He had almost reached the edge of the wood when the lights came back on. 'Stop!' someone shouted behind him. He turned around and saw a constable with a raised baton speeding across the lawn towards him.
He tried to make a dash for the safety of the thicket, but at that very moment his injured left leg gave up on him. He fell down in a heap and within seconds the cop was upon him.
'What have you just done, bastard?' the constable wheezed, breathing deeply.
'Nothing,' said Eketi, his face distorted with pain.
'Give me your bag,' the constable said, whacking him on the legs with his lathi.
With a startled cry, Eketi let go of the bag. The constable lifted it and was surprised by its weight. 'What have you got inside? Let's take a look,' he muttered as he unzipped the bag. One by one he started taking out its contents – the small lumps of red and white clay, the pouch of pig fat, the bone necklace, and finally the sacred rock. 'Oh, this looks like a shivling! Where did you steal it from?' Before Eketi could reply, the constable groped in the bag one final time. His fingers touched something hard and metallic and his eyebrows rose as he drew out a silver-coloured gun. It was a locally made improvised revolver, a katta.
'And what is this, motherfucker?'
'I don't know. That is not mine,' Eketi replied, completely taken aback.
'Then how come it is inside your bag?'
'I don't know how it got there.'
'Don't worry, we will find out,' said the constable as he took out a pair of handcuffs. 'Come on, blackie, you are under arrest.'
19 Evacuation
24 March
I have been arrested. For murdering Vicky Rai.
These aren't the opening lines of a film script or a novel. I am writing them sitting on a wobbly bench inside the record room of Mehrauli police station, where I have been detained along with five other suspects. It is a large room, full of files piled high on metal shelves fifteen feet tall. Cobwebs festoon every corner and an ancient fan hangs from the wooden ceiling. The room has the musty smell of a library intermingled with the fetid stench of a morgue. The occasional gust of air blowing in from the small window with an iron grille is therefore a relief. I can hear the faint pitter-patter of raindrops. It has been raining steadily for the past two hours.
I had made a fashionably late entrance at the party, arriving at the farmhouse just after eleven. The lawn was packed with people. It seemed the Who's Who of Delhi had come to celebrate Vicky's acquittal. Jagannath Rai was there too, with an army of hangers-on in starched white kurta pyjamas. I was sickened by this vulgar display of political muscle, this affront to justice. But I was even more sickened by Vicky Rai. Having seen him up close – the scaly scar running down his left cheek, the way spit dribbled out of his mouth when he became excited – I felt disgusted at my decision to seek his help. I was going to pay a very high price indeed for saving my sister.
And then I met the weirdest American in the whole world. He was cute, with a strong resemblance to Michael J. Fox; he was rich, having just received fifteen million dollars; and he was madly in love with me. But he turned out to be the psycho Rosie had warned me about. So I got rid of Mr Larry Page, a.k.a. Rick Myers, faster than he could say 'Howdy'.
At the stroke of midnight fireworks began in the garden and speeches began in the marble drawing room. Vicky Rai and his father spoke as if they were members of a mutual admiration society. Their corny panegyrics made me cringe. Then Vicky went to the bar and began mixing a drink. That is when the lights went out and the entire house was plunged into darkness. Living in Mumbai, I had almost forgotten the power cuts which used to plague Azamgarh. But somehow the lights going off at Number Six did not seem to fit the pattern of an unscheduled load-shedding. It smacked more of deliberate mischief.
'Arrey, what happened?' I exclaimed.
'Switch on the generator,' someone shouted.
And then a shot rang out. 'Nooooooo!' Jagannath Rai screamed. Another cracker burst outside, but it was so loud it seemed as if it had burst inside the room, almost shattering my eardrums.
There was complete confusion and pandemonium for the three minutes or so that the house remained in pitch darkness. Then the lights came on, blinding my eyes with their sudden dazzle. The first thing I saw was Vicky Rai's body, slumped below the window, next to the bar. Blood had seeped into his white shirt, turning it crimson. I heard another high-pitched scream and realized it was mine. At that moment ten police constables barged into the hall, led by an Inspector with a curled-up moustache.
'Freeze! Nobody move,' the Inspector bawled, as though this was an episode of C.I.D. He saw Vicky Rai's body and bent down to examine it. He felt the wrist and lifted the eyelids. 'He is finished,' he pronounced, before fixing his gaze on the guests in the room. 'I know one of you has done it. So I have cordoned off the entire farmhouse. Now the police will check each and every one of you. No one will be allowed to leave Number Six till our search is over. Preetam Singh, begin frisking the guests.'
I heard this and my hands started turning cold. The American was standing close to me and became the first guest to be searched. A constable asked him to spread his arms and legs. He stood grinning like a scarecrow while the policeman patted him down, and shockingly a sleek black Glock equipped with a silencer emerged from inside his suit. 'What is this?' the constable cried as he dangled the pistol from his index finger.
'Well, dip me in shit and call me stinky!' Larry exclaimed. 'I have no idea how that gun got there. I don't even know how to fire that damn thing.' 'Take him in for questioning,' the Inspector directed the constable and turned his attention to me. 'Shabnamji, if you don't mind, I need to check your purse.' Before I could mouth a suitable protest, he snatched the moccasin bag from my hand. Snapping it open, he sifted through it with the dexterity of a Customs officer. Out came the Beretta. 'Oh! You have a gun too?' he said in the surprised tone of a priest discovering a nun in a brothel.
I detected a sly gleam in the Inspector's eyes as he examined the gun. 'Can I ask you, Miss Shabnam, why you brought this gun to the party?'
'I carry it for self-protection,' I replied icily, hoping he couldn't hear the thudding of my heart as clearly as I could.
He ejected the magazine, examined it and then smelt it. 'Hmmm… one bullet has been fired. Are you sure you didn't use it on Vicky Rai?'
'Of course not,' I snapped, adopting the contemptuous tone I use to put down underlings who try to get fresh with me.
'Still, you will have to come to the police station. Meeta -' he gestured to a frumpy-looking lady constable, 'take her away.'
As Meeta was leading me out, I came across Mr Mohan Kumar, now more famous as Gandhi Baba, appearing to have an epileptic fit. He was foaming at the lips and trying desperately to eject something from his mouth. A constable stood next to him with a gleaming Walther PPK, which appeared to have come out of his kurta pocket. I wondered how the apostle of non-violence would explain what he was doing with a gun inside the farmhouse. What new version of gandhigiri was he trying out?
It seemed that Mr Jagannath Rai was having similar difficulties. 'I am telling you, this is a licensed Webley & Scott which I have been keeping with me for the last twenty years,' he was explaining to a constable who was busy reading the markings on a grey revolver with a wooden butt. Finding that his plea was falling on deaf ears, Jagannath Rai turned to the Inspector. 'Someone has killed my only son. Instead of trying to catch the murderer, you are trying to blame me, the father? I am the Home Minister of Uttar Pradesh. I will have all of you arrested.'