The Case of the Love Commandos (25 page)

When Ram had talked about how many people in his village went to bed hungry every night, she’d begun to appreciate why.

“My mother’s worked as a midwife all her life, delivering babies of all castes and religions, and yet she is considered to be polluted, an outcast,” he told her when Tulsi asked about his parents.

There was not a trace of bitterness in him, however. The Dalits of his village did little to help themselves, in his opinion. His father spent any money that came to him on drink; “the rest of them just complain and interfere in one another’s business,” he said.

By the time he’d led her through the gap in the wall, Tulsi probably would have followed him anywhere.

As they walked through the garden beyond, she caught glimpses of couples wrapped in each other’s arms, their whispers punctuated by the odd burst of giggles, and she reached for Ram’s hand.

And then it appeared—a vision. Rising up from the riverbed, with its white marble radiating light like an angel, the
Taj Mahal’s flawless beauty outshone even the moon above.

Tulsi had never seen the monument at night, nor viewed it from this side of the Yamuna, where its reflection was mirrored in the water. As she and Ram sat on the wall above the river and he quoted Ghalib, she’d never felt happier.

Tonight, her desolation was compounded by the sight of another couple occupying their favorite spot—she lying with her head in his lap, her long hair cascading down, almost touching the earth.

Tulsi kept a respectful distance and leaned against the wall, suspense gnawing at her vitals like the worst hunger.

According to the private detective, Vish Puri, who’d called again just a few hours ago, someone had reported seeing Ram last night outside Sanjay Cinema.

If this was true—and Puri had cautioned her that it could possibly be a case of mistaken identity—then Ram was looking for her and it stood to reason that he’d come to the Mehtab Bagh tonight on their “first-date anniversary.”

“You’re the only one he can trust,” the detective had told her. “Ram has come to believe everyone else has betrayed him. No doubt, that includes the Love Commandos. It was from their safe house he was taken, after all. Most probably he’s tried to get a message to you somehow to rendezvous.”

“Of course—the wall!” she’d exclaimed.

“What wall?”

“At the university! We used to leave messages there for each other. I could go and check!” she’d suggested.

Puri had warned against this. “Under no circumstances do so, young madam. Your father’s people are searching for you high and low. They are watching me, also.”

It was at that point in the conversation that Tulsi wondered if perhaps she’d been unwise to call her mother that morning and whether she should come clean about having
done so. But she decided against it. She’d taken precautions after all—using an STD booth several blocks away from the Love Commandos safe house. And she’d kept the call short as they always did in the movies in case someone was trying to trace the number. Her mother had made it patently easy to do so. All she’d done was sob and accuse her daughter of bringing shame on the family.

Tulsi surveyed the Moonlight Garden again and then turned around and looked out over the broad sandbank leading to the river below. A rowing boat was struggling upstream, sluggish ripples emanating from its bow in the ethereal moonlight. Giant bats swooped from the sky, skimming the water. She noticed a figure move across the window of the stone chhatri at the far end of the wall—no doubt a lovebird taking in the view of the Taj. From somewhere off in the garden came a whistle—the security guard beginning his rounds.

Another twenty minutes passed. By now it was almost eight o’clock. Behind her, the rowing boat had offloaded a couple of foreign tourists and they were furiously clicking away at the Taj. A young couple—he in jeans and a T-shirt, she in traditional kurta pajama—had perched themselves at the top of the stairs leading down to the river. They were cooing at each other. It made her sick with envy.

Tulsi checked her watch for the umpteenth time. When she looked up, she spotted a male figure hurrying out of the tree line to her left. He started toward her. Although he was wearing a baseball cap with the bill covering the top half of his face, she recognized him immediately as Ram and her heart leapt.

From inside the stone chhatri where he’d been waiting and watching for the past hour, Puri saw the young couple embrace.
He wasted not a moment in breaking cover and approaching them as quickly as his short legs and uneven gait would allow.

Spotting him coming toward them, Ram reacted with alarm. “Who are you?” he demanded with a hunted look. Taking Tulsi by the arm, he began to back away.

“It’s OK,” she said. “He’s been helping me. He’s a private detective.”

“A jasoos?”

“I’ve been assisting the Love Commandos—Vish Puri, Most Private Investigators, at your service.”

“Laxmi sent you?”

“She hired me to find you.”

“I don’t trust her—I don’t trust anyone.”

“Ram, listen to me, I’m sure Laxmi had nothing to do with you being taken,” said Tulsi. “I was there when she realized you were gone. She was devastated.”

He held her by both arms. “Listen, we can’t trust anyone anymore,” he said with a certain tenderness. “Try to understand: they killed my mother. After they’ve got what they want from me, they’ll kill me, too. We’ve got to get as far away from here as possible.”

“If you run now, you’ll be running all your life,” said Puri. “I can help you. Give you a safe place to stay.”

“That’s what Laxmi said.”

“It is different now. I can offer you total protection and help you get justice—for your mother and Dr. Basu, also.”

“What do you know about that?” Ram demanded.

“I know she was murdered. I know Dr. Basu was trying to help you. I met with your lawyer, Jindal, also.”

Ram was still holding Tulsi by the arm, but he’d stopped backing away.

“I really believe Mr. Puri’s on our side. Please listen to him,” said Tulsi.

Ram, who was a good foot taller than her, looked down into his fiancée’s eyes. His features softened.

“That’s what got Dr. Basu killed—helping me,” he said. “I don’t want anyone else I care about to get hurt. Especially you.”

“How was she helping you?” asked Puri.

Ram met the detective’s gaze. He hesitated before answering. “She shared some information with me,” he said.

“ICMB’s research?”

The young man gave a nod. “And she said she could help my mother finally get justice as well.”

“Justice? From who exactly?”

A sharp sound came from somewhere beyond the tree line. The noise startled Ram and he spun around.

A second later, a young couple walking hand in hand came into view. One of them had stood on a twig. The interruption had put Ram back on edge.

“You can’t protect me from these people, they’re too powerful,” he told the detective before focusing his attention on Tulsi again. “Now, listen, my darling,” he continued, “I want you to come with me. We have to get away from here as fast as possible. Do you trust me? Are you ready to come away with me?”

“Of course.”

“Then let’s go. I’ve got a bike waiting.” Ram took her by the hand and led her back toward the trees.

“Wait, you’re making a mistake!” Puri called out. But his protest fell on deaf ears. Tulsi sent him a grateful look over her shoulder and then the couple vanished into the shadows.

“Bloody fool,” mumbled Puri as he signaled to Tubelight, who was watching his back.

The operative was by his side in seconds.

“Go after them, yaar. Meantime I’ll get back to the car and watch the road.”

They set off in opposite directions. But a moment later, the air was rent by a scream. It was Tulsi. Tubelight stopped, trying to get her bearings. Puri reached inside his jacket to remove his pistol from its holster. He gave it a couple of hard tugs but it wouldn’t come out.

A second later, Ram and Tulsi came running out of the trees.

In pursuit were two Nepali-looking men wearing smart, Western-style suits and ties. One of them had sustained a fresh head injury and was struggling to keep up.

“This way!” shouted Puri.

Unfortunately the sight of Tubelight bearing down on them caused the couple to change course for the stairs leading down to the river.

Ram and Tulsi found their exit blocked, however, by a big thug wielding a knife. It was Naga.

“Staaaap, baaaaastaaard!” he bawled, and lunged forward.

The couple turned left and sprinted along the wall toward the chhatri. Naga gave chase. Behind him came the young man who’d been cooing with his girlfriend at the top of the stairs and then, at his heels, the two Nepali types.

Puri finally managed to get his pistol free from its holster, pointed it in the air and fired off two rounds. The cracks echoed off the Taj and clattered through the trees. Dozens of crows took to the sky amidst a chorus of caws and beating wings. A third shot stopped everyone in their tracks.

“Hands in the air!” instructed Puri as he leveled his pistol at them. “I want to see ten fingers.”

Four sets of hands went up in the air while Ram and Tulsi made good their escape.

“Want me to go after them, Boss?” asked Tubelight.

“Better I go,” replied the detective. “You keep these fellows company.”

Puri handed his operative the pistol and started toward the entrance. He soon spotted Ram and Tulsi a good forty seconds ahead of him.

Sweating and out of breath, the detective squeezed through the gap in the wall and stumbled out onto the main road. Tulsi was standing next to a white sedan, pounding on the back window, screaming, “Let him go! Let him go!”

Hari Kumar was sitting in the front passenger seat of the car.

He sent Puri a winning smile as the sedan pulled away and Tulsi crumpled to the ground in a fit of sobs.

The detective looked for his Ambassador and spotted Handbrake some way off. He was standing in a ditch with a flashlight searching for his keys.

The black SUV with tinted windows raced past in pursuit of Hari.

When Tubelight appeared seconds later nursing his head and saying that he’d been taken by surprise and that the pistol was missing, Puri felt like crumpling to the ground himself.

The visit to the temple, the offerings to Shiva, the beads—none of it had worked.

“Nazar lag gayi,” he groaned. The case had gone for a toss.

Puri was “totally, absolutely, without doubt, one hundred and ten percent certain” that he hadn’t been followed during the drive back to Agra from Delhi.

“Some individual or other gave the game away, that much is certain,” he thundered after Handbrake located the keys in the ditch where Hari had thrown them.

It soon became clear who the weak link was.

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Puri, I messed up everything,” sobbed Tulsi, who, by now, was seated next to him in the Ambassador.

“Don’t tell me—you called your mother, is it?” said the detective, his tone thick with exasperation.

Tulsi emitted a long “Yeeeeeeeessssssss,” followed by “It … it … it’s aalll myyyyy faaaaault!”

Providing comfort to bawling females was not his forte at the best of times—and now was definitely not the best of times. In defeat, the detective was livid. The last thing he felt like doing was offering solace to the person who’d blown the case out of the water and—worse—handed victory to Hari.

“I … I … feeeeel sooooo baaaaad!”

Puri cringed. He felt like saying, “And so you should,
child! I warned you not to contact anyone!” But a reproachful look from Tubelight stayed his temper. He lapsed into a sulk for a few minutes and, realizing that he might have been a little hard on the girl, gave her a gentle pat on the shoulder.

“No need to cry, beta,” he said in a perfunctory tone. “I understand, actually. So much pressure was there. What with your father in jail on charges of murder and all.”

This provoked yet more tears. At this rate she’ll need to be taken to hospital and rehydrated, Puri thought to himself. He tried another pat. “Any one of us would have done the same,” he said. “For days now you’ve been in isolation. Such loneliness was there.”

The sobbing gradually abated. “I
have
been so lonely and worried,” Tulsi said between sniffles.

Puri had a half bottle of Royal Challenge in his overnight bag. He tugged it out, unscrewed the cap and poured a little whiskey into a plastic cup.

“For medicinal purposes, only,” he explained, and handed it to her.

She glugged it back and grimaced.

“Better?” Puri asked, after taking a swig himself directly from the bottle.

Tulsi gave a slow nod and stared out the window in silence.

They were caught in Agra’s rush hour. Traffic roiled around them, brake lights blinking in the darkness like red-eyed demons. The intense impatience verging on hysteria demonstrated by many of the drivers suggested that they were all rushing dying patients or pregnant wives to hospital rather than simply heading home.

Puri found himself wishing he had a magic wand to make it all stop. He needed a few minutes to think, to process everything that had happened. He didn’t even know where he was headed. Most of all he needed something to eat.

He heard Tulsi ask him, “Who were all those people chasing us?” but ignored her.

However, when she said “I just don’t understand how they found us,” Puri couldn’t help but guffaw. “That much was simple, actually,” he said. “They were tapping your parents’ home phone and thus traced the call. Had you not called your mother, Ram would now be safe and sound.”

Tulsi’s chin began to tremble and the tears flowed down her already mascara-stained cheeks again.

Puri threw up his hands in exasperation. “What is the point in crying over so much spilt milk, I ask you? The situation is most grave. If we are to get your boyfriend back in one piece—which will be a miracle, I might say—I will need all my considerable wits about me.”

His phone rang. The screen lit up with Hari’s name.

“Arrey,” he cursed under his breath. “That is all I need.”