Gregory Roberts - The Mountain Shadow

‘Shut up, Vinson, or talk sense.’

‘Wait! Let me explain. I was in the police station, paying a fine for my driver, you know, because he got in this fight with another driver, on Kemps Corner, near the Breach Candy turnoff, and he -’

‘Vinson. The girl.’

‘Yeah, man, I finished up with the cops, and I saw this girl sitting there. You gotta see her, man. Those eyes. Her eyes… they’re… they’re fire and ice at the same time. You’ve gotta see it to believe it. What is it about the eyes that gets you so fucked up, man?’

‘Connection. Back to the girl.’

‘Like I said, her boyfriend died of an overdose some time, like, last night or early this morning. Best as I can make out, she woke up and found him like that, stiff as a two-by-four, and long gone. She was stayin’ at the Frantic.’

‘Go on.’

‘Those Frantic guys run a tight ship, and they know how to keep their mouths shut. I’ve done some deals there. But, like, dead bodies? They draw the line, you know?’

‘I know the Frantic. They held the girl, called the cops, and handed her over.’

‘Yeah, the fuckers.’

‘They were just trying to stay outta jail, like you should be, Vinson. It’s not safe to play Good Samaritan in a police station, when you’re a drug dealer. It’s not ever safe in a police station.’

‘I… I know. I know. But this girl, man, it’s mystical, I tell ya. I tried to get the cops to open up about her. The only thing they told me was that she did the identification of the body at the morgue, like they wanted. That must’ve been hell for her, man. And she made a statement, like they asked her. But she didn’t do anything, and they won’t let her go.’

‘It’s about money.’

‘I figured. But they won’t talk to me. That’s why I need you.’

‘Who’s on duty?’

‘Dilip. The duty sergeant. He’s on top of it all. She’s sitting in his office.’

‘That’s good.’

‘I can pay him, to let the girl go?’

‘He’d sell his gun and badge, if you offered enough.’

‘That’s great!’

‘But then he’d find you, and beat you up to get them back.’

‘That’s not great.’

‘He likes fear. Fill your eyes with just enough simulated fear to make him smile, then give him money.’

‘Is that what you do?’

‘Lightning Dilip and I are past simulated fear.’

‘If you go in there with me, will he let us pay, and get the girl out of there?’

‘Sure. I think so. But… ’

‘But what?’

I exhaled a long, exhausted breath, and frowned my reservations into his worried eyes.

I liked Stuart Vinson. His lean, handsome face, tanned by six years of Asian sunlight, always carried the kind of brave, earnest, determined expression that might’ve graced a polar explorer, leading others on a noble adventure, even though he was in fact a wily, lucky drug dealer, who lived lavish in a city where hunger was a constituency. I couldn’t read his motive.

‘Are you sure you wanna get involved? You don’t know this girl. You don’t even know her name.’

‘Please don’t, like, say anything bad about this girl,’ he said softly, but with surprising force. ‘It will make me not like you. If you don’t want to help me, that’s cool. But me, I already know everything I need to know about her.’

‘Jesus.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, hanging his head for an instant.

Just as quickly he raised his pleading eyes again.

‘I know it sounds crazy, but I’ve been there in Dilip’s office for the last two hours, trying to help her. She didn’t say anything. Not a word. But this one time she looked up at me, and she gave me this, like, little smile. I felt it in my heart, Lin. I can’t explain it. And I… I smiled back at her. And she felt it, too. I know it. I’m sure of it. Sure as anything I’ve ever known in my life. I don’t know if you know what it’s like to love someone for no reason you can understand, but all I’m asking is that you help me.’

I knew what it was like: everybody in love does. We walked across the street to the Colaba police station, and into Lightning Dilip’s office.

The duty sergeant looked me up and down, looked at the girl sitting across the desk from him, and then looked back to me.

‘A friend of yours?’ Lightning asked, nodding at the girl.

I looked at her, and something curled inside me, like ferns closing. It was the girl whose photograph was in the locket, the girl who’d sold the locket, the girl I’d tried to warn, when I returned the locket to her.

Fate , I thought, get off my back .

Her greasy hair was tangled and clinging to the sweat on her neck. She wore a royal blue T-shirt, faded from over-washing, and tight enough to reveal her small, frail physique. Her jeans seemed too large for her: a thin belt gathered them in bunches around her narrow waist.

She was wearing the locket. She recognised me.

‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘A friend. Please, Sergeant- ji , turn on the fan.’

Lightning Dilip glanced at the unmoving fan over her head, and almost imperceptibly lifted his eyes to the fan over his own head, rotating swiftly to banish the monsoon smother.

He shifted his eyes to me again, the irises set in honey-coloured hatred.

‘ Punkah! ’ he bellowed at a subordinate.

The constable hastily switched on the fan over the girl’s head, and cooling air streamed onto the sweat bathing her slender neck.

‘So, she is your friend, Shantaram?’ Dilip asked cunningly.

‘Yes, Lightning- ji .’

‘Very well then, what is her name?’

‘What name did she give you?’

Dilip laughed. I turned to the girl.

‘What’s your name?’ I asked.

‘Rannveig,’ she replied flatly, her hand drifting to the locket around her neck, as her eyes met mine. ‘Rannveig Larsen.’

‘Her name’s Rannveig,’ I said. ‘Rannveig Larsen.’

Dilip laughed again.

‘That’s not the name I have written in front of me,’ he said, still smiling.

‘It’s Norwegian,’ the girl said. ‘You write it like R-a-n-n-v-e-i-g , but you pronounce it Runway – like the thing at the airport.’

‘Her name’s Rannveig,’ I said. ‘Like the thing at the airport.’

‘What do you want, Shantaram?’ Dilip asked.

‘I’d like to escort Miss Larsen home. She’s had a pretty rough day.’

‘Miss Larsen tells me that she has no home,’ Dilip retorted. ‘She was thrown out of the Frantic hotel this morning.’

‘She can stay at my place,’ Vinson said quickly.

Everyone looked at Vinson.

‘It’s… it’s a big place, my place,’ Vinson stammered, looking from one to another of us. ‘There’s plenty of room. And I have a live-in servant. She’ll take good care of her. That is… if… if she wants to come to my place.’

Lightning Dilip turned to me.

‘Who the fuck is this idiot?’ he asked in Hindi.

‘This is Mr Vinson,’ I said.

‘I’m Stuart Vinson,’ he said. ‘I was here, like, ten minutes ago.’

‘Shut up,’ Lightning said.

‘We’d like to escort Miss Larsen home, Lightning- ji ,’ I said. ‘That is, if she’s free to leave.’

‘ Free ,’ Dilip repeated, drawing out the word. ‘It’s such a little word, but with so many conditions attached to it.’

‘I’d be happy to meet those conditions,’ I said, ‘depending, of course, on just how many conditions there are, and how firmly they’re attached.’

‘I can think of at least ten conditions,’ Lightning said, a sly grin sliding off the edge of his irritability.

I counted out ten thousand rupees, and put the money on the desk. As I slid it across, he reached out to cover my hand in both of his.