Vikram Chandra - Sacred Games

And after all this knowledge she was still unable to cut away the yearning for him. Sartaj saw this as soon as Umesh walked in. Umesh shook hands firmly with Sartaj, and touched Kamala Pandey on the arm in greeting, on the bare skin. She kept herself stone-still, rigid. Sartaj abruptly remembered how he had fought down the vibration echoing up his arm when the estranged Megha had touched him lightly on the wrist, when she had bent towards him. He had strained with all his back and shoulders then to keep himself from tilting towards her in turn, and now he could not clench his throat shut against a warm pang of sympathy for this wandering wife.

'Hello,' Umesh said. 'I should make some excuse about being jammed in traffic, but really, I just got more and more behind this morning. Sorry.'

He certainly was beautiful. He wore dark red jeans, and a tight white T-shirt over pumped shoulders. The jeans were preposterous, but on Umesh they were perfect. He glowed golden, from his long arms up to the light brown eyes, which were very like Kamala's. She must have looked into them and seen herself. 'Sit,' Sartaj said. The man had an open, happy charm, and Sartaj wasn't going to give in to it.

'I'll just use the bathroom and come back,' Umesh said. 'It was a long ride.' He put his phone and a set of keys down on the table and hurried off. The phone was exactly the same model as Kamala's, satiny and small. His keys were attached to a model of a car, something low and fast.

'It's a Porsche,' Kamala said. 'Umesh likes cars.'

'Yes,' Sartaj said. 'And he drives too fast, right?' She nodded. That's how they must have gone up to the guest house, Sartaj thought, going too fast and weaving through the traffic, excited by the bursts of speed. 'What does he drive?'

'A Cielo.'

'A red one?'

'No, no. Those are just his pants. I told him red is not his colour, but he likes to be noticed. The car is black.'

Umesh came back into the restaurant and slid into the chair across from Sartaj. He was tall, an inch or two over six feet, and had the smallest waist Sartaj had seen on a man in a long while. He narrowed like an inverted triangle from the shoulders to the hips, and the quick travel from the gym-broadened shoulders to the absence of belly gave him the look of a cartoon figure. Kamala liked this superhero, though. She had tensed up again.

'Ah, Inspector saab,' Umesh said. 'Now I am totally at your service.'

'I know the main story,' Sartaj said. 'But I want to know about this guest house. What is it called?'

'Cozy Nook Guesthouse. On Frichley Hill, near that big Fariyas Resort. Cozy is a little place, not too crowded, nice view. It's just a cottage really, which the owners rent out. C-o- zed -y.'

He was looking at Sartaj's notebook, in which Sartaj had written 'Cosy Nook Guesthouse.' He was smiling warmly, and the joke was on the impenetrable English language, so it was impossible to be angry with him. He was altogether too pretty, but he was a good fellow. Sartaj could see how he would charm the ladies, he would tell them all his faults, and pay full attention with those sunlit eyes, and smile. You would have to be charmed. 'Yes,' Sartaj said. 'How did you find it?'

'A friend used to own a house near it, we used to drive past it. It's an old place.'

'Did you notice any new waiters? Any change in the staff?'

'No, not really. I wasn't paying that much attention, you see. But if I'm correct it's all the same people.'

'Any idea who could have taken those videos?'

'No, sir. There is the staff. But then also the other guests. I don't remember anybody specific, though.'

'You didn't ever recognize any of the other guests?'

'No, no. Never. If that had happened, I would have remembered.'

'Do you know which dates those videos were taken on?'

'No, you couldn't really tell. And I didn't note the dates we went up there.'

'How many times did you go to this Cozy Nook?'

'Over all those months? I don't know, maybe six, seven times?'

'More like eleven times, maybe twelve,' Kamala said. 'The last time was at the beginning of May.'

'I thought you broke up six months ago,' Sartaj said.

'We had.'

So they had gone all the way to the Cozy Nook for broken-up sex. They had probably argued all the way up there, and been silent on the way down. Judging from the bitter set of Kamala's lips, they had an argument coming now. Maybe more broken sex, although for Kamala's sake, Sartaj hoped not. There was little comfort to be gained from such transactions, especially when they involved a man like Umesh. Nice fellow, but not sturdy. Not at all like the decidedly unbeautiful but dependable Mr Pandey.

Now Sartaj asked Mrs Pandey, 'Who hates you?'

'What?' Kamala's shoulders hunched, and she curved in on herself and just a little bit towards Umesh.

'Who are your enemies?' Sartaj said evenly.

'Kamala is a very nice person,' Umesh said. He had his arm behind Kamala now, with fingertips resting on her shoulder. 'I don't think she has enemies.'

'Yes,' Kamala said. 'I mean, I've had quarrels with people, but enemies?'

'Everyone has enemies,' Sartaj said. 'It's better to know who they are.'

That silenced them for a moment, as they tried to calculate which friend or acquaintance might harbour enough secret loathing to qualify as a genuine foe. 'So you think this is personal?' Umesh said.

'Blackmail is usually about cash. But it may be worth thinking about friends and adversaries. Anybody who is in a position to have information, and who may be angry about something, or need money urgently.'

Umesh was shocked. 'Even someone connected to me? Wouldn't they have approached me as well?'

'You are not married. And you are a man.'

'And I support my parents and sisters. I don't have much cash flow. So they would go for the easy target.'

'So who can it be?'

Both the men looked at Kamala. Her cheeks were congested, flushed, and Sartaj wondered if she would weep. This time he would believe it, maybe. But she gathered herself and named her enemy. 'I had a friend named Rachel.'

'So you fought?' Sartaj said.

'Yes.'

'About what?'

Kamala laughed at his obtuseness. It was an ugly sound. 'What do you think?'

Of course. They had quarrelled over Umesh. There had once been sisterly love, maybe years of it, and then the beautiful Umesh had come between them. 'Rachel was your best friend?'

'Yes.'

'Then?'

'We met Umesh together. At a party.'

'And Rachel liked him?'

'Arre, boss,' Umesh interjected, a hand reaching across the table. 'I never even did anything with that woman. I met her a few times with Kamala, and God knows what all this Rachel assumed.'

What Umesh thought was not of any consequence, given the circumstances. 'What did Rachel feel?' Sartaj said to Kamala.

'She liked him.'

'From the beginning?'

'Yes. We talked about him after the first time at that party. She kept saying what a perfect man he was. Masculine, but sensitive.' This last with a roll of her eyes.

'And then?'

'What had to happen, happened.'

'When did you tell Rachel?'

She remembered exactly when. 'One Sunday two months later. I came back from a flight and went straight to her house. I just couldn't stand it any more.'

'And?'

'She told me to get out. She never spoke to me again.'

'She was that angry?'

'She had been divorced two years before that. And had never liked anyone.'

'Till Umesh.'

'Till Umesh.'

To his credit, Umesh wasn't smug about this, about his fatal charm that caused women to hate each other. He was anxious, and disbelieving. 'Still,' he said, 'it's hard to believe that someone like Rachel would come so low in the world. I mean, blackmail like this…'

'She is the only one who knows about us,' Kamala said dully.