The Case of the Love Commandos (17 page)

“But my knees really do hurt, Mummy-ji,” said the boy.

“No surprise, na? What with all your sitting all day playing Nintendo and all. So much of boredom is turning you into a ladoo. Just consider: today you are a yatri. Some pride should be there. Your thinking, also, should be on reaching the goddess and doing inward reflection—nothing more.”

A suitably chastened Chetan followed behind.

“Sorry, Mummy-ji,” he mumbled, and tried his best to keep up.

An hour later, with the sun now beating down on them, everyone was ready for a break. They sat in the shade of a stall quenching their thirst with bottles of nimboo pani, while looking down on the rooftops of Katra far below. They could make out their hotel, trace the route of the road snaking back toward Jammu, even spot cars and trucks passing one another on the bends.

A whirring sound filled the air like a mosquito at night and then a helicopter appeared above the town. They watched it
rising higher and higher until it was but a speck amidst the colossal mountain range. Finally it disappeared from sight.

Another helicopter followed—and before long, there were four or five coming and going at regular intervals.

The Dughals would surely be on one of them, Mummy reflected. Inspector Malhotra had probably ignored her warning, leaving Pranap Dughal free to conspire with Weasel Face to arrange his wife’s accident. With thousands of pilgrims clamoring to gain access to the shrine, no one would suspect foul play. Such “mishaps” were known to happen all the time. Only yesterday an elderly pilgrim had tripped and fallen one hundred feet down into a ravine, “succumbing to fatal injuries on the spot,” according to the local newspaper Mummy had read in the hotel.

She wondered what part Weasel Face was going to play in the whole sordid business. Maybe he’d loosen a railing? Or arrange to spike Mrs. Dughal’s food?

But as Mummy thought on it some more, she began to wonder if perhaps she hadn’t jumped to the wrong conclusion. Pranap Dughal was clearly a conniving, intelligent man. He had no need of an accomplice to do away with his wife. It would be sheer idiocy to involve someone else.

He and Weasel Face were planning something else entirely.

Where then did the sleeping tablets fit in? And what was inside those heavy bags?

Mummy was so absorbed in thought that she nearly missed Mrs. Dughal passing by on a sedan chair with no less than six porters struggling to keep her aloft.

The woman was fast asleep with her triple chin bobbing up and down in time with the rhythmic march of her bearers.

Pranap Dughal followed in his own sedan chair. Looking relaxed and chatting on his mobile phone, he didn’t appear to spot the Puris, who were finishing up their drinks.

“Challo,” said Mummy, getting quickly to her feet. “It is getting very much late.”

“But we’ve only had five minutes’ rest!” protested Rumpi.

“You are right. Let us continue on horse.”

“Horses! Mummy-ji? You were saying we had to walk!”

“They are for you people, na. So slow you are, always doing dillydally,” said Mummy, and went in search of a ride.

Puri had been woken at two in the morning by Facecream, who’d informed him that an Agra-based organization called the Institute for Cellular and Molecular Biology (ICMB) had taken blood samples from Dalits in the village of Govind nearly three months ago—and that Ram had been present at the time.

Although Puri deemed this a strong lead, there was nothing he could do about it in the middle of the night, and so he’d gone back to sleep.

At five o’clock, he’d checked out of his Lucknow hotel and, with the same hire car and driver, started along the highway to Agra.

An hour later, he’d called Elizabeth Rani, whom he’d ordered into the office to do some research on the “wifee.”

Now, at a few minutes to eight, and with at least another hour’s drive ahead of him, Puri was speaking to his secretary as she sat at her desk in the office back in Delhi.

“On the home page of their website it says ICMB is ‘on the front line of modern biology,’ ” said Elizabeth Rani. “It goes on, ‘We promote new techniques in the interdisciplinary
areas of biology to collect, collate and disseminate information relevant to biological research.’ ”

“Meaning what, exactly?”

Elizabeth Rani read from another page: “ ‘Molecular analysis of human genetic disorders and chromosome biology.’ ”

“Any contact is there?” he asked.

The sound of her mouse clicking was audible down the line. Then she mumbled something unintelligible.

“What is wrong, Madam Rani?”

“Sir, I was just looking at the list of those notables who serve on the institute’s advisory board. It includes retired netas, generals and ambassadors. A very high-powered list. The staff includes half a dozen PhDs also.”

She paused. “This is interesting, sir,” she continued. “It says here that they’re conducting the most comprehensive mapping of the Indian genome so far undertaken.”

“Indian genome? What is that? Some kind of dwarf.”

Elizabeth Rani searched for a definition. “ ‘Genome: the haploid set of chromosomes in a gamete of a microorganism, or in each cell of a multicellular organism,’ ” she read.

Puri responded with a vexed “Arrey, my brain has gone for a toss.”

Fortunately the dictionary also provided a layman’s definition: “the complete set of genes or genetic material present in a cell of an organism.”

“DNA and all,” said Puri, who knew a certain amount on the subject given his familiarity with forensics. “Anything more is there, Madam Rani?” he asked.

“One thing, sir. Seems a doctor employed at this ICMB was killed in a car accident just a few days back.”

“His name?”

“
She
, sir—Dr. Anju Basu. There’s an article in the
Times
—says
her car skidded off a bridge near Agra into the Yamuna.”

Puri made a note of this as his secretary went on.

“One thing is strange, sir,” she commented. “There’s no information available about this organization. No articles have been written about their work in any journals. The staff is not quoted anywhere that I can see. None of its research is published online. And another thing, sir—only an e-mail address is provided.”

Puri was quiet for a moment and then said, “Let us shake the tree and see what all falls down.”

“Sir?”

“Madam Rani, please be good enough to send them one e-mail message on my behalf. Make mention that I have been in the village of Govind and spoken to certain Dalits with bruises on their arms. Provide my identity and mobile number and request an interview with the director at the earliest opportunity. Meanwhile I’ll endeavor to find out their location.”

Puri spent the next half an hour calling various contacts in the world of medicine to ask if any of them knew of the Indian Institute for Cellular and Molecular Biology, and was eventually given an Agra post office box listed in a medical directory.

Deep spent the night on the floor of Facecream’s room, his hardened, streetwise demeanor melting into innocence in slumber. He slept on his front the way children do, his legs splayed and arms flopped by his sides.

Over breakfast, he was quiet.

Facecream asked if anything was the matter.

“You’re not a teacher, are you, ma’am?” he said.

She put her food to one side. “No, I’m not,” she admitted.

“What then? Police?”

“I’m looking for Ram Sunder. Someone abducted him and I’m trying to find out what happened.”

Deep didn’t look surprised. But then nothing seemed to faze him. “You think he’s still alive?” he asked, his tone faintly mocking.

“Until it’s proven otherwise I have to keep looking.”

“Why?”

“Because I promised to help him. And he’s my friend.”

The boy lapsed into silent thought as if the concept of friendship was new to him. Half of his breakfast remained in his bowl. He began to spoon it into his mouth again.

“I’ve got to get to work,” he said.

Facecream couldn’t help but smile to herself as she watched him eat. She’d been a lot like the boy at that age—old beyond her years with a tough exterior born of an equally rough, unforgiving childhood and desperate never to show the slightest sign of vulnerability.

“Deep, I need your help,” she said. “I have to find out if Ram’s mother, Kamlesh, got on a bus—and where she went. It’s very important. At the chai stand, you see all the buses leaving and know all the conductors. You hear all the talk as well.”

“Is that why you’re being nice to me? Giving me chicken, walking with me, so I’ll tell you what you want to know?”

“I admit I came to see you hoping to get information. But I like you, Deep. I want to help you.”

“Like the children who come to school?”

“Yes.”

“When you get what you want, you’ll leave.”

“I’m not like that. I don’t make promises I can’t keep.”

“You’ve told them you’re going to give them better food and proper teaching.”

“I’ll do everything I can to make sure those things happen.”

The boy finished eating in silence, cleared away his bowl, and went to rinse out his mouth.

Facecream followed him to the washbasin.

“If I can find out what happened to Kamlesh, there’s a chance, just a chance, that we might be able to find Ram—assuming he’s still alive.”

“What if I tell you what you want to know and someone finds out? You’ll be gone and then what? I’m the one who will have to face the consequences.”

“I’ll make sure nothing happens to you—I promise.”

Deep found his bike and strapped on his wooden blocks.

Facecream appealed again for his help. But she was forced to watch him ride off through the gates like a mother who, despite her best intentions, felt misunderstood.

Upon reaching Agra, Puri headed straight for the main post office, where, in the canteen around the back of the building, he managed to persuade one of the employees to indulge in a little felonious activity.

Escorted into a dusty filing room, Puri spent an hour searching through the card indexing system of PO box numbers, which had suffered the ravages of heat, humidity, monsoon floods, rodents, termites and pesticide—not to mention the usual dust and the odd chai spillage. By a minor miracle, he found ICMB’s card and was able to decipher the spidery handwriting.

At midday he was back beyond the Agra city limits, driving through a so-called Special Economic Zone. It was one of dozens set up across the country and comprised hundreds of acres of formerly agricultural land that had been forcibly purchased by the government and sold to industry at a handsome profit. Much of it lay fallow, with large
empty plots surrounded by brick walls and signs warning trespassers to keep out. Along the borders of the tarmac roads that crisscrossed this forlorn landscape, countless piles of broken concrete, bricks and plaster had been dumped from other construction sites. They passed the odd factory, processing plant and storage depot where trucks were being loaded and off-loaded.

And then, like a mirage, the ICMB building came into view—a three-story cube of blue reflective glass.

It was surrounded by twenty-foot-high walls topped with razor wire, turrets mounted with CCTV cameras, a double set of gates with a raised anticrash barrier in between, and uniformed security personnel.

The only sign read NO ENTRY.

Puri got out of his car and was approaching the gate when his phone rang. A young woman introduced herself as the assistant to Dr. Arnab Sengupta, ICMB’s head of research.

“His diary is full. The earliest he can see you is Tuesday of next week,” she said.

“I’m outside the gates now, actually,” Puri responded.

“Outside where?”

“Your facility,” he said. “It is a big blue glass construction, no?”

There was a stunned silence. The assistant mumbled something about having to call him back and hung up.

Puri returned to the car to sit in the air-conditioning while he waited. His tree-shaking strategy seemed to be working. The fact that the assistant had called him suggested that whoever was in charge at ICMB wanted to get a look at him, find out what his game was. He’d certainly proven his tenacity by turning up at their door. But from here on, he was going to have to improvise, jugaad being his watchword.

He passed the next ten minutes staring out the window.
The odd pye-dog scurried past. A man sitting perfectly perpendicular on a straight-bar bicycle came and went. A couple of hundred yards away, four laborers worked in the baking sun, digging a ditch. A couple of tents were pitched nearby, the roofs made of blue plastic. Puri guessed this was where the laborers slept at night. A woman and some children squatted outside the entrance of one, cooking on a couple of bricks and some chunks of coal. What must it be like to be so destitute, he found himself wondering suddenly. There was surely nothing noble about poverty. And yet the wealthy often ended up worse off—blinded by their conceit.

The sound of his phone ringing broke into his thoughts.

“Dr. Sengupta will see you,” said the assistant. “I’m sending someone out to collect you.”

Passing through the reception and the windowless corridor beyond was like entering a science fiction spaceship. The walls were a futuristic silver. Spotlights dappled the carpeting in recurrent circles. Automatic doors swished open and closed with precision.

Finally a conventional wooden door opened into a large, modern office. It could have been located anywhere in the world. The only natural feature was a potted plant, and even that looked like it might not last long beyond the confines of its fabricated environment.

As for Dr. Sengupta himself, Puri would have guessed that he was Bengali even without knowing his last name. His ethnicity could be read from his bone structure, dusky skin and bookish demeanor. Was there ever a “Bong” doctor, academic or intellectual, who
didn’t
wear glasses?

“Come in, Mr. Puri,” said Dr. Sengupta, his tone brisk and awkward. “You’ll take tea, coffee, water?”

“Nothing.”

Dr. Sengupta wore a white laboratory coat over a shirt and tie with a couple of pens sticking out of his breast pocket. The diplomas framed on the wall bespoke a lifetime in academia and research, the dustbin brimming with paper coffee cups of a workaholic nature. Not exactly the social type, Puri surmised, noting the absence of a wedding ring despite his age, which he put at around forty.