yes, I’ve read about that, too. Unscrupulous employers who simply don’t pay their workers’ salaries for months and then declare bankruptcy. Bastards. May they burn in hell for an eternity! Fortuna has taken to task several sub-contractors for short-changing their workers.”

  “Perumal’s employer hadn’t paid him for seven months before filing for insolvency. Poor Perumal had borrowed six thousand dollars from rogue recruiters and they were hounding his family for payment. It’s been tough for him, not sending money he had promised his family, and not paying back his loan.

  “He’s been waiting for three months to get something. His chances are slim, according to his social worker. The authorities tell him he must wait. He survives on charity and is desperate to go home, even if it means going back with no savings, in fact deeply in debt. When I offered him twenty thousand dollars, his face lit up. It was like watching fireworks going off in his head, blazing through his eyes. He clasped my hands and thanked me a million times, and started chanting some mantras softly, before asking me what I wanted him to do. ‘What dirty work I do? You tell me, I do.’ I swear, Dad. His exact words.”

  “So, he would’ve killed Sharon?”

  “Yes. I am quite sure he would’ve if I had asked him to. I don’t know about his friend, though. His name is Babu and he works as a butcher in Tekka Market. I asked him if he knew anyone willing to cut up a body. Perumal suggested Babu. His contract ends in a week and his employer refuses to transfer him to another employer. He’ll be forced to return to India. He needs the money because one of his sisters is getting married and another just started high school this year.”

  “You’ll be picking them up and driving them here?”

  “Yes.” Ashwin stood up and walked towards the room where Sharon lay on her back, looking as if she was sound asleep. “I need to start the … you know …”

  Uday followed closely behind. “I’m glad we didn’t use any of our apartments for this. I wouldn’t want the extermination of evil to take place in our own home.” Uday shivered and rubbed his arm. “Why the need for sub-arctic temperature?”

  “We need her body to be dead for about two hours before they cut her up. Less blood apparently. The longer the better, but we don’t have much more time. Keeping it cold during that period prevents it from rotting. Learnt this by searching online. I went to an internet café, by the way. No one cared about identification. Left no trace.”

  Ashwin dragged Sharon from one end of the room to the other and raised her upper body, before releasing her onto the wooden floor with a thump. Ashwin patted her face, hard enough so it sounded like a slap. “Oy, Sharon! Wake up!”

  “Isn’t that drug supposed to knock her out for hours?”

  “Yes, but I gave her a very light dose, enough just to make her sleep for a while but not enough to knock her out completely.” Ashwin stood in front of Uday, unu
sually close, and said in a voice and tone Uday had never heard him use, “I want her to know what is going to happen to her. I want her to feel what I am going to do.”

  Uday wasn’t sure if he wanted to watch. He stared at Sharon, her body curled up on the floor, her eyes struggling to open, muttering in Chinese. Nightmare visions of what she had done with the help of the hooligans she had recruited and paid swirled through his head.

  “Do what you want to do, Ashwin. Let me know if I can help.”

  Ashwin splashed some water on Sharon. She coughed and tried to sit up.

  In a soft voice, just above a whisper, Sharon struggled to speak. “Who are you? Why you do this?”

  Ashwin threw his head back and laughed. He kicked her thigh. “I am Lavinia’s brother, you piece of shit.” He stretched his hand out towards Uday. “Please meet Lavinia’s daddy.”

  Sharon tried to stand. Ashwin pushed her down with one hand on her shoulder. “You’re not going anywhere. You’re going to get everything you did to my sister and much more.”

  Sharon’s eyes widened, and she put her hands together. She could barely speak and looked as if she was about to faint. “Sorry. Very sorry. Please. Please … you no harm me. Please! My mama tell me do, tell me kill Lavi. Sorry, sorry …” Sharon collapsed on the floor and sobbed.

  Ashwin looked at Uday and smiled. “The confession. She knows Tamara is her mother. Even better.” Ashwin took two pairs of handcuffs from his bag. He sat at Sharon’s feet as she tried to pull away. Her limbs flailed weakly, making it effortless for Ashwin to lock the handcuffs around her feet and wrists. Uday had meant to help him but found himself bolted to the doorway.

  “Here’s the story of the next and last ten minutes of your life.” Ashwin sat cross-legged on the floor and faced Sharon. He raised her chin so he could look into her eyes. She turned away. “First, I am going to strangle you with my bare hands. You will be looking at me as I see the life fizzle out of you. It will be slow. I promise.” Ashwin clenched his fist and released it, repeating the cycle several times. “Very slowly.” Sharon’s breathing became more rapid, her nostrils flared and she started crying.

  “You’re crying? Tears of fear? Anger at your mother for getting you into this? The mother who was so ashamed of you, she pretended you were her adopted sister?” Sharon pulled her face away from Ashwin and buried her face into her knees. “I’m so sorry. I hurt your feelings, did I? Did you think for a second how Lavi’s family felt when she didn’t show up for dinner? How we felt when we found her on that table? How we feel every minute of the day, wondering if she’ll make it through? We found her only because Ah Huat got greedy. If not, we’d have no idea where Lavi was and she would never be found.” Ashwin slapped Sharon. “Don’t you show me those crocodile tears!”

  Uday felt his stomach churning. Despite the viciousness this creature had inflicted on his beloved Lavinia, Uday couldn’t bear to watch Ashwin bring her life to a gruesome end. “Ashwin, this is too much for me—”

  Ashwin walked towards his father and whispered in Hindi, “Have you changed your mind, Dad? I can release her if you want me to. We’ll call the police instead.”

  Uday glanced at Sharon lying prone on the floor. He waved his hand in front of him. “I haven’t changed my mind, but I don’t want to watch. I’ll be at the hospital. Call me when you’re done. I’d like to be here when the two men arrive. I feel a pressing need to vet them before trusting them with this despicable deed.”

  20

  The Same Afternoon

  Ashwin turned up with the two men later than scheduled, at 4pm. Leaving them in the living room with Uday, he dashed into the second room where Sharon lay, to check that all the items the men needed were in place.

  Uday smiled as they greeted him with the traditional Hindu greeting, hands together as if in prayer, saying namaste. Uday couldn’t help but wonder about the stripes of yellow and grey ash on their foreheads. “Did you just go to the temple?”

  The burly man, Perumal, probably in his forties, with a thick mop of hair stained red with cheap henna dye, spoke English quite fluently but with a heavy accent. “Must pray, Sir. God give me luck, now I go home. I have money.”

  The other, known as Babu, a diminutive fellow with a nose too bulbous for his bony face, who looked no older than twenty, barely understood anything except Tamil. He was carrying a bag far too big for his slight frame. Uday shuddered to think what was in there; how many people wandered around the city with lethal weapons in their bags? Standing next to each other, they looked like an Indian adaptation of Asterix and Obelix. Uday tried not to laugh. Speaking slowly and softly, he asked, “Do you know why you’re here?”

  Ashwin bellowed from the other room in Hindi. “I’ve already made it clear, Dad. The more you ask them the more they’re going to think about it and might just change their minds.”

  Uday ignored him.

  Perumal, the burly one, nodded and handed both their passports to Uday. “Your son say you keep passport. When we finish work, you give back passport. Also give plane ticket and some money.”

  “Yes. A lot of money. Tell me what you’re supposed to do. I just want to be sure you know what is expected for the amount I am supposed to pay you.”

  Perumal translated Uday’s conversation to Babu, who spoke in Tamil as he rotated his head in agreement. Looking directly at Uday, Perumal said in a voice and tone so cold it could instantly freeze the warm air stirred by the fan in the living room. “We chop one man, already dead—”

  “A woman, actually.”

  Perumal gulped, leaning forward and frowning as he asked, “Woman? I don’t know, sir. No good to do this type of bad thing to woman.”

  Uday pursed his lips and looked away. He sighed as he turned back to Perumal and said, “She is not really a woman. She is the devil incarnate. She tried to kill my child. She wanted my child chopped and burnt. You should not feel badly about her just because she’s a woman. Now, please continue with what you’ll need to do.”

  “First, we chopping, after finish chopping, we cooking, use curry powder—” At the sound of the words, “curry powder”, Babu giggled and shook his head, rotating it as if in agreement. Perumal continued, “After finish cooking, put in different different bag, then you take us by car to many many place, then we throw bag different different dustbin. Correct sir?”

  “Correct. Except I won’t be driving you. My son will do that.”

  Uday got up, told the men to wait for him and walked to the bedroom, where he had last seen Sharon.

  Ashwin had just finished lining the floor with tarpaulin, held down in the centre by two wide wooden planks placed side by side, each the size of a rectangular four-seater dining table. Sharon lay still, her back towards the wall below the window. The room was freezing.

  Ashwin stood up and hugged his father. “All set, Dad. In a few minutes, the most gruesome part of our plan will be executed.”

  Shaking his head and rubbing his face, Uday whispered, “I can’t believe—”

  “It was your idea, Dad. You planned it, asked me to recruit the men. I did that. What are you saying now?”

  “I’m just … I suppose I didn’t expect you to do it. To kill.”

  “I know. Nor did I. The intensity of my desire for revenge shocked me.”

  They both stood silent for a while and stared at Sharon’s body.

  “What have I become, Dad? My soul, my mind, they are gnarled in turmoil. I watched her gasp and writhe until her body went still. And then I … I … smiled. After doing something so nefarious, a pleasurable feeling washed over me. Something so perverse and so pure at the same time.”

  Uday put his arm around Ashwin. “I’m sorry you had to be the one to do this. Thank you. You have avenged a most heinous crime against your sister.” Uday stared at the stiff body on the floor, arms and legs straight and as stiff as the planks next to it. “The men are waiting for you. You picked them well. The little one seems especially ruthless.”

 
; “You should leave, Dad. Go home. I’ll take care of this. I’ve got everything I need, including the cleaver, two large aluminium pots, two large charcoal burners, bags of curry powder and at least fifty heavy-duty bin liners …”

  Uday shook his head and turned away.

  Uday wasn’t sure whether to feel proud of his son for taking control, or disgusted by the ease with which he believed Ashwin carried out the murder and was about to oversee the elimination of evidence.

  For the love of someone, he had said. Uday understood. He did not hide his relief when he towered over Sharon’s dead body. As he walked towards the lift, Uday clutched his chest. Was that the sting of deep, black ink seeping into his heart, swallowing his soul? Or immense relief masquerading as guilt?

  21

  Late Afternoon

  Uday is spending some time with Lavinia this afternoon. Earlier, the doctor told him that Lavinia’s condition is deteriorating. Her heartbeat and blood pressure are dangerously low. Her responses to the eye, motor and verbal tests suggest that her chances of a full recovery are slim. When the doctor told Uday all this, I realised I had been imagining things—Lavinia has neither opened her eyes nor spoken to me since she was hospitalised. It is amazing what a mother chooses to believe when she is desperate.

  I thought the doctor should have been more forthright with Uday, like when he told the medical students—the same group who visit every morning—that Lavinia was unlikely to get any better and was very likely to die within weeks. But I suppose it’s hard to tell a hopeful father his beloved daughter is not going to make it. Easier to string them along for a while. Perhaps make it look like the doctors did their best.

  I have never seen Uday so distraught. He asks the nurses and doctors to leave him alone for some time. He wants to talk to Lavinia in private. The nurses are kind, they nod and smile and assure him they understand.

  Uday tells Lavinia that her attacker was not a boy, but a woman named Sharon. Ashwin is doing what he has to do. Uday weeps as he holds Lavinia’s hand and tells her that it was his idea, that he could see no other way to get justice for what Sharon did to her. He does not tell Lavinia exactly what is happening. Just that Sharon is dead and they will no longer have to worry about Lavinia or anyone in their family being hurt. I take that to mean that Ashwin has killed Sharon, and Uday was part of it.