“No, men. Apparently Cinasat was also studying hooniyam.”
Duncan leaned forward. “Jotipala said the same thing.”
After he’d recounted what Jotipala had said, Shalini said, “That fits with what I found out. That’s why Minowa quit the company. Not only because she was unhappy about the ethics, the way all the research was being done. She got frightened after they started talking to the kattadiyas.”
Grace was frowning. “About what?”
“Something to do with the marketing strategy,” Shalini said. “They’ve been trying to find out how kattadiyas do hooniyam. Cinasat people don’t believe in spirits, all that, obviously. They think what kattadiyas do is manipulate what people believe. Minowa said what Cinasat is trying to do is get ideas about how to do the same thing to market Symb86. Also for marketing other drugs.”
“I don’t get it,” Grace said. “How would hooniyam . . . ?”
Duncan whistled. “The nocebo effect. They’re trying to make people believe they’re sick. They’re probably not focusing on the specific things kattadiyas do. They must be looking at how kattadiyas communicate with people.”
“Exactly,” Shalini said. “They think what the kattadiyas are doing is somehow hypnotizing people into thinking that they are sick.”
“My God. You think that was what the video was doing?” Grace said. “That man going on about . . .” She turned to Shalini. “I told you, there was a man talking about how hot he was feeling, and how he couldn’t bear it, how he had to jump into the water. Going on and on. And there was this drum in the background.”
“I think I might have been in some sort of trance,” Duncan said. “It was like I was dreaming. It was definitely different than just watching a regular commercial. I thought . . . I could feel . . . It was like I was that guy.”
“It must have been that bloody drumming,” Shalini said. “We could hear it near Jotipala’s room.”
“Couldn’t have only been that,” Grace said. “You heard it, I heard it. We didn’t want to jump off a cliff. It must have been the whole package. The visuals, the words. There was some chanting or murmuring in the background also. And the fact that you watched it over and over, Duncan.” She turned back, her face anguished. “My God. What if we hadn’t got there in time?”
Duncan squeezed her shoulder. How could he have been so deluded? He couldn’t explain it.
“Minowa said they wanted to use this research—from studying the kattadiyas and also the thovil—to make ads,” Shalini said.
“But killing people isn’t going to help them sell drugs,” Duncan said.
“Maybe they get people to feel they’re having some problem, and then offer their bloody drugs as treatment,” Shalini said.
“Get people to take a drug to feel better instead of jumping into the water?” Duncan said. “You watch the ad over and over on TV, and then you go out and buy the drug? Go and ask your doctor for the drug?” Was that really what Cinasat was trying to do?
“What a way to sell Symb86,” Shalini said. “A drug that doesn’t do anything. Convince people they have problems. And then convince them their nonexistent problems will be fixed by a bogus drug.”
“What madness,” Grace said.
If he hadn’t felt the effects of the video, he would have thought the idea was ridiculous, Duncan thought. Had they really been working on this? “What proof do we have?”
“Bits and pieces,” Shalini said. “There’s a lot we don’t know. I don’t know if we have enough to pin anyone specific down. The ones in control. Hammond. Bentley.”
“We don’t have any proof Bent is involved,” Grace said. “He wouldn’t have risked Janie.”
Duncan thought over what had happened. “She wasn’t really in danger at any point. If Bent was the one who sent us there . . . The house was guarded by police. She was always with me. If he thought I would take care of her . . . And Hammond only brought the gun out after he had sent her outside with Karuna. It could have all been choreographed to make it look like she was in danger. Which would make it look like he couldn’t be involved.”
Grace shook her head. “I can’t imagine that he would be involved,” she said. “It’s just not plausible. What if he was only a pawn himself?”
52
GRACE
Tuesday
They’d gone over and over what they knew, trying to understand. Now they’d entered the Colombo city limits, and everyone had fallen silent. The others were as exhausted as she was, Grace saw.
“Almost there. Good thing we came this way,” she said. “Traffic is a bit better.” Cars were weaving past each other, honking and crossing lanes. A blue bus bulging with passengers raced past, a trio of teenage school boys in white shirts and trousers with dusty knees cheering lustily on the footboard. One of them had only one foot on the bus, the other dangling precariously in the air.
Shalini turned onto Bauddhaloka Mawatha. Grace felt comforted by the familiarity of the place, by the enormous old trees canopying the road, the lush ferns at the edge of the broad brick pavements, the whitewashed garden walls surrounding the buildings they were passing. At the Thunmulla roundabout, they turned onto Havelock Road, where the traffic was heavier. The number of tuk-tuks on the road must have doubled since the last time they’d been in Colombo, Grace thought. There were more billboards than she remembered, competing aggressively with the araliya trees that graced the roadside here and there. She looked out at the pedestrians oblivious to the heat and the blazing sunlight and realized how much she missed being among them. She sighed as they turned down Gamini Lane and moved past a bend in the road. She was ready to be home, to be done with the horror of this whole situation.
“What is this?” Shalini said, her voice rising in alarm.
Grace whipped her head around to see that a wooden barrier had been set up across Gamini Lane. A black police car was parked beside it. Three khaki-uniformed, armed officers stood there, their caps pulled low.
“Haven’t seen this since the war ended,” Duncan said.
“May be for us,” Shalini hissed. “Could be a problem.”
“Just act normal,” Grace said. “We haven’t done anything.”
“What can they do? We’re just by Havelock Road!” Duncan said.
“How far is it to your parents’ place?” Shalini said.
“Less than a quarter mile,” Grace said. The officers were moving toward the car, hands held up. She heard a motorbike arrive from the direction of Havelock Road. It slowed down to a chug, its helmeted driver craning his neck inquisitively to look inside the car and then at the road block.
One of the officers, a fleshy-jowled man with light skin, stepped up to the bike. “The lane is closed. No traffic,” he said, waving the rider off. The rider turned the bike around and puttered back toward Havelock Road.
“Where are you going, miss?” another officer said in Sinhala. He was middle-aged and stocky, with a bushy mustache shadowing his lips. He bent to look through the window, his eyes stony.
“Just down the lane,” Shalini said.
“Your name?”
Shalini hesitated. “Shalini Samaraweera,” she said.
“Identity card?”
While the officer was examining the identity card, the third officer peered through the passenger-side window. He was a younger, muscular man, with a nose that looked as though it had once been broken. “Your identity card?”
“I’m a US citizen,” Grace said. “Also my husband.”
“Passports?”
Grace handed over her passport and said Duncan didn’t have his. The officers joined forces, conferring. Grace cracked her window to hear.
“I’ll give a call,” the older one muttered. “Get them out.”
“I’ll block the lane off,” the fleshy-jowled one said. He swaggered off toward Havelock Road.
Grace could see her own anxiety reflected in Shalini’s and Duncan’s faces. “What do we do?” she said.
“Doesn�
��t matter if we have to go to the station,” Duncan said. “They can’t do anything. You can call Ragu from there.”
“What if they’re not taking us to the station?” Shalini said. “Who knows where?”
“Kindly get out,” the younger officer said, his hand on the door. Grace locked it and rolled the window down a couple of inches. “What’s the problem?” she said. “We’re going to my parents’ house, just down the lane here.”
“Get out of the car,” the older officer said. The handle clanged as he yanked it. He tapped on Shalini’s window, one hand on his gun.
Grace covered her mouth with her hand. “Just go through,” she muttered. “We’re so close. Ragu Uncle will be there.”
Duncan leaned forward. He cupped his hands around his mouth so that the officers couldn’t see. “Accelerate hard.”
The officer on Grace’s side yanked the handle again. He was raising his hand to thump the window when Shalini put the car into drive and revved. The car shot forward and tore through the barrier with an explosive crack. Grace caught a glimpse of the older officer’s face, his eyes wide, his mouth open. He began running toward the car. When she turned back a few seconds later, she saw to her horror that he was aiming his gun. The barrel was long and black.
“Oh my God! He’s shooting!” she shouted. “Duncan, duck! Duck!”
A muffled crack sounded, and then two others, followed by the sound of shattering glass. Shalini screamed. The car veered off to the left and slammed into a lamppost. Grace’s head whipped back. When she turned, she saw that Duncan was crumpled in the back seat, blood on his face. Shalini was clutching her side, looking dazed, and blood was oozing from between her fingers.
“Oh my God, you got hit?” Grace shouted, looking from her to Duncan. “Duncan, Duncan, are you okay?”
He nodded, staring at his bloody hands. Behind him, through the glassless back window, Grace could see the older officer running toward them, his gun aimed. On their left was the high red wall of the Immaculate Heart Church. On the other side, a gray garden wall obscured the view of the house owned by the Rodrigos. They’d been away for weeks, visiting their daughters in Australia, Grace knew. The other nearby houses could be unoccupied at this time on a weekday, she realized.
Shalini was turning the key on and off, her face panicked. “Nothing. Not moving.” She grabbed her purse and threw it at Grace. “The phone! Call your parents!”
Grace thrust her hand into the purse, scrabbling around for the phone. She grabbed it and tried to dial, her hands shaking. The older officer was almost at the car, shouting, “Get out of the car! Now!”
The younger officer was getting into the police car.
Grace could hear herself shouting something, she didn’t know what. She managed to dial the number. “Ma! Ma!” Grace said, as soon as her mother picked up the phone. “Come outside! Now, with Ragu Uncle! Around the bend.”
“What? What are you—”
The phone beeped, signaling its imminent death. The police car with the younger officer was speeding toward them.
“Ma, no time! Come out! We’re in the lane. Now, now! Run!” Grace found herself shouting.
The officer on foot reached through the open back window and unlocked the back door. He pulled it open and seized Duncan by the shoulder. “Out! Now!” he yelled. The car rocked as Duncan struggled, and then there was a thump as he landed on the ground by the car.
The police car screeched to a halt beside them, and the officer on foot pulled open its door. He hauled Duncan to his feet.
“What, what!” There was a clang as Nalini dropped the phone. Her voice came to Grace faintly, shouting, “Lionel! Come, come! Now, we have to go!” Something thudded.
Grace thrust her door open. “Wait, wait!” she shouted as she leapt out. She heard Shalini shouting something, and the driver’s side door banging. The police officer had shoved Duncan into the back seat of the police car, and now he grabbed Grace’s arm, hauling her forward. She could hear herself screaming.
Just then, there was a clang up ahead and her parents’ voices shouting, “Grace! Grace?” A young man appeared in a khaki police uniform, sprinting. Running behind him was Ragu, followed by her mother, stumbling in a sari, and her father, wearing a white undershirt and holding up the end of his sarong with one hand. A police jeep with three uniformed officers accelerated around the bend behind them.
The officer who had seized Grace by the arm dropped his hand as the police jeep screeched to a halt beside them.
“What the bloody hell is this?” Ragu roared at the officer, his face outraged.
“Aney, aney!” Nalini screamed. “Blood? What happened?”
“Not my blood, Ma,” Grace said. “They were trying to abduct us,” she said to Ragu. “They shot at us.” She could see the confusion on his face. There was going to be a lot of explaining to do. As Ragu turned to the officer in the driver’s seat of the police car, shouting orders, she got back into their own car to help Shalini out. The lamppost obstructed the driver’s door, leaving a gap too narrow for an exit. Duncan had already climbed out of the police car, the blood on his face adding to the panic.
“What the hell is going on?” Lionel was saying, panting. He propped himself against the hood of the Nissan and clutched his chest.
53
DUNCAN
Tuesday
Duncan laid his head against the sofa back, listening to the chaos of voices in the sitting room. Leela, the elderly cook, was sponging the blood off his forehead, her kindly face bent over him. She had picked out the bits of glass. He felt too drained to join in the explanations. The French windows were open. Leela had removed his glasses, and his vision was a little blurry. He looked out at the sunlight playing on the fronds of the dwarf coconut palm outside, their green iridescent. Croton bushes flamed with color. The jasmine was in flower, its fragrance drifting in through the windows. The air was a little smoky with the bonfire the gardener had going. He was burning some branches that smelled faintly sweet. How had the whole mess happened here in Sri Lanka? How could they have been shot at in the middle of Colombo? In the middle of the day?
Grace had been trying to explain how Cinasat was involved. Duncan realized how unbelievable their story sounded.
“Big drug company, Western fellows, what do they want with hooniyam?” Ragu said, his head cocked inquisitively. He had barely aged since Duncan had last seen him. His hairline might have receded a little, and he had lost a bit of weight, but he still looked fit in his khaki uniform.
Lionel was frowning. He was still in his undershirt. Duncan had never seen his father-in-law so underdressed. “Marketing strategy? What kind of nonsense is that?”
“What, they are going to take kattadiyas to the States?” Nalini said, wrapping a bandage around Shalini’s waist.
“No, Ma,” Grace said, sounding impatient. “They’ve been studying what kattadiyas do. Seeing how the kattadiyas frighten people into thinking that they’re sick.”
“Even our black magic, the Westerners have a way of explaining,” Nalini said, her lips twisted sarcastically.
“Not only explaining, using,” Shalini said.
“This is all nonsense,” Lionel said. “They can’t use it. Westerners don’t believe in all this. You have to believe in it for it to work.”
Ragu loosened the collar of his uniform. “Frightening people? That’s not what happens,” he said. Then casting an embarrassed glance at Duncan, he said, “At least that is not what people think happens. I’m not saying I believe in all this. But what other people think is that the kattadiya calls on the spirits to attack someone. The person doesn’t have to know that the kattadiya has put a spell to get sick!” He looked around defensively. “Someone recently put a spell on one of my sergeants, Kotawatte. He had been having severe stomach pains. He saw plenty of Western doctors—he’s not some villager. But nothing wrong. Then he got a kattadiya to come, and that fellow found a charm buried right under the front doorstep. Kotawatte
was very upset. He was convinced that his neighbor had hexed him—he and this neighbor fellow had a longtime feud over the boundary between their properties.”
“Did the kattadiya do something?” Nalini said.
“He did a ceremony, lime cutting, all of that,” Ragu said. “Then a little while later, Kotawatte was fine. But the neighbor got ill. Kotawatte is one hundred percent sure that is because the spirits attacked the fellow. That is what the spirits do when the spell backfires. That is why misfortune affects the one who put the charm.”
“Spirits . . . demons . . . Cinasat people aren’t interested in all that,” Shalini said.
This was not going to make sense unless they explained a whole lot more, Duncan thought. For now, they needed to explain only the basics to get the police investigation started and to charge Hammond. He sat up. “Do we have enough to go on for the investigation?”
Ragu shook his head. “I’ve got the Criminal Investigation Department involved now. They will get Shalini’s records. But my fellow there”—he pointed down the garden path to the driveway, where several police officers were gathered—“he said no one was found at the Maya. Galle, Colombo, everyone is searching for this Hammond fellow. He won’t be able to leave the country in a hurry, but we’re going to need more to charge him for Salgado. And Bentley Hyland is also missing.”
“Just thought of something,” Shalini said. “I know what we can do to get the information.” She sat up, wincing, and gathered her sari pota, her bangles tinkling.
54
GRACE
Tuesday
They were making the call from Nalini’s study. The swaying leaves of the lady palm tree cast dark vibrating shadows over the lily pads floating in the small pond outside. Through the open windows, Grace could hear music from the church. The evening Mass was being celebrated, with the youth choir and the rock band that the young priest there had encouraged. The drums were loud. There was a breeze blowing in, making the chimes hanging by the study window ring like ankle bells. The gardener’s bonfire was petering out, but a little sweet-smelling smoke was still in the air.
The Mask Collectors Page 29