A Cut-Like Wound (21 page)

‘You have a bike?’ She was surprised.

‘Yes, that’s the first thing I did when I got here. Took a bike loan and got this beauty.’

She touched her hair. Then took the end of the sari and draped it over her hair. That should hold it in place.

They walked to the bike. She watched as he started the bike. Through the visor of his helmet, he said, ‘C’mon, get on the bike! Are you afraid? You have been on a bike before, haven’t you?’

She nodded and perched sideways on the pillion.

‘No, sit properly. And you’d better hold me. You don’t look like you are used to sitting on bikes.’

She held his shoulder with her palm. A touch-you-touch-you-not sort of a grip. He sighed, but didn’t say anything.

Soon they were in the thick of traffic. He talked to her all the way. Words the wind whipped out of his mouth. Words that lost a syllable in the din of traffic. For all she could hear was her hammering heart. It didn’t matter what he said; the pressure of his body against hers felt like heaven. What was he doing to her? Giving in to impulse, she wrapped her arm around his waist.

He turned his head and murmured, ‘That’s better!’

She knew that he would stop. That he would find a pretext of some sort to take her into a quiet place. That he would then move in on her. All men were the same. She preferred them to be the same. That way, there were no surprises.

But he didn’t stop.

At Banaswadi, she helped him find the street where the hostel was located. Some months ago she had helped a distant relative find a place here. So it wasn’t hard to lie when he wanted to know what they ate for breakfast and the closing time, how many inmates to a room and if there was hot water.

He took her number and gave her his. He said they must meet again and elicited a promise from her that she would call. He looked at her carefully one last time and touched her cheek with the tip of his finger. He waited for her to enter the gate. And then, on his large noisy bike, he drove away into the darkness.

She walked back into the quiet street. She felt bereft and alone. Then, further ahead, she spotted a man. She felt his gaze on her. A hungry gaze she knew she could appease.

She stood by the side of the road, knowing he would come to her.

She thought of what would happen next. The frantic unravelling of clothes and inhibitions, the glorious need, a desperate need to caress and pummel, rake skin with nails and nip flesh with teeth. She would offer it all, her mouth, her tongue, every orifice and crevice for him to plunder and fill, so the clamour in her head would cease, so there would be stillness thereafter. The deafening thunder of stillness that would allow her to forget.

SATURDAY, 13 AUGUST

Santosh tried not to stare. So this was the Crime Branch office. It wasn’t all that much. He had expected something more grand. Something imposing, significant and representative of the importance of the work its inmates did.

A careless coat of pale-blue colourwash had been slapped on at some distant point in time, but the damp had worked its way through the plaster and paint so that large splotches of grey coloured the walls of the hallway and the staircase. A heap of broken chairs, tables with their Formica tops peeling, and old sofas were piled into a corner of the room that opened from the staircase. Beyond this was the Serious Crime Division, a hive of rooms with flimsy partitions made of plywood and glass.

ACP Stanley Sagayaraj’s room was a vast improvement. The senior man had a vast granite-topped table, a Dell PC that was still wreathed in its plastic cover on a side table, and several glass-fronted, locked cupboards of books. Santosh’s eyes darted over the spines. Police diaries,
Law of Arms & Explosives
,
Indian Penal Code
,
Criminal Procedure Code
,
Criminal Law Journal
,
Criminal Major Acts
,
Criminal Minor Acts
and, incongruously,
The Book of Indian Birds
. On the walls, which seemed to have been painted more recently, were three framed pictures of birds.

‘I was a keen birdwatcher once.’ ACP Stanley Sagayaraj’s voice didn’t hide the amusement he felt at Santosh’s careful gathering of details. ‘I don’t have the time for it any more.’

He gestured to the two men to sit down.

Gowda pulled a chair out and sat down while Santosh wondered if he should sit in the same line as Gowda or in the
next line of chairs behind Gowda. What was the protocol when it came to these things?

‘Sit down, Santosh, what are you dithering about? The view is the same no matter where you sit,’ Gowda said impatiently, gesturing to a chair next to him.

‘My team’s been busy,’ ACP Stanley Sagayaraj said, pulling out the case diary. ‘Roopesh, the BPO employee, had told his roommate he was going for a movie that evening. In his wallet, we found a bill from Empire on Mosque Road. The nearest theatre is Kalinga, which as we all know is a pick-up place. So in all probability he went for the evening show with one express purpose. To get laid.’

Santosh dropped his eyes. Gowda’s and Stanley’s eyes met in amusement at Santosh’s discomfiture.

‘So they checked at the theatre. The ticket checker remembers him. He was alone and had asked the ticket checker if he could move from the seat he was allotted. The parking boy, who remembered him as well, said he drove away on a Kinetic Honda with a woman. Roopesh had apparently entrusted his helmet to the boy and promised to tip him when he collected it. By the way, the scooter hasn’t been found. We have sent out an alert. So I am inclined to agree with you. Perhaps this is a team working together. A woman who is the bait and a man who is the actual killer. We’ll know for certain when the DNA tests arrive.’

Gowda nodded. ‘There’s something else. Do you remember the earring I mentioned? The one that was found on Liaquat. I had it sized, appraised, etc., by a jeweller. Last evening I was invited to a photo exhibition and one of the photographs was of a group of eu … er … transgenders. An evening shot set somewhere in one of the by-lanes of Shivaji Nagar.’

‘I saw you looking at it for a very long time and wondered…’ Santosh said.

‘Well, it was a very interesting photograph, but that wasn’t the reason. One of the eunuchs had a similar earring. I am not completely certain though, so I’ve asked them to forward me a copy of the photograph.’

‘Have you thought of rounding up the eunuchs and questioning them?’ Stanley asked, looking at the photographs of the victims again.

‘I was going to get that done,’ Gowda said.

‘Sir, we could ask them to come to the station this afternoon,’ Santosh butted in.

Stanley and Gowda exchanged a look. ‘He’s new, isn’t he?’ Stanley asked sotto voce.

Gowda smiled. ‘Give him a break, how does he know what they can be like! No, Santosh, we go to them. Bringing them into the station would be like, what’s that idiom? Bringing a bull into a china shop. Except this would be several bulls who would think nothing of breaking up things, stripping their clothes off and rolling on the ground. So, Santosh, we go to them. In fact, I want you to do it. Take Head Constable Gajendra with you when you go for the questioning. He is an experienced man.’

Gowda’s phone beeped as they stepped out of the Crime Branch office. He glanced at the screen, his face tightening.

Gowda didn’t speak much as the police vehicle drove back to the station. Santosh tried to read his face but apart from the grim set of his features, it was hard to decipher anything. What could be wrong? Santosh wondered. With a tiny mental shudder he decided it might be best to stay clear of Gowda for the rest of the day.

A little past lunchtime, Gowda called for PC David to drop him home.

The house was empty. Gowda had waited for Roshan to step out. He stood at the doorway of his son’s room for a moment. Then he went in and opened Roshan’s rucksack. He rummaged through it briskly. There was nothing there. The weed pouch was empty. The grass and hash had been smoked up.

Gowda sat on the bed. Had Roshan gone out to score some more? What would come next? Speed. Angel Dust. E… Gowda chewed on his lip thoughtfully.

The address had been patchy. A door number in Kelesanahalli. Gowda rode his Bullet into the dirt roads that led off the main road. The house was in the middle of a chikkoo grove. A two-storeyed house with peeling paint. An old Maruti van was parked outside and a couple of 100cc bikes.

A few hens scratched in the dirt outside the house and a cat sat sunning itself on a wall. As Gowda rode in through the gates, he saw an old woman go into the house. That would be the landlord’s mother.

Gowda parked his bike and went up the staircase to the first floor. He rang the bell.

Osagie himself opened the door. He looked terrified at the sight of a man in uniform at his doorstep. He hastened to shut the door but Gowda held it back firmly. They looked at each other till Osagie dropped his gaze.

He stepped back and said, ‘I … we…’

‘I can do this standing here or I can come in and do it without your landlord wondering what is going on,’ Gowda said in an even voice.

Osagie opened the door wider and beckoned Gowda to follow him.

Gowda looked around him carefully. The room smelt warm and sweet, of something organic and of food cooking. The curtains were drawn against the afternoon light. Or were they seeking to protect themselves from prying eyes? His eyes drifted to the African masks on a wall. A gigantic bronze plate sat on a table. A window sill was adorned with a row of brass animals. Otherwise it was just another living room with a few chairs and a small rug on the floor.

A young African woman came in from an inner room. She was wearing a white T-shirt, against which her breasts thrust, and a pair of tiny shorts. She had a bandana wound around her frizzy hair and she held a towel in her hand. She was saying something but stopped when she saw Gowda.

‘So this is Adesuwa, your wife?’ Gowda said.

Osagie and Adesuwa glanced at each other. It was Osagie who spoke. ‘Who are you? What do you want?’

‘I am Gowda. Inspector Borei Gowda.’

‘We have done nothing wrong.’ The woman’s voice was shrill.

‘Ade,’ Osagie’s deep treacley voice halted his wife’s denial of guilt.

Gowda took a deep breath. ‘I want the two of you to listen to me. I had you looked up…’

Adesuwa opened her mouth to speak.

‘Don’t,’ Gowda said, fixing his gaze on her. ‘Don’t interrupt me.’

He turned to Osagie. ‘Both your wife and you are being watched. One of these days you will make a mistake and the vice squad will pounce on you. But that is not why I am
here. What concerns me is your association with my son. I want you to stay clear of my son Roshan. And I want you to tell your friends and associates to stay clear of him. Neither you nor they will sell him any drugs. Do you understand what I am saying?

‘I know that your wife’s visa has run out. I am not even getting into that. But if I discover that you have continued to associate with my son and have sold him drugs, it won’t take me very long to have your wife deported. And then to round up your friends, associates, anyone you have met in the course of your stay here. I will make it impossible for you to live here. I hope I have made myself clear.’

He went down the stairs briskly. There was no certainty that Roshan wouldn’t find another supplier. But he had to do this for himself as much as for Roshan. It was what a father did: watch out for his son.