The beach had been practically deserted but I now noticed two men standing directly in my path, not far from the villa.
I couldn’t make out their features in the gathering twilight but they were of medium build, dressed identically in dark vests, knee-length shorts and sandals. Something about their body language told me they were trouble. I veered off my straight course to give them a wide berth but they moved quickly to block my way. There was no option for me but to stop a few feet in front of them.
I wasn’t afraid because I can usually take care of myself in these situations. Aggression often takes such men by surprise and scares them away. I challenged the duo in a loud voice. ‘What do you want? Get out of my way!’
Neither of them answered, or moved.
I mentally cursed my choice of outfit. I was wearing nothing but a sports bra and lycra tights, which wouldn’t have been out of place in any modern gym. Under the circumstances though, I wished I had dressed differently.
The two men stepped forward in unison. One of them took out a small knife which gleamed dully in the fading light, and I realised that the situation was fast turning ugly. I looked around to see if there was anyone I could shout to for help. As if on cue, the man with the knife lunged forward and caught me by the wrist. He hissed, ‘Don’t try to make a sound, or I’ll kill you.’
I tried to free my hand but his thick fingers were like a vice. For the first time, I felt a wave of panic. The man had sounded very sure of himself. They were obviously not some roadside Romeos out to harass a lone woman but seasoned predators who had carefully selected, stalked, and attacked their target.
I knew I had to somehow get away quickly. I moved towards the man who held me and he loosened his grip in surprise, as I had expected. I tried to knee him in the balls but missed. With my free hand, I swung a punch at his face and my fist crashed into his nose with a satisfying crunch! One of the few good things Jai had done for me was to make me go through a year of self-defence classes. That training was coming in handy now.
The man howled in pain but he was tough. He struck me expertly in the solar plexus and kicked out at my knees. I felt my legs buckle. The other man had moved in behind me and he grasped me under my right shoulder, covering my mouth with his left hand. His partner lifted my legs and they began to carry me away. I didn’t know if they had a car waiting nearby or whether they were taking me to some hidden spot around the beach itself.
I tried to struggle but it was no use. They had me completely immobilised. I was more frightened than I’d ever been in my life. Then I managed to get my teeth on the fleshy palm over my mouth, and bit down hard. I tasted blood. There was a loud yell from the man and he moved his hand away. I began screaming for all I was worth.
‘Sara!’ It was Neel! His gruff voice had never sounded sweeter. I turned my head and saw him running across the sand towards me. The men saw him too and stopped but they didn’t let me go.
As Neel approached, I shouted, ‘Watch out, they’re armed!’ I don’t think he heard me because he hurled himself at the man with the knife, which went flying out of his hand. Both fell in a tangle on the ground. Neel stunned the man with a punch to the head and pulled himself up. Then he began to kick him in a blind rage. I heard a couple of ribs crack audibly. The man covered his head with his hands and curled himself instinctively into a ball but Neel continued to lash out at him with both his feet.
In the meantime, the other man had dropped me and rushed forward. He grabbed Neel around the waist and pulled him away from his partner, who was lying motionless like a crumpled doll. Neel turned himself around but the man didn’t let go and for a second, the two of them were locked in a tight hug. It would have been comical under other circumstances.
Neel’s arms were loose by his sides and for a moment, he stood still. Then he threw his head back and butted the man full in the face! It was a terrible blow. The frontal bone in the human forehead is thick and very hard, and behind it was all the momentum produced by the muscles of Neel’s powerful shoulders and neck. The man was unconscious even before he hit the ground, his face a bloody, battered mass. Neel kicked him hard a couple of times before I could drag him away. He was in some kind of murderous fury. I knew he had a violent temper but I had never seen him like this.
The whole thing had lasted only a few seconds.
I clung to Neel. He was shaking with anger and a vein throbbed on the side of his head. A dark bruise had started to form across his temple. I said, ‘Let’s get the fuck out of here.’
We held on to each other and half ran, half stumbled back to the villa. I prepared an ice-pack and applied it to Neel’s forehead. He noticed the blood on my hand and blanched. ‘You’re cut, Sara. Let’s look at that first.’ I managed a weak grin and said, ‘That’s not my blood, it’s that man’s.’
I went to wash up and change. The creepy feeling of the hands of the two men on me refused to go away. I threw the clothes I had been wearing into the waste bin and stood under a cold shower for ten minutes. My stomach still felt weak and my hands were shaking. It had been a near escape! If Neel hadn’t turned up when he did, I don’t know what would have happened. I shuddered at the thought.
When I came out, Neel had calmed down. He said, ‘Sara, I’m going back to check on those guys. We must hand them over to the police. And I think they need to go to a hospital.’ Before I could stop him, he had walked out.
He was back in less than a couple of minutes. ‘They’re gone,’ he said shortly.
‘Was there anyone else around?’
‘Nope. I guess they must have come round and managed to get away.’
‘Or maybe there was a third man in the gang who landed up later and found them lying there.’
Neel thumped a fist on his other palm. ‘I didn’t hit them hard enough. They should never have been able to get up again.’
I held his hand. ‘Don’t be silly, Neel. You’ve given them a hiding they won’t forget in a hurry. Any more would have killed them.’
I had put a pot of coffee to brew and it was ready. We sat in silence next to each other, holding our steaming mugs. Drinking the strong black coffee made me feel much better.
Neel asked, ‘Sara, do you think it was them?’
I thought about that. ‘I don’t think so. Unless they’ve staked out the house, they couldn’t have known I was going to be on the beach at that time.’ I was convinced it was a random incident. The two men had seen me alone and spotted an opportunity. They had obviously done this before. After the encounter with Neel though, I hoped they would think twice before ever attempting it again.
As it turned out later, I was both right and wrong.
Neel put his arm around me and kissed me tenderly on the forehead. ‘I don’t know what I would have done if something had happened to you, Sara.’
I touched his cheek affectionately. ‘Something would have happened to me if it wasn’t for my knight in shining armour.’
‘It was lucky I came out to watch the sunset when I did. In fact, I didn’t even know it was you until you started shouting.’
Those terrible moments played themselves out in my mind again. That sickening feeling of utter helplessness when I was being carried away by the two men was something I would have new nightmares about. Hot tears welled up in my eyes and I let them flow. A number of emotions had swept through me in the last couple of hours but I hadn’t broken down until then. I put my head on Neel’s shoulder and wept.
When I had no more tears left, he gently wiped my cheeks with his hand. I looked up at him and my red, swollen eyes met his. There was a strange expression in them. He cupped my face and said, ‘Marry me, Sara.’
I didn’t answer.
I couldn’t, since I hadn’t even told him the entire truth about what we were doing here.
part two
38
I killed for the first time when I wa
s fifteen years old. It was almost unintentional.
I was riding a borrowed motorcycle on a narrow mountain road. The vibration of its deep-throated engine was giving me some kind of a sexual tingle. I had no license but that would never be a problem. I was trying out a motorcycle for the first time, having only ridden scooters earlier. It was like graduating from a pony to a stallion. I was exceptionally strong for my age, however, and my hands were as big and thick as an adult’s. When I held the wide handlebars, I knew that taming this beast would present no major challenge.
I passed a group of children, who were sitting on a shaded patch of grass under a large tree. They were on their way back from school and had stopped to rest. It was a sweltering summer afternoon, typical of the hills where the sun beats down more fiercely than it does in the plains. The nearest hamlet was almost two kilometres away and I figured that these kids must be headed there. Walking such distances back and forth from school was the price they had to pay for primary education in the vast rural hinterland.
I waved at them and continued on my way. Only one of them waved back. There was a hairpin bend coming up and I revved the engine to negotiate it. When I turned the corner, I noticed a girl standing a few metres ahead.
As I approached, I saw that she was no more than ten years old, with twinkling eyes and apple cheeks. The uniform suggested that she had been with the party of children I had seen earlier. She flailed her arms to flag me down.
I stopped. She gave me a mischievous smile and said, ‘Can you please drop me to my village? It’s further down this road.’
‘Haven’t your parents told you not to talk to strangers?’
‘They have but you seem like a local. And we hill-folk are one big family, right?’ With these precocious words, she hoisted herself up behind me.
She sat demurely with both her legs on one side, and put her little hands on my shoulders. I found out that her name was Bholi. She admitted that all the boys and girls had strict instructions never to leave the group under any circumstances. ‘But what do I do? The others want to stop every few minutes and it takes us an extra hour every day to reach home.’ I realised she had taken lifts like this before.
At that moment, the devil entered my mind. For the first time in my life but definitely not the last. Until then, I had thought of nothing other than dropping Bholi home and carrying on.
I felt myself getting a massive erection. My hands became slippery with sweat and there was a pounding inside my head. We were passing through a gentle gradient, with dense undergrowth on both sides. The road was little more than a forest path on this stretch. I stopped and said, ‘You need to get off for a minute, Bholi.’
She complied without saying a word. I wheeled the motorcycle into the bush and parked it behind the bole of a tree so that it wasn’t visible from the road. Bholi followed me and said worriedly, ‘What are you doing?’
I held her hand firmly and said, ‘We’ll take a walk in the forest. I want to show you something.’
‘No!’ There was alarm in her eyes and she tried to pull herself free. I guess she had figured out something was wrong.
As I dragged her away, she began to struggle mightily, shouting at the top of her voice. She was no match for my superior strength but I worried that someone would hear her and come along to investigate. I was inexperienced in those days so it didn’t strike me to incapacitate her first. One blow to the head would have done it.
Unable to shake herself loose, she suddenly bent down and bit my hand hard. It was my turn to scream and I found myself letting her go. In a trice, she started running away. Luckily, I was between her and the road so she was forced to head deeper into the trees. I smiled to myself, for the forest was my domain and she couldn’t escape me there.
I ran after Bholi. She had already put some distance between us but I could follow the flashes of her red uniform through the greenery. Though I knew these parts well, it wasn’t easy going. Bholi was quick and kept changing direction. I realised she was instinctively veering away from thicker jungle so that her speed wasn’t hampered.
I pursued her for several minutes, and then lost her. I had reached a small clearing and looked around. There was no sign of her. I felt a burst of panic. What if she had gotten away? It would be very inconvenient if she reported the matter.
Then I saw a small movement out of the corner of my eye, near a bush barely ten feet away. I rushed across and found Bholi cowering behind it. The fight had gone out of her. She whimpered as I lifted her up roughly. Her eyes were glassy with tears as she begged me to let her go. I caught a handful of her uniform blouse and ripped it away. Her tiny, budding breasts poked out through the cotton vest she was wearing inside. I unbuckled my belt and let my trousers fall to the ground.
Then I noticed her pale throat. It seemed to invite me strangely. My hands encircled her frail neck and began to squeeze. I could have broken it in an instant but I took my time. Bholi’s eyes bulged and her legs thrashed. I increased the pressure gradually. Her face contorted in agony as the soft flesh around her larynx was slowly crushed. I felt bones dislocate beneath my hands and eased off to prolong the act but the light went out of her eyes. Her head slumped back.
I ejaculated in hot, unending streams.
39
Neel
One of my hidden talents is organisational skill.
I’m really good at planning events. Following up on actions and rallying people around a cause. Thinking through the smallest details. Prioritising tasks and resources. Had I been in engineering or construction or IT, I would have made a great project manager. I don’t thump my chest or shout from the rooftops. But I get the job done.
I was the general secretary of our school alumni association for over six years. Only resigning when my wife and son died. During that time, it transformed from being an informal old boys’ (and girls’) network to a full-fledged organisation registered under the Societies Act. Complete with a governance council and a vision statement. Not to mention, twelve chapters in India and overseas. Our activities now include social awareness initiatives and health clinics. Scholarships for underprivileged children, educational tours and student exchange programmes. Endowments for retired teachers and infrastructure development for our alma mater. I can say with pride that I’ve been a major contributor to this progress.
There’s one project with which I’m still very involved. It’s close to my heart. And a commitment I made many years ago. On our final day in school, we all made a pact to get back together on campus the year we turned thirty. I was unanimously given the charge of reminding everyone of our common promise. And also planning the event, of course. It’s scheduled for next month. Part of the annual Founder’s Day jamboree. People from all over the world have already made their plans to attend.
It was in this connection that I called Mrs Iyer, Jo’s mother. We wanted to have a special memorial service for Jo. And other members of our batch who weren’t with us anymore. Like Roy and Rachel.
Just before hanging up, Mrs Iyer asked me, ‘Did Rachel ever tell any of you what I had told her?’
‘No,’ I said, mystified.
Hesitantly, she said, ‘Then maybe I should tell you.’
Her story shocked me.
One Friday evening, a woman had landed up at her house in Chennai. Mrs Iyer had no idea who she was. Until she introduced herself as the wife of the man who had murdered Jo. She said tearfully that her husband was about to be executed. Even though he was completely innocent. There was only a week left for the hanging.
The woman went on to say that three days after Jo’s body was found, her husband had been approached by a stranger. To plead guilty to the crime. In return, his family would be very well taken care of for the rest of their lives. Poor as he was, it was an offer that had to be considered. The couple had discussed it long into the night. The sight of their five sleeping children, put to bed h
ungry and half-naked, had finally decided it for them. The man was willing to sacrifice his honesty and his life for their sake.
The promised money had come in. But as the months went by, the decision haunted the woman more and more. Every time she went to meet her husband in jail, her resolve to stick to their side of the bargain weakened further. When the final petition for amnesty was turned down, she decided to take matters into her own hands. Despite protests from her husband.
But as could be expected, no one believed her. She went to the police, the press, human rights organisations, even the local MLA. It was of no use. A couple of people were sympathetic and heard her out. But there was no question of the High Court’s order being challenged. It was a clear indictment for a grievous felony.
As a last resort, she had come to Mrs Iyer. Thinking that if she could convince the victim’s mother, then there was some hope. For Mrs Iyer, it was a reopening of a terrible wound, that had only partially healed over time. Her first instinct had been to throw the woman out. But something had made her stop and hear what she had to say. Her mind was in a storm as she listened. She also went through the evidence which had been brought along in a grimy plastic bag.
Mrs Iyer found herself believing the woman. Much to her own surprise. After all, here was the wife of the man everyone was convinced had killed her beloved daughter. It was already too late to save the poor man, though. He died to protect someone who didn’t deserve to live.
‘I called Rachel and told her everything,’ said Mrs Iyer. ‘Jo used to be quite close to her. Besides, I thought that since she was in the media, maybe she could expose this whole frame-up and find out who my daughter’s killer really was.’
I asked Mrs Iyer when she had spoken to Rachel. She said it was over six months ago.
One piece of the puzzle fell into place. I now knew what had started Rachel off on her ill-fated investigation.
Second Lives Page 12