Vikram Chandra - Sacred Games

'Hello, Miss Mary,' he said.

'Since when have you been here?' Mary said, pointing with her chin at her step.

'An hour,' he said.

His voice was different too. He was altogether blurred. 'My neighbours,' Mary said, quite curt. 'You could have just called me.'

'I did. You were not here.'

'Still.'

'Yes. Sorry. But I thought it might be urgent. About your sister. Sorry.'

He was too tentative to fight with. Mary shook her head. 'Come.' In her room he stood by the door until Mary pointed to the chair. She didn't feel scared of him any more, of his authority or intentions, but she left the door ajar. He sat, and she saw that he still had that flat, unembarrassed cop's curiosity, he examined the room methodically, from left to right, and then came back to her. 'Water?' she said.

'Yes.'

'Chilled?'

'Yes.'

She opened the fridge, poured the water and walked across the room to hand him the glass. He watched her walk with that same frankness, and she was aware that although he was different, maybe tired and somehow dented, he was very much still a policeman. When she bent forward to hand him the glass, she got a quick, sour whiff of his all-day sweat, of the trains and the crowds and the steady sun.

'Thank you,' he said in English, and drank. He drained the glass, and then stared abstractedly into it. 'I was very thirsty.'

'I need your help,' Mary said. It came out higher than she intended, shrill. She was not used to asking for help.

'Yes,' he said. 'Tell me.'

'My sister's property, you said you would help me.'

'You want to take possession?'

'Yes.'

'There are no other living immediate relatives?'

'No.'

'It shouldn't be too hard. You have to prove to the court that you are really the sister. That should not be hard, even if you had no recent contact. We will give a no-objection statement from the police, saying that there are no implications for our case. I will ask Parulkar Saab, my big boss, to expedite it. Bas, that's all. It might take a while, it is a legal process after all. You will need a lawyer for the papers.'

'I know one lawyer.'

'From your divorce?'

'Yes.'

'You know they say that in Bombay, you should have among your friends one politician, one lawyer and one policeman.'

'She has become my friend, my lawyer. But I don't know any politicians, or policemen.'

'You know me now.'

He was smiling. Mary knew that she was supposed to protest sweetly, to say that he was not her friend, and in turn he would argue that yes, of course he was. 'I'll ask my lawyer to get my papers ready,' she said. 'When can I come and get that statement from you?'

He lost the smile. 'You don't have to come,' he said. 'I'll bring it. No problem.'

'I don't mind coming.'

'All the way to the station. No need.'

A police station was no place for a woman was also what he was saying. 'Listen,' Mary said, 'I go up and down this city. I can come to your station. Just let me know when.'

'Okay.' He was quiet for a moment, quite serious. 'And…any more information about your sister?'

'I told you everything.'

'Yes. But. In all these months, something more may have come up. Something you remembered.'

'No, nothing.'

'Something even very little. It may not seem important, but it may open up the case for us. Please think.'

She had been thinking for these long weeks now, these months. How little could it be? How would telling him about Jojo's inexplicable love for fat Rishi Kapoor and his podgy, twinkle-toed dancing help him open up the case? There was everything to tell, and nothing. 'If I had anything, I would tell you. I don't even know what you want to know.'

He nodded, and seemed to come to a decision. 'The trouble is that we don't know exactly what we are looking for. We are still investigating the death of Ganesh Gaitonde. It is a matter of national security, and we don't know very much about why he came back to India, why he killed himself. So we are looking for any information connected to Gaitonde. We know your sister was close to him. We know she sent girls to him. Many girls, over a long period, to Bangkok, Singapore, places like that. So if we knew anything about your sister, what her movements were, who she was connected with, maybe it could lead to information about Gaitonde. That is why I keep asking.'

'Yes,' Mary said. 'Okay.'

He pushed himself to his feet. She could see the effort it took. 'All right,' he said. 'I will call you.' He nodded.

Mary was suddenly aware of how curt she had been. 'Thank you,' she got out. 'Thanks.'

'Don't mention.' He shut the door very gently behind himself, and Mary heard his progress down the stairs.

Don't mention. When Mary had first learnt English, she had said, 'Mention not.' She had said 'mention not' for years, until Jojo had corrected her. Jojo had learnt English very fast, and her English was faster and more natural and more correct, and incorrect in the right ways. She had been good at it. Sartaj Singh's English was ambitious but only half-successful, it stumbled now and then. He probably thought it was better than it actually was. There was that much arrogance left in him still.

Mary shrugged it all away. She took a long shower, stood under the flow and let it beat on her back. She liked the cold water, the thrill of it, even in winter. I grew up in a village, she'd told John when he'd marvelled. We didn't have running hot water like you city folks, and if you wanted it you had to carry it.

The memories came, but they didn't burden her, not tonight. She lay in bed and let them fly. Now that she had spoken to Sartaj Singh, she felt relieved. She had made a decision. Whatever she still owed to Jojo, she would do. Yes. She remembered now a show she had once seen about African elephants, and fell asleep thinking of baby elephants stumbling and tumbling after their mothers.

I was impotent every day and every night of my honeymoon. As the floor tilted beneath us, I hunched over my wife, working at myself, cursing her, cursing the sea for a putrid whore, but in spite of all my efforts I was inevitably, astonishingly soft. We were on a boat, a ship called the Peshwa , pressing on to Goa. My boys had forced me to go on a honeymoon. After the death of Paritosh Shah, we had killed seven of Suleiman Isa's men in immediate retaliation, including Phul Singh, one of their top shooters imported all the way from UP. They had then got two of our boys, but their response had seemed less than full force, and I was sure more was coming. Meanwhile, as the days passed after my wedding, Chotta Badriya was increasingly horrified by my lack of interest in honeymooning. 'How can you stay here in this dirty hole on your suhaag-raat and most beautiful morning? You have to go somewhere beautiful. Everything has to start in beauty. Switzerland!' He kept up his Switzerland song until I threatened to send his golis to Switzerland ahead of me. It was madness for me to leave in the middle of a war. And yet Chotta Badriya's daily campaigning for rose-strewn nights and beautiful days had its gradual effect. This is the modern age, he said, you'll be in constant touch by phone. After all, even Suleiman Isa ran his operations by remote control from Dubai, he said, and you'll be gone for only a few days. Besides, Paritosh Shah had been a man of ritual and custom, who believed everything should be done the way it had been done yesterday and the day before, he knew every rite that marked a man's progress from conception to the feasts after his death. After Paritosh Shah's death, we had followed the accepted prescriptions in the tiniest details, fed a hundred Brahmins when a dozen would have done, and now Chotta Badriya pointed out that if I was marrying for Paritosh Shah, I had better honeymoon for Paritosh Shah. He tried to send me to Singapore on a plane, and I settled for Goa on a ship. Very romantic, he said, on a ship and all instead of some boring hotel. Yes, yes, I said. I disliked this plan the least because the trip was short, and I could always come ashore and speed back, if I was needed. Three days there, two days in Fort Aguada, three days back, honeymoon done. Except that I wasn't doing.