Tarampal shook her head. ‘Nothing’s going on,’ she said. She tugged her dupatta to hide her face. All the good things come later, Tarampal had told Nikki, her cheeks turning red like this.
‘Is that why you did it?’ Nikki asked Jaggi in English. ‘Because your wife found out about you two?’
Jaggi could not conceal his surprise. He held Nikki’s stare but she knew she had caught him. ‘She didn’t know how to keep her mouth shut,’ he said. Tarampal looked back and forth between the two of them, trying to decipher their conversation.
‘Both your reputations were worth a woman’s life? That was a reason to kill Maya?’ Nikki asked.
At the mention of Maya’s name, Tarampal tensed. Nikki switched back to Punjabi. ‘He just admitted it, Tarampal. He killed her.’
‘I didn’t say that,’ Jaggi said through gritted teeth. He turned to Tarampal. ‘It happened so quickly. It was an accident.’
‘It was an accident,’ Tarampal repeated but she looked confused. ‘What do you mean?’
‘She knew about you two,’ Nikki said.
‘You need to keep your mouth shut,’ Jaggi warned, but Nikki noticed the panic registering on his face.
‘She knew?’ Tarampal asked. She drew her dupatta over her chest. ‘I don’t sleep with people’s husbands. I don’t do that,’ she added quickly to Nikki.
Just like she didn’t blackmail people. Wording was the key to Tarampal’s denial. As long as she announced her innocence aloud, it was true. ‘He’s a murderer,’ Nikki said, pointing at Jaggi. He stood up and began to advance towards her. Nikki backed herself against the counter, her body flooding with cold, hard fear.
‘Jaggi,’ Tarampal said. He stopped and turned around.
‘Did Kulwinder know about us?’ Tarampal asked.
‘No.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I’m sure.’
‘Because Maya was going to tell her about us?’ Tarampal asked softly. Jaggi turned back to look at Nikki. ‘Please answer me,’ Tarampal said.
‘We don’t have time for this,’ Jaggi said.
‘Oh, Jaggi,’ Tarampal murmured. ‘Why?’
‘She got upset and said she was going to tell everybody. I started thinking about you and your reputation in the community, and I couldn’t let that happen to you. It was all so quick. I threw the petrol on her to frighten her and she said, “You wouldn’t dare do it.” I took the box of matches and pushed her outside. I was still just trying to scare her.’
Tarampal stared at Jaggi in horror. ‘You told the police you weren’t at home.’
‘Tarampal—’
‘You lied to me.’
‘Don’t let Nikki influence you,’ Jaggi said. ‘What would you have done? What would you have wanted me to do?’
Tarampal’s hands were pressed against her lips and her eyes were bright with tears.
‘You’re a better person than that, Tarampal, you know you are. You wouldn’t have wanted Maya to die, would you?’ Nikki asked. ‘That’s what you told me earlier.’
‘You wanted her out of our lives so we could be together,’ Jaggi said, stepping between them to force Tarampal to look at him. ‘What other way was there?’
Tarampal hesitated. Death over dishonour, Nikki thought. Did it matter if it was Maya’s death over Tarampal’s dishonour?
‘I don’t know,’ Tarampal said. She directed her response to Nikki. It was the first honest thing she had said in a while. All of the colour had drained from her face. ‘I. Don’t. Know,’ she repeated, her voice catching on a sob. She looked like she was ten years old.
‘Tarampal,’ Jaggi said. He crouched down again and put his hand on her waist. ‘There’s no need to make a scene. We can talk about this later.’
Tarampal bit her lip and shook her head, her tears splashing on the floor. Jaggi reached out with his other hand to touch her cheek. Something seemed to snap in Tarampal then and, pulling away from Jaggi, she gave him a sharp slap on the face. The sound was like a clap of thunder.
It stunned both Jaggi and Nikki and he stood frozen for a second and then he grabbed her by the throat and began to shake her.
‘No!’ Nikki shouted. She picked up the kettle and flung it as hard as she could – it missed him by a whisker but the hot water splashed across his back. He yelled out and dropped Tarampal, flapping his shirt away from his skin to try to cool the burning.
‘Let’s go,’ Nikki cried, pushing him away from her and leaning down to grab Tarampal’s hand. Tarampal gasped for breath as she was hauled up from the floor but before she could take a step, Jaggi caught her wrist and pulled hard, throwing her back on the floor behind him. Nikki straightened up to face him and tried to take a step back but tripped over the leg of a chair. As she lurched forward, she saw his fist coming fast the other way. All she heard was the crack of her head against the kitchen counter and then everything went dark.
Sheena’s car was still moving when Kulwinder and Manjeet opened the door and hopped in. ‘Hai, wait! You’re going to hurt yourselves,’ Sheena cried. But there was no time to stop.
‘Do you remember where the pub is?’ Kulwinder asked.
‘Of course. I was just there,’ Sheena said.
‘Hurry up then.’ Sheena pushed down on the accelerator. Kulwinder clutched her seat instinctively as the car shot out of the temple car park.
When Manjeet called her, Sheena had been on her way home after dropping off the other widows. ‘Manjeet!’ Sheena’s voice had burst over speakerphone. ‘You’re well?’
‘I’m back in Southall. I’ll update you later but first we need to go to Nikki’s place,’ Manjeet replied.
‘She’s in trouble,’ Kulwinder added. Sheena did not ask any questions.
‘Give me five minutes.’
Kulwinder was relieved they would not have to call Sarab. He might say, ‘Kulwinder, are you sure? Try calling her again – you know how young people never answer their phones.’ And he would stop at all the yellow lights that Sheena was speeding through.
They arrived in front of the pub and Sheena let them out. ‘Go, go,’ she said. ‘I’ll park and come inside.’ Kulwinder and Manjeet burst into the pub, hollering at each other to find the stairs. They were so involved in their mission that they didn’t notice the other customers, who had all stopped to stare.
Kulwinder made a beeline for the bar. ‘You know where is the flat of Nikki?’
‘Just upstairs,’ the girl replied. She looked amused. ‘Are you her mum?’
‘How do we get inside?’ Kulwinder asked.
‘You need a key to access that door outside on the left. Only residents have the key. You’ll have to call her and she can let you in.’
‘I try calling her, she don’t answer. Please. There could be a bad man upstairs.’
The girl bit her lip to keep from laughing. Kulwinder saw what she saw then – a pair of frantic Indian aunties trying to stop something improper from happening to one of their daughters. ‘He is a killer,’ she said desperately.
‘I’m sure he is. Look, I can’t let anybody in, so—’
Kulwinder sniffed the air. ‘Manjeet, do you smell that?’ she asked.
Manjeet’s eyes widened. ‘It’s smoke.’
Sheena came running into the pub. ‘Fire! Get out! Everybody out!’ Sheena commanded. The bartender blinked at them in confusion as customers ran out the door.
‘They haven’t paid,’ she cried.
Kulwinder pointed to the window. ‘Look. Smoke! Give us the keys.’
The girl’s eyes widened. She dived under the counter to rummage for the keys and finally held them aloft triumphantly. Kulwinder snatched them from her hands. ‘Let’s go!’
They raced out of the building, dupattas flying, fumbled with the door key, and then burst through the door, sandals slipping off and tumbling down the stairs behind them as they raced upwards, shouting. ‘Nikki! Nikki!’ The smoke thickened as they got closer to her flat door. Kulwinder searched through the s
mog for the doorknob and flinched at its warmth. To her surprise, the door was unlocked. That bastard must have started the fire and then run off.
As the door opened, smoke began to pour into the stairwell and the three women began to cough. Kulwinder pushed on, ducking to see under the billowing black clouds.
‘Stay here! Let me see if I can find her!’ she shouted.
She could see the flames and through the smoke, she could see a figure on the floor. It was Nikki. Trying to stay as low as possible, Kulwinder grabbed Nikki’s ankles and pulled. She inhaled some smoke and coughed violently, her shoulders shaking. She pulled again and felt Nikki start to move across the floor. It was a long way back to the door. She pulled again with all her weight. Another wave of coughing made her body convulse. Her eyes itched madly and tears ran down her face. She wanted to yell but she couldn’t. She dropped to her knees. The impact sent jolts through her body, bringing her back to the moment she found out that Maya was dead. No, no, no, she had cried. Please, please, please. Frantically wishing for time to reverse itself was as desperate as suffocation. Kulwinder gave the girl a last futile tug.
Suddenly a hand gripped Kulwinder’s ankle; another wrapped around her waist.
‘Wait! Stop!’ She couldn’t leave Nikki here. Thinking quickly, hearing her own laboured breathing and nothing at all from Nikki, she pulled off her dupatta and tied it around Nikki’s ankle, and then with Sheena and Manjeet’s help, the strength of three women allowed them to start dragging Nikki towards the door.
‘We’ve got her!’ she heard Sheena shouting.
Chapter Seventeen
Nikki could only see shadows through her narrow, squinting vision. There were snatches of conversation but they amounted to nothing. Somebody was holding her hand. As her eyelids fluttered open, she heard the hushed excitement of Mindi’s voice. ‘She’s waking up.’
The hospital room was glaringly bright and Nikki groaned. The light gave her a headache. Mindi squeezed her hand. Next to her, Mum was leaning anxiously towards Nikki, tugging the edges of her blanket so they covered her legs. ‘Mum.’ It was all Nikki could manage before she went back under.
When she next woke, it was evening. Two police officers stood beside Mum and Mindi at the foot of her bed. Nikki blinked at them in confusion. She remembered a powerful knock that sent her tumbling backwards. After that, there was only the sharp pain in her head.
‘Hello, Nikki,’ one of them said gently. ‘I’m Police Constable Hayes and this is PC Sullivan. We’ve got a few questions for you when you’re ready to answer them.’
‘Maybe just give me a little bit of time,’ Nikki said. There was a growing pain on her leg and her mind was not clear.
‘Sure,’ said PC Hayes. ‘Right now, I just want to inform you that the man who entered your home has been found and charged. We’ve got him in custody. Are you willing to make a statement about what happened?’
Nikki nodded. The constables thanked her and left. She slumped back against the pillow and stared at the ceiling. ‘Why does my leg hurt?’ she asked. From the corner of her vision, she saw a look passing between Mindi and Mum.
‘You got burned,’ Mindi said. ‘Not seriously, but it’s going to be sore for a while.’
‘Burned? How long am I going to be here?’
‘The doctor said you’ll be all right to come home tomorrow,’ Mindi said. She glanced at Mum. ‘We’ll set up your old bedroom …’
Mum abruptly turned on her heels and left the room. What’s her problem? Nikki wanted to ask.
Mindi watched Mum as she headed out the door. She looked back at Nikki and seemed to read her expression. ‘Don’t worry about her. So you don’t remember anything?’
‘I remember he hit me. After that I blacked out,’ Nikki mumbled. Patches of events appeared and dissipated in her memory. ‘There were two people,’ she said.
‘They set fire to the flat,’ Mindi said.
‘Fire?’ Nikki struggled to sit up.
‘Shh,’ Mindi said, gently pushing her back to the bed. ‘Don’t try to get up so quickly. It’s all right – there was a kitchen fire. They lit it and then ran off but it didn’t spread much further than the kitchen.’
‘Luckily,’ Nikki said. She pictured the flat engulfed in flames and she shuddered.
‘Very lucky. It could have been a lot worse. You’re lucky those women were around. They saved you, or at least that’s what I understand from the police.’
‘What women?’
‘Your students.’
‘They were there?’
‘You didn’t know that?’ Now Mindi looked confused. ‘What were they doing in your neighbourhood?’
Nikki struggled to remember that day but she had a vague recollection of having the class there. Then finding out about Jason. But hadn’t some time passed between then and the man attacking her? Jaggi. Tarampal. It came back to her in fragments. When did the widows arrive? Why? Maybe they had been warned somehow.
‘They came to save me,’ Nikki said, tears burning in her eyes.
Kulwinder’s doctor told her she had suffered from smoke inhalation. ‘We’ll keep you here for a night to monitor your symptoms and then you can go home,’ he said.
When he left the room, Sarab took her hand. His eyes were red and weary. ‘What were you thinking, running towards a fire?’ he asked. Kulwinder opened her mouth to speak but her throat was dry. She pointed at the water pitcher on the side table. Sarab filled a glass for her and waited while she sipped.
‘I was thinking about Maya,’ Kulwinder said.
‘You could have died,’ Sarab said. A sob escaped his throat and he buried his face in her hands. As he cried for his wife, for his fear, for his daughter, his tears spilled down her arms, soaking through her sleeves. Kulwinder was still stunned. She wanted to comfort Sarab but all she could manage was a squeeze of her hand.
‘And Nikki?’ she asked.
Sarab looked up and wiped his eyes. ‘She’s fine,’ he said. ‘I spoke to her sister in the hallway just now. She’s injured but she’ll recover.’
Kulwinder slumped back against the pillow, closing her eyes. ‘Thank God.’
She was afraid to ask the next question. She looked at Sarab and he seemed to understand. ‘They’ve arrested him,’ he said. ‘I spoke to her mother in the hall. The police want to question Nikki before charging him, but he’s in custody now for breaking into her home and assaulting her.’
‘And for Maya?’
‘It looks like they’ll open up the case,’ Sarab said. ‘He could go to jail for a long time.’
Now she began to cry. Sarab mistook these as tears of relief, but Kulwinder had been transported to the past, when she had given this boy her blessings. He had turned out to be a monster, but at one point, she had called him her son.
Chapter Eighteen
Traces of Nikki’s teenage years still existed in her childhood bedroom. The walls were marked with traces of sticker residue from the posters she had put up and a few old photographs remained in picture frames on the dresser.
She used to tape her cigarette packets to the back of the bed leg, but when the packet fell one day, she upgraded to a Velcro adhesive tape. Now she wondered if there was a packet left there. She could use a smoke. Crouching next to the bed and reaching into the narrow space between the leg and the wall, Nikki heard footsteps coming up the stairs. She withdrew but her elbow got caught. Mum appeared in the doorway to find Nikki wriggling on the floor like an insect.
‘Uh … I just dropped an earring,’ Nikki said. Mum’s stony face indicated that she knew the truth. She dragged the bed out to free Nikki’s arm and left the room. Nikki followed her down the stairs and into the kitchen. ‘Mum,’ she began.
‘I don’t want to hear it.’
‘Mum, please.’ How long was this going to go on? Since she’d been discharged from the hospital this morning, Mum hadn’t looked her in the eye.
Mum continued to bustle about, attending to her morning routin
e of putting last night’s dishes away. The plates clattered loudly and the cupboard doors slammed. Over the noise, Nikki wanted to scream I’m a bloody adult!
‘Mum, I’m sorry about the cigarettes,’ Nikki began.
‘You think this is about the cigarettes?’
‘It’s about everything. The moving out, the pub, the … just everything. I’m sorry that it wasn’t what you wanted for me.’
‘The lying,’ Mum said, staring squarely at her. ‘Those classes you were teaching. Here you had us thinking you were teaching women to read and write but instead they were …’ She shook her head at a loss for words.
‘Mum, some of these women spent their married lives wondering what it would be like to enjoy their husbands. Others missed the intimacy they used to have with their husbands and just wanted to relive those experiences.’
‘So you come in and think you can save the world by making them share these tales.’
‘I didn’t get them to do anything,’ Nikki corrected. ‘They’re strong women; you couldn’t force them to do anything.’
‘You had no business getting involved with other women’s private lives like that,’ Mum said. ‘Look at the trouble you got yourself into.’
‘I didn’t get myself into trouble,’ Nikki said.
‘That man attacked you because you were meddling.’
‘That had nothing to do with the classes, that was about Maya, the girl he killed.’
‘If you hadn’t got involved in the first place—’
‘So I was asking for it?’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘What are you so angry about then?’ Nikki asked.
Mum picked up a dishrag as if she was going to begin cleaning and then she dropped it. ‘You have a double life. I’m the last person to know anything. You’re always hiding things from me.’
‘Mum, I don’t know how to be honest with you,’ Nikki said.
‘You spent all this time talking about such personal things with complete strangers. You were honest with them.’
‘The last time I told the truth in this house, there was an epic argument and I moved out. I was called selfish for not wanting what everybody else wanted for me,’ Nikki said.
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