Second Lives (29 page)

I fired a single shot. It was a little lower than I had intended and the bullet went into the base of Crazy Eyes’ neck. There was a great gush of blood, and he collapsed. I knew he would die in a few seconds and moved towards the other man who lay next to the sofa, shards of glass sticking out of his face. I shot him in the head at point-blank range.

For a few seconds, none of us moved. The only sound was a dying gurgle from Crazy Eyes. Then I felt my sixth sense signalling furiously again. I knew what it was telling me.

The third man had heard the noise and rushed back. As he appeared in the doorway, I put a two-shot burst into his chest. He tottered like a marionette with its string cut off but managed to fire a shot from his M20 even as he was falling.

To my horror, I saw a red stain spreading on Sara’s breasts.

72

Neel

‘Sara!’ I rushed across. Cradled her in my arms. She was rapidly going into shock. With a great effort, she lifted a hand and put it on her wound. The blood continued to seep through her fingers. Then her eyes glazed. She slumped on my shoulder.

I looked at Roy and said, ‘We have to do something!’ My voice was choked with grief and anger.

Omar had already picked up his phone. I presumed he was calling for an ambulance and the police. In that order.

Roy knelt down in front of Sara. He carefully peeled away her blood-soaked tee shirt. The bullet had entered just below her left breast. From the colour of the blood, I knew an artery had been pierced. Possibly one of the major ones around the heart. The first thing to do was seal the wound. Prevent air from being sucked inside.

Roy had figured out the same thing. He looked around for something to make a compress with. There was a rainproof jacket draped around a dining chair. It would serve the purpose. He folded it and placed it firmly on Sara’s midriff. Omar quickly came around to hold it in place. I checked her breathing. It was laboured but regular. That was good news. It meant that the bullet hadn’t punctured a lung.

I asked frantically, ‘Shouldn’t we just take her to a hospital?’

Omar said, ‘The ambulance will be here in ten minutes.’

Roy put his hand on my shoulder. ‘Let’s wait. It’s best not to move her until the medics arrive.’

The room was like a slaughterhouse. The smell of blood and cordite hung heavy in the air. Our three attackers lay where they had fallen. I knew it wouldn’t be an easy matter to explain to the authorities. Roy muttered, ‘I’ll have to get one of the Members to make a call. This is no time to get into any messy tangles with the police.’

He checked the pockets of the three men. None of them carried any identification. The ringleader had a thick wad of notes tucked inside the waist band of his trousers. They were stained dark with his blood. An advance payoff for the hit, I guessed.

He was the only one carrying a mobile phone. Roy went through his call history. The most recent one was from a number saved as
Karan Sirji
. Here was proof, if any was required, of who had sent them. I figured Karan must be panicking. He had dramatically upped the ante by sending his men on such a brazen mission to get rid of us. It didn’t seem to be his style at all.

‘The police will be here soon,’ said Omar. ‘How the hell do we explain all of this?’

‘You’ll have to say it was a break-in and attempted burglary,’ Roy replied. ‘That’s what these guys were trying to make it look like anyway.’

‘But the guns…the bodies…I doubt the police will buy that story.’

‘Let them investigate. That’s their job.’

After a pause, Omar said, ‘The way you…killed those guys…are you a commando or something, Roy?’

‘Something like that.’

I was suddenly irritated at their conversation. ‘Fuck the police! I don’t understand what you guys are going on about. We need to first get Sara to a hospital.’

As if on cue, there was the distant wail of an ambulance siren.

Roy stood up and said, ‘I have to go now.’

I exclaimed, ‘What do you mean? What happens to…’

He interrupted me. ‘Neel, don’t forget that Karan is behind this attack and our first priority is to stop him before he kills anybody else. I can’t afford to get caught up with the police right now. They’ll never accept what really happened here.’

‘But…but what do we say then?’

‘Well, you can say that there was a fourth man in the group, who killed the others after an argument and escaped. That will have to do for the moment. I’ll handle things from the outside later.’ Roy paused. ‘Hope you guys will be at the school reunion?’

‘You’re going to be there?’ I was surprised.

The old alma mater completed a hundred and fifty years of existence that year. To commemorate the milestone, the annual Founder’s Day celebration was going to be extra special. There would be the usual parades, exhibitions, competitions, memorial services and dances. But on a much grander scale. In addition to the traditional silver and golden jubilee reunions, there was going to be a special service for the students completing twelve years since graduation.

Us.

Attendance was generally thin among golden jubilee folks. They were almost seventy. Many wouldn’t be fit enough to travel. So they decided to include a third, younger batch. I used all my influence as the general secretary of our alumni association to ensure that it was ours which got chosen.

As I joked later, unlike ten or fifteen, twelve years maintained a sort of geometric progression with twenty-five and fifty.

Before Roy could reply, there was a faint groan from Sara. I gripped her hard. ‘Sara, Thank God! Can you hear me?’

She stirred and opened her eyes. ‘Roy…’ Her voice was barely audible.

Roy knelt again in front of her. ‘Hang in there, Sara. You’ll be fine.’

‘Roy…I’m really…sorry.’

‘Don’t talk. The ambulance will be here any minute.’

She looked at him. Her eyes were full of tears. ‘I…I’ve lived a lie about you…inside my head. For all…these years.’

I had no idea what she was trying to say. Perhaps it was the trauma of the injury.

‘Sara, whatever it is, don’t worry about it.’

She took his hand and squeezed it tightly. ‘You…don’t understand. It was Karan…and I…who…’ She stopped.

‘Who…what?’

‘That night…we…pushed you…into the river.’ She began to sob.

I was stunned. She sounded like she was telling the truth. If her brain was muddled from the shock, it was still a strange thing to make up.

I glanced at Roy. Looking bewildered, he asked, ‘But…why?’

‘Because…I believed…you…’ She didn’t complete the sentence. Her eyes closed slowly. She was still.

part four

73

Roy

I had mixed feelings as I stood in front of that once familiar gate.

The twin pillars built of large granite blocks were inlaid with marble, on which was etched the name, founding year and motto of our school. The spherical lights atop each pillar were new. The gate itself was an arched grille, affixed with a bronze plate emblazoned proudly with the school emblem. The guard-house, built in the Victorian style that characterised the architecture of the entire campus, stood as it had for over a century and a half.

I recognised the grizzled durwan
in the olive green uniform who ambled out to open the gate. He had been there during our time, an unyielding symbol of authority who had apprehended many a student trying to sneak out of the premises. He was now old and frail, yet the steely look in his eyes was as I remembered.

He didn’t recognise me, of course.

Even if his memory was strong enough to recall me from the tens of thousands of boys he must have seen graduate, the fact was that I was in disguise. Sort of. I was wearing heavy glasses and had cropped my hair very short. I had also stopped shaving since that eventful night at Sara’s house and a luxuriant beard did a good job of concealing my features.

I was back at these loved portals after twelve tumultuous years, but incognito. A ghost. I had no doubt that if anyone did end up recognising me, that’s exactly what they would think I was.

The durwan
gave me a piercing look and checked my name against a much-thumbed list. It was an assumed name but I was carrying matching photo ID, just in case. When he finally let me through, I hoisted my bag on my shoulder and walked up the driveway. The autumn chill had already begun to set in. I breathed in the sweet, cool air. The road had been recently resurfaced and the canopy formed by the deodar trees lining either side was as green as ever.

I rounded the sharp bend which we used to call the U-Turn, and passed under the school arch. The damage from a lightning strike over a hundred years ago had never been fixed but it was one of the most striking landmarks of our school. The road then sloped upward towards the main academic block but I decided to take a detour.

The principal’s house was unchanged. It still looked like the plush holiday home of some rich industrialist, all stone and glass. The asymmetric gabled roof had several dormer windows protruding from its sloped sides, giving the entire structure a fairytale look. The large porch was painted green and covered with ivy. I knew that behind the house was a beautifully landscaped lawn, complete with rose-beds and sit-outs.

One wing of the sprawling house was now reserved for special guests—celebrities, political bigwigs, famous alumni, Board members, school patrons. It was kept locked up for most of the year but maintained meticulously by a caretaker. I took a close look at this wing and filed away its layout in my mind.

I would never forget the look on Johnny Marshall’s face on my first day in school all those years ago, when he opened the door to my persistent knocking. He was in electric blue pyjamas, which had a pattern of little umbrellas on them. The sight of the portly, bald man in those ridiculous pyjamas had brought an involuntary smile to my face but it was wiped off instantaneously when I saw his reaction. I learnt later that I was probably the only student who had ever seen Johnny Boy in anything other than his immaculately tailored suits.

At that moment, I had sensed something was wrong and that this man could not possibly be the bursar but I foolishly went ahead and asked him where I could spend the night. For a few seconds, he was speechless, even as his face turned red and then purple, coordinating well with his pyjamas. Then he let forth a tirade which made me feel that I would be better off going into the ground. Only the fact that I was a new student saved me from a painful caning.

I had figured out by then that I was the victim of a prank but I didn’t tell on Sara or the others. After finally managing to get away from the old man’s rage, I walked back to the academic block, where they were still sitting on the lawn. Sara asked me innocently, ‘So what did the bursar tell you?’ At that, everyone burst out laughing. It was infectious and despite my indignation, I had found myself smiling and sitting down next to them on the grass.

That was a long time ago. The simple friendship which began on that day was now ruined by death, deceit and misfortune. I didn’t even know if I was the same person anymore. I practically started a second life after the Blackout.

I have no memory of that ill-fated camping trip.

It was only much later that I learnt about it, while trying to piece together what had happened. I knew there were six of us. Karan and Sara were seeing each other at the time, and he had come along. I can imagine that none of us had been too happy about it but Sara’s powers of persuasion were legendary and I guess we all eventually must have come around.

I vaguely recalled that I had drunk alcohol for the first time in my life that night and passed out. Sometime during the night, I must have fallen into the river in an inebriated state and was presumed to have drowned. My friends who had planned on getting me drunk had felt really guilty but it wasn’t a crime, of course. The police had closed the case with the verdict that my death was an accident.

Until I heard Sara’s last words to me, I had no reason to believe anything else.

I can’t deny that the possibility of foul play had struck me. It wasn’t inconceivable that one of the others had something to do with the incident, especially since I found it difficult to digest that I would walk into a raging river without realising it, however intoxicated I might have been. In fact, Karan’s name was the one that had kept popping up in my mind.

However, I had finally dismissed the thought, mainly because I couldn’t fathom for a moment what his motive could be. He might have hated me because of Sara’s feelings for me but that wasn’t reason enough for murder. And I certainly didn’t think Sara and he were in it together.

But apparently, that’s the way it was. I found myself believing Sara, despite the circumstances. It’s a pity she didn’t complete what she was trying to say so the motive is still a mystery. I guess I’ll never know now.

It was confounding. Why would Sara, of all people, want to kill me? She had this big crush on me but it hadn’t affected our friendship. Or had it? I remembered that winter evening when she had come on to me very strongly in an isolated area of our school campus, and I had had to push her off. Literally. We never spoke about the incident and continued as if nothing had happened. She never did anything like that again.

There was always something wrong inside Sara’s head. We all knew, though she didn’t ever talk about it. I had gathered it was some type of rare schizophrenia which wasn’t serious enough to prevent her from leading a normal life. We hardly ever got any glimpse of the disorder. I can only remember the one time when she had a fit and fell unconscious in the classroom. We took her to the local hospital immediately but she had to be moved to Delhi and stayed there for almost a month before returning to school.

I don’t know if Sara harboured some kind of paranoid delusion about me, which had prompted her murderous plot. If that was indeed the case, she had kept it very well hidden. Her treachery should have triggered all sorts of angry emotions in me but I felt indifferent. I suppose it was too far back in the past to matter anymore. Besides, justice seemed to have been served already, albeit by a different hand.