Fear Is the Key

by Juggi Bhasin

  Inspector Kripal looked really contrite as he faced Rahul. ‘You do realize, Sirjee, it was my fault really. My team should have checked everything. I have to admit, I was so focused on you that I lost sight of the obvious.’

  ‘Don’t be so hard on yourself, Inspector,’ answered Rahul. ‘This is still a theory. When Dubey is caught, and I hope it is soon, we will know the real truth. But yes, having said that, I agree that we always ignore the obvious.’

  Kripal slipped his pad in his pocket, made a little bow and walked towards the door. He hesitated and looked at Rahul. ‘You rest, Rahul Sir. You are a fine young man really. Everything is so corrupted and deviant around us that we assume the worst when someone like you comes along.’

  CHAPTER 34

  He was thinking of her when his cellphone started to ring. He allowed it to ring a few times before he answered.

  ‘Hi . . .’

  ‘Hi to you. Back from the dead, huh?’

  He laughed and replied, ‘Everyone keeps asking me that. I was actually thinking of you when you called.’

  ‘I am sorry I did not visit you at the hospital. You must have felt a bit let-down. What can I say? Strangely for a doctor, a visit to the hospital freaks me out.’

  ‘We will have to psychoanalyse that!’

  They both laughed. Then she came to the point of her call. ‘We should celebrate. It’s not every day that a man walks away from certain death.’

  ‘Yes, we should,’ he offered. ‘Look, instead of meeting in restaurants where it is so impersonal and you can’t really talk, let’s meet at home; my home. I have a nice Rothschild red sitting in my wine cooler. We could do justice to it. What’s your favourite cuisine?’

  ‘Don’t expect me to say Korean, Japanese or one of those uppity, Page 5 recommended cuisine choices. It’s good ol’ tadka dal and maybe some tandoori chicken and naan for me. I am really a desi at heart.’

  They both laughed some more and he sealed the invite.

  ‘Fine, then I will pick up some “desi” cuisine. See you at 8. Messaging you my address.’

  ‘Lovely,’ she responded. ‘Look forward to meeting you unofficially . . .’

  ‘There’s nothing official about me,’ he quipped the old Pepsi advertisement line. ‘But yeah, so keen to know you as a person and not as my shrink.’

  ‘Can’t wait,’ she told him, closing the conversation.

  It was freezing that night. Icy winds swept across the streets and people hurried back to the comfort of their homes. The late evening bustle at the metro stations, malls, pubs and multiplexes went missing. Strays on the streets huddled under cars for cover. Even the hard-to-miss Zuber taxi service was nowhere to be seen. By 8 p.m., the metro trains were nearly empty. Tanya preferred it because it was too cold to take out the car from the basement and drive a few blocks away to Rahul’s bachelor digs. She made a mental note to leave before the metro completed its last late-night run.

  Rahul greeted her warmly when she came in. He took her coat and pressed a glass of red wine into her hands. She settled on the recliner next to the dining room.

  ‘How’s the wounded hero?’ she asked him.

  He raised his glass and said, ‘Surviving. Friends like you brought me back from the dead.’

  Tanya smiled and sipped the wine. ‘Oh, you give me too much credit. Even the sessions you had with me . . . they were few and exploratory in nature. I might have nudged you a little at some places, that’s all. Thing is, you are one of the most determined men I have ever met. Your determination against all odds . . .’

  ‘Wow! I usually run away from praise, but I will take it coming from you. I really do respect you a lot, Doc. I am not an arrogant man, but I have limited patience with people who don’t measure up to me intellectually. With you, I feel I can converse for any length of time and still walk away wanting to come back and talk more . . .’

  Tanya smiled. She did not reply. Instead, she held up her empty glass. Rahul quickly filled it again and took out another bottle of red from the cooler.

  ‘I will go easy on the wine, you know . . .’

  ‘Don’t worry, Doc. I am not planning to seduce you. I will drive you home if needed.’

  ‘See, you prove my point. You are very determined. In your own way, you will not take no for an answer.’

  Rahul sipped his wine thoughtfully and asked her, ‘So, is it a good thing or a bad thing?’

  ‘Can’t say. Sometimes we have to let go. We should let go. But you won’t give up. Like the Terminator, you will be back!’

  She impersonated the Schwarzenegger line and both burst out laughing. He filled his glass and drank in merriment. ‘You do have a funny bone, Doc. I hope you know that? Determined and me? I like that.’

  ‘Hang on, Rahul. There was nothing funny in what I said about you. You are extraordinarily determined, almost insanely determined. Well, never mind that.’

  ‘What? Don’t leave it hanging. Complete what you wanted to say.’

  ‘No, not today, Rahul. Today we are celebrating. We can talk of this another time.’

  Rahul got up and refilled both their glasses. He stood before her, his face had turned serious.

  ‘There are no tomorrows for me, Tanya. I don’t care if an asteroid hits the earth tomorrow. I need a solution today to stop it. When I joined IIT, I knew there were five students ahead of me in class. On that very day, I figured out the strategy to beat them.’

  Tanya’s eyes narrowed, but she kept quiet. Rahul stared at her with raised eyebrows.

  She spoke slowly, carefully. ‘I am getting drunk . . .’

  ‘Not to worry,’ he said. ‘I promise I won’t seduce you.’

  ‘That’s not what I am worried about. Maybe some part of me would like that to happen, you know . . .’

  ‘So, what are you worried about?’

  ‘How will you deal with the truth if I told you?’

  He stared at her, and then he turned and went to the dining table. He dragged a chair and sat near her.

  ‘You are not leaving my place unless you tell me the truth, Doc.’

  She nodded, drank up the wine and put it aside. She faced him. ‘Rahul, I am amazed. Despite your multiple-schizoid personalities, how did you put it all together to murder Simone, Fredo, Usman, Janki and possibly Dubey?’

  There was pin-drop silence after she said what she had made up her mind to say to him. There was only the familiar tick-tock of the Howard Miller grandfather clock. Her heart was beating fast.

  Rahul replied straight-faced, ‘I think you are mistaken, Doctor. Dubey killed them, not me.’

  She somehow managed an enigmatic smile. ‘No, you murdered them. Or certainly one among the many Rahuls within you murdered them.’

  A vein throbbed in his temple. The red rim of his eyes now showed up against the light. He calmly got up, went to his bedroom, splashed water on his face, wiped it clean, came back and sat on the chair.

  ‘So, how did I do it?’

  She smiled and showed him her empty glass. With supreme effort, he got up, plunged the corkscrew into the second Rothschild bottle and drew out the wine in a decanter. He swirled it and went up to her before pouring the wine into her glass. She swirled it, sniffed it and brought it up to her lips, ‘Lovely bouquet. The taste? One could kill for it.’

  He watched her drink and then put the glass down.

  ‘Let’s make a deal, shall we,’ she said. ‘I will tell you why and what made you do it. You will tell me how you did it. Deal?’

  ‘Deal,’ he said with an air of finality.

  ‘So, my dear Rahul, have you ever seen a beehive?’

  ‘Yes, I have.’

  ‘A typical beehive has worker bees and then there is a queen bee. Correct?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Your mind, Rahul, is like a complicated beehive. Among the many worker bees in there is one who is a traumatized child. This worker bee has a close friend. Also, this bee made up its mind to excel in anything and everythin
g. Then, there is another worker bee who is a very loving creature. It has great reserves of empathy and sensitivity. It is capable of giving and receiving enormous love. There is also a rage bee that can be quick to anger and stings when provoked. Then there is the justice bee that made you go after Usman, Fredo and Dubey. And how can we forget the search bee that searches for solutions and looks for answers to mysteries and questions that are not ordinarily solved. So, Rahul, as the saying goes, many bees in your bonnet. But towering over all these bees is the queen bee. As in the hive and in your mind, the queen bee ensures your survival.’

  ‘Fascinating, Doctor. Assuming all this is true, how does the hive work in my case?’

  ‘I was coming to that, Rahul. There could be ten to twelve bees in your bonnet, or maybe more. I have only scratched the surface. I probably know not more than 10 per cent of who you really are. The thing is, at a given point of time in your life, one of your many multiple schizoid personalities becomes dominant. It dominates to an extent that you believe that is the real you. So, to that extent your phase of working with Simone, befriending her, becoming her lover, must have been genuine for a while. You were the loving, caring, empathic bee, but not for long. The other bee or personality in you must have been struggling to come out. When the two bees meet at a crossroads, a crisis can develop. It is then that the queen bee steps in to ensure smooth lines of delivery and overall survival.’

  ‘Give me an example, Doc,’ asked Rahul darkly.

  ‘Take Simone’s case. You genuinely loved her, but I suspect you could not keep it up for long. There must have been irritations at work, a fraying of your relationship. Your mask must have slipped and the mask of another bee would have come on. It must have deteriorated to a point when there was a risk of exposure and the queen bee had to come flying in and command the lover bee to fall in line. The lover bee would have resisted, but the queen bee would have prevailed. The queen bee told you that Simone would have to be eliminated so that your other fellow bees could live and survive. If Simone had revealed the truth about your mental condition, the Yummimages IPO would have crashed and you would’ve been out of action. You would have become a laughing stock. No one would ever take you seriously again.’

  ‘So, I had to kill Simone to conceal my real self from the world. But why would I go after Usman, Dubey and Fredo?’

  Tanya smiled and held up her glass again. ‘Can I have some more wine, please?’

  ‘Indeed.’

  Rahul refilled her glass and sat on the chair like an ardent student taking notes.

  Tanya savoured her wine and continued. ‘A killing is a killing, Rahul. The act of taking a human life is not an ordinary event. The queen bee in you realized that after killing Simone you could end up destroying your own self if you continued to obsess about your role in her death. She directed other bees to create a diversion. So, the perpetrator became the detective who would go to any extent to solve the murder he had committed himself. To solve a murder means you need to pin the blame on someone else. That someone is a person or a group of real people. The detective bee took over your mind completely. You identified three people who, in some capacities, had links to Simone. Yes, they must have been deviant to an extent but none of them were murderers. You created events and circumstances that led you to believe that they, or one of them, had conspired to eliminate Simone. Plus, you found your raison d’etre after Simone was no longer on the scene.’

  ‘Do I consciously become one of these bees, in the sense that am I aware there are other roles I can pick or choose?’

  ‘I seriously have my doubts about that, Rahul. These bees or schizoid personalities in a sense function in silos. Only the queen bee can bring all of them together. That, of course, is a rare moment. You are experiencing that now. You are aware of all that you did in the past and the present.’

  ‘Like the way I eliminated the threat of those five students at IIT.’

  Tanya’s mouth was dry as she stared at him. ‘How did you do that?’

  ‘The first four . . . well, I found out their weaknesses in terms of subjects, papers, practicals and courses. I beat them fair and square. The fifth I could do nothing about. He was from Hyderabad. He was a maths prodigy. He was that rare being, a genuine genius. I could never catch up with him. Yet, I overcame him.’

  ‘How did you do that?’

  ‘He had a passion for electric guitars. At the annual Rendezvous festival, he was the lead guitarist for the IIT rock band. I was the rhythm guitarist. I went to work on his guitar. I played around with the earth cable. I rigged it in a way that the guitarist became the path through which an enormous amount of electricity would be discharged through faulty grounding. To protect myself, I discarded the electric guitar at the last moment and opted for the regular string guitar. I literally rigged the system to fry him to death. I still hear his screams, Tanya. Your queen bee made sure that I came out tops. It was our first kill.’

  Tanya stared at him. She felt nauseated. She was breathing hard when she asked him. ‘You got away with it . . . in full public view . . .’

  ‘With a little help I must say.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Suhel. Our Suhel. He knew I had rigged the guitar. He went along with it. I guess he hadn’t imagined, or he was just too loyal.’

  Tanya got up from the recliner and poured a glass of water for herself. ‘Too much wine. It’s making me feel nauseated. Suhel knows about you?’

  Rahul kept quiet. The serenity on his face terrified her. He answered her question. ‘Suhel is, and always has been, on a need-to-know basis.’

  ‘What in the name of hell does that mean?’

  Rahul smiled and whistled. Then his face became serious again. ‘The world thinks I am a puppet of the big, tough-talking Mr Suhel. In reality, it is the opposite. He has always been in awe and fear of me. It began when as kids I would coach him for IIT preparation. Left to himself, he had absolutely no chance of getting in. He simply wasn’t bright enough. He scraped through the entrance exam and was indebted to me for life. Next, he would depend on me to help him in our classes at IIT.’

  ‘What did you get from him in return?’

  ‘I got unspoken and firm loyalty. He could and will go to any lengths to protect me. I think he is aware of my schizophrenic character and multiple personalities. What he does brilliantly is that when he sees me assume a particular personality, he responds appropriately, which helps that personality to flourish.’

  ‘Is that why he kept quiet when you murdered the lead guitarist?’

  ‘Yes. Full marks to him. He projected me as a victim, as someone who had escaped death. I never told him, but he knew when to step in and save me from the circle of fire. No one suspected us.’

  ‘And yet, you never discuss all this openly.’

  ‘No. Never. We maintain the facade to keep up the fiction. We communicate as plants do by stimuli. He senses me and acts upon it. I can count on him.’

  Tanya suddenly blew out air and loosened her shirt buttons. ‘I can’t believe it is freezing outside. It feels hot in here. So, Rahul let me ask you that idiot question. What do you feel about all that you have done?’

  ‘I feel, Tanya, as if I am discussing someone else outside my body.’

  ‘Yeah. I understand that. Your wiring is so complex, and we have only begun to scratch the surface. You might as well tell me how you did it because we never know when your column of light will disappear.’

  ‘Oh! My obsessive column of light? I no longer see it.’

  ‘You will not because you are experiencing it. Right now, the bees have come out of their silos and have surrounded the queen bee in gratefulness. Your self-awareness is perhaps at the highest it ever has been. The column of light was a pillar of self-awareness that traumatized you because you did not want to face the truth. Now, you are the column of light.’

  ‘But it won’t last, will it?’

  ‘No, it won’t. So, tell me how you did it.’

  Rahul s
tared at her for a long time, and then he burst out laughing. Tanya watched in amazement at the changes in his expressions and personality. She had a sense that she had stumbled upon the rarest of rare cases that people only read about or imagine. Here was this man, an innocent-looking, suave monster, holding her hand and inviting her to a dance in a ballroom littered with dead people. And the worst part was that she was not repulsed or afraid. She wanted to tango with him. He stopped laughing and looked at her with amusement.

  ‘Oh, Tanya, Tanya. How did I do it, huh? What a wonderful setting to give you an answer. We are both drunk, your top three shirt buttons are undone, we are talking psycho mumbo-jumbo about columns of light, and you are asking me how I killed four people? No, wait, five people. I confessed to killing one in my student years, right? Tanya, dear, what if you are wearing a wire? What if Inspector Buffoon, Kripal, is standing outside waiting for a signal from you? These are life and death issues, Tanya. People have been killed. I was shot, remember? You think this is all so simple?’

  ‘No, it is not, Rahul,’ replied Tanya, pretending to be unruffled by Rahul’s changing behaviour. ‘That is why I salute you for the way you did it. I don’t know how but I know you did it. But that’s not the pertinent question, is it? You must be wondering what I’m doing here. If I am convinced you are the murderer, would I in my right mind show up alone, defenceless? Even more important is the question “Am I condoning your insane, criminal acts?” Questions, questions, Rahul.’