‘It’s a good way to live.’
Shayak nodded. ‘When I disconnect, I need to do so completely. This boat is the best thing I ever bought.’
How rich are you exactly, is the question that came to mind. But I pushed it aside—for the time being. ‘Disconnect?’ I asked instead.
‘We need to run away sometimes, with the kind of work we do,’ he said softly. There were at least two feet between us as we leaned against the railing, but suddenly he seemed too close. I squirmed and moved away.
‘Sorry, but you are alone on this one. I don’t do your kind of work, not anymore at least.’
‘Giving up on your practice?’
‘I need to close it down.’
‘Why? I didn’t think you were one to run away.’
I frowned into my glass. ‘I wouldn’t say I am running. I need to keep a roof over my head.’
He looked at me, his head cocked slightly to the right. I knew he would wait for my real answer.
‘Don’t you ever feel like it is all a little too much?’
‘Tell me about Amit.’
‘Does it matter?’
‘Reema, the case is making national headlines. Someone will drag it all up. I’d rather hear it from you.’
‘First tell me how you know so much about me.’
‘As I said earlier, there aren’t too many private investigators in India. And it is my job to keep tabs on the ones who matter.’
‘Me? Matter? At best, I am the city’s leading expert in cheating spouses.’
‘All experience is good experience—at the end of the day, even the Agarwal murder case hinged on infidelity, didn’t it?’
I couldn’t tell whether Shayak was being kind or honest, but his words softened my stance. ‘Amit was the first man I ever loved. And the reason I can’t do this anymore,’ I said.
‘Ah.’
‘I didn’t love him when this happened,’ I added quickly.
‘Then what is the problem?’
‘He was capable of kidnapping his own wife. A character flaw that escaped my notice entirely for years. And even now he managed to manipulate me.’
‘Which you figured out for yourself.’
‘Just soon enough.’
‘You blame yourself for not being able to look into the future?’
‘No, for not being able to look into a man’s heart.’
‘Almost as impossible, if you ask me.’
‘Not always. Look at Prakash Agarwal. One interview and I knew he was a creep.’
‘But my brother—a very intelligent, successful man, by the way—trusted him enough to do business with him.’
‘True. Why was that again?’
‘Because people will ignore instinct enough when they wish to. Agarwal had something to offer, and he seemed valuable at the time, and easier to control than he turned out to be. The world is full of unpleasant people, Reema, and sometimes it is unavoidable having to deal with them.’
I shrugged. ‘I guess I’d have preferred not to have dated one.’
Once again, Shayak’s face softened. ‘You must have been young—a little too young to take it all so seriously.’
I shook my head. ‘I was foolish. And blind. Not good qualities for a detective to have.’
‘I have an alternative explanation. Could it possibly be that you are afraid of your own success? That you aren’t prepared for what solving two high-profile cases could bring?’
I started shaking my head even before he had finished. ‘But it’s what I wanted all along!’
‘Was it?’ Again, those eyes.
‘Of course!’ I said. My voice didn’t sound like my own.
Shayak was unrelenting. ‘You don’t find yourself just a little frightened of your own abilities?’
I let out a short, nervous laugh, Amit’s old taunts coming back to me. ‘I hate to disappoint you, but they are not exactly superpowers.’
‘No, definitely not superpowers. But the ability to look into darkness and make sense of it where others cannot is not insignificant.’
We stood in silence for a few moments, listening to the sound of the water as it kissed the sides of the boat. At last, unable to stop my voice from cracking, I asked, ‘How do you deal with it?’
Shayak took a step closer, reaching over and putting his hand under my chin, forcing me to look at him. His eyes smiled into mine, soothing me with their heat. Despite myself, despite the fact that I found myself unable to breathe, I smiled back. He dropped his hand and leaned on the railing once again.
‘I didn’t go into the security side of the business for nothing,’ he said. ‘I would prefer to prevent crime rather than solve it, when I can. I am an investigator when called upon to be one, but I choose my cases carefully. And off the job, I make it a point to spend as much time with people who make sense to me, who are willing to stand for the truth and what they believe in.’
‘And that helps?’
‘To the degree possible. You don’t need to be a detective to be confronted by evil in this world. Our beautiful species will drive you mad if you let it. We too easily forget the goodness, and the fun. Which is why I am asking you to come on board.’
I looked around his beautiful boat. ‘I thought I already was!’
‘I mean professionally.’
‘Work for you?’ Tumult took control of my brain. What was happening?
‘For me, with me.’
‘But I—’
‘But what? You’d rather be a food critic?’ Shayak said the words lightly, but I detected a note of disdain beneath the surface. ‘Given a choice, I would have thought you’d decide to stick to what you do best.’
‘Eating?’
‘Solving crime. And since you need a roof over your head, a salary might help. I can promise a generous one.’
I gave in to the confusion. ‘But just the other day you shouted at me for putting my nose where it didn’t belong!’
‘Yes, and there was a reason for that.’
I looked at him with a questioning brow.
‘The information you unearthed about Mallika was, out of context, dangerous. It could have easily led to her arrest. If you had been working with the police to begin with, that kind of fallout would have been easier to control.’
‘And that is what you do.’
‘When I can,’ he said with a shrug. ‘So, as I said, you should really think about making a return to full-time detective work, with a proper agency.’
‘Like yours?’
‘Like mine.’
‘But I was wrong about almost every assumption I made!’
‘That is because you had little choice but to make assumptions. You were on the outside looking in. Once you had the facts, you put it together. Which is the other point I want to make about working within the system. You need access to official evidence. You seek information according to what you already know. Real data is, in a situation like this, vital. When time is short and there is much at risk, you don’t have the luxury to hunt down the unknowns like you were forced to here.’
‘But the molestation angle proved to be a red herring.’
‘In isolation, yes. But in a roundabout way it led you to Vineeta and the truth.’
‘What convinced you it wasn’t Mallika? My theory was just that—a theory.’
‘I had seen the security camera footage and so I knew she had been in the building. I couldn’t explain it at first but either way, it didn’t fit in with the timeline of the poisoning, which took place a couple of days before his death.
I nodded. Had Agarwal’s symptoms not appeared as early as they did, Mallika may have been in very real danger.
‘So you see, Reema,’ Shayak continued, ‘had you known what I had known, or if I had known what you had known, we could have figured this out some days ago. Lucky for us this still ended well.’
Shayak was right, I thought, in essence, but I couldn’t think of this as a satisfactory conclusion to the week. ‘You don�
��t always do good in this profession, do you?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, a truly unpleasant man was killed. He got, some would say, what was coming to him. And a woman—not blameless, but a good deal less morally bankrupt, murder notwithstanding—will pay for it because of our meddling.’
I could see a dark smile on Shayak’s lips. ‘Would you have wanted any other outcome?’
I thought about whether I would have let my judgement come between a criminal and the law. ‘No, this ended as it had to.’
‘And you are glad to have been the one responsible for that?’
I ignored, for now, Shayak’s transfer of full credit to me. ‘Yes,’ I said, sounding more convinced than I felt.
He gave a sharp nod. ‘Good, then you accept the job?’
I watched him through narrowed eyes. I wasn’t sure why I continued to resist. ‘But I am …’
‘What? What are you afraid of?’
‘I don’t know!’
Leaving this comfort zone of yours?’
‘Well, is that so wrong?’ All of a sudden, I missed the simplicity of food, the clarity of choosing between the best cheesecake in the city and the rest. Even there, there was a need for objectivity and fair play and no room for emotion. Who you are eating with, how hungry you are, the loudness of your neighbouring diners, your mood, the memories attached with each individual flavour impact your eating experience.
But though the answers of the food world may not be easy as pie, the outcomes were still a lot less weighty than life and death.
‘I didn’t expect you to run away from who you are.’
I heard the disappointment in his words. ‘I feel like I have been spending my life doing nothing else.’
‘You know the solution to that.’
‘Give it all up and go with you, to Mumbai? Live the dream—till it turns into a nightmare again.’
‘I am not so idealistic, nor so pessimistic. I’ll simply say that you have a head, and it is your responsibility to use it as best you can.’
Once again, I was torn between yearning and fear. And his voice, deep and low and resonant, wasn’t helping much either. I knew which universe I would rather be a part of. Given the choice, I would take the path my heart had led me down all those years ago when I found myself in criminal psych class. It was the same path I had always taken, except for once, but even that detour had somehow curved back here, to where I began.
Of course, I knew one reason why I was slow to reach full excitement about Shayak’s proposition—because it was not the proposition I had hoped he’d make. But, I told myself, there were many possible men for me out there but only one possible job, and only one person on the horizon capable of turning it into a reality.
I stared out onto the water. And just as I seemed a little closer to a decision, he put an arm on my shoulder, turning me to face him. The harshness of a few minutes ago had been replaced with a smile touched by a trace of irony. He bent down, hands cupping my face. I’d never felt as alive as in the moment that his lips touched mine.
Hungry, warm, soul-stirring, I wanted that kiss to go on forever. I leaned into his arms as his hands swept up my curls. I was lost, and I don’t know where I found the strength to break away. But I knew I had to, and I did. ‘If we work together, that can’t happen again,’ I gasped.
‘Why? It’s my company. Last time I checked, I made the rules,’ he growled.
I shook my head slowly, not quite knowing why, but knowing I was right. ‘Sorry, but I can’t jump into another mess.’
‘You are so sure it will be a mess?’ he asked, eyes still stormy.
Every cell in my body wanted to be back in his arms, and to push him overboard, all at the same time. ‘Yes.’
‘Don’t test my patience; I haven’t slept in thirty-six hours.’
‘Sorry, but that’s how I feel.’
‘Okay,’ he said all too soon.
I searched his face, unable to mask my disbelief. Why did I know I hadn’t heard the last of it?
‘Really,’ he nodded, in an attempt at sincerity, ‘any way you want to play it.’ And then he ruined it by running his thumb across my lower lip.
I moved away, putting a few feet between us. ‘Shayak, I’m serious.’
‘So am I,’ he said, eyes still smouldering. ‘And to prove it, I am withdrawing my invitation.’
‘What invitation?’ To work with him?
‘Well, I hadn’t made it yet, but I was planning to offer you a lift to Mumbai in my boat, but under the circumstances I think it’s best that I didn’t. I’d rather see you in office.’
My jaw had dropped as he spoke, but I quickly shut my mouth and nodded my agreement. No way could I share this tiny space with this man and hang on to any distance, decorum or decency.
And painful as it was, I knew the sacrifice was worth it. The old buzz was back, and it had to do with so much more than this man alone.
I looked back into those eyes and returned the smile that had started there even before I finished what I had to say. It was short.
‘When do I start?’
The Complete Reema Ray Mysteries
The Bollywood Affair
Conspiracy At The Ashram
Also by the author
Dirty Women
Murder At The Temple
THE BOLLYWOOD AFFAIR
(Previously published as Dead In A Mumbai Minute)
It seemed I did love trouble – at least of a certain kind.
How else could I have ended up back on the Titania on the open water somewhere in the vicinity of Mumbai? With my head in a bucket, and with Shayak playing pirate and hitting the waves with more force than I was sure was necessary; breaking, if there was one, the nautical speed limit?
I steadied myself and stood up in the tiny bathroom attached to the stateroom – both more pleasant than anything I could have imagined stuffed into the dimensions of a linen cupboard. If only I could enjoy the finer points of interior décor and space management with my stomach in my oesophagus. But I was determined: I could – and I would – get out of here.
I did my best to clean up the tear-streaked face in the mirror. I had started the month of September in Calcutta, wrapping up loose ends after closing the two biggest cases of my career as a struggling private eye in August. I had got on a plane with nothing more than the clothes in my cupboard and, after a brief doze, when I woke up on the ground, my life changed irrevocably. In a Mumbai minute. I was part of the Investigations team of the mighty Titanium, a security agency started by Shayak Gupta,
rumoured to keep safe the who’s who of the nation. In my brief time in the city, I had begun to suspect that was just the tip of the Titanium iceberg; I could only guess at what lay beneath the surface.
And now, here I was, headed for an island I had never heard of till hours ago when I was awoken rudely by a phone call from Shayak way too early in the morning and told I would be accompanying him on a murder investigation. I had gleaned precious little from him since then: the island was 50 acres and had roughly twenty residents, all attached to the same household belonging to Kimaaya Kapoor, Bollywood’s reigning queen. Much in the manner of the Queen of England, if you asked me, overstaying her welcome with sheer tenacity and great genes. And generous help from her best friends Botox and butt lift (Kimaaya, not the queen). She was a good actress, even though her recent performances reeked of the desperation of youth slipping through the fingers.
There was a dead guy on that island. But according to Shayak, that would be just the start of our problems: we had, give or take, two hours before the media would catch wind of it and, after that, we could expect to be on the receiving end of unrelenting attention from every player in the twenty-four-hour news cycle. It would be impossible to beat it, but we had to try to get ahead of it, and in Titanium’s capacity as security minders of the island, manage it.
Meanwhile, Shayak was acting so strange about the whole business that I had no choice
but to accept that even my new boss, reputed to be the man providing a safe night’s sleep to every top-billed star, might have a little bit of a crush on the comely Kimaaya. How else to account for his stony-faced silence?
I ignored a fresh wave of nausea and headed resolutely out of the bathroom and up the stairs, holding on to the railing, the wall, the light fixtures – whatever was at easy distance – trying to stay upright as my head reeled and my innards whirled.
As soon as I got out on to the deck and breathed in the salt air, I felt my head clear and my stomach settle. What would make me feel even better were words with Shayak.
I walked to the helm, where he stood. Even the water stretching in every direction as far as the eye could see failed to soften me. ‘Got up on the wrong side of the boat this morning?’
‘How are you doing?’ asked Shayak. I could see the concern in his eyes, and it suddenly occurred to me that the choppiness of the ride might have nothing whatsoever to do with him.
‘Is it always this rough?’
‘This isn’t rough.’
‘Will I get used to it?’
‘Maybe, maybe not.’
‘Great. And you say I’ll have to make this trip again?’
‘Unless we can solve this murder case in a day, yes.’ Shayak reached into a cabinet to his left and pulled out a strip of pills and a bottle of water. ‘Take one of these.’
‘What is it?’
‘It’ll help with the seasickness.’
‘How long will it take to kick in?’
‘It’s pretty much immediate.’
‘Why didn’t you give it to me earlier?’
‘I tried, but you bolted rather quickly, and as you can see, there is no one else to steer this thing but me. I couldn’t exactly go chasing after you.’
I did as I was told, feeling sick as the liquid hit my stomach. ‘Don’t you feel it?’ I asked. It didn’t look like he did – fresh as a glass of cold, mouth-puckering lemonade in crisp white shirt and blue jeans.
‘I’ve got sea legs on me to do an admiral proud,’ he said with his first smile of the morning.
‘And yet you don’t seem happy.’ In the face of Shayak’s dourness, I continued. ‘You still won’t tell me what’s wrong?’
The Masala Murder: Reema Ray Mysteries Page 25
