Chain of Custody by Anita Nair

Author:Anita Nair
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781908524751
Publisher: Bitter Lemon Press
Published: 2016-07-02T04:00:00+00:00

Gowda looked at the disappointed faces. ‘So we are back to square one,’ he said, playing with the paperweight.

‘Yes and no … we at least know what happened to her,’ Santosh said.

‘That’s not going to do her or us any good, knowing that she was in that room,’ Ratna snorted with an impatience that made Santosh frown.

Gowda gazed at her with a sense of déjà vu. The two of them reminded him of his earlier self split into two.

‘Did you speak to the tyre shop people?’ he asked.

Santosh nodded. ‘They said they didn’t know anything. They have leased the shop from someone. They were quite surly, in fact.’

‘PC Byrappa wanted to bring the man in, and I am inclined to agree with him,’ Ratna said darkly. The tyre shop man had given her a head-to-toe dekko, returning to linger on her breasts. She didn’t wear a dupatta; never had. She found slinging a roll of gauzy cloth around her neck a frivolity and a nuisance. But for the first time, she wished she had worn one.

Gowda said, ‘Get the details of the landlord. We’ll make a beginning there. And …’ His voice hardened. ‘No slacking. I want it ASAP. Do you hear that? As soon as possible, which means right now.’

Gowda stood up. He took his Bullet keys from the tray on the table. Ratna and Santosh stood up. ‘I’m going out,’ he said, walking out.

Neither of them said anything. They looked at each other.

Ratna opened her mouth to speak.

‘Don’t,’ Santosh said softly. ‘Don’t say it. Actually, don’t even think it. You don’t know.’

Ratna looked at the paperweight as if she would like to hurl it at him.

‘Don’t,’ she said in her iciest voice. ‘Don’t second-guess me. All I was going to ask was, how can we track the landlord?’

Santosh had seen Ratna and the station writer chatting and wondered what Zahir had filled her head with about Gowda.

He thought then of the story his brother the writer had told him. Of the Sufi and his acolyte. The two men had met a woman waiting on the banks of a river. She wept that she had no way of crossing it and if she didn’t, her life would fall apart. The Sufi carried the woman on his shoulders and waded across the river. For the whole of the next day the acolyte wouldn’t speak to his master. Eventually the Sufi asked him what was wrong. ‘You who said we must be celibate carried her on your shoulders. How could you?’ the acolyte snarled. The Sufi smiled. ‘I let her off once we had crossed the river and forgot about her. It seems to me that you are still walking with her on your back.’

That was him, carrying the burden of his past and his assumptions.

Gajendra frowned, seeing their faces. Santosh looked unhappy and Ratna annoyed. The two of them, he thought, were like nursery school children. Best friends for a while and then hissing and spitting at each other like angry cats … it was time he brought this to Gowda’s attention.

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