Different Senses (13 page)

“Right. Do you know why she’d
call him before she killed herself?”

The bluntness upset her and she
stood to get away from me. “I’m sorry,” I said.

“No, it’s fine. I just hate
thinking about...what she did. Why didn’t she tell me? Talk to me?
We’d have helped her. Everyone would. We tried.”

“I know. It’s not your fault.
People who kill themselves aren’t in their right mind.”

“
But she was at work with
us and we didn’t know...we should have known.” She turned and wiped
her eyes. “I don’t know why she called Lakshya. You should ask him.
I don’t think I can help you with anything else. I don’t
know
anything else.”

“Thank you for your time
anyway. If it helps, I don’t think anyone could have stopped what
happened. Unless she’d been in hospital and receiving medical
treatment, you wouldn’t have known. She didn’t want you to
know.”

She gave me a sad smile.
“Thanks. Maybe one day I’ll believe you.”

~~~~~~~~

Had Sapna known how much pain
she’d cause by killing herself? Maybe she’d guessed but couldn’t
see past her own to understand the devastation her action would
bring. I didn’t exactly enjoy the idea of speaking to another one
of her friends, feeling their grief. I had a thumping headache
already, and it wasn’t even nine.

I smelled the
tus
before
I saw the huge birds in a pen, milling around as a
banis
man
threw feed out of a bucket at them. The smell was worse than a
two-week-old dead body, and the noise of their weird calls like a
fire in a bullet factory. I eyed the huge yellow crests and the
savage teeth and decided I was really glad to be on the other side
of a heavy wooden fence.

The farmer didn’t notice me
until he finished feeding the animals and came to the pen gate.
“Oh, hello. Didn’t see you waiting for me. What can I do for you,
sir?”

He had the classic
Nihani
features except for his brown
eyes. A handsome man, in a rustic kind of way. “Javen Ythen. I’m
working for Sapna Janak’s parents. Asking a few questions about her
death.” I had to shout over the rattle of the birds.

His guilt and grief hit me like
a club to the head. “I don’t want to talk about it.” He unlocked
the gate and strode quickly to the barn.

I gave chase. “Sri Yuyutsu, why
did Sapna call you before she killed herself? What was your
relationship with her? Were you having an affair?”

No answer. I kept shouting my
questions until he emerged out of the barn carrying a pitchfork.
“Get off my land. I said I don’t want to talk about it.”

I surreptitiously put my hand
on my gun under my coat. “Why? Got something to hide? Like the fact
you murdered her?”

Roaring with anger, he
charged, but I was ready for him, dodging him easily and sending
him flying with a carefully placed foot. Then I sat on him and
waited for the stream of insults and yelling and sobs to stop,
while I rubbed my temples and wished the people in this community
weren’t so bloody
loud
about their feelings.

He stopped struggling after a
little bit.

“
You going to behave
now,
beto
?”

“Get off me.”

“Not until you tell me if
you’re going to behave and answer my questions.”

“I don’t have to talk to
you.”

“True. But if you don’t talk to
me, then I’m going to get in my auto and drive over to that nice
Constable Girilal and tell him he should come chat to you about a
few things. And by the time he’s done, the entire community will
know something’s up, and since they know why I’ve been asking
questions.... I bet these small places gossip, Lakshya. I bet it’s
really uncomfortable when rumours get started. True or not.”

“I didn’t kill her!”

“Then tell me why you’re so
upset. Even her husband didn’t carry on like this.”

“Let me up.”

“Will you behave?”

A pause. “Yes.”

“You’d better, because I’ve got
a gun in my pocket and a stinking headache. I just want to know the
truth about Sapna’s death. If you didn’t kill her, then you don’t
need to be afraid of me.”

He didn’t move. He was still
angry, but not enraged. I figured I could risk it, but I kept my
gun handy anyway.

I stepped away and waited for
him to get up, then I motioned him back inside the barn away from
his damn noisy birds. He obeyed, expression sullen, but the fight
had gone out of him. He didn’t strike me as the kind of man who
could force a woman to kill herself. Maybe he could strangle
someone in a fit of passion, but not commit cold, deliberate
murder.

I sat on a straw bale. “Okay.
Talk. What was your relationship with Sapna?”

He plopped down on a storage
box a little way from me. “We were just friends.”

“You’re lying.”

“
I’m not!” I kept looking
at him. “All right. Once. We slept together
once
, and once only.
We both agreed it was wrong and we wouldn’t do it
again.”

“But you kept seeing her?”

“
To
talk
. We were friends.
Good friends.”

“Did you love her?”

He closed his eyes. “Yes,” he
whispered.

“And her baby...whose was
it?”

“
I don’t know.” His voice
became almost a wail. “
She
didn’t know. Didn’t matter.
The child was hers and Nikhil’s. We agreed. She loved him. Nikhil,
I mean. She loved us both. I didn’t want to hurt either of
them.”

I couldn’t detect anything that
told me he was lying, but nothing either that explained the
violence of his reaction. “So why did she call you before she
killed herself? She didn’t even call her best friend. Why you?”

He didn’t answer. I could wait.
Wasn’t like I had anywhere else to be today, and this man held the
key to the mystery. However long it took, I wasn’t leaving without
the truth.

“Lakshya, Sapna’s family are
destroying themselves over her death. They’re convinced she was
murdered. If you know anything which can help them understand what
happened, you owe it out of pure humanity to help them.”

“I know but....”

“Just tell me,” I said quietly,
“what happened, from the beginning. I’m not here to judge, and I’m
not here to expose what doesn’t need to be exposed. I just want to
help her parents and her brothers. Please.”

He nodded. “I wanted to talk to
them for so long, but I didn’t know how. I figured anything I could
say would only make it worse.”

“Right now, I don’t think
that’s possible.”

He rubbed his face and looked
away. “I lied to Constable Girilal. About her and the baby. She
didn’t give birth alone. I was with her when her labour
started.”

“Just talking?”

“
Yeah. I
was
,” he
added defensively. “We often met at that place. She liked it and it
was private. We used to talk about...the Spirit, and our faith.
Nikhil...doesn’t share it.”

“So you tried to help the
child, I guess?”

“I did, I really did.” His face
contorted with anguish. “But it all happened so fast and the baby
wasn’t breathing. The cord was wrapped so tight around his little
neck. I cut it when he was out but he wouldn’t breathe. I tried and
tried.” Tears dripped down his face. “If her mother had been there,
the baby would have lived.”

“Maybe not.”

“Yes, he would. It was my
fault. Only she blamed herself, not me. She said she’d been
punished for being unfaithful. I told her the Spirit doesn’t work
like that but she wouldn’t listen. She wouldn’t talk to me any more
after that. After she went home from the clinic, I mean. She
wouldn’t answer my calls, and if she had a delivery for me, she
just dropped it at the gate.”

“She was grieving.”

“Yeah. I knew she was. I wasn’t
angry, I was worried. She wasn’t thinking straight.”

All this fit with the known
facts, and he told the truth, I was sure of it. “So she called you
that morning...?”

“To say goodbye. Only I didn’t
hear the phone because I was with the birds.” My right eye twitched
as the waves of his sorrow crashed against my talent. “She said she
wanted to be with her baby, and be reborn together. I knew as soon
as I heard it what she was going to do, and where. I ran down to
the grove fast as I could, but it was too late. It was horrible.
Seeing her like that...I wanted to puke. I couldn’t bear being
there, seeing her, so I left. Couldn’t stand looking, and I
couldn’t help her. I know it was wrong but...she was already dead,
Sri Ythen. You have to believe me.”

“I do. Lakshya...the one thing
I can’t explain to her parents is that there wasn’t a note. Don’t
suppose you can shed any light on that, can you?”

He stiffened, and I put my hand
on my gun again. “I need to go to the house. Will you wait for
me?”

“Sure.”

Maybe he was going to fetch a
weapon, or maybe call for help. I didn’t think so. I gambled on it
being something else, and stayed where I was.

Outside, the
tus
settled down, with only the occasional gun fire rattle
coming to shake me out of my thoughts. I imagined a life spent
looking after the huge birds, only seeing the same limited circle
of people, nothing to look forward to in life but more of the same.
The temptation to spend a few stolen minutes or hours with a pretty
friend would be damn strong. Was he lying when he said they’d only
slept together once? Did it matter? And what would I tell Sapna’s
parents about their darling girl? They didn’t need to know this,
nor did her husband. But I had to give them something or they’d
gnaw themselves to death over a murder that never
happened.

I waited for nearly half an
hour before he came back. He’d been weeping again, his face red and
freshly washed.

“Sorry, I.... Here.”

He handed me two envelopes, one
addressed to Sapna’s parents, the other to her husband. The
handwriting wobbled across the paper. I imagined her crying her
heart out as she wrote the words. I touched them, as if I could
reach back across the days to that fateful one, tell her not to do
it. But that wasn’t possible.

I tucked them into my tunic
pocket and waited for him to explain how he’d found them. He sat
down on the box again. “There was an envelope pinned to her shirt.
I wasn’t thinking as I took it. I kept looking at her face....
Anyway, I shoved the envelope into a pocket, ran home, threw up. I
couldn’t do anything after that but sit and shake. I didn’t even
remember the note until about an hour later. When I opened it,
there were notes for her father and mother, Nikhil...and me. That’s
when I realised I shouldn’t have touched it at all. Should have
left the notes there, called the police. But it was too late by
then. My wife called to tell me Sapna’s body had been found. I
couldn’t put the notes back then.”

He bit his lip. “I wanted to
find a way to give them back but...I thought they’d find
fingerprints. I was scared, Sri Ythen. I didn’t know what to do.
But now I do. The Spirit sent you. Take the notes to her
family.”

“You haven’t read them?”

He shook his head. “They
weren’t for me.”

“But what if she tells them
about you? What if they go to the police?”

He straightened. “Then so be
it. I hurt them and I hurt her. I deserve what’s coming to me. I
wish...I really wish it had been different.”

“You and a lot of people.
Lakshya, you’re not responsible for her death, or the baby’s.
There’s a lot of sad people around at the moment and I don’t want
to hear of anyone else killing themselves out of stupid guilt.” He
jerked and blinked at me as if I slapped him. “I’m serious. No more
suicides. Your wife doesn’t need to go through what Nikhil did, or
your parents what hers did. You made a mistake, but that’s all it
was. You panicked. No shame in that. Now it’s over, do you hear me?
I’ll deliver these notes, and I’ll keep your name out of it. If
Sapna mentions you, well, then that’s different. But you move on.
Don’t make this a bigger tragedy.”

“I don’t deserve to move
on.”

“Whether you do or you don’t,
there are other people involved. Good people, people who don’t
deserve to suffer. You want to make up for what you did? Then go
on. Make the best life you can for your wife and the kids you’ll
have. Be a friend to Nikhil because he surely needs one. And don’t
you ever, ever tell anyone what you told me. They don’t need to
know.”

“The police?”

“If I have to, I’ll square it
with Girilal. There’s been no crime that needs prosecuting.”

“I miss her,” he whispered.
“She really was my best friend.”

“Then help her husband for her
sake, because he’s a decent man and she loved him. Will you do
that?”

He nodded. “We went to school
together. We were friends, all three of us. I miss him as
well.”

“Then you know what to do.” I
got to my feet. “Feel better?”

“Yeah.” The fact surprised him
a little, I felt. “I wanted to tell someone, but I couldn’t.”

“Good. But that has to be
enough. Don’t go pouring your heart out to your wife. Take it from
me—that won’t go down well.”

“I won’t. Uh...I guess I should
thank you.”

“No need. Good day, Lakshya.
And good luck.”

I left as fast as I decently
could, but not to go back to Sapna’s home. Instead I drove back to
the grove where she’d died. I needed time to think, to absorb what
I’d heard. So much misery, and yet there had been no evil in any of
the people involved. Just ordinary passion, and extraordinary bad
luck.