Different Senses (11 page)

His green eyes blazed with
determination, and I doubted him not at all. “But you’d given some
thought to the idea of murder?”

“Well, sure I did. The poor
lady had recently lost her baby, and postnatal depression is no
joke, but suicide’s very rare out here.”

“
It’s higher than average
among the
banis
in Hegal.”

He made a sour face at me.
“Because they live among you fellows, no offence. Being a minority,
always being reminded of their place, puts a stress on people.
Here, we’re the majority.”

“You see yourself as
Nihani?”

“
I’m
udawatha
, that’s the
important thing. The Spirit doesn’t care what colour my skin is.
Nihan and Kelon all come from Niken originally. Genetically,
there’s barely a speck of difference between you and
me.”

“I never really looked into it.
I know we all came from Niken but that’s a long, long time
ago.”

“Over a thousand years for my
people here on Uterden.”

“But the paranormal
ability....”

“Ah.” He leaned in
confidentially. “Fascinating history there. Goes back to before our
people colonised this planet.”

“Ah.” I started to wonder how
quickly I could make a graceful exit.

“I’ll send you some information
on it with the files, if you like.”

I smiled politely and humoured
him. “Sure, that’d be interesting. Uh, but I need to visit Sapna’s
husband before nightfall, so can I just ask about her child...the
death was definitely an accident?”

His erratic mind came back to
the subject in hand. “Oh, now that’s a terrible thing. If she’d
gone into labour with her mother there, or me, or anyone with any
basic midwifery skills, the baby might have survived, but then
again, it might not have. The fellow who found the two of them
tried to resuscitate the baby, and of course I did, but the little
one wouldn’t start breathing.”

“How does that happen, exactly?
I know exactly nothing about birth.”

“The umbilical cord sometimes
wraps around the baby’s neck while it’s still in the womb. When the
baby comes out and needs to breathe, it can strangle unless someone
can manage to loosen it or cut it, and even then the baby can die.
Deaths from intrapartum asphyxiation are pretty rare these days,
but they do happen, particularly when the woman gives birth
unattended.”

“How come she couldn’t loosen
the cord?”

“No way she could do it while
she was pushing the baby out, and the young fellow who found her
was too late to save it. I had to sedate the poor girl, she was so
distraught. I did what I could to help her through her grief and I
know her family supported her, but.... No, there was no murder in
either case, Sri Ythen. Doesn’t make it any less of a tragedy. I
hope you can convince the family to let it go. I don’t want to see
any more people die, and when there’s a suicide in a family, the
risk’s increased eightfold that someone else in the family will do
the same.”

I didn’t know that. “Are you
helping the husband?”

He blew out his cheeks as he
shook his head. “Spoken to him a couple of times, and I’d be happy
to talk to him as often as he wants, but I don’t think he’ll ask.
He’s an angry, grieving man, and Sapna’s family aren’t helping.
They blame the poor fellow without the slightest reason. I hope you
can help him too. You might do more good than I ever can.”

“Do my best. Thanks for talking
to me, doctor.”

“Stop by again. I always like
to talk to smart city folks. Makes me sharpen up.”

I grinned and waved
goodbye. The community were lucky to have him, even with his
tendency to wander like a drunk all over a topic. What would happen
when he retired or died, though? Doctors—even
banis
doctors—weren’t
exactly queuing up to work in the boonies.

Could I really stop someone in
Sapna’s family killing themselves if I could prove she’d been
murdered? Or if she hadn’t? Seemed to me the grief would be just as
hard to bear even if they had someone to blame. My job was to find
the truth. I’d have to leave it to people like Doc Nihar to deal
with the psychological fall out.

I’d missed lunch and it was now
mid-afternoon. I hadn’t seen anywhere to buy food or even a cup of
chai, but I didn’t feel I could just turn up at Jyoti’s family’s
house and ask to be fed before I went out again. I’d just have to
wait for supper. I had Sapna’s husband to visit.

The raised area on which Nikhil
Kamlesh’s house and business stood wasn’t as elaborate as that of
the police station, but it was just as high. I figured a mechanic’s
workshop would take a lot more moving than a household of people.
No autos or tractors waiting outside, but I heard the sounds of
metal upon metal from inside the shabby, darkened building. I
walked over to the door and called. Eventually the hammering
stopped and I yelled again.

A man in dirty coveralls
carrying a long metal tool came out of the gloom. “Yeah?”

“Nikhil Kamlesh?”

“Yeah. Who are you?”

“Sir, I’m a friend of Sapna’s
cousin, Jyoti. I’m helping her family—”

“Get off my land. I ain’t
talking to you or anything to do with them.”

“I understand you’re
angry—”

“I said ‘get out’!” He raised
the tool. “Don’t make me use this.”

I pulled out my gun, and
pointed it. “Don’t make me use
this
. Put it down, Sri Kamlesh. I
just want to talk.”

He blinked in shock a few
times, but then did as I said. “Who the hell are you?”

“A private investigator and a
former police officer.”

“They tell you I killed my
wife?”

“Yes. Did you?”

His face contorted. “Go ahead
and shoot me. Go on.”

“Now why would I do that, Sri
Kamlesh?”

“Because it’d feel better than
living without my Sapna. Why did she do it? Why did she leave
me?”

He covered his face with one
grimy hand. I lowered my gun, but kept it at my side. “Can we
talk?” I said quietly. “I’m not here to accuse anyone. I spoke to
Doctor Nihar. He knows she wasn’t murdered.”

“I didn’t kill anyone! I’d kill
myself before I laid a hand on her.”

I put the gun’s safety catch on
and pocketed it, then took him by the arm and led him over to a
rusty metal seat near the workshop. He sobbed uncontrollably, and
though I’d seen murderers put on a pretty good act before, he
wasn’t acting. My empathy couldn’t be fooled. He hadn’t killed his
wife.

“Sorry,” he said, smearing his
face with snot and tears as he used his sleeve to wipe it. “I try
to keep it all bottled up but....”

“Been tough, I bet, not having
her people’s support. What about your family?”

“Only me left. Dad died six
months ago of a heart attack. Mum died when I was ten. I’m the only
kid. Now Sapna is gone too.”

“I’m very sorry.”

“I tried, you know? I did what
I could because I knew she wasn’t dealing with the baby dying, but
everything I said made it worse.”

“It’s very difficult dealing
with someone that sick, Nikhil. Even people who are trained find it
hard.”

He nodded as if he understood,
but he didn’t believe me. Not in his heart. “Funny thing is, a few
days before she died, she seemed a bit better. A bit more peaceful.
She even hugged me that morning before she went to work, told me
she loved me and that she’d do better in future. I told her she
didn’t need to do better. I loved her anyway. But she meant....” He
stared off towards the river as tears dripped down his face.

“Sometimes the decision to kill
themselves makes people feel calmer,” I said. “Heard things like
this a lot from families, friends. You couldn’t know.”

“Found her. I was the one, I
mean. She looked...it wasn’t my girl. Don’t want to remember her
like that.”

“Don’t. Remember her the way
she was before. What she looked like after, wasn’t her. She’d gone
by then.”

“You a believer, Sri
Ythen?”

“No. Are you?”

“Not really. Was raised in one
religion and married into another. I don’t figure any god worth the
name would kill a baby and its mother for no reason. But I keep
thinking, will she come back? Maybe I might meet her again. I’m
only twenty-four. I could maybe see her and I’d know her....”

I put my hand on his shoulder,
my head aching like a bitch from his emotions, wishing I could
somehow draw them out of him a little. But it was strictly one way,
this talent, and about as useless as a paper chai pot right
now.

“Doc Nihar would be happy to
talk to you, you know. He lost his wife a few years ago. Not the
same, but...you need someone to help you.”

He sneered. “I need to
get out of this shit pile and go where no one spits ‘Kelon bastard’
and ‘
Guko
’ at me, or thinks I killed my wife because I don’t believe
in the Spirit or the teachings of their self-satisfied bastard
Seeker.”

“You’re thinking of selling up?
The family said something about insurance.”

“You mean the insurance that
doesn’t pay in the event of suicide? Sure. I killed Sapna for money
I didn’t want at that price and wouldn’t get anyway. Her father’s
an idiot.”

“But you’re in some financial
difficulties.”

“Everyone here about is in
‘financial difficulty’. We ain’t exactly rich folks, any of us. But
I didn’t kill my wife!”

“Settle down. Nikhil, I’m an
empath.” He jerked in surprise. “I know you’re not faking this. I
can tell her family you didn’t do it.”

“Fat lot of good that’ll
do.”

“Maybe. But that’s three people
who know for sure you didn’t—Constable Girilal at the station, Doc
Nihar, and me. The doc did say that he couldn’t tell if someone had
talked her into it though—you know, by threatening someone she
cared about. Is there anyone you can think of who would want to
hurt her? Or hurt you?”

His eyes went wide with
disbelief. “Enough to kill her? You’re kidding. Not unless you
count her parents, but they’d just run me over, not hurt her.
Everyone loved Sapna. She was sweet, and so gentle. Nobody killed
her. I wish they had. Then I could hate them instead of.... Is it
wrong I hate her for doing that?”

He sounded so lost. “Don’t see
how you couldn’t. But you love her too.”

“Sometimes I just want to wake
up dead. A lot of the time I feel that way.”

I squeezed his shoulder. “Do me
a favour, and go see Doc Nihar. Talk to him. Tell him about feeling
that way. Don’t end up like her, thinking there’s only one
solution. Even if you’re planning to move, talk to him.”

“Why do you care what I do?” he
mumbled.

“I used to be a cop. I don’t
want to see this tragedy become a worse one. Will you talk to
him?”

“Might. Will you really tell
them I didn’t kill her?”

“Of course I will. Thing is,
they’re not really in their right minds just now. They want someone
to hate too. They don’t want to hate her any more than you do.
You’re the best target they have.”

“If she’d just left a
note....”

“She might have. I’ll be
looking for it. But she said goodbye to you, just...you didn’t
realise. Don’t hate her for that.”

There was nothing more I could
do for him. If Sapna’s family hadn’t got this idea into their
heads, they could have been support for him and he for them. What a
damn bloody mess.

~~~~~~~~

Before I returned to Jyoti’s
family, there was one more thing I wanted to do. Using Constable
Girilal’s meticulous map, I drove to the place where Sapna and her
baby had both lost their lives. I didn’t expect to find anything
there, not now. But I wanted to have a sense of her, of what it had
been like for her. Probably a bad idea—I already felt too
emotionally involved in this—but I felt I had to. For the girl
herself, and for her family. Nothing I could report to them would
be good news. She would still be dead, and somehow they had to
accept that.

She’d chosen a pretty place to
die. Sturdy trees—the kind that could resist yearly
inundations—stood amidst lush grass and lanky plants with empty
seed heads. Six weeks ago, they’d probably have been flowering.
This would have been an oasis of beauty among the dull fields and
stolid farms. One of the trees had fallen in the past, and while
the branches were probably taken away for use on the farms, part of
the trunk remained, forming a convenient seat. The ground near it
was trampled, the grass shorter than elsewhere, as if others had
thought the same. I sat and wondered if Sapna came here often.
Maybe to be alone, to think? Just because she loved her husband and
her family, didn’t mean she was happy, even before the baby
died.

I looked up. Bedraggled ribbons
adorning the branches of a nearby tree, and tied around its girth.
White ribbons, for mourning. This was where she’d hanged
herself.

I didn’t believe someone had
murdered this girl. Killing someone by forcing them to kill
themselves was a crime so rare it bordered on the mythical, and why
would a murderer choose a place with so much special meaning for
the victim? Sure, I could be wrong. Maybe a psychopath lived with
these people, and in a few months, another woman would die, but I
doubted it. Not in a community where everyone knew everyone else,
and a stranger caused every head to turn. Nikhil Kamlesh hadn’t
done it, and he was the only likely suspect.

I stood and dusted my hands.
The sun was low in the sky, and I was hungry. Time to tell Sapna’s
parents there was no conspiracy, no crime. Just the sad loss of two
young lives. An ordinary tragedy they’d have to deal with,
somehow.

The two sons had gone who knew
where, but otherwise the little sitting room was just as crowded
and sombre as when I’d left it. Shrimati Kartik offered me chai,
but unfortunately, no food. My stomach rumbled and I hoped supper
wouldn’t be long in coming.