by Anita Nair
‘I am not going to wear your wife’s clothes,’ Urmila said quietly.
Gowda didn’t speak. Instead, he proffered her a clean white t-shirt from a pile in the wardrobe. Then he went to the kitchen and made two mugs of instant coffee.
‘Do you think I am such a boor?’ he asked, placing a mug by her side. ‘I know I am not the sensitive type who cries at a beautiful sunset but I am not a rhino either.’
‘Why rhino?’ Urmila laughed.
‘Its skin is 1.5 to 5 cm thick. And that’s how you think of me, as … a thick-skinned boor. God, Urmila, how could you think I would offer you Mamtha’s clothes to change into?’ Gowda said, holding her gaze.
She looked away.
‘Santosh is back,’ he said, attempting to quell the awkwardness that had sprung up between them.
‘Oh,’ she said, looking up. ‘How is he?’
‘Well enough. He needs some help with his voice. The injury to his throat has affected it,’ Gowda said, dropping into the sofa to sit by her side. ‘I missed you.’
She peered at him from the corner of her eye. ‘You did? That is a first from you, Borei. I don’t remember when you ever said that.’
He smiled. ‘When I saw Santosh, I realized how close to death he had come. And it struck me that we go through life without telling the people we care about that we do care about them.’
Urmila leaned towards him and cupped his face in her palms. ‘I missed you, my dear Inspector Borei Gowda. Do you realize it’s been more than three weeks since we met?’
‘Yes,’ he said, nuzzling his face into the side of her neck.
She squirmed. ‘Don’t … you are tickling me!’
‘Do you still feel ticklish at your age?’ he murmured.
‘Shut up, Borei. You make me sound like I am your grandmother …’ Urmila mock-punched him in the gut.
Horseplay — that was what they were doing, he thought with a secret grin. Did I ever think I would be fooling around with a woman at this stage in my life?
‘Borei … come back … where have you gone?’ Urmila’s voice eased him out of his reverie. As he reached for her again, his phone rang. Gowda let it ring till it stopped on its own. It rang again and stopped. When it began ringing again, Urmila sighed. ‘You had better take it! Whoever it is won’t stop till you do.’
Gowda picked up the phone. It was Head Constable Gajendra.
‘Sir, I think you need to come to the station. We’ve got some information about your maid’s daughter.’
Gowda looked at the call log. There were two missed calls, both from his wife. He would have to call her back.
Gowda frowned as the jeep drew closer to the police station. He felt a deep-rooted weariness tug at him. He thought of his bed longingly. It wasn’t sleep he craved as much as a soft bed and some uninterrupted silence. A group of men squatted outside the gate under a tree.
‘What’s going on?’ Gowda asked David.
‘The boy’s people, sir.’
‘Which boy?’ Gowda’s heart sank.
‘I don’t know, sir. Something to do with your maid’s daughter,’ David said as he turned in through the gateway.
The tubelight outside the station was switched on, casting a large pool of light. The rest of the grounds were in darkness. Gowda made a mental note to ask for better lighting of the station area.
Gowda saw Shanthi and her husband hovering by the building. He gestured for them to come in.
Head Constable Gajendra followed him into his room. ‘Have someone bring me some tea,’ he said to a constable who had tailed after Gajendra.
‘Yes,’ he said, turning his gaze towards Gajendra.
‘Apparently, a boy saw the girl, sir. I have asked him to be brought in for questioning.’
Gowda nodded. ‘How old is the boy?’
‘I checked. Don’t worry, sir; he is twenty.’
Gowda smiled almost in apology to Gajendra. ‘You know how it is … there are half a dozen organizations, both government bodies and social activists, who will descend on us if we bring a minor into the station without a child welfare officer around.’
‘Sir, shall I call the boy in?’
Gowda leaned back in his chair. ‘Ask Shanthi and her husband to come in first. Gajendra,’ he said.
The head constable paused at the door. ‘Sir?’ he asked.
‘Please have this towel removed. I don’t want it here,’ Gowda said.
Ranganna crept in with downcast eyes. His usual aggression and garrulousness had been replaced by a tongue-tied timidity. Why did police stations do this to people, Gowda wondered. Something about us intimidates people even when they have no need to fear us.
‘Sit down, Ranganna,’ Gowda said.
He shook his head fervently. Shanthi, who seemed less intimidated, came to stand by her husband’s side.
‘Tell me about the boy.’ Gowda spoke softly.
‘He was talking in the angaddi about Nandita,’ Shanthi said.
‘Why would he discuss your daughter in the market?’ Gowda asked abruptly.
‘All because of this useless man,’ Shanthi sniffed, jabbing a finger into her husband’s side.
‘I was doing what any father would,’ Ranganna growled.
Just then the constable came in with a small cup of tea on a tray. Gowda glared at him. ‘Where’s my cup?’
‘It broke, sir.’
Gowda sighed and looked at the plastic cup. Then he said, ‘What did you do, Ranganna?’
‘The rascal gave my daughter a love letter. So I thrashed him. And now, sir, do you know what he was saying at the market?’
Gowda gestured with his hand for Ranganna to continue talking. He had little patience for these rhetorical questions and studied pauses.
‘He said Ranganna acts as though his daughter is Virgin Mary. If she is such an innocent, why would she leave the exam hall early and take a bus? Where was she going? Now I hear her parents say she’s missing. I tell you she’s eloped with some boy,’ Shanthi said before her husband could speak.
‘And …’ Gowda said, knowing for certain that there was more.
‘And I thrashed him again and dragged him to the station. That’s when his people rallied around him.’
Gowda stared at the man and then snapped, ‘Wait outside. Shanthi, I need to speak to you for a moment.’
Ranganna sniffed as he walked out of the room.
‘Was Nandita involved with any boy?’ Gowda asked Shanthi, not bothering to couch his words.
She shook her head fervently. ‘No, sir. She is a child. A good child …’
‘I know, but children these days grow up very quickly,’ Gowda said softly.
‘No, sir. I am certain. She had many friends, some of them boys, but she didn’t have anything to do with boys in that sense.’
‘Well then, let me speak to the boy.’
Gowda rang the bell and a constable came in. ‘Tell Head Constable Gajendra to take the boy to the room. I’ll join him in a few minutes.’
A tall dark boy in a red t-shirt that clung to his skinny frame and a pair of faded jeans stood slouching against a wall. There were several bracelets around one wrist and a glinting silver earring in one ear. The boy straightened when he saw Gowda.
The interrogation cell that they simply referred to as ‘the room’ had a lone table and two chairs. It was probably meant to be a storeroom. However, it served well as an interrogation room with its narrow confines and lack of natural light. Most first-time criminals blanched on entering it. It was suggestive of police brutality and third-degree torture. There was a hook on the ceiling that was probably meant to hang a stalk of bananas. But to the rookie criminal it was the hook from which the police in movies strung up criminals and caned them. So much of police work was conjecture, Gowda thought wryly as he saw the fear in the boy’s eyes. ‘Sir, I am innocent. I didn’t do anything,’ he burst out. ‘I am being falsely accused!’
‘Aah thoo … lowde ka baal,’ Gajendra spat at
the boy. ‘Quiet!’
Gowda cringed. There really was no need to get so aggressive or call the boy a pubic hair. But that was what most policemen sought to begin their interrogation with: a large dollop of intimidation by tone and word, and a gesture of contempt.
‘What is your name?’ Gowda asked.
‘Raju, sir.’
‘So, Raju, tell me what you saw,’ Gowda said softly, sitting on the lone chair in the room.
‘I was delivering a package to a house by the Hennur bus depot. There is some roadwork going on there. So I had to wait for the traffic in front of me to clear. That’s when I saw her. Nandita, sir. She was in a bus. I knew she had an exam and that there was an hour left for the exam to be over.’
‘So you told everyone she had eloped …’ Gajendra said, looking at the boy as if he were a maggot that had crawled out of a cow pat.
A defiant expression appeared on the boy’s face. ‘Something like that happened two years ago in our village.’
‘How do you know that Nandita had an exam and how long it would last?’ Gowda asked softly.
The boy dropped his gaze. ‘I just know!’
‘You can’t just know. Do you have a sister or a brother in her class?’ Gajendra asked, bringing a steely edge into his voice.
The boy shifted his stance but wouldn’t speak.
‘Don’t make me work on you,’ Gajendra said, moving from where he stood leaning against the wall.
‘What is it, Raju?’ Gowda asked.
‘I love her,’ the boy burst out. ‘So I keep tabs on her. One of her classmates is a boy I know. He tells me everything that is going on.’
Gowda and Gajendra exchanged glances.
‘So was something going on?’ Gowda murmured.
‘Not to my knowledge, sir. But I don’t know what she does once she leaves school.’ The boy’s voice rose as much in anguish as in fear.
‘Send him home,’ Gowda said, rising to leave. He paused on his way out and said, ‘Did you see the bus number?’
The boy nodded. ‘It was 292C.’
‘And where does it go?’ Gajendra asked.
‘Up to Majestic …’ the boy said.
Gowda walked back to his room deep in thought. A young girl in a school uniform on her own in the main bus stand. ‘What were you thinking of, Nandita?’ he asked her photograph on the FIR.
Rekha looked around surreptitiously. The restaurant was plush and the waiters uniformly good-looking. It was a boutique hotel, Sid had said. Mostly used by businessmen. So you don’t have to worry that anyone you know will be walking in. Rekha hadn’t responded. She had been too overwhelmed by what she was about to do.
Sid had dropped her off at the hotel portico. ‘It’s best if I don’t come in,’ he said. ‘Just go to the restaurant and wait there. The client will join you. I’ll call you by ten. I’ll be in the reception lounge. You must excuse yourself by saying it’s time for you to leave and slip away.’
‘What about the money?’ she had asked, horrified at the thought that the man would slip notes into her hand as though she were a whore.
‘Not to worry.’ He had smiled. ‘I’ve already collected it,’ He patted her arm. ‘And tomorrow we get the rest, after which you and I go shopping!’
Rekha had smiled at him. The prospect of money to spend filled her with a sudden burst of energy. ‘See you soon then,’ she said, running up the steps of the hotel.
She glanced at her watch now. It was almost eight. She had been waiting for half an hour and had drunk two glasses of water and texted Sid twelve times. If he doesn’t turn up in ten, I am leaving, she texted, and her phone lit up.
Cool it, baby.
‘Good evening,’ a voice murmured in her ear.
She looked up, startled to see a good-looking middle-aged man at her side. He was almost as old as her father, she thought, a puffed-up little muffin as her English professor liked to say. ‘Hi, good evening …’ she stuttered, jumping to her feet. She was not a tall girl, but he was shorter than she was, she realized.
‘Sit down,’ he said, pulling out a chair for himself. Then he thrust a palm towards her. ‘Hello, I am Dr Sanjay Rathore. But you can call me Sanjay.’
She nodded. ‘My name is Rekha,’ she said.
‘Just Rekha?’ An eyebrow rose.
‘Just Rekha.’
He smiled. ‘So, just Rekha, what will you drink?’
She shrugged. Sid had said that she was expected to drink. ‘But I don’t drink,’ she had said. ‘I mean, I’ve had beer and gin, but I’m not really used to it!’
‘Ask for a Virgin Mary,’ Sid had said.
‘What’s that?’
‘Just tomato juice with celery sticks in it and salt on the rim. Looks like a cocktail but is just a mocktail.’
What was a celery stick? Rekha had let her gaze slide over Sid. How did he know all of this? Sometimes she thought her heart would burst with the love she felt for him. He was tall and had the most endearing dimples. He worked out at the gym so his muscles were well-defined. He should be in the movies, she thought, and sent up a prayer of thanks that he had no such ambitions. She couldn’t bear the thought of sharing him. Didn’t he mind, she wondered, that she was with another man, sweet-talking him?
‘Just Rekha, so what will you drink?’ he asked again.
‘Virgin Mary,’ she said.
His eyebrow rose again. ‘Virgin Mary, huh?’ She peered through her eyelashes at him. That emphasis on the word virgin – had she imagined it?
Holding her smile in check, she darted a sidelong glance at him. ‘Yes, a Virgin Mary,’ she said, feeling a rush of excitement.
She watched him as he placed the order. She saw how he twirled the hair at the arch of his eyebrow. It was an affectation, she realized, like the cocking of the eyebrow. He was just as nervous as she was, and something about that made her feel powerful.
‘How did you know that it was me waiting for you?’ she asked in the silence that hung between them once the waiter had left.
He fiddled with his phone and showed her a picture. Sid had shot it on his mobile just as they left the mall on his bike.
‘Oh,’ she said, unsure of how she felt. And then, remembering that she had to amuse him, she asked, ‘Sanjay, what do you do?’
‘I am a lawyer,’ he said.
‘Oh, where did you study law? I had set my heart on joining the National Law School, but I didn’t make the list,’ she said. If he had said he was an architect or a pilot, she would have tailored her scope of interest accordingly. Sid had said that she should.
‘I was at Oxford,’ he said. ‘Oxford is in the UK.’
‘I know that,’ she said. ‘I even know London is the capital of Great Britain.’
He flushed. ‘I’m sorry, I thought that …’
She nodded, accepting his apology. She tilted her head at him and asked, ‘What’s it like living abroad?’
Dr Sanjay Rathore liked the sound of his own voice, she thought as he took her on a tour of the cities he had spent some of his student years in. The waiter brought a plate of kebabs for him and French fries for her. She took a fry and dipped it in the tiny bowl of sauce. She sipped her Virgin Mary and thought, this isn’t too bad. I could get used to this. It’s like being with one of my uncles … chit-chat, treats and a gift of money.
Rathore sipped his Glenfiddich and looked at the girl in front of him. Despite all the innuendoes, Virgin Mary et al, she didn’t realize she was flirting with danger. Such innocence, he thought. Had he ever been as naïve? He didn’t think so. In a strange way, he was glad that she was with him and not some animal who would have been pawing her by now. With him she was safe. Perhaps he ought to warn her about what she was getting into. The date rape drug was a reality here in India too.
He couldn’t believe he was actually sitting here with a strange girl Pujary had sent his way. Or that in the course of the day he had acquired two houseboys.
The night before, when the man had come to
his villa, he had asked for a glass of water. Rathore had got up to fetch it, and a surprised Pujary had asked, ‘You don’t have a servant?’
‘I have a maid who comes in for a couple of hours,’ he had explained. That seemed to astound Pujary even more, but he hadn’t said anything then.
And then this afternoon Pujary had called him. ‘Doctor sir,’ he had said, ‘a friend of mine runs an agency for servants. I spoke to him about you and he has agreed to send two boys to your residence. They will take good care of you. Someone will wait there with them till you reach home.’
He had protested but Pujary had been insistent. ‘It is not right that a man of your status has no live-in help.’
That had got to him. It would be nice to have someone tail him when he was home – taking his bag from the car, plugging his mobile charger, pouring him a drink, fetching him a freshly ironed shirt, serving him food …
‘Well, okay,’ he had agreed. ‘But why two boys?’
‘They will be company for each other,’ Pujary said as if he were talking of two dogs. ‘Try it out for a month, sir, you are going to wonder how you managed before them. And if you don’t like them, you can send them back to the agency.’
He had smiled into the phone. He liked deals with exit clauses. In fact, he was beginning to think he liked Pujary. ‘Is there anything you can’t fix?’ he asked.
Pujary’s silence had been loaded. ‘Sir, you must be lonely,’ he said.
Rathore had frowned. ‘I am too busy to be lonely.’
‘Yes, of course, but take this evening. You have a late flight to catch, you said. What will you do until then?’
‘I may meet a friend for a drink,’ he had said, wondering where this was leading.
‘How about I organize to send someone young and pretty to fill those hours? You need some leisure too, sir … some R&R as my schoolmaster father-in-law would say.’
‘I don’t pay for sex,’ Rathore had said in his coldest voice.
‘Sex! Who’s talking about sex? I am not a pimp. You insult me by saying that, sir,’ an affronted Pujary exclaimed.
‘Look, Pujary, I am sorry … I wasn’t implying anything of that sort. I was just stating my stand.’ Rathore had glanced at the clock on the wall.
