He stood there looking at the headlights passing by down on GS Road. There was no comment from Baia. She probably hated him now. But why had he wanted to tell her, of all people, something he had kept from everyone, even Sonali?
‘I never spoke about this to anyone, even my ex-wife. I buried it somewhere deep inside where I wouldn’t have to think about it any more. But ever since I started working on Amenla’s case, it started coming back to me. You must think I’m an evil person, right? I wouldn’t blame you.’
Arjun shifted his gaze: now he could see her and the table lamp by her side reflected on the windowpane. She was looking towards him.
‘You feel remorse for it, don’t you?’ she finally said. ‘If it was someone like Khanna, or even the Captain at the detention centre, they might have enjoyed it.’
He went back to the sofa and sat down. ‘That’s one way of looking at it.’
‘Tell me about your life, Arjun. I want to know.’
So he told her, about his father coming to Calcutta as a child after Partition with his family, then moving to the North-east as a construction company supervisor, his work taking him to the small towns across the region, where Arjun had grown up, going to different schools and being picked on as an outsider, then later feared because of his strength. His father getting shot in the kneecap in Manipur and relocating the family to Delhi, college, Sonali, joining the army, leaving the army, the failed businesses, Iraq as a mercenary (where he had been kidnapped and almost beheaded), the failed marriage and then finally the detective agency.
He stopped only to top up their glasses, and he noticed she kept an eye on his glass but didn’t say anything. It felt as though he had opened the floodgates of his soul; all those things he had kept bottled up within himself—he had finally spoken about them.
‘Do you get along with your daughter?’ Baia asked him.
‘Yes, I do. She even helps me with my cases, including this one. I got her a shawl from Imphal.’
Baia smiled. ‘That’s very sweet of you.’
In the dim light of the table lamp her face looked enchanting, a reminder of all that was good and pleasant in life. He put his glass down and leant forward to kiss her and she kissed him back hungrily with her small, eager mouth.
‘Stay the night with me?’ he whispered when their lips finally parted, and she didn’t say anything, just nodded and came closer to him.
A while later he got up and put off the lights and carried her to the bed, where, by the pale light coming into the room, they undressed and got under the covers. He took things steadily, wishing to savour every moment. She was smaller than most women he had been with, and it made him feel a greater tenderness for her. After two close brushes with death, it was all the more satisfying to be nestled with her within the clean, soft sheets of a four-star hotel. She spread her hands behind her head and moaned with pleasure as he moved slowly within her and nibbled at her throat and ears.
Afterwards, he held her in his arms and they looked out at the lights of buildings in the dark night. Winter was coming, he thought, and for a moment a vision came to him: a cold, foggy road outside, an old house with a coal-burning chulha on a wooden tray, his mother peeling an orange for him while he studied for his final exams, his father in the kitchen drinking from his half-bottle of whisky while listening to old Hindi songs on the transistor.
‘What are you thinking about?’ she asked him.
‘Our old house in Bomdila. We stayed there for two years.’
‘I’ve never been there.’
‘Oh. It’s on the way to Tawang. We could go some time.’
‘Sure,’ she said, squeezing his arm, and he felt happy after a long, long time.
Arjun slept a deep, dreamless sleep that night, coming awake early in the morning with the sky just starting to lighten. He got out of bed to draw the curtains, then got in beside her again; he would have liked to make love to her, but she was fast asleep, her face buried in the pillow and her silky hair scattered over it. More than anything, he felt gratitude for being able to experience this caring and passion once again. He had been lucky; he wasn’t going to spoil this. Putting his arm around her naked body he tried to catch some more sleep. But sleep wouldn’t come; his work wasn’t done yet, and till then he couldn’t fully relax.
At 5.30 a.m. he got out of bed, pulled on his boxers and made himself a cup of coffee. He hadn’t smoked since he had entered the hotel, and now he felt a strong craving for a cigarette. Pulling aside the curtains, he saw that a paan shop was open on the other side of GS Road. He pulled on his jeans and T-shirt, and whispered in Baia’s ear that he was going out. She murmured something he couldn’t catch and kissed him.
At the reception he picked up the Sunday edition of the Assam Tribune and then went out and crossed the divider and asked the paan-wallah for a packet of Gold Flake. On the radio a Kishore Kumar song was playing. He opened the packet and lit one, enjoying the early-morning quiet and cool with the occasional tourist taxi speeding past. He thought about Baia, sleeping in a room in the hotel across the road. He was thankful, yes, but there was also a part of him that whispered to him not to get tied down. But what would that ultimately lead to? A lonely existence in his Delhi flat? He couldn’t count on his parents, or even Rhea, on being around him forever.
A black sedan with bhangra pop playing loudly on the stereo came and stopped outside the paan shop and two men got down, one young, the other older, both Marwari by the look of them. The older one asked the Assamese paan-wallah for paan masala and zarda. The younger one, in a purple half-jacket and shades, spoke on his phone to someone about going to Sonapur for the day. Arjun had come across people before who liked the combination of paan masala and zarda. He dropped the cigarette butt into the drain and crossed the divider and entered the large courtyard of the hotel. There was a Mitsubishi Pajero with an NL07 Dimapur number plate parked there. Suddenly in his head he heard Romeo’s voice in the hotel room in Imphal, talking to his assistant who had just come back with a tin of paan masala: Kishorji was the one who introduced me to it, when I met him with my father. Arjun stopped in his tracks—how could he have not seen it?
Hurrying back to the room, he switched on his mobile phone and called Abbas. His friend answered after several rings, his voice thick with sleep.
‘What is it, Arora?’
Arjun didn’t bother to apologize for calling so early. ‘What’s the Nagaland chief secretary’s name, Abbas?’
‘What?’
‘The chief secretary of Nagaland, what’s his name?’
‘Kishor, Kamal Kishor. From Himachal. But why?’
‘He’s the one you said got a car from Bhutan to Delhi via Dimapur? Last year?’
‘Yes, a Land Cruiser.’
‘Would you know the colour?’
‘The colour . . . what is this about, Arora?’
‘Do you know the colour of the car?’
‘Yes, a grey Land Cruiser, I saw it myself in Dimapur.’
‘Thanks, Abbas.’
Arjun hung up even as Abbas was asking him why he wanted to know that. But now it was clearer to him, all the pieces were falling into place. Just one last thing . . .
‘Arjun, what’s wrong?’ he heard Baia say. ‘I’ve been calling you.’
He went across and sat beside her on the bed and stroked her hair.
‘Sorry. Something to do with the case.’
‘When do you have to go to Delhi?’
He looked down at her large brown eyes. ‘Actually, I think I have to go to Bangkok.’
42
FIVE DAYS LATER, ON THURSDAY night, Arjun landed in Delhi on a Singapore Airlines flight from Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi. He came out of the airport after almost an hour, carrying the same backpack he had left Delhi with, and a duty-free shopping bag inside which were a bottle of Scotch and packets of noodles and chocolate bars. In the backpack was a sealed envelope with several black-and-white images taken from CCTV cameras of the Pathumwan Princess Ho
tel. He got a pre-paid taxi to CR Park, and on the way back made the driver stop at the first roadside paan shop he saw so that he could buy a packet of Gold Flakes—the last packet he had bought was in Guwahati, and in Bangkok he had had to subsist on strong Marlboros. After Bangkok, the chill in the night air—it was colder than Guwahati too—came as a surprise. But after the clean, pure air of the North-east, and the humid smoke-and-street-food scents of Bangkok, a part of him also felt at home in the smog-filled and harshly lit Delhi night. As Arjun got back into the taxi, the driver was grumbling his displeasure at having to stop, and this was familiar too—you always had to be ready to fight in Delhi. He lit a cigarette, savouring the taste of the Indian tobacco, and switched on his phone and called Baia in Guwahati to let her know he had reached.
She had come down from his room that Sunday and waited for him in the restaurant, where they helped themselves to the brunch buffet. Arjun had checked out after collecting his laundry, and they went to Baia’s small, sparsely furnished flat in the nearby Six Mile area. He had called Liza and asked her to get him a ticket, by any means, on the Druk Air flight the next morning from Paro in Bhutan to Bangkok via Guwahati. Then he had called Abbas, explained to him why he had called early in the morning and asked if he had any trusted contacts in Bangkok, someone with contacts in the police. Abbas had told him about a young Naga major named Akato from Khrienuo’s group who acted as a ‘liaison officer’ in Bangkok, and whose family Abbas had helped out during a time of difficulty a while ago. He gave Arjun the major’s contact. Arjun also told Abbas that he wanted a photo of Romeo, preferably a recent one.
There were two missed calls from Ujjwal Negi, but Arjun figured whatever it was could wait a few days till he got back. He switched off his phone again, and spent the rest of the day with Baia, watching movies on the DVD player, making love and cooking dinner. His secretary called him on the landline in the flat in the evening, to tell him that his ticket had been confirmed on the next day’s Druk Air flight to Bangkok. He had left for the airport the next morning in a taxi, and landed at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi late in the morning. After getting his visa-on-arrival done, he had taken a taxi into the city, and checked into the Pathumwan Princess Hotel, the same place where Abeni and Chon had stayed. The hotel had a vast shopping mall attached to it, and after he had left his backpack in his room Arjun went to a Thai food place in the mall to have lunch.
He had called Akato from the phone in his room and gave him Abbas’s reference, and they met in a nearby pub in the evening. Akato was a Sema from the town of Satakha, a place famous in the annals of the Naga insurgency, and had studied at St Anthony’s College in Shillong before joining ‘Uncle Khrienuo’. No mention was made of Khrienuo’s death though, Arjun noticed. He looked more like a young company executive (though his hands were veined and calloused), and told Arjun he helped people coming from Nagaland. No doubt there were investments to be looked after as well, but Arjun didn’t bring that up. He told Akato what he was looking for, and asked him if he had any contacts in the Bangkok police. Akato said there was someone he knew, and that they could meet the person the next day. Arjun told him that payments could be made if required, and, later at night, used the hotel Wi-Fi on his phone to send him photos of Abeni and Chon from their passports.
They had met again the next day, in a fast-food restaurant frequented by teenagers and tourists, and were joined by a pretty lady officer in plainclothes with blonde streaks in her dark hair. Arjun persuaded her to show him her police ID. She spoke English well, and he could smell the faint lavender perfume or talc she wore. He explained to her what he needed, and Akato told her that the girls were from his home state, Nagaland. Then he asked Arjun to leave them for a while. Arjun went out and smoked a cigarette on the busy sidewalk, and a while later both of them came out and the female officer said bye to him and went her own way. Akato said that a certain sum would have to be paid (‘It’s just like India here,’ he told Arjun), if she managed to get what he was looking for.
Arjun had spent the next day wandering about the mall attached to the hotel (he bought T-shirts for Rhea and himself, and also for Baia) and lounging by the hotel swimming pool. Akato was supposed to call the reception and leave a message if there was any news. He went out in the afternoon and wandered about the humid streets till he came to a place with several food carts, and had a late lunch of green Thai curry and rice followed by coconut ice cream. When he got back he checked at the reception but there was no message for him. Time hung heavy on his hands, and he wondered if the lady officer would deliver. As evening approached, he had looked out from his hotel room at the lights coming on across the city, and wondered if he should make his way to one of the go-go bars on Soi Cowboy or elsewhere, but thinking about Baia, he didn’t feel like doing it, and instead had helped himself to the beer in the mini bar and watched CNN in his room. At around 8 p.m. there had been a rustling at the door, and he went and found a large, thick envelope which had been slipped under the door. He opened the door and came out, but there was no sign of anyone along the carpeted corridor. He sniffed the air: there was the faint yet unmistakeable scent of lavender.
Arjun had gone back inside and opened the envelope. Inside were several black-and-white grabs from the hotel’s CCTV cameras. They showed Abeni and Chon, dressed casually for a holiday, and a third person whom Arjun wasn’t surprised to see. He had taped the envelope and put it inside his backpack. Later at night Akato had called to say that he had made a payment on Arjun’s behalf and needed to be refunded. Arjun had told him to mail him his bank details, and had gone to the hotel’s computer centre where he had added him as an online beneficiary and then transferred the funds the next day before leaving for the airport.
There had also been an email from Poppy; as his phone was switched off she had figured he was travelling. She had recalled what had been strange about the girl’s murder case: the reporter had heard from a reliable police source that Rohit Chaudhry had been detained in a drugs case earlier, and the reporter also found out that there were no records about that particular incident; it would seem someone influential had got the details expunged. This matched what Negi had told Arjun over the phone on his last night in Imphal.
It felt good to open the door to his flat and walk in—the more one aged, the more familiarity mattered. He opened the bottle of Scotch and poured himself a measure neat, then sank into the sofa and opened the envelope he had brought back from Bangkok. Looking at the photos, he realized he was one step closer to solving the mystery of Amenla’s death. There was a lot of work to be done the next day. And he would also have to inform the maid that he was back. The flat needed to be spruced up; Baia had told him that she would be in Delhi over the weekend for a conference at the India International Centre. For dinner he made himself a packet of Tom Yum flavoured noodles. He was back to his lonely, solitary existence, but something told him things were going to start changing from now on.
The next morning he was at the office at 9.15 a.m. It pleased him to see that all three of his employees were already present and working. He should give them a surprise year-end bonus this time, he thought. When he went in Liza and Chandu got up to ask him when he had got back, and then proudly showed him the new Xerox machine in one corner. Chandu appeared to be wearing his new clothes. Ujjwal Negi came out, and told Arjun that he had been trying to call him during the weekend. Arjun remembered with some guilt switching off the phone in the hotel in Guwahati and in Baia’s flat as he hadn’t wanted any distractions while he was around her.
‘Sorry about that, but there were people who might have been trying to trace the location of my phone,’ he said to him.
The junior detective nodded. ‘I thought you had already heard about it on the news.’
‘Heard about what?’
Negi looked at Liza, then turned back to him. ‘Rohit Chaudhry. He was shot.’
‘What? You mean he’s . . .’
‘Yes, he’s dead. It happened on Friday night.’
‘I was trying his number this morning! That’s why it was switched off.’
‘What about the case, sir?’ Liza asked him. ‘Did you find out anything over there?’
Arjun nodded. ‘Yes, but now this changes everything.’
He went to his desk in the inside room, switched on his desktop and looked up the news reports on Rohit Chaudhry’s death. It had happened the previous Friday, the day Arjun had been taken to Churachandpur, and the day after Romeo had reached Delhi. The transporter’s son had been shot twice in the chest outside his house in the evening, when he had got out of his Audi to open the gate. Witnesses had seen a masked man shoot Rohit and then run to a motorcycle with an accomplice waiting nearby. It bore the mark of professional killers, and Arjun thought of what Tinkuji had told him about drug factories in Uttarakhand that supplied pseudoephedrine tablets in bulk. He had wanted to go and talk to Rohit Chaudhry one last time, but now he would have to change his plans. It was not yet 10 a.m.; if he hurried he could still make it to Safdarjung Enclave on time.
43
ARJUN PARKED HIS CAR IN the same place beside the public park in Safdarjung Enclave’s B Block. The chhole–kulche-wallah was there by the main gate, heating up kulchas on a tawa over the small stove fixed to the back of his cycle. He had a momentary feeling of déjà vu: almost three weeks had passed since he had first come here, but it felt as though the time in between had been compressed, and he was still on his way to the Sodhi residence for the first time.
He walked past the general store and the salon, turned left past the RWA gate, crossed the Sodhi residence and headed towards Humayunpur, where he made his way through the narrow lanes teeming with youth from the North-east walking about as if it were home. Coming out to the road with the hookah corner under the old tree and dusty parked cars, he went ahead and climbed up the cramped outer staircase of the building with the New Hope Foundation’s signboard outside the first floor. The door on the first floor was open, and from what Arjun could see inside it seemed more of a residence than an office, with heavy metal music playing. On an impulse he rang the doorbell, and the tribal-looking boy with glasses he had seen the last time came to the door, a lit cigarette between his lips.
More Bodies Will Fall Page 25