by Anita Nair
‘I am just so confused. I don’t know what I am saying.’ She turned to him with imploring eyes.
‘Look, do you want me to take you home? I can drop you wherever you want me to,’ he said.
She looked at him again.
He didn’t understand the purport of that gaze. His heart was beating too hard for him to try and figure it out. What would she say?
In the end, they were all the same. Seeking merely to gratify their egos and their pricks. Everything else was an act. For a moment there, she had thought he was different. Like she had thought her Sanjay was.
But even Sanjay had turned out to be a sham. Masquerading as a prince when he was a villain within. His life had been as shadowed by darkness as hers was. And she had thought he was untouched by all that constituted her life. She had thought that here was sweetness, here was perhaps even true love. In the end, he too would have wanted of her what the others did.
She turned to him, her unlikely saviour. Her eyes narrowed as she took him in. The way he stood with his fingers hooked to the waistband of his trousers. His saffron shirt open at the neck. The short hair. The clean-shaven jaw. The glint in his eye. And she realized why he seemed so familiar. She had seen him before. He had accompanied Inspector Gowda. So he was on the prowl, was he? Well, well, well…
Kamakshi smiled at him.
7.04 p.m.
Gowda glanced at his phone every few minutes but it stayed resolutely silent. Where was Santosh, he wondered. Why wasn’t he reporting in?
The rain wasn’t deterring the crowd. Policemen hated evenings like this when even the weather seemed to conspire against them. Every moment was a potential threat to peace. So many lives. So many random acts. A purse snatched. A breast grabbed. A toe stamped upon. An earring lost. Nothing planned or premeditated. Nothing anyone went seeking.
The wireless crackled. A report of an elderly couple found dead in their Koramangala bungalow … a boy missing … a building collapse in Beggars Colony…
Gowda stepped out of the vehicle. The rain had quietened down to a drizzle. ‘I need to leave,’ he told the SI, holding a hand over his head.
‘Sir, we can’t move for another hour at least … the traffic, as you can see…’ the man apologized.
Gowda nodded. He had used the police vehicle to get here. Downright stupid of him. He should have brought his bike and parked it nearby. He could hardly go looking for Santosh on foot.
7.23 p.m.
She seemed to know the way through the maze that was Shivaji Nagar. Santosh followed her, not daring to ask her where they were going.
‘Do you come for the car procession every year?’ she asked. The rain had cooled the night. Santosh wished he had brought his jacket.
‘It’s my first time. And you?’ He stepped around a puddle carefully.
‘Ever since I was four.’ She dimpled at him.
He still hadn’t managed to look at her properly. But even in the patchy light he could see she was pretty. What was her connection with the corporator’s household?
‘Are you going to drop me to an auto stand or all the way?’ she asked suddenly.
‘All the way. I don’t like the look of these streets at night,’ he said, taking in the narrow lanes speckled with rubbish and people, mostly men. He saw a man by the side of the street watching them. A toothpick dangled from his mouth. The man adjusted his crotch and murmured something.
‘It’s not safe for a woman,’ Santosh added.
‘Actually, this is the safest place for a woman to be,’ she said. ‘It’s crowded any time of the day or night and if a woman makes even one sound of distress, there will be at least ten men wanting to know what’s wrong…’
‘Rowdies, all of them.’
‘You sound like a policeman.’ She darted a look at him.
‘I am a … er,’ he began and then changed it to, ‘I am a man. I know how men think!’
Santosh glanced at his watch. He hadn’t been able to text or call Gowda. He must be furious.
‘I need a smoke,’ he said abruptly. ‘Do you mind?’
She paused while he ducked into a petty shop. ‘One India Kings,’ he said, remembering the brand Gowda smoked. As the man pulled out a cigarette, Santosh took his phone out to text Gowda: Following B. At Shivaji Nagar now.
Sensing her at his side, he pressed send and put his phone in his pocket.
He took the cigarette, tapped it against his chin and said, ‘Actually, I’ll smoke it later … I am trying to quit!’
She smiled.
She asked him to find them an autorickshaw. Her house was some distance away. She would direct the driver, she said.
‘You are new to Bangalore, aren’t you?’ she asked.
He smiled wryly. ‘Is it so obvious?’
And then with a certain slyness, he added, ‘Only new to the city!’
She smiled at him and drew her sari pallu around her. She enjoyed this part of the game. The flirtation, the banter. The innuendo. The sidelong glances. The cat-and-mouse game.
In the autorickshaw, their shoulders touched. Sometimes it threw them against each other when it entered or exited a dug-up road. And one time, when it caused their hands to brush, she felt him take hers in his.
‘Do you mind?’ he asked.
Meaning, do you want to fuck?
Yes, she wanted to.
She shook her head shyly. That was part of the game. The kind of men who went for someone like her wanted that. A touch of shyness. A downcast face. A virgin even if she had been fucked silly before. In the end, all men were the same.
7.47 p.m.
Gowda walked up Jumma Masjid Road, weaving through the traffic, and cut into Commercial Street. The shops were all ablaze with light.
If Mamtha saw him now. All these years, he had never accompanied Mamtha any time she had asked him to go with her to Commercial Street. She did her annual shopping before Ugadi and he had always pleaded work as an excuse to extricate himself from what it entailed trailing her from shop to shop, looking for the same item in six different shops, the dithering, the pointless discussions on merits and faults. And yet, here he was, his eyes seeking every face and shop front: Was Santosh here?
He called Santosh again. Not reachable, an electronic voice declared.
Gowda would have to call Urmila.
He would ask her to drive him. She would be game, he knew. Here is your chance to be part of my working life. So don’t ever complain I don’t tell you anything, he would joke.
He could imagine the smile that would appear on her face. He could see her even dress the part. Pulling on jeans and a shirt, slipping her feet into sneakers that had never known a scuff mark. Choosing to take the Scorpio rather than the Audi A4 she drove. This was police work after all.
How much of their relationship was role-playing, he wondered. This thing with him. Was it like slipping into another role? The one that went with meeting an old flame?
He clenched his jaw. He wouldn’t allow his mind to go down that road.
Instead, he began walking towards Kamaraj Road. He would tell her to meet him at the mouth of Commercial Street.
‘What’s wrong?’ Urmila asked a little later.
Gowda shook his head. ‘Nothing, really.’ He shrugged. Then he changed his mind and said, ‘Santosh hasn’t been in contact for the last two hours. And I can’t get through to him.’
‘He is a grown man, Borei.’ Her lips twitched.
‘But an inexperienced investigator. I asked him to trail someone. I shouldn’t have. He could be in trouble.’ Gowda leaned against the dashboard and knocked his head against it gently again and again.
‘Don’t do that. Your nose will start bleeding again. Borei, he’ll be fine. This is Bangalore, after all…’ she said quietly.
‘We were investigating a murder. I should have told Stanley what we were planning. I had no right dragging Santosh into it. And now he’s gone missing,’ Gowda said, still with his head against the dashboard.
<
br /> ‘Where do we go now?’
Gowda straightened. ‘Keep driving. I’ll tell you. I’m going on a mere hunch, you see…’
The road was crowded. All the diverted traffic and the rain hadn’t helped. As they inched their way towards Wheeler Road, in the narrowest part of the road where Sabapathi Lane intersected Kamaraj Road, a small truck laden beyond capacity braked abruptly. One of its back tyres had burst.
There was no room to pull out, so Gowda and Urmila sat in silence while people gathered, scratched their heads and decided what had to be done.
Gowda tried Santosh’s number again. Unreachable.
8.21 p.m.
Santosh felt the breeze whip at his face. Where were they going?
‘You haven’t told me your name,’ he said.
‘Neither have you,’ she replied, throwing him one more of those sidelong glances she specialized in.
‘Santosh Ignatious,’ he improvised.
‘Kamakshi,’ she said.
He frowned. Gowda had said her name was Bhuvana. So she was making up a name as he had. Was he being reckless? If she could lie so easily, she would be capable of anything. Then he saw her finger twist a hanky. And he relaxed. Maybe she was called Kamakshi at home.
‘How far is your home, Kamakshi?’ he asked.
‘Yes, madam, where are we going?’ the auto driver chipped in.
‘Keep going. When you get to Nagawara, I’ll tell you,’ she said.
‘It’s not my home. I live with my brother and his family,’ she said, turning to Santosh. And then, after a pause, ‘You know how that is…’
He nodded.
Gowda was completely wrong about her, he decided.
‘They didn’t want me to come to the car festival, but I didn’t want to break what I had begun … so many years ago,’ she said, and then to the auto driver, ‘turn left.’
The autorickshaw turned into a narrow alley of shops. A huge apartment block loomed above the rest of the buildings in the street.
A pack of dogs stood beside a rubbish bin. Two of them stared at the autorickshaw and chased after it, barking.
‘Bloody nuisance, these dogs!’ the auto driver growled. ‘If you had told me you were coming this far, I wouldn’t have taken the trip!’
‘Stop complaining,’ Santosh snapped. ‘It’s your job!’
‘All very well for you to say that! I am the one who has to return all the way back with an empty backseat!’
‘I’ll take a ride back till the Ring Road. That satisfy you?’ Santosh said, and watched with surprise as she shook her head.
‘But you can’t go. I want you to meet my brother,’ she said.
Santosh hid his smile. This was getting interesting.
Suddenly, he was struck by a thought. What if it was the brother? But why? The murders had been random and not for gain. Could there be a deeper, darker motive? Organ robbery? But all the victims had their kidneys and livers in place…
Santosh remembered Gajendra talking to him of Umesh Reddy. They had been looking at a criminal case together. Of a man whose hands had been hacked by a rowdy. That’s when Gajendra mentioned Jack the Ripper. That was the name the media had given the serial killer. His victims were mostly lower-class women. Robbing their homes after the act was simply his way of misleading the police. He was sick in his head. ‘Pure psychopath. He killed for the sheer pleasure of it. Those are the ones we should fear,’ Gajendra had added as Santosh stared at him in amazement.
Santosh decided he would ask the auto driver to stay. It was also time to let Gowda know where he was.
He pulled his phone out. He saw that his message was still in the outbox. Gowda would be frothing at the mouth, he thought unhappily.
He tried calling Gowda but it wouldn’t go through. It was a low-signal zone. He sent the message again and decided he would key in another one quickly, the moment they reached their destination, wherever that was.
The auto turned another curve and Santosh realized that they had reached the garment factory from the other side.
In the darkness, it stood like a brooding monster from hell. His mouth went dry.
‘Is this where you stay?’ he asked quietly.
‘Don’t be silly. It’s at the end of the lane. My brother’s the watchman.’
‘Who? Manjunath?’
She looked at him curiously. But her tone was flat when she spoke. ‘So you know him.’
‘I met him once,’ Santosh said, cursing under his breath. ‘I came here with the contractor,’ he added.
‘So, you’ve been here before?’
He nodded.
‘Stop,’ she told the auto driver. He obliged with a screech of brakes.
‘I’ll take care of it,’ Santosh said.
He got out and waited for her.
‘Here,’ he said, drawing a hundred-rupee note from his wallet. ‘I’ll pay you a hundred when I get back as waiting charge. Just fifteen minutes. I’ll be back before that.’
The auto driver looked at the note. He took it between two fingers. ‘Fifteen minutes.’
She led the way. He followed, punching the keys on his phone. Garment factory.
She turned and smiled. ‘This is a no-signal zone … you’ll have to wait to get back to the main road for your phone to work.’
Santosh saw the message had gone. So he smiled and said nothing. He couldn’t have even if he wanted to. His tongue seemed to be stuck to the roof of his mouth.
She knew he had been here before. She knew he had recognized the factory. She knew he was walking behind her, reining in his fear. This was a new thing. Usually, the fear factor came at the end, when they knew what she had decided for them. But this was even better. Fear from the start.
Had he known from the moment he had seen her and had he been playing along? Or had he realized only now? She would ask him in a bit. He would tell her. Fear would prod his mouth open and form the words. Fear made people do many things.
She opened a gate and led him in. ‘I don’t think anyone’s home,’ she said. ‘I wonder where they went…’
He didn’t speak. She could sense the way he held himself, in readiness for whatever swung in to attack him.
‘Listen, I have the key to the side room in the factory. If we go in, I can switch the lights on. I could wait there till my brother comes. You can leave. No point in keeping the auto waiting,’ she said.
‘Here,’ she continued, fishing out a key from her bag and handing it to him.
She held up the phone so he could see the keyhole in its light.
She watched him wrestle with the lock. It took only ten seconds to pull the sock-wrapped ball from her bag and another ten seconds to swing it at his skull.
A fierce crack, a soft thud, the perfect note of a ball struck.
He crumpled to the floor.
9.10 p.m.
Gowda’s phone beeped. He stared at the screen. ‘Just as I thought,’ he said. ‘He’s with her.’
‘But where did they go?’ Urmila asked, negotiating yet another speed breaker on the road.
The rattle of metal against metal. Gowda craned his neck curiously. ‘What’s in the back?’
Urmila’s mouth twitched, ‘My golf kit. I played at the BGC this morning.’
‘Good game?’ Gowda asked. He didn’t know a thing about golf and didn’t even know if it was appropriate to use the word ‘game’.
‘All right … my usual caddy was unwell so I had an old relic. Ijas. He wouldn’t stop talking. According to him, he was not just caddy, but conscience keeper too, to everyone who is anyone in this city.’
‘What does a caddy do? Doesn’t he just lug the clubs around?’ Gowda’s eyes were on the traffic as he spoke.
‘That he does … but he is also someone who has insights about the course and can tell me how to play it best, given my handicap.’
Gowda licked his lips. He didn’t understand a word of what she was saying.
‘By the way, he said something very inte
resting. Did you know that your Corporator Ravikumar used to be a caddy at the BGC? Ijas took him in as an apprentice.’
Gowda felt his head spin. Everything around him seemed to slip away.
The missing bit in the jigsaw. There before him all along and he hadn’t seen it. He had known that Corporator Ravikumar had once been called Caddy Ravi but he hadn’t ever asked why.
The eunuchs in the house. The pearl earring. The Scorpio parked at the corporator’s home. The Ravi Varma prints. The counterfeit currency. The old factory. The fractured skulls. Ranganathan many years ago, and then the more recent victims. What had Dr Khan said? And later Dr Reddy?
The pattern almost always resembles the weapon used. Something heavy, with a small striking surface, was used to inflict a tangential blow. It’s a localized fracture. Enough to disorient a man. Something hard, small and rounded … a hammer would splinter the surface differently. Imagine a coconut being swung against a man’s head. But this isn’t anything as big as a coconut. A ball of some sort is my initial reading…
A golf ball as a cosh. Someone who knew the exact force required to inflict injury. A weapon that could be easily hidden in a handbag when the murderer set out seeking her victim.
The corporator would never pass as a woman, no matter how much he tried. At best, he would be a mannish woman. But his younger brother. That little runt with his smooth cheeks, dainty steps and diamond earrings. He would make an alluring woman. The educated brother who saw himself as one of the women in the Ravi Varma prints he favoured. The pearl earrings were his. That was who Bhuvana was: small, lethal and perfectly trained to throw a man twice his height and weight.
Fuck, fuck, fuck … why hadn’t he seen it? Fucking rum had addled his brains. He was never going to drink again. And Santosh was with her now, god knows where. He had to find the boy before she…
His phone beeped again. He stared at the message and said, ‘Fuck!’
‘What?’ Urmila asked.
‘Can you make this go any faster? That bloody fool’s with her at the factory. God knows what she’ll do to him before we get there…’
Urmila pressed her big toe down on the accelerator. The speedometer swung up. ‘Faster?’ she asked.