*
Eight. Nine. Ten. Sara McMeckan stopped counting as the phone rang and rang. She wore cut-off jeans, an Indian print shirt, and looked much the same as she had in Hàrélal's office, except that her tan had deepened. Gazing sadly out of the tiny booth in the hotel lobby, she stared at the trailing bougainvillea, the fan-shaped palm leaves, the dark hued parakeets that screeched as they flew from branch to branch, wondering why she'd let Adam persuade her to come to Goa. Fourteen rings. Still no answer. She let a tiny hum snake around her mind, just to quiet it. There were too many flowers here, too many trees, too much colour. Why wasn't her mother answering? She redialled the entire number and was startled when she heard her mother's voice. She'd been in the garden. Seeing to the roses. Sara's father was playing golf. Aunt Caroline and her new man were coming to tea. The four of them were going to watch a movie. It all sounded so safe and so, so far away. Two minutes of banal enquiries later, Sara found herself poised to speak into the silence.
'Ma, what would you do if you found yourself in the middle of a …situation?'
'I'd tell someone.'
'I can't tell anyone.'
'Ah, so you have a problem then, dearie?' her mother enquired in a voice stiff with curiosity.
'Maybe.'
'Right. You know what I'd do? I'd write it down and sleep on it for a while and if things got really bad I'd show it to Adam. He'll know what to do.' It was that simple. Ma always had a solution.
The silence twisted itself around the phone, became brittle, snapped Mrs McMeckan's patience: 'You're not pregnant, are you? Sara, who've you been with? Sara!'
'No ma! For God's sake, calm down! Stop being disgusting! And really, I can't tell it to Adam.' She paused. 'He's part of the problem. And it's kind of a secret at the moment.' The sudden spurt of anxiety in her mother's voice acted on Sara's nerves like a motorbike on a flock of pigeons. Her heart was hammering.
'I thought the two of you’re best mates?'
'We are.' She paused. 'Kind of.' A bluebottle zuzzed its way into the phone booth; ducking out of its path, Sara swatted it away. It came back and settled on the phone, clicking its thin legs together; glistening. Sodding fly.
'Then where's the problem? Has he gone soft on you? It's high time you gave up worrying about that Cameron and started to treat Adam how he'd like to be treated! That young man loves you and Cameron's a nice fella, I know, but he's gone now so brush him from your mind!' Mrs McMeckan stopped and Sara heard a clicking noise, knew precisely which photograph her mother was straightening. She'd never liked Cameron, though she'd lie rather than admit that it was his class she objected to. Mrs McMeckan had prejudices as numerous as the curls of her stiffly permed hair – fishing families were common, Indians were tight-fisted, homosexuals brought disease into the country. The irony was, she doted on Adam…. If she'd only known!
'Ma, what if I told you the problem was Cam?'
'Sara – you never were one for quick decisions! Is it Adam or is it Cameron? Make up your mind.'
'Hmm.' Sara bit her lip and turned her face away from the glass door of the booth. A woman with droopy eyelids and too much mascara was waiting for her to finish with her call. She wished that she'd called from her room, rather than dialing on impulse from this lobby payphone. Unlike the rest of the Randhor-Sinbari, it wasn't air-conditioned and was run by a man from the local village. Antonio's stab at supporting local entrepreneurship, she thought cynically.
'Well either tell me or let me get back in the garden, darling, because one thing I'm definitely not is a mind reader.' Mrs McMeckan sounded irate but the tenor in her voice was alarm. She'd been perturbed when Sara told her she was in Goa. Being in Delhi under the protection of the internationally known tycoon Antonio Sinbari was one thing: jetting off to a hippie hangout where drugs and liquor were passed around like chocolate was quite another. If Sara had done anything illegal it could mean the end of her medical career.
'Okay, ma, but then you've got to promise me that you'll not breathe a word of this to Adam. He's not talking to me, as it is.'
‘I promise’, her mother said, the note of foreboding deepening in her voice. In reply, her daughter told her to find Saturday's Scotsman. She listened intently to the sounds of her mother rummaging amongst the papers by the sofa, the clarity of the rustling transmitting itself to her like some exotic scent of home and causing her eyes to fill. With shaking hands, she clutched the phone as her mother began to read: Edinburgh architect kidnapped, feared dead:
Cameron Carver Croft, 29, one-time resident of Oban was reported missing last month by his father. Cameron was last seen by his family when he headed out to India in January. He sent post cards from New Delhi but stopped communicating in February; it was then that his terminally ill mother made an appeal for him to come home. We have been told that in June of this year, two friends of his set out to cover the trail he had chosen in the hope that they would be able to discover his whereabouts. They have since contacted their families, admitting that they could find no trace of the promising young architect. It is now believed that he strayed too far into Western territory, possibly leading to his kidnap or apprehension by terrorists in the area. As no demands have been made it is feared that he will not be returned alive. Giles Matineaux, 46, Cameron's one-time tutor at college and Mary Fairfax, the Headmistress of his old school, believe that if he was still alive he would have made an attempt to contact his parents, especially as he knew the condition of his mother, now deceased.
Garreth Garfield QC, representing the remaining members of the Croft family, had this to say to our reporter: 'We are launching an appeal to find out what happened to one of Edinburgh's most promising young architects. People cannot just be allowed to vanish off the face of the planet in this day and age. India claims to be a civilised nation and we believe her despite recent events. But the burden of proof is hers. We urge you to write to your M. P. and to your local Indian consulate and demand answers to this tragic puzzle before another young person makes the same mistake. If there is danger in the North-western states then young hikers should be discouraged from climbing there.'
Already Montranto Airlines are threatening to cancel their special student charters to that region of India unless assurances of safety can be given.
Such concerns have been echoed throughout the press since the rape of Sandra Livers and the disappearance of Marcel Cunningham in Dehradun eighteen weeks ago.
The moments while her mother read through the article seemed agonisingly slow. Sara allowed her mind to float free, picking up noises, static on the line, the call of a taxi driver at the hotel entrance. Pretty and slim in her cut-offs, she was attracting attention. A couple of young men had stopped to gape at her through the glass of the booth. Sara turned away, lowering her face. She had never been one for male attention, only desiring the good opinion of those she loved, rejecting, even disliking the admiration of strangers. As a little girl she’d always refused to ‘perform’ for guests. Sara’s principles had lived by her side a long time now. Snuffling on the line but still no comments as her mother read on.
Sara cleared her throat, ready to say good-bye. Mrs McMeckan chose that moment to speak, her tone sympathetic but perplexed.
'I'm so sorry, dearie, I really am. It’s just ghastly. But what's all this got to do with your secret?'
*
Karmel had hoped he wouldn't have to pursue the corpse that morning, that Chand and Sonu would return, and information would flow freely. But the boys did not return and Karmel's restlessness changed abruptly to annoyance.
Sonu was obviously not allowing his brother to talk about the foreign man who'd been unfortunate enough to trek into their midst; but if he got the boys alone he might have a chance of finding out something. For the moment he would have to bring himself to do the one task he found more arduous and off-putting than any other – look for the body.
Karmel was aware of the ludicrous aspect of his task – they had plenty of real bodies to deal
with in Delhi and here he was off in the wild trying to locate one that would only cause them more trouble. Only the week before, an impoverished seamstress had been found strangled in her tiny hovel.
Karmel and Surinder Bokada had been the ones to take the call.
The woman's clothing was strewn around her tiny sewing room, polythene bags of colourful scraps and piles of cloth entangled with her sari on the floor. She'd lain there, face down, in the centre of the room and looked so totally undone by death that Karmel had felt pity flood his veins as Bokada snapped the scene on his phone.
He'd wanted to wait for the rest of their team, to allow a doctor to examine her before they did, but Bokada's impatience won out. He'd moved her body with the toe of his shoe, and then rolled her over to reveal the scarf still around her neck, the darkening bruises on her thighs, the bulging eyes and lolling tongue. A corpse and not a woman. Bokada was all for letting the public in to gape at the body, so certain was he that the woman had been a prostitute; so comfortable was he with the idea that she had paid for her sins with her life; but Karmel had forbidden it. And the medical examiner had confirmed his suspicion: the woman had been raped, then strangled and tossed into her workroom like a piece of garbage.
When they were interviewed, the neighbourhood women said she'd been a widow, meek and retiring, and totally uninterested in men.
That case was still open.
Up here in the mountains the temptation to fabricate a report about the foreigner and rush back to town would have been too strong for most of Hàrélal's men, but Karmel knew he was different; tenacious; full of curiosity. It was why he was here and not any of the others: he just had to find out.
Turning his back on the lake, Karmel walked down the path that led towards the river where he'd met the boys the previous morning. The earth felt damp beneath the trees and he tried to pace himself so that he did not slip. The absence of his pack as a counterbalance threw him off his stride and he often felt himself sliding along rather than walking. After half an hour he smelt water and within minutes spotted the slow-flowing river of the previous day.
He scanned the surrounding area and saw nothing but shadows, dappled sunlit earth and fallen leaves. Making a quick mental calculation, he decided that the village was about a mile away, around a forested ridge to the right, which meant that he'd have several hours of careful walking and checking to do if he was to find the exact spot mentioned by Sara and Adam. If they'd been telling the truth . . .. They'd lied and misled him about other things – their point of departure, the timing of their trip – so why should he expect this information to be the truth? But somehow the fuzziness of their accounts had given way to prim accuracy when they described the scene of their shocking discovery: neither of them had wavered for a moment in the smallest detail.
He continued down along the river until he felt certain that he was in line with or had passed their most direct point of exit from the village. Then, walking almost up to the water he began his search. He moved back and forth on his knees, shifting the undergrowth of ferns and leaf mulch; sometimes he walked and used a stick to stir the natural detritus in his path. Everywhere the soft plopping of water and the slight cracking of twigs underfoot kept him from becoming calm and focused. In the back of his mind he was conscious of a terrible oddity in his position; having tried for so many years to achieve a status akin to normality in a city where most middle-class people had families, commitments and occupations, he had now ended up in the wilderness again.
Four hours later, he had covered approximately half a mile, averaging a strip of two metres at every point. When he stood up straight his vision blurred with fatigue. His back ached and hunger caused him to feel faint. Leaning against a smooth silvery tree, he unfastened his belt purse and removed a single piece of bread that he had saved from the morning. The small plastic containers in the purse reminded him of his alleged occupation. He glanced around him, surveying the forest with wary eyes.
He appeared to be in a clearing, with what looked like a planted line of trees running upwards and way from the bank, but he wasn't at all sure that the effect was deliberate. Re-forestation policies were so erratic that it might simply have been a trick of his imagination, the light or nature and not a real effort on the part of the Environmental department. Looking once more towards the water he noted that the far bank too was becoming steeper and less accessible and that the water was making more of a noise, suggesting that it was flowing over hidden rocks; perhaps the incline from above was much sharper than he's realised. Uncapping two of the little bottles, he stepped towards the river intending to scoop up moist earth from the roots of one of the overhanging trees. Leaning down and stretching out his hand he was about to scoop soil into it when his foot snagged on something and he felt himself propelled towards the water.
He cried out, realising that there was no one around to witness his mortification but wishing to save himself from the fall anyway; he managed to prevent total immersion by digging his right arm up to the elbow in the uneven bank on the brink of the water. Bits of slate or some other hard-edged objects cut into his palm and he was forced to drop his other bottle and support his weight on his left arm.
It was all over within seconds; exhausted, he allowed his muscles to tremble with post-exertion relief. His jeans were caked in black mud with shiny flakes in it and his woollen sweater was saturated to the shoulders. He seated himself and examined the cuts on his left palm, which were deep and beginning to bleed. There were bits of smashed plastic embedded in his flesh and he picked them out, biting his lip. Then he moved slightly to see what had tripped him and found himself staring at a man's boot.
8
Covered in a thin rime of mould and rotten leaves, the shoe was more a boot than a trainer but Karmel couldn't make out much beneath the exterior. Wrapping his bleeding palm in a cotton kerchief, he extracted a clear plastic bag from his belt-purse and, turning it inside out, gripped the boot with the plastic covering his hand like a glove. Shaking the object gently he managed to dislodge enough moss and earth to enable him to read the name.
It was a Trekker with a high top and loops, army green leather and deeply grooved soles; the laces seemed intact although their tips had rusted utterly.
Karmel sniffed it. The smell from the boot was no different to that in the surrounding area, moist and earthy with a hint of decomposition. Struggling to quell his excitement, Karmel placed the boot down inside the plastic wrap and began a gentle search of the surrounding few metres. When this turned up nothing, he tied the bag-covered boot to his belt and continued up-stream, moving ever closer to Saahitaal. At last, more than a mile from where he had first started, he decided that enough was enough. If the body had been where they described it to be then he would have seen some trace of it by now. He should at least have found the pan they claimed to have abandoned just over a fortnight ago. He had, in fact, seen several places where the earth looked freshly disturbed or at least less sanguine in its solitude than the rest of the surroundings but none of them fitted Sara's description of her camping ground. 'Not ten feet from the river, I swear it, and there were overhanging trees, so many leaves on the earth, I remember.'
Perhaps the body had been further from the water than the tourists realised, or perhaps they had imagined the whole thing. But then there was the boot, which might be linked to the corpse or might be a relic of an earlier trek. It was real, as real as he was, but it wouldn't be of any use to anyone until he got it down to Delhi and to a good lab. Deep in thought he had been staring at the boot. Now he lifted his face and peered around him.
Several times during the day he had heard what he thought were twigs snapping; and breathing distinct from his own but; when he stopped, nothing presented itself and no one stepped forward. It was getting dark and he had felt for some time now the weight of anxiety about being alone in the forest hanging from his shoulders heavier than yesterday's pack. Orientating himself, he climbed briskly away from the gloomy water and made
for Thahéra's cottage. In the morning he would begin his report for Hàrélal.
*
It was six fifteen a.m. and Hàrélal had not slept. Tears of concern for his child had run off his creased face and onto the pillow several times in the night. He turned over a few times and onto his back, stroked his wife's hair and then lay still again but nothing would ease his mind.
He had been told unofficially the previous night to prepare to hand over command of his domain to a new Chief Superintendent who was being drafted in from Patialla in Punjab to deal with rising crime statistics and threats by international airlines that they would not land at any destination other than the major city airports. Charter flights to the Dehradun were apparently on hold since several backpackers had been kidnapped by guerrilla groups. If such things happened in other countries the fucking ghoulish tourists flew in even faster, but not to India . ... No. India had to be punished like a dirty fucking beggar! His habitual admiration for all things foreign deserted him.
His daughter still had not called and now his men were assuming that this 'disappearance' too was a kidnap and a citywide search was on. His love for the girl was gnawing at his heart. His wife had not eaten for three days.
The promotion could go. He'd known with certainty that it was not coming his way when the Chief Minister had phoned to find out what he was doing about "Mister Sinbari's problem in the hills". Having just been on the phone to Sinbari to discover that the tourists had left Delhi and that there might never have been a corpse in the first place, Hàrélal heard the Minister's enquiry with some amazement. He had not expected this.
Truth Lake Page 7