by Anita Nair
He heard the man say something and the woman laugh. They laughed a lot, those two. Had they, he and Mamtha, ever laughed like that? he wondered.
Gowda turned his head and watched the phone as it vibrated on the glass table. He picked it up and peered at the screen.
It was SI Santosh. Gowda felt his mouth stretch in a grim line of its own volition. What now?
Santosh could barely keep the excitement out of his voice as the words tumbled out. ‘Sir, I picked up the post-mortem report from the mortuary just now.’
‘And?’
‘Shall I read it out to you, sir?’ Before Gowda could tell him to save it for the next morning, Santosh began, ‘More than eighty per cent of the body surface is burnt. The trunk and anterior abdominal wall are almost completely burnt. The line of redness, the blisters with serous fluid, the presence of acid mucopolysacharides and enzymes all indicate that he was alive when burnt. And, sir, the pathologist has also stated that either kerosene or petrol was used to start the fire since the burns had a sooty blackening and a very characteristic odour.’
Gowda grunted impatiently. ‘We knew that’s what would show up. So what was the need to call me at this hour? Tell me, what has got you all worked up?’
‘Sir, around the neck there are ligature marks, but it is a cut-like wound extending into the jugular.’
Gowda sat up. ‘And?’
‘Glass particles were found in the wound and under his fingernails. A manja-coated ligature was used. Again. And, sir, similar lacerations on the face like the one mentioned in the Horamavu homicide.’
Gowda felt a prickling down his spine. A flaring of life. Perhaps it wasn’t over till it was over.
THURSDAY, 4 AUGUST
Gowda rode his Royal Enfield Bullet to the station house earlier than usual. It wasn’t much of a place, but in the last five years he had grown attached to this rented building that stood in a quarter-acre plot on the outskirts of Neelagubbi village.
Land had been earmarked for a permanent station house, tenders from building contractors had been invited, and one day it would eventually get built. But until then, this green-washed building with its small poky rooms and rented furniture was Gowda’s fiefdom.
In the summer, when water dried up in the lake, a stench rose up from the slimy mud. And in the evenings, giant swarms of mosquitoes would descend on every living creature in the station house. Head Constable Gajendra would order a constable to fill a bandli with eucalyptus leaves and burn them so smoke would drive those ‘bloody bastards’ away.
‘We are all going to die of dengue fever,’ he would remark darkly every summer. ‘We should move from here, sir.’
‘It’s only mosquitoes,’ Gowda would murmur, swatting one against his arm.
‘Mosquitoes,’ Gajendra would retort, ‘do not care if you are a policeman or a pimp. They want blood to fill their bloody bellies. Like our corrupt politicians. No one is above or below their bloodsucking.’
But once the rains fell, the swamp would turn into a lake beside which migratory birds descended to nest and breed. Gowda liked to walk to the edge of the fence that overlooked the lake and gaze at the expanse of water. Some evenings, he would ask for a chair to be brought to his favourite spot under a mango tree near the fence. He would sit there and gaze at the yellow and pink crocus lilies dotting the grassy verges along the lake’s edge, the green-winged teals and the common coot gliding past, the movement of the breeze as it passed through the clumps of bulrushes. It was the closest Gowda came to acknowledging the presence of content in his life.
A clap of thunder. A drop of rain fell on Gowda’s face when he peered at the sky. In the dull grey light, the station house was even more bleak. When the monsoon was over, he would have it painted white, he told himself. Even if he had to call in a favour or two.
By the time Gowda parked his bike, it was drizzling. He swore under his breath and rushed towards the station house, holding a hand over his head.
‘Sir, no one told me to pick you up. I was going to come at the usual time.’ PC David rushed to his side.
Gowda waved him away. The post-mortem report had preyed on his mind all night and he had woken up early, unable to go back to sleep. He had decided to come in and read the post-mortem report himself. He was certain that there would be something more to it than what Santosh had chanced upon.
A constable brought him a small plastic beaker of tea.
Gowda took a sip and opened the file.
He turned a page and threw the file back on the table. SI Santosh, who had been hovering, rushed to his side.
‘Come along,’ Gowda said, without any preamble.
Santosh glowered at him. I am not a bloody dog, he thought. But something about Gowda’s expression silenced him.
As the vehicle turned out of the gate of the police station, PC David asked, ‘Where to, sir?’
Gowda narrowed his eyes. ‘Whitefield. I want to see this M. Hunt.’
‘Shouldn’t we have him brought to the station?’ Santosh asked.
‘We could. But that’s where we go wrong. No one likes to enter a police station. Witnesses tend to clam up, sometimes even go hostile. It’s better to talk to them in familiar surroundings.’
Gowda saw that Santosh wasn’t entirely convinced. He sighed. What was wrong with him? He had thought he would let the boy profit from his experience but it was obvious that the silly idiot thought otherwise.
‘You don’t have to come with me if you don’t want to. You can go back to the station and catch up on your reading…’
Santosh looked at him to see if Gowda was sneering. But the big bland face was marked by no sign of malice or slyness.
‘No, sir, I am fine. I would like to go with you.’
Gowda grunted.
A little later, he opened a pack of India Kings. ‘Do you smoke?’ he asked.
Santosh shook his head. ‘No.’
‘Good for you,’ Gowda conceded. He cupped the flame as he held the match to the cigarette. Then he peered at Santosh. ‘What about alcohol?’
‘I don’t drink, sir.’
‘And you believe in God, I suppose?’
Santosh nodded. ‘I never leave home without saying my prayers. I chant the Hanuman mantra every day. With God on my side, I know that nothing will go wrong.’
‘So the poor bastard we saw yesterday must have forgotten to say his prayers that night, eh?’
Santosh didn’t speak. Was Gowda naturally obnoxious or did he have to work hard at it? he wondered.
Michael leaned forward and planted his feet firmly on the ground. The rocking chair stopped. He stared into the middle distance, unable to decide what to do next.
‘Would you like some tea?’ the woman asked from the doorway.
‘No,’ he said shortly. Then, as if to apologize for his brusqueness, he mumbled, ‘Would you get me a glass of water with some ice in it?’
Seeing the incomprehension in her eyes, Michael smiled. She hadn’t even realized that he was being rude to her. He switched to Tamil. He hadn’t spoken Tamil in a long time, but once he began he discovered that he could do it without too much of an effort.
Holding the glass of water that he didn’t want, Michael leaned back and set the chair rocking again. It had been almost dawn when he finally reached Aunty Maggie’s home. Narsamma had opened the door asking, ‘Sir, shall I bring some tea?’
Michael shook his head. He didn’t want tea. He’d had at least three cups of watery over-sugared tea at the hospital.
He had just about gone to sleep when there was a knock on the door. ‘Sir, breakfast,’ Narsamma said from the doorway.
Narsamma was relentless. At regular intervals she appeared at his elbow offering him food. For lunch, he had been served ball curry and yellow rice, and the Captain Chicken curry ‘just like Missy amma taught me to make’.
When he poured himself a drink in the evening, she arrived bearing a tray on which was a plate of crispy meat strips.
‘What’s this?’
‘Ding Ding. Missy amma always said how much you like it. And for dinner I have made pork vindaloo.’
Michael groaned at the thought of more bloody Anglo-Indian food. Why did she think that he was hankering for it?
The truth was he wanted none of this. Neither the house nor the responsibility that had been thrust upon him to provide for Narsamma, whom he seemed to have inherited along with the house. And to top it all, he was now a prima facie witness in what looked like a murder case. That was all he needed.
Michael Hunt groaned.
The woman appeared at his elbow. ‘Do you have a headache, sir? Shall I bring you a Saridon? And some tea?’
Michael made an attempt to smile. ‘I am fine,’ he said and closed his eyes.
Fuck off. Just get the fuck out of here. Leave me alone.
A fan whirred quietly. An old GEC fan that Uncle John had fixed when they had built the house. Everything in the house was old. The furniture and the floors, the doors and the dishes, and Aunty Maggie had preserved it all in mint condition until she died.
‘It’s for you all,’ she had said, when Michael visited her just two days before Becky and he left for Australia. ‘Child, I’ll keep it for you all. Just in case …’
‘Uff, men, what do you think the old bat’s implying, men?’ Becky had fumed. ‘Why she saying just in case? Putting all negative thoughts in your head, one after one!’
Michael bit his lip. He knew what Aunty Maggie meant and he also knew Becky wouldn’t care to hear it.
He looked away and said, ‘Becky, we have to stop talking like we do at home. It’s going to be hard enough making a new life in Melbourne. We don’t want the people there thinking we are struggling with our English!’
Becky taught science at the primary level at Francis Xavier School. She was sometimes called to step in when the English teacher was away, and every year she MC-ed the concert day. But when Becky and Michael were together, she slipped into the patois they spoke at home. Michael did too. Queen’s English was what they kept for strangers and the outside world.
Becky took a hanky from her clutch and mopped the beads of sweat on her forehead. Michael smelt the eau de cologne on her hanky and a wave of feeling suffused him. When they were in Australia, all of this would change. All that was familiar and all that was his world would cease to be.
What on earth was he thinking, moving bag and baggage across the world? Who knew what lay ahead there!
‘I believe you are bloody worried, Michael?’ Becky said. ‘I believe you are thinking how we will manage when we are in Australia?’
Michael pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He looked at the pack of Wills Flake, suddenly stricken. ‘I am going to have to find a brand I like there. Even that will change.’
‘Why you fearing change, men? We are together. You, me and the boys.’
Michael nodded and took her hand in his. She leaned towards him and kissed his cheek.
Michael lit his cigarette and walked into Aunty Maggie’s kitchen where he had promised to fix a broken window latch. Becky wiped the frown off her face and went to help Aunty Maggie change the curtains. ‘Who is going to do all this for you when we are in Australia, Aunty Maggie? I tell you, find a young girl to live with you here. That way, there will be someone to clean your dekchis and bartans and you won’t be all alone and we won’t worry about you. That’s all Michael thinks of: Aunty Maggie all alone in that bloody big house in the boondocks…!’
Michael heard Becky from the kitchen. She was a good woman but she was stubborn. She had been the one who wanted to leave India. And Michael did what she wanted.
When Michael was twenty-three, he had met Becky at a dance at the Catholic Club. That night he saw his father get drunk and humiliate himself and all of them. He saw his mother wring her hands at first and then match a drink with every jibe his father hurled her way. All of this was routine. As were the growing stains of perspiration on the blue polyester silk dress his mother wore, the louche slack of his father’s jaw, the arguments when they reached home, the stench of vomit and sweat, the embarrassment, the silence the morning after. And Michael was determined even more than ever to join the army, the navy, the railways, anything that would put a distance between him and this hell called home.
Until his eyes alighted on Becky, sitting on a morah. Her brown hair fell like a sheath, her sweetness was wrapped in a buttercup yellow dress and her clear grey eyes sparkled with fun and hope. Her father wore a proper suit that fitted him and her mother wore a grey silk dress with a long string of pearls round her neck. They sat together, exchanging smiles and small talk. And Michael had a moment of epiphany. This was what he wanted. To escape his own grimy, sordid life, and be part of that charmed circle. To be them.
Without her, Michael was nothing. Becky defined who he was.
But now, without Becky, he had to define himself all over again.
Through the morass of memories he had sunk into, Michael heard the sound of a 4-wheel drive coming to a stop under the porch.
Narsamma had said that a real estate developer had been calling every day after Aunty Maggie died. ‘He wants to build flats here,’ she had said.
‘I don’t want to meet anybody,’ he said now, as she hurried to his side.
‘No, no, you have to come!’ Her eyes were wide as saucers in her bony face. ‘It’s the police. The police is here.’
Michael untangled himself from his thoughts. They were here to take his statement, he realized. The young man must have died then. He felt a pang of something akin to regret. He didn’t know the man to grieve for him. But no one deserved to die as he had.
Michael walked into the living room where a policeman waited. From the two stars on his lapel, Michael knew he was a sub-inspector. Had he come on his own? Then he saw a burly figure standing in the porch, smoking.
‘Good morning, Inspector,’ Michael said, stretching his hand out.
‘Good morning. I am SI Santosh,’ the young man replied, reaching for Michael’s hand.
Someone ought to teach him how to shake hands. What did they teach them in the police college these days?
‘Is that your colleague out there?’ Michael asked, gesturing for him to sit down.
‘That’s Inspector Gowda,’ Santosh said in a low voice. ‘He has more than twenty years of experience. I am new to the service. He’ll be the one talking to you.’
Michael felt the young man’s eyes on him.
Suddenly Santosh asked, ‘Sir, you are native of which country?’
‘India. I grew up here in Bangalore but have been living in Australia for the last fifteen years.’ And then, unable to resist a spark of mischief, Michael put on his most innocent expression and asked, ‘Matthe Neenu? Yaav ooru nendhuu?’
Santosh stumbled as he caught his foot on the edge of the carpet. The white man had just said in chaste Kannada, ‘And you? Where are you from?’
Michael tried to hide his smile. He was beginning to enjoy this. First the cab driver. Now the young cop. He looked at Santosh carefully. Inexperienced. Nervous. And clumsy too. The senior man seemed to have got the boy worked up in knots. He looked at the man in the porch. Was he a bully who got his kicks out of intimidating people? Michael sighed. He wasn’t looking forward to this at all.
Michael stepped out into the porch and cleared his throat. ‘Good morning, Inspector. Why don’t you come in? I smoke myself, so I have no objections to anyone smoking in here…’
The man turned and Michael saw his gaze turn incredulous. ‘How do we know each other?’ they seemed to demand.
Did he know him? He did look very familiar. Something about the way he cocked his head, and the eyes. The pieces fell into place and Michael stepped forward with a little laugh. ‘I don’t believe this … Mudde, it’s you.’
‘Bloody hell, you are M. Hunt! Macha, someone told me you were in Australia, what are you doing here?’
Santosh perched at the edge of the sofa. Then, giving
in, he sank back, only to discover the seat of the sofa had sucked him in so he was trapped with his chin almost touching his knees. He tried to hoist himself up but the sofa held him fast. A line of sweat broke out on his brow. Inspector Gowda would think nothing of laughing aloud at the sight of him. Like a turtle on its back trying to right itself.
That was all he needed now. First the white man speaking Kannada. And now this. Then he heard laughter and saw the most amazing sight of his boss and the foreigner clasp each other like long-lost friends. Did they know each other from their youth? Were they friends, perhaps? Only, Santosh couldn’t imagine Gowda ever having had a youth or a friend.
Gowda seemed to have been born with an expression that hovered between weary, tetchy and surly on the odometer of expressions. For that matter, he hadn’t in the course of the last twenty-six hours seen Gowda smile once. Pleasantly. As if he meant it.
And such was Santosh’s shock at seeing Gowda smile that he found himself on his feet again, escaping the clutch of the malevolent sofa that had been so determined to make him look foolish and ineffectual.
‘Look at you, Bob,’ Michael said, holding his friend at arm’s length.
‘Look at you, Macha,’ Gowda retorted, a boyish grin erasing the years from his face.
Bob. Macha. Boy speak. From those years in college when every boy, mate or acquaintance was a Bob or a Macha. When had Gowda used it last? It was all yaar and dude these days. His son couldn’t seem to speak a sentence to his friends without placing a dude in it somewhere.
‘We are two middle-aged men now. You have a paunch and I have lost most of my hair.’ Michael smiled. ‘Did you ever think this is how we would be in our forties?’
‘Almost fifty. I’ll be fifty in November.’ Gowda smiled back at him.
‘And to think that we should meet like this. Bloody destiny, Bob.’ Michael found his carefully cultivated accent dropping in a moment.
Gowda straightened. ‘Destiny! Is that what you call it? You know why we are here, don’t you?’
Michael nodded. ‘Mudde,’ he began.
