by Vaseem Khan
So absorbed was he with these conundrums that he did not notice the dark grey four-by-four with the blacked-out windows following them through the evening traffic.
It was only when he turned off the Western Express Highway to take a short cut through the largely derelict Gold Spot quarter that he noticed the vehicle’s lights flashing through his rear window. At that point, he thought little of it. The short cut was well known, though usually avoided by all but the sturdiest vehicles due to the terrible state of the road that wound between the crumbling apartment blocks and industrial units waiting for demolition. The site had been scheduled for gentrification for over three years; the plans were currently mired in red tape, awaiting various official stamps, which in turn awaited pay-outs to a long line of those involved in the approval process.
Chopra idly wondered if Geeta Lokhani had been one of those individuals.
Here and there were the crude fires of those who had chosen to risk sleeping in these hollowed-out concrete shells, any one of which might come down on their heads at a moment’s notice.
The van bounced over a pothole, lifting Chopra’s bottom from his seat. He cursed and held on to the wheel, as the Tata Venture skidded around a corner.
Behind him, Ganesha trumpeted in alarm.
And then, just as he had regained control, he heard the growl of an engine; bright beams flared into the van. The Tata Venture was struck aggressively from behind; Chopra found himself wrestling with the steering wheel as the van was pushed roughly along the rutted road.
‘Hold on!’ Chopra shouted.
He swung the wheel, and managed to pull away from the vehicle behind.
But the respite was only momentary.
A gunshot blasted through the night air; the van’s rear side window exploded inwards, showering Ganesha with shards of glass. The little elephant’s ears shot out like sails on either side of his head.
‘Keep your head down, boy!’
Chopra slammed the accelerator, attempting to outpace the four-by-four.
But the van’s engine was not powerful enough.
More gunshots zinged into the night, peppering the side of the van.
Chopra ducked low, cursing, face lathered in sweat. He hurled the van around a corner. A rusted sign flashed by: DANGER: THESE BUILDINGS HAVE BEEN SCHEDULED FOR DEMOLITION.
The van bounced over another pothole – and for a terrifying instant all four tyres were off the ground.
Another bullet rang out in the darkness. Chopra felt a sting in his right ear.
He risked a sideways glance.
The chasing vehicle had pulled up alongside. The rear window was rolled down. He saw an automatic poking out; and then the orange bloom of a muzzle flash. He felt one of the van’s tyres disintegrate under them. And then the vehicle lurched sharply to one side, the steering wheel all but wrenched from his hands. He cried out in alarm as the Tata Venture swung off the road, barrelled through a chain-link fence, then careened down a slope into the underground parking level of an abandoned apartment tower – little more than a concrete shell – hurtling past a succession of pitted columns, before finally crashing into a pockmarked wall at the rear of the darkened space.
Chopra’s head bounced from the steering wheel; Ganesha skidded into the back of his seat, bellowing in alarm.
A moment of blankness, then Chopra shook himself alert.
His head sang, and he could feel blood flowing freely down his forehead and into his eyes.
But he was alive.
He released his seatbelt, wriggled out of the driver’s seat, raced to the rear, and looked inside, his heart in his mouth. ‘Ganesha!’
The elephant was sprawled on the floor.
Chopra ducked inside, slapped his arms around Ganesha’s neck, and heaved. Slowly, the calf stumbled to his feet. ‘Come on, boy.’
Together they emerged from the van, then ducked behind a concrete pillar.
He could hear voices echoing in the vast underground space. Concrete dust filled the darkness. He suddenly remembered something. ‘Wait here!’ he hissed, then raced back to the van.
Steam gushed from under the Tata Venture’s bonnet. The windows had been shot out, and the left passenger-side wheel was now a mess of shredded rubber.
Chopra reached in, yanked opened the glove box, and took out his old service revolver.
He scrabbled his way back to Ganesha.
‘Where is he?’ came a voice. ‘I can’t see anything in here.’
The beam of a torch speared into the darkness, picking out the van. It swung sideways, and flashed across the pillar that Chopra and Ganesha were crouched behind.
‘There!’
A bullet whipped into the stone, scattering chips in all directions.
Chopra ducked back.
Beside him, Ganesha flapped his ears in terror.
Chopra wiped the blood from his eyes, and hefted his revolver. It was the trusty Anmol that he had used for many years before they had been replaced with the newer automatics. When he had retired, he had forgotten to return the gun as protocol dictated.
He was not a man who believed in prayer, but at that moment he wished fervently that any gods who were in the vicinity might deign to look his way.
He flung himself around the pillar, and fired at their assailants.
He heard a loud cry, and then: ‘He has a gun! Where did he get a gun from?’
‘I’m hit! I’m hit!’
More bullets rang out. The torch fell; there was a tinkle of glass, and then it fizzled out.
‘I can’t see a thing!’
Chopra fired in the direction of the voice.
‘He’s firing at us! He’s firing at us!’
‘Will you shut up, you idiot! I’m bleeding here!’
Chopra fired again; another yelp of alarm tore through the darkness.
‘I’ve had enough! This building could come down any second!’
Chopra heard the men scrambling away.
He waited until he heard the rumble of the four-by-four driving off. And then he fell bonelessly against the pillar, closing his eyes as relief washed through him.
He was still alive! They were both still alive.
He limped to his feet. As the adrenalin began to fade, the pain of his bruised and battered body was making itself felt.
‘Come on, Gan—’ he began, and the ground fell away beneath his feet.
Floating in darkness
When he opened his eyes, he thought for a moment that he was back in the village in which he had grown to adulthood, down by the banks of the river where he would often go as a boy to spy on the village maidens from the branches of a peepal tree.
Clear spring water gurgling over rocks.
He realised he was in darkness.
The last thing he remembered was the floor collapsing under him, falling into a void.
He was in an underground room, waist deep in water.
The gurgling sound he heard was from a burst pipe, pouring water into the narrow space. Something bumped his hip, whipping him around in alarm – but it was only a plastic bottle adrift in the frothing water.
He looked around him, his eyes slowly adjusting to the gloom, then waded to the room’s door. He grasped the rusted handle, and pulled.
It came away in his hand.
Cursing, he tried to insert his fingers around the frame, but it was impossible. With the water pushing against the door, there was no way to open it from the inside.
He would have to find another way out.
He waded back into the centre of the room, and took stock of his surroundings. Pipes lined one wall, with bracket shelving bolted to a metal siding on the wall opposite. He was in some sort of maintenance room.
There were no windows, he realised, with a numbing shock. A bloom of panic flowered around his heart.
The water had now risen to his chest.
A wooden pallet caught him a glancing blow. Something slithered by his elbow, and he thrashed out in frig
ht.
And then it came to him . . . How was it that he was able to see anything at all in this darkness?
He looked up.
He had fallen through the ceiling – a gaping hole in the corner permitted a trickle of light to seep into the tiny room. Chopra splashed his way over so that he was directly below the hole. He attempted to leap up and grasp the edge. It was too high. He looked at the wall before him. Perhaps he could scrabble up?
But the wall was smooth, slick with water; there was nothing for him to use as a handhold to scale the concrete surface.
The panic became a raging fire. His heart thumped in his ears. How ironic it would be, he thought, if he died of a heart attack before he drowned. He imagined Homi carrying out the post-mortem, what his old friend might have to say about that. And Poppy . . . He shuddered. It did not bear thinking about.
He would never hear the end of it, even in the afterlife.
Think!
There had to be a way out of this.
Perhaps he could climb on top of something?
He surged through the swirling water, grabbed the floating pallet, and wrestled it back to the corner. He tried to clamber on top of it, but it bobbed out from under him.
It was impossible.
The water had risen to his neck.
And now the thought that he had attempted to suppress came roaring to the front of his mind.
I cannot swim.
The water was now above his chin. He closed his eyes.
So this is how it ends.
An ignoble finish to a career devoted to doing the right thing. But then, no one had ever promised him that doing the right thing would guarantee a happy ending. That simply wasn’t the way life worked.
He heard a soft bugle above him.
His eyes snapped open, and he peered upwards. Outlined above was Ganesha’s head, his trunk curling down into the cavity. The elephant vacillated nervously on the lip of the hole.
‘Step back, boy!’ warned Chopra.
Ganesha looked at him forlornly, trumpeting his distress.
‘There is nothing you can do.’
Still the elephant did not move. ‘Go on! Get out of here! Before the whole place comes down on you.’ His teeth chattered in the dark. He hadn’t noticed how cold the water was. His body felt numb; a dreamy feeling was beginning to rotate upwards from the core of his body. This wasn’t such a bad way to die, he thought. He’d lived a good life, hadn’t he? He’d fought the good fight; he’d made a difference.
And through it all, the good times and the bad, he had kept his integrity.
No one could take that from him.
He looked up again, saw that Ganesha had vanished.
‘Good boy,’ he mumbled, as the water rose above his mouth, and he was forced to lift himself on tiptoe.
In the car park above, Ganesha raced to the rear of the crashed Tata Venture. The little calf understood that Chopra was in trouble, that he needed help. An idea, a memory of something he had seen, bloomed in his mind . . . Two weeks earlier, Chopra had helped out a stranded woman by towing her broken-down car.
Ganesha reached down below the van’s bumper to where a large red tow hook poked out from its embedded storage cavity. He curled his trunk around the hook, then turned and trotted back to the hole in the floor.
Behind him, the towline unspooled with a mechanical humming sound.
Chopra strained on tiptoe, his nostrils now the only part of him clear of the swirling water.
Perhaps it would be easier to just let go. What was the point of struggling for a few extra seconds of life? What did it mean in the grand scheme of things?
But then again, perhaps that was precisely why it did matter.
Every second was precious, and the preservation of life – because of its very rarity – was what gave meaning to the cosmos.
A shape appeared in the haze above him . . . Ganesha!
No! He didn’t want the elephant to see him die . . . and what exactly was he doing?
Chopra’s eyes widened as he watched the elephant grip the towline, and, foot by foot, lower it down into the room.
Impossible! How had he . . .?
But there was no time for that now.
Chopra pushed forward, reaching up with his arms. The hook dangled just out of reach. Just a few more inches . . . He lifted his face above the water, took a deep breath, then bent his knees, submerging his whole body, before pushing back up, and thrashing himself out of the water like an overweight salmon. His arms flailed for the hook . . . He had it.
The towline reeled out swiftly, causing Ganesha to let go, and stumble backwards. Chopra felt panic grip him again as he fell back into the water. He held his breath, grasped the line with both hands, and pulled, hand over hand, as fast as he could.
Finally, the line had run out to its maximum length, and he had a firm purchase.
He hauled himself out of the water, then clambered up the line, using the wall to brace his feet.
Reaching the lip of the hole, he let go of the rope, grasped the edges of the cavity, and, with a monumental effort, wriggled his body over the edge, his legs kicking out into the empty space below.
Finally, he flopped on to his back, spluttering out the last of the water lodged in his throat.
His chest heaved, and his eyes blinked back tears of relief as Ganesha wavered into view.
The elephant palpated Chopra’s bruised and battered face with his trunk, as if to reassure himself that he was still alive.
Chopra attempted to speak, but he was beyond words.
A ringing silence descended on him. And then there was only darkness.
No place to be sick
It was unfortunate for all concerned that the first thing Chopra saw when he opened his eyes was the face of his assistant investigator Abbas Rangwalla, looming over him in relief.
He cried out in alarm, and raised his hands to ward off the bearded apparition.
Rangwalla fell backwards, almost tripping over his own feet. ‘What kind of way is that to greet a friend?’ he said sourly.
Chopra blinked rapidly, his mind a terrified blank.
He was lying on a bed in a whitewashed room bathed in bright light. His memory appeared to have deserted him; he ransacked his panicked brain. Where was he? What had happened?
And then it flooded back: the chase, the crash, the shootout, the escape from the flooded room.
And then . . . a wash of fatigue as the adrenalin drained away, and darkness fluttering down on to him.
He struggled to a seated position in his hospital bed. The movement sent splinters of lightning forking around his skull, and a gasp of pain escaped him.
‘Take it easy,’ said Rangwalla. ‘You’ve been through a lot.’
‘What happened?’ asked Chopra, clutching at his head.
‘I don’t know. An ambulance picked you up in the Gold Spot district. You were passed out in some derelict building. One of the doctors here knows Homi and had heard of you. Homi called me.’
‘How did the ambulance find me?’
‘Some homeless guy who lives there called it in. He says Ganesha led him to you.’ A smile split Rangwalla’s beard. ‘That is one smart elephant.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘Back in his compound, safe and sound. Do you want to tell me what happened?’
Quickly, Chopra brought his deputy up to speed on all that had transpired since they had last spoken.
‘You think this Kaabra tried to have you killed?’ Rangwalla said when he had finished.
Chopra evaluated the question, the possible chain of events since he had visited John Reddy at Karma Holdings. ‘Yes,’ he said finally. The certainty of it coiled around his guts.
‘If he’s the power behind Karma Holdings,’ continued Rangwalla, ‘I suppose it means he is, directly or indirectly, also the one behind what happened to Hasan Gafoor’s factory.’
Chopra nodded again. ‘It fits with his modus operandi. Bully landl
ords into signing their properties over to Karma at below market rates, then redevelop them for profit.’
‘And if they put up a fight, resort to any means possible to acquire the land. Up to and including collapsing a building on to thirteen innocent people.’
‘That’s not all of it,’ said Chopra. ‘The boy and girl who were shot and burned in Marol? It turns out they worked for Karma Holdings.’
Rangwalla grimaced. ‘This is bad.’
The door to the room swung open, and Homi Contractor breezed in. ‘Ah. Bollywood’s ugliest action hero is awake. What would you like to do for an encore, old friend? Lie down in front of a train?’
‘How soon can I get out of here?’ asked Chopra. He was in no mood for Homi’s caustic sense of humour.
‘Get out of here, he says!’ Homi threw up his hands. ‘When they brought you in here you were stretched out like a corpse. You have suffered concussion, a hairline fracture of the clavicle, multiple bruises and lacerations. And, for the icing on the cake, what looks like a bullet wound. Luckily for you, it just clipped your ear.’
Chopra raised a hand to his right ear, and the plaster that now encased it. Suddenly, he was back in the condemned building, the smell of cordite in his nostrils, adrenalin flying wild in his blood.
‘I don’t suppose I have to say it – and it wouldn’t do any good if I did – but you are lucky to be alive.’
Weariness washed through him. He leaned back into the glut of pillows behind his head, and momentarily closed his eyes. Perhaps Homi was right. He had survived a brush with death; his body, his mind, his very heart had been bruised and battered. He needed to rest, if only to regain the strength to continue his pursuit.
He heard the door swing open and opened his eyes again.
Poppy advanced into the room, then stopped short as she saw her husband stretched out on the bed. A shudder trembled through her. She glanced at Homi who shrugged as if to indicate that Chopra’s condition was none of his doing, then, sensing her mood, nodded reassuringly at her.
She stepped forward and lowered herself gingerly down on to the edge of the bed. ‘How do you keep getting yourself into these situations?’
