Sacred Games (60 page)

‘You're an air hostess,' Sartaj said.

‘Yes.'

‘For?'

‘For Lufthansa.'

‘That's a good airline.'

‘Yes.'

‘They pay well.'

‘Yes.'

‘Has something happened to your husband?'

‘No, no.' The sudden question made her shrink, fold her arms across her stomach. ‘Nothing like that.'

But it had something to do with the husband. Sartaj was sure of it. ‘Then what is it?' he said, very gently. He was quiet, and sipped slowly at his water. He was willing to wait.

She gathered herself, and then ground it out: ‘Someone is blackmailing me.'

‘Someone. You don't know who?'

‘No.'

‘How are they talking to you?'

‘They call on my mobile.'

‘Is it always one person?'

‘Yes. But I hear him talking to someone else sometimes.'

‘Another man?'

‘Yes.'

‘What are they blackmailing you with?'

Her chin came up. She had made her decision, and was not going to be intimidated, or shamed. ‘With a man,' she said.

‘Who is not your husband?'

‘Yes.'

‘Tell me,' Sartaj said. She hated having to explain herself, to justify anything. ‘Madam,' Sartaj said, ‘if I am going to help you, I need to know the details. Everything.' He poured her some water. ‘I have worked for a long time as a policeman. There is nothing I haven't seen. Nothing you can tell me will shock me. In our country we do everything and say nothing. But you have to tell me.'

So she did finally tell him. There had been a man, her husband hadn't been so wrong in his suspicions. Actually he had been rather correct. The man was a pilot, yes. Only he didn't fly for Lufthansa, and there had been no fun on stopovers in London. Kamala Pandey's pilot flew for Sahara, his name was Umesh Bindal, he was single, she had met him at a party in Versova three years ago, the affair had begun a year after their first meeting, and she had broken it off six months ago. Their assignations had all taken place in Bombay and Pune and Khandala. The blackmailers had first called a month and a half ago.

‘What do they have?' Sartaj said.

‘They knew a lot of details, of a hotel. And when I had gone to his house.'

‘That's not enough. They must have something else.'

She was flinching now, from what she had to say. ‘Videos.'

‘Of what?'

‘Of us. Outside our room.' It looked as if the videos had been taken with a hidden camera at a guest house in Khandala. The lovers had used this guest house often, on a regular basis, and the staff had thought they were a married couple fond of quick hill-station vacations. The videos had them going into their room, and leaving it. And also holding hands and kissing and embracing as they walked to and fro, across the hotel courtyard. The blackmailers had left the video tape on the seat of Kamala Pandey's car, in a brown envelope. Then they had called her.

‘How much did you pay them?' Sartaj said.

A small shimmer of puzzlement hovered over her taut cheeks. Sartaj laughed. ‘It's not so unusual, madam. Everyone pays them first. The blackmailers send over the video or photographs or whatever. Then a month later they come back with new material. So what was the amount?'

‘A lakh and fifty thousand. They wanted two lakhs, but Umesh negotiated with them. Now they sent a new tape.'

‘How much do they want now?'

‘Two lakhs.'

‘And where is the tape?'

‘I burnt it.'

‘Both videos? Everything they had sent?'

‘Yes.'

‘Madam, that is not so good. We could have learnt something from the tapes. Even from the envelope.'

She nodded. The videos would have been too frightening to keep. The mention of them had made her a little watery, a little tremulous under the sheen. But now she showed some steel. She reached into her silver handbag and pulled out a folded piece of paper. She opened it out on the table, smoothed it down. ‘I kept a list of their numbers,' she said. ‘Each time they called, I wrote it down. With the times.'

‘That is good,' Sartaj said. ‘That is very good. And now if they send you anything, keep it. Try not to touch it too much.'

‘Fingerprints.'

‘Yes, fingerprints. You have to help us to help you. Where is Umesh today?'

‘He's flying. He would have come with me, but you didn't return my calls till today.'

‘I want to talk to him.'

‘I'll give you his numbers.' She wrote on the paper. ‘He wanted to go to the police the first time they called. I only didn't want to come.'

‘You wanted it to stop.'

‘Yes.'

‘They never stop. Until we stop them.'

‘That's what Umesh said. But I didn't want to tell anyone then.'

‘Why did you break it off with Umesh?'

‘Because I realized that he wasn't interested in me really. He is a nice man, but he has too many girlfriends. He just wanted fun, and I was giving it to him. But then it wasn't fun for me any more.'

‘So he's very handsome, like a hero?'

‘Very.' His handsomeness still evoked a fervour in her, tinged with an aftertaste of sadness. ‘Very.'

‘When did the blackmailers call you last?'

‘Yesterday.'

‘They will call today. Start listening to them carefully. I want to know exactly what they say. Take notes. Listen for sounds from near by. Anything at all. You have to start thinking like a police-wallah. A police-walli.'

That amused her just a little, that she could ever be a lowly policewoman. ‘Police-walli,' she said. ‘I will try.'

‘Tell them you need time to collect the money, that you're getting it together. How was it delivered last time?'

‘I had to put it in a bag, a shopping bag, and drive to Apsara cinema in Goregaon in the evening, at six o'clock. The afternoon show was just letting out, and there were lots of crowds. I was told to wait on the road across from the gate. Then they called me. They told me that a chokra in a red T-shirt was going to come up to me, and a second later he was knocking on my window. I rolled the window down, he asked for a package, and he took the money and ran off into the crowd. That was it.'

A crowded area, a street kid sent to collect the money – just standard operating procedure for the average blackmailer. ‘Umesh didn't come with you for the delivery?'

‘No, they don't know that he knows. They told me not to tell anyone, not a single soul. They told me that they would hurt me.'

That was unusual, that blackmailers would threaten violence. There
was no need for hurt if you had photographs. ‘And the chokra, what did he look like?'

Kamala Pandey was confused. ‘The kid? I don't know. He was just some urchin.' A barefoot boy was just exactly like any other street savage, despite his red T-shirt. You could find a dozen at any street corner in Mumbai.

‘Try, madam. Can you remember anything at all about him? It's very important.'

‘Yes. Yes…' She paused. ‘His T-shirt. It was a DKNY round-neck T-shirt. It had the logo on it.'

‘Deekay NY jeans?' Sartaj wrote in his notebook.

‘No,' she said with the amused patience of somebody dealing with the lower classes. ‘The letters D, K, N, Y and then “jeans”. All capitals, one word. Like this.' She reached for his pen, and wrote in large letters: DKNY JEANS. ‘The letters were very faded.'

Witnesses had to be praised for the slightest achievement, and cajoled into further discoveries. ‘That is very good, madam,' Sartaj said. ‘It will help us a lot. Anything else? Please try to remember. The smallest item can solve the case.'

She made a disgusted little pout, and touched a tooth, two behind her elegant, perfect right canine. ‘His tooth, this one. It was all dirty-looking. Black, grey, instead of white.'

‘Excellent. On that side?'

‘Yes.'

‘All right,' Sartaj said. ‘It's good that you wrote down the numbers of the men who called. These are probably PCOs. Once you sign a complaint we'll put a watch on some of them.'

‘I can't.'

‘You can't what?'

‘I can't sign a complaint.'

‘Madam, without a complaint, without an FIR, how can I proceed?'

‘Please understand. If any of this goes into writing, people will find out. People will know.'

‘Madam, I understand that you are afraid that your husband will come to know. But will you please understand that without a complaint the police have no jurisdiction. We have no reason to interfere, no grounds to act on.'

‘Please.'

She was leaning into the table, both hands up by her cheeks. A practised actress, this one. ‘Madam, I can't do anything,' Sartaj said. He straightened
his neck, loosened his tight shoulders. He was angry at her, had been angry for a while now. It burned through his chest. He didn't know why.

‘Please,' she said. ‘Think about it. I'll lose everything.'

‘You should have thought about that a long time ago, yes?'

‘Yes.' That stopped her, cut her off in mid-flow. ‘Yes.'

She covered her eyes, and when she brought away her hands she was teary. A minute passed, then two. She dabbed away the tears. Sartaj was sure that an expert application of small pressure on her eyelids had helped start the tears, but now she seemed genuinely sad. There was a weariness that he recognized, an exhaustion from losing something built over long years. You had something that you valued very little, that you maybe had slighted and abused out of familiarity. Yet you then discovered that this thing itself, this connection, this very flimsy construction had spread its roots deep under your skin, and into the bone.

Kamala Pandey gathered herself again. In preparation for a direct attack, she levelled her shoulders and straightened up a bit. Sartaj remembered the walking stick she had broken on her husband's back, and he wondered if Mr Pandey had learned to recognize her cues and guard himself.

‘Look,' she said. ‘I will pay you.'

Sartaj said nothing. She reached into her bag, reached deep, and brought out a long white envelope. She paused, and waited for him to react. Sartaj said nothing. She slid the envelope across the table, left it next to his water, close to his hand.

Sartaj extended his index finger, nudged open the flap. Hundred-rupee notes. Two stacks. Twenty thousand rupees.

He was now very angry. He pressed the envelope shut. He pressed until the fingernail turned white and red. ‘Listen,' he rasped. ‘This is not enough.'

‘Yes, yes, I know. This is just a token. I would rather pay you than them. Just help me. Just stop it from happening.'

‘You have so much money of your own?'

‘I work. My parents help me now and then.'

She kept separate bank accounts, and she had doting parents. ‘Your parents live in Bombay?'

‘In Juhu.'

‘Brothers and sisters?'

‘No.'

She was the single, spoilt child of well-off parents, suddenly in a lot of trouble. She believed, quite completely, that she was owed her privileges. It would be a pleasure to take her money from her. But Sartaj was very
angry. ‘Madam, I can't help you without a complaint.'

‘How much do you want?'

He shoved the envelope across the table. ‘I can arrest you right now, for trying to bribe a police officer.'

That shut her up. She put a hand on her mouth and began to weep. Sartaj could see that it was real this time. He stood up and walked away.

 

Why had he been angry at her? It wasn't just the money. He was quite used to taking money, to being bought. Things and people were bought and sold every day in this city. Sartaj bumped down the pitted lane to Katekar's place, keeping the motorcycle as close to the centre of the road as he could. The gutters were clogged, and occasionally the tides of rubbish hid serious holes in the asphalt. In this patchy dark, the khuds in the road came swiftly, and could take a man down. There was still a lingering aftertaste of indignation in Sartaj's mouth, a sour rancour that had nothing to do with what a spoilt, irritating little child she was. Was it only that she had been unfaithful, that she had done something a woman was not supposed to do? Men did it all the time, Sartaj knew this. Industrialists did it, and labourers did it. And sometimes women did it also. He knew this. He often saw, as he had done today, the aftermath. He had seen broken marriages and broken bodies, heard anguished sobs and screams. This was nothing new, in his job he had seen it all. So why had he been angry?

Sartaj coasted down the last few feet to Katekar's corner. The house was down an alley that narrowed and angled off to the left. Sartaj parked at the corner, and raised the rear seat to get at his packages. There was also a plastic bag crammed into the rear carrier. He shook away the anger, the question, and marched down the alley, turning his shoulders to slide by clumps of pedestrians. Some of them nodded at him. He had been a regular visitor for a few months, and they knew him now. He knew that some of them must still believe that he had got Katekar killed, but most of them were friendly now.

Katekar's sons were sitting near their kholi's door, studying. The tube-light inside threw their shadows out on to the road, and Sartaj knew their familiar shapes well before he saw them. Rohit sat always to the left of the doorway, his back flat against the wall and a book held well out in front of him. Mohit was always moving, his head jigging up and down even as he wrote. As Sartaj came up Mohit went from a cross-legged squat into a kneeling arc above his notebook. He was making a blue mess of the page.

‘Hello, Rohit-Mohit,' Sartaj said.

‘Hello,' Rohit said, grinning. Mohit kept his head down. He was writing furiously across drawings that slashed across the double spread of the notebook.

Sartaj lowered himself into the doorway and sat with his back hard against the jamb. ‘Where's your Ma?'