Chain of Custody Read online

  ‘Meet this girl, sir. My friend who sets up these things says she is young and pretty. She will make your evening fun. It will cost you just about what you pay for a massage at a good spa. Think of this as massage for the mind.’

  On a whim, he had agreed. Besides, he didn’t want to antagonize Pujary. The man had access to the hundred acres his clients were panting for. If it went through, it would be a two-hundred-crore deal. And you didn’t sniff at money like that.

  He had come home to find a tall, thin young man with two boys waiting on the steps of his villa. The young man had jumped to his feet. ‘The thekedar sent me here,’ he said in Hindi.

  Rathore had nodded. He glanced at the boys. ‘Are they trustworthy?’

  ‘Yes, sir … these two boys will do everything around the house for you.’

  He looked at the two boys. ‘They look very young,’ he said, wondering if they were underage.

  ‘They are fifteen, sir. But their poor diet and living conditions have turned them into runts. The truth is that they need your help more than you need them,’ the young man said.

  He did have a point, Rathore had conceded. It was illegal to employ minors but these were not children. And with him, they stood a better chance of a decent livelihood.

  ‘What are your names?’ he asked the boys.

  ‘They don’t speak Hindi. Only Odiya.’

  Rathore smiled and spoke to them in Odiya, ‘What are your names?’

  The boys’ eyes widened. Then, they fell at his feet and said, ‘We are Jogan and Barun and we promise to do everything you say.’

  Rathore smiled in memory of the expression he had seen on the boys’ faces. Utter disbelief. None of them had expected that he spoke Odiya but he had spent eight years of his life in Bhubaneshwar where his father was once posted.

  He glanced at his watch. It was almost nine. ‘What about dinner?’ he asked.

  He made a wager with himself on what she would ask for. If he won, he would see her again, he told himself.

  She leaned forward to look at the menu the steward had left on the table. He noticed how she nibbled on her lower lip as she turned the pages. Beneath the perfume she wore, he smelled a hint of sweat. He saw the top of her breasts as she bent over the menu. Somewhere within him he felt a faint stirring. It was ages since he’d had the inclination to be with a woman. A slight hoarseness entered his voice as he asked, ‘So have you decided?’

  She looked up and said, ‘Pizza. But will you share it with me?’

  He smiled. He had won the wager. ‘Only if you agree to split a salad with me.’

  She grinned. ‘I will.’

  He noticed that she had a mole on her chin. And he thought how much he would like to lick it.

  7 MARCH, SATURDAY

  Gowda woke up in a sweat. He sat up abruptly, feeling his heart thud in his chest. The power was off and the UPS battery had drained out. He picked up his watch from the bedside table. 3.18 a.m.

  He had thought he would fall asleep instantly once his head hit the pillow. And he had. But he kept waking up. The day had been rife with too many emotional eggshells. I am too old for all this, he told himself. At this age I should be checking on the health of my investments, totting up my pension and drinking my Horlicks. Instead of which …

  ‘Borei, what are you mumbling?’ Urmila propped herself up on an elbow.

  He blinked, trying to adjust his vision to the darkness that enveloped him. He had forgotten that Urmila had stayed the night.

  He had been surprised to find her waiting for him when he returned home.

  ‘I thought you would have left,’ he said when she opened the door. It had been latched from the inside.

  For an instant, Gowda felt strangely discomfited. Had David seen her? Then he quashed the thought. Even if he had, he knew he had the unswerving loyalty of his men. The handful of them who formed part of his crime team. He smiled as he saw PC David reverse the Bolero, pretending not to see Urmila standing across Gowda’s threshold.

  ‘I was planning to, but it’s been a while since we had some time together and who knows what you will get busy with tomorrow,’ she said quietly.

  Gowda sighed and sank into a chair. Urmila had been busy. She had dusted and cleaned the house and cooked dinner. In her own home, he knew she didn’t lift a finger except to ring the buzzer that would fetch her minions. Sometimes he thought he was part of a little girl’s fantasy of playing house. A middle-aged, sagging-at-the-middle, blurred-at-the-edges Ken to her still sprightly Barbie.

  He knew something was troubling her, when she seemed to show no sign of leaving at about ten as she usually did. ‘Would you like to spend the night here?’ he had asked.

  She had nodded. ‘I would like that very much.’

  And just like that, it had happened. Another rung climbed in their relationship – the first time in nine months they had spent a whole night together. Usually, Urmila would stay on late into the night or come over early, even before sunrise. Neither Gowda nor Urmila had spoken about it but by silent tacit compliance they knew it would be taking a chance. And that this beautiful whatever-it-was between them would fall apart like a house of cards if it was discovered. Right now, Urmila was Gowda’s college friend; a social activist who as part of her activism was calling on her good friend’s offices; all of that was seen as aboveboard. And if Urmila alone seemed to ease the habitual frown that Gowda wore on his forehead, or if she seemed to enjoy certain liberties with his time or space, no one made too much of it. She was a good-looking woman, well-connected and charming. What man could be impervious to that?

  A whole night together in his home. What had he been thinking? But he had needed her to be with him. And it seemed she too had been stricken by that same malaise – a combination of dejection, helplessness, a sense of futility, an abject loneliness. Their lovemaking that night had all the desperation of two survivors on the open seas clutching at each other. A whole night together, spooning each other. A night fraught with strange nameless uncertainties. The only consolation came from knowing ‘I at least have this’.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Urmila whispered.

  ‘Nothing,’ Gowda said. He lay back and turned towards her, draping his arm around her waist. The whites of their eyes glowed in the faint light from the moon, visible through the window.

  ‘Can’t you sleep either, Urmila?’ he asked gently.

  ‘Yesterday afternoon, two boys I was taking to the shelter vehicle ran away,’ Urmila said softly.

  ‘Were you at the rescue unit?’ Gowda asked. ‘I walked past it. In fact, I stopped by the door … But I didn’t see you …’

  ‘I must have been on one of the other platforms. The staff brought in a young man with three boys. And two of them escaped. I worry about what will happen to those children now. Jogan and Barun. Those were their names.’

  ‘Don’t beat yourself up over it,’ Gowda said, drawing her to him. ‘They would have been told by the trafficker what to do. And even if it was someone else in charge, the boys would have done the same thing.’

  ‘I know. That’s what they told me, but I still feel I failed the boys in some way. What about you, Borei? What’s troubling you?’ she said, cupping his face in her palms.

  He closed his eyes as her thumbs stroked his cheeks with a gentle pressure. ‘Too many things. The absconding Chikka. Santosh. And now Shanthi’s missing daughter. She is just twelve years old. You know, don’t you, that from being a transit point, Bangalore is now a trafficking hub?’

  ‘You are fond of that child, aren’t you?’

  Gowda nodded. Nandita had often accompanied her mother to Gowda’s house. Shanthi would set her little chores to do as she finished hers. ‘Don’t put her to work,’ Gowda had told Shanthi once.

  ‘When did peeling garlic become a job, sir?’ Shanthi had frowned. But Gowda had seen that she was secretly pleased.

  Just before he left the station, they had printed the missing posters to send to all the stations and up
loaded it online. Gajendra had called the CWC home for girls during the day, just in case someone had taken her there, and the Bosco rescue units at the station and bus stands. But they had drawn a blank everywhere.

  The fan began turning. The power was back.

  ‘We might as well get up,’ Urmila said, clambering over him.

  He pulled her down on to him. ‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘Don’t go yet.’

  She lay on him, her face resting on the curve of his neck. He wrapped his arms around her and pressed her into him. ‘Nice,’ he said, finding something akin to solace in that embrace. ‘This feels so nice.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’ She nuzzled into the side of his neck. ‘When I think of all the time wasted …’ she began and stopped. Borei Gowda, she knew, didn’t like dredging up the past. Almost on cue, his hold around her loosened. He slapped her butt lightly and growled, ‘Go make me coffee, woman!’

  She nipped at the skin of his neck.

  ‘Ouch! What the hell?’ he said as she leapt off him and padded to the bathroom. They were using the guest bedroom – again, a tacit unspoken agreement that his marital bed was out of bounds.

  He lay with his arms cradling his head, watching her as she dressed. ‘Get up,’ she said.

  Gowda walked into the bathroom and looked at his bleary-eyed reflection in the mirror. The shadow of a stubble speckled his jaw. He ran the back of his hand over it thoughtfully and sniffed at his armpits. He would shave and bathe later. For now Urmila would have to endure his unshaven chin and the odour of sleep. At least he hadn’t had too much to drink last night, he grinned. He splashed water on his face and brushed his teeth vigorously.

  ‘They’re only teeth, Borei, and not some criminal for you to treat them with such violence,’ Urmila quipped to his reflection.

  He flicked drops of water on her face. She fled.

  He put up the toilet lid and peed into the bowl. He stared at the stream of urine as it tinkled into the toilet. Good boy, he told his penis. You are a good boy to do my bidding even if you have a mind of your own.

  ‘Who were you talking to?’ Urmila asked as he walked to the living room where she sat curled on a chair. Two mugs of instant coffee sat steaming on the table. She had placed a plate of Marie biscuits beside them.

  ‘No one,’ he said, reaching for a biscuit to dunk in his coffee.

  He went to sit by her and they sat there gazing at the skies through the open window.

  From within the house a clock chimed the half hour past four. Urmila sighed. ‘I have to go.’

  Gowda nodded. It was best she left before the tenants upstairs woke up. At least she had come in her Scorpio, which wasn’t as conspicuous as the Audi would have been.

  Gowda opened the gates as quietly as possible and watched the gleam of her tail lights till the car turned the corner. Then he went back and got into bed again. A wave of longing coursed through him as he smelled her fragrance on the pillow. He closed his eyes and tried to go back to sleep.

  He had a seminar to attend. And a missing girl to find.

  Nandita shivered. She had woken of her own accord. This was the time her mother woke her up at home.

  Her mother would have started the fire and put the cauldron of water on it to heat for Nandita to bathe. Her mother would never let her bathe in cold water, even on the hottest day in summer.

  ‘Do you want to catch a cold?’ she would admonish, thrusting a handful of twigs into the mouth of the stove. Nandita detested the smell of the smoky water. No matter how hard she soaped herself, the smell of smoke would cling to her skin. It didn’t matter how smoky the water was, she wished now that she could bathe again in the bathroom in her home.

  The previous afternoon, Moina had taken her to the bathroom. She had flung a mug of cold water on her. Nandita thought of how Amma washed Gowda sir’s car. She would fling water on the car with the same casual violence. ‘It will help move the bird shit,’ she would tell Gowda when he protested.

  Moina had handed her a sliver of soap. Wash yourself, she had mimed. Nandita’s hand shook as she ran the soap on herself. It was the first bath she had been allowed after the day she was brought to this place.

  The blisters on her legs had burned on contact with the soap. Her legs had trembled. The filthy hole they called a bathroom had smelled of stale urine. The walls were grey and damp. She had thought she would throw up as the water caused the stink from the floor to rise. A dry retching sound had escaped the throat.

  ‘Ssh …’ Moina had held a finger to her lips. ‘Jaldi,’ she had murmured. ‘Hurry up.’

  Nandita had been given a rag to dry herself with. Moina had handed her some clothes. A skirt that reached her knees and a frilly top. There were no underclothes. Not even a slip, she had realized. Nandita had blanched in horror. ‘What’s this?’ she had protested, peering at the older girl through the sheer fabric.

  Moina hadn’t replied. Nandita had wondered who she was. Moina, it seemed, was her only ally …

  Nandita had pulled the top on and the skirt. She didn’t feel safe without her school uniform. She had tugged at the top so it went over the skirt, offering some modicum of cover. She crossed her arms over her chest to hide her breasts and hunched her shoulders as she walked back with Moina to the cubicle that she had been allotted.

  Nandita stood up and peered outside the cubicle. She didn’t know what to expect. She knew, though, that she was in a bad place. And that the beatings, the starvation, the strange clothes, the isolation were only a preparation for what would come next. She trembled again. It was as if she couldn’t stop trembling. She knew that she had no one to blame but herself. She had been worried about the exams. There was a lot riding on how well she did. A scholarship had been announced and her mother had decided that she had to win it. Nandita didn’t think she could. One of the girls at school said she should go to the Infant Jesus church at Vivek Nagar. ‘If you go every Thursday for six weeks and light a candle there, your wish will be granted. I swear by it,’ Selvi had said. But Nandita didn’t think that her mother would allow it.

  ‘Jesus will not write the scholarship exam. You have to do it, and for that you need to study. Not moon around in front of the mirror or watch TV all the time,’ Shanthi would have snapped. Her mother seemed to snap and snarl all the time.

  Selvi had suggested the Basilica then. ‘Well, what about the St Mary’s Basilica at Shivaji Nagar? She is the mother of Jesus and will do for one candle what Baby Jesus needs six candles for.’

  Nandita had thought that was doable. It had seemed very simple when she thought it through. Sneak out early from the exam hall. Catch a bus to Hennur depot. And a bus from there to Shivaji Nagar. The bus stand was by the Basilica. She would light a candle to Mother Mary, offer her prayers, make a vow of some sort, and catch a bus back to the depot. It would take her less than two hours and she would be home at the usual time. A few extra minutes wouldn’t perturb her mother. Nandita had never given her mother any cause for worry until now.

  It had all gone according to plan until she had reached the Basilica. She had stood helplessly at the doorway of the church, not knowing what to do.

  ‘Are you alone here, baby?’ a voice had asked in Kannada.

  She had turned to see a middle-aged woman in a white sari with small blue flowers, the pallu pulled over her hair, standing a few feet behind her. She looked tired, her face etched with lines, her mouth drooping at the corners, her eyes dull. She could have been her mother, right down to the side parting.

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘And you want to make a special prayer to our Mother?’ the woman asked.

  Nandita nodded.

  ‘Mother Mary isn’t inside the church. We need to go to the shrine outside. Come with me,’ the woman said.

  ‘What’s your name, Aunty?’ Nandita asked.

  ‘Mary,’ the woman said.

  Nandita felt her heart thud. Mother Mary was said to appear to those who sought her with ardent prayer. Was this woman Our Lad
y in disguise?

  The woman helped her light the candle she had brought with her. She knelt with Nandita and they prayed together.

  ‘You are too young to be out on your own,’ the woman said when Nandita thanked her.

  ‘I should go now,’ Nandita said reluctantly.

  ‘Where is your home?’ the woman asked.

  ‘Kothanur area.’

  ‘Where is that?’ The woman laughed. ‘Never heard of the place!’

  ‘Beyond Hennur, Aunty,’ Nandita said, flushing. Her father shouted at her mother every second day for having dragged him to a village for a piece of asbestos over their heads. She looked at the crowded street outside the Basilica, fearful someone her parents knew would choose to pass that way.

  ‘Hmm …’ the lady said. ‘I need to go as far as Tannery Road. And I am taking an auto. Why don’t you come with me? I’ll put you on a bus to Hennur and you can continue to Kothanur from there.’ She waved at an autorickshaw.

  Nandita clambered in quickly. Now that she had made her petition to Mother Mary, she wanted to go home to her mother.

  But she hadn’t. She didn’t remember much after Aunty had offered her a juice from a bag. She had felt unable to talk or resist and had watched in a sort of stupefied horror as she was taken through roads and alleys she didn’t recognize.

  The auto had stopped outside an unplastered building. On the ground level were two shops. One had a couple of stacks of tyres and a boy stood beside them. The other had paint tins and cement sacks spilling out of the entrance. Two other shops had their shutters drawn.

  She had felt her legs grow heavy and her eyes droop even as the woman dragged her out.

  She had felt herself being pushed up a flight of stairs and then they were in a room and she had thought all she wanted to do was lie down. She had tried to curl her tongue around the word ‘Aunty’ but it had refused to move. She had felt herself slipping away into a grey space where everything turned into shadows.