Manibhai Desai cast an imploring look at Ghote. Please, it seemed to say, stop the ringing. Stop it. Let it not now be them.
‘Shall I answer?’ Ghote asked, getting up and hurrying over to the white telephone. ‘We are expecting the kidnappers to call again. It may be them.’
‘Yes, yes, man, jump to it,’ the Commissioner said. ‘I think you’re the best one to deal with them. But don’t give them an inch. Not an inch.’
Ghote picked up the receiver. Before he had even time to say hello the voice he had been sure he was going to hear was speaking.
‘Mr Desai, is it?’
‘No,’ Ghote began. ‘I am –’
‘Tell him we could not meet on the way to K.E.M. Hospital. Policewallahs were all round the place where we are. Now listen.’
‘Yes?’
Ghote’s mind was darting across the facts of the situation almost like a jungle beast fleeing from a fire, skittering wildly from point to point, unable to rest on any solidity.
The first thing was not to say to the kidnappers that there was no longer any question of doing a deal with them. Those blue grains under little Pidku’s nail – found thanks to his own insistence on sending the packet for analysis, after all – might mean that the area where the boy was being held had been located. But …
But the fact of the finger remained. Those men had hearts callous enough to be able to take a child and cut off his finger. They had the ability to kill. He was certain of that.
Yet with the Commissioner standing behind him, a presence emanating authority, it was a simple impossibility openly to bargain with the caller.
The Commissioner had made it too plain that he backed to the hilt the hard line advocated by Superintendent Karandikar: that to offer money to kidnappers, except with the definite intention of tricking them, was to lay clear the path to an outbreak of crime of frightening proportions.
And there was plenty to be said for that view, too.
But, since the kidnappers were even now calling the penthouse, did this not mean that they had escaped, somehow, Superintendent Karandikar’s present search?
It might mean it, certainly. Especially if a new rendezvous was now offered. And if the kidnappers were after all in this stronger position now, then would it not be best to pay them?
At least perhaps an attempt should be made. If the money was taken and Pidku not set free, then it would be a loss. But it would not be the unthinkable thing that would occur if he himself were now to say firmly ‘No’ and then that jagged knife be drawn across the soft-to-melting child’s flesh.
But, even as Ghote’s mind darted from point to point in this chain of reasoning, the flat-voiced kidnapper had been giving him the new rendezvous.
‘… at nine tomorrow. He is to come alone. No chauffeur. No one. At nine tomorrow morning at the Great Western Hotel again, and there he would be told. And if he is followed, then we would know. We would know and in a moment we would kill. Understood?’
‘Wait,’ Ghote said. ‘Wait.’
But the nervous, hasty man at the far end had jabbed down the receiver – had a squad of Superintendent Karandikar’s searchers just passed by whatever shop he was telephoning from? – and Ghote was left with only the bare message.
He turned and relayed it to Manibhai Desai and the Commissioner.
‘Yes, yes,’ said the Commissioner. ‘Tightening round them, undoubtedly tightening round them. It won’t be long now.’
‘But, sir,’ Ghote objected, his voice coming in a quiet gasp. ‘But he was able to get out and go to a telephone.’
‘Desperate measure, desperate measure,’ the Commissioner assured him.
And then the proprietor of Trust-X added his conclusion.
‘Yes, I am certain. It is excellent work, Commissioner. Those badmashes are nearly at the end of their rope. It is a good thing I did not pay out, as I had half a mind to do.’
He thrust his hands into the deep pockets of his dark, silk-glowing, emerald dressing-gown and waggled them luxuriously.
‘But,’ Ghote said in a sudden, awkward semi-shout. ‘But you said you would pay. The money is there.’
He pointed to the battered, thick Gladstone bag which was still resting where he had left it when he had brought it up to the penthouse after their fruitless trip to the K.E.M. Hospital.
‘Listen, please,’ he went on, still jerking the words loudly out. ‘Those men have no hearts. If they think they are on the point of arrest they would kill.’
‘Nonsense, man,’ said the Commissioner sharply. ‘They know the difference between hanging and fifteen years R.I. They won’t touch the child.’
‘Commissioner,’ the proprietor of Trust-X put in with quietly growing, smooth anger, ‘I do not think we have any further need of Inspector Ghote. The case is almost cleared up. Those people will not trouble us now.’
‘Yes, yes, quite right,’ said the Commissioner with quick cheerfulness. ‘Whole thing more or less wrapped up. Off you go home, Ghote. Report for duty at midday tomorrow. Dare say your wife will be glad to see you. Got a wife, haven’t you?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Inspector Ghote.
*
All Ghote could do was to follow the Commissioner’s instructions and return home. But with every step depression settled down on him until, well before he had entered the little square of garden in front of his small, boxy Government Quarter house, he was levelled to a hopeless greyness.
Manibhai Desai had dismissed him, and, though once before he had sent him away and then had urgently called him back and begged for his advice, the proprietor of Trust-X was not the sort of person who would go back on a decision twice. Indeed, it had been a wonderful reversal when he had brought himself to ask for help again after rejecting him the first time. Now no hope of such a thing existed.
And did this mean that Pidku was doomed? Back in the penthouse, when he had still been able to be rational about the business, he had argued to himself, while trying to sort out his thoughts in face of the kidnappers’ last telephone call, that all was not necessarily lost for the tailor’s boy. He had then been able to appreciate the Commissioner’s argument that if, say, the searchers bungled the job of making a quick, clean arrest, the kidnappers would not risk making their punishment irrevocable death. Now he could no longer believe that. Greyness prevailed: he felt only that Pidku was bound to die.
Absurdly, too, every little ordinary thing that his tired, groping mind bumped into seemed to be cast in this same hope-lost hue. For some reason the sight of his front door reminded him of the post delivery and from that sprang ridiculously insistent thoughts about Protima’s new supply of Trust-X tablets. He felt convinced that they had not come. The fact that the proprietor of Trust-X Manufacturing had backed out of his promise over Pidku seemed to make it certain that his firm too would have backed out of its pledge of prompt delivery. And at the same time, paradoxically, he became possessed of a total faith in the tablets’ efficacy that he had never really had before. Without an absolutely continuing supply, he was certain, Protima would simply wither away. A gap of one day could be fatal.
So, instead of creeping into the sleeping house in his usual manner and endeavouring to get to bed without causing any disturbance at all, no sooner had he got in and closed the door behind him than he burst out loudly and anxiously.
‘The Trust-X tablets, have they come? Have they come?’
In a moment a startled and sleep-bemused Protima appeared from the bedroom, hugging her white night sari round her.
‘What is it? What is it?’
The sight of her a little brought Ghote to his senses.
‘I am back home,’ he said, by way of rather sheepish explanation for the uproar he had made.
Protima looked at him, blinking with effort in order to clear her mind.
‘You are well?’ she asked. ‘Is anything the matter?’
At once Ghote experienced a sense of quick irritation.
‘Of course I am well,�
� he snapped. ‘And what should be wrong? It is just that Mr Desai of Trust-X no longer requires my services.’
He had made a deliberate effort to get this to sound neutral. And he knew it still contained an under-strain of bitterness.
‘But he has complained against you? What has he said?’ Protima came leaping to his defence, her eyes now beginning to flash and the colour mounting in her high cheekbones.
‘It is nothing. Nothing, I tell you. And what I am asking is: have those tablets come yet?’
‘Tablets? What tablets?’
Protima had been soundly asleep.
‘The Trust-X. Has the new supply arrived? You should have finished the old card, even though you forgot one day. Has the new one come?’
‘What are you talking? It is the middle of the night. Trust-X. Trust-X. What does Trust-X matter at this time?’
Ghote was at once seized with the most profound suspicions. She had not got the tablets. And already the lack of them was doing her harm. She would not have got into a rage like this if she had taken her regular dose.
‘Have they come?’ he shouted. ‘Have they? Have they?’
And the noise woke up little Ved, who came and stood sleeping in the doorway.
‘It is morning?’ he asked. ‘I am late for school?’
‘No, no,’ Protima said, sweeping down on him and enfolding him in an over-protective embrace. ‘It is the middle of the night only.’
‘It is not the middle of the night,’ Ghote shouted. ‘It is quite early. Quite early. And I am asking where is the new Trust-X.’
‘They have not come, Pitaji,’ Ved said, his voice more piping for his having reverted in his sleepiness to a more childish stage. ‘Mataji was angry when the postman went by and there was nothing.’
‘Yes, yes, my little one,’ Protima soothed. ‘But go back to sleep now. Back to sleep.’
She led him away.
The darkest thoughts filled Ghote’s head. The Trust-X had not come. Protima would die. It was certain. And little Pidku would die. And he would be dismissed from the force himself. It was certain.
‘And you too should go to bed,’ Protima said coming back, and coming back, with typical changeableness, a different woman.
She put her arm round Ghote and shepherded him with warmth to their bedroom. He allowed himself supinely to be led, to be helped undress, to be questioned a little about the appalling events of the day, to be put to bed not knowing what the future held or even what it could hold.
15
An insistent tapping on the shoulder woke Ghote next day. For some seconds he refused to acknowledge that the blotting-out of sleep had ended. He lay willing himself back into conquer-all dreamland. But the tapping – it seemed to be a thin blade being repeatedly brought down on his shoulder – continued insistently, and he realized too that a voice which he had been hearing was not part of his sleep-life, mysteriously and automatically transformable into something that could be dealt with. It was from the outside.
It was Ved. And the words he was chanting in rhythm to the tapping became suddenly clear.
‘The Trust-X, the Trust-X, the Trust-X has come here. The Trust-X, the Trust-X, the Trust-X has come here.’
Ghote sat sharply up.
‘What is that you are saying?’ he demanded.
But there was no need for Ved to tell him. He saw now that the boy was clutching in one hand the new square card of Trust-X tablets grouped round their brightly printed dates. It had been this that had been tapping at his shoulder.
He felt a sense of relief, even while acknowledging that his panic about the tablets the night before had been no more than panic, the wild exaggeration of a brain bemused by fatigue and the strain of a long day’s nerve-harrowing events.
‘And look, Pitaji,’ Ved said, ‘they have changed envelope.’
‘Um?’ Ghote answered, sleep temporarily billowing back at him now.
From the front door of the little house Protima called urgently.
‘Ved. Ved. I said a moment only. You will be late for school.’
‘It is so late?’ Ghote called out, feeling suddenly rather cheerful.
‘Yes, yes,’ Protima called back. ‘You said last night that you did not have to go to office till midday. I hope it was right: you were so tired.’
‘Yes, yes. The Commissioner himself said.’
Ghote stretched luxuriously.
‘Ved. Come on,’ Protima called again.
‘But, Pitaji, look,’ Ved said, with fearful earnestness. ‘A new colour of envelope.’
And something stirring deep down in Ghote, something unrecognized, made him swing round and seize the envelope Ved had been holding in his other hand. And, the moment he saw it fully, light swept in.
It was an unusually shaped envelope, exactly square to fit the card it had contained. But, whereas hitherto the ‘plain cover’ under which Trust-X had been sent had been of a good quality, pure white paper, now the firm had descended to using, in the same shape, a very coarse brown paper.
So that this envelope was exactly like the envelope in which the kidnappers’ first note had been delivered, the envelope that Manibhai Desai had tossed away and which he himself had worried and worried about and had eventually cajoled the little Turk, Haribhai, to find.
And if the kidnappers’ envelope was exactly the same as that in which Trust-X was now being sent, then one thing was likely to the point of near-certainty: that the kidnappers themselves were employed somewhere in the factory of Trust-X Manufacturing.
Ghote’s mind started to work with precise rapidity.
First, had the kidnappers in any case already been arrested? Had Superintendent Karandikar’s sweep in the area spreading out circularly from the works of Holitints Limited been successful?
‘Quick,’ he said to little Ved, ‘off to school with you.’
And while the boy hopped and skipped away, understanding without a word being spoken that somehow the envelope he had shown his father had been a good piece of news, Ghote himself ran to his telephone. A quick dialling, C.I.D Headquarters, for once, answering immediately. And the Duty Sergeant’s line not engaged.
‘It is Inspector Ghote here. Tell me something. Has Superintendent Karandikar’s new big bandobast been successful?’
‘Do not make me laugh, Inspector. The whole building is deserted so many men he has on that job.’
‘Just what I wanted to know. Thank you, bhai.’
Ghote crashed down the receiver.
So the area in which Pidku was almost certainly being held was still being searched. Perhaps in the first flush of triumph somebody had missed some little thing quite near the Holitints factory. And the kidnappers were still unknown, which meant that Pidku was still in danger.
Ghote looked at his watch.
Ten minutes past eight. When in an hour less ten minutes a call from the kidnappers to the Great Western Hotel revealed that the proprietor of Trust-X was not there, as it was bound to do, then Pidku’s life would hardly be worth a button.
He ran back and scrambled into his clothes.
Protima came in from having waved good-bye to Ved at the corner of the road.
‘You are in a great hurry for someone with all the morning to spend at home,’ she said.
‘No,’ said Ghote. ‘I am going as fast as I can to the Trust-X factory. If what I have guessed is right, then perhaps I can learn there where those men are holding the tailor’s little boy before they discover nobody is going to pay them any ransom and kill him.’
‘You think they will?’ Protima asked, a quick anxiety springing up in her to match his own.
‘If you had seen that finger,’ Ghote said, ‘you would not have any doubts.’
‘Then hurry, hurry,’ Protima answered.
And, proof of her involvement, she did not even suggest he should take a cup of instant coffee or a bite of anything to eat.
*
At the corner of the road, near the Elite eating-stall, he s
potted the bright yellow-and-black of a taxi. Battering down all thoughts about how much it would cost, he hailed it and told the driver, a young and wild-looking Sikh, to go as fast as he could to the Trust-X Manufacturing works at Worli in the northern part of the city. He spent the traffic-enmeshed journey not glued to the meter of the cab, though he was twice unable to resist giving it a glance followed by some swift calculation in paise and rupees, but in looking at his watch.
At nine o’clock, no doubt to the second as before, the kidnapper with that flat, threatening voice would ring up the Great Western Hotel from some shop or other – there could be no doubt that men of the kidnappers’ sort would not have a telephone of their own – and would find that the proprietor of Trust-X was not this time waiting for the call.
Perhaps he would hang on for two or even three minutes. Perhaps he would try ringing a second time. The kidnappers, after all, must be as anxious to get hold of the huge sum they expected Manibhai Desai to pay as the forces of order were to get hold of the kidnappers. But before all that long it would be borne in on the telephone caller that Manibhai Desai was deliberately not keeping the rendezvous. He might then even ring through to the penthouse to make doubly certain. But sooner or later he would report to the others that there was to be no money after all. And then what?
A sweat broke out on the back of Ghote’s neck as he envisaged the scene. A mutter of angry voices; possibly one of them urging patience – someone from among the kidnappers had written of having ‘some heart left’ after all – but eventually the decision would be taken; faces would be hardened in worked-up anger; the joint move would come to whatever room or cupboard the little captive was being kept in; and then the quick rush to have it over and done with.
‘Faster, faster,’ he said to the driver.
The taxi-man, already causing more than his fair share of havoc in the streaming and counter-streaming traffic, became yet more aggressive. Angry shouts wafted after them.
‘Do not mind, do not mind,’ Ghote said. ‘I am C.I.D. I would see you do not get into trouble.’
The promise appeared to carry some weight with the taxi-man and the car nipped, dodged and swayed onwards at the same dangerous rate, weaving through the lines of vehicles, screamingly braking and wildly swerving. But Ghote wondered how well-founded his promise was. He was not working under orders. He was simply rushing on his own initiative to get to Pidku if he possibly could before that nine o’clock deadline.
Inspector Ghote Trusts the Heart Page 16
