The Assassins

by Jeremy Trafford

  CHAPTER THREE

  Tammy had hesitantly asked Clare to come for a mid-afternoon walk, and she’d been much torn as to whether she should go. This was partly because she thought Max wouldn’t like it, not out of jealousy (which wasn’t normally one of his failings) but because he’d be anxious about her safety. On radio and television there had been endless talk of the assassination, and newspaper accounts were packed with overblown dramatic details. Clare recalled the Inspector’s warning about the precautions they should take. Tammy, however, had been quite insistent, arguing that Veerapan was a scaremonger. He pointed out that they would be driving several miles away from the town, so it was fairly unlikely they’d be followed. Clare was not entirely convinced and so had sent a text to Max, letting him know what they were going to do. Max had gone back to the temple to take more photos.

  Clare sat with Tammy on a riverbank in the shade of a banyan tree; they were half-enclosed by a curtain of gnarled roots, which hung down from the massive branches overhead, as if thirstily reaching for the ground. The river stretched flatly away into the distance. They watched some buffaloes being washed by a young man, who was scooping up silty water in a can and then pouring it over their fat, waddling bodies. This action, repeated over and over, solicited the occasional plaintive bellow from the animals.

  Clare knew her attitude towards Tammy was much affected by what had happened the previous night. Her initial annoyance about hearing his absurd confession of love had dissipated, partly because of his concern for her in the crowd and partly because of his display of courage when struggling with the assassin. Tammy, however, claimed he’d have fled at once if he’d actually known the youth had knifed someone. He’d been too close to the vehicle to see what was happening above his head. Clare wasn’t inclined to believe him. His valour impressed her even more by virtue of his having made this amusing, self-deprecating effort to deny it.

  Despite Tammy’s cynicism about the police, he’d cooperated with them, although he wouldn’t bring himself to admit there either he or Clare were in any need of their protection. Sometimes he talked about who might have been behind the crime, his own ideas now chiming with those of Veerapan’s: dispossessed peasants recruited as hit men, who were angry and rebellious because of the injustices they suffered. A radio commentator suggested the assassination was the work of Maoist revolutionaries seeking to establish a classless society through armed struggle. However, Venkataraman, with his campaign against political corruption, wasn’t part of any system of class oppression but rather a vocal critic of such, and so Tammy discounted that theory along with several others being bandied about in the media.

  Leaving the banyan tree behind, Tammy and Clare walked along the riverbank. Tammy had said nothing more about his feelings for her, and she was impressed by his restraint. Instead, he spoke at length about the political and economic problems of India, presumably out of a desire to help with her and Max’s research.

  ‘We spend forty per cent of the budget on defence,’ he said. ‘Far more on tanks and missiles than on factories to make mechanical diggers, drains and ambulances. Without a doubt, we’ll use these arms when it comes to the next slugging match with Pakistan.’

  ‘Over Kashmir?’ Clare asked.

  ‘Yes. Three wars have already been fought over Kashmir,’ Tammy pointed out. ‘Fifty thousand people have been killed. It’s full of militant groups, and there’s always tension on the unofficial borders. It’s the main reason India and Pakistan spend their relatively scarce resources on weapons of mass destruction. In a moment of panic misunderstanding, these nuclear bombs could so easily be launched.’ He paused. ‘Remember Shahpur, the Indian Muslim friend I told you about? He thinks the Partition of India in the first place was unfortunate.’

  ‘Why?’ Clare asked. ‘Surely there was no alternative?’

  ‘Who can really say?’ Tammy countered. ‘A million people were massacred and eleven million more – Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus – fled for their lives across the new frontiers. Shahpur loves his religion, its fervent monotheism and egalitarian spirit, but he can’t see why these different religions couldn’t have coexisted in the same undivided country. The Koran is not exclusivist. It doesn’t regard other religions as wrong. It says Muslims must acknowledge their kinship with other faiths, as the Muslim Emperor Akbar did when he showed great interest in Hinduism. That was something you imperial British failed to do, far preferring to divide and rule instead.’

  ‘Did we British do nothing right in your opinion?’ asked Clare, irked. ‘We built railways and bridges. We introduced democracy and freedom of opposition, however limited.’

  ‘Yes, very limited. Democracy didn’t arrive soon enough. You imprisoned Gandhi and Nehru, for instance. Of course, you gave us the unifying English language. You also outlawed widow burning, without which the widowed Indira Gandhi might never have come to power. Some of her critics think that was a big mistake.’ He paused, just for a second. ‘I’m joking.’

  ‘In poor taste,’ said Clare. ‘A woman prime minister must’ve been a real inspiration to the women of India. Are you sure you’re not a closet misogynist, Tammy? It’s disgraceful that the majority of women are seen as inferior to men. Vijaya’s right to think this must be strenuously fought.’

  ‘She’s very right, of course. Pregnant women are often made to have ultrasound scans to determine the sex of foetuses. Female ones sometimes get aborted. It’s against the law but it happens.’

  ‘It’s monstrous. Why is it thought so terrible to have a female child?’

  ‘It’s partly economic. Boy children earn money when they grow up. Girls can become expensive because of the wretched dowry system. Brides are expected to bring valuable goods with them, which their parents can’t always afford. Husbands and in-laws can put terrifying pressure on the wives.’

  Tammy seemed to like Clare critically asserting her opinions, prompting him to make plainer his feminist convictions.

  ‘Incidentally, Shahpur is deeply in love with a Hindu girl, Kalyani. They met at Cambridge but now live in Kolkata. They want to marry but both sets of parents are against it. Kalyani says her father’s parents were killed in the Partition riots, in a massacre on a train. He was young enough to be overlooked but he witnessed it and is very bitter as a consequence. That’s a personal reason for Shahpur being so against these religious divisions and longing for mutual tolerance.’

  Clare liked Tammy confiding in her about his Muslim friend. She was touched by his concern. With nothing to say at that moment, she shifted her focus to the landscape surrounding them. Dotted across the paddy fields were occasional coconut palms, their trunks sometimes bent towards the sun, as if making supplication to it. A vulture, suspended on wide serrated wings, slowly glided by above their heads. A farmer was driving two oxen yoked together, laboriously dragging a plough.

  ‘They shouldn’t be using draught animals.’ Tammy said. ‘The wooden ploughshare doesn’t go deep enough. Not that there hasn’t been great agricultural improvement on the whole. The Green Revolution was launched after the droughts of the sixties and early seventies. Yields improved by thirty per cent during the eighties.’

  ‘What other general improvements have there been?’ Clare asked. ‘You seem to have all the facts and figures at your fingertips.’

  ‘I’ve recently prepared some lectures on the topic,’ Tammy said. ‘Life expectancy has gone up considerably. The number of children per woman has gone down from six to two point four. The female literacy rate has risen from nine per cent to sixty-five per cent. We’ve many major problems, of course, especially to do with health care and education for the poor, but we’ve made impressive progress in many ways since Independence.’

  ‘You’re not as much of a gloom merchant as you seemed at first,’ Clare said. ‘Have we far to go?’ she asked anxiously then. ‘I’m beginning to feel a bit weird.’

  ‘Oh lord, I’ve kept you out under this sun for too long,’ Tammy replied with concern in his vo
ice.

  They walked on towards a village that was blurry from a distance, owing to the heat and dust. As they got closer, some children walked towards them, staring with wondering eyes. It was as if they’d never seen a curious pale creature such as Clare before. A couple of scruffy-looking dogs barked furiously at the strangers, hair bristling and fangs bared, before sulkily retreating to cause a sudden panic among some chickens that flapped off on ruffled wings, squawking in indignation.

  ‘Look, Tammy,’ Clare began, her voice urgent, ‘can you find me somewhere to lie down? I feel awful. It must be something more than just the heat.’

  Soon they came to what must have once been quite an imposing building but was now dilapidated. A faded sign outside indicated it was a hotel. It was set back from the road behind a clump of bedraggled banana plants, as if hiding for shame behind their tattered leaves. A spectacularly fat man was lounging half-naked on a rope bed outside, staring rather haughtily at the visitors.

  ‘Tammy, I’m parched,’ Clare said. ‘I’ve got to drink something. And I need some-where to lie down please!’

  Tammy spoke with the man, who announced himself as the proprietor of the hotel. He called back over his shoulder with stately condescension. A youth emerged, with the faintest bloom of a moustache, hands dangling awkwardly by his sides as if he wasn’t quite sure they belonged to him. The proprietor motioned him upstairs with a lordly twiddle of his fingers and then glanced at Clare, tapping his massive stomach as though it were a feature of much pride he was quite determined they should notice if not actively admire.

  ‘There’s a room with a bed,’ Tammy told her. ‘The air conditioning’s defunct but they’re sending for some ice to cool us down.’

  They were guided upstairs to a room furnished with a narrow bed. The windows were shuttered, with just a few slits of light leaking in from the glare outside. Clare lay down. The youth returned, carrying an enamel basin that contained a slab of ice scattered with sawdust. The proprietor took it and set it ceremoniously down before brushing off the sawdust to reveal, like a solemn mystery, the gleaming shape beneath. The youth scampered out and in again, bringing bottles of a vividly coloured drink. Clare took one and gulped it down, despite its lurid look and peculiar taste. The youth then produced an antiquated table fan, over which the proprietor waved his hands as if bestowing an optimistic blessing on it. The youth plugged the fan into a disconcertingly loose socket on the wall that, with its cracked plaster and eccentric bulges, seemed well advanced on its inevitable journey to collapse.

  Against the odds – or so Clare thought – a spasm of electricity jerked the fan into a frenzy of activity. Tammy positioned it by the basin so that it whirred across the ice; it twisted and shuddered from side to side, delivering a shaft of coolness onto her sweating face.

  The youth retreated, touching his forehead with a murmur. The proprietor bowed out, beaming beatifically, sketching a princely little gesture of commiseration in the air with his podgy fingers.

  ‘That’s wonderful, Tammy,’ Clare said. ‘Sorry to be such a bore.’

  Tammy’s response was to soak a cloth and set it on her forehead.

  ‘I’ve been talking too much,’ he said. ‘I wanted to cheer you up. I fear this could be a touch of sunstroke.’

  So he’d been able to see she needed cheering up. He was making these moves not out of naïve infatuation but out of real, sensitive regard for her wellbeing. His anxious wiping of her face caused a stir of gratitude within her, which she found surprising.

  She wasn’t physically attracted to him at all, though. He was so plain, the poor soul, and good looks in a man had always been important to her. She never liked admitting this to people, for fear they would think her shallow. But Tammy had kind eyes and she liked his diffident smile. His behaviour was charming but she saw nothing beyond his charm. She was to be surprised again, though, when he shyly kissed her open palm; she felt herself warm to him, albeit only slightly.

  But then Tammy whispered something.

  ‘I’ve never loved anyone like this before.’

  Clare felt embarrassed but not annoyed this time. She wondered if she had been unfair in deciding to come on this walk in the first place.

  ‘I respect what you’ve told me, but as I’ve said, I’m very much in love with my husband.’

  ‘But he…’ Tammy’s voice trailed off, just for a moment, before he summoned the courage to go on. ‘He just doesn’t seem to be in love with you.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’ Clare asked, horrified.

  ‘How can he be?’ Tammy blurted out, looking almost frightened. ‘He can’t be in love with more than one person, surely?’

  ‘What the hell do you mean?’

  ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.’

  ‘Certainly you shouldn’t, even if it were true, which it bloody well isn’t!’ she shouted. She felt sick again, suddenly hating him.

  ‘I never meant to tell you,’ Tammy said. ‘But you don’t know what I’m going through. I wouldn’t allow myself to feel this way if I thought he really loved you.’

  For a moment Clare wanted to ask what had been said to him, and by whom. She had a huge and painful need to know. She felt her anger grow; she was furious that he should have been so base as to tell her this, and that he should be expressing her own insidious doubts. This much she recognised. Frustrated and appalled, she stared at the fan, which was rasping as if outraged; it seemed to be turning ever faster and at risk of falling over in the now so claustrophobic room.

  Of course, Clare knew there was this gap in what she knew about Max, and her anger drained away. Vijaya? The idea came back but now seemed totally implausible. Vijaya was Narayan’s sister. A memory of Narayan flashed upon her suddenly: joking at a barbecue party in Los Angeles as she helped to turn the sizzling meat he’d said was so barbaric, pouring her wine he’d never drink himself, charming her with his wish to please and his provocative yet disarming humour. Clare had suspected he might’ve had a crush on her, one that would never be declared because she was Max’s wife and Narayan was Max’s friend.

  She got up from the bed, telling Tammy she wanted to be alone. She went downstairs and passed the youth with the barely detectable moustache. With the proprietor not around, the boy had assumed a mimicking grandeur of his own and was talking a bit snootily to a bearded man who peered at Clare as she came near. She was used to being stared at by now, being seen as an exotic oddity in these remoter parts of the country. It was only when she reached the door, where the light dazzled her eyes, that she began to wonder why his attention had disturbed her so.

  She turned back. The hallway was so dark in contrast to the blinding light and she couldn’t see the man’s face clearly. He stood motionless at first, but then swivelled and twisted and began swinging towards her. His shoulders jerked. His crutches clicked across the tiled floor. He stopped a couple of metres from Clare.

  He gazed at her, smiling awkwardly. He made a gesture, friendly but cautionary, as if expressing some grave solicitude.

  It was surely the same cripple.

  Clare recalled him lit up by the sparkling fireworks, holding out his begging bowl, urging on the boy assassin, watching Venkataraman being stabbed, staring up in revolting grim delight at the bloody scene. But then she recalled him tenderly holding his little girl, showing gratitude to Clare, comforting his desolated wife when he might’ve chided her instead.

  This was a man of glaring contradictions. What was he doing here? Why approach her? Had he followed them from the town to express his gratitude again, unable to forget how Clare had saved his child? Or had he come to warn her? Was it even the same man, or was her imagination playing tricks, fuelled by her lingering anxieties?

  Clare looked at his grave face, his forehead puckered in concern. Was he really the mastermind behind a cold-blooded murder? He gestured to Clare with the back of his hand, as if urging her to leave, to go far away, before turning and swinging off on his crutches.

/>   Clare remained in the hallway, utterly bewildered. Tammy came downstairs, too late to see the cripple. The youth was still there, but his confidence began fizzling out when he heard the proprietor imperiously demanding his attendance, and Clare got the full glory of his monumental belly a moment later as he graciously wobbled into view. After an indulgent smile and a courtly wave of his hand, the proprietor wobbled off again, with the youth reluctantly in tow, bearing a browbeaten air.

  Clare told Tammy about the cripple. He said the chances of this man being the same as the one in Madurai were unlikely.

  ‘It was a nasty experience for you,’ he reasoned. ‘You mustn’t imagine that pursuers are lurking around every corner. Resist getting needlessly alarmed.’

  She was glad of the reassurance but noted that Tammy took her alarm seriously enough to look around in hope of seeing the man. Her mobile phone buzzed, and she looked at the screen. Max had texted her to say he’d got back to the hotel and was worrying about where they she was.

  A minute later, Clare and Tammy saw a car drive away from the hotel. A bearded man was in the driving seat; beside him was a woman with a child on her lap. The woman saw Clare and her face broke into a diffident, soft smile. She bowed her head and touched her forehead with her right palm.

  ‘It must be the same cripple,’ Clare told Tammy.

  ‘A crippled beggar wouldn’t possess a car, let alone be able to drive one,’ he replied.

  Slightly irked by Tammy’s dismissal of her suppositions, Clare started to think about the man’s warning gesture. It was as if he had warned her to go far away, even to leave the country. Was he fearful of what might happen to her if she did not?

  CHAPTER FOUR

  While Max was waiting for Clare to get back, he scrolled through the photos on his camera again, looking for one in particular: the possible quarter-profile of the boy assassin, staring upwards as Venkataraman orated, the enigmatic cripple standing near him. Max scrutinised it but he wasn’t sure. He kept thinking of the Inspector’s warning that the assassins might follow Clare and Tammy, a warning they weren’t paying much attention to. He decided to put it to the back of his mind for now and scrolled on in search of photos he might want to use in the book: a holy man with corded tentacles of ash-streaked hair, an emaciated child in a backstreet slum, the patched and ragged hovels of a shanty town. In contrast was a village wedding procession with the garlanded bridegroom on a horse, sleek and gaily caparisoned, and a beautiful woman sweeper in an embroidered sari, determined to dignify her labour with her dress. He continued scrolling until he came to a photo of Narayan in Los Angeles, snapped the year before. An even older one of Rick was next.