He points to the waiting room outside, where someone’s mother is shouting at someone else’s. Jaki’s eyes spit like they did in Nuwara Eliya when the boy she was flirting with started hitting on you. ‘DD, why don’t you call your father?’
DD fingers the bone carving below his Adam’s apple, the cross with an oval head gifted by you, given with guilt after you played with the boy from the FujiKodak shop on DD’s bed and DD never found out. Below it is a wooden pendant that contains your blood.
‘DD. Call your fucking father.’
Jaki hisses, and the Detective and the ASP raise their eyebrows.
‘I need you to calm down,’ says DD. ‘Aunty Lucky, are you done with that form?’
Your Amma sits in the corner, looks at the four pages of mostly Sinhala script, a language that is not her first, despite living her entire life in country that claims it is their only. She shakes her head. ‘He could be anywhere.’
‘We will check the airport and the train stations,’ says Detective Cassim. ‘There was trouble in Jaffna last week. He may be still there. Or staying with other friends. Did he have other friends?’ He looks at Jaki. ‘Girlfriends, maybe?’
‘No girlfriends.’
‘People have secrets, you know. In this job, we have seen everything there is to see.’
‘Check if he’s being held at another station? We will wait.’
DD remains polite and his syntax does not waver but you spy lava bubbling beneath the eyelids. He always plays with jewellery before he explodes. He is squeezing that ankh on his neck like it is bubble wrap.
‘We’ll get someone on it,’ says ASP Ranchagoda. ‘Department is busy.’
‘Looks busy,’ says DD, staring through the window at a huddle of cops drinking tea. The mothers in the queue curse DD and his tight, queue-jumping butt. Jaki dabs at her eyes and glares back.
‘He’s been picked up before. All misunderstandings. Can you find out please, officer?’
‘Is he doing politics?’
Your Amma looks at DD, who looks to Jaki. They know nothing of anything of what you have done, and for this you are grateful. ‘He is a photojournalist,’ says Lucky Kabalana née Almeida, handing over the form. ‘He takes photos for the news.’
‘JVP?’
‘Never,’ she says.
Ranchagoda takes ten minutes to sign off on the form. Cassim takes another ten to find the official stamp. DD calls his father from the waiting room phone, while the mothers in the queue keep glaring. Jaki and your Amma take turns insisting that Maali Almeida was never connected to any political or terror group.
‘He worked for the army, you say? Who was his CO?’
Jaki shakes her head at DD. The policemen swap looks. They do not know that you are sitting between them and cursing them in filth. You feel a wave of nausea and pictures flood your vision, images of blood and bodies and strapping corporals. If you could speak, you would’ve told them that the answer was the King of Clubs, Major Raja Udugampola.
Cassim arrives with the stamp and smiles. He points to the thing dangling from DD’s choker.
‘Did you get that from the Crow Uncle?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘The Crow Uncle. Kark Maama from Kotahena? Who gives out charms? Never mind.’
And then DD starts scolding the cops’ names in raw filth mixed with bad Sinhalese. ‘Sperm dog… Your Amma screw! I will sue you in court both.’
It is a rage from nowhere that you have seen on multiple occasions. Amidst expletives and insults he unveils a very logical set of grievances like he did when you asked to go to Vanni for three months. Jaki pulls him out into the waiting room and sits him next to the waiting mothers, who all look tickled to see the rich boy lose it.
Inside the room there is a beat of silence. Your Amma looks at Ranchagoda and then at Cassim.
‘You will find my boy,’ she says.
‘Madam,’ says Ranchagoda, closing the file. ‘You know how it is, no?’
‘I will cover your expenses. Go find my boy.’
Your Amma’s negotiation skills made up for her complete lack of empathy, sympathy and decency. She could bargain an insolvent fruit seller into giving away free mangoes.
‘The army and STF are arresting revolutionaries around the country. Police are only called to clean the mess. If the Forces are involved, our hands are tied. There are no guarantees, madam, especially if your boy is political.’
Your Amma leans forward while Ranchagoda holds his skeleton still. ‘I don’t expect any.’
‘You must know, madam. Some bodies are never found. Every day, I speak to twenty, thirty mothers like you.’
‘Then you must be rich. Take this. If you return my boy, there will be more.’
‘Rich and poor are all equal before the law.’
‘That’s a good joke.’
Your Amma smiles without dropping her glare, her resolve steeled by years of marriage to a narcissist.
‘You will find my boy. Or we will have your badge and your uniform. No need for courts. Do you understand?’
Ranchagoda raises an eyebrow and shakes his head. Cassim has been silent all through the negotiation. He adjusts his belt, tucks in his belly and stares at the freshly stamped report.
‘Madam, Cinnamon Gardens Police Station don’t take bribes. We don’t run errands for politicians. Even for big men like Stanley Dharmendran. We don’t bend laws. Not all police are thugs, Mrs Kabalana.’
‘I am Mrs Almeida. I may be Burgher, but I also have connections. Stanley Dharmendran is a Cabinet Minister. He will bring the Minister of Justice to talk to your boss.’
‘Madam. The Minister of Justice is our boss,’ chuckles Ranchagoda. ‘What is Dharmendran? Youth Affairs Minister?’
‘I thought Women’s Affairs,’ mutters Cassim.
DD and Jaki storm back in and there is more heated discussion, which you do not quite follow, owing to the choppy Sinhala and the shouting. More mothers enter the waiting room before the constables blockade them with forms and questions and unsheathed batons. The mothers threaten to storm the office room, pointing at DD, Jaki and your Amma, and ask why they did not queue. Detective Cassim gives ASP Ranchagoda a nod and receives an eye roll in response.
‘We are told to wait seventy-two hours,’ says Ranchagoda.
‘But, as a personal favour to Minister Stanley, we will begin investigate,’ says Cassim. ‘You say he was meeting a client last night?’
‘He was working for a human rights NGO. Something to do with 1983,’ says Jaki, the only one in the room who listens more than she speaks.
‘He didn’t tell me that,’ says DD.
Jaki turns to the Detective. ‘He had clients. Not just army or AP. BBC, Pravda, Reuters. He had private clients. But he wasn’t political. He didn’t believe in sides.’
‘Everyone has a side, madam. Especially in these times. You have any names or numbers? At least for his Commanding Officer?’
You stand behind her and whisper the name ‘Major Raja Udugampola’ over and over as if you are planting a melody in her brain. It doesn’t appear to be a catchy one.
‘We don’t know.’
‘How do you expect us to work? What about his Pravda or Reuters or Dinamina contacts? Give us something.’
Jaki takes a breath and speaks slowly. ‘He met his clients at the Hotel Leo.’
DD and Lucky look at her in surprise.
‘The casino?’ asks DD.
‘Hotel Leo is a shady place. Why there?’ asks Cassim.
‘I don’t know. He liked it there.’ Jaki frowns and then turns to DD. ‘You thought he gave up gambling?’
‘You are missing the point.’ Your Amma doesn’t need to raise her voice to command the room. ‘My boy is missing and you need to find him. We are wasting time.’
Ranchagoda remains at the door, swivelling his neck like a giraffe. One eye on the commotion in the waiting room, one on the negotiation in here. Cassim rolls back to his desk like a panda and runs over the missing persons form, two hours in the making and freshly stamped.
‘I’ll be honest, Mrs Almeida. These are not good times. We will do our level best.’ He rises, and everyone else in the room gets to their feet.