Second Lives (9 page)

I rolled my eyes.

‘Then she said that she was doing a major story and needed my help. She wouldn’t tell me what the story was about, which intrigued me. I couldn’t understand all the secrecy. I begged for some clue but she refused. All she said was that she would call me later with specific questions.’ He sighed. ‘Rachel could be so stubborn sometimes.’

I figured Rachel had first wanted to break the ice with him, and then get to whatever it was she actually needed.
That was so like her.
But she must have been quite desperate for his help because she had sworn never to speak to the man again.

‘Did she sound worried or tense?’

‘Yes, she did. I first thought it might be because she was speaking to me for the first time since…you know…’ He was embarrassed, because he knew I knew.

I said drily, ‘I know. Go on.’

‘But then I realised it wasn’t that. Clearly, it was whatever she was working on that was bothering her. I’ve never heard her sound like that, even when she was upset or angry.’

‘Did she call you back?’

‘No. In fact, I tried calling her a few times after that but she never answered. I don’t know if she changed her mind about taking my help, or whether she just found the information she needed.’ He paused. ‘Do you know why Rachel committed suicide? She was such a stable and mature person.’

‘No.’
I didn’t see why I should tell him more than he needed to know.

‘I see…I hope it was nothing to do with me, right?’

The male ego—it never ceases to amaze me! ‘I doubt it very much. Rachel was definitely over you.’

‘You know, I did…fall in love with her. Had things been different, we might still have been together.’

I didn’t respond to that, since something else had just struck me like a tonne of bricks.
I asked, ‘When did you say Rachel called you?’

‘Let me see, it was definitely over four months ago. I can’t remember the exact date, though.’

‘Are you absolutely sure?’

‘Yes, I’m sure.’

I was shocked, because Anna Grishin had been alive four months ago!

23

Omar

‘Somehow I always knew that this wasn’t just about Anna Grishin,’ said Neel.

I looked at him disbelievingly.

‘It was actually Writwik who first suggested it.’ He sounded defensive.

I smiled. ‘Ah, your new buddy…’

‘Fuck you, Omar. The guy’s an asshole but I think he was right on that count.’

I turned to Sara. ‘Do you think that news guy could have been wrong about when Rachel had called him?’

She said, ‘I don’t think so. He sounded quite certain.’

We were at Souza Lobo for lunch. Our table was next to a window overlooking the wide expanse of Calangute beach, and I had rolled up the plastic blinds to let the strong breeze blow over us. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the sun was shining brightly. There were a good number of people lined up near the waterline. We could hear their clamour mixed with the crashing of the waves.

We had ordered a pitcher of draught beer and a collection of the house specialties. Fried calamari, tiger prawns in pepper and garlic, Goan sausages and pao. Not to mention separate portions of French fries, cooked with the distinctive flavour you don’t get anywhere else in the world.

Our waiter in an orange Hawaiian shirt came up, balancing two trays expertly. The portions were enormous but not for a moment did I doubt that we would finish it all. The combination of chilled beer and spicy seafood was incomparable, especially in a Goan shack—I felt like I was on a surreal, Kafkaesque vacation.

‘The plot thickens,’ said Neel, biting into a fat, succulent prawn. ‘What do we do now?’

I said wistfully, ‘Maybe we should just pack up from here and go back to our respective lives. And hope that all this will blow over.’

Not that I wanted to go back to what lay waiting for me.

Sara said, ‘Don’t be silly, Omar. We can’t give up now. I keep remembering Rachel’s last words to me. We have to find out what she meant.’

I was suddenly irritated. ‘But Sara, we can’t stay here in Goa indefinitely, fishing around and hoping the mystery unravels itself for us.’

‘So what do you suggest? We forget about Rachel and the terrible death she died, without fighting for any kind of justice for her!’

I felt my temper flaring. ‘We’re not the police, Sara, nor are we private detectives. I loved Rachel as much as you did but this is not an episode of Remington Steele, it’s real life.’

‘What did the police do? Tell me that. If it wasn’t for us, no one would have even known that Rachel didn’t commit suicide!’

‘And what good has that done for anybody? It won’t bring her back, and we’re hardly any closer to understanding what really happened. Maybe it would have been better for all of us if her death had remained a suicide.’

Sara’s voice had risen several decibels. ‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this!’

‘Well, it’s my opinion, whether you like it or not.’

‘In that case, I’ll go ahead alone. You guys can leave whenever you want.’ She looked out at the sea, her face dark with anger.

I realised that I had been rude but I didn’t feel like apologising. I meant what I had said—what we were doing had started to make less and less sense to me. If our lives were in danger, I wasn’t sure we could do anything about it, and if something was going to happen, it would happen. Maybe I was getting a death wish.

Neel said mildly, ‘Guys, calm down. The stress is getting to us. I think we all want the same thing here.’

Neither of us said anything.

‘Let’s give it a few more days, and see what happens.’ Neel paused. ‘And I think we need to go see Mrs Fernandes again.’

24

Sara

When Roy started seeing a girl, it was the talk of our school.

Her name was a Tamil tongue-twister with more syllables than you could count on both hands but someone decided to call her by one of them—Jo—and the name stuck.

Jo was quite the plain Jane. She was short and her face was so ordinary that I couldn’t imagine anyone giving her a second look. She wore these big glasses which made her look like a female Dilton Doiley. Her only redeeming feature was her unusually fair complexion, something I’ve always been wistful about. Frankly, I had no idea what Roy saw in her—I guess opposites do attract.

Jo did have another thing going for her—she had an outsized bust which looked even more prominent on her small frame. I guess men can’t help themselves when they see a pair of big boobs! But Jo was also smart, very smart. She was consistently top of our class, and obviously intelligent enough to snare the best-looking boy in school. Poor Roy—he didn’t stand a chance.

Well, maybe not quite, given everything that happened later.

We started seeing less of Roy, as his romance with Jo blossomed. There were any number of secluded spots on our sprawling campus but they liked to sneak out as often as they could. We were generally not allowed to leave the school premises, except by special permission, and that too on weekends and holidays only. But it wasn’t unusual for both boys and girls to scale the boundary wall and slip away without the warden’s knowledge. There was a particular spot at the edge of the compound, hidden by a clump of trees, which was very amenable for a quick and invisible getaway.

Jo knew we were Roy’s closest friends and made a special effort to get to know us well. She could be really sweet when she wanted! Both Neel and Omar were quite charmed by her, and Rachel was her usual warm self whenever the six of us met.

But I hated Jo, and I think she was aware of it. Maybe my feelings towards her would have been different had I known what was going to happen.
Then again, maybe not.

One Sunday just before our mid-term exams, Jo went missing.

We realised it only the next day when she didn’t turn up for class. Roy said he had last met her at the tuck shop the previous afternoon, after which she had gone off to study. Except that none of the girls in her dorm had seen her, and her bed had not been slept in either. They had assumed she had gone out with Roy but never before had she been away for the entire night. Once it was clear she wasn’t with Roy, we knew something was wrong.

The alarm was raised, and the principal informed. Search parties were formed to look for her but by evening, it was obvious that Jo was nowhere on the campus and the local police were informed. A pompous inspector and two constables landed up at the bursar’s office and proclaimed that Jo must have run away with a boy. All that remained was to identify the miscreant. When they were told that Roy was her boyfriend, he was summoned and taken to the police station, despite all our protests.

Early the following morning, a retired army colonel was out on his daily walk in a wooded area abutting a lake, not far from our school, when he noticed something floating in the water. He went closer and saw that it was the lifeless body of a young girl!

Jo.

There was a furore after that, of course. The police swarmed over our school, interrogating both teachers and students. Roy was kept in the lockup for three days and then released for lack of any evidence or motive linking him to the crime. Jo’s widowed mother and elder brother came down from Chennai, shocked and inconsolable. A pall of gloom fell over our school.

It was no accident. Jo had been brutally murdered.
Details were not revealed initially but we figured out that she had been slashed up badly with a knife. A night in the water meant that the body was not a pretty sight when they fished it out.

The incident made headlines in the local media, since nothing of this magnitude had occurred in our sleepy hill town in living memory. The usual crimes were petty theft and the odd property dispute. Different theories began to circulate, from a psychopath on the loose to a secret vendetta killing. In the meantime, security was tightened up at school and the boarding rules began to be strictly enforced.

The local police made no headway in their investigation. The public outcry refused to abate and pressure mounted on the administration. Finally, a state CID team took over the case and they went over all the evidence again.

It was established that Jo had been killed elsewhere, and her body dumped in the lake sometime in the middle of Sunday night. No one had seen anything. The autopsy did not throw up any clues either, except that the knife used was a particularly sharp one, like a surgeon’s scalpel or a butcher’s cleaver. The police had ruled that Jo’s death was not premeditated. In all probability, she had been at the wrong place at the wrong time; and had either witnessed something she was not meant to see or fallen prey to a sexual predator who had found her alone and vulnerable.

The CID systematically explored all angles—greed; jealousy; unrequited love; family dispute; inheritance; personal enmity.
Everything came up negative.

There wasn’t even a suspect.

25

Neel

When we got back to the villa, Sara’s caretaker looked agitated. The police had landed up while we were out. They had asked us to report to the Panjim station immediately.

We had no option but to go, apprehension in our minds.

A sergeant told us we would have to wait. He pointed to a row of moulded plastic chairs in the lobby. We sat down and looked around. There was plenty of bustle and activity. Men in khaki were moving around busily. Standing near us was a group of youths, picked up for drunken misdemeanour. They loudly protested their innocence to the two constables guarding them. One of them leered at Sara. She gave him the finger.

D’Mello finally came out. He ushered us into a small room at the back of the building. It was illuminated by a single hanging light. And smelled of sweat and fear. There was a wooden table. A few metal chairs scattered around it. An interrogation chamber. I asked D’Mello if we were going to be treated like common criminals. He said that there was apparently no other place available for us to sit in. His tone was not particularly apologetic.

He opened the conversation with a warning. ‘Look, I want to tell you folks that I need complete cooperation. Don’t try to hide anything. If you have some information that might be useful, I need to know it.’

I said firmly, ‘I have no idea why you say that. We are law-abiding citizens and have no reason to keep anything from the police.’

Omar asked, ‘Why are we here?’

D’Mello said rather formally, ‘We’ve reopened the case of your friend Rachel Fernandes. It may not have been a suicide after all.’

I said, ‘Good. I hope you find out what really happened to her.’

He opened a small red diary. ‘Miss Fernandes was found hanging in her bedroom at her mother’s house here in Goa. An old bed sheet had been cut into two strips, which were tied together and used in the act. One end was looped around a fan hook in the ceiling and the other knotted into a crude but effective noose. A chair was lying near the body.’

‘Was it a quick death?’

‘It’s estimated that victims of hanging lose consciousness in anywhere from five to fifteen seconds. But it can take up to five minutes to die.’

There was an audible gasp from Sara.

D’Mello ignored her and continued. ‘Hanging is, by far, the most common method of suicide and accounts for half of all attempts. Whenever there’s a death by hanging, the first and obvious assumption is that the victim has taken his or her own life. So I can’t really blame Gomes for coming to that conclusion in Rachel’s case, especially as there was no primary evidence of foul play.

‘Occasionally, a person is murdered by hanging to make it appear a suicide. When that happens, there are often telltale signs which the police always look for. For example, the position of the ligature being under the larynx or the presence of scratch marks on it.’ He stopped and coughed heavily. ‘Rachel had neither.’

Sara exclaimed, ‘Are you saying that Gomes was right?’

He held up his hand. ‘It’s a moot point whether Gomes should have investigated further or not. After all, he didn’t have the benefit of the information we have now. He’s a good officer, you know, with an excellent record. A policeman’s biggest weapon is his nose but it let Gomes down on this occasion. If he had smelt murder, I have no doubt that the case would have been wide open by now.’