Chain of Custody Page 10

  ‘A myth?’ Gowda enunciated carefully.

  Syed felt a tiny chill run down his spine. With Gowda, one never knew what came next. He was quite capable of organizing a lightning raid or just slamming Syed’s face down on the glass top of his table with one swift move.

  ‘It’s not really a brothel, sir,’ Syed said, trying to wriggle out of the corner.

  ‘Not really a brothel? So what do the girls do there? Play hopscotch?’ Gowda’s mouth was harder than the granite block that Syed rested his feet on under the table.

  ‘Well, sir, a brothel would mean a place that houses many girls for customers to visit. And …’

  ‘So you are stating that there are no girls and that no men come to them for sex?’ Gowda interrupted abruptly.

  ‘No, I didn’t say that,’ Syed blurted out, wondering whose face he had seen first thing in the morning. The day didn’t seem to be going well at all.

  ‘Syed, cut the crap,’ Gowda said quietly. ‘Right now I am not here to check on the brothel. What I want to know is if a new girl has been brought in. A young girl …’

  ‘Sir, many young girls are brought into the profession every day,’ Syed began but something about Gowda’s face stilled his words. He looked away and then turned his face towards the policeman.

  Syed held Gowda’s gaze. ‘How young?’

  ‘Twelve,’ Gowda said.

  Syed shook his head. ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘And you would know if such a child had been brought in?’ Gowda asked.

  Syed took a deep breath. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I don’t like it any more than you do. But a twelve-year-old is not an everyday occurrence. A feast for the vultures. Old, pot-bellied balding vultures who like young morsels. I would have heard.’

  Gowda rubbed his temple thoughtfully. ‘We traced her up to the Shivaji Nagar bus terminus.’

  ‘Is she a Christian girl?’ Syed asked.

  ‘Yes. Why?’ Gowda frowned.

  ‘Sir, it’s exam time. That’s when every student becomes extra religious and if she is Christian, she may have come to the Basilica. It’s only a ten-minute walk from the bus stand.’

  Gowda looked at Syed thoughtfully. He did have a point. Nandita wore a little silver crucifix and Shanthi said the girl liked going to church.

  Recruiters came in all shapes and sizes. She didn’t always have to be the painted-up version of the madam from the movies. She could be your mother’s best friend, a random stranger at a wedding, or the woman who knelt next to you as you prayed.

  ‘There’s a watchman there. It’s not an official post, you understand, but he helps people park their vehicles if the parking lot is full, and so on. Robert – that’s his name. Why don’t you ask him, sir? He may have seen the girl.’

  ‘Why would he remember?’ Gowda asked curiously.

  ‘He does. He has a prodigious memory. And he is a bloody lech! He will look at anything that has a cloth wound around its legs. And trust me, he will remember.’

  Gowda nodded and rose. ‘Thanks,’ he said softly.

  Syed raised his palm and placed it on his chest. In the scorecard of favours, Gowda owed him one.

  As a further half-favour, he sent his boy with Gowda. ‘Robert knows Imran is with me,’ Syed said. ‘He is an incorrigible old man and has no family of his own. I slip him a fifty every now and then. What can I say? He is useful …’ Syed added, seeing Gowda’s questioning look. ‘And that will open Robert’s mouth.’

  Robert’s mouth, Gowda thought, seemed to be stuck around a wad of tobacco. He took in the bald old man in a faded blue shirt, grey trousers and battered plastic slippers.

  ‘Uncle,’ Imran called out.

  How old was the boy, Gowda wondered. He knew what Syed’s answer would be if he queried. ‘But, sir, he’s my nephew. Can’t a nephew assist his uncle in his shop?’

  ‘Uncle,’ Imran said, touching the old man’s elbow. ‘Mamu sent him to you!’

  Robert peered at Gowda. ‘You are a policeman,’ he said softly. Gowda nodded. ‘I can tell,’ the old man said. ‘I can tell a policeman anywhere.’

  Gowda leaned forward. ‘Where were you in service? You are not from here …’

  Robert allowed Gowda a half-smile. ‘Tamil Nadu police. Head Constable Robert Rajasekharan.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And nothing. Now I am Robert. Worker of the Mother and the church,’ Robert said firmly.

  What had the old man done, Gowda wondered. Had he been hounded out of town or had he chosen to exile himself?

  ‘Don’t bother speculating about me, Inspector. My presence here is irrelevant. But you need something from me. That’s why you are here,’ Robert said slowly, leaning against a pillar.

  ‘A young girl has been missing since last week. We traced her up to Shivaji Nagar. The bus conductor said she got off here,’ Gowda said. Then he added, ‘She is a Christian girl. A Catholic. So it’s quite possible that she came here.’

  ‘Lots of young girls come here.’

  ‘Yes, I know. But this girl was in a school uniform. A blue kameez and a white salwar. Her hair was in two braids with blue ribbons.’ Gowda opened his phone and scrolled the gallery section. Nandita’s picture from the FIR was saved in there. He held it towards the old man.

  Robert took the phone in his hands and held it at arm’s length. ‘Hmm … yes … I remember. Not the face, to be honest, but the sight of a girl in a uniform. How old did you say she was?’

  ‘I didn’t. But she is twelve,’ Gowda said, feeling a sudden dislike for the old man.

  ‘Her face is that of a child’s but her body is that of a sixteen-year-old. Plump as a broiler chicken.’ Robert laughed. Imran sniggered.

  Gowda glared at the two of them but bit back his retort. ‘So you did see her here?’ he asked instead. A steady trickle of devotees went in and out of the Basilica. Women and men of all ages, shapes and sizes.

  ‘She must have come here by about noon. At least that was when I saw her. I remember because I had arranged to meet someone at the gate here. I was waiting for him when I saw her go into the church. A girl in a uniform. When she came out, there was a woman with her. A middle-aged woman,’ Robert said thoughtfully.

  Gowda felt his heart sink. It was exactly as he had feared.

  ‘I presumed it was the girl’s mother. And meanwhile my man arrived.’

  ‘Would you remember the woman’s face?’ Gowda asked, quite sure what the answer would be.

  ‘Not really.’ Robert’s face twisted. ‘A nondescript woman. No one would look at her twice. And neither did I.’

  ‘Oh,’ Gowda said, wanting to slam his fist into something in frustration.

  ‘I did see them again, when they were leaving after lighting candles at the chapel. An auto appeared almost on cue. They got into it and left,’ Robert said.

  ‘Do you remember anything about the auto?’ Gowda asked.

  Robert shook his head and suddenly stopped. ‘It was a private autorickshaw and the body was painted a dark blue. It had the picture of a sunset on the back … that’s about it!’

  ‘Teja bhai has an auto like that.’ Imran, who had been listening in, piped up eagerly, his voice shrill with excitement. And then he stopped. Syed Mamu would strangle him for this, he realized. ‘Keep that mouth shut and ears open,’ he told Imran five times a day. ‘Or you will get yourself and all of us in trouble.’

  ‘Er … no … I got that wrong,’ Imran said quickly, trying to correct his slip. ‘Teja bhai has a green auto and the photo on the back is of the Taj Mahal.’

  Gowda smiled. ‘Oh, that’s a pity. For a moment I thought you had solved the case.’

  Imran’s eyes darted this way and that. ‘I have to go.’

  ‘Who’s Teja bhai?’ Gowda asked, popping a note into the boy’s pocket.

  ‘Syed Mamu’s cousin,’ the boy said as he fled.

  Robert wondered if he should tell Syed what had happened. Then he shrugged and walked away. None of his buisness.

&
nbsp; I went to the godown in the evening. It was in Sampigehalli. I was yet to see a single champak tree, let alone smell its heavy fragrance. In fact, there were few trees here. Just narrow alleys of dirty tenements a little further from Thanisandra. The godown was a perfect cover. All day, workers stepped in and out. No one was going to notice the difference between a worker and a client climbing the stairs. We called it the godown so that we didn’t give ourselves away. I had money in my pocket and it had been some days since I had a woman.

  Daulat Ali whickered like a horse when he saw me. ‘Look who is here! The chhote nawab himself!’

  That was his name for me. The little prince. The thekedar was the boss. And everywhere the thekedar went, I went too. I was the thekedar’s eyes and ears; sometimes his arms and weapon of destruction. The thekedar said that to me. ‘You are like my discus, Krishna. You are what I send out when I need my path cleared.’

  I liked that image of myself. A CD-like discus flying through the air, slicing everything and everyone in its path to reach its destination. I liked to think I was both focused and ruthless. Like the thekedar.

  They knew I had the run of the godown. Any girl I chose was mine to have. I grinned and slapped Daulat Ali on his beefy arms. The man was built like a hippo but his size was misleading. He was strong and light on his feet. Apparently, he used to be a wrestler and had trained at the Kale Pehalwan Ki Gardi in Shivaji Nagar.

  ‘So what do you have for me? A nice plump shami kebab?’ I joked.

  He dropped his voice. ‘There is a girl. A little houri yet to be broken. But the thekedar has said that she is to be put into the trade only when he says so.’

  I shrugged. That was the usual practice. And I didn’t particularly care to bed an inexperienced girl. There were men who got their kicks from women screaming and protesting. Not me. I liked them pliant and willing.

  ‘Is Moina free?’ I asked. Daulat Ali nodded. ‘Tell her to bathe first,’ I said. There were men who didn’t care about all that. A woman was just a hole for them to stick their cocks into. They didn’t care who she had fucked before and who she would fuck after. Neither did I. But I didn’t like smelling another man on the woman I was fucking. ‘And ask her to wash her hair and behind her neck; and to shave her armpits,’ I added.

  Daulat Ali stared at me. ‘Do you want me to scrub her back and paint her nails too?’ he asked, making a face.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind.’ I grinned.

  ‘Fuck off,’ he said, cheerily walking towards the cubicle.

  It took Moina some time to be ready for me. But I didn’t mind the wait. I put my feet up on a chair and flicked open and shut my lighter a few times. I wondered how the two boys Jogan and Barun were doing. It was still too early to tell. At this point, both the lawyer and the boys would be tiptoeing around each other like they were stepping on eggshells. I would know when that call came. And it would in a day or two. I closed my eyes.

  Moina sat with her head bent demurely as I entered the cubicle. She had even lit two sticks of incense, which swamped the odour of sweat, grime and sex.

  ‘Do you have a dupatta?’ I asked.

  She looked up then. I saw the fear in her eyes. I could see she was wondering what I needed it for. She nodded slowly.

  ‘Spread it on the bed.’

  She stood up and rummaged in a carton under the bed. She had a yellow and red cotton dupatta. It was narrow and didn’t cover the bed but it was enough. I saw her look at it forlornly.

  ‘I’ll get you another one,’ I said on an impulse. ‘But make sure you use this only when I am here.’

  A small smile lit up her face. ‘So you do know how to smile,’ I said, lying down on the bed. ‘Take your clothes off.’

  That was when I heard the whimpering.

  ‘Who is that?’ I asked.

  ‘A new girl,’ Moina said, pulling her blouse over her head. She was sixteen or so but already her tits were sagging and there was a hardness around her mouth.

  ‘Daulat Ali’s houri.’ I laughed.

  ‘Is that what he said?’ She snorted. ‘She is a child. They brought her here dressed in a school uniform.’

  ‘Ask her to shut up,’ I snapped.

  Moina tugged the curtain aside and went across. A moment later, the whimpering stopped.

  ‘Aren’t you taking your clothes off?’ Moina asked when she came back.

  I crossed my hands behind my head and stared at her. ‘You undress me,’ I said.

  When we were done, I felt a strange sense of dissatisfaction. The whimpering from across the cubicle had resumed.

  I dressed hastily, flung two hundred-rupee notes as a tip for Moina and stepped out. On an impulse, I pulled aside the curtain of the cubicle where the houri child was.

  She sat crouched in a corner with her knees to her chest. There were tear stains on her face and welts on her calves. Moina was right. She was a child. But most of them were children when they came there.

  I didn’t know what it was about the girl, but I wanted to be with her. I knew I would not be able to think of anything but her face now.

  9 MARCH, MONDAY

  Sid stepped out of the ATM. His account balance had been at an all-time low but Rekha’s evening with the lawyer had made him flush for now. He hadn’t told her the exact amount he had been paid. He had kept most of it for himself and would give her some of it to splash around.

  Diagonally opposite the ATM was the college Rekha went to. She had classes till four. She used to like it when he popped in at the canteen and surprised her. But she hadn’t sounded pleased when he said he was waiting for her at the college gates. He didn’t understand what had changed over the weekend. Rekha didn’t message him any more like she used to. He was certain that she was keeping something from him. He glanced at his phone to see if she had messaged.

  From the corner of his eye, he saw the cucumber seller push his cart closer to him. He seemed to have added pineapples in a glass case to his wares. The man took a pineapple and began to cut away the shell. ‘So it worked out all right last time?’ he asked from the corner of his mouth.

  Sid leaned forward on his bike, slouching over the petrol tank. ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘There’s another one coming up,’ the man said, his sharp knife separating the shell from the flesh of the fruit evenly. In about six strokes, the pineapple was shorn of its bristly shell. Sid watched in fascination as the knife sliced through the flesh.

  ‘Are you up to it?’ he asked, not lifting his eyes from the fruit he was cutting into discs.

  ‘Same like last time?’ Sid asked, tempted by the thought of the money.

  ‘No, more,’ the man said, sprinking a few grains of white dust on the pineapple.

  ‘What’s that?’ Sid asked.

  ‘Salt … what did you think? Meow meow?’ The man grinned. ‘Though now that you have put the thought into my head, it may be worth trying … I hear the White Magic is a big hit in Mumbai. Everybody is into it.’

  Sid shuddered. He would think twice about buying fruit from these fellows.

  The man began stacking the pineapple slices into the glass box. ‘The only thing is, these guys speak English which is beyond me. So I’ll give you a number and you could call them …’

  The man pulled his phone out from beneath the plastic sheet on the cart and scrolled through it. He mumbled a number. Sid entered the number in his phone and pressed the call button. There was no harm in making the call, he told himself.

  He looked up then and saw Rekha come through the college gates. A secret smile tugged at the corner of her lips. Sid felt his heart plummet.

  Rekha shook her head. ‘No, I don’t want to,’ she said.

  Sid stared at her, perplexed. ‘Why?’

  ‘I just don’t want to. Sanjay says that I should be careful,’ Rekha said and took a lick of the ice cream cone.

  They were sitting on the steps of Garuda Mall with a double-scoop of ice cream each. She her very berry flavour and he rum ’n’ raisin. It was
one of their favourite things to do. Once in a while they would exchange cones. The thought of tasting each other’s saliva was more pleasurable than the cool sweetness of the ice cream.

  ‘Who is Sanjay?’ Sid asked, feeling a black curl of jealousy twist around his tongue.

  ‘The man I met last Friday. He is a lawyer and really nice. He said it was fortunate that I got him. Not all men are as decent,’ Rekha said, pushing a strand of hair from her face.

  ‘Oh,’ Sid murmured and then, unable to stop himself, he asked, ‘So have you been in touch after that?’

  Rekha shrugged. ‘Couple of times. He checked to see if I got home all right. And then just a hello text.’

  Sid looked away. She was lying. He could sense that. When she went to the loo, he took out her phone from her bag. He knew the password. It was what she called him: SIDDU.

  He opened her message inbox. The lawyer and she had been messaging each other. Since the morning, there had been at least ten messages from him. Tediously typed full texts typical of his age, Sid thought as he read through them. How is my baby girl?/ Don’t miss a class. Get an education first./What are you wearing?/ Take notes. There are no shortcuts!/ Why do you need a boyfriend? He will just make you lose focus!

  The bastard, Sid thought. Motherfucking bastard. Pretending to be avuncular and drawing her to him like a spider spinning a web. He snapped the phone shut and put it back into her bag. And Rekha, how could she? Shit. Fucking shit. Any man, it seemed, could sweet-talk his way into her heart and panties. Bitch!

  ‘What are you growling at?’ Rekha’s voice, her sweet cheating voice, whispered in his ear.

  He turned towards her. You bitch, he thought. If you are so eager to give it around, give some to whoever I ask you to. ‘Do this one more time. It’s a lot more money and I am seriously broke. I need you to do this for me, Rex.’

  He saw the confusion and fear in her eyes. He squeezed her arm. ‘Please,’ he said. ‘I won’t ask again.’

  She nodded. ‘When?’

  ‘I’ll let you know,’ he said.

  He would ask for 25K this time. ‘And she isn’t a call girl,’ he would say firmly. ‘So no touching or feeling. You will need to explain this to your client.’