‘Go on.’
‘Sal and I asked the cabbie to take Nimmy straight home. We got off at Bank. On the DLR from Bank, Sal called Nimmy to check if he was okay. I don’t think that call went through. We thought his phone ran out of juice.’
‘How could you be so stupid?’ I hissed.
‘Sorry?’
‘Your friend is sloshed and you just leave him alone in a cab?’
‘Well, Nimmy said he’d be fine and …’
‘You should know better than to let a cabbie drop him home or listen to a drunken friend who’s blathering on about conquering the world. What’s wrong with you guys?’
‘Look, Sandy,’ Carl said. ‘I had a conference call at nine-thirty with folks in New York. I had to get home soon.’
I sighed. ‘I … Well, all right, Carl. Thanks.’
‘No problem. Let me know how Nimmy’s doing, all right?’
‘Will do. And call me if you remember any other details, okay?’
Carl grunted. ‘Sure.’
I hung up and stared at Nimmy. He seemed to be nodding off to sleep.
I looked at Ritchie. ‘Ritch?’ I whispered.
Ritchie had his head in his hands. He seemed equally exhausted. ‘Hmm?’
‘Nimmy said he was being followed,’ I began anxiously. ‘But that’s about all he said. I really don’t know if that’s related to the threatening email I got today, though.’
‘It looks like he’s been hallucinating, San,’ Ritchie said. ‘But we can’t rule out any possibilities now.’
I closed my eyes to blot out the cumulative effects of stress and exhaustion now settling in my chest.
Ritchie’s phone buzzed. ‘Yes?’ he barked. ‘Yes, we’re in here … no, he can’t … that would be just fine, thanks.’ He looked at me. ‘We’ll soon know what the hell happened to him.’
Two A&E paramedics barreled in with an apologetic look at the cashier who looked on, stunned. Nimmy opened his eyes weakly and began flailing his arms wildly in his semi-conscious state as they strapped him into a collapsible gurney.
‘Is he having trouble breathing?’ one of the paramedics inquired, raising the head of the gurney.
‘He’s been gasping for breath.’ I launched into a brief description of what had most likely happened that evening.
‘Looks like his drinks were spiked,’ one of them said gravely as they began to wheel Nimmy outside.
My stomach churned. Spiked?
Ritchie sat in the front of the ambulance, while I climbed in the back with Nimmy and the A&E support crew. The medics checked Nimmy’s vital signs and tested his blood sugar and blood pressure. ‘His BP and blood glucose are on the lower side,’ one whispered to the other.
‘Just give me the numbers,’ the other snapped.
‘The BP’s eighty-six/fifty, BG sixty-one.’
‘That settles it then.’
Nimmy screamed as one of the medics promptly ran an IV on him and put him on saline and glucose.
‘I’m right here, darling,’ I said, squeezing his other hand as the ambulance hurtled down the road, its sirens wailing ominously.
An hour later, a casualty officer in a plastic apron approached Ritchie and me in the waiting lounge of University College Hospital’s A&E unit.
‘I’m Dr Baumler. We’ve detected traces of phencyclidine and ketamine in his blood,’ he informed gravely. ‘He has a BAC of 0.16 and his serum indicates levels of 0.08 mg and 0.12 mg of PCP and ketamine. It’s likely that high doses of K can make the test for PCP positive, especially if he just consumed it a few hours before … but the level of ketamine in his blood is something to pay attention to. Are you aware if he snorted Cat Valium, LSD or anything else?’
All these terms sounded alien and scary as hell.
‘N-no,’ I said, when I found my tongue. ‘Nirmal would never do drugs. I doubt he even knows the difference between coke and Coke …’ I jerked my thumb toward my mouth to demonstrate the act of drinking from a Coca-Cola bottle.
Dr Baumler nodded grimly. ‘To be sure, I just wanted to eliminate the possibility that he had consciously ingested those drugs. His BAC is phenomenally high for just two glasses of sparkling wine … if he really did have only that much. It’s quite likely his drinks were spiked with alcohol and Cat Valium. We’ll need the police to run an investigation, I’m afraid.’
‘Will-will he be all right?’ I stammered.
‘His vitals are good. The drugs should leave his system in three to four days,’ Dr Baumler said. ‘His tendon reflexes are poor right now. He’s also having electrolyte imbalances. His chloride and potassium levels are very low, and we’ll have to monitor him overnight. If all goes well, he can go home tomorrow. We’d like to have one of our psychiatric residents conduct a partial cognitive examination on him at the emergency ward, when he comes to.’
‘What will I tell the Sawants now?’ I groaned to Ritchie.
‘We’ll worry about that later,’ Ritchie said shortly.
‘Your friend should be okay,’ the doctor managed.
I completed some formalities to admit Nimmy overnight. A ward bed was arranged for him.
‘Here’s the Camden Borough police home page,’ Ritchie said, leaning over to show me his phone screen once I sank back into the seat next to him. ‘They serve the Holborn area too, so we should report this incident to the Holborn station.’ he jabbed a stubby finger at the area of the screen which showed a link to the Holborn police station along with its telephone number and working hours. ‘They’re open twenty-four seven.’
I called them. ‘Yes?’ a police officer barked gruffly.
‘My friend’s drinks have been spiked,’ I began nervously. ‘I found him …’
‘What’s his name?’ the officer interrupted.
‘Nimmy … I mean Nirmal Sawant.’ I then spelled it out.
‘Right,’ the officer said. ‘Continue …’
I recounted what I had heard from Carl and what the doctor had just said.
‘Were you at the scene when this happened?’ the officer asked when I finished.
‘No … what I described was what one of Nirmal’s friends told me. He was there with Nirmal.’
‘What is Nirmal’s friend’s name?’
‘Carl Wright. I don’t know him very well.’
‘Well, I’m afraid there’s not much we can do unless Nim …’ the officer struggled to pronounce Nimmy’s name. ‘… Unless your friend himself comes down here and gives us more information. It would be best if Carl came down as well. Your friend wouldn’t be likely to remember much.’
I fixed an appointment and rang off. Ritchie was reading a course paper.
‘You should head home, Ritch,’ I said. ‘I feel bad keeping you cooped up in here with me.’
A light furrow creased Ritchie’s forehead. ‘Sure you’ll be all right, San?’
I nodded firmly. ‘Had it not been for me, you’d have reached an epiphany by now.’
Ritchie laughed. ‘Aw, I ain’t so sure about that.’
As he rose and shrugged into his coat, I realised that a part of me still yearned for his companionable presence through the night. But it wasn’t appropriate for me to hold him here any longer.
‘If those pesky Sawants raise a question, you could just say Nimmy worked late last night and fainted. Don’t know how they’d respond to Nimmy getting mullered out of his mind. Not very kindly, I’d imagine.’
‘You’re a brick, Ritch,’ I said quietly.
He was gone before I could say more. I glanced at a wall clock ahead of me. 12.47 a.m. I wanted to inform one of the Sawants that Nimmy and I weren’t going to make it home that night. But it was way past their bedtime.
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ a triage nurse in the area asked me politely.
I nodded. ‘That’s very kind of you. Thanks.’
As I waited for the tea, I dialed Carl’s number from Nimmy’s phone.
Carl must have thought it was Nimmy calling him. ‘Yo, mat
e! What an ungodly hour this is. Wazzap?’ He mumbled groggily.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you again, Carl,’ I began curtly.
‘Yes! Uh … how’s Nimmy doing?’
‘They’ve detected traces of PCP and ketamine in his blood. His BAC is way too high for two glasses of Prosecco. Is there something you might have forgotten to tell me last night, Carl?’
‘Ket-what? You mean they found traces of drugs in his body?’
‘Did Nimmy leave his drink unattended at any time?’ I asked firmly. ‘Please try to be as accurate as you can. If a bartender or waiter spiked a drink, the pub can be screwed big time.’
‘We watched the maître d’ pour out our drinks. And the table was never left unattended,’ Carl replied after a beat. ‘But …’ He seemed to have just remembered something.
‘What?’ I probed.
‘Well,’ he began uncertainly. ‘I’m not sure if this matters, but …’
‘Everything you say matters, Carl,’ I reminded him.
‘Right. Um, Nimmy did leave our table to attend a work-related call … halfway through his first drink.’
‘Where’d he go?’
‘Stepped to a corner of the patio. He returned to the table in a couple of minutes. After some time, Sal and I went to the washroom together. But Rick was around attending the table. I think Nimmy was there too.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me this earlier, Carl?’ I demanded.
‘I just remembered it when you mentioned his high BAC.’
‘Carl, someone likely put more alcohol in Nimmy’s drink and slipped in some Cat Valium too.’
‘As long as I was around, I didn’t see anything unusual going on when he was outside or otherwise,’ Carl said in a bewildered tone.
I blew out my breath. ‘Could you come along to the Holborn police station tomorrow and report what happened yesterday?’
‘The police? Why, I …’
‘Just to tell them what you’ve told me, Carl.’
‘I, uh, have an important client meeting tomorrow.’
‘What’s important to you, Carl?’ I burst out angrily. ‘A meeting with a client or justice for a friend who could have even lost his life?’
‘When is it?’
‘Eleven a.m.’
Carl sighed. ‘I’ll be there.’
A spate of hard-hitting images barraged my mind after I hung up. Rosie’s arrival at the Sawants’ doorstep with a purple teddy bear; Carl getting off the train with a cartload of identically patterned, electric violet teddies; spotting Shailaja at Bread Breakers’; the threat from Bloodfonso; Nimmy’s spiked drinks; Carl’s failure to divulge every detail when first asked; his reluctance to accompany me to the police station … I noticed a cup of tea on the table next to me. Cold rivulets of dread iced my jaw as I sipped the tea. Was Carl somehow involved in this bizarre matrix?
8
Victims of Honour
9 March
‘I was shoved from behind,’ Nimmy told Chief Superintendent Gary Thompson as he, Carl and I sat in the Holborn police station, next morning.
Gary raised a bushy eyebrow in response to Nimmy’s statement.
After a client meeting last evening, Nimmy had walked over to Corney and Barrow from his office. Carl and Sal were at a table in the patio, and Rick had just arrived. After their usual badinage, the four lads ordered a round of drinks. When Sal and Carl left for the washroom together a few minutes later, Nimmy vaguely remembered bending down to re-tie his shoelace, but he had otherwise watched the maitre’d pour out their drinks. Neither Rick nor Nimmy had seen any suspicious characters lurking around. But Nimmy threw up in the washroom, shortly after. The only memories he could recollect after that were his adamant insistence on alighting from a cab at Holborn, and the shove he received while staggering through the underpass towards LSE – his inebriety had triggered a random thought of approaching me at the university.
‘You were pushed? Is that the most recent memory you have of last night?’ Gary pressed.
‘Yes,’ Nimmy affirmed. ‘The next thing I remember is waking up in the hospital.’
‘Can you describe what exactly happened at the underpass?’ Gary inquired.
‘I was already wobbly,’ Nimmy recalled. ‘Then I felt someone dig into my back. I tumbled over and fell.’
‘Do you know if the person who pushed you was a man or a woman?’ Gary inquired promptly.
‘Couldn’t say,’ Nimmy said.
‘Someone may have bumped into you by mistake, and you could have fallen since you were already unsteady,’ Gary suggested.
Nimmy fidgeted agitatedly in his seat. I wondered if he wanted to say more, but he didn’t. I squeezed his hand reassuringly.
Gary scratched his chin thoughtfully, studied Nimmy’s medical report and shifted his gaze to the pile of notes he had made during our interview.
‘It’s evident his drinks were spiked,’ Gary said. ‘But we have no clear suspects in this case. It’s quite likely this was no more than a prank by one of your mates.’
‘That’s hardly likely!’ I hissed.
‘No one from our group touched anyone else’s drinks yesterday,’ Carl added.
Gary ignored Carl and turned to me. ‘And why would that be so?’
‘I, uh … I received a threat myself. On email!’ I stuttered. ‘By someone who signed off as Bloodfonso. I got that email, the same night Nimmy’s drinks were spiked. I believe someone is threatening …’
Nimmy and Carl looked befuddled.
‘Miss, we get numerous complaints out here from people who think their drinks were spiked,’ Gary boomed. ‘We’ve wasted our time contacting pubs and clubhouses for CCTV footage, only to find that the whole spiking business people rattle to us about is usually not the case. I know your case is different because you brought a medical report in here. But we have many other heinous offenses we’re dealing with … and the case of a spiked drink or an anonymous note just isn’t as high on our priority list right now.’
‘What about the fact that I was pushed yesterday?’ Nimmy challenged.
‘We don’t know that that’s a fact.’ Gary turned the medical report over in his hand. ‘Those could have been drug-induced hallucinations. People who are drugged tend to remember and imagine things that were either innocuous or never happened at all.’
I slumped in my seat. This man didn’t seem to be cooperating.
Gary caught my expression. ‘Look,’ he intoned in exasperation. ‘I’ll try to have that pub get us a copy of last evening’s CCTV footage … but I can’t promise it’ll be done soon enough. It’s all we can do, unless you have some hard evidence to substantiate your claims. I’ll get in touch if anything comes up.’
He rose from his seat, indicating that our meeting was over. I was too furious to even swallow. To add insult to injury, he chuckled, ‘Be careful next time you hit the bottle!’
On our way back in a cab from Holborn, Nimmy phoned his mother at university and corroborated my story that he had pulled an all-nighter at work for a client presentation while I burned the midnight oil at the LSE library.
I had a quick chat with my father, too. It had been days since I’d spoken to him; I wanted to check in and ensure that he wasn’t feeling too lonely. Of course, he had been by himself in Tanjore for a good while now, given that I was in Mumbai at least for a year before moving to London. But, now that I was in another country, it was different.
When Nimmy and I got home, I was relieved that no one else was around, except Pandy who greeted us with licks. After what I had seen at Bread Breakers’ yesterday, I wasn’t ready to face the other Sawants – including Asha – yet.
‘Let’s get you sorted,’ I told Nimmy, leaning over to kiss him.
‘Thank you, San,’ he said tiredly.
I ran a bubble bath for him upstairs. I was stirring some okra pieces in a pan on the stove when Nimmy arrived in the kitchen, clean-shaven and a lot more tranquil in lounge pants and an undershirt.
‘Sandy, I have to talk to you,’ he said.
I perked up. Wasn’t I supposed to say those words to him, confronting him about what I had seen at Bread Breakers’?
Remembering our guilt/obligation argument earlier this week, I wondered if he was going to address issues concerning our relationship.
‘What’s up?’ I inquired, once we were seated comfortably at the table. As Nimmy talked, I realised he was trying to tell me what he thought had really happened last evening.
He had felt someone’s presence while walking to Corney and Barrow from his office at around 5.00 p.m. yesterday. But, whenever he turned back, he saw no one.
‘I’m sure I wasn’t imagining it,’ Nimmy said. ‘You do believe me, don’t you?’
I reached out for his hand across the table. ‘Of course I do.’ I wondered how I could diplomatically broach the subject of yesterday’s events at the care home.
‘Why didn’t you take the car out yesterday?’ I began.
‘The BMW was taken to the dealer for service. Mum needed the VW for some work that afternoon. Besides, I couldn’t drink and drive anyway.’ He was still slurring from the effects of the dope.
‘So, Corney and Barrow wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment thing, was it?’
Nimmy shrugged indifferently. ‘I guess not. Carl called. Wanted to get everyone together for a rounda drinks, y’know.’
‘Why didn’t you tell the police you were being followed?’
‘They’d have put it aside as a drug-induced hallucination, San.’
This was going nowhere. So, I took the plunge. ‘Nimmy, I have something to tell you.’
Nimmy raised his brows, looking like he couldn’t fathom what on earth I would have to say to him when he had been the nucleus of yesterday’s drama. He leaned back against his deck chair and gazed up at the sky with a jaded expression, evidently deciding that I was only going to preach about something.
I filled him in on the sequence of events that had unfolded since late February, tweaking my story to exclude the fact that I now had an incriminatory video that sat with the BBC. Nimmy’s eyes widened when I mentioned his mother’s conversation with Dr Tahseen.
Victims for Sale Page 12