by Anita Nair
Then, with a small smile, he grabbed her hair and slammed her face into the wall. Once. Twice. Thrice. Tina cried out.
Abdul whimpered in fright.
‘Shut up, you chooha! Watch … just watch without a squeak!’ the man growled.
Then, with few words and an economy of movement, he unbuttoned his jeans, pushed her skirt up and held her against the table the man had perched on. He spat on his palm and smeared it in her anal region, separating her buttocks.
Through the pain in her skull and the blood trickling down her forehead, Tina knew a greater excruciating agony. She felt a hard object split her. Tina screamed.
Mohan continued to ram the hard object into her while the boy Abdul watched, biting on his hands to stop the scream from escaping his mouth. He was too afraid to scream.
‘How did they get here?’ Gowda asked.
Michael sighed. ‘I don’t know. We haven’t got that far. She stopped talking. Tomorrow I’ll try again. I’ve asked Urmila to join me. Perhaps with a woman in the room, she may be less frightened.’
Gowda nodded. The girl had spoken in a flat monotone as if she were recounting what had happened to someone else. She had used the word ‘I’ just once.
Gowda stood up and went to the window. The children at the home were the children of convicts serving their sentences. For no fault of theirs, they were ostracized by the society they were part of. But they had a chance of reprieve. They would be able to shrug off the stigma. But this girl and the little boy … would they ever survive this? What could any counsellor say to these children to help them move on?
5.30 p.m.
At the station, Gowda told Gajendra, Byrappa, Santosh and Ratna what he had heard.
None of them spoke. Instead they all went back to what they had been doing. A dead lawyer was easier to deal with than the story of children entombed alive.
Ratna said she had to go. She was meeting an NGO friend.
‘We have managed to take screenshots of the lawyer’s two visitors. One was a young man and the other a couple,’ Santosh said, opening the images on his laptop.
Gowda looked at the grainy pictures. There was nothing to suggest anything out of the ordinary. What was he missing?
Santosh stretched and yawned.
‘The station seems a little quiet?’ Gowda said.
‘It’s Sunday, sir,’ Gajendra murmured.
Gowda smiled. He had forgotten. So much had happened in the span of a week that the days had merged into one breathless moment.
The fatigue began deep in his bones and weighed him down with a weariness that made him close the files and rise.
‘I’m going home,’ he said.
The others looked at him, but said nothing. Gowda saw it on their faces, that they felt it too. On an everyday basis, they dealt with human culpability, but in a matter of three days, they had seen human depravity and the extent to which it could descend had left them all with a sense of hopelessness. Neither law nor its enforcement seemed to have made any real impact.
‘I think all of us need to go home and get a good night’s rest,’ Gowda said. ‘The two children are at the shelter. And there is nothing we can do for the lawyer now. As for Nandita, we are doing everything we can.’
Santosh opened his mouth to protest, but Gajendra beat him to it. ‘It helps to look away for a moment; we’ll come back with a clearer gaze,’ he said, rising.
7.30 p.m.
Roshan was waiting for him at home with another boy. ‘Appa, this is Suraj,’ he said as Gowda entered the house.
Gowda gave him a curt nod, and then remembered to stretch his lips into smile. Roshan had complained as a child that he was reluctant to invite friends home.
‘Why?’ Gowda had asked. He had been polishing his shoes at the time.
Roshan had brought a small mirror and held it to his face. ‘Look at yourself,’ he said. ‘You look at everything, whether it’s your shoes or my friends or me, as if we have done something wrong. You frown and glare as if we are guilty.’
Gowda had learnt to smile after that. He smiled at his shoes, after that Roshan’s friends and Roshan.
‘Give me a few minutes,’ Gowda said, going into his room. He closed his eyes and turned the shower on. The water rained on him and washed away some of the greyness he felt within. Gowda dried himself and stepped into a fresh pair of clothes.
‘Yes,’ he said, walking into the living room and dropping into a chair. What had the boy done?
Roshan cleared his throat, signalling for his friend to speak. Suraj twisted his fingers and said, ‘Uncle, there is this boy who is troubling my sister.’
Gowda looked at the boy’s anxious face. ‘How old is your sister?’
‘Seventeen. She just turned seventeen and she’s got involved with this bastard who’s threatening her.’
Gowda’s eyebrows rose at the epithet.
‘He’s got some photographs of him and her and he’s threatening to put them up on Facebook,’ Suraj said. He made no attempt to hide the fact that his sister had shamed him and their family. But as her older brother he had to do what he had to do.
The boy swallowed. ‘If that happens, my parents will murder her and probably kill themselves.’
Gowda nodded. Was there a season for crime as well? Everything in the past few days had to do with girls in trouble.
‘Which is why I am afraid to write a formal complaint. My parents … they are very conservative,’ Suraj mumbled.
‘Appa …’ Roshan leaned forward. ‘I think you know Suraj’s father. They live a street away from us in Jayanagar. And his father works in the same bank as Doddappa.’
‘My father’s name is Shankar,’ Suraj said.
Gowda groaned. He couldn’t think of a more dyed-in-the-wool conservative family from Mysore; the kind that believed in the healing and holy properties of cow pee and observed a fast every second day.
‘Do you have a picture of this fellow?’ Gowda wondered if it was too early to pour himself a drink. He needed one like a bee needed nectar.
‘Get me a glass of water,’ said Gowda, turning peremptorily towards Roshan. ‘Have you seen the photographs?’ Gowda asked when Roshan was out of earshot.
‘No, Uncle.’ The boy avoided his gaze. Then he added, ‘I saw two or three, but not everything.’
Roshan came back with a glass of water and a serious expression. ‘He is a sick asshole, Appa,’ Roshan said.
Gowda frowned, wondering if he should ask his son to mind his language. But Roshan probably wanted his friend to see this as one of those man-to-man chats, and Gowda didn’t want to show the boy up.
‘Do you have his address and his photograph?’ Gowda asked. A friendly warning should do, he thought. ‘And one of your sister?’ he added as an afterthought.
‘I’ll send it to you, Uncle,’ Suraj said.
Gowda glanced at his phone as Suraj’s message arrived. For a moment, he couldn’t believe his eyes. Suraj’s sister was the girl who had come to meet the lawyer in the afternoon. The boy who had been blackmailing her had visited the lawyer the evening he was murdered. What were they up to? He didn’t want to go further with that thought. Where did this end, this need to accumulate? Was nothing sacred any more?
Suddenly he felt he had to get away. Gowda looked at his watch.
‘I have to go,’ Gowda said, rising.
‘He is investigating a murder case,’ Roshan explained to Suraj. Gowda heard the pride in his son’s voice, the subtext being, my daddy is bigger and better than yours. I wish I were, Gowda thought as he shrugged into a half-sleeved shirt and pulled on a pair of jeans.
What did Roshan actually think of him? And then Gowda was struck by the irony of it. All through his youth, he had worried about what his father thought of him. And now he was worrying about what his son must think of him. Did either his father or his son ever wonder what he thought of them? He didn’t think so.
Gowda spritzed some cologne on himself and patted his pocket t
o make sure he had everything – phone, wallet, keys and cigarettes.
‘Don’t wait up for me,’ he told Roshan as he stepped out.
Gowda thumped the seat of his Bullet as if it were the rump of a horse. ‘Now, don’t you dare stall on me,’ he whispered sternly. He needed to feel the wind in his face; he wanted a pair of arms to gather him in an embrace; he needed to feel for himself that love wasn’t a commodity with a price. He needed to believe in happily-ever-afters at least for a few hours.
Urmila glared at him. ‘How do you know I’m not busy?’
‘Are you?’ he asked, allowing the weariness in his voice to show.
‘No. But …’
‘Urmila, I am so tired. I am worn out in my head and I don’t have the energy for this. Didn’t Michael tell you what the child said?’
She nodded.
‘Do you want me to leave?’ he asked, leaning against the door.
‘Borei,’ she said and held him.
She poured him a drink and sat next to him as he drank his rum in silence.
‘Human greed,’ he said after a long while. ‘Is it ever satiated?’
Gowda clinked the ice in his glass.
‘I would like to stay the night,’ he said. She laid her cheek against his. It had never happened before. Neither had she seen Gowda in such a state before.
Urmila’s phone rang just as they slid into bed.
‘Don’t answer it,’ he murmured against her neck.
‘No, I have to,’ she said, glancing at the name of the caller.
Urmilla sat up and answered the phone. ‘Yes,’ she said. Gowda watched the play of emotions in her eyes.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked.
‘A social worker I know. They’ve set up a raid and they want me to be a part of it.’
‘Now?’
‘Yes, now. Borei, why don’t you sleep? I’ll be back,’ she said slowly.
‘I am the policeman here and you are the citizen,’ he said.
She paused as she pulled on her clothes. ‘So?’
‘So I am going with you.’
10.00 p.m.
The two of them reached the meeting point that had been fixed by the NGO. Urmila let the car engine run as they waited. She called the NGO coordinator.
‘They are at the junction ahead,’ Urmila said, switching off the engine.
‘Don’t slam the door when you get out,’ Gowda said quietly.
A dog barked. Another one took up. Urmila opened her handbag and brought out a few slices of bread.
‘Here, here …’ she whispered, flinging a piece of bread at the side of the road. The dog snuffled as it wolfed it down.
It wouldn’t have occurred to him to do that, Gowda thought.
The NGO coordinator, Tessa Martin, was short and stout. But she bounced with an energy that would make a rubber ball feel inadequate, Gowda thought as he saw her approach them. He tried to hide his frown as he saw Santosh and Ratna following her. What were they doing here?
Santosh walked towards Gowda. ‘You didn’t mention this to me,’ Gowda said, not bothering to hide his annoyance.
Santosh held his gaze steadily. ‘Tessa called after you left to say that they were doing a raid tonight. I have to be here. It’s under my purview. Ratna too.’
‘Which station?’ Gowda asked.
‘Sampigehalli,’ Ratna said, joining them.
The three of them walked quickly. Gowda realized they were unsure of having him with them. And yet neither of them dared say anything.
The inspector of Sampigehalli station had no such qualms. He frowned, seeing Gowda, and clenched his jaw.
‘Do you have a toothache, Inspector Narayanaswamy?’ Gowda had his most genial expression on.
Santosh said hastily, ‘There is a missing-girl case we are investigating. Gowda sir is the IO.’
The inspector said nothing. He looked at his men.
‘Our volunteer is in there. The moment he calls, let’s go in without any delay,’ the coordinator said to Gowda.
The inspector growled, ‘Madam, this is my station, he is not in charge. I am.’
She snorted. ‘And you didn’t know about the brothel. How far is it from here? One kilometre?’
The man frowned. Gowda grinned.
Ratna touched her arm and said, ‘When did your man go in?’
‘About twenty minutes ago.’ The coordinator glanced at her watch.
‘When did you receive the tip-off?’ Gowda asked.
‘Actually, Urmila was the one,’ the coordinator said. ‘Someone called for her at the Bosco rescue unit in the railway station. Apparently he asked for her, saying he had information about minor girls in a brothel. And Urmila seemed to know who he was.’
And you didn’t come to me, Gowda thought furiously. But he said nothing.
‘Madam called me late last night,’ Santosh murmured. ‘I said this was outside our station jurisdiction.’
‘Tessa was the one I went to meet early this evening,’ Ratna said. ‘We had to prepare the ground. We needed to find a pimp who could lead us here.’
Gowda felt Urmila’s imploring gaze. But he avoided meeting her eyes. There would be time, he decided, to ask her why she hadn’t called him. For now it was important to make sure everything went right.
A few minutes later, the coordinator’s phone rang. ‘Now,’ she said.
‘I suggest you wait here,’ Gowda told Urmila.
‘No, we need her. We need as many women as we can get on an operation like this,’ the coordinator hissed.
They walked down the narrow alley. Most of the doors of the tenements were shut and the windows were dark. As they approached, a man sitting on the doorstep got up and went in. He shut the door and turned off the light.
Inspector Narayanaswamy strode up the stairs, followed by two constables. The coordinator and Ratna ran behind them, followed by Santosh, Gowda and Urmila.
The shutters were drawn halfway down. The inspector pushed it up, making enough noise to wake up the dead in the distant cemetery. The coordinator and Santosh hissed, ‘What are you doing?’
But he sauntered in unheeding, calling out, ‘Police.’ For effect, a constable blew a whistle.
Gowda felt the blood go to his face. ‘You fucking bastard!’ he muttered as he saw the raid turn into a farce.
Half-naked girls; men with their briefs around their ankles; screaming and shrieking; the sound of upturned boxes; a few slaps …
A slender young man met Gowda’s gaze for a moment and then began running. Gowda tried to dive for his ankles but the boy escaped his clutch and leapt towards the staircase. ‘Get him,’ Gowda hollered and chased after him. The boy’s feet barely touched the stairs as he leapt over four or five steps at a time.
The boy ran into the alley. Gowda followed him. He saw the police jeep parked at the end of the alley. Gowda leapt into it and said, ‘Follow him. We have to get him.’
The police driver looked at him questioningly. ‘Go man, go!’ Gowda shouted.
The driver turned the key. But the engine wouldn’t start.
‘What are you playing at?’ Gowda said as the boy became a speck in the distance.
The jeep wouldn’t start. ‘I am sorry, sir,’ the driver said with a contrite expression. ‘I don’t know what happened.’
Gowda stared at him and got out. He had been played. All of them were in it.
Then he saw Santosh run down the stairs and towards him. ‘Sir, she is here,’ he said, his voice hoarse with excitement.
Nandita sat on the edge of the bed in a cubicle. She looked dazed. Ratna was sitting at her side. Urmila stood alongside. But Nandita wouldn’t speak. She just stared unseeingly at the wall opposite. When she saw Gowda, a flicker of something showed on her face.
He went to sit by her. ‘Nandita, do you know me?’ he asked gently. She nodded. ‘Shall I take you home?’ he asked.
She nodded again. Then, as if struck by a thought, she said, ‘Amma will be angry.’
>
‘No, she won’t,’ Gowda murmured. ‘She will be happy to see you,’ he said, gesturing to Urmila to take her.
The inspector stood examining an account book he had found in a little cupboard. It was just a few days old. Gowda looked at it. ‘How convenient,’ he said. ‘None of the major monthly payouts.’
‘What do you mean?’ the inspector said.
‘You didn’t buy this on your salary … I am not a fool.’ Gowda tapped the heavy gem-encrusted ring the other man wore on his index finger.
‘Let’s go,’ Gowda said as Urmila walked out with Nandita.
‘You can’t just take her like that,’ the inspector protested. ‘There are formalities to be followed.’
‘Try me,’ Gowda said, shutting his protests down with a stare.
‘Apart from Nandita, there are four girls here. Two are from Assam. One is from Gulbarga and one is from Bangladesh. Apparently she was brought in just this morning.’
‘Where is your volunteer?’ Gowda asked, looking towards the NGO coordinator who was talking to the girls.
An elderly man stepped forward. ‘He is one of our staff members,’ Tessa said. ‘He helps with the clerical work.’
‘These are the two guards,’ Santosh said, gesturing to Daulat Ali and his stooge. ‘We should be able to get some information from them about who owns this place and how the operation is run.’
Tessa snorted. ‘They probably know nothing, which is why they didn’t run like the one that got away. Anyway, they will be out or they’ll esacape when being transported to the station. Isn’t that how it happens?’ She glared at Inspector Narayanaswamy. ‘When you grab a young man from the streets for some petty crime, you keep him in the lockup for a whole week before producing him in front of a judge. But then these scums walk free in twenty-four hours.’
Gowda looked away. Everything Tessa said was true. He looked at the girls. Not one of them was over sixteen.
‘Sir,’ Santosh asked, ‘what will happen to the girls?’
Gowda took a deep breath. He hated having to be the one to tell Santosh, but he was bound to find out sooner or later.
‘The Gulbarga and north-eastern girls will go to the government shelter. Once the authorities in the places the girls are from are reached, the girls will go to a home there or, if they have a family to return to, they will be sent there.’