Different Senses (50 page)

“What do you think?”

“Are you saying Tushar arranged
to have himself painfully cut up by a mad knifeman? That’s
ridiculous. I saw him. He wasn’t faking how frightened he was, or
in how much pain.”

He pursed his lips. “Then I
won’t say any more. I value your friendship too much to fight over
this, and this festival too much to spoil it.”

“Thanks a lot. I’m sure Tushar
will be grateful you care so much too.”

He stiffened. “I don’t want to
argue. But did you know Lalitchandra Ursemin’s mother died ten
years ago?”

“So?”

“So nothing. Blessings of the
day.” He folded his arms and bowed, then walked away to be quickly
swallowed up by the milling crowd.

What the
hell?
“Fuck.”

A woman turned and gave me a
reproving look. I smiled in apology, but I still wanted to kick
something.

My enjoyment of the event had
fled, so I took myself off away from those having more fun so I
could think. Once I’d cleared the tents, I found myself alone, and
a tree root made a slightly better seat than the ground.

Shardul hadn’t seen Tushar
after the knife attack. Or Ursemin. Ursemin was horrified, worried
out of his mind, and Tushar.... I’d seen many victims of random
assaults, and every one of them had that same shocked, sickened
look about them. You couldn’t fake it. Besides, Tushar still had
nightmares about it, and you definitely couldn’t fake those.

So what if Ursemin had been a
little loose with the oaths he made? It wasn’t a life or death
matter, and so far as I could tell, he meant to keep his word.
Shardul had chucked a bit of ‘proof’ at me that no one could be
reasonably expected to take seriously, and then left in a huff
because I hadn’t instantly thought Ursemin a villain on the
strength of it.

Shardul wasn’t a disinterested
party. I had to remember that. He liked to pretend to be the
logical, objective lawyer, but he was as ridden by emotions and
delusions as anyone else, and he had a bug up his arse about me
being with Tushar. And Tushar himself, so it looked like.

I rubbed my eyebrow. Shardul
could give me his special brand of headache when he wasn’t even
there. The thing was, racists were only one answer. Could be
another stalker. Could be a jealous performer. Could be a critic
who didn’t like Tushar’s music. Hell, this could all be about
Ursemin, and the more I thought about it, the more I wondered if
that was a route we’d overlooked. Attack Ursemin’s biggest act, and
he’d suffer. It had been Ursemin’s house someone had fired a gun
at, and the bomb threat affected him as much as Tushar. And Ursemin
surely had more enemies than Tushar—the guy had been in the
management game a long time.

Just as I made my mind up to
ask Ursemin about this on the drive back, music started up behind
me—the concert beginning. That meant I had about an hour before the
police gave the three of us a lift back to the hotel and I
collected the auto. Plenty of time to think of how to ask Ursemin
about this without pissing him off or upsetting Tushar.

In the end it was nearly three
hours before we cleared Arni’s limits and hit the main road. The
concert ran over time, with Tushar and the other performers giving
multiple encores, and then he’d spent over half an hour meeting his
fans and admirers. The police hadn’t wanted to force the issue so
they’d let it go, in the interests of not causing ill-feeling.

Tushar was in his now familiar
post-concert mix of emotional high and physical exhaustion, and
chattered away, demanding to know what we’d thought, reliving every
moment of the admittedly enjoyable concert. If anything, he was
more hyperactive than usual, making it hard to concentrate on
driving and keeping an eye out for bad hats, and impossible to talk
to Ursemin about something as serious as motives for hurting him.
I’d have to let it go until Tushar collapsed, which would take a
couple of hours—or vigorous sex, which wasn’t an option right
now.

“I’m starving,” he declared
suddenly.

I looked at the GPS. “There’s a
rest station about twenty minutes from here. Want me to stop?”

“Can we? I had a little
breakfast, but I was too excited to eat much. Now I could eat the
upholstery.”

“Lalit? Any problem with
that?”

“Not at all. I could do with
using the bathroom myself.”

The road was clear and I’d seen
no one following us. I’d just keep an eye on everything, and my
weapon handy, but I could see no reason not to stop. We still had
nearly three hours of driving ahead of us.

A few minutes later I pulled
into the rest station. Two other autos were parked there, but it
all seemed pretty quiet. “Okay, make it quick and don’t go
wandering around, Tushar. In and out, eat in the auto.”

“I understand. Lalit, my
paycard, please?”

Funds provided, Tushar dashed
into the small eatery. Ursemin headed over to the toilets. I
thought I may as well pick up some food too, something I could eat
while driving. As I queued up, Tushar, already finished with his
purchase, asked me to hold his food. “Sorry, I need to piss,
Javen.”

“Be quick and I’ll see you back
at the auto.”

I kept an eye on him even while
I was served. He waited until Ursemin came out, before going into
the toilets,. Only one cubicle, obviously.

“You don’t want something to
eat?” I asked Ursemin as he headed to the auto.

“I had a huge breakfast. Those
Nihan sure can cook.”

“They really can. Think Tushar
will be asked to perform there next year?”

He shrugged. “No idea. The
offer for this came at very short notice. I want him to do more
mixed events. Don’t think playing to his own people is going to
give him the boost he needs.”

I got into the driver’s seat
and opened one of the snacks I’d bought. In the back seat, Ursemin
had his reader out again. Tushar emerged from the toilets a minute
or so later, and I readied myself to drive off, but a man standing
by a black auto near the toilets suddenly smiled at Tushar.

“Damn it, someone’s recognised
him. No, don’t stop and talk to him— Tushar!” I got out, ready to
yell at him to hurry up.

The man grabbed Tushar’s arm,
dragged him with surprising speed towards his auto, and threw him
into the back seat. I ran towards them, but the guy pulled a gun.
“Stay back!”

With other people around, I
couldn’t risk it. “Someone call the police!” I shouted. “Tushar’s
being kidnapped.”

The black auto roared out of
the car park, tearing down the filter lane and onto the highway.
“Call the police!” I yelled again, and dove into my own auto.
“Lalit, call for help! Tushar’s been abducted by the men in that
black auto. I’m going after them.”

“Sanity, no!”

I activated the emergency
signal with one hand, the engine with the other, and made the
wheels scream as I accelerated out. I had to keep that black auto
in my sights until the police could block the road. I fed the
identification plate details to Ursemin as I drove, and a
description of the man I’d seen, but I had to let him do the
talking to the cops. The black auto had reached deadly speeds and I
needed all my concentration and training to keep up without killing
anyone else.

Something hit the front of the
vehicle, and the control panel lit up with warnings about damage to
lights and sensors. “Shit, they’re shooting at us.” I had to fall
back. If they made me crash at these speeds, other autos would be
involved. “Lalit, tell the police the kidnappers are firing
weapons.”

He spoke urgently into his
phone. The black auto suddenly jerked to the right, down a filter
lane and onto a smaller road. “Where the hell are they going?”
Another bullet hit the hood and shards flew up over the windscreen.
Ceramic bullets again. “How long before the police get here?”

“They said a few minutes.
They’re tracking us.”

“Whoa! They’re stopping. The
door’s opening...they just threw Tushar out!”

The black auto sped off. I
slowed down and brought my vehicle alongside where Tushar lay, and
leapt out. He looked dazed but unhurt except for some grass stains
on his clothes and a minor graze to his arm. “Are you okay? Did
they hurt you?”

“N-no. Get me out of here,
Javen. I’m scared.”

Ursemin had the backdoor open,
and tugged Tushar into the backseat. “I’m driving back to that rest
station,” I said, turning the auto around and heading back at speed
the second the backdoor closed. “Tell the police. Tushar, stay low.
Both of you, stay down below the windows.”

The kidnappers were long gone,
but I wasn’t going to hang around to give them another chance to
come back and pick Tushar off.

The police caught up with us as
I approached the rest station, and escorted us in, surrounding us
in the car park. I identified myself, then went to the backseat and
pulled Tushar into my arms. “Are you really okay? I’m sorry, I
should have protected you.”

He buried his face in my neck.
“My fault. I’m sorry.”

An officer poked her head
through the open door. “Sir? We need to ask some questions. Step
out of the car, please.”

Two hours later, Tushar,
Ursemin and I were in the back of a police vehicle being driven
back to Hegal. My auto had been impounded for forensics to go over.
The kidnappers’ auto had been found abandoned not far from where
they’d released Tushar—the vehicle had been stolen from Hegal the
day before. Tushar had only been able to give vague descriptions of
one man, the other having worn a mask. He’d been too rattled to
concentrate on details.

There was something fishy about
it though. How had they known we would stop where we did, when we
did? The only people who knew we planned to leave early were the
police and the three of us. I hadn’t even mentioned it to
Shardul—I’d forgotten to. I’d seen no one following us, though
there could be a tracking device on my auto. If that was the case,
the level of sophistication in the attacks had just gone up several
levels.

Why would someone want to
kidnap Tushar anyway? He could have been killed in the car park if
that was the aim, but as an object for ransom, did they imagine he
was worth much money? Without trying at all hard, I could think of
half a dozen people—including me and my brother—who would fetch a
higher price on account of our families’ wealth.

I badly wanted to talk to
someone about it, but Tushar was in shock, clinging to me in
silence, while Ursemin stared grimly ahead, radiating worry.
Calling Shardul would be on the insensitive side. So I held Tushar
tight, and rolled the available facts over in my mind. I didn’t
like what they were telling me.

I stayed at Ursemin’s house
long enough to put Tushar to bed and assure him I would be back
later. Ursemin said he had someone to see across town, and with the
house once again under heavy police guard, Tushar could be left
safely. I asked for a lift home, and Ursemin agreed.

But once we came to the city
centre, I suggested he took a turn towards one of the parks nearby.
“Javen, I said I had a meeting.”

“You’re already late, and
there’s something urgent I need to talk to you about. Something I
don’t want the police or Tushar to hear.”

His anxiety level went through
the roof, but outwardly he remained calm and smiling. “Okay, no
problem.” He turned left towards old Hegal, and parked up at a
small children’s playground. “So, what’s on your mind?”

“Why did you arrange the
kidnapping today?”

His hands clenched. “What are
you talking about?”

“Lalit, only a handful of
people could have told those men where we’d be, and when, and most
of those people are cops. I don’t think Tushar would have done it,
but I think you would, maybe to generate a little extra publicity
for him.” He said nothing. “You can either talk to me now, or you
can talk to the police. The whole thing stinks.”

He sighed. “All right. Yes, it
was fake.”

I’d hoped I was wrong. “Why?
Why endanger me, yourself, Tushar?”

“You weren’t in any
danger.”

“They were shooting at us!”

“They told me they would only
fire at the auto. No one got hurt, did they?”

“Not this time. But you ordered
the attack on Tushar before too, didn’t you? And arranged for the
shots at your house?”

“No.”

I slapped the console and he
jumped. “Stop lying! Someone who knew about Benay had to have
planted the knife at his house, or arranged it. That was you. You
had only arranged dinner at your house that afternoon, which didn’t
give the gunman a chance to plan, and anyone really trying to hurt
any of us wouldn’t have carefully fired those shots above head
height. It was all staged. Admit it.”

He stared through the
windscreen. “Tushar wasn’t supposed to be hurt. I only wanted to
make sure Benay didn’t threaten us any more. He’s a dangerous
man!”

“A harmless obsessive,
actually, and there were better ways to deal with it. Tushar could
have died. The difference between a cut and a stab wound is only a
matter of half a centimetre or so. Who did you order to do it?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Fine, you can tell the police.
Did Tushar know about any of this?”

He glanced at me with wounded
eyes. A bit rich, in the circumstances. “No. Of course not.”

“He trusted you and you
betrayed him.”

“He trusted me to promote his
career and that’s exactly what I’ve done. I never meant him to be
hurt, but he’s okay now, isn’t he?”

“Sure, if you don’t care about
the fact he’s suffering nightmares and terrors. Are you out of your
mind, Lalit? Playing games like this with people’s lives?”

“It’s not a game, it’s a
ruthless business, and Tushar’s fighting disadvantages other
performers don’t have. I only want the best for him.”