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Mrs Nalwa pulled her out from behind her defeated husband and said, ‘I mean it, you know. I would love to kill you. Now go.’ And she shoved a naked Anju roughly, still holding the bundle of her clothes, out of the room.
Anju was still shaking when she handed over the bug to Singh the next morning and begged him repeatedly not to use it ever. The fear had altered her from the Anju he had met earlier.
He nodded impassively as she beseeched him saying, ‘I had no idea she was so dangerous; she will kill me for sure. I can’t sleep at night, she has gotten into my head. I don’t want to see either of those two again in my life. I have asked my husband if we can leave Delhi.’
After Singh saw the film, he compared it to a terrible car wreck, where you simply cannot tear your eyes away from the damage. The father in him burned slowly in terrible rage.
He watched it again pensively after Meera left.
‘Would it satisfy Bhagwan’s prurient interest?’ he wondered. And could he show it to Meera? Did he really want to be the reason behind the young reporter’s cynicism? Yet, Singh knew he had no choice. His word as the investigating officer was not good enough for Bhagwan.
Suddenly, his phone rang. It was Cherry P., the most indefectible lobbyist in Delhi, who had purred his way to the top of all power players. He cultivated a Christ-like look, with a long beard and a zen-like detachment from all the people he bitched out all day.
Singh, while wary and puzzled by him, found his morsels tantalizing.
Cherry purred, ‘Darling,’ into the phone and threw in a secular ‘bhai’, and added solicitously, ‘I hope I am not disturbing you?’ Cherry made it a rule to be scrupulously polite, which bewildered the denizens of Delhi who felt being rude was a perk of power.
Singh said gruffly, ‘Nahi, sahib, at your service always.’
‘I heard, Singh sahib, that you have been punished for your honesty in the Nalwa case and your charge sheet is not being filed? I also heard that, being a prudent man, you have a lot of life insurance?’ Cherry P. spoke sweetly.
Singh was intrigued. Who was Cherry’s client? ‘If you are with me then what more do I need?’ asked Singh.
‘I am with you, brother,’ replied Cherry. ‘In fact, I think the CP has given Rama Kaushik such a blow job that he has come in the wrong direction.’
Singh was still puzzled and wondered whom Cherry was batting for.
‘You know, brother, the best thing in this would be if it all came out, that would be the ultimate colonic cleansing.’
Singh’s fogged bewilderment dissipated.
Cherry was speaking for his oldest and most powerful patron, Rama Kaushik, who now wanted to go public with the truth in the Nalwa case.
He smiled and said, ‘Brother, you are very wise and we must meet soon.’
Cherry cooed again, ‘You just have to tell me when, I am always at your service.’
Singh dialled Meera’s number and before she even said hello, he said, ‘The equations seem to have changed. I have got some information just now. You could try Bhagwan once more. If all fails, I can show you something. By the way, when you speak to Bhagwan, emphasize on the gunshot wounds. I forgot to tell you that I have seen the forensic report that has just come in and Dawood suppressed it from the charge sheet. Mrs Nalwa’s brother-in-law has a huge collection of guns and Dawood has hidden that fact. She could easily have got the gun from him. I was about to interrogate him. I think he was completely unaware of her plan. But the link creates reasonable doubt, especially if he missing a Mauser and a silencer in his collection. It should be licensed to him.’
Meera asked, ‘But if you knew that the pistol was registered to him, surely that’s clinching evidence against Mrs Nalwa.’
‘And that’s why it was suppressed,’ said Singh with finality.
Meera had finally realized that there was no point arguing with Singh and merely said, ‘I will speak to Bhagwan again, but it’s a waste of time. We need your evidence.’
‘Try once more,’ said Singh mysteriously and hung up.
Bhagwan was, wonders of wonder, available when Meera called his office from the Special Bureau cubicle the next morning. Smoothing her hair over nervously, Meera ran to his office. She was ushered straight in and while Bhagwan was not exactly smiling, at least he wasn’t erupting with his normal uncouth hostility.
Meera crisply told him about the smoking gun registered to the brother-in-law which was now missing, and then said, ‘I think Singh has a tape, either audio or video, where they actually almost confess but because he got it in an utterly underhand, seedy fashion, he doesn’t want to share it. However, now because he is up shit creek without a paddle, he is willing to show it to us, hoping the courts will take notice and let his charge sheet see the light of day.’
For once Bhagwan had been paying attention to Meera, just like Singh had said he would. He nodded and said, ‘Fix up a meeting with Singh for me and you. And do the missing gun story today. It will be a flier.’
However, instead of feeling delight, Meera felt confusion. She did not trust either Singh or Bhagwan. Despite the tantalizing hope of a flier, she felt creeping disillusionment. She simply nodded and said, ‘I will just call him. What works for you, today or tomorrow?’
‘Tomorrow.’
Meera got up and said, ‘Fine, I will arrange it for tomorrow and I will just file the story now.’
Bhagwan who found her response was wanting, and missed her former Pavlovian salivating response to his hint at a flier, said meaningfully, ‘Go do it. I will speak to Dev.’
Stepping outside, Meera dialled Singh. Without preamble, she said, ‘You were right. He wants to see you tomorrow. When’s a good time?’
Singh had been expecting her call. ‘Five p.m.,’ he said and hung up.
Meera went back to Bhagwan’s office like a robot on a mission and poking her head in, said, ‘It’s 5 p.m. tomorrow.’
Bhagwan said dismissively, ‘Give his address to my secretary.’
Singh ushered her inside his residence, as Bhagwan was doing what he normally did—running late. She felt awkward. All her earlier ease with him seemed to have vanished. She wondered if she should apologize for Bhagwan’s habitual delay then thought, Screw it, let him cope with it the way I do.
Singh complimented her on her story, which was an all-centre flier and the first story for which Meera had not woken up for at 5 a.m. to grab a copy of the paper.
A copy of the National Express was prominently displayed in Singh’s house, which amused Meera. Finally, Bhagwan walked in, forty-five minutes late, and shook Singh’s hand with much bonhomie. Singh, who was as squeamish as Meera about this encounter, showed them the film.
A long, aghast silence prevailed and Meera felt physically dirty. She wanted to rush out of the room and have a hot, long shower.
Bhagwan, stripped of his usual nonchalance, said, ‘Meera, you can go if you like. I want to talk to Mr Singh.’
Meera said sharply, ‘I want to stay; it’s my story.’
Bhagwan, without looking at her, said ‘Okay, Mr Singh, you do realize that this is not admissible evidence.’
‘I don’t want it admitted. I don’t think society is ready for it. But what I do want you to do is carry my original charge sheet and let the court decide,’ said Singh bluntly.
‘You think the court will send them up to trial?’ asked Bhagwan, lighting a cigarette and settling into his chair, which was clearly a bit small for him.
‘Yes, especially if the original charge sheet comes out the day after Dawood files his report claiming they cannot be sent for trial because of a lack of evidence. Your missing gun story today has already made the court restive,’ he said looking at Meera.
‘You are right. Timing will force the court to take notice. Okay, we don’t mention the details of this but work around it, talking about the final piece of the puzzle and run the original charge sheet the day after,’ said Bhagwan, taking a deep drag of his cigarette. His confidence was restor
ed. ‘It’s a great scoop in the tradition of the National Express’s anti-establishment values. Thank you, Singh sahib. It’s good we have policemen like you. I will write a leader the same day and we will run a campaign—Justice for Ambika,’ said Bhagwan with melodramatic fervour.
‘And Babloo,’ added Meera, who had been listening to Bhagwan with increasing incredulity at his 180-degree turn. She also felt that Babloo deserved some justice and now was the time to get his name in too.
‘Yes, yes, of course. Meera, file the story and show it to me, not Dev, and now do leave. I need to have a private chat with Singh sahib here,’ said Bhagwan.
As Meera quietly got up and left, she heard Singh asking Bhagwan, ‘Single malt or scotch?’
28
Meera felt incredibly deflated. As if she had come last in a race she didn’t even know she had been running. Didn’t that epic surveillance-cum-pornographic video have a whiff of sulphur that put Singh at par with the Nalwas?
And Bhagwan with his genuflections before Rama Kaushik, while pretending that he was the torchbearer of investigative journalism? That was a laugh. Did her stories make her as complicit as him, she wondered. The usual Meera doubts surfaced. Why couldn’t she just march along with the band? After all, Singh was doing his job—serving the cause of justice by whatever means he could dream up. But with Bhagwan, Meera was at a loss. Apart from the utterly thrilling personal gratification of her stories appearing in the paper, Meera could not fathom Bhagwan’s volte-face.
She remembered Vaidehiji telling her, ‘Meera, you think too much.’ Right now, she just wished for a switch that would just turn off the whole epic mess. She reached home and sat through an entire meal with her parents, picking at the food listlessly. Meera was grateful that she had escaped scrutiny. Maybe they were preoccupied with some primal grade-A bhaiyya crisis, which were always life-altering for Vaidehiji.
Meera got up from the table and silently went to bed, condemned to another night of tossing and turning. The bedroom felt small and grimy, the walls closing in on her desperation. Meera yearned wearily for sleep and wondered if it would get worse as she grew older. Will I never get any sleep? Will quitting the National Express ease my stress? Before all the conflicting thoughts, questions and fears, which made her heart race and her head ache, Meera was helpless. She could not reason herself into sleeping and felt it was a curse to wake up as promptly as she did at 6 a.m.
Lying in bed, Meera wanted to talk to her father but felt acutely that it would be an embarrassment for him, something she did not want to impose on him. She had to carry the burden of the Nalwa film alone, in complicity with Singh and Bhagwan, of course. She sat up in bed, the left side of her jaw aching, a pain in her left leg and she shuffled out of her bedroom stiffly like an old woman.
She drank her cold coffee and started to write her story, compulsively discarding introduction after introduction while sitting on her bed, when her phone rang. It was Dev.
‘Make sure you get a reaction from them, okay? Boss, that’s what God wants,’ he said bluntly.
Meera tensed, ‘Won’t it mean tipping them off? You actually want me to tell them we are doing this?’
‘Yes, madam. You called them for the missing gun story. So what’s the problem here?’ asked Dev.
‘I sent Arjun Nalwa texts asking for his reaction. Then, I sent him a questionnaire, which his lawyer said they would not comment on. This is different,’ said Meera urgently.
‘No, it’s not. Just try harder,’ said Dev, unconcerned, and hung up.
Meera felt fresh despair wash over her. This was unbelievable! Would Bhagwan ever stop patronizing her? Even now he had so expertly reversed the equation that Meera had been abruptly ejected from the driver’s seat.
She tried to dismiss Dev as a distraction, telling herself that that she would get the reaction once the story was written but it was of no use. Maybe I should do some recreational grass to relax, she thought as she swallowed down a useless painkiller for her jaw ache. She made a face as the taste in her mouth was a premonition of the acidity to come, minus the pain alleviation.
Then, shaking herself, she tried to rewrite the intro again. ‘It should be an elegant, understated telling of the main charge sheet, deliberately underplayed to avoid charges of sensationalism and to prove to the other newspapers the sheer information and detail my exclusive has,’ she thought to herself.
But it wasn’t working out that way. Random, seamy images from the sad porno film kept intruding her thoughts and distracting Meera. She wasn’t quite sure who was sadder—Singh or the Nalwas? But she had clearly picked her side and once she had climbed on to this roller coaster, there was no getting off and private regret did not make it any better.
The murders were an outrage, then why did she pity the perpetrators? Meera did not know and did not want to wonder any more. ‘I just want this story to be over. It has changed me, my certainties in life and I hate that feeling. I hate grey and I will never let myself be grey,’ she raged.
Two hours later, the story was done, leaving her even more ashen-faced with three painkillers swirling around her food-deprived stomach.
She called Arjun Nalwa and predictably, the call was left unanswered. She tapped out a text message, delicately conveying that she was filing a story on the original charge sheet. Two minutes later, a panicked Mr Nalwa was on the line. ‘What do you mean original charge sheet? That’s rubbish! There’s only one and that has been filed in court today. If you dare try and fuck with me on this, Ms Meera, I will destroy you!’ he thundered into the phone.
Meera believed him but said softly, ‘Don’t say things you will only regret later, Mr Nalwa. Threatening me won’t help you. I have already written the story. And, for the record, you have been abandoned by your patrons. Sure, you can fight in the courts. It will take years but I am going to ensure that the grey veil is lifted.’
Mr Nalwa went deadly quiet, taking in the import of what she was saying, and then said, ‘I have nothing to say to you. Print that. And I will see you and your paper in court.’
Meera felt revitalized and added Mr Nalwa’s quote to the story. Her phone rang. Her heart skipped a beat, it was Bhagwan. Anxiety filled her. What impossible thing did he want now?
Bhagwan was curt. ‘Make sure you get quotes from the CP and Dawood. I don’t want any missing leads. And give them a huge amount of space. I want all their justification for this crap they have filed. I want the courts to move on this with the speed that will be a National Express impact.’
Meera was sure he was talking to himself because he cut the phone without even listening to her.
There was pandemonium in the lower courts as Dawood attempted to file his charge sheet, in the midst of record-breaking scrum. The police had to resort to a lathi-charge as the papers baldly reported, to ensure that he could get inside the court after a delay of six hours.
The contents of the charge sheet were a bombshell. Here was the police going on record to say that since they could not solve the case and they were not sending it up for trial.
The judge, who had been serving there for twenty years, was at a loss for the first time in his career. This was probably the first time in the history of India’s jurisprudence that the police were on record as officially having given up.
There were no precedents, the one legal saviour. He was confused and decided to reserve his order. When the police counsel raised a timid objection, the judge snarled, ‘Why? You have just admitted that you couldn’t solve the double murder. If the order is reserved, will it make you solve it? What are your priorities?’
Dawood and Mr Nalwa were unnerved by the court proceedings. This was not part of the plan. Mr Nalwa, safe in the knowledge that Dawood had filed the charge sheet in court now, quietly told him about Meera’s call. Dawood, shock writ large on his face, said, ‘What is this now? It was all planned! I had everyone’s go-ahead. Why didn’t you and the CP tell me this before? Now I am screwed.’
Mr Nalwa sa
id, ‘No, I am. Unless the court doesn’t take cognizance of the story, we will go to jail. Our lives will be over. Nothing will happen to you. People will forget and you have been well paid.’ The rage was making him shake.
Dawood tried to control the situation. He said, exuding some confidence, ‘You need to calm down. Why should the court take cognizance of a piddly little newspaper? Let me see if I can try and help. The bitch has been calling me, but after the press conference I decided never to speak to her.’
Mr Nalwa was shaking with rage. Would this never go away? He had thought he would be safe after the fucking charge sheet was filed but this was destined to haunt him. I don’t think I would mind prison as much as I mind telling Cuckoo about the story. He dreaded the moment and cravenly avoided it.
Dawood wanted to get rid of him so that he could confer with the CP and speak to that arrogant bitch. Practically shoving Mr Nalwa out of his office, he started dialling the CP. The number was switched off. He screamed at his PA, ‘Find out where the CP is!’ He even dialled the RAX himself. Nothing.
The PA looked at him nervously. He said, ‘CP sahib cannot be found.’
Dawood screamed at him, ‘Where is he? How can the CP disappear?’
Seeing Dawood’s anger, the PA said timidly, ‘I will try again, sir. Ms Meera will come at 8 p.m. to see you. She said you gave her time.’ He scurried out of the office.
Dawood’s instinct, which had always been a fail-safe guide, was on high alert, telling him something was very wrong. He tried the RAX again and got no response. Sweat pooled in his groin and he felt the beads on his forehead, suddenly feeling light-headed.
Two hours later, Dawood was drunk senseless and when Meera walked in, he leered at her.
Meera looked at him with distaste and said, ‘I need your reaction to a story that we are carrying tomorrow.’