Second Lives

by Sarkar, Anish

  Roy and I had never thought of the swimming pool. It was the perfect hideout for Karan’s men. No one was likely to go there at this time of year.

  My eyes started adjusting to the dim light. It came in through a skylight window high above. I suddenly noticed a form lying near me. Motionless. It had to be Roy. I lunged towards him. There was a clatter of metal. And I found myself unable to move. I realised that my left leg was chained to a pipe running along the wall. No wonder they had left my hands free.

  ‘Roy!’ I tried to shout. My voice was more of a hoarse whisper. ‘Are you all right?’

  There was no response. For a moment, I wondered if he was dead. A wave of nausea rose inside my throat. I manoeuvred myself around. Stretched my free leg in his direction. My toes made contact with inert flesh. I pushed as hard as I could from my restricted position. ‘Roy, wake up!’ I pleaded.

  There was a faint groan. I felt him stir. He was alive, thank God. I heard a shuffling sound. A loud stream of expletives. His restraints must have been shorter than mine. I sensed him scrabbling furiously to pull himself up.

  ‘Roy, we’re at the bottom of the swimming pool, chained to the wall. Move backwards and then try to sit up.’

  He did so, and then said slowly, ‘My head…hurts like hell.’

  ‘Karan’s men knocked us out and brought us here.’ I paused. ‘He wants us alive, remember?’

  ‘Yeah, I remember.’

  ‘What do we do now, Roy?’

  Instead of replying, he cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, ‘Anyone around?’ His voice had regained some strength. It echoed inside the cavernous building. I got the drift and shouted, ‘Where are you bastards?’

  There was no response. I figured we were alone inside the complex. I looked for something to free ourselves with. There was nothing I could use. Whoever had frisked us had done an excellent job. Even my belt and shoes were gone.

  I ran my hand along the length of my manacle. The links were a quarter of an inch thick and unbreakable. I tugged on the pipe with all my strength. It didn’t even budge. It was too dark for me to look for any weak spots in the brackets which affixed it to the wall. They appeared to be cemented in place anyway.

  ‘We’re stuck,’ I said finally. ‘Should we keep shouting for help? Maybe someone will eventually hear us.’

  ‘No, let’s conserve our energy.’ Roy had been doing the same thing I was. Testing the strength of his restraints. Searching for some way to escape.

  It was impossible for anyone outside to hear us. Even if they were walking right past the building. And the pool complex was at one end of the campus. So the chances of anyone just walking by were remote.

  Our situation wasn’t pretty. Karan had screwed us well and proper. Our plan seemed a non-starter, stuck as we were.

  Roy remarked, ‘I wonder what the time is…It feels like we were knocked out for several hours.’

  I was thinking about that myself. The light appeared to have improved slightly. I looked up and said, ‘I reckon dawn is breaking. That’s twilight coming in through there.’

  I was right. The first rays of the sun soon descended on a spot exactly mid-way between Roy and me. It felt like a cue for the next act of a stage production. Except that this was drama in real life. We had no way of knowing what was next in the script.

  At least, we could see around us clearly now.

  The pool looked enormous from where we were. It was Olympic-sized. In keeping with our school’s rich heritage of producing some of the finest swimmers in the country. But it hadn’t seemed so imposing ever before. I knew we were on the first floor of the building. The showers and pump room were on the lower level. The ceiling was high and gabled. Like most other buildings on campus. There were only a few windows, all tightly shuttered. The two large clocks were as I remembered. They hung opposite each other on the longer walls, I could see some chairs lying on their side at the far edge of the pool. Other than that, the place was bare.

  I looked at the clocks. Both showed exactly the same time—6:45. We still had over two hours. If only we could somehow extricate ourselves from this predicament. I suddenly felt a little less pessimistic. Daylight seemed to have brought fresh hope.

  And then I suddenly noticed something. It was about half-way up the length of the pool, along the wall. It had been in deep shadow until the sunlight shifted. I took a few seconds to realise what I was seeing.

  It was a body.

  80

  Roy

  Neel exclaimed, ‘Roy, look!’

  Something in his voice made me jerk around, and I saw what he was pointing at.

  He said despondently, ‘Shit, that’s…Omar.’

  He was right. I had spotted a familiar pair of moccasins pointing at us lifelessly.

  The angles of the limbs had all the awkwardness of violent death. I had no doubt that Omar had been tortured before being killed.

  There was a low moan from Neel. ‘Is he…’

  ‘Yes, he’s dead,’ I said quietly.

  It shouldn’t have been a great surprise because Karan had told us already. Still, seeing that crumpled form lying there was like a spear through my heart. I was no stranger to death nor was I any kind of a softie. I had killed in cold blood more than once. Though in my defence, it may be said that in every instance, the individual had relinquished his (and in one case, her) right to live.

  I never had any lasting relationships during these twelve years. No real friends, no serious girlfriends, no remaining family. I lived and worked alone, making human contact only when there was a professional or physical need. There had been women in my life but I liked to keep the liaisons brief, emotionless and sometimes even anonymous.

  Solitude was my closest companion. In my line of work, it certainly helped to have no ties but it wasn’t just that. Somewhere deep inside me, something had died. Several things actually. I was unable to feel love, grief, hope or remorse like normal people, except on a superficial and temporary basis. I had no major desire for the good things in life. I lived a spartan existence, even though the Members insisted on rewarding me with far more money than I deserved or needed. I guess the Blackout had caused some damage to my brain after all, cauterising all the softer parts and leaving behind cold, hard spots.

  I had become an automaton. A robot programmed for one purpose only, incapable of pretty much anything else.

  But something had changed in the past few days. I had rediscovered friendship.

  Despite all the intervening years, I had picked up from where I left off with Neel and Omar. The camaraderie, the understanding, the banter—nothing seemed to have changed. And the common mission we were on had brought us even closer. For the first time in twelve years, I didn’t feel I was alone.

  And now Omar was gone. I couldn’t believe it.

  An indescribable anger welled up inside me. Karan would pay dearly for this. It was already personal, what with the murders of Jo and Rachel, and he had just made it even more so.

  I could tell that Neel was thinking the same thing. His head was bowed and he said almost inaudibly, ‘We have to kill that bastard, Roy. He can’t be allowed to get away with this. He simply can’t…’

  ‘I know.’

  I examined my leg irons again. It was a standard type, made in Taiwan or China. The chain was more heavy-duty than that used in handcuffs but the rotating arm and ratchet mechanism at both ends was the same. It used a simple lever lock, which could be opened with a universal key that police officers generally carried.

  I could pick that lock quite easily, provided there was some suitable tool at hand. Even a pin or staple would be enough. I wasn’t Harry Houdini but in my occupation, the ability to open all kinds of locks was a basic necessity and I had had plenty of practice.

  The problem was that there appeared to be absolutely nothing I could use. All metallic item
s had been removed from our persons. We had carefully checked the pool floor within the radius of our restraints, and drawn a blank. It was surprisingly clean of any flotsam.

  I felt a wave of frustration welling up inside me. There had to be some way to free ourselves.

  That’s when my eyes went to the pipe behind Neel. The cement had worn or chipped away, revealing a segment of rusted metal. I hadn’t noticed that in the darkness.

  ‘Neel, look behind you,’ I said urgently.

  He turned in the wrong direction. ‘What?’

  ‘The other side. See that bracket on the pipe?’

  He examined it carefully. ‘Yeah, but it’s stuck fast.’

  ‘Check the screws. With so much rust, they’re bound to be loose.’

  After a moment, he said, ‘A little but there’s hardly any play.’

  ‘Try to pull one out with your fingers.’

  For several minutes, I heard groans of effort, cries of pain and the choicest abuse. Neel was putting everything into it and I saw that his hands were slippery with blood. One fingernail had neatly broken in half. Finally, he exclaimed, ‘It’s not coming out any further!’ But there was now a half-centimetre gap between the bracket and the wall.

  ‘Good job, Neel,’ I said. ‘That should be enough. Now try to push the edge of the cuff on your leg into that gap.’ I had observed that the rim of the cuffs was unusually slim.

  Neel immediately understood what I was suggesting. He squirmed around and got his shackled leg up on the pipe. But try as he might, he couldn’t align the cuff with the bracket, for it was around his ankle. I immediately realised that it would be impossible unless he cut off his foot.

  I screamed in frustration.

  Then I saw that Neel had turned his back to the wall again and managed to lift himself in a sort of half-crouch. I couldn’t figure out what he was trying to do, until he sat down hard on the pipe with all his weight and began to jump up and down on it.

  By God, it worked. The bracket came off the wall in a shower of rust flakes and cement fragments, making the pipe sag by a couple of inches. Neel shouted, ‘Roy, you do the same. A little more pressure and we can break this fellow!’

  Needing no further invitation, I got up as far as I could on my haunches and said, ‘Together, Neel. On the count of three…’

  It needed just one attempt. The pipe sheared neatly along a weld, and we quickly slipped off our restraints. I picked up a screw which had fallen out, and opened our cuffs. We ran ahead to where Omar’s body lay.

  His face was turned away from us but Neel bent down and gently moved it around. We both gasped. Omar’s face was unrecognisable, a mass of blood and pulp. The nose was smashed almost flat, the jaw was clearly broken and one side of the head was swollen to practically double the normal size. The eyes were open, bulged in a final paroxysm of pain before death had come. I had seen some gory sights in my career but even I was shaken. I guessed he had been brutally and systematically kicked around. I remembered that Karan’s henchmen were wearing heavy boots.

  The body was pretty stiff. I figured they would have killed Omar at least twelve hours ago. It had been done with two gunshots to his heart from point blank range. How long they had tortured him before that was anybody’s guess. If what Karan had told us was true, then Omar must have done something to really piss off his thugs. Like kick them in the balls or something. Because they had set upon him with a real vengeance after that.

  Karan wouldn’t have been too happy to have missed out on all the fun. Maybe that was the real reason why they hadn’t killed Neel and me outright.

  I got up.

  You made a big mistake, Karan. Now I’m coming to get you.

  81

  Neel

  We cleaned up as best as we could. And rushed to the school auditorium, next to the academic block. It was as large as a movie theatre. The President was delivering his keynote speech. I presumed that the welcome formalities and inauguration were over already.

  I went up to the console at the back. The entire show was being orchestrated from there. Roy stayed a few steps behind. It was quite dark. I hoped that we wouldn’t be seen by Karan’s men. They were bound to be around somewhere.

  The event director hissed, ‘Where the hell were you, Neel? We’ve been looking all over since last night.’

  I tried to keep my voice calm. ‘Sorry. I was…tied up.’

  ‘Have you brought the damned AV?’

  I pulled out the envelope and extracted a slim DVD case. ‘Yes, here you go.’

  ‘Thank God! Just in time…We would have had to cancel it otherwise.’ He passed the DVD to one of the technicians standing behind him. ‘It’s too late to merge it with the other one. I’ll just set them to play in sequence, and hope it works.’

  ‘I hope so too.’ I had made a last-minute change in the video. There was no time to test the final version properly.

  There was a burst of applause. The President had concluded his address. He stepped away from the podium. Walked across to the other side of the stage. A dais had been erected there for the chief guests. He sat down between the Chairman of the Board, who was a noted business tycoon and philanthropist, and the principal.

  Karan leaned across to whisper something to the President. I guess he was complimenting him on his speech.

  The emcee came on stage. A retired actor had been the original choice. He dropped out at the last minute. This man had been hastily brought in as a stand-in. He began in his faux American drawl, ‘The Founder’s Day event is a celebration of the glorious heritage of our school but it is also an opportunity for our alumni from around the world to return to these hallowed portals and take that nostalgic walk down memory lane. This year, we have the highest attendance ever, up almost fifty per cent from last year.’

  There was the inevitable applause.

  ‘As you know, we traditionally commemorate the silver and golden jubilee batches but this time, given that we are celebrating a hundred and fifty years, the organisers have decided to include the batch completing twelve years since graduation.’ He paused. ‘The more the merrier, I say. And one thing is for sure…It’s definitely brought down the average age of this audience.’ There were some murmurs but the joke fell flat.

  He cleared his throat and said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, before we proceed to the alumni service, let us take a few minutes to remember a few individuals from these batches who are no longer with us, but whose memories shall never fade from our hearts. I request your full attention to the audio-visual presentation we are about to play for you.’

  The lights dimmed. The large screen on the stage, and two smaller ones halfway down the auditorium, came to life.

  A long, profound quotation on life and death scrolled across the displays. Followed by the opening bars of a soulful tune. The slideshow began to roll. I watched impatiently. Each photo was accompanied by a name, occupation and date of passing. The golden jubilee batch had a larger number. For obvious reasons. I wondered how all the information had been tracked down.

  The silver guys had also lost quite a few. There was a group of four who had died on the same day. I guessed they must have perished together in an accident or something. It was pretty ironical in the context of what was about to come.

  Finally, the segment came to an end. The screens went blank. The music stopped abruptly. Then my voice rang out deep and clear over the speakers. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Neel and I want to tell you a story.’

  I held my breath.

  Showtime.

  82

  Roy

  I saw the guys at the console look at each other, clearly surprised. They were expecting the last few slides from our batch and then the presentation to end. This wasn’t supposed to be in the script. No one in the audience knew that though, so they just kept watching, unmoved.

  I glanced at Karan.
He remained impassive.

  Neel continued. ‘It’s unfortunate that we’ve lost five members of our batch, even though many of us are yet to turn thirty. Take a look.’

  Photographs of Jo, myself, Rachel, Sara and Omar scrolled through. I was taken aback. Neel hadn’t told me that he had edited the video after our escape from the swimming pool.

  I wasn’t sure how he had managed but it was a brilliant touch.

  There was a collective gasp from the audience when they saw yesterday’s date on Omar’s photo. People looked at each other, especially those who knew him and had probably seen him around barely a few hours ago.

  Neel’s voice came on again. ‘What’s really unfortunate is that all these five people, each of them a wonderful human being, were murdered.’ He paused. ‘Not only murdered, but murdered by the same man.’

  This was the critical moment. Would someone, like the principal or the event coordinator or even Karan himself, stop the proceedings now? We had debated this point endlessly. But everyone was stunned into silence, wondering what was coming next.

  Karan got up half-way from his seat, his face full of anger and confusion, then sat down again, perhaps realising that he couldn’t afford to react like that. But people would recall his reflexive action later.

  The photos scrolled by again, slowly. ‘Jo, the whiz-kid of our batch, was brutally murdered in our pre-final year. A local sweeper was executed for the crime but he was innocent. Roy, one of the most popular students on campus, was knocked unconscious and pushed into a raging Himalayan river one cold winter night.

  ‘Rachel, the nicest and warmest person you could ever hope to meet, was hanged at her mother’s home in Goa just two months ago, because she had discovered the identity of the killer and the extent of his crimes. And not a week has passed since Sara, heart-throb of our batch, was shot in her own home for the same reason.’