Chain of Custody (33 page)

‘Drop me off at the children's home,' he said.

12.00 p.m.

At the Sunshine Home, all was grey and bleak. Tina and Abdul had arrived, and so had Shenoy. But Tina wasn't talking. When Abdul opened his mouth, Tina clamped her palm over his lips. ‘Shut up, shut up,' she snarled.

Gowda saw the little girl huddled in her chair. There was a manic gleam in her eyes and her nostrils were pinched with rage. She was clutching the edges of the chair with her hands, and rocking steadily, back and forth.

Michael sighed.

‘What's wrong?' Shenoy asked.

He shrugged. Gowda watched the simmering rage in the child for a while. ‘She's probably been bullied at the shelter,' he
said. ‘And she sees us as being responsible for it. We sent her to the shelter.'

Ratna looked at him in surprise. ‘How did you know?'

‘I know how these places function. She is a newcomer. She needs to be taught a lesson. And she's getting a lot of attention. What did they do?' Gowda said, leaving the room and gesturing for the others also to do the same.

‘They tried to cut her hair off,' Ratna said. ‘So she smashed her fist into the girl's face. The rest of them fell on her and beat her up. Some of them are just hooligans in skirts.' Ratna's face bespoke her confusion and disgust.

Gowda took a deep breath. ‘None of us know what these children went through, so let's not judge them …'

Shenoy cleared his throat. ‘Should I come back another time?'

‘No,' Gowda said. ‘Where's Urmila?'

Michael gestured to a room. ‘She's helping with some correspondence,' he said.

‘Shenoy,' Gowda said, ‘will you go back to the room and start sketching? Try and turn it into a class like the kind you conduct at the club. Meanwhile, let me see what we can do to bring Tina back to us.'

‘Hi,' said Gowda, walking into the room where Urmila sat working on a desktop.

She looked up and smiled. ‘Borei,' she said. It was a greeting and an endearment.

He went to her and caressed her cheek with a finger. How could one word say so much? ‘Urmila,' Gowda said, ‘I have a favour to ask of you.'

Her eyes widened.

‘Can we bring your Mr Right here for a bit?'

‘Who?'

‘That ridiculous dog of yours. Tina … she's clamped up again, and I need her to describe to Shenoy the man she called thekedar.'

‘Yes, of course,' she said, rising.

‘I'll go with you,' he said.

She smiled at him. What was it about Borei, she wondered. A new gentleness had crept into him.

Mr Right insisted on sitting on Gowda's lap. Urmila looked at the two of them in amusement. ‘He adores you,' she said, giggling, as she drove up the ramp of the basement.

Gowda snorted, but his finger found the scratching spot near Mr Right's left ear.

The Audi inched along. Gowda glanced at his watch. ‘Step on it, U,' he said softly.

‘Are you sure?' she asked. ‘What if I get pulled up?'

‘I'll handle it, I don't know why, but I think this portrait is the key to so many things.'

Urmila smiled, pressed down on the accelerator and changed gears. They jumped red lights, went down the wrong way on a one-way street, and narrowly escaped being mangled by a giant truck.

Gowda exhaled when they pulled up outside Sunshine Home. ‘Remind me to never say step on it,' he said, trying to shift the frozen grin on his face.

Mr Right walked ahead and, as if he had been briefed, danced at Tina's knees. Her face lit up. She bent to pick him up and he hurled himself into her arms, craning his neck to lick her face. Tina turned her face this way and that. Her hairband came undone and Gowda heard Urmila gasp at the sight of her butchered hair.

Gowda's phone rang. It was Gajendra. ‘Sir,' Gajendra said, the agitation in his voice buzzing in Gowda's ear.

‘Yes, what happened?' The last time he had heard Gajendra so agitated was when they were rushing Santosh to the hospital.

‘You have to come back, sir. A man has confessed.'

4.00 p.m.

When Gowda walked into the station, it was abuzz with excitement. OB vans and press vehicles were drawing up and there was a palpable air of expectation.

‘The murderer has come forward and surrendered,' Gajendra said.

‘And he chose to do it here?' Gowda asked curiously.

Gajendra shook his head. ‘He went to the MLA's house saying he needed to confess. As the MLA and the ACP are buddies, he called the ACP, who came as quickly as he could. It's exactly what he must have been praying for. Ah, here's the hero,' Gajendra mumbled.

The ACP strode out from the direction of the cells. An impromptu press conference was going to be held shortly. His uniform was crisp and his chin newly shaved. The moustache gleamed and his cologne could be smelt a mile away.

The ACP saw Gowda and frowned. ‘I say, Gowda, you heard the news, didn't you?'

Gowda nodded. ‘Sir, but are you sure?'

Vidyaprasad shook his head in dismay. ‘What's wrong with you? A man has come forward and his story corroborates with the findings, all of which have been kept confidential. So what's your problem, Gowda? When you hear hooves, you don't have to think zebras.'

And neither should you think asses, Gowda thought, but wisely kept his counsel.

‘Where is the so-called murderer?' Gowda asked when the ACP had left to speak to the media.

‘He's in the cell,' Byrappa said, coming towards them.

Gowda walked towards the cell. In a corner sat a young man, cross-legged. There was a hint of a smile on his lips and an almost unnatural calm on his face.

Gowda stood still. The man looked back at Gowda without dropping his gaze. He had confessed, and so he was absolved, his eyes said.

‘Seen enough?' he asked.

Gowda frowned and turned away. Then he turned again to look at him.

He knew he had seen him somewhere before. But he couldn't remember where or when.

Gowda decided to go for a ride. It was either that or get drunk. And he didn't want Roshan to see him drunk and angry.

He started his bike with one swift kick and rode out of the gate. Instead of making his way down Kalasanahalli, he decided to take the long route through Bilishivale. At the Association of People with Disability nursery gates, a lorry was backing up. Gowda halted. On a whim, he parked his bike and walked through the nursery, looking at the potted plants and greenhouses. A few minutes later, he was back on the road that would take him to Kothanur and beyond, as far as he would go.

He came back two hours later when he felt the rage in him had dwindled to something else. A resolution to find out more. It was as if the confession had been stage-managed to ensure that the investigation ceased before any real damage was done.

7.00 p.m.

Roshan sat in the living room, poring over what looked like a medical text. Gowda looked at him and asked, ‘How are you?'

‘I am sorry, Appa,' the boy said, flushing.

‘What's going on?' Gowda asked. ‘I found Ecstasy in your rucksack and last night you were, what's the word, wasted?'

Gowda sat down beside him. Roshan took a deep breath. ‘You fucked me up, the two of you,' he said.

Gowda said nothing. He had thought as much about his parents when he was Roshan's age.

‘All you do is snarl at each other, Amma and you. Because of you, I don't believe in marriage or long-term relationships.'

‘So how is your getting drunk or doped out of your head going to change that?' Gowda asked quietly.

‘My girlfriend broke up with me. She said I was a commitment-phobe …' Roshan wiped his eyes furiously.

Gowda put his arm around his son. He didn't know what to say or how to make his son feel better.

‘Does it feel like more than you can handle?' he asked. Roshan turned into his shoulder and wept.

Gowda felt his eyes smart. He wrapped his arms around his son. ‘There, there,' he said. ‘Every generation thinks this. That our parents fucked us up. But we need to get a grip on ourselves, Roshan, you and I, we don't realize how fortunate we are that our troubles are the type that can be dealt with, surmounted even …'

‘What do you mean?' Roshan asked, raising his tear-streaked face to see a tear trickle down his father's cheeks.

Gowda told him then of the goings-on, leaving nothing out so Roshan would know the extent of real evil and depravity. And
that parents who snapped at each other were not the end of the world.

Roshan listened and said nothing. He had expected his father to rage at him. But this man who seemed as lost as him was a new sight. And he wasn't too sure if he liked this vulnerable man who, despite the bike, the tattoo and the gruff manner, was clearly hurting.

‘Appa, what can I do to help?'

Gowda shrugged. ‘Just go easy on yourself. That's all I ask. And on me. I may be your father, Roshan, but I am not infallible. I make mistakes too.'

Roshan nodded. ‘Appa,' he said suddenly. ‘Somebody dropped off an envelope for you.' He rose to get it.

Gowda opened the envelope. It was a scanned image of the portrait Shenoy had drawn as per Tina and Abdul's description.

He looked at it for a long while and then he knew. The last piece had fallen into place.

9.00 p.m.

Gowda walked into the station that seemed curiously lifeless after the excitement of a few hours ago. The play had been performed to a standing ovation and the audience had left. The actor sat in his cell and elsewhere the director was patting himself on the back over how he had managed to pull it off. Not for the first time, perhaps.

‘Bring the boy to the interrogation room,' Gowda said to one of the PCs on duty.

The man dithered. Another one of the ACP's footsoldiers, Gowda thought, seeing the man's hesitation. ‘The ACP …' the PC began.

‘Do as the inspector tells you to,' Gajendra snarled. He had been on his way out when he saw Gowda stride into the station.

The young man was handcuffed for the short walk from the cell to the interrogation room. Gowda sat across from him at the table. There was a particular glint of amusement in the young man's eyes. He knew for certain then. ‘Sit down, Rakesh,' Gowda said.

‘My name is not Rakesh. It's Krishna,' he said.

Gowda held his gaze. ‘Sit down.' Turning to the PC, he said, ‘Take the handcuffs off. He is not going to run. The man surrendered, if you remember.'

The PC twisted his mouth to indicate displeasure, but did as asked.

‘Please wait outside,' Gowda said. ‘And close the door after you.'

The young man waited for him to speak.

‘Rakesh,' Gowda began.

‘I am not Rakesh. I am Krishna.'

Gowda took a deep breath and said, ‘You were the informant who led us towards Nandita.'

The young man smiled. He leaned forward and asked eagerly, ‘How is she?'

‘Krishna, I know you didn't commit the murder, so why are you here?'

Krishna snorted. ‘What do you know?'

Gowda held his gaze. ‘I know that Pujary, or thekedar as you call him, went to see the lawyer.'

‘So?'

‘And that Pujary's wife was with him. And that she killed the lawyer. So why have you confessed to something you had no hand in?' Gowda said.

‘Because I am Krishna.'

Gowda wanted to reach across and smack him. Instead, he said in an even voice, ‘You are Rakesh. You are not Krishna and you do not know what you have taken on. Do you know that we have the death penalty in India?'

The young man threw his head back and laughed. ‘This is India. When that man who raped and killed a girl in Kerala, what's his name, Govindaswamy, and that Delhi girl's rapists are still alive, why do you think I'll be hanged? And I confessed on my own and surrendered.'

Gowda stared at the table. It was an old one and the patina of age had worn the surface to a satiny smoothness.

‘Why, Krishna?'

‘Good. Now that you accept me for who I am, we can talk. I am curious. Why do think Gita-di killed the lawyer?'

‘Krishna,' Gowda said, rising. Was the boy out of his mind? Or pretending? ‘This morning, I went to meet your thekedar and I met his wife as well. They said they had gone to visit the lawyer. They said they were family friends. Except that no one in the lawyer's office had ever heard of them. Dr Rathore, they said, had no friends.'

‘And so you decided that helpless lady in a wheelchair killed him?' The young man's eyebrows rose.

‘I don't arrive at conclusions on mere conjecture. So tell me, Krishna, what really happened? Nothing is going to change. You will go to the gallows or rot in jail. But that's your choice. I just want to know what really happened.'

Krishna smiled. ‘You did rescue my Nandita. But once I step outside this room, I will deny everything I told you and say you forced me to retract my confession.'

Gowda sat back in his chair and said, ‘Go on, Krishna.'
The thekedar wanted to know what was special about Nandita.

I didn't have an answer. Do we ever know why we fall in love? But once we do, wouldn't we move heaven and earth to make sure that the one we love is safe and happy?

The thekedar would understand this, I thought. After all, he had devoted himself to caring for his crippled wife. I had watched them together and I knew he wasn't pretending. She was everything to him.

I tried talking to him once again. ‘I will find you other girls,' I told him.

But he wouldn't agree. ‘There is too much money involved,' he said.

And I thought perhaps if I arranged the money, he would let me take her away. The only person I could think of who would have that kind of money at home was the lawyer. My boys who had worked there had told me about a cupboard in the lawyer's bedroom which he wouldn't let anyone else touch.