Chain of Custody Page 9

  She had no idea how long she stayed there. Or if she had woken and slipped back into the space. She had visions of prising the bindi off her forehead and sticking it on the door as she usually did, and of her mother holding a glass of water to her dry lips.

  When she became fully conscious, she stood up on shaking legs and looked for a way out. A tall burly man had slapped her hard, hurling her against a wall. She had been dragged to this cubicle and left here till Moina was sent to her. How had she reached here? She had no recollection at all.

  PC Byrappa reached the Majestic bus stand a little before noon. If Nandita had got off here, one of the Bosco volunteers would have spotted her. They were very vigilant, he knew. Nevertheless, he thought he would check with them.

  The bus stand was not as crowded as it usually was in the morning and evening. Byrappa went to platform 1 where the child assistance centre was located. Ruth Selvi, the Bosco coordinator, looked at him and smiled. ‘What brings you here? Work or travel?’

  ‘I am investigating a missing-girl case,’ he said, dropping into a chair.

  ‘You look tired,’ she said, looking at the police constable who was probably one of the most nondescript men she had ever seen in her life. Average height, average build, average sort of complexion and hair. It probably allowed him to be a good investigator, she thought. He wouldn’t stand out in a crowd or draw attention. He would neither attract nor intimidate.

  ‘We just got back yesterday afternoon from Andhra and this has popped up,’ Byrappa sighed.

  ‘Who is the girl? Some VIP’s daughter?’ Ruth Selvi asked, not bothering to hide her sarcasm.

  ‘If only … this is a housemaid’s daughter … strictly non-creamylayer case.’ Byrappa grinned. That would get her attention, he knew.

  She listened to him and looked at the picture he produced of Nandita and then shook her head. ‘Very few unaccompanied children escape our notice. We have roped in a lot of stakeholders as we call them – vendors, sweepers, auto and taxi drivers – so an unaccompanied child is immediately brought here or someone informs us. But we could ask around once again.’

  Byrappa and Shiju, a volunteer, walked through each of the platforms. The scale of the bus station and the traffic left Byrappa astounded. How would they find anyone here? Accompanied or unaccompanied?

  ‘How many people pass through here?’ Byrappa asked in a faint voice.

  ‘About eight lakhs every day. At least, that’s what Wikipedia says …’ Shiju grinned.

  ‘Oh my god!’ Byrappa gasped.

  ‘Don’t look so worried. We rescued 1663 children from here just last year. And a school girl in uniform in the middle of the day would be noticed and remembered. But are you sure she was wearing a school uniform?’

  Byrappa nodded. That had been one of the first questions Inspector Gowda had asked Shanthi: if any of her everyday clothes were missing. The woman had been certain that all of her daughter’s clothes were at home. ‘I would know, sir. I know exactly what she has, right down to the number of hankies.’

  ‘Are you sure you had the right bus number?’ Shiju asked.

  ‘We had information that she took 292C,’ PC Byrappa said. ‘Perhaps that idiot informant got the letter wrong,’ he said as a bus drew to a halt near them. D could be mistaken for a C from a distance.

  8 MARCH, SUNDAY

  Head Constable Gajendra followed Gowda into his room. ‘Good morning, sir,’ he said, saluting smartly.

  Gowda nodded and waved for him to be seated.

  ‘I didn’t expect you here on a Sunday,’ he said with a slow smile.

  ‘Nor did I expect to see you.’ Gowda smiled back.

  ‘It’s about your maid’s daughter, sir,’ Gajendra began.

  ‘Yes …’ Gowda leaned forward.

  A replacement had been found for Shanthi but that morning she had turned up at his doorstep. ‘My staying away is not going to bring her back. And the other children will starve if I lose my job.’

  He didn’t know what to say. Ranganna must have gone off again on a drinking binge. He did that periodically. There was always a reason. A man had to forget: a slight, a loss at cards, an argument, a death and now a daughter’s disappearance.

  ‘How are you, Shanthi?’ Gowda asked, taking in her swollen eyes and drawn face.

  ‘I haven’t given up hope, sir,’ she said quietly. ‘I believe my daughter will be found.’

  ‘We are doing our best,’ Gowda said. For once no effort was being spared but they hadn’t been able to make much headway. Besides, there had been a neighbourhood issue with the garbage trucks and the crime section had been asked to assist with Law & Order to contain the belligerent villagers. And there was the matter at the monastery.

  ‘I know, sir. I know you will do the best you can. I have a request,’ she said, peering at the dishes Urmila had washed and putting them back in the sink.

  Mamtha did the same, Gowda thought wryly. She examined each dish, plate or glass Shanthi had washed and rinsed them again under the tap before stacking them in the rack.

  ‘I’ll need to pick up my children from school. And I’ll come in a little later than usual because I need to walk them to the school gates myself. I cannot take any more chances, sir.’

  Gowda had handed her the keys silently.

  What would he do if Roshan suddenly went missing? It was all very well to speak words of comfort to parents, filling them with hope that a child would be traced. But the truth was something else. The statistics were grim. Of ten children who went missing in the state every day, two remained untraced. In 2012, 617 girls were reported missing. Three hundred and eighty-nine remained untraced. And who knew how many disappearances had not been reported?

  ‘Any leads?’ Gowda asked, leaning forward

  ‘Not really, sir. But we know what happened …’

  ‘Oh.’ Gowda sank back in his chair.

  ‘PC Byrappa did as you asked him to and went to the Majestic bus stand yesterday. That’s when he realized that we had been given the wrong bus number by that imbecile. It was actually 292D. We managed to track down the conductor of that bus. And we had our first lead, if you can call it that. He remembers Nandita and said she got off at Shivaji Nagar. And she apparently asked when the bus would return,’ Gajendra said.

  ‘So she was planning to come back and hasn’t run away?’ Gowda said slowly.

  ‘Looks like it,’ Gajendra said, the worry showing in his eyes.

  ‘So where do you think she could have gone?’ Gowda moved a paperweight around. Outside his room, the customary noises of the station house rose and fell. The crackling of the wireless. Low murmured conversations. The loud voices of a squabbling group. The Law & Order head constable shouting them down. A Hoysala jeep leaving the station.

  ‘Not gone as much as taken,’ Gajendra sighed.

  Gowda’s fingers paused. The city had changed beyond recognition in more ways than the obvious. The sleepy city of Bangalore he had grown up in had transformed into a vibrant city luring people with its cool weather, green avenues, its affordable real estate, its pubs and bands. But that Bangalore too had been replaced by a hard ruthless urbanity that allowed trees to be felled with the same heartless ease as lives were dispensed with. This was a city where dog ate dog, rat devoured rat, and everyone would get ahead if they dismissed their conscience as a vestigial organ of the psyche. Real estate prices soared and the city grew taller. Towers of Babel were rising everywhere and men came from all parts of the country to build these edifices that paid homage to human greed. They left behind their homes and families to make good in this city that promised them a living. When a man toils hard and has three square meals, he allows himself a respite and seeks to assuage his other needs.

  But this was not Mumbai with its Kamathipura or Kolkata with its Sonagachi or even Pune with its Budhwar Peth or Varanasi with its Shivdaspur. In Bangalore, brothels were everywhere and it wasn’t easy to trace them. They mushroomed and disappeared with equal ease. A whol
e underground city existed parallel to the visible one. A city ruled by pimps, elderly prostitutes and their protectors.

  Once, Bangalore had been a transit point, but now it was the destination. Girls were trafficked from Bangladesh and Bengal; young girls from the poorer districts of the state – Gulbarga and Raichur – were picked up by recruiters. And not all of the recruiters were prostitutes too old to sell themselves. They could be anyone. A woman who sat next to you on a bus or a woman who stood in the line behind you at the temple. It wasn’t anyone you expected; it was everyone you didn’t.

  ‘PC Byrappa is at Shivaji Nagar this morning. I am hoping, sir, that he will be able to get some more information,’ Head Constable Gajendra said, rising to leave.

  Gowda looked at the station diary. He had spent all of the previous day at a seminar on cyber crime that he had been deputed to attend. It was more Santosh’s forte. What the boy didn’t know about the cyber world could be written on the back of a bus ticket. Gowda didn’t think he would ever be able to handle a cyber crime case. It required specialist knowledge and an understanding of the machinations of the cyber world. But he had made some useful contacts over lunch.

  He frowned, looking at the number of complaints. Crime had risen in the city and so had the crime rate in Neelgubbi.

  There was a knock on the door. Gowda raised his head to see Santosh standing at the door. With him was a young woman. They were both in everyday clothes and they looked as though they were familiar with each other. Watching Santosh dart a small smile at the woman, Gowda thought, has he got engaged? Then he remembered. This must be Assistant Child Welfare Officer Ratna.

  The two of them saluted Gowda. They still hadn’t mastered the real-life salute, Gowda thought with a secret grin. There was a language of salutes: the sir-I-am-reporting-for-duty earnest one to the right-I-know-you-are-my-superior-but-it’sonly-a-matter-of-rank cursory one to the I-don’t-give-a-fuck disdainful one. This one smacked of I-am-happy-I-am-hereand-can-you-please-send-me-off-to-do-something?

  Gowda looked at the two of them and thought, when did I get to be like this - an elderly uncle? ‘Congratulations, CWO Santosh,’ he said, smiling, and turned to the young woman. ‘And ACWO Ratna.’

  She blushed. Santosh looked at her with concern. And Gowda almost groaned. The boy was smitten.

  ‘How was the training session?’ he asked, trying to interject a business-like tone to the meeting.

  ‘Very good, sir,’ Santosh said, sitting down.

  Assistant Sub-inspector Ratna hesitated for a moment, then sat herself down gingerly. She looked at Gowda, studying him as surreptitiously as she could. There was quite a bit of talk about him in the ranks, and mostly contradictory. She had heard he was an astute IO. Afraid of no one and nothing.

  Santosh wouldn’t stop talking about him. But there had been others as well. ‘If you want to understand what crime investigation is all about, you need to work with him,’ an admirer had said. ‘I have seen that king-sense at work. Phew! He just looks at what all of us may have dug up and tells us what we missed. And that’s the thing that solves the case,’ another admirer had murmured in a hushed voice.

  ‘If he is so good, why is he still an inspector? He should have been at least an ACP by now,’ the dissenters said. ‘Bloody arrogant bastard,’ someone had murmured. ‘A lazy old drunk,’ someone else said. ‘Clueless fool! Why can’t he look the other way even if he doesn’t want a share of the takings?’ a voice had added.

  So which one of all those descriptions was Borei Gowda, Ratna Patil wondered, taking in the wide, open face and the slight sag in the jawline. He was a big-built man, tall and probably once muscular. But now the edges were blunted and there was a certain weariness in his eyes. And, almost contrarily, there was a saucy dimple on his chin. A hint of insouciance, as though all of him hadn’t settled into middle age yet.

  ‘What about you?’ Gowda’s voice cut into her reverie.

  She looked at him blankly for a moment. Gowda’s eyes narrowed. It was quite possible she had been told a whole lot of rubbish about him and she was trying to separate for herself the truth from slander.

  ‘Yes, sir, it was very informative,’ she said.

  ‘We have a case that I think is going to require the two of you to team up. A twelve-year-old girl, Nandita, has been missing since Wednesday,’ Gowda began.

  ‘Sir, Shanthi’s daughter is still missing?’ Santosh interrupted. Turning to Ratna, he added, ‘Shanthi is sir’s maid. She …’

  Gowda glared at him and Santosh stopped mid-sentence.

  ‘My maid’s daughter, yes, but that’s irrelevant. Byrappa traced her till Shivaji Nagar. Gajendra will brief you on what the investigation has revealed until now.’

  The phone rang. Gowda picked it up. ‘Good morning, sir,’ he said. Santosh watched Gowda’s face settle into one of exasperated amusement as he listened to what was being told to him. ‘Yes, sir. That’s wonderful news indeed. And thank you so much for your consideration. Of course I will tell him.’ Gowda’s eyes met Santosh’s when he put down the phone. He said, ‘That was ACP Vidyaprasad. He wanted me to know that he had you assigned as CWO so that he can ease your transition from hospital bed to uniform.’

  ‘He’s a bloody baboon in uniform. I know you’re the one who organized it, and those are your words. DCP Mirza told me that’s what you said,’ Santosh said, not bothering to hide his outrage.

  Gowda shrugged while Ratna looked on with great interest. She was yet to meet the baboon. She cleared her throat. ‘What about talking to her friends?’ she asked softly.

  ‘We were waiting for you to talk to the children. That’s the first thing you need to do this morning. We need to work in tandem. And Santosh, you will be assistant investigating officer on this case,’ Gowda said, rising.

  They stood up hurriedly.

  ‘Where do you think he is going?’ Ratna asked, watching Gowda walk towards his bike. ‘Some personal work? He is not in uniform.’

  Santosh shook his head. ‘I don’t think so.’ He watched Gowda put on his helmet. I wonder why he didn’t ask me to go along, Santosh thought. Once he would have. Santosh felt a wave of dejection sweep through him as Gowda mounted his monster and rode away. Does he think I am no longer fit to do the job? May be that’s why I’ve been given this sop – child welfare officer. To handle crimes against children and crimes by children. That’s unlikely to get me into any life-and-death situations.

  ‘I don’t know what you are thinking, but your face seems to be going through the entire range of navarasas, one after the other,’ Ratna said with a little laugh.

  Santosh frowned. ‘Are you going to stand here discussing my expressions or are we going to get some work done?’

  Head Constable Gajendra, who was standing in the vicinity, darted a look at him in amusement. The boy seemed to have absorbed Gowda’s brusqueness and made it his own.

  Ratna sniffed and tossed her head. Bewarsi, she thought, choosing a mild term of abuse from the several she had learnt from her older brother while still in school. But calling someone a bastard seemed too innocuous, and so for good measure she added another epithet: Arsehole!

  Santosh had seemed a decent sort but there was no knowing when men turned into obnoxious creatures. Men and serpents, her aunt used to say, cold-blooded reptiles you can never trust.

  Gowda felt a note slip. The Bullet was not an easy mistress. From the smooth arc of her petrol tank to the mudguard that curved just a little over the back wheel, she was a beauty but with a temper. When she was happy, she filled the streets with her distinctive growl, a tigress on the road, her thump-thump echoing her pleasure: 41.3 Nm of torque. Again that slip in timing. He frowned and decided it was time he took her to Kumar. It was only a matter of engine tuning before she was queen again. ‘Won’t you, Rani?’ he asked the bike. The Bullet growled and took the curve with the ease of a heated knife cutting through butter.

  Gowda turned towards Shivaji Nagar. He knew that PC Byrappa was
here and that soon Santosh would arrive, bringing with him a couple of men. But somewhere in him a voice whispered, what if they left something unchecked? What if they overlooked a contact? What if they are unable to read the pause, the middle-distance gaze, the synapse between truth and a veiled lie?

  He parked the bike under a tree and walked with his helmet to a bag shop he knew. Syed, sitting behind the cash counter, looked up and smiled. It was a cautious smile. Gowda on the prowl wasn’t good news. At least he wasn’t in uniform, he thought.

  ‘Good morning, sir,’ Syed said, rising. He waved for his sales boy to bring a chair.

  ‘How is business?’ Gowda asked, planting himself in the chair.

  ‘Dull, sir. The schools will close soon and who buys bags then?’ Syed affected a weary sigh.

  Gowda’s eyes narrowed. Syed’s bag shop was a front for many things, none of which were illegal, but they weren’t entirely legitimate either. He was a fixer. He knew whom to call to facilitate the movement of a file through a bureaucratic corridor; he knew people who could beat up or even kill someone who was proving to be a nuisance; he could help you get dollars or dinars; he would find you a house to rent or transfer a lease; he would organize admission in a school or college and at a pinch get you a ticket on a train that was so full that the waitlist stretched longer than the train. All of this necessitated money or a favour in exchange, but Syed wasn’t a criminal. He called himself a humanitarian. That’s why people came to him, he said. Syed was as careful as he was astute. So he stayed beyond the reach of the arm of law.

  ‘Any new girls in the whorehouse?’ Gowda asked as though he were asking the price of a black bag on which the legend NIKE was stitched.

  Syed blinked. ‘Sir?’ he asked, unable to keep the surprise out of his face and voice.

  ‘You heard me,’ Gowda said, tapping a finger on the side of the helmet. ‘Has anyone brought a new girl into the whorehouse in the market?’

  ‘There’s no brothel in this area, sir.’ Syed shook his head. ‘That’s just a myth.’