It takes all my willpower to block out the searing image from my mind. I loved this room once, I remind myself, recalling the sunny days I spent within these four walls sharing jokes with my sister, the nights when Alka would snuggle up to me in her pyjamas and I would regale her with instantly made-up stories of wise kings and evil sorcerers.
Having restored my mind to an equilibrium, I try to push Alka out from it completely as I concentrate on the task at hand: finding that five-rupee coin. I cannot see it on the floor. In the smoky light of the candle, I look in every direction, search in every shadowy corner, but fail to locate the coin. It seems to have vanished without a trace.
Since I have never believed in magic, it can only mean one thing: the coin has slipped through a crack between the floorboards. Crouching down, I begin tapping the boards with my knuckles, looking for a loose one. It takes me a while, but I hit pay dirt in the exact centre of the room, where Alka’s bed used to be. The wood is pale here, more worn than the rest, and the board emits the hollow sound I am looking for.
I try to pull the board out, but the gap between the edges is not large enough for me to insert my fingers and grip it. Not to be deterred, I retrieve the penknife from Shalini’s bag and use it to pry up one end. My hand reaches out, grabs the raised edge in between my fingers and this time the board lifts up.
I remove the floorboard and peer into the hollow cavity. The five-rupee coin glints atop a small mound of accumulated dust. But below the coin there is something else, a narrow cardboard box.
More dismayed than intrigued, I pull out the box. A musty, rancid smell radiates from it, tickling my nose. With trembling fingers I open the box and discover a cache of letters. For a moment I feel guilty, like a voyeur caught looking at something meant to be private or forbidden. Then my curiosity gets the better of me and I begin to thumb through the pile. Full of passionate endearments and manic declarations of love, the letters are all addressed to ‘My darling Alka’ and signed simply ‘Hiren’.
Hiren. That word triggers something within me, but it flickers at the edge of my memory, and slithers away before I can track it down. Disturbingly, some of the letters appear to be written in blood, and some are adorned with Satanic symbols. One declares chillingly, ‘You’re my light in the darkness. I will seek out and destroy whoever stands in the way of our everlasting love.’
Below the pile of letters is a solitary birthday card, doubtlessly given on the occasion of Alka’s fifteenth birthday. As I flip it open, a handful of colour photographs slip out. I take one look at them and feel the world around me beginning to spin, my body turning numb.
The photos are of a handsome boy, tall and well built, with straight, black hair falling over his forehead and a bushy moustache providing a finishing touch of virile masculinity. It is only the eyes that give him away. I would have recognised those eyes anywhere.
No, it can’t be him, I try to tell myself, but I know in my heart that he is the one. An inscription behind one of the photos gives me his full name, too. ‘ALKA SINHA + HIREN KARAK = WORLD’S GREATEST LOVE STORY’.
So Alka’s lover was Hiren Karak. My mind is a raging inferno of conflicting emotions as various scenes flash through it. I remember Shalini’s words about Indus owner Swapan Karak’s link with Rana. I recall Lauren’s boyfriend James telling me at Jantar Mantar that he had seen Karak Junior at Nirmala Ben’s fast. And Papa’s dying words reverberate in my mind like an echo in a cave. Lauren thought she heard ‘hiran’ – ‘deer’ – but now I know Papa was actually saying ‘Hiren’.
My blood runs cold. An inky blackness begins seeping into my consciousness. I have to put a hand against the floor to steady myself.
Suddenly, like death, the truth flashes on me. In that instant I know what I have to do.
I stuff the letters and photos inside the brown shoulder bag, pick up all my money and silently leave the house.
As I step out of Windsor Academy, I am gripped by a powerful sense of purpose. There is no doubt in my mind why I am here, what brought me here. This is the place where it all started, where one traumatic event set off a chain reaction of calculated, wanton destruction. And there would be poetic justice in ending it from here.
I proceed to Rawat’s Communication Centre, which used to serve as the local PCO before the era of cell phones, and discover it to be still in operation. I enter the small wooden booth, its interior defaced with countless phone numbers, and dial Lauren’s cell.
She answers on the fifth ring. ‘Lauren, this is Sapna,’ I say, keeping my voice low.
‘Sapna, is that really you—’ she begins before I cut her off.
‘I don’t have time, Lauren. Just do me a favour. Tell Guddu to meet me in front of the LIG Colony at six o’clock tomorrow morning.’
‘What do you need Guddu for? Where are you calling from?’
‘It’s best you don’t know,’ I say and cut the line.
While paying for the call I ask the young attendant, ‘Do you know what time the night bus leaves for Delhi?’
‘At ten o’clock,’ he answers. ‘Are you from the Academy, didi?’
I nod.
‘They say that girl’s ghost has returned to haunt Number Seventeen.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. The lab assistant saw candlelight flickering inside the house two days ago. And one of the teachers heard strange sounds coming from it.’
‘I don’t believe in ghosts.’ I smile sadly at him. ‘And, even if there is one, something tells me it will be exorcised by tomorrow.’
* * *
It is the season of water.
The Southwest Monsoon has arrived five days ahead of its normal date, and the entire city is wrapped in its soaking embrace. The thin, intermittent drizzle that started when I reached Delhi from Nainital at 5 a.m. has turned into a fully-fledged thunderstorm. Angry dark clouds rage across the slate-grey sky before bursting balefully over buildings, streets and fields. The rain pounds down in a stinging curtain, punctuated by jagged snakes of lightning.
I stand in front of apartment B-35, where a sturdy brass lock is dangling from the door. ‘Come on,’ I urge, nudging Guddu. ‘You said you could open any lock. So let’s see you open this one.’
Guddu gets to work immediately, fiddling around with a fat bunch of keys. He proves that he is indeed a master locksmith, taking less than three minutes to get the lock open. I show my appreciation by giving him five hundred rupees, virtually the last of Shalini’s emergency cash. I know I won’t need it any more. I have reached the end of my journey.
‘Now you can go,’ I tell Guddu. ‘The next part I can handle myself.’
As Guddu leaves, I turn the latch and step inside the apartment. It looks like a typical bachelor’s pad, sparsely furnished, with a big TV, a PS3 console and a kitchen that hasn’t been used in days. Crossing the drawing room, I enter the first bedroom. It simply has an almirah, nothing else. The second bedroom is in darkness as I enter it, but it is full of a cloying smell.
I flick on the switch, flooding the small room with sickly yellow light from a naked bulb. As I look around, my eyes dilate in shock. I feel faint. The room is a shrine to Alka. Huge blowups of my sister are plastered all over the walls. There’s a yellow scarf draped in a corner like a garland. It looks just like the dupatta with which Alka killed herself. And then there are morbid pictures of blood and death, skulls, serpents and satanic beasts. Proof that I am in the inner sanctum of a criminal psychopath.
I spend the next thirty minutes searching the room, opening drawers, rummaging inside closets, even upturning the mattress. I discover plenty of cash, plenty of cocaine, and a dozen letters from Alka to Hiren.
As I begin reading the letters I am taken back in time, to the idyllic world of an innocent fifteen year old who had stars in her eyes and dreams in her heart. So many of the letters make a mention of me, how Alka doted on me, trusted me with her life, that I cannot contain myself any longer. I sink to the floor clutching these last relic
s from Alka. The tears that refused to fall the day she died now come gushing down as I mourn my departed sister.
The crying does me good. I feel cleansed from inside, as if a malignant deposit over my heart had been washed away.
So lost am I in that cloud of grief that I don’t even notice when the front door opens and someone tiptoes in. Before I know it, a cold metallic barrel is pressed into the small of my back.
I turn around and gaze at the man wielding the gun. Dressed in a white Adidas tracksuit, he looks unkempt and scruffy. His hair is back to what it was in those old photographs, long and straight. The moustache has also grown back, thicker, even a shade darker.
‘Hello, Karan,’ I address him, dabbing at my eyes, ‘Or should I call you Hiren?’
‘Some sixth sense told me you might be coming to the colony. But I didn’t expect you inside my house,’ he whispers in disbelief. ‘I thought I had covered my tracks pretty well.’
‘You did, but a lucky five-rupee coin led me to you. Tell me, did you even go to America?’
‘I never left Delhi.’ He grins.
‘And exactly how old are you?’
‘I’m twenty. Old enough to know what it means to lose the one person you love the most in the world.’
‘I also lost a sister. Alka was—’
‘Don’t you dare utter Alka’s name,’ he shrieks in outrage. Bending down, he grabs my hair and yanks me back. Pain spiders through my scalp and down my neck. With his free hand, he pulls at my T-shirt, ripping it, exposing my bra. ‘Just checking to see if you are wired up.’ Then he snatches my leather bag and upturns it. ‘Good.’ He nods. ‘No tape recorders here either.’
‘I wasn’t sent here by the police.’
‘I figured that out. It means no one knows my secret. Except you.’
‘And what do you intend to do with me?’ I ask as a bolt of lightning floods the room, like an enraged eye watching everything.
‘Kill you, of course,’ he says tonelessly, training the gun on me, as a loud peal of thunder shakes the walls, flinging open the window. ‘No one will hear the gunshot in this rain. And I can easily take care of the body.’
‘Kill me if you have to,’ I say calmly, ‘but can you at least tell me why you did all this? And for once can you speak the truth?’
‘The truth, eh?’ he sneers. ‘You were always a sanctimonious bitch. Just like your father.’
‘You hated him, didn’t you?’
‘Hate is a mild word. I utterly loathed him for what he did to Alka, for what all of you did to Alka.’
I point at the corner with the yellow dupatta. ‘How come you have this piece of cloth?’
‘It was part of a pact with Alka,’ he says, his voice acquiring the mellow tone of melancholy remembrance. ‘The night of her death I came into her room through the window. We made a vow to run away and get married in an Arya Samaj Temple. The yellow cloth was to be the marriage knot, one for her and one for me. She just asked me for a couple of hours to pack her bags. I kept waiting at the bus station but Alka did not come. She loved her family too much, a family that didn’t deserve her love at all. Rather than elope with me, she chose to die. Her bridal knot ended up as the noose around her neck.’
He gazes at me with judgemental eyes before resuming. ‘You took away the only thing that mattered to me. When Alka died, I died too. The world became a dark place. Studies seemed pointless. I dropped out of school, burning with just one desire: to have my revenge.’ He pauses for a breath, and his tone changes. Gone is the grieving lover, to be replaced by the warped psycho. ‘I could have wiped out your entire family in a second. But that would have been too easy. I wanted to make you suffer. Like I have suffered since my beloved’s death.’
‘So you followed us to Delhi?’
‘Yes. First I got rid of that vermin Pramod Sinha. I was the one who lured him to Deer Park. Nothing cooled my heart more than seeing him being run over by that truck.’
‘And Neha? How did she fit into your sick scheme?’
‘Alka never got along with her. Neha was so in love with herself, so obsessed with her beauty. I wouldn’t have minded screwing her but she spurned me. Said a kiss was all I would get. So I had to teach her a lesson. It was me on that motorcycle who burned her with acid.’ He curls his lips in contempt. ‘The bitch had it coming.’
I know I am in the presence of pure evil. The turmoil that has seethed in my brain for so long is close to boiling over, rendering me speechless for an instant. In that eerie hiatus, the only sound in the room is the steady pounding of falling rain.
‘But my biggest revenge was reserved for Alka’s betrayer – you,’ he says, his face contorting into a grotesque visage of wrath and loathing.
‘So was it you who got Acharya to propose those seven tests?’
‘No. I had nothing to do with that crackpot. In fact, I have still not figured out why he chose you out of the blue to be his CEO.’
‘But you certainly had a role in his death, didn’t you?’
‘Damn right. When I couldn’t dissuade you from taking part in Acharya’s mind games, I decided to play a few of my own. After the second test I met Rana and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.’
‘Was it you who got me attacked by those hoodlums inside the Japanese Park?’
‘Who else? I needed that knife with your fingerprints.’
‘And then you used the same knife to murder Acharya and frame me.’
‘Bingo! The plan was to send you to the slammer for at least twenty years.’
‘You might as well tell me what happened the night of the murder.’
‘It went exactly as per plan. After taking care of that little business with Neha, I proceeded to Acharya’s house, hidden in Rana’s car. We let him finish his dinner, and then went up to his bedroom. I waved a gun in his face and told him to keep his mouth shut. The best part was calling those idiot servants pretending to be Acharya and getting rid of them for the night. Rana left five minutes later but I kept Acharya company with the gun at his head. When you called Acharya’s phone from the hospital, I answered it. I was always a good mimic, and imitating Acharya’s distinctive voice was dead easy.’
‘When exactly did you kill Acharya?’
‘Immediately after your call. The moment you started for Prarthana, you signed his death warrant. You should have seen the way the old codger squealed when I stabbed him with a knife. Once he dropped dead, I simply replaced the knife with the one carrying your fingerprints. And then I waited for you to walk into the trap.’
‘So you were inside Prarthana when I arrived?’
‘But of course. I was the one who answered the intercom. And I stayed even after you had left, holed up in the garage. Rana returned just after midnight and I left the way I had come, curled up inside his car. You’ll have to admit it was the most ingenious murder plan ever devised.’
I remain silent, still processing what he has just said.
‘If you want I can also tell you the Atlas side of the story.’
‘I think I already know. The Indus Group was the front for Atlas, wasn’t it?’
‘Correct. Except my dad, Swapan Karak, revealed the secret to me much later. If I’d known, I’d never have agreed to impersonate Salim Ilyasi.’
‘Not only did you kill Acharya, you also framed him.’
‘It was a gift for Dad,’ he says. ‘My father never liked me, always preferring my elder brother Biren over me. After I dropped out of school he virtually disowned me. But, when the noose of Atlas around his neck began tightening, he came to me in a panic. I sorted it out for him. All it took was for Rana to put Dad’s secret bank documents into Acharya’s safe. So I actually managed to kill two birds with one stone.’
‘And then you double-crossed Rana.’
‘That skunk got greedy. He began demanding more. So Dad and I had to take care of him. And now I’m going to take care of you.’
It seems inconceivable that I loved this man once. All I feel
for him now is an all-consuming hate. And I cannot bear the prospect of his going scot-free. My eyes dart around and settle on a glass paperweight with the Indus logo, just out of arm’s reach. Alka’s letters are still clutched in my hand. In a daring instant I fling them at him, momentarily startling him. Simultaneously my right hand shoots out, grabs the paperweight and hurls it at him. I aim for his face, but it hits him in the chest, rendering him off balance. I scramble to my feet, but, before I can gain a steady footing, Hiren lashes out with his leg, sending me crashing to the floor. I grunt in pain, only for it to increase as Hiren grinds his heel into my midsection, pinning me down. ‘You had the guts, but not the aim,’ he whispers, his teeth bared in a wolf’s snarl.
‘There’s just one more question I—’
‘No more talking,’ he says, interrupting me. ‘I’m now skipping straight to the killing.’ He raises the revolver and points it directly at my face.
A foreboding sense of déjà vu sweeps through me, my senses heightened by the cold adrenaline of physical danger. I look into his stark, uncompromising face, into his eyes shining with a fanatic coldness, and know I can expect no mercy from him.
With the deflating knowledge that I have failed in my mission comes a more mature realisation. Justice, revenge, retribution are best left to the gods of karma. I am going to join Alka and Papa and I want to go with a peaceful heart. In that moment I empty my mind of everything, even the thought of God. I let go of all resentment, regret, bitterness, unforgiveness, leaving only a lingering residue of sadness that I was not able to do my bit for Ma and Neha.
‘Do it,’ I say, just as another crack of thunder erupts outside.
Hiren thrusts the revolver inside my mouth. The cold, metallic taste of death is on my lips. It will be quick at least.
The scene unfolds with the punishing clarity of a bad dream. An obscenity slips out of Hiren’s lips, his trigger finger twitches, there is the blast of a gunshot and I flinch. But, instead of toppling down, I see Hiren staggering back, incredulity written large on his face. He clutches his left shoulder, where a giant flower of blood is blooming on his tracksuit top.