Blood Money (12 page)
Alex knelt down beside him. The boy looked at him with wary eyes. The slash of blood across his shirt looked a little bigger – or was that Alex’s imagination?
‘I spoke to the clinic,’ he told the boy. ‘They misunderstood and they’re very sorry. They have somewhere they can look after you and would like to send you there now in this taxi. I will tell the driver where to go but you’re in control. You can stop it any time you want, and even get out if you change your mind.’
At last the boy seemed to trust him. Perhaps it was just because he was so ill. He nodded.
‘If anyone asks,’ said Alex, ‘your name is Pradesh and your father is a builder from Nayla.’
Very carefully, after giving instructions to the taxi driver, Alex helped him up off the bench. Ever so slowly, the boy climbed into the cab. He settled uncomfortably, lying across the back seat, breathing hard.
‘Just one more thing,’ said Alex. ‘The clinic want to know which hospital treated you so badly. They won’t use it again.’ It was a gamble; would it work?
Perhaps the boy believed him; perhaps the fight was just draining out of him and he’d have told him anyway. He said in a quiet, rasping voice: ‘St Francis.’
17
C
LUE
LUE
‘I thought I was fanatical about recycling,’ said Li, ‘but this is surreal.’
She was exploring the market with Hex and Paulo. Old clothes, used cooking utensils encrusted with grime, plastic margarine containers, plastic bottles creased from multiple use were on sale alongside sari fabrics and food. Between the big stalls, people were selling their wares from windowsills. A man stood in the locked doorway of an apartment building, shouting vigorously to invite shoppers to examine his collection of old drugs in battered packets. It was sensory overload: the shouting, the smell of people packed closely together and the heavy fug of spicy fried food.
Paulo’s mobile trilled. As he hooked the phone out of his top pocket, a scrawny, filthy brown hand loomed up out of the crowd. For a moment Paulo thought it was trying to grab the phone, but it just stretched out like a plea, hoping for coins. An untouchable. The three friends had seen them moving between the shoppers, looking for tourists. The Indian people didn’t even seem to notice them.
Paulo dodged the figure and looked at the caller’s number. It wasn’t Amber or Alex. The untouchable moved on to an American couple who seemed prepared to pay him more attention.
Paulo answered the phone. ‘Hello?’
A hesitant voice spoke at the other end. ‘Hello?’ It was high and female. Young and female. The hairs stood up on the back of Paulo’s neck. ‘Bina, is that you?’
Li heard him and gripped Hex’s arm. Hex looked at her, startled.
With all the yelling and the noise of frying food, Paulo could hardly make out the quiet voice. ‘I can’t hear you!’ he shouted. ‘Hang on. I’ll go somewhere quiet.’
He began to run through the crowd, still talking. ‘Hang on. Don’t go away.’
Li and Hex hurried behind him. Had Bina called?
The street ended in a park. Across a large expanse of green was the white domed building. The open space was like a breath of fresh air.
At last Paulo could hear. ‘Hello?’ he said.
Li and Hex stared into his face. They heard the tinny crackle of talking at the other end.
Paulo’s shoulders sank. ‘Yes, it’s me. Hello, Radha. How are you?’
Li sighed. Hex looked down. For a moment they had both been full of hope. But maybe Radha had news.
Paulo was talking and shaking his head. ‘No, Radha, not yet. But we’re doing our best.’ He flopped down on the grass. Then he straightened up again, listening intently. After a few moments he said, ‘Radha, that’s excellent. Can you read the number to me?’ He gestured to the others, making a wiggling motion with his hand. He wanted a pen and paper.
Hex patted his pockets; he didn’t have a pen. Li didn’t either. She switched on her phone and handed it to Paulo. He keyed in the number and read it back to Radha to confirm it. ‘That’s really helpful,’ he said. ‘Well done, and tell Sami well done too.’
Li and Hex clearly heard a girlish giggle at the other end of the phone. They looked at one another. Obviously Paulo had made a hit there.
‘You all be careful now,’ said Paulo. ‘
Adios
.’ He cut the connection.
Adios
.’ He cut the connection.
‘Well?’ said Li and Hex in unison.
‘The moneylender was back in the village, scouting for business. Sami went through his stuff while he wasn’t looking. She found a card. It had a name on it: Tagore Trilok. She says it’s the kidney man. And,’ added Paulo proudly, ‘she just gave me his mobile number.’
‘So what do we do?’ said Li. ‘Phone him?’
Hex’s fingers were already flying. ‘Pass it over here. We don’t need to phone him, we can do something far more clever. Mobiles work by getting a signal from cells – transmitters that send signals out in a small area. And since it’s all controlled by computer . . . if we find out what cells he’s been using, we can find out where he is.’
‘And where he is—’ began Li.
‘– Bina might be,’ finished Paulo.
‘Exactly,’ said Hex. He tapped Trilok’s number into a website. First he had to find out which phone company he used. No problem. This website would identify it in seconds. He got his reply. From that he knew which website to hack into to track where Trilok was. The website asked for a password. Not a problem. He flipped open another window and accessed a program he kept for just that purpose. In moments, an answer sprang onto the screen. ‘Yes!’ said Hex out loud, and fired the result into the keyboard. A new screen came up. Hex scanned it briefly. A broad smile spread across his features. ‘Well, well, well.’ He turned slowly to the others. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, in the last twenty-four hours he used his phone only in Nayla and Chennai.’
‘And he’s probably not far from here right now,’ said Hex.
Li looked at the screen. ‘How accurate is it?’
Hex looked disbelieving. ‘It’s dead accurate. It’s a computer.’
‘No, I mean, how detailed?’
‘We can narrow it down to a few blocks.’
‘Well, where is he now?’
‘I can’t see right now. But as soon as he makes or receives a call, we’ll see which cells he’s using. And that will tell us where he is.’
Li said, ‘Let’s call him. What are we waiting for?’
Paulo shook his head. ‘No, I don’t think we should. He’ll see the number’s unfamiliar. He might get spooked.’
‘Can we listen to what he’s saying?’ said Li.
‘Not without bugging equipment,’ said Hex. ‘But we don’t need to do anything fancy like that. He’s been making and receiving a lot of calls recently. It won’t be long before he pops up again.’
Paulo thumped the grass emphatically. ‘And when he does we can follow him straight to Bina. I bet he’s not letting her out of his sight.’
‘Hang on a minute,’ said Li. ‘We can’t go running after him. We’ll stick out like sore thumbs. Me, tiny and oriental; you enormous and Argentinian, Hex . . .’ She looked at Hex as if thinking of a way to sum up his appearance.
Hex looked back at her. ‘Yes?’ he said sweetly.
‘I see what you’re saying,’ said Paulo. ‘We don’t look like anyone round here.’
‘Plus,’ said Li, ‘if he was in the clinic when we went there, or he’s been told what we look like . . .’
‘So that leaves me,’ said Hex. ‘The indefinable.’ He gave Li a pointed look.
‘I’m working on it,’ she replied.
‘Anyway,’ said Hex, ‘I hate to sound like a wuss, but this site is going to ask for passwords every ten minutes so I have to nurse the connection. I can’t run around after Trilok.’
‘Indefinable . . .’ Paulo was tapping his fingers slowly on the ground, as he often did when he was thinking. ‘Untouchable . . .’
Hex snorted. ‘Thanks.’
‘No,’ said Paulo. ‘Untouchable . . .’ He pointed to the people flowing through the market stalls. An untouchable squatted down at the corner, watching for tourists. ‘Look at him. Nobody sees him. Nobody even looks at him. I bet if one of us dresses up as an untouchable, nobody will even notice us. We can be invisible.’
‘Brilliant, Sherlock,’ said Hex. ‘Where are you going to get your outfit?’
Paulo looked at Li. ‘Shall we do some more shopping?’
‘We’ll get a map too,’ said Li. ‘We must be very familiar with the streets. The moment Trilok’s mobile becomes active, we need to know where to find him.’
18
T
ESTS
ESTS
Amber was in a corridor. It was empty, but there were voices at the other end. She passed a bathroom, then a room with easy chairs and a television. She went in and switched it on: the noise would help cover any sounds she made as she moved around. There were bars on the windows, just as Mootama had described. It was definitely the safe house.
Was Bina here?
Amber came to a closed door. She listened. All quiet. Did she dare go in? Taking a deep breath, she turned the handle and pushed the door.
It was a dormitory: six beds were arranged along the wall. A man lay on one of them, reading. He looked up at Amber.
Amber had to bluff it out, pretend she was meant to be there. After all, there would hardly be intruders with that security lock on the door. ‘Sorry. Wrong room.’
‘Women’s room is next door,’ he said.
‘Thank you.’ Amber retreated quickly.
The next room was another bathroom and then there was one more room at the end. No medical facilities, then; it was just residential. All the testing must be done out in the clinic. As Amber approached the room at the end she heard laughter. Female laughter.
She opened the door. Four faces looked round at her. Amber scanned them briefly, but none of them was Bina.
They were all older – mid-twenties to mid-thirties – and skinny like the people from Nayla. Villagers who were selling their kidneys.
‘Come in, dear,’ said a woman in an orange sari with curly pink patterns. ‘No need to hide. Come and join us.’
‘Oh, how lovely,’ said a woman in an emerald-green sari. ‘A young one!’ She looked at her companions. ‘Isn’t she a lovely girl?’ She patted the bed next to where she was sitting.
Amber felt herself blush. She wasn’t used to effusive behaviour. Her parents hadn’t been like that and it just made her uncomfortable. But she went and sat down, and called up the photo of Bina on her mobile.
‘I’m looking for my friend. Have you seen her?’ She passed the phone to the woman next to her, who wore a splendid sari with red and navy patterns.
‘Her friend’s in here too!’ exclaimed the emerald woman.
Amber’s heart leaped. ‘Have you seen her?’
The woman in the red sari was shaking her head. ‘No, dear, I haven’t. But I was having my tests this morning, so I may have missed her.’ She handed the phone to the next woman, in the orange sari.
‘Lovely girl. No, I haven’t seen her, and I’ve been here since yesterday.’
She passed the phone to the next woman, the one in emerald green, who looked at the picture and handed it back to Amber. ‘She’s very pretty, your friend. Who could forget if they’d seen her!’ The woman looked intently into her eyes. ‘Don’t worry. We will be your friends while you’re here!’
Amber realized they thought she was asking about Bina because she was apprehensive and wanted moral support.
‘Oh yes,’ said the woman in red. ‘We’ll look after you until your friend arrives!’ The emerald woman’s enthusiasm seemed to be catching.
‘It’s lovely in here,’ said the woman in orange, looking at Amber earnestly. It seemed her arrival had unleashed an outburst of mothering instinct. ‘I am being taken good care of. They will only operate if I can afford to lose a kidney. You have no need to worry.’
‘I wish I had done this years ago!’ chuckled the woman in emerald green. ‘They bring us our meals. We don’t have to do any cleaning. I haven’t had to fetch water. There is electricity in every room and a television. I wish I had three kidneys to sell!’
There was more laughter. Amber could hardly believe these women were preparing for a major operation. The atmosphere was more like a sleepover party. Had they been drugged so that they wouldn’t feel anxious? It would be easy to slip them some Valium to make them easygoing and co-operative. At least they weren’t hugging her; Indians generally weren’t very touchy-feely, so she would probably be safe.
‘And don’t worry about your friend,’ said the woman in orange. ‘She may already have gone to the hospital. In which case it’s all good news because soon she will have her money!’
Amber didn’t find this comforting at all, but she believed them when they said they hadn’t seen Bina. They had no reason to hide anything. They were here to sell a kidney and go.
A nurse put her head round the door. ‘Oh there you are, Amber.’ She sounded irritated. ‘Have they shown you into here already? We’ve been looking for you. If you come with me, we’re ready to do your tests now.’
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