Vikas Swarup - Six Suspects

'Yes,' I reply, still reeling with shock. 'How did he get my number?'

'He must have taken it from my mobile. What did he say?'

'He threatened to kill me.'

'Oh my God!' she says and buries her face in her hands. There is complete silence in the room for a couple of minutes. Then she raises her head and I see her lips curved into an expression of grim determination. 'Now there is only one option left for us. We have to run away,' she declares.

'I agree,' I say and clutch her hand. 'We must think of our future together.'

'But how will we survive? I don't have any money.'

'I have enough to support both of us.'

'How much?' she asks.

'Much more than you can imagine. I promise that you will not lack anything.'

'Where will we run to?'

'Pick any city you like.'

'I have always wanted to visit Mumbai.'

'So have I. Let's go to the station right now and catch a train.'

'No. If we do that, Malini will be in a lot of trouble.'

'Then when should we go?'

'I know the perfect date. Vicky is having a big party on 23 March to celebrate his acquittal. There will be nearly five hundred people in the house and in that mêlée I will manage to slip out. Wait for me just outside the service entrance of Number Six. It is on the side path perpendicular to the main road. I will come out at exactly eleven p.m. Then we will take a taxi to the railway station and escape to Mumbai.'

'Excellent. I will get two tickets for Mumbai ready.'

Our pact is made and I know that a new phase of my life is about to begin. The future, which was nebulous till now, appears to be acquiring a definite shape. I am looking forward to living in Mumbai. They say it is the city of dreams. It has made people living on pavements film stars and industrialists overnight. Who knows what it might have in store for me.

I am tempted, on returning to the temple, to go to the sanctum sanctorum and prostrate myself before Lord Shiva. This seems like an appropriate occasion to end my tiff with God and seek his blessings. I even climb up the marble steps. In the face of Ritu's love, the songs of Bollywood have begun to seem real to me. I have begun to believe that there might be justice in this world after all. But a tiny voice in my head continues to hold me back. Where was God when those young lovers were being hanged? Was he powerless to stop the murders? Or was he himself a mute spectator to the atrocity?

I go to the railway booking office and purchase two first-class train tickets for Mumbai. The Punjab Mail will leave Delhi at 05:30 on 24 March and take Ritu and me straight to Mumbai Central.

I consider what to do with Champi and Mother. Champi appears to be completely smitten by that tribal. Every day I catch her sitting on the bench, chatting to him animatedly. And for the first time I actually hear her full-throated laugh. I don't grudge her that small happiness. And I feel it is time I informed Mother of my plan.

'Three days from now I am going to Mumbai,' I tell her.

'So suddenly?' she asks. 'Is it because of your work?'

'No. To tell you the truth, I'm getting married.'

'Oh! And who is the girl, if I may ask?'

'Her name is Ritu.'

'And does she live in Mumbai?'

'No, she lives in Delhi. In Mehrauli, in fact.'

'So is she one of the maids from the Sanjay Gandhi slum?'

'They are worthless trash, Mother, that I wouldn't even dream of marrying. Your prospective daughter-in-law belongs to one of the richest and most powerful families in the country.'

'You dream too much, Munna.'

'No, Mother. This is real. Ritu and I are getting married and moving to Mumbai. As soon as we get settled there I will send for both of you. Then Champi can have her operation. And you can finally take some well-deserved rest.'

Mother becomes instantly suspicious. 'Why are you going to Mumbai if the girl is from Delhi? Are you two eloping?'

'Sort of.'

'Look, you had better tell me all about this Ritu. Who is her father? What is her family?'

'Her father is Jagannath Rai, the Home Minister of Uttar Pradesh. Her brother is the industrialist Vicky Rai.'

Mother's hand flies to her mouth. 'No… no… no,' she murmurs.

'You always said that we are poor because of our deeds in a previous life. Well, I have managed to escape the fate that the bad karma in my previous life prescribed for me, in this life itself,' I brag, but Mother is not listening to me. She is already in conversation with her gods. 'How could you play such a cruel joke, Ishvar?' she addresses the calendars on the wall.

'What joke? What are you saying, Mother?' I demand.

'You don't know, son,' she replies in an anguished voice. 'This Vicky Rai is the one who killed your father. Mowed him down while he was sleeping on the pavement.'

I feel the ground shift beneath my feet. 'What? Are you sure?'

'A wife can never forget her husband's death. Like a film, that scene has been playing in my mind for the past fifteen years.'

'Yet you kept it a secret from me? He was my father, after all.'

'I was sworn to silence by Jagannath Rai. He gave me money for this house, for your education, in return for not implicating Vicky.'

The past has the nasty habit of catching up with you at unexpected moments. I had suspected all along that Father's death had resulted in a pay-off to Mother from the errant driver. But I had been blissfully unaware of the identity of the driver. Or perhaps I had deliberately not tried to probe too deeply into the matter. I had conveniently rationalized that we had to move on with our lives, and Father was not going to come back from the dead. But now he had. And he had detonated a small bomb in my life, throwing everything into disarray. A medley of emotions whirls through my mind, from sadness to anger to bafflement.

'Perhaps this was pre-ordained, Mother,' I say, after brooding for a while.

'What do you mean, Munna?'

'Don't you see, this is God's way of exacting revenge? Many years ago, Vicky Rai snatched something from us. Now we are going to snatch something from him.'

'So you are still going to marry his sister?'

'Ritu hates her family as much as you do. And Ritu and I love each other very much. Even Father would have approved of my decision to marry her.'

'Don't you dare bring your father into this. Or God,' Mother lashes at me. 'I will go to Vicky Rai's house myself and stop this wedding.'

I bar her way. 'You will do nothing of the sort. If Vicky Rai finds out about our plan he will kill Ritu and then he will kill me. Do you want us both dead?'

Mother glares at me for a while and then bursts into tears.

An uneasy calm prevails in the house. None of us has dinner that night. Mother sulks in her corner and is comforted by Champi. I lie down in bed and try not to think of anything. Sleep comes much later, and is invaded by multiple dreams. I dream of Father lying in a pool of blood and Vicky Rai grinning over his dead body. I dream of Ritu lying inert on a cold marble floor wrapped in a white shroud. I dream of Lallan being whipped in a police lockup. I dream of someone pulling my hair, making me scream in pain. I open my eyes and find three men inside the room, surrounding me. I don't know how they managed to raise the latch and enter my room, but I know that this is not a dream.

'Wake up, you bastard,' I hear a voice say as one of the men pulls my hair again with rough hands. I sit up, and someone flicks the light on, dazzling my eyes. I can now take a good look at the three intruders. The first is a bald man with a bulging neck dressed in tight jeans and a white Reebok T-shirt. The second is a very short man in a shimmering cream shirt, and the third man is tall and wiry with curly hair and a square jaw, wearing black trousers and shirt. There is an air of danger about them.