Chain of Custody (24 page)

‘Not here. Let's go to the bathroom. You can give it to me there. Malls have security cameras,' the boy said, walking off.

Sid followed him. He looked around nervously to see if two hulks or three were following him. That was how it happened in the movies.

Two girls walked past, licking their ice-cream cones. They looked at him. He looked back, allowing a half-smile to settle on his lips. The girls giggled and looked away. Sid felt a little rush of triumph. Forget that bitch, there were other chicks who would do what he wanted.

He walked into the men's room and entered a stall. When he came out, the washroom had emptied out except for the boy who stood by the row of sinks. Sid pulled his wallet out.

A fist landed on his face. He saw an arc of blood spray across the wall and slip down the mirror.

‘I explained to your boss,' Sid tried to protest through a mouthful of blood.

The boy pushed him down and kicked him, aiming precisely so each blow landed where it hurt the most.

‘No, no,' Sid whispered, curling into a ball.

The boy bent and retrieved the wallet. He took out all the money in it and flung the wallet at Sid's face.

‘These things happen,' he said as he washed his hands and slammed the door after him.

He had been unable to sleep after the adrenaline surge of the rescue. It was almost five in the morning when he fell into a deep slumber. It was Roshan who woke him up.

‘Are you all right?' he asked.

Gowda stared at him, not knowing where he was. ‘What time is it?' he asked. Almost as if on cue, the clock struck twelve. Gowda groaned. ‘What do you want to do this evening?'

Roshan shrugged. ‘I am going out. We are going to Humming Tree.'

‘Do trees hum?'

‘Ha ha,' Roshan said politely.

‘Do you need dinner?' Gowda asked.

‘I don't know.' Roshan frowned, looking at his phone that was pinging once every thirty seconds.

Gowda had a sudden urge to box the boy's ears. ‘What kind of an answer is that?'

‘I don't know, Appa. But if it makes it easier, I don't need dinner. I'll grab a bite with my friends.' Roshan was still peering at his phone while his thumbs danced on the surface.

When he had showered and shaved, Shanthi asked him what he would like to eat. Gowda shrugged. Shanthi smiled and served him dosas with mutton curry. And a tall mug of filter coffee.

Roshan sat across from him, watching him eat.

‘What about you?' Gowda asked.

‘I had breakfast at nine,' Roshan said with an almost smug smile.

Gowda glared at him. Tomorrow he would wake up at six and give the boy a lecture on waking up early and exercising, he decided.

Gowda parked his bike and went towards the lake. He lit a cigarette and took a deep drag. What had happened to the children? And the trafficker? He was quite sure that someone would appear soon to bail him out. That was how it was.

Gowda squashed the cigarette butt beneath his foot and buried it under a mound of leaves. Smoking in a public area was an offence. They slapped a fine of two hundred rupees on you. This segment of land between the police station grounds and the lake, what did it qualify as? No man's land, Gowda told himself with a grin, feeling better for the smoke.

There was a change in the air when he stepped into the station house. The station writer stepped out of Gowda's room and walked past him with a smug smile. What had transpired in the time it took to smoke a cigarette?

ACP Vidyaprasad was in Gowda's room, staring at the soft board that was already curling at one end. Gowda had several sheets of paper pinned to it. Santosh stood alongside with a worried expression. Gowda saluted. The ACP responded with a nod.

‘What's this? The school bulletin board?' the ACP said with half a laugh. ‘I don't think even schools have one any more.'

Gowda didn't answer. His reluctance to let a tablet plot his day would have the ACP start on how he had to move with the times.

Suddenly the ACP frowned. ‘What did you go to the MLA's house for?'

‘I was asked to by DCP Mirza. He said the home minister may be there. And I should be there as per protocol.' Gowda's face was as bland as a potato peel.

Santosh looked away, trying to hide his smile. Protocol was a favourite word in the ACP's dictionary. And that particular expression of Gowda's appeared when he was in a playful mood.

‘I don't mean yesterday. MLA Papanna said you wanted to talk to him about a few cases.'

‘Oh that. Some routine enquiry, sir. In fact, Santosh will handle it. He'll talk to the MLA's PA and get the details,' Gowda said, moving towards his seat.

‘Next time you need to speak to the MLA, you route it through me. That's the protocol.'

When Gowda didn't respond, the ACP glared at him. ‘And where did you disappear to last night? I caught a glimpse of you and then you were gone.'

Gowda schooled his face to not reveal what he was thinking. ‘There was an emergency, sir.'

‘What emergency are you talking about, I say? A stolen hen? This is not a mofussil station any more. Get that into your head.'

Gowda said nothing. Instead, he imagined the corner of a room. Only, this time he saw in his head the toilet in the hall above the tyre shop. The walls were filthy and it had a stink of clogged manholes and careless flushing.

ACP Vidyaprasad was a fastidious man but in that moment of fear and horror, he would press himself against the wall that had probably been peed upon or spat on. And Gowda, whose boots were the kind that always gleamed, the spikes sparkling with a diamond edge, would stretch his leg backwards at the knee as if he were aiming a kick at a football. He would know the sheer triumph of his boot making the impact; all of him slamming into the weevil in the corner. The shredding of bone; the ripping of flesh; kicking till the weevil was a pulverized mess of bone and meat. His Messi moment, Gowda thought with a secret laugh.

‘Sir,' Santosh began.

Gowda frowned at him. Then he said, turning to the ACP, ‘I understand, sir.'

The ACP stared at him, wondering what this suddenly compliant Gowda was actually up to.

‘I hear an arrest was made. A suspected child trafficking case at Sathanur. It was a night raid. Inspector Basavappa thinks we may have a breakthrough in the trafficking racket.'

Gowda nodded but didn't speak.

The ACP's mouth twisted. ‘Gowda, you need to be better informed, man.'

When the ACP left, Santosh blurted out in exasperation, ‘But why didn't you tell him, sir? It was you who set up the raid. Why are you letting someone else take the credit?'

‘Does it matter who gets the credit as long as we manage to apprehend the criminal?' Gowda said, reaching for a file.

‘Sir, I think you should have mentioned it to the ACP,' Gajendra said, walking into the room.

‘Were you listening outside the door?' Gowda glared at him.

‘I don't need to. His voice is loud enough for everyone in the station and all of Neelgubbi to hear,' Gajendra mumbled, not quite meeting his eye.

‘It's best he doesn't know my role in it,' Gowda said cryptically, refusing to elaborate any further.

Into the sudden silence that crept into the room, Gowda asked, ‘Has Ratna called?'

Santosh nodded. ‘She is taking the girl, Tina, that's her name, for the medical examination. The boy too. The children are in a bad way, sir.'

Gowda was not surprised. The bruises he had seen on the children were just a small part of what they must have been subjected to. He looked out of the window for a moment. He was running out of time. It was already ten days since Nandita had gone missing. If they weren't able to trace her soon, they may never be able to.

Nandita, where are you?

‘What about that woman, Mary? Anything on her?' Gowda asked.

Santosh shook his head. ‘PC Byrappa managed to get an address for her. The house was locked when we went there last evening. The neighbours said she had gone away just that morning.'

‘Absconding, that is.' Gowda's mouth drew into a narrow line.

‘Yes. Absconding,' Santosh said, not bothering to hide his anger or dismay.

‘You think someone tipped her off?' Gowda asked.

‘The thought did cross my mind.' Santosh's face was grim.

There was a knock on the door. Ratna came in. ‘The children won't talk to any of us,' she said. ‘When I speak to them, they look away.'

Santosh frowned. ‘They probably don't understand Kannada.'

Ratna glared at him. ‘I am not stupid. I spoke to them in Hindi. They understand that.'

Gowda raised his head from the notes he was making. ‘The children have probably seen money being given to the police. Why would they trust us? We are as vile as the traffickers in their eyes.'

‘Sir, what do we do?' Ratna had a worn out expression.

‘We'll have to bring someone else in. Maybe a social worker from a child welfare organization. Someone they'll be able to trust.'

‘That's what I thought,' said Ratna, looking distinctly unhappy. ‘Whom do we call? The truth is, sir, I am not sure it will be treated with the attention it deserves if it goes out of our hands. The doctor let me in when he was examining the girl. She is twelve and has been abused so badly.'

The room went quiet.

‘What's surprising, sir, is that the child's vagina is intact. The abuser has been having anal sex with her,' Ratna continued.

Santosh reddened. Gowda pretended not to see his embarrassment. He tapped his pen thoughtfully and said, ‘A twelve-year-old virgin would fetch a higher price. But the trafficker wasn't going to let her go without branding her. What do you understand from this?'

Santosh and Ratna looked at him dumbstruck. What did Gowda mean?

Gowda sighed. ‘She is being kept for a higher transaction. And the man we found is not the kingpin; he is just a stooge and probably someone who resents his boss. This is his way of getting even.'

‘Don't these guys have a conscience?' Santosh said, unable to hide his consternation.

‘No,' Gowda said. ‘They don't see children as children or women as women. They are just commodities; products they supply to meet a demand.'

‘Still,' Santosh persisted. ‘How do they sleep at night? How do they tell themselves it's all right to do what they're doing?'

‘Does the vegetable vendor lose sleep over how the tomatoes he sells are sliced? Does the butcher cry for the goat he sold part by part?' Gowda said.

Gowda was angry; upset and frustrated. Gajendra knew that from his voice. And he knew too that recklessness would follow. He wiped his forehead with a handkerchief.

‘Ratna,' Gowda said rising, ‘I have friends who work with children. They'll be able to help. Santosh knows them, so he can help take this forward.'

Santosh looked up, startled. This was the second time in a few hours that Gowda had made an announcement of his confidence in Santosh's ability to take charge. It felt good.

Santosh and Ratna looked at each other as they followed Gowda into the lobby. The indoor plants and a huge sculpture made it seem more like a corporate office than an apartment building. Looking at the panel of name boards, Santosh wondered at the name Lady Deviah. Everyone could see she was a lady, so why was it being declared on a name board?

‘Must be very rich,' Ratna muttered. ‘It's ten thousand rupees a square foot in this area, I am told.'

‘Maybe she has rented it out. She has none of the airs of the super rich. I've met her. She is very friendly and sweet.'

Ratna snorted. Super rich and sweet. They didn't go together. You didn't get to be super rich by being sweet. Sometimes she wondered if Santosh had crawled out from under a stone in a well in the Hampi ruins.

Gowda pretended not to hear them. Had he made a mistake by bringing them here? But he was afraid the case would slip out of his hands once the Child Welfare Committee got involved. It would come under the jurisdiction of people who may or may not pursue it.

The girl was young and seriously abused, but she was feisty and angry. She would speak to someone she could trust. And if she did, the boy would too.

Michael opened the door and ushered them in. ‘Been a while, Bob,' he said to Gowda.

‘You are the busy one.' Gowda smiled.

‘Let's meet up this Sunday,' Michael said as Urmila entered the room.

Gowda almost sighed. She looked good enough to eat. Urmila smiled at everyone but him. He got a frosty glance. She was furious at him, he realized. But what had he done?

Gowda watched Urmila as she talked to Ratna. Santosh watched Gowda watching them. Michael watched Santosh watching Gowda. He cleared his throat, causing everyone to drop their gaze. ‘The children must have seen the police being paid money. How do you expect them to trust the police after that?'

Santosh's mouth tightened. Gowda smiled. Santosh had accepted the truth when Gowda had said it but he was not going to let a member of the public get away with it. He was at that point in his career when any slight to the police force was taken as a personal insult. This too shall pass, Gowda thought ruefully. Meanwhile, he didn't want Santosh getting Michael's back up. So he leaned towards Michael and said, ‘Well, that's why we need you to speak to them.'