Sea of Innocence

by Desai, Kishwar

  ‘And what happened to her afterwards?’

  ‘Don’t know.’

  He seemed to have decided that he had given us enough information. I couldn’t press too hard; I didn’t want to scare him away.

  ‘Do you know where she could be?’ I asked gently.

  He shook his head.

  ‘How well do you know Marian?’

  He frowned and then shrugged.

  ‘Do you really hold her responsible for getting you locked up? You know she says she did not go to the police.’

  He looked away. But surprisingly, at this moment he didn’t seem as angry with her as I had imagined he would be. He might have learnt, after coming out from jail, that she had been trapped into a fake drug charge and used for a variety of purposes.

  She had been cheated and lied to, just as he had been. They were both victims, weren’t they?

  ‘Do you think she has also carried drugs for Fernando? Or Vinay Gupta?’

  He said nothing. His aunt had alluded to the possibility of their involvement in the smuggling, but whether it actually happened would be difficult to prove.

  ‘Did you want to save Liza from that life?’

  He nodded, and a strange expression crossed his face. It was like a flash of sudden anger, and I was taken aback.

  ‘I try but she no listen.’

  The anger that I had been warned about strengthened his voice suddenly. The softness had been replaced by a furious and unsettling tone.

  I felt Dennis look at me with concern. For a moment I was confused.

  Was his oppressed demeanour a facade? Had he hurt Liza because she had betrayed him by allowing Vinay Gupta to seduce her? By taking too many drugs?

  Had the police been right after all and Vishnu was involved in her disappearance?

  I pushed these thoughts away, and tried to sound as conciliatory as possible.

  ‘But she thanked you. Gave you that book.’

  He shrugged. ‘She change. Not good.’

  He stood up and slung the rucksack he had come with over his shoulder. ‘I go now.’

  ‘Vishnu, Liza was . . . no, is,’ I corrected myself quickly, ‘is your friend. Friends stick with each other in difficult times. Please don’t abandon her. Don’t give up on her. I want to find her and I think you can help me. Do stay for just a few more minutes.’

  He shrugged, and when Dennis held out his hand, Vishnu reluctantly shook it, and sat down as though a compact had been made. I noticed he sat back with a little more ease. We were finally getting through to him, though I still didn’t dare to ask him about the first video I had received from Amarjit with Curtis in it.

  I carried on, feeling slightly less worried about my ruthless interrogation.

  ‘Have you ever been on the Tempest?’

  He remained silent, without looking at either of us.

  ‘And Vinay Gupta, the minister? What do you think of him? He owns the place, doesn’t he? And lots of shacks on the beach, too.’

  He seemed to want to say something, but then changed his mind.

  ‘What did you think of Vinay Gupta anyway? Was he too friendly with Liza?’ I repeated the question again, though with a different emphasis.

  ‘Don’t know him well,’ he said finally.

  ‘But you’ve been on the Tempest?’

  Again he wouldn’t speak. I wondered about his reticence. Thus far he had tried to cooperate. Now he simply wouldn’t say anything.

  ‘Your aunt said you had met Vinay Gupta. That he came looking for you.’

  Giving up, I decided that shock value might be better. ‘Alright,’ I said, ‘I want to show you this video, and please don’t run away this time.’ I deliberately put a lighter note in my voice. I played just the opening sequences of Liza dancing along with the other boys.

  He shifted uncomfortably, but Dennis patted his arm to reassure him. It seemed to help, because he sighed, and though he barely seemed to look at it – possibly it was one of the ‘bad’ things that he did not want to remember about Liza – or did he already know what it contained?

  ‘Do you recognize the people in the video? Who are these other boys with Liza?’

  He jumped up. Again without admitting anything.

  ‘Do you know what happened here?’

  ‘I go now.’

  ‘Were you at this party?’ I asked persistently.

  Shaking his head, he went for the door.

  Dennis leapt to his feet as well.

  At least tell us if you know what kind of phone this would have been shot on?’ Dennis asked, trying to block his exit. But in a fiercely determined fashion Vishnu stood at the door with his back to us.

  ‘Open the door. I go,’ he said.

  ‘Wait, Vishnu – when do we meet again?’ I pleaded.

  He left without saying a word.

  Dennis looked at me, and I could feel the empathy flowing between us. Strange. I hadn’t known him till two days ago and now I felt he understood only too well this terrible situation I found myself in.

  ‘That was a gruelling session. We didn’t learn anything about the phone, but I think you managed to get some information out of him. The problem is that he has to still live among the same people who ruined his life. He was obviously very fond of Liza. Can’t even bear to look at her picture now.’

  ‘All of us keep on using the past tense for Liza, you know. I’m worried about that. I don’t know where this girl could possibly be.’

  We decided to walk back to my hotel, so I could grab a change of clothes, and then I suggested that we call Marian one last time and find out if there were any further developments. Or if she would tell us about Vinay Gupta’s ruthless seduction of her sister. I still hoped she might drop a hint.

  As we passed the spot where Scarlett Keeling’s body had been found one morning five years ago, I realized that it was a forlorn hope.

  Chapter 12

  Reaching my hotel, I immediately called Marian, but unlike her prompt response last time she didn’t pick up her phone. I wondered if, ironically, she was in an astrology session. Though, of course, one might argue that it was very strange the stars hadn’t revealed the truth to her about her sister.

  By now it was nearly afternoon and while Dennis went for a swim, I remained in my room to make notes about what we had found out so far. A hazy picture of what could have happened was emerging, and I needed to clinch the final details.

  My mind wandered to Liza’s mother, and I was intrigued by how both she and Stanley had been written out of the story. I hadn’t even thought of meeting Stanley, as I had assumed, from what Marian had told me, that he was completely detached from his younger daughter’s life. Liza’s mother was still in London, and apparently hadn’t been told about her daughter’s disappearance. A young girl had been missing for a whole year, without anyone, even her parents, being aware of where she could be. It all seemed to have been very meticulously planned. And it had been Marian who had made sure no one found out about it, till she decided to go to the police. More and more curious.

  I remembered that Marian had said that she had been advised by Amarjit to not tell her parents about it, and that she sent an occasional email to her mother so that she would not worry.

  But now that there was no need to take Amarjit’s wishes into account – he had withdrawn from the case – had Marian informed her mother? And had her father been told anything at all? After all, he lived in Goa and even if he didn’t care, someone would have mentioned the case of his missing daughter to him by now, surely?

  This silence was strange. Possibly she hadn’t even told the High Commission.

  Once the police had assured her Liza was safe, was this silence necessary at all, or was it also part of the bargain she had made? Or could there be still more to this case, something I still didn’t know? Surely it was silly, after all that had happened, to just accept the police version that Liza was safe and would return in the near future.

  I knew that if Durga disappeared
like this I would be on a rampage, despite the fact that I’m not a very interfering or possessive mother. Or so I hoped.

  Perhaps it was time I had another serious conversation with Marian, and asked her some more tough questions. Obviously I had let her off too easily the last time, distracted by the two men who had been following her, worrying for her safety.

  At the very least I would try to persuade her that she must keep the pressure on the police and ask them to produce some hard evidence of Liza’s safety.

  I sent a message to Dennis telling him that I was going to walk around this beach and the next one, to try to find Marian, because she had again failed to respond to my calls or messages. Failing which, I would go down to the ‘jungle’ and try to talk to Stanley and get Marian’s home address. She had promised to text it to me but she still hadn’t done it and Amarjit hadn’t replied to my email asking for it.

  No doubt Dennis was still swimming and so he wouldn’t see my message till later. Which was okay, as we had already agreed to meet for a late lunch at Yankee Doodle (the name never failed to make me smile). It was such an aberration on a beach on which the shacks mostly had Goan names.

  I walked onto the beach, still preoccupied with Marian’s contradictory behaviour and the impact it had had on Liza’s life. Apart from the indifference she had faced from Marian and Stanley in Goa, she’d had other things to worry about: she was a young pretty girl, left more or less to her own devices, on a beach that was far from safe.

  I thought of her being sexually assaulted by the boys, and then the rape, and her molestation by Vinay Gupta. It was strange that Marian seemed to have little idea about any of the incidents, and denied having even registered the case against Vishnu. According to Marian, her involvement only began after she and Liza had their drinks spiked at Fernando’s.

  I didn’t know why I found it so difficult to be sympathetic towards her, but I wished she had shown some more spirit or interest in finding Liza, instead of telling me to back off (albeit politely). She claimed a connection with the police, which was how she got the latest information about Liza, but that too was a contradiction. She had been conned by one set of policemen, only to become romantically involved with the brother of another cop. It made no sense.

  Even if I were being very kind towards her, she seemed dishonest and indifferent towards everything except her own survival and getting her passport back. I could not suppress my antipathy.

  My questions for her had still not decreased, despite our fairly cordial lunch the other day. I wondered if she had any of the answers. Was the minister she had mentioned as being present the night Liza disappeared, Vinay Gupta? And was this latest clip taken at the party she had attended with Liza at Fernando’s? And if this was the case, had she herself done the recording? After all, she wasn’t in the video. While appearing to share information, was Marian actually concealing a lot from me?

  With rising excitement I realized that I might have found the answer at last. Could Marian have been spying on her sister throughout. Did she want to get rid of her? Was that why she appeared so indifferent to Liza’s fate? I called Marian again but she still did not pick up her phone, so I sent her another urgent message. She was back to her old ways.

  I wondered if Marian or Stanley could give me Liza’s email address and password. If we found some emails they might shed some light on her job offer and possibly her relationship with Vinay Gupta. I remembered that Marian had mentioned that Liza was intending to meet her future boss that evening at Fernando’s, and perhaps get a job in a travel agency. Could that mysterious boss have been Vinay Gupta, who had multiple interests and businesses? The pieces were definitely falling into place.

  While walking around the beach, I thought of other unsolved cases of young girls who had died in Goa, and hoped we would be able to find Liza alive, though the possibility looked more and more remote. But at least we would know what happened to her and perhaps ensure some penalty for those who had made her life hell, and exploited her so mercilessly.

  At least in Delhi, thanks to the street protests by women’s groups and relentless media pressure, the six men who had raped the 23-year-old woman in the bus had been arrested. Perhaps things were beginning to change.

  But I also knew that the record of the Goa police in nabbing criminals was not exactly glowing.

  I was reminded of the murder of a Russian girl who had been found on a train track leading to Mumbai a few years ago, with her throat cut and her arm hacked off. Strangely the police concluded that she had abandoned her friends on a whim on the night of her death, and boarded a train to Mumbai. And then she had fallen off while leaning out of the train to smoke a cigarette. When that theory was trashed in the media, it was suggested that she had actually committed suicide, and her throat was slit and arm cut off when she leapt from the train and somehow got under the wheels. Regardless of the fact that it would have required extreme and improbable gymnastic skills to have achieved that.

  Like Liza, this girl was strong, healthy, robust. Making plans for the future. Not the kind of girl who wanted to come to Goa to die. But in Liza’s case the mystery deepened further, because nothing had been found to prove whether she was alive or dead.

  Despondent and increasingly pessimistic, I had walked the whole length of the beach; but Marian was nowhere to be seen. I stopped and asked a few people who might have known her as Astrologer Anne, but they said she hadn’t been around all morning. Nor could they give me her address.

  From a distance I saw Veeramma and her group with a couple of tourists.

  I waved at her but gave them a wide berth. It was pointless asking someone who hated Marian with such ferocity. Even if Marian’s story about Veeramma’s involvement in trapping unsuspecting tourists was untrue, the animosity between them was obvious. I could do without any further complications in this case.

  I called Marian again but now her phone was switched off. It was coming up to 1 o’clock and I was getting more and more irritated with her, thinking it was typical of her to behave so selfishly, and not answer or call back. Surely she would understand that there was something urgent I needed to discuss with her if I had called so many times.

  Sighing with frustration, I walked down to the banyan tree where I had witnessed the hippie reunion, and where Stanley still ‘hung out’ after forty years. I wished Dennis was with me, because even though the ‘jungle’ looked harmless in the morning, I was still preoccupied with thoughts of so many young women being raped every day. Those who died were quickly forgotten, while their murderers roamed free – and those who lived were often ostracized by society.

  Fortunately, I found the path through the jungle much more easily this morning, and it definitely was well trodden, large enough to accommodate scooters and motorcycles. However there were far fewer people around today, and just a couple of individuals emerged from the direction of the banyan tree. They waved at me as they passed, and I raised both hands with ‘V signs to radiate peace and love on earth, feeling a bit silly, trying to look like I belonged.

  Around me the greenery seemed soft and friendly. And yet, from my research, I knew this particular stretch could be terribly dangerous. The ‘accidental death’ of another young couple had taken place somewhere around here, too. Media reports did reveal later that the boy had probably been killed by a lethal blow to his head, while the girl was sexually assaulted and then murdered. But the matter was quickly disposed of by the police, with the rather imaginative explanation that the couple had simply been ‘struck by lightning’.

  By now I had reached the banyan tree, but there was no sign of either Stanley or Marian. In fact, there was no one around at all. Not even a single groupie. The place was completely deserted and a morgue-like silence surrounded it.

  The banyan tree, with its lovely long smooth pale-brown roots descending into the earth from ancient branches, looked like a dramatic sculpture against the morning sky, a strange architectural grid from which grew flags and posters bearing
antinuclear and greening-the-earth slogans. Chinks of the sky shone through the thick foliage above, and even though it had been a hot afternoon, I could feel the damp cool of the undergrowth, thick and messy as it crept around my feet.

  The circular cement platform around the tree was bare today, barring a little steel box and a hookah. No one seemed to have touched these for a while. The guitar was not to be seen, either – perhaps it was kept somewhere else. I had a feeling Stanley only came here for effect, and he probably lived in a proper flat somewhere. Stupidly, I remembered that Marian had mentioned that she had a home in this area. She had also said she would text me the address and call me over, while we had chatted in the coffee shop, but she never did. Foolish of me to have believed her.

  The silence around me grew more dense.

  It was no longer friendly or serene, and a shiver of fear ran through me. I wondered if it had been sensible to come here alone. The sound of the crickets and the birds seemed to get louder and louder.

  I told myself to stop imagining things. After all, I knew that if I shouted out, somebody would wake up from a drug haze and stumble out of the jungle wondering at the noise. But even that thought didn’t make me laugh.

  I got onto the platform to see if there was anything which could give a clue to Stanley or Marian’s whereabouts. But there were only the steel box, the hookah and the love-and-peace posters.

  The breeze blew and the leaves rustled loudly, sounding like the swish of an expensive silk saree, and it reinforced my sense of loneliness. My footsteps were unnaturally loud, and as I walked around the tree and to a nearby little stream which ran through the jungle, each crunch of the fallen twigs under my feet reminded me of the words ‘accidental death’. The boulders here would easily crush anyone’s head. As a burial place it was perfect. This was one of the best spots in the area to get rid of an overenthusiastic and nosy social worker.