The Case of the Love Commandos (19 page)

“Number one, there is no way a little Indica could tear through the metal—must have been a truck at least,” he said. “Second, no red paint is in evidence on the severed section. Nonetheless a buildup of rust is there. Thus we can conclude the damage was done some time back, only.”

The driver looked on nonplussed as Puri stepped away from the barrier and indicated the black skid marks on the asphalt.

“These are by no means fresh,” he said. “Most probably they were made some weeks or months back, also. Without one shadow of a doubt, their thickness indicates the wheels belonged to a truck—in all likelihood the one that plowed through the barrier in the first place.”

Puri took a step backward. “What all a young PhD female was doing at two in the morning on a road leading through a forested reserve into the middle of nowhere?”

The driver recognized this as a question but could only offer a shrug in return.

“Getting knocked on the head, placed behind the wheel and pushed off the bridge—that is what,” Puri answered.

The two men stood looking down into the churning, polluted waters of the Yamuna below, grimacing at the stink.

“Murder most foul, that is for sure,” said Puri.

But was there a connection between Dr. Basu’s murder, Ram’s abduction and his mother’s murder? Puri went over the sequence of events again in his mind. Dr. Basu was killed in the early hours of Thursday morning. The next day someone thrashed Ram’s father. On Saturday, Ram was abducted and that very evening, his mother was brutally murdered.

All this three months after ICMB took blood samples from Dalits in Govind village.

Was Dr. Basu part of the team that went there? Perhaps she’d known Ram.

Puri decided to go and take a look around her apartment. According to his police contact, she’d lived in a fancy new complex on the other side of Agra.

Posing as a wannabe buyer—“A dicky bird told me one apartment is lying vacant”—Puri quickly ingratiated himself with the manager of Royal Luxury Apartments, which promised “Inspirational Living!”

He soon learned that Dr. Basu had “not gone the married way” and that she was “a wonderful humanitarian.”

The manager was then persuaded to show Puri her apartment.

When he opened the door, he let out a gasp, clasped his hands to his head and exclaimed, “What the hell has happened?”

Puri peered over the manager’s shoulder. The place looked like it had been hit by a tornado—the floor littered with
papers, upturned potted plants and a blizzard of upholstery and feathers.

“Seems there has been a break-in,” the detective said in a calm, measured tone.

The manager stepped inside, being careful not to tread on any of the scattered possessions, dismay writ large across his face.

“When was the last time you entered the premises exactly?” asked Puri.

At his feet lay a teddy bear that had been mercilessly ripped apart.

“The day before yesterday. I just don’t understand how someone could have got inside.”

“Who has a key?”

“I’ve one. Dr. Basu’s father has another.”

“Dr. Basu herself had one at the time of her death, no?”

“Must be.”

Puri suggested to the manager that he go and call the police, knowing full well that they’d take hours, possibly days, to turn up.

“You don’t mind keeping guard until I return?”

“Not at all.”

The manager hurried back to his office while the detective examined the lock. There were a couple of fresh scratches etched into the brass. Someone had picked it recently, someone who knew what they were doing—like Hari, for example.

Such finesse didn’t tally with the state of the apartment, however, and certainly not with the way Hari did things. Thugs had torn the place apart and to get inside they must surely have had a key.

Perhaps two different parties had broken into the apartment, Puri surmised as he moved from room to room, eyes scanning the floor.

Whatever they’d been looking for was small enough to be concealed in the battery casing of a TV remote control or a makeup compact. A data key, perhaps?

He found his way into Dr. Basu’s study, where even the computer mouse had been pulled apart. Black pollution marks on the wall indicated that the shelves above the desk had held a set of box files. These were nowhere to be found. A shiny patch of parquet floor suggested that a computer tower was missing, too.

He picked up some of the books lying on the floor. English fiction set in India, mostly: Rushdie, Lahiri, Desai. There were a few textbooks lying around as well. Beneath the window there were also a couple of dozen business cards scattered about.

Resting one hand on the windowsill to support his weight, Puri kneeled down to gather them up.

He was struggling to get himself upright again when he heard the general manager call out his assumed name. Slipping the cards into his trouser pocket, he stepped back into the sitting room, his face still flush from the physical exertion.

“A sudden call of nature was there” was how he explained his presence in Dr. Basu’s study.

“I called the police,” said the manager. “My boss is on his way. It would be better if he didn’t find you here. I’m not sure how I would explain.”

“Tip-top and best of luck,” said Puri as he made a quick exit.

Once his car had pulled out of the Royal Luxury Apartments gilded gates, Puri searched through the business cards. Most of them were in pristine condition and bore the names and associations of scientists, pharmaceutical company representatives
and research fellows. He could imagine them being handed to Dr. Basu at conferences, symposiums and business meetings. They had then been placed in her purse before being brought home and transferred into a clear plastic box that he’d spotted lying upturned under the window of her study.

There were seven other cards in which she appeared to have taken greater interest. These had been given to her in altogether different circumstances. One was stained with beer; another had been handled by greasy fingertips and the words “call me” written on the back; the corners of the others were all bent.

They had something else in common as well: they all belonged to fellow Bengalis.

Dr. Basu had been looking for a prospective groom, it seemed.

Puri felt inside his pocket and took out the last card. It belonged to a “consultant” with a marriage brokerage called Shaadiwaadi.in. That sealed his theory.

Turning it over, he found another card stuck to the back. Carefully, he peeled it away. It bore the name of a Delhi lawyer, R. V. Jindal. Last Monday’s date was written on the front together with a time: “3:00.”

Puri couldn’t help but smile to himself. Hari—assuming it was he who had picked the lock—had missed Jindal’s card.

“Your loss is Vish Puri’s gain, old pal,” he said with a chuckle. His luck was looking up; perhaps the evil eye no longer had its gaze fixed on him.

“Bhai sahib, you’ve an All India permit?” he asked his driver.

The man gave a nod.

“Dilli, challo. No delay,” said Puri, who wanted to go and meet this lawyer, Jindal, in person.

• • •

Facecream spent the morning teaching and, after ensuring that the children received a healthy meal paid for out of her own pocket, walked from the school up to the highway, where she caught a bus to Lucknow.

When she returned in the late afternoon, she went straight to the chai stand. As she entered, the owner gave her a dirty look.

“If you’re looking for your rat-catcher friend, he doesn’t work here anymore,” he said, scowling.

“What happened?”

“I don’t want any trouble. Just go—and don’t come back.”

“Tell me where he went!”

“I said get out!”

Facecream searched for Deep on the main road but couldn’t find him anywhere. Fearing the worst, she hailed an auto and drove back to the school.

A welcome committee was waiting for her outside the gates—the village pradhan, Rakesh Yadav, and two goons.

“You’ve been in Lucknow,” said Yadav as she got out of the auto and paid the driver. His mouth was full of gutka, his lips blood red. The crazed look in his eyes suggested he’d had a little too much of the stuff. He added, “You were seen at DAR.”

DAR stood for Department of Administrative Reforms. It was the government office where the public was entitled to file Right to Information (RTI) applications. Facecream had gone there to request last year’s records for the distribution of food rations in the village. Apparently someone had tipped off Yadav.

“What of it?” she asked.

“I want you to go back tomorrow and withdraw your application,” he said.

“Or?”

The goons moved closer.

“Or that pretty face of yours will get messed up,” said Yadav.

“Call off the monkeys,” Facecream ordered.

“Or?”

“They’ll get hurt.”

“Think you’re some kind of hero?” Yadav guffawed, gutka juice running down his stubbly chin.

One of the goons, who had white blemishes on his hands just like his boss, lunged at her, but Facecream blocked him, twisted his arm and flipped him onto his back. The second fared no better, falling to the ground, clutching his vitals and howling in pain.

Yadav looked on in amazement.

“Now get lost—and if you come here again, I won’t be so nice,” said Facecream.

The goons picked themselves up off the ground, dazed, and stumbled away.

Yadav, however, offered an ominous parting shot. “You are just one girl on your own,” he said. “Think you can beat me? I can bring an army if necessary. And there is nobody here who will raise a finger to protect you!”

He turned and hurried back to the village, giving the two goons a shove.

Facecream watched them for a while, furious with herself for letting things get so out of hand, and then entered the gates. She found Deep sitting beneath the banyan tree. He had a bloody nose and a cut lip. His grubby face was stained with tears.

“It’s all your fault,” he said. “We were spotted together last night. The pradhan came and found me at work. He wanted to know what we were doing in the village. I refused to tell him. So he thrashed me and then sir fired me.”

“I know. I went to the chai stand. I’m so sorry.”

“I should never have helped you. Now what am I going to do?”

Facecream kneeled next to him. “You needn’t worry, Deep. I’m going to look after you now,” she said.

His eyes were fixed on the ground. “Just give me money for a ticket. I’ll go to Delhi or Mumbai. Find work there,” he said.

“I told you I’ll look after you and I will,” she said, a hand placed on his knee. “Now, let’s get you cleaned up. And then have something to eat.” Facecream stood and offered her hand. “Come.”

She washed Deep’s face and tended to his lip and nose. To calm his nerves, she gave him a couple of sips of aaila from the small bottle she’d brought with her. Then she suggested he help her prepare dinner in the kitchen. She’d bought some vegetables in Lucknow, and as Deep sat in the corner of the kitchen with his knees huddled against him, she set about making a simple tarkari curry.

Atif the caretaker appeared in the doorway while she was chopping the green chillies. He lingered for a while in silence and then said, “I have children, grandchildren.”

“I understand, I don’t want trouble for you,” said Facecream. “But before you go there’s one thing I need to know. On the night Kamlesh was killed, did you see the Yadavs follow her out of the village?”

Atif shook his head. “No one followed her. They didn’t do that thing.”

“Do you know who did?”

“It wasn’t anyone in the village,” he said before turning and walking away.

Facecream lit a fire. Young twigs began to crackle in the flames.

“I know which bus she took,” said Deep. “The bus conductor is my friend.”

Facecream stopped what she was doing. “If you help me you’ll have to leave the village for good,” she cautioned him, her face half lit by the flames. “Are you ready to come with me to Delhi? You’ll have to go to school and study. And you’ll have to work as well.”

“Work as what?”

“Helping me from time to time.”

“Where would I live?”

“With me—if you behave yourself.”

Deep grinned. “I’d like that,” he said.

“Good. Now bring some bowls. First we’re going to eat. And then you can tell me everything.”

An hour later, Facecream and Deep climbed over the back wall of the school and made their way along a series of paths that led across the fields to the highway. They reached the back of the chai stand unseen and watched the buses and autos come and go.

Forty minutes later, Deep spotted the private bus Kamlesh Sunder had boarded on Saturday night. He and Facecream broke cover and scrambled on board, squeezing in amongst the passengers standing in the aisle.

The bus lurched forward, its stereo pumping out the theme tune to
Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!

“Are we going to Lucknow?” asked Facecream after Deep had spoken with his friend the conductor.

“She got off near the center of the city.”

“Where exactly?”

The boy looked suddenly apprehensive. “Are you sure you want to know?” he asked.

Soon after Puri set off on the new Yamuna Expressway for Delhi, he realized he was being followed by a black SUV with tinted windows matching the description of the vehicle in which Ram had been abducted.

It had an untraceable number plate and a sticker at the top right of the windscreen printed with a unique code. He’d seen such stickers before: they served as notice to the police that the occupants were politically connected, meaning the vehicle wasn’t to be stopped under any circumstances.

That the SUV made little attempt to conceal itself and simply shadowed the detective’s vehicle at a respectable distance suggested three possibilities: the occupants weren’t very good at surveillance, they were trying to intimidate him, or their intentions were altogether more sinister.

Perhaps they’d arranged for an accident up ahead? Collisions happened all the time. Indeed, in the last seconds as his life flashed behind his eyes, Puri might well find himself at a loss to know whether he’d met his end by his faceless enemy’s design or whether he’d just been the victim of some idiot with kamikaze tendencies.