Truth Lake (19 page)

' – but this afternoon I'm scheduled to meet with Detective Mazumdar and Inspector Ribera. So, as I said, I was wondering if we could meet.' Sara was so flustered that she thought of banging the phone down. Common sense won out.

'I'll be down there by eight.'

'And Ms McMeckan. Sara – '

              'Yes?'

'Would you bring your passport with you?'

'My passport?
Why?
I'm not in trouble, am I?'

'Of course not.' Tanya's voice was soothing. 'It's just an identification matter, routine stuff. Perhaps we can grab some breakfast. I'll see you down in the foyer in an hour.' Tanya switched off her mobile and waited for her heart to stop pounding.

She was taking a calculated risk in claiming to work for the Delhi police. All Sara had to do was make a single phone call to Antonio Sinbari and her cover would dissolve like suds in water. She might, in fact, get her father into more trouble. 

But then, he was already so depressed that one more thing would hardly make any difference.

It had been her mother's idea that she should take a trip to Goa and spend a few weeks with her aunt, a silly widow who spent all her days watching Hindi films and tormenting her own pathetic children.

Her parents had paid for her ticket and seen her off at the airport, unaware that she'd overheard her mother asking her aunt to arrange a late abortion for her at some 'private maternity clinic'. She'd booked a cab to Aguada, phoned her aunt to cancel the trip and set out on the journey with stacks of notes and plans. Now, here she was, in her clumpy leather sandals, kohl outlining her pretty eyes, looking totally at home in the foyer of this exclusive resort and flicking through a magazine with all the nonchalance of an authentic traveller. 

Pregnancy had made her skin glow; her hair, which was untidy as always, appeared lustrous. Men, perhaps on their way to business meetings and some clearly headed for the beach, glanced appreciatively at Tanya as they passed. Despite her emergent bump, she was fairly sure she cut a pleasanter figure than the high-heeled flunky behind the reception desk who was casting anxious looks in her direction.
She thinks I'm a potential terrorist
, Tanya decided, intercepting yet another apprehensive glance from the woman.

She had an hour to take stock of what she was doing, but her mind was strangely loose and unresponsive. Instead of thinking about the Saahitaal case, she found herself reflecting on the events of the past few months.

She'd been on rough seas, for sure.

Pursued relentlessly by young men who wanted her father's prestige and by her mother, who wanted her to want such young men, she'd found herself entangled in a flirtation with Lal Bahuba Saané. 'Flirtation', of course, barely described the kind of erotic tension there'd been between them before she went to bed with him! If he so much as exhaled audibly in her vicinity she'd felt herself grow moist. 

You could almost smell scorched skin when they touched; little sparks that made the hairs on her arms stand on end. For their time alone they had fate to thank: the guard detailed to accompany Lal on his pilgrimages with Tanya Hàrélal discovered he had cancer but was too frightened of losing his job to tell anyone official. So, frequently, he would be forced to go home, or out for treatment, leaving Lal and Tanya alone in his vehicle. 

Lal was always hungry for her body and by the time she found she was pregnant, nothing mattered except finding a quiet place to lie down with him. 

So she ran. 

And those sixteen days she spent in his strange home would always haunt her for their complete lack of sanity, their core of callous frenzied lust. She couldn't call it love, because he'd never allowed her time to think, let alone to talk about it. He’d sucked at her breasts in moody silence, left bruises on her neck, torn her panties off time and again to stroke and shove between her thighs. Then abruptly he proposed that she should reveal her whereabouts to her family, make a trip home and pick up some money. He was going to quit his job and open a gymnasium. When he spoke of the gymnasium she saw
love
in his eyes.
 

He had never told her he would look after her and the child yet she'd always assumed it. But when her father saw them together that day, she began to understand that she didn't really figure in Lal's plans. Except when she was on top of him or on her back.  And, for all that lust had become her religion, there was no point in denying reality.  She'd always known she was a tough woman. Certainly tougher than she'd needed to be.

So she'd walked away.

It was fifteen minutes to nine. There was no sign of Sara. Perhaps this Scottish girl would take a rain check? Tanya ordered a club soda, which arrived sporting a tiny palm umbrella. She sipped it slowly, wondering what Kailash Karmel would say to Sara McMeckan if he were here to do the questioning.

She thought about all the things he had taught her as she was growing up and felt her cheeks growing hot.

Eight years older and with the kind of self-control she'd fought fruitlessly to break, Karmel had been her hero and her first love. Courtesy of his ambivalent status on the job, Kailash often accompanied her father home to discuss work and to mull over strategy. When they finished, the young man would be dispatched to have tea with the Chief's wife and daughter, to entertain them or run errands. Multilingual and soft-spoken, Kailash appealed to both the women. He would help Tanya with her homework or sit on the swing with her in their massive garden discussing geography and botany as happily as he talked politics with her father. 

Whenever she tried to persuade him to talk about his past he decided it was time for him to leave. His reserve held for years and made her think he was too proud to confide in her, a child, and a girl. 

Then, one day, when some minor transgression had earned her a mighty slap from her father and she'd cried on Karmel's shoulder and threatened to run away, he had told her.

She was sixteen and unable to believe her ears.

The kind of horror this man had survived. What he told her about the life of 'the poor' and 'the dispossessed'. What he knew and what he rarely spoke of because,
face it,
what's the point of reinforcing people's foolish belief that individual endeavour or individual fate can account for human destiny?

He had explained, patiently, that when he talked about it all and it made people gasp to think how far he'd travelled from that soul-sick orphanage, he knew it wasn't true; that degradation and shame and disillusion were only a footstep away; that if it wasn't him then it was some other weak little kid, hooked on drugs, prostituted or beaten to death for the offence of being poor. That Delhi, for all its wealth and power and veneer of sophistication, was a cesspool. And he'd told her about places he'd read about where there were laws to protect children and laws to cushion the most insignificant human being from absolute hopelessness; places where laws were sometimes upheld.

She had raged at him first –
but you're a policeman, you're supposed to protect these people, my dad protects these people; don't insult me. There is law here. We live in a great country!

He had not even bothered to reply, had left, in fact, having made her forget the petty quarrel which had caused her father to slap her. 

Tanya had not let it drop though. Determined to educate herself in the ways of the world, she read the books her preppy school and exclusive college hadn't known existed, complemented this with vast amounts of exploring and walking and talking with people she was told to stay away from. Her conclusion at the end of it all was, however, that she was far too entrenched in the ways of the spoilt rich to do anything meaningful that wouldn't just add insult to injury. She couldn't bear condescension and she had no talent for charity. Politics appealed to her but getting involved would have meant an entire break with her parents and she was still too attached to them for such a drastic feat. 

Seemingly disappointed by her refusal of action, of responsibility, Karmel had withdrawn into himself, had moved from casual chit-chat, to nods and then had stopped visiting her house entirely: Mrs. Hàrélal put it down to his delicacy in thinking about Tanya's honour and praised him even more to her husband; Hàrélal invited him often and spoke of him all the time, but months passed and Tanya barely glimpsed him. When she did, her frustration and excitement led her down paths that would have caused her parents much embarrassment and rage: brushing against him in doorways, she thought he might come to see her as a woman. But her adolescent crush only seemed to distance him further.

Exhausted by her studies and bored with her glib friends, Tanya was so desperate for Karmel's company, his challenging humour, that she invented excuses to visit her father at work. Only once did she see Karmel and on that occasion he'd treated her with the formal courtesy of a stranger. She had no claim on him; they were not blood relations; they had never even kissed; and she was way too proud to cry in public. Weeks passed and her pain turned to anger. She decided to shun him, petulantly refusing to utter his name. After teaching her for a decade about the world around them, perhaps it was no co-incidence that it was Karmel who taught her what it felt like to have her heart broken. 

The reception area of Aguada's Randhor-Sinbari resort was serene. Outside, along the palm-shaded avenue, taxis bumped slowly away.

Sara was walking towards her with a haggard expression on her face when Tanya finally allowed herself to say Karmel's name, rolling it across her tongue like wine one savours or a tiny gust of mountain air:
Kailash Karmel
.

*

Now accustomed to Sahusingh's pace, Karmel pondered the new information he'd acquired: Croft's beauty and popularity, the advent of the second foreigner, the scene in the snow. It was a large village, more than thirty homes, and many children might be ill but only a few of the houses were close enough to the lake to be the one in the old man's story. The woman in it had to be Thahéra's sister and the sick child must be her son, Sonu. So, she had known the architect well enough to communicate with him
without words
. She had been the one to give Sara the pot of food. Was she just a good Samaritan – were both the sisters, come to that? Or was there more to them than met the eye?

As they reached the lake, it started to rain again. Karmel bid his aged companion goodbye and decided to seek out Thahéra. Questioning the other villagers seemed pointless when so many threads led back to her or her family: sister, father, sullen stepson. As he passed back along the way he had come with the old shepherd, he thought he saw a figure moving alongside him but under the shelter of the trees. He walked patiently on, eyes towards the ground, and then turned with speed only to discover that the person walking towards him was Thahéra's oldest boy. Think of the devil, Karmel muttered, as the youth intercepted him and stood, fists clenched, blocking his path.

Karmel looked across the small gap that divided him from his fierce companion and decided that he couldn't make a run for it; courage held no meaning for him, if it meant that he might perish – his childhood had taught him that. He heard Hàrélal's voice in his head:
talk to him Kailash, make him see you as a human being …

The air around them was lifeless, overcast; there was no glimpse to be had of the lake's gleaming water. The boy did not move but his breathing was erratic and his high flat cheekbones were pale with anger or some other mighty emotion.

When Karmel reached out to touch him and broke the tautness of the moment, he fell to his knees on the muddy path and began to shout up at Karmel without restraint in an incoherent stream, tears pouring from his eyes.

His cries echoed across the dull space around them and fell back to earth. Every moment, Karmel expected to see villagers approaching to ascertain what the commotion was about; but no one came. At last, spent by his emotion, the lad heaved himself upright and, without speaking to Karmel or acknowledging his presence, ran back into the woods by the pathway. 

Karmel was mystified. He had expected a confrontation, some sort of violence; he had not expected to see tears. He wondered if someone was setting the lad up, trying to force him to do something he did not wish to do … although he'd said nothing, there had been an oddly confessional quality to his groaning.

Karmel glanced up at the sky, noting how quickly it was fading to black. He was learning to hate the Himalayan darkness, to detest its creepy uncertainty, its absolute power to block action. He was used to operating as normal at all times of day and night. In a city there was almost always something to do, some light source, some warmth, some place to crawl to in a time of need. Here it was as if the day brought action and motion, the night passivity, helplessness and fear.

*

As night threw its shadows into the crevices between mountains, Sadrettin and the team were still stranded in Malundi, restless and uncomfortable on the schoolhouse floor. They had failed to negotiate successfully with the headmistress about accommodation, partly because they could not agree on any of the smelly barns to which she had led them and partly because Sadrettin vetoed the only relatively decent house in the village because he didn't want to displace the family residing there. The others looked at him in stunned disapproval as he rejected the offer and Rimi furiously commented that he was a bit young for the job. He didn't rise to her bait.

Afraid to cross the river due to the heavy rains and unable to contact their boss, they decided to stay one more night before calling off the trip until a more auspicious season. Taylor was fairly high up in Sinbari's universe and had the authority to do as he pleased. Cornell, as the only consultant on the team, was keener than the others to get the job done and argued briefly against going back. Narayan was too busy lusting after Rimi to complain about another night in the hills.

When the others had finally retired to doze or play cards in their sleeping bags, Sadrettin rose from his and left the building. In the shadows he allowed his eyes to adjust and then squatted against a damp wall. He was fully clothed and didn't feel the cold. For several hours he remained in the same position, clearing his throat quietly and occasionally wiping his eyes.

The chain of events precipitated by the advent of the scruffy foreigners held a different significance for him than it did for everyone else. On the night when they'd been shunted, with such apparent ruthlessness, off to Goa by his employer, he'd glimpsed Adam drying his hair as he emerged from Sinbari's private suite. There was such casual confidence in the young foreigner's attitude that Sadrettin, normally assertive, had dropped his gaze. From that minute onwards, he had known his days with the Randhor-Sinbari chain were numbered. Since then, every move his boss made had seemed questionable, every word he spoke held double meaning. Sadrettin's discovery of the e-mail correspondence with Cameron Croft had been almost the last straw. What had his loyalty been worth all these years? Had he simply imagined that he was indispensable?

He had managed to conceal his growing hysteria long enough to feel certain of one thing: he was being cut out of the loop, used, and was soon to be discarded. Well, at least he had learnt a lot. He had learnt about himself, and about business. He'd never again be anybody's fool.

By the time the skyline was touched with silver, he had made up his mind. 

Rimi's file was safely packed at the bottom of his own luggage. He would not have to do much to persuade this desultory team to leave the hills. Writing his resignation would be the work of a few minutes. Writing the other letter he planned would not be so easy and would require both tact and finesse. Whatever he did, he knew it was going to cause all kinds of trouble and might wreck both his life and his career.  The possibilities filled him with terror.

Far more visceral in texture, Thahéra's terror had started in at noon. It took her and held her in a grip so fierce she could neither hear nor breathe. It came in a form so innocuous, so rustic, that few would have imagined it to be the cause of so great an angst. 

An old man, wrinkled and weathered, but with cold yellow eyes and the muscles of a sinewy youth. Back from his trip.

Devsingh. Her father.