by Tarquin Hall
“A very big man.”
“The skin around his eyes was red and all?” asked Puri.
“Yes, sir. That’s him! He waited here for one hour. Then left a number. Said you’re to call it immediately. It sounds serious, sir,” the receptionist added with masterful understatement.
The detective had no wish for any further entanglements with Naga, who’d evidently been released on bail and had tracked him down thanks to Hari’s newspaper leak. He decided to change hotels.
Ten minutes later, his car was pulling out of the car park when a vehicle blocked the exit. It was a police jeep. The occupant was Inspector Gujar.
“Sir, I wish to talk to you,” he explained when he came to the window. His tone was considerably more assured than it had been during his arrest of Vishnu Mishra yesterday.
“Official business?” asked the detective.
“Regarding the murder of the Dalit woman. I understand you examined the body yesterday?”
“The concerned doctor was kind enough to accommodate me,” said Puri.
Gujar wagged a finger. “Sir, that’s against regulations,” he said. “Permission was required. You’re to accompany me.”
“I’m somewhat busy just now, Inspector,” said Puri, concerned that Naga might turn up at any minute.
But Inspector Gujar insisted and the detective accepted the order with rueful grace.
Ten minutes later, they were seated in a moribund office fitted with decrepit furniture that bespoke the chronic underfunding of the Uttar Pradesh state police, the largest force in the world under one command.
“I saw you outside Govind village yesterday,” said Gujar. “You were speaking with Vishnu Mishra. I want to know what it was about.”
“He was asking what all I was doing there,” said Puri, his chair creaking under his weight.
“And what did you tell him?”
“That it was none of anyone’s business.”
“He would not have liked that.”
“He did not. In all honesty, Inspector, I do not see a friendship blossoming.”
“You mind telling me what you were doing there, sir?”
“That all depends, Inspector.”
“On?”
“What all kind of information you’re willing to provide in return.”
“Sir, you are not in a position to make demands. I could have you arrested for tampering with evidence.”
“That is a threat, I take it?”
Gujar knitted his fingers together and placed them on the desk in front of him. “Sir, I don’t want tension,” he said. “I have asked you a simple question. You are in my jurisdiction and involving yourself in my investigation. Procedure demands that you tell me your intentions and upon whose behalf you are working.”
“Understood, Inspector,” said Puri with an almost pitying smile. “Your superiors are concerned I will blow a hole in your case and prove Vishnu Mishra innocent.”
Gujar’s forehead creased into a frown. “Sir, you believe he’s innocent?”
“Inspector.” Puri sighed in the most patronizing tone he could muster. “Mishra is no saint. Quite the reverse, in fact. But he is being framed—of that I am very much certain.”
“He had motive and was in the vicinity. I’ve witnesses who saw Kamlesh Sunder picked up by his vehicle and driven away.”
“Witnesses?”
“Two in all.”
“The usual suspects, no doubt?”
Gujar sat haughtily erect. His eyes darted with pique. “Sir, I’ll be the one asking the questions. Now, I’m requesting you to tell me why were you visiting the village.”
Puri took a moment to weigh his options. Had Gujar been under orders to lock him up on the pretense of tampering with evidence, he would simply have done so. The young inspector was bluffing, in other words. And Puri saw no reason to give in to this lackey’s demands.
“I’m under no obligation to reveal the identity of my client—nor the details of my investigation and all,” he said.
Gujar started to object, but the detective spoke over him. “That being said,” he stressed, “allow me to assure you that when the time comes I will endeavor not to make a total fool out of you in front of the national media persons. And now, Inspector, I’ll wish you a good day.”
Calling him into the station had been the clumsy move of an amateur, Puri reflected as he checked into a new hotel and lay down on the bed to have some meter down. If he’d half a brain, Gujar would have turned up with a bottle of Scotch and made friends before trying to ascertain the detective’s game. Under such circumstances, they might have cooperated with each other. God only knew Puri could do with an ally, he reflected. The odds were stacking up against him by the hour. Naga was searching for him. Hari Kumar was breathing down his neck. And now Inspector Gujar’s yet-to-be-identified puppeteer was aware that he was on the case. Should that individual decide that Puri posed too great a threat, then there was no telling what might happen. This was Uttar Pradesh after all. According to an article in the morning’s paper, there had been nearly five thousand murders in the state last year—and that was just the official figure.
It crossed Puri’s mind that he was risking his life for a young man he’d never met and for a cause he didn’t believe in. But he quickly gave himself a sharp rebuke, shocked by his own pusillanimity.
“Such a thought is not worthy of you!” he exclaimed.
He had acted out of loyalty and there was no going back. Besides, the case had become much bigger than some silly love affair. It was about justice. And that was always a cause worth fighting for.
Fortified by this thought and feeling somewhat choked up by a swell of emotion, he got off the bed and called downstairs for a cup of chai and a few whole green chilli peppers.
“Make it fast,” he ordered.
Room service provided him with three Naga Bhut Jolokias, rated amongst the hottest in the world, and he proceeded to dunk one of them in salt and bite off the end. The result was a pleasing fire in the mouth (for lesser mortals, this would have meant a trip to the hospital), which he quashed with a mouthful of sweet tea.
He finished off two chillies in this way, saving the third for later, and then turned his mind to his next move.
Vijay, the journalist who had eaten everything in sight, had messaged to say that Dr. Bal Pandey’s political rally was due to start at eight P.M. It would be a good opportunity to get a close look at the man and try to establish his whereabouts two nights ago.
Puri called Vijay to suggest they go together.
“We would need to eat beforehand,” the hack replied.
Four hours of teaching left Facecream exhausted. After the children went home, she lay in her room, intending to close her eyes for just half an hour. When she woke, it was already five o’clock.
Furious with herself, she got ready quickly and set off to try to retrace Kamlesh’s steps. Outside the gates, however, she found three Dalit women waiting for her. They needed help, one explained.
“With what?” asked Facecream. This simple question prompted an outpouring of problems: Their families didn’t have enough to eat. Their husbands worked as farm laborers, earning just twenty-five rupees a day. Their families were therefore eligible for Below Poverty Line cards, which entitled them to thirty-five kilograms of rice or wheat each month. Getting the cards had proven impossible, however. The application required photographs verified by a gazetted officer or municipal councilor, as well as proof of residence. For this a letter from the village headman was a prerequisite and they dared not even approach Rakesh Yadav.
Were local Dalit political representatives not willing to help them? Facecream asked.
“They do nothing!” cried the women before haranguing her with a litany of complaints against those who professed to be representing their interests.
Facecream listened patiently and then agreed to do what she could to help them. Yet still the grievances came. They had to walk a mile to fetch water from th
e river. They had been promised one hundred days of work annually under the National Food for Work Programme, only half of which had materialized. One of the women had a pain in her abdomen and wanted medicine. Another claimed her daughter was possessed and needed money for an exorcism. The third had a big green and yellow bruise on her arm.
“I’ve had it for weeks—since they used the needle,” she said.
“What needle?”
“They took some blood,” she said.
“Who is ‘they’?”
“The doctors who came.”
Facecream examined the woman’s arm. It was just skin and bone, which was why the bruising was so bad.
“Don’t worry, it’s nothing serious,” she assured her before applying a little antiseptic cream and asking whether the women had known Kamlesh, Ram’s mother.
“Of course we knew her. She was our neighbor.”
“Who do you think killed her?” she asked.
The answer was unequivocal. “Yadavs!”
“Why do you say that?”
“She had money. They took it from her and killed her.”
“How much money?”
“A fortune! Her son has been working in the city. He has a good job.”
Facecream sent the women on their way, watching as they walked back to the village, astounded by their ignorance and wondering if they were simply repeating gossip.
The walk to the highway took Facecream thirty minutes. Assuming Kamlesh hadn’t been abducted en route, she would have reached the intersection at approximately eight o’clock. So where had she gone from here? The most plausible answer was a bus.
To the west, three hundred kilometers away, lay Agra. But to reach it required a ticket on an “interstate” and they didn’t generally stop en route to pick up individual passengers.
Lucknow, which lay to the east, seemed the likelier possibility. This meant Kamlesh would have crossed the road to reach the bus stop next to the chai stand.
Facecream dodged traffic and went to investigate.
The chai stand had open sides and a roof made of bamboo matting lined with blue plastic. All but one of the eight molded plastic tables were occupied. The customers were truck and bus drivers, bar one man with a cage full of chickens.
Facecream took the last available table and ordered a cup of chai from the teenage waiter. A short, chipped glass filled with a liquid the color of mud was soon placed before her and she let it cool as she watched the traffic pass by.
It was a busy spot with private buses pulling up every few minutes. Cocky conductors shouted out the names of destinations and herded people on and off like cattle. Drivers revved their engines like aspiring Formula One champions and then tore away, often with hapless passengers hanging from the doorways for dear life. Three-wheel auto rickshaws puttered up as well, faces peering from the prisonlike bars at the back. In one, Facecream counted at least twenty-five people seated around a cow.
Gandhi had glorified rural living, saying famously, “India is not Calcutta and Bombay. India lives in her seven hundred thousand villages.” But cities offered the promise of a society free of caste. In Delhi, Facecream had achieved anonymity. Who would have guessed that she was from an “untouchable” community herself? Not even Vish Puri, it seemed. If he knew, he might understand her affinity for the Love Commandos.
Her attention was drawn from the highway back inside the chai stand, where she noticed the Dalit boy she’d rescued last night sweeping the earthen floor with a reed brush. She smiled, but he didn’t reciprocate and went about his work.
“You don’t remember me?” she asked when he drew close to her table.
The boy glanced at his employer before answering.
“What are you doing here?” he hissed.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Why? What’s it to you?”
“I thought we could be friends.”
This gave him pause. His brow furrowed.
“How old are you?” asked Facecream.
The boy cocked his head to one side. “Nine.”
“You should be at school.”
“What for?”
“If you learn to read and write, you’ll have a better future.”
“Who says?”
“Me. I’m your new teacher.”
“I have to work,” he said, and went back to his sweeping. “I could talk to your parents.”
The boy stopped again. “Look, I don’t need your help,” he said. “You’ve already caused me enough trouble.”
“I was only trying to—”
“I can take care of myself.”
“Do those Yadav boys beat you every night?”
He moved away from her table, driving a small pile of litter and cigarette butts before him.
Another bus pulled up on the road and a couple of locals climbed on board before it took off again. They’d been standing outside the chai stand for four or five minutes in clear view of everyone inside, the boy included.
It stood to reason that he might have seen Kamlesh board a bus or an auto. Perhaps he’d even heard the destination.
Facecream decided to wait until he finished work and walk him back to the village.
Twelve
Mummy’s headache miraculously passed by the evening. And by a happy coincidence she and the rest of the family reached the hotel restaurant shortly after the Dughals sat down to eat.
From the corner table occupied by the Puri clan, Mummy was able to keep an eye on the couple, who polished off a goodly portion of the vegetarian buffet before making their way to the veranda to take in some evening air.
Pranap Dughal then pushed his wife’s wheelchair to the elevator, which she duly took up to their room, while he exited the hotel.
Seeing him leave, Mummy suddenly felt her headache returning.
“Some altitude sickness is there, na,” she said.
“But we’re still only seven hundred and fifty meters above sea level,” pointed out Chetan.
“You all remain seated,” she said, ignoring him. “Bed rest is required.”
Mummy stole away and reached the main doors in time to see Pranap Dughal getting into a three-wheeler. Mummy hailed her own and climbed inside.
“Follow that auto,” she instructed the driver.
The Regal sat on a hillock less than a mile outside Katra and it took them but five minutes to reach the town. By now it was half past eight and the main drag was packed with pilgrims eating street food and having portraits taken in photo studios that provided tacky replicas of the Vaishno Devi shrine.
Pranap Dughal stopped in front of a small shop with a sign that read YATRA HELICOPTER HIRE.
Mummy, who got her auto driver to park across the street, watched as her mark entered the premises.
He introduced himself to a man sitting inside wearing a pilot’s uniform.
The pilot looked like he had been expecting Dughal. Mummy could almost hear him saying, “Yes, absolutely, it’s all arranged.”
Dughal then produced an envelope from inside his jacket pocket. It contained a thick wad of notes; the pilot counted them and then gave a nod.
There was another brief exchange, a handshake, and then Dughal left.
The pilot watched him go before stuffing the envelope of cash into his trouser pocket.
Facecream waited an hour by the side of the lane.
When the boy spotted her, he didn’t look best pleased. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.
“Waiting for you.”
“Why?”
“You ask that question a lot.”
He reached the spot where she was sitting on a grassy bank and dismounted from his bike, the blocks still strapped to his feet.
“My name’s Padma,” she said, and offered him a hand.
He studied it before giving it the briefest and limpest of shakes.
“Aren’t you going to tell me your name?” she asked.
“It’s Deep.”
�
��Deep,” she repeated. “That means ‘light.’ ”
“You don’t look like a schoolteacher,” he said.
“What do schoolteachers generally look like?”
“The last one was fat and ugly.”
She stood up. “Will you walk with me? I’m afraid of the dark.”
He hesitated. “Why?”
“Don’t you ever ask any other question?”
Deep sat down to take off the wooden blocks and slip on his chappals.
“That bike’s too big for you,” she observed as he pushed it along.
“It belonged to my father.”
“Belonged?”
“He died.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Deep.”
“It doesn’t matter. I live with my uncle.”
“Where’s your mother?”
“She died as well—when I was born.”
They walked on in silence. A sickle moon hung in the sky like a fishhook waiting to entice the mother of all carp.
“What are you doing here?” he asked suddenly.
“Why?” she asked.
He snorted and said in a mocking tone, “Don’t you ever ask any other question?”
Facecream grinned. “I told you, I’m a teacher.”
“Then why are you carrying a knife?” he asked.
Her grin widened. Deep didn’t miss much. “For protection,” she answered.
“Can I see it?”
She reached under her shirt, pulled out her khukuri and unsheathed it. The metal glinted in the moonlight.
“Do you always carry it?” he asked.
“Not always. But most of the time.”
“Have you ever used it?” he asked.
She pushed it back into the scabbard. “Do the Yadav boys bully you a lot?”
“I usually avoid them.”
“Will they be waiting for you tonight?”
“Probably. They’re after money.”
“You could always stay with me if you like. Just for tonight. You could have a wash. The water’s clean. And I’m going to cook a chicken.”
“Chicken?” he repeated lightly with an undertone of pure innocence.
At nine P.M., Puri and the journalist, Vijay, arrived at a large white tent pitched on a dusty field just outside Lucknow. Inside, an audience of Brahmins five hundred strong was engrossed by a performance. Three bare-chested pandits sat on a stage. With saffron scarves draped over their shoulders and white tilaks on their foreheads, the priests blew conch shells and chanted Vedic hymns dating back some 3,500 years.