Chain of Custody (10 page)

Rekha had smiled at him. The prospect of money to spend filled her with a sudden burst of energy. ‘See you soon then,' she said, running up the steps of the hotel.

She glanced at her watch now. It was almost eight. She had been waiting for half an hour and had drunk two glasses of water and texted Sid twelve times. If he doesn't turn up in ten, I am leaving, she texted, and her phone lit up.

Cool it, baby.

‘Good evening,' a voice murmured in her ear.

She looked up, startled to see a good-looking middle-aged man at her side. He was almost as old as her father, she thought, a puffed-up little muffin as her English professor liked to say. ‘Hi, good evening …' she stuttered, jumping to her feet. She was not a tall girl, but he was shorter than she was, she realized.

‘Sit down,' he said, pulling out a chair for himself. Then he thrust a palm towards her. ‘Hello, I am Dr Sanjay Rathore. But you can call me Sanjay.'

She nodded. ‘My name is Rekha,' she said.

‘Just Rekha?' An eyebrow rose.

‘Just Rekha.'

He smiled. ‘So, just Rekha, what will you drink?'

She shrugged. Sid had said that she was expected to drink. ‘But I don't drink,' she had said. ‘I mean, I've had beer and gin, but I'm not really used to it!'

‘Ask for a Virgin Mary,' Sid had said.

‘What's that?'

‘Just tomato juice with celery sticks in it and salt on the rim. Looks like a cocktail but is just a mocktail.'

What was a celery stick? Rekha had let her gaze slide over Sid. How did he know all of this? Sometimes she thought her heart would burst with the love she felt for him. He was tall and had the most endearing dimples. He worked out at the gym so his muscles were well-defined. He should be in the movies, she thought, and sent up a prayer of thanks that he had no such ambitions. She
couldn't bear the thought of sharing him. Didn't he mind, she wondered, that she was with another man, sweet-talking him?

‘Just Rekha, so what will you drink?' he asked again.

‘Virgin Mary,' she said.

His eyebrow rose again. ‘Virgin Mary, huh?' She peered through her eyelashes at him. That emphasis on the word virgin – had she imagined it?

Holding her smile in check, she darted a sidelong glance at him. ‘Yes, a Virgin Mary,' she said, feeling a rush of excitement.

She watched him as he placed the order. She saw how he twirled the hair at the arch of his eyebrow. It was an affectation, she realized, like the cocking of the eyebrow. He was just as nervous as she was, and something about that made her feel powerful.

‘How did you know that it was me waiting for you?' she asked in the silence that hung between them once the waiter had left.

He fiddled with his phone and showed her a picture. Sid had shot it on his mobile just as they left the mall on his bike.

‘Oh,' she said, unsure of how she felt. And then, remembering that she had to amuse him, she asked, ‘Sanjay, what do you do?'

‘I am a lawyer,' he said.

‘Oh, where did you study law? I had set my heart on joining the National Law School, but I didn't make the list,' she said. If he had said he was an architect or a pilot, she would have tailored her scope of interest accordingly. Sid had said that she should.

‘I was at Oxford,' he said. ‘Oxford is in the UK.'

‘I know that,' she said. ‘I even know London is the capital of Great Britain.'

He flushed. ‘I'm sorry, I thought that …'

She nodded, accepting his apology. She tilted her head at him and asked, ‘What's it like living abroad?'

Dr Sanjay Rathore liked the sound of his own voice, she thought as he took her on a tour of the cities he had spent some of his student years in. The waiter brought a plate of kebabs for him and French fries for her. She took a fry and dipped it in the tiny bowl of sauce. She sipped her Virgin Mary and thought, this isn't too bad. I could get used to this. It's like being with one of my uncles … chit-chat, treats and a gift of money.

Rathore sipped his Glenfiddich and looked at the girl in front of him. Despite all the innuendoes, Virgin Mary et al, she didn't realize she was flirting with danger. Such innocence, he thought. Had he ever been as naïve? He didn't think so. In a strange way, he was glad that she was with him and not some animal who would have been pawing her by now. With him she was safe. Perhaps he ought to warn her about what she was getting into. The date rape drug was a reality here in India too.

He couldn't believe he was actually sitting here with a strange girl Pujary had sent his way. Or that in the course of the day he had acquired two houseboys.

The night before, when the man had come to his villa, he had asked for a glass of water. Rathore had got up to fetch it, and a surprised Pujary had asked, ‘You don't have a servant?'

‘I have a maid who comes in for a couple of hours,' he had explained. That seemed to astound Pujary even more, but he hadn't said anything then.

And then this afternoon Pujary had called him. ‘Doctor sir,' he had said, ‘a friend of mine runs an agency for servants. I spoke to him about you and he has agreed to send two boys to your
residence. They will take good care of you. Someone will wait there with them till you reach home.'

He had protested but Pujary had been insistent. ‘It is not right that a man of your status has no live-in help.'

That had got to him. It would be nice to have someone tail him when he was home – taking his bag from the car, plugging his mobile charger, pouring him a drink, fetching him a freshly ironed shirt, serving him food …

‘Well, okay,' he had agreed. ‘But why two boys?'

‘They will be company for each other,' Pujary said as if he were talking of two dogs. ‘Try it out for a month, sir, you are going to wonder how you managed before them. And if you don't like them, you can send them back to the agency.'

He had smiled into the phone. He liked deals with exit clauses. In fact, he was beginning to think he liked Pujary. ‘Is there anything you can't fix?' he asked.

Pujary's silence had been loaded. ‘Sir, you must be lonely,' he said.

Rathore had frowned. ‘I am too busy to be lonely.'

‘Yes, of course, but take this evening. You have a late flight to catch, you said. What will you do until then?'

‘I may meet a friend for a drink,' he had said, wondering where this was leading.

‘How about I organize to send someone young and pretty to fill those hours? You need some leisure too, sir … some R&R as my schoolmaster father-in-law would say.'

‘I don't pay for sex,' Rathore had said in his coldest voice.

‘Sex! Who's talking about sex? I am not a pimp. You insult me by saying that, sir,' an affronted Pujary exclaimed.

‘Look, Pujary, I am sorry … I wasn't implying anything of that sort. I was just stating my stand.' Rathore had glanced at the clock on the wall.

‘Meet this girl, sir. My friend who sets up these things says she is young and pretty. She will make your evening fun. It will cost you just about what you pay for a massage at a good spa. Think of this as massage for the mind.'

On a whim, he had agreed. Besides, he didn't want to antagonize Pujary. The man had access to the hundred acres his clients were panting for. If it went through, it would be a two-hundred-crore deal. And you didn't sniff at money like that.

He had come home to find a tall, thin young man with two boys waiting on the steps of his villa. The young man had jumped to his feet. ‘The thekedar sent me here,' he said in Hindi.

Rathore had nodded. He glanced at the boys. ‘Are they trustworthy?'

‘Yes, sir … these two boys will do everything around the house for you.'

He looked at the two boys. ‘They look very young,' he said, wondering if they were underage.

‘They are fifteen, sir. But their poor diet and living conditions have turned them into runts. The truth is that they need your help more than you need them,' the young man said.

He did have a point, Rathore had conceded. It was illegal to employ minors but these were not children. And with him, they stood a better chance of a decent livelihood.

‘What are your names?' he asked the boys.

‘They don't speak Hindi. Only Odiya.'

Rathore smiled and spoke to them in Odiya, ‘What are your names?'

The boys' eyes widened. Then, they fell at his feet and said, ‘We are Jogan and Barun and we promise to do everything you say.'

Rathore smiled in memory of the expression he had seen on the boys' faces. Utter disbelief. None of them had expected that he spoke Odiya but he had spent eight years of his life in Bhubaneshwar where his father was once posted.

He glanced at his watch. It was almost nine. ‘What about dinner?' he asked.

He made a wager with himself on what she would ask for. If he won, he would see her again, he told himself.

She leaned forward to look at the menu the steward had left on the table. He noticed how she nibbled on her lower lip as she turned the pages. Beneath the perfume she wore, he smelled a hint of sweat. He saw the top of her breasts as she bent over the menu. Somewhere within him he felt a faint stirring. It was ages since he'd had the inclination to be with a woman. A slight hoarseness entered his voice as he asked, ‘So have you decided?'

She looked up and said, ‘Pizza. But will you share it with me?'

He smiled. He had won the wager. ‘Only if you agree to split a salad with me.'

She grinned. ‘I will.'

He noticed that she had a mole on her chin. And he thought how much he would like to lick it.

7 M
ARCH
, S
ATURDAY

G
owda woke up in a sweat. He sat up abruptly, feeling his heart thud in his chest. The power was off and the UPS
battery had drained out. He picked up his watch from the bedside table. 3.18 a.m.

He had thought he would fall asleep instantly once his head hit the pillow. And he had. But he kept waking up. The day had been rife with too many emotional eggshells. I am too old for all this, he told himself. At this age I should be checking on the health of my investments, totting up my pension and drinking my Horlicks. Instead of which …

‘Borei, what are you mumbling?' Urmila propped herself up on an elbow.

He blinked, trying to adjust his vision to the darkness that enveloped him. He had forgotten that Urmila had stayed the night.

He had been surprised to find her waiting for him when he returned home.

‘I thought you would have left,' he said when she opened the door. It had been latched from the inside.

For an instant, Gowda felt strangely discomfited. Had David seen her? Then he quashed the thought. Even if he had, he knew he had the unswerving loyalty of his men. The handful of them who formed part of his crime team. He smiled as he saw PC David reverse the Bolero, pretending not to see Urmila standing across Gowda's threshold.

‘I was planning to, but it's been a while since we had some time together and who knows what you will get busy with tomorrow,' she said quietly.

Gowda sighed and sank into a chair. Urmila had been busy. She had dusted and cleaned the house and cooked dinner. In her own home, he knew she didn't lift a finger except to ring the buzzer that would fetch her minions. Sometimes he thought he
was part of a little girl's fantasy of playing house. A middle-aged, sagging-at-the-middle, blurred-at-the-edges Ken to her still sprightly Barbie.

He knew something was troubling her, when she seemed to show no sign of leaving at about ten as she usually did. ‘Would you like to spend the night here?' he had asked.

She had nodded. ‘I would like that very much.'

And just like that, it had happened. Another rung climbed in their relationship – the first time in nine months they had spent a whole night together. Usually, Urmila would stay on late into the night or come over early, even before sunrise. Neither Gowda nor Urmila had spoken about it but by silent tacit compliance they knew it would be taking a chance. And that this beautiful whatever-it-was between them would fall apart like a house of cards if it was discovered. Right now, Urmila was Gowda's college friend; a social activist who as part of her activism was calling on her good friend's offices; all of that was seen as aboveboard. And if Urmila alone seemed to ease the habitual frown that Gowda wore on his forehead, or if she seemed to enjoy certain liberties with his time or space, no one made too much of it. She was a good-looking woman, well-connected and charming. What man could be impervious to that?

A whole night together in his home. What had he been thinking? But he had needed her to be with him. And it seemed she too had been stricken by that same malaise – a combination of dejection, helplessness, a sense of futility, an abject loneliness. Their lovemaking that night had all the desperation of two survivors on the open seas clutching at each other. A whole night together, spooning each other. A night fraught with strange nameless uncertainties. The only consolation came from knowing ‘I at least have this'.

‘What's wrong?' Urmila whispered.

‘Nothing,' Gowda said. He lay back and turned towards her, draping his arm around her waist. The whites of their eyes glowed in the faint light from the moon, visible through the window.

‘Can't you sleep either, Urmila?' he asked gently.

‘Yesterday afternoon, two boys I was taking to the shelter vehicle ran away,' Urmila said softly.

‘Were you at the rescue unit?' Gowda asked. ‘I walked past it. In fact, I stopped by the door … But I didn't see you …'

‘I must have been on one of the other platforms. The staff brought in a young man with three boys. And two of them escaped. I worry about what will happen to those children now. Jogan and Barun. Those were their names.'

‘Don't beat yourself up over it,' Gowda said, drawing her to him. ‘They would have been told by the trafficker what to do. And even if it was someone else in charge, the boys would have done the same thing.'

‘I know. That's what they told me, but I still feel I failed the boys in some way. What about you, Borei? What's troubling you?' she said, cupping his face in her palms.

He closed his eyes as her thumbs stroked his cheeks with a gentle pressure. ‘Too many things. The absconding Chikka. Santosh. And now Shanthi's missing daughter. She is just twelve years old. You know, don't you, that from being a transit point, Bangalore is now a trafficking hub?'

‘You are fond of that child, aren't you?'

Gowda nodded. Nandita had often accompanied her mother to Gowda's house. Shanthi would set her little chores to do as she finished hers. ‘Don't put her to work,' Gowda had told Shanthi once.

‘When did peeling garlic become a job, sir?' Shanthi had frowned. But Gowda had seen that she was secretly pleased.

Just before he left the station, they had printed the missing posters to send to all the stations and uploaded it online. Gajendra had called the CWC home for girls during the day, just in case someone had taken her there, and the Bosco rescue units at the station and bus stands. But they had drawn a blank everywhere.

The fan began turning. The power was back.

‘We might as well get up,' Urmila said, clambering over him.

He pulled her down on to him. ‘Don't,' he said. ‘Don't go yet.'

She lay on him, her face resting on the curve of his neck. He wrapped his arms around her and pressed her into him. ‘Nice,' he said, finding something akin to solace in that embrace. ‘This feels so nice.'

‘Yes, I know.' She nuzzled into the side of his neck. ‘When I think of all the time wasted …' she began and stopped. Borei Gowda, she knew, didn't like dredging up the past. Almost on cue, his hold around her loosened. He slapped her butt lightly and growled, ‘Go make me coffee, woman!'

She nipped at the skin of his neck.

‘Ouch! What the hell?' he said as she leapt off him and padded to the bathroom. They were using the guest bedroom – again, a tacit unspoken agreement that his marital bed was out of bounds.

He lay with his arms cradling his head, watching her as she dressed. ‘Get up,' she said.

Gowda walked into the bathroom and looked at his bleary-eyed reflection in the mirror. The shadow of a stubble speckled his jaw. He ran the back of his hand over it thoughtfully and
sniffed at his armpits. He would shave and bathe later. For now Urmila would have to endure his unshaven chin and the odour of sleep. At least he hadn't had too much to drink last night, he grinned. He splashed water on his face and brushed his teeth vigorously.

‘They're only teeth, Borei, and not some criminal for you to treat them with such violence,' Urmila quipped to his reflection.

He flicked drops of water on her face. She fled.

He put up the toilet lid and peed into the bowl. He stared at the stream of urine as it tinkled into the toilet. Good boy, he told his penis. You are a good boy to do my bidding even if you have a mind of your own.

‘Who were you talking to?' Urmila asked as he walked to the living room where she sat curled on a chair. Two mugs of instant coffee sat steaming on the table. She had placed a plate of Marie biscuits beside them.

‘No one,' he said, reaching for a biscuit to dunk in his coffee.

He went to sit by her and they sat there gazing at the skies through the open window.

From within the house a clock chimed the half hour past four. Urmila sighed. ‘I have to go.'

Gowda nodded. It was best she left before the tenants upstairs woke up. At least she had come in her Scorpio, which wasn't as conspicuous as the Audi would have been.

Gowda opened the gates as quietly as possible and watched the gleam of her tail lights till the car turned the corner. Then he went back and got into bed again. A wave of longing coursed through him as he smelled her fragrance on the pillow. He closed his eyes and tried to go back to sleep.

He had a seminar to attend. And a missing girl to find.

Nandita shivered. She had woken of her own accord. This was the time her mother woke her up at home.

Her mother would have started the fire and put the cauldron of water on it to heat for Nandita to bathe. Her mother would never let her bathe in cold water, even on the hottest day in summer.

‘Do you want to catch a cold?' she would admonish, thrusting a handful of twigs into the mouth of the stove. Nandita detested the smell of the smoky water. No matter how hard she soaped herself, the smell of smoke would cling to her skin. It didn't matter how smoky the water was, she wished now that she could bathe again in the bathroom in her home.

The previous afternoon, Moina had taken her to the bathroom. She had flung a mug of cold water on her. Nandita thought of how Amma washed Gowda sir's car. She would fling water on the car with the same casual violence. ‘It will help move the bird shit,' she would tell Gowda when he protested.

Moina had handed her a sliver of soap. Wash yourself, she had mimed. Nandita's hand shook as she ran the soap on herself. It was the first bath she had been allowed after the day she was brought to this place.

The blisters on her legs had burned on contact with the soap. Her legs had trembled. The filthy hole they called a bathroom had smelled of stale urine. The walls were grey and damp. She had thought she would throw up as the water caused the stink from the floor to rise. A dry retching sound had escaped the throat.

‘Ssh …' Moina had held a finger to her lips. ‘Jaldi,' she had murmured. ‘Hurry up.'

Nandita had been given a rag to dry herself with. Moina had handed her some clothes. A skirt that reached her knees and a frilly top. There were no underclothes. Not even a slip, she had
realized. Nandita had blanched in horror. ‘What's this?' she had protested, peering at the older girl through the sheer fabric.

Moina hadn't replied. Nandita had wondered who she was. Moina, it seemed, was her only ally …

Nandita had pulled the top on and the skirt. She didn't feel safe without her school uniform. She had tugged at the top so it went over the skirt, offering some modicum of cover. She crossed her arms over her chest to hide her breasts and hunched her shoulders as she walked back with Moina to the cubicle that she had been allotted.

Nandita stood up and peered outside the cubicle. She didn't know what to expect. She knew, though, that she was in a bad place. And that the beatings, the starvation, the strange clothes, the isolation were only a preparation for what would come next. She trembled again. It was as if she couldn't stop trembling. She knew that she had no one to blame but herself. She had been worried about the exams. There was a lot riding on how well she did. A scholarship had been announced and her mother had decided that she had to win it. Nandita didn't think she could. One of the girls at school said she should go to the Infant Jesus church at Vivek Nagar. ‘If you go every Thursday for six weeks and light a candle there, your wish will be granted. I swear by it,' Selvi had said. But Nandita didn't think that her mother would allow it.

‘Jesus will not write the scholarship exam. You have to do it, and for that you need to study. Not moon around in front of the mirror or watch TV all the time,' Shanthi would have snapped. Her mother seemed to snap and snarl all the time.

Selvi had suggested the Basilica then. ‘Well, what about the St Mary's Basilica at Shivaji Nagar? She is the mother of Jesus
and will do for one candle what Baby Jesus needs six candles for.'

Nandita had thought that was doable. It had seemed very simple when she thought it through. Sneak out early from the exam hall. Catch a bus to Hennur depot. And a bus from there to Shivaji Nagar. The bus stand was by the Basilica. She would light a candle to Mother Mary, offer her prayers, make a vow of some sort, and catch a bus back to the depot. It would take her less than two hours and she would be home at the usual time. A few extra minutes wouldn't perturb her mother. Nandita had never given her mother any cause for worry until now.

It had all gone according to plan until she had reached the Basilica. She had stood helplessly at the doorway of the church, not knowing what to do.

‘Are you alone here, baby?' a voice had asked in Kannada.

She had turned to see a middle-aged woman in a white sari with small blue flowers, the pallu pulled over her hair, standing a few feet behind her. She looked tired, her face etched with lines, her mouth drooping at the corners, her eyes dull. She could have been her mother, right down to the side parting.

‘Yes,' she said.