Authors: Shakuntala Banaji
'
Go on Sara, tell us all about Adam's state of mind!
'
Across an expanse of land and ocean, in the Super-Deluxe suite by the picturesque Aguada beach, Tanya and her companion froze.
Adam was leaning against an inlaid stone pillar at the entrance to the suite. His fine hair straggled lankly around his face. His trousers were crumpled and streaked with grime.
Sara and Tanya had been talking animatedly a moment before; now they watched him without moving. He picked at a scab on his chin and watched them back, his eyes red and watery from lack of sleep or drinking, his mouth moving slightly, the sarcasm in his voice overshadowed on his face by some grim purpose.
Tiny sounds became audible and significant: their immediate neighbours waking up and flushing their toilet, birds in the palm trees outside, the splash of a body diving into the pool. It was usually a serene resort: there was little violence here, little need for protection or fear.
Adam's words circled the room and perched themselves precariously on its silence. Finally Tanya stirred. Her stomach was clenched with tension but she raised her arms above her head and stretched. Then she leaned forward and dug around inside her handbag. Sara watched, eyes large with anxiety.
Tanya's husky voice covered the clicking of the tape-recorder. 'Okay, Sara. Do as Adam says. Finish your story. Oh and before I forget – there's still loads you haven't told me about Mr. Antonio Sinbari.
Although Tanya did not know it, Sinbari's scheduled meeting with the Scottish police was only a few hours away; dawn was already approaching. He had hardly given a thought to this situation in the past few days, so busy had been with other business matters, phones ringing off the hook, faxes the length of boa constrictors trailing across his ante-room; huge sums in cash being transferred in and out of his various accounts and, since his press conference, a constant stream of Indian dignitaries coming to offer their assurances about what he would be allowed to do should he agree to retain his stake in the Randhor-Sinbari chain. Now, without Sadrettin to handle all the unpleasant formalities, he was faced with the annoying possibility that he might have some explaining to do.
Sitting up in bed, he scratched his chin. When Sara and Adam had presented themselves at his door and poured out their story, he had thought only of himself, of how their information could affect his scheme. His capital was still committed to the Konali project; he had not had time to lobby for his site in the mountains or to ensure that a fully equipped team went into the hills. Adam and Sara's recital had given him an idea: if he could delay revelations about Croft's demise from hitting the papers for a few weeks, he could turn the information to his own advantage.
With characteristic guile he had persuaded his young guests that they would be in personal danger if they admitted to recognising the corpse. Having terrified them, he had then promised Adam a month's free stay at his Goa resort in order to lie low after giving their initial statements. When he told Hàrélal that the tourists had left the country, he had never intended to goad the foolish man to anger. Yes, it had been
amusing
at the time to listen to him squirm; but now he needed to pour oil on the waters.
Perhaps he should ring Hàrélal and offer him a deal. Everyone in India could be bought – for the right price. That was what made the country so exciting! Just as he reached towards the phone, it rang.
By the time he replaced the receiver, he had changed his mind. An associate in Baltimore had just assured him of the interest his new Himalayan project was generating amongst in the tourist industry in the States. His mind felt vibrant with excitement at the thought of all the money he was going to make, despite his current financial outlay.
He had paid out literally hundreds of thousands of rupees in bribes in the past two days, smoothing the way for his most ambitious venture yet; more significantly, he had been in touch with Jensen Horst, the famed German architect, retaining him on a tremendous fee. Cameron Croft had suggested initial designs for the Truth Lake complex – but he hadn't lived to see them through. Now Horst would bring them all to fruition. After this project there'd be investors queuing up to put their name at the bottom of cheques made out to the Randhor-Sinbari Corporation. He could not allow anything to come between him and success.
Yet still he had that single niggling doubt: the Deputy Chief of Police, whom he had hooked like a fish, was now tugging on the line and threatening to break the rod.
Hàrélal would have been elated had he known that his name had become a cause for concern to the man he now regarded as a mortal enemy. Instead, however, he was thinking about his daughter. Her aunt had rung to say that she'd cancelled her visit to the palm-shaded bungalow in Goa. So where the hell was she this time? Perhaps she had got wind of the abortion business and taken off again. Ab-or-shun. What an ugly word.
He'd known in his heart that his wife was wrong to have arranged such a thing without telling the girl. For some reason Tanya seemed attached to the thought of this baby even while she admitted to despising its father. Blast and damn. Bloody moody women. Hormonal. All of them. And now he had to start looking for the child all over again just when he was about to get somewhere with what he had come to call the 'Sinbari Corruption Case': he had a crucial meeting scheduled for the morrow, with the Scottish police and members of the British Consulate in Delhi.
On his lap, as he sat up in bed, he had two flawless pieces of evidence: a fax from a woman inspector in Goa briefly relaying the fact that Sara McMeckan had made a
new
statement identifying the body she'd stumbled on in the hills; and Kailash Karmel's interim report, which had been miraculously delivered to him that afternoon.
He had studied it with growing excitement, his will to fight returning with each word. The fact that Croft had been expressly sent into the mountains to draw up designs for the Randhor-Sinbari Corporation was not in itself a crime; but withholding evidence from the police was. If he could prove that Sinbari had lied to him about his connection to the body in the hills … if he could prove that he had been protecting himself or someone else … then there would be a case to answer.
And Kailash Karmel might just have provided him with the evidence he needed!
Kailash was truly his best detective. He had confirmed the connection between Sinbari and Croft as well as that between the tourists and the corpse. The British would be delighted to tie up their missing person investigation so satisfactorily, even if it hurt them to admit that one of their own was dead. Anything was better than uncertainty, wasn't it? He recollected his joy when he’d found his daughter, and his pain too. Maybe before Kailash returned he would find out how and why the Croft boy died, allowing him to trump Sinbari once and for all. That was the thing about Kailash, he mused. He was intelligent but also dependable – sharp as a needle. Straight as a razor blade. Quite unlike his own fiery daughter.
Hàrélal felt drowsy. He rubbed his eyes. He saw a vision of Tanya, a restless teenager sitting on their garden swing, kicking dirt around with her toes as she moved; and then of Karmel, formal and attentive, facing her with an oddly blank expression on his face. There was something about the way Karmel looked – that studied nonchalance, as if breathing deeply hurt too much . . ..
Then suddenly it came to him.
That would be the answer to all their problems. If only he could get them both back to Delhi immediately. And then it wouldn't matter about the baby. And his reputation would be salvaged. And he would have the son he'd always desired! Truly the Gods had sent him a perfect solution.
'Wife!
Wife!
Get your guru on the phone now!'
His bellowing at that hour was so loud and extraordinary that Mrs Hàrélal came off the toilet with a shrill scream and, for the first time in thirty years, faced her husband without an inkling of what was going through his mind.
When she heard his plan, she shuddered:
fathers and daughters
, she thought.
They would be the death of her
.
*
Thahéra faced the old man.
'How was your trip, father? Did you get your work done? I hear the case was a difficult one: those two brothers were never going to give up their claim to that land.' She tried to keep her voice calm.
This plan had to work. It had to.
Her children were gone, safely huddled together at their aunt's she guessed. She had no idea where her husband's oldest boy was and she didn't much care, just as long as he was nowhere in the vicinity.
The cabin seemed to have taken on a dreamlike stillness. The smoky halo around her father's face was not an illusion; it was as real as the puffy, wrinkled skin, the malevolent yellow eyes, the reddish pinpricks of beard.
When he spoke, his voice cracked with fury, 'Did you think I wouldn't find out, snake?'
'Find out? Father? What do you mean?' She was slow, determined to drag out the minutes. Time was her friend, she hoped.
'About your fancy new lover, you dirty whore.'
'Do you mean the soil collector from Delhi, father? You must mean him. I have told him to stay in your barn, you know. I thought it was best. He is paying us too – good money. What a nice man, he is. What …a …man!' She licked her lips and stared into his eyes. Willing herself to look mischievous, raunchy, alluring. Willing herself not to show any fear.
His adam’s apple spasmed; he let out a roar and lunged for her.
'You're dirty! Whore! Just like your mother.'
Thahéra dodged out of the way, wiping his spicy saliva from her cheek. But the cabin seemed to contract around them, drawing all its energy towards the pair of human beings in its centre. It had witnessed just such a scene a dozen times or more and knew what was coming. Glass lamps shivered and hissed on their shelves. The milk pail trembled as the man took a lurching step towards his daughter. He was panting, salivating.
All the way from Dahu he had come, taunted by tales of his younger daughter's shameless trysts with a city man.
Last time he had had to find out for himself what the foreigner was doing with his girls – too much was at stake for others in the village; so he had bided his time, collecting evidence, knowing that one way or the other he would have his revenge. This time people couldn't wait to enlighten him about Thahéra's activities; ignorant as they were of the foreigner's fate, they probably thought him harmless now, a bull without horns. How they loved to see a strong man brought low, these despicable women! So they told him – she'd been wandering with the stranger during the daylight hours; she was using the family hut to shelter her lover; her sister's boys were seen walking with the city-dweller on several occasions. And here she was, plying him with food and trying to make conversation.
Conversation!
As if men's business were any of her concern! When she couldn't even keep her skirt on! Now he was going to teach her a lesson.
'Treacherous . . . just like your mother!'
Thahéra kept her eyes on his. Her voice was calm and amused, unwavering. 'Just like my father too!
Go on
, say it! But you don't know, do you? You haven't found him yet, have you? You stupid, useless old man.'
He had her in a corner now: she had backed into it, step by step. In a trice his hand became a fist and smashed into her cheek, splitting the soft flesh atop the bone, rocking her head sideways with a sickening snap; she crumpled to her knees and then to the floor, her hand clamping the flapping skin, the ooze of blood. His kicks to her shoulders and abdomen barely registered, so languid did she feel. The ones to her face set her teeth grating against each other in a bizarre parody of conversation. She stayed prone, good cheek pressed to the chill mud, laughter boiling in her throat, imagining that she could hear her father's grunts of effort become the eerie gurgles of a tortured bull.
Despite the approaching monsoon, this was a busy season for Goa's Randhor-Sinbari, located as it was in the environs of an early sixteenth century fort and incorporating features of that fort into its grounds and more expensive suites. Around the resort, visitors were calling goodbye to staff as their taxis left for the airport twenty miles away, new guests were being shown to their rooms, a buffet breakfast of local delicacies was being served. But in one room, the atmosphere of tension and misery blotted out all extraneous sounds.
Adam had slumped down by the door and was staring around him in moody perplexity, although there was an alertness about his thin frame that suggested he might move swiftly if he chose.
'So, you both met and then you decided to go to Saahitaal to visit your friend Cameron? Is that right?' Tanya was asking questions. Sara was answering, but reluctantly, seeming fearful of the reaction her responses might provoke.
'I was scheduled to visit him, yes. I don't know why Adam chose to accompany me … well,' hesitantly, 'he didn't exactly say. He just decided to turn back with me. So we climbed up together. It made me very uncomfortable, but then when we found the body . . .Cam's body… I was glad to have him by my side. I wouldn't have known what to do, otherwise.'
'You're a medical student, Sara, right? A junior doctor now. Are you telling me you'd have been unable to cope with a body on your own?'
'No, I'm saying …' she sobbed, 'that if you found your fiancé facedown in the mud with no scalp left and bones sticking through his fingers in a strange country where you had no friends and couldn't speak the language, you'd have panicked too.' Tanya winced.
'
Fiancé
?' Both women looked at Adam. He was kneeling now and his gaze swung fiercely around the room. '
Whose
fiancé? I mean. What is this shite? What's going on?' His fists were balled and he was trembling. 'Who is this woman, Sara? Who's she and why's she here and what the fuck're you telling her all this for?'
'Shh. I'm not here to hurt either of you.' Tanya spoke before Sara could. 'I've come to try and help, nothing more.' She paused, caught and held Adam's stare. 'Are you saying that you didn't know that your friends were engaged to be married?'
'Which friends?'
'Sara and Cameron.'
'Utter bollocks!' He looked scornful but there was a grim fury in his eyes that seemed to build with each passing second.
'
Oh Adam
, are you saying that Cameron didn't tell you?' Sara blinked rapidly as she spoke. Her voice managed to sound incredulous and pitying at the same time.
'
Me?
Why'd he tell
me
a thing like that? He and
I
were going to … he told me we'd be … oh forget it.' He stopped. His voice dropped to a whisper. 'For all I know, Sara, you could be lying again. Just like you lied to the police. And I'm going to stop whatever little game you two are playing!' He swung himself up from the floor in a single sinuous movement. Tanya immediately crossed her arms over her belly. If there was going to be violence, then she wanted to protect her baby. She stared at Adam, and held his gaze as he came towards them, thinking
what would Kailash do in this situation? How would he talk to someone he suspected of murder?
In an identical state of dread, Karmel could hear the sound of laboured breathing and the splashing of wet feet above the clatter of the rain. Under his own feet he could feel bits of shattered glass and mud and water mingling with the oil from his extinguished lamp.
His mind was calm though, and flicked through the options: to run and escape from whoever had entered his cabin; or to find out
who
they were by somehow getting to his flashlight. Curiosity won out over caution and he lunged for his rucksack, inexplicably managing to grasp the flashlight in his first attempt. There was a shuffling behind him; he turned, heart pounding, and switched on the rigid yellow beam. The face squinting back at him from behind a pair of slim hands took him completely by surprise.
'
You!
' He gasped. 'But I don't even know your name!'
They faced each other across the wet room. Karmel had been the first to speak but now he was quiet, waiting for a response. Rain battered against the roof like a badly co-ordinated group of drummers. The flashlight lit the cabin eerily, casting shadows that were threatening just like the darkness.
'Stranger, you don't know me and I don't know you. Do you really
know
any of us? All I know is that you came here and my sister went crazy. You came here and my son became ill. You came here and opened up our wounds.' Thahéra's sister held up a hand as Karmel tried to speak. 'You don't see it like this, of course. You think we are all guilty of some monstrous crime. Why, so many women living alone must be half mad, otherwise how could they accept it?' Her voice was fierce. She wiped her face and the scarf fell away, revealing for the first time her greying hair, her haggard eyes, so unlike Thahéra's. She lowered her hand. 'I can see you don't trust me. You don't trust any of us. My son told me what you are here for.'
'Your son?
Sonu
, who has visions?' He was stunned. The boy was really gifted if he could read Karmel's intention so easily.
'No. My
other
son. The one whose services you tried to buy!' Her eyes flashed and, recollecting Chand's tearful face, Karmel felt guilty. He had intended to honour his promise to Chand whether or not the boy aided him; but, looked at from the point of view of this mother, he'd obviously involved the boy in danger and done so in a manipulative manner with no real intention of assisting her other son. She waited for him to defend himself. Karmel was exasperated by her assumption of his duplicity. Women usually liked and trusted him.
'Listen, sister, I don't want your reassurances. Someone – possibly your own sister – tried to kill me. Now if you think I'll trust you after that then go ahead, tell your tale. But I don't lie and I surely intended to help your boy. If you think I did wrong then forgive me. But what I did is nothing compared to what's going on in your village … in your
family
!' He sank down onto his bed, one knee under him, the flashlight held loosely in his grasp.
'My
family.
’ She invested that single word with such loathing that he thought she would spit. ‘That's what I've come to talk about. But you can choose. Help me
now
, before the story, and you may save a life.' Thunder crashed over her last words and the whole cabin seemed to pulsate. Bits of saturated paper drifted off the walls and floated, forlorn, to the muddy soup on the floor. Karmel noticed that one of his feet was bleeding. Then Thahéra's sister hissed, 'You fool! Wait to trust me later and you will be as guilty of murder as the one you suspect!'