Arjun rapped the door hard. Silence, and then Abeni opened the door, Chon standing behind her looking scared. He stepped inside.
‘You’ve come here again?’ Abeni demanded furiously. ‘What do you want now?’
‘Your friend, where is he?’
Romeo was nowhere to be seen, but then he rushed out of the sitting room, pushed Arjun aside and bolted down the stairs. Arjun recovered his balance and turned around, but as he stepped past the door Abeni’s foot hooked his left ankle, sending him stumbling. He swore and caught the cemented railing to steady himself before running down the stairs. Outside, he looked both ways. There! To his left.
Arjun gave chase, then slowed down. Romeo had stopped at the hookah corner under the old tree, and was talking to the young men who were still sitting there. Now he was pointing in Arjun’s direction. As he approached all of them stood up and made a line across the street. By the glare of a streetlight he could see Romeo taking one last look at the scene before turning and hurrying away.
‘Where do you think you’re going, bhaiya?’ a pumped-up youngster in a tight T-shirt stepped forward and asked Arjun.
The others were flexing their muscles like in a parody of a Bollywood villain’s gang, but there was nothing funny about it. Arjun stopped and then slowly started stepping back.
‘We don’t like people from outside coming and acting big here, do you understand?’
Arjun nodded and raised his hands to show he was leaving. He turned and walked ahead, trying to find an alley that would allow him to go around, but there was only another street at the end of the buildings. He swore under his breath. He had almost got him!
Taking out his phone he brought up Inspector Sharma’s number, but just before he rang him he paused, thinking. Then he put the phone back in his pocket.
45
‘I DON’T UNDERSTAND,’ RHEA SAID to him. ‘Why didn’t you call the inspector? Romeo must still be here in Delhi.’
‘Once the police and lawyers get involved, people’s statements will change. Romeo will come up with an alibi. No, it’s better he faces justice back home.’
It was Saturday morning and Rhea was stretched out on the sofa in the sitting room eating a bar of chocolate. He had just finished telling her about the case and was in one of the chairs; all the newspapers which had piled up on the balcony when he was away were now on the coffee table as he went through them. Outside it was a crisp sunny day, the kind that came upon Delhi only a few days of the year, in November and in February.
‘But that would be . . . vigilantism,’ she said.
‘Let her father decide what to do,’ Arjun said with a tone of finality that Rhea recognized. She asked him about something else.
‘How did the paan masala help you make the connection between Romeo and the chief secretary?’
Arjun said, ‘It made me think of what Romeo had said in the hotel room, that a Kishorji had introduced him to paan masala. Maybe also the fact that the paan shop opposite the hotel in Guwahati was playing a Kishore Kumar song on the radio. That reminded me of the man with the paan masala tin I had seen in Mr Longkumer’s room in Nagaland House.’
‘And how did you know that Dr Sodhi had come up that night and seen someone?’
‘After I met him, I knew he would have had to come up, maybe more than once, to check his mail or to smoke, or both. But why would he try and deny that? Only if he had seen someone on the staircase that night. But it really became clear to me when Abbas mentioned something about shopkeepers in Dimapur telling the police they had seen nothing—Indians prefer not to get involved with the police if possible.’
‘So why didn’t Romeo kill Dr Sodhi as well?’
Arjun smiled at her. There was something morbidly thorough about her thought process—she would make for a good detective.
‘I asked myself that as well. Abeni and Chon had never met Vivek Sodhi, and Romeo wouldn’t have expected anyone apart from Mr and Mrs Sodhi to be in the house. When he saw Mrs Sodhi’s son, he would have been surprised, and just carried on down the stairs. Later, when nothing about him came out in the newspapers, he must have relaxed.’
Rhea appeared thoughtful as she ate her chocolate. Arjun got back to the newspapers.
‘It’s scary, though. What if they had kidnapped you or something in Tamu?’
‘I don’t think that was the plan. It would have been a bit complicated. The fellow Ong Maung with the photo was just meant to fool around with me. I was meant to have been in the van that was blown up. I still can’t explain why I got that feeling, to ditch the van. Some sort of sixth sense. Something in my subconscious maybe, based on what I had seen.’
‘Observation is of prime importance. That’s what you had taught me.’
‘That’s what saved my life. Besides, the driver must not have told Romeo I hadn’t gotten into his taxi. Or maybe Romeo’s phone was already switched off. So the IED attack went ahead, and Romeo left for Delhi thinking I was dead.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘Back in Manipur, most probably.’
‘Shouldn’t you be worried about him and the chief secretary?’
Arjun shook his head. ‘Now it’s their turn to be worried. When Mr Longkumer in Nagaland and Tony Haokip in Manipur get my report, they’ll have a strong reason to start plotting revenge.’
‘I can’t believe there are places of that sort. Like the Dimapur detention centre.’
‘Places like Dimapur have become that way over the years. All sorts of people walking around with guns, and I don’t just mean the army and police. In time everything is subverted. The common people get squeezed. Money becomes a measure of everything in once-simple tribal societies.’
‘Why doesn’t the Central government do something about it?’
‘Delhi is a long way from Nagaland and Manipur. Unless the people in those states get their act together, like they’ve done in Mizoram, things will keep getting worse. Enough of this, Rhea, I get depressed talking about it. What do you want to have for lunch?’
‘I understand. Can we order pizza?’
‘All right. I’m feeling too lazy to cook today anyway.’
She got up from the sofa and went to the kitchen, where she threw the wrapper into the dustbin. When she came back she said, ‘Just one last thing, Papa, or two actually. Why did Amenla agree to keep the suitcase? And why was the meth tablet inside the bamboo tube?’
‘Why did she agree? I don’t know, you can do all sorts of things for your friends. Maybe she could guess they were in some sort of trouble. As for the meth tablet, I think Rohit Chaudhry opened one of the meth packets when Amenla wasn’t looking and poured some of the tablets into the tube to take out later, and one must have got stuck inside. He took some packets of heroin from inside the soap cases and Golden tobacco tins that must have been in the suitcase.’
‘And he broke the lock, but must have attached it again to the suitcase.’
‘Yes. When Romeo looked at the suitcase he must have realized the lock had been broken, and in his annoyance or in a hurry he threw the lock on the floor before opening the suitcase to check that most of the drugs were still there.’
‘What do you think happened to the drugs?’
‘They must have disposed of them somewhere. And could be planning to get more. But I think Mr Longkumer and Tony Haokip will get involved.’
Rhea didn’t say anything to this. Arjun put the newspapers aside and got up. He wanted to forget about the case for a while—it had been inside his head for almost three weeks now.
‘I’m going to Market No. 3 for some shopping. Do you want anything?’
‘A Coke please,’ Rhea said, checking the movie listings in that day’s newspaper. ‘Papa, let’s go for a movie in the evening?’
‘This evening?’
‘Yes. There’s this war movie I want to watch, you’ll like it too.’
‘I can’t today. I’m supposed to meet someone.’
She must have caught the ton
e in his voice, because she looked up. ‘A woman?’
‘Yes. Someone I met in Shillong. She’s coming here for a conference.’
‘Papa! You went there for a case and you managed to meet someone as well! What’s her name?’
‘I’ll come back and tell you,’ Arjun said, heading for the door.
Once he was outside on the road he smiled. He was actually feeling shy about it in front of his daughter!
X
Rhea left after lunch, saying she would go for the movie with a friend. Arjun went to the office and stayed there till closing time, taking care of routine correspondence and financial matters. Things were looking up for Nexus Security, he thought as he walked to his car. A bigger office, more staff . . . who knew? And things were looking up for him as well, with Baia. As he got behind the wheel he reminded himself to call Inspector Sharma on Monday.
Back at his flat he made himself some tea and watched the news before taking a shower. He put on a clean pair of jeans, brogues and a white shirt. Before he set out he put on a Dire Straits CD, On Every Street, the band’s last album from 1991, then poured himself a generous measure of Scotch and went out with it to the balcony. Looking down at the deserted park, he reflected that he was looking forward to seeing her again, talking to her, hearing her laugh. In the morning he would go out and do some shopping so that he could cook for her at night, maybe some pasta with a meatball sauce; that would be good with the weather getting cooler now. He drained his glass, stubbed out his cigarette in one of the old flowerpots and went in. He hadn’t noticed the solitary figure waiting under the neem tree in the corner of the park, near where he parked his vehicle across from his building.
Arjun stepped out to the street and breathed in the fragrance of the dying day, a melancholy smell of dust and trees and vehicle exhaust mingling in the cold night air. Walking to his car he felt something akin to happiness: he had been through a lot—both in life and in this particular case—but he had come out in one piece in the end. He hoped Amenla would get her own form of justice. Out of the corner of his eye he saw but didn’t really notice a figure moving in the gloom through the shrubs beside the park wall.
‘Arjun Arora?’ a voice that somehow sounded familiar called out.
His hand paused on the door handle, and when he turned to look, he saw a shadowy figure on the other side of the low park wall, an arm extended towards the barbed wire. The gun popped thrice and Arjun felt a sudden burning pain flare through his torso. His legs buckled and he crumpled to the ground. A silencer on the pistol, a part of his brain told him, and now he could recognize the voice talking on the phone across the wall.
‘Romeoji, the work has been done. I got Arora. I’ve taken care of both him and Rohit Chaudhry. Please make the payment as soon as possible.’
It was DCP Prem Tanwar, someone who knew where Arjun stayed. Kamal Kishor or Romeo must have got in touch with him, the clear-headed part of his mind told him. The street was rough and surprisingly warm under him, then he realized it must be his blood. With a great effort he turned his head a little and looked up at the lights on his small balcony. He felt himself fading away. If only he could make his way up to his flat, and lie down on his comfortable old sofa. His eyelids started to close, and the lights turned to a blur.
46
South Delhi
March 2014
RHEA ARORA SAT IN A chair beside the patient’s bed in the hospital room, reading out loud to him.
‘The following evening, a dance performance was put on in my honour on a soccer pitch near the district office. Hundreds of Was turned up to sing a monotonous but mesmerising dirge to the beat of drums. The dancers shuffled and swayed in a circle around a campfire, eerie shadows springing and leaping across the pitch around them. It was freezing cold, and in addition to my field jacket, I wore a blanket draped over my shoulders. Around me at the table sat local party officers in thick Chinese army greatcoats and communist caps. In this primitive land of tribal headhunters, now ruled by Burman Marxist–Leninists, the bizarre mixture of cultures never ceased to amaze me.’
She put a bookmark between the pages and closed the book. It was Bertil Lintner’s account of a journey from north-east India to China through northern Burma in the mid-1980s, and she had picked it from her father’s bookshelf in the hope that some of the words might get through to him.
‘That’s all for today, Papa,’ she said to him, placing the book on the bedside table. ‘I’ll be back again tomorrow afternoon.’
Three months into a coma, Arjun Arora had grown gaunt, a white-flecked stubble on his sunken cheeks. The barely perceptible rising and falling of the white sheet covering his chest was the only indicator that there was still life in him—that, and the monitor to one side of his bed that beeped regularly along with his heartbeat.
Rhea got up and bent over to kiss his forehead and touch his hair. She usually came in the afternoon and read to him, which his doctor had said might help in reviving him. Facing him, up on the opposite wall, the television news played on mute.
‘Get up, Papa, we still have to go for that movie, for that holiday in the North-east.’ Sadness filled her heart at the sight of him. ‘Things are okay at the detective agency; I went there yesterday, they’re working on a case. They’ll come and see you again soon.’
There was a knock on the door and the armed police guard outside let in Dr Pankaj, the young surgeon who had operated on Arjun back in December. The guard had been placed there by Inspector Sharma, who had got to know about the incident the next day on the news, and who had suspected someone from his side of having made the attempt on Arjun’s life.
‘Leaving, Rhea?’ he asked, taking out a slender flashlight.
‘Yes, doctor, I’ll be back tomorrow.’
He nodded and lifted Arjun’s eyelids, shining the light into his pupils.
‘Arjunji, can you hear me? It’s time to get up now.’
The doctor checked the monitor and jotted down a few notes.
She asked him the same question she always did: ‘When is he going to wake up, doctor?’
Dr Pankaj carefully put his pen back in his coat pocket.
‘Could be tomorrow, could be next week, could even be next month. The important thing is not to give up, to keep trying to reach him. I told you, didn’t I, that it’s a wonder he’s still alive.’
Arjun had taken three bullets to his torso and stomach that night. Mr Ghosh, who occupied the ground-floor flat with his wife, had returned with his driver from a social visit and found him lying unconscious by his Scorpio, bleeding heavily. They had put him into Mr Ghosh’s car and driven him to the hospital, where the nurses had wheeled him into the emergency OPD. Dr Pankaj had later told Rhea and Sonali that the amount of blood he had lost would have killed any other person, but his heart had somehow stubbornly kept beating. However, the loss of blood had led to oxygen deprivation for the brain, sending him into a coma. There wasn’t any permanent damage to the brain, but no one could say when he would wake up.
‘Don’t lose hope, okay?’ the doctor said, patting her arm. ‘And put up the volume on the television before you leave.’
‘Yes, doctor,’ Rhea said.
It was her idea, to leave the news running when no one was present, just so he heard some voices. She picked up her bag from the chair, then leant over the bed again.
‘I forgot to tell you. Your friend Baia called on your number. She told me to tell you that she managed to find out about the boy from that Upper Assam village. His father was killed a long time ago. The boy is now grown up and is outside Assam, in a medical college in Bangalore. She said you’d know who it was. Okay, Papa? Bye.’
She turned up the volume on the television set and then left the room. It was a national news channel, and as the presenters spoke, there was a slight movement beneath Arjun’s eyelids.
‘And now we have more details on that story from Nagaland,’ the female announcer presently said, and the visual changed from the studio
to one of a rough road passing through a forested stretch, a white Fortuner to one side, its windscreen shattered and its body riddled with bullet holes. Police commandos moved around the vehicle, and then the camera cut to two bloodied bodies laid out on the grass, their faces blurred. ‘Apparently the vehicle in which the chief secretary of Nagaland, Mr Kamal Kishor, was travelling was ambushed by unknown persons, killing him and the owner of the vehicle, believed to be a person from Manipur by the name of Romeo. There were no other occupants in the car. It is not known whether Mr Kishor had been served demand notices by any of the armed groups active in the state. The state DGP said in a statement . . .’
Arjun’s eyelids fluttered and slowly opened. He had a sense of what was being said on the television. It was an effort to part his cracked, parched lips. His regular nurse hadn’t yet come on her rounds, so there was no one there to hear him say his first words in over three months:
‘Well done.’
THE BEGINNING
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This collection published 2018
Copyright © Ankush Saikia 2018
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Jacket images © Devangana Dash
ISBN: 978-0-143-42490-1
More Bodies Will Fall Page 27
