The Sea Detective (2 page)

Preeti thought she had never seen a girl as beautiful as Basanti.

After they had been driving for what seemed like half the night, Preeti tired of the headlights of approaching cars and trucks. She asked the driver, ‘Are we nearly there?’

He replied kindly, ‘Try to sleep and the journey will be quicker.’

Preeti said she could not, but she closed her eyes and awoke with a start when the driver braked sharply before turning into a back street.

He heard her stir. ‘We have arrived,’ he said stopping outside a warehouse with metal bars on windows blacked out with paint. ‘We are in Mumbai.’

‘Is this where the man who bought us lives?’ Preeti asked. Basanti had woken too and tightened her grip on Preeti’s hand.

The driver shook his head and let the girls out. They preceded him up some stairs to a door with a grille built into it where another man, wearing a white suit, white shoes and sunglasses, was waiting for them.

‘Is this the man?’ Basanti whispered to Preeti.

‘I think so.’

Neither of them had seen such expensive clothes before. This man looked as though he could afford 120,000 rupees for two girls.

Preeti and Basanti were taken along a corridor to a room which had a single bed and a chair. It was lit by an overhead light and the blind was drawn across the window. A woman with a pock-marked face was sitting on the chair waiting for them. She stood up as Preeti and Basanti came into the room, said something Preeti didn’t understand to the man in the white suit. After he’d closed the door, she held their hands: Preeti’s right in her left, Basanti’s left in her right, and regarded them appreciatively. ‘Beautiful girls,’ she said in their dialect and beamed with pleasure. Preeti and Basanti smiled too, though they were uneasy at feeling the rough calluses on her hands. Afterwards, she helped Preeti and Basanti out of their clothes telling them, ‘You must wash …’

But she saw the worry on the girls’ faces and didn’t continue her sentence.

‘Is the man in the white suit the one who has paid for Basanti and me?’ Preeti asked.

The woman said nothing.

When they were naked they felt shy with each other.

Basanti touched Preeti’s arm and said 60,000 rupees was too little money for a girl as lovely as Preeti.

Preeti said, ‘And too little for a girl as lovely as you …’

‘We are worth 70,000 rupees each,’ Basanti said.

‘More … 80,000, 90,000, 100,000’ said Preeti.

Then Preeti talked of the hundreds of thousands of rupees she and Basanti would make for their families from the
dhanda
, of the rich men they would still be attracting many years from now. Would any Bedia girls ever have earnings like theirs?

The woman left the room, shaking her head at these girls who thought only of money, and returned with some water in a bowl. She washed them down, first Preeti, then Basanti, turning them round as she did so. Preeti splashed Basanti and the girls laughed nervously together because they were fearful of what would happen next. The woman went out of the room a second time before bringing food, pav bhaji, and new clothes, western clothes; blue jeans, tee shirts and a choice of gold or silver pumps.

While they ate and dressed, the woman told stories about Bedia women and their warrior blood, how brave they were, how the
dhanda
was noble work for girls as beautiful as them. She knew from experience that Bedia girls liked these lies. Weren’t they told them by their good-for-nothing fathers who were descended from bandits, robbers and thieves?

‘Have you ever been on a plane before?’ the woman asked.

Preeti and Basanti shook their heads.

‘Or a boat?’

They shook them again and giggled.

‘The men who have bought you live a long way away. You will travel to them when they have paid for you.’

‘Haven’t we been paid for?’ Preeti asked. She had seen the money. What did this woman mean?

The woman didn’t answer but Basanti inquired, ‘Has more than one man paid for Preeti and me?’

‘Yes, more than one.’

‘Not the man here, the man in the white suit?’

The woman hesitated. ‘… No.’

‘Where are these men? Are they here?’

‘They were watching you when you were washing and changing your clothes.’

Preeti said, ‘There was no-one watching us. The door was closed.’ She looked at the window to satisfy herself the blind was still drawn. It was.

The woman pointed to the corner of the room where the ceiling met the wall. A camera was suspended there. ‘The men were watching you a long way away and bidding for you.’

Preeti and Basanti exchanged worried glances and hugged each other.

Basanti said, ‘Where were these men?’

‘In other countries …’

They’d heard of girls going to somewhere called Dubai. Was it another country?

‘Are we going to Dubai to see these men?’ Preeti asked.

The woman shrugged. ‘Yes, Dubai …’ But because of the casual way she said it neither girl believed her.

‘What is happening to us, Basanti?’ Preeti asked. Basanti was crying again.

After they had dressed, the man in the white suit opened the door and waited by it. The woman hugged them saying ‘there, my pretty Bedia girls’ and led them along the corridor to the door with the grille and down the stair to the car where the driver was waiting.

They drove to an airfield outside Mumbai.

Half a dozen other girls were there, not Bedia, but girls like Basanti and Preeti, who would never marry because their virginity was being sold, whose destiny was to earn money for their families in the
dhanda
. They were led to a plane with a white fuselage and twin propellers. Preeti and Basanti shared a seat at the back and when it took off, engines screaming, Preeti willed herself not to cry. Didn’t she have to be strong for Basanti?

It landed after an hour, perhaps two. Preeti had lost track of time. Now every second had enough worry for a minute; every minute enough fear for an hour.

Preeti and Basanti were the last off. They climbed into the back of a black van parked beside the aircraft’s wing and saw the frightened faces of the other girls who were already inside. Preeti said a prayer, aloud. Two of the girls began whimpering. Another retched at the smell of aviation fuel. Then the doors slammed shut, imprisoning them in pitch darkness. The whimpering became anguished cries. The retching girl vomited, filling the van with its stink. Preeti said another prayer, silently, and held Basanti tight to her.

Soon the van stopped and the doors opened. Preeti saw they were on a quay in a dockyard. A large ship was beside them and a man in dark glasses and blue overalls was shouting at them to get out. Preeti and Basanti were first up the gangway. Two men took them down metal stairs, along a narrow passageway to a rusted door which opened on to a small cabin with no window or porthole. It had one bed, a toilet and a shower.

They never saw the other girls again.

Their food was brought to them once a day by a man who wore a hood. He was their only visitor, from the first day of their journey to the last.

How many days were they on the ship? Long before they were taken off, Basanti thought it had been about two months. Preeti wasn’t sure. It could have been more, or less, who could tell? After that, Basanti scratched the wall every time the man brought their food. One evening he told them not to sleep, to pack up their few belongings and be ready to go ashore. Basanti counted the scratches on the wall. There were 27.

They were blindfolded before they left their room. No light seeped through to their eyes when they were out on deck. ‘Is it night?’ Basanti asked Preeti.

‘I think so.’

The cold was what struck them. Where were they? What country had they been brought to? They were taken to the side of the ship where Basanti was guided to a ladder. She cried out, letting Preeti know what was happening to her. All Preeti heard was Basanti’s terror. Then there was a shout from below – a man’s voice – and a crewman nudged Preeti to follow Basanti. He lifted her on to the ladder and held her until she’d found a foothold. Her hands gripped the metal sides as she began to descend. She trembled so much she feared she would fall, but after a dozen steps rough hands grabbed at her from below.

Her wrists and ankles were secured with rope. One person tied her, another held her. A cloth was forced in her mouth. When they’d finished with her, Preeti was put to sit with Basanti and the two girls pressed against each other for warmth and reassurance. Preeti choked on the dry gag in her small mouth. She swallowed until her throat was raw. Then an engine roared, the boat’s sideways rocking stopped and the breeze dried the nauseous slick from Preeti’s face.

Twenty minutes later the boat bumped gently against a pier.

Basanti was taken ashore first, then Preeti. Preeti could tell a woman carried her because she was held across her torso, against her slack breasts. The woman said nothing. The only sound was the lapping of the sea and the crunch of feet on gravel. They climbed what seemed to be steps and suddenly Preeti was taken indoors. Now the only sound was the woman’s feet echoing off the floor. Where was Basanti? When the woman untied her and took off her blindfold and gag Preeti saw she was in a bedroom without any windows. The woman, who was wearing waterproofs and a balaclava with slits for her eyes, opened a door to show Preeti the bathroom. She said, ‘You’ll like it here, pet. I know you will.’ Then she left.

Preeti cried for Basanti, sweet, frightened Basanti, and for herself.

Later the first man came to her. He was short, fat, pallid and wore a mouse mask. His voice was kindly and he took Preeti to the bathroom and washed her all over with special soap before carrying her to the bed and turning out the light. She heard him take off his clothes and then she felt the bed sinking under his weight and his face pressing against hers as he kissed her. He had taken off his mask.

She lay still, as her father had told her, forcing herself not to flinch when it hurt.

After he’d finished, he fell asleep, snoring, and she went to the bathroom to wash the bitter smell of his sweat from her and the trail of blood from the inside of her thighs. That was the first occasion she had filled her head with the swirls and sounds of the party she would have when she returned to her village. How many more times had it filled her head? A hundred, two hundred: she lost count.

Sometimes the men stayed a night. Sometimes the same man returned night after night. Some men stayed for an hour or two and never came back. Sometimes nobody came for days. It was after one of these times that the woman entered her room, wearing her balaclava as usual, but shouting at Preeti which was not. She stuffed her few clothes into a bag and tied and blindfolded Preeti, hurting her in her hurry.

Something’s wrong Preeti thought.

Then she smelled the sea, heard the crunch of the woman’s feet on the gravel and dared to believe she was going home. What more proof did she need than this boat? Wasn’t it the boat which had brought her ashore?

Once it was in deep water, the woman moved in the stern. She was coming towards Preeti. Her boots thudded on the planks and the boat rocked from side to side. She untied the rope at Preeti’s legs, then the one binding her arms and pulled the cloth from her mouth. Preeti gulped the salt air. It tasted of freedom, sweet freedom.

When the woman took off the blindfold Preeti stared around her. It was dark. The only light was the white fluorescence on the waves rippling past the boat. Where was the ship? Where was freedom?

The woman put her arms under Preeti’s legs and around her back. She was lifting her. ‘Goodbye, pet,’ she said. Then Preeti was falling and splashing into the sea. The shock of submersion and the cold of the water made her gasp, silencing her cry of fear. When she came back to the surface, choking and retching, the noise of the boat’s engine was already fading. Preeti screamed but her voice was lost in the vastness of the ocean and in the sharp wind. She cried for her mother, her father and Basanti. She begged to see her sisters again. One of them would be sold for the
dhanda
if Preeti did not return. Please, no.

She began to sink, gulping water into her lungs. Her throat and windpipe burned. Her chest felt as if it would burst. She lunged again for the surface, taking one more frantic breath before dipping back under the waves.

Now she was playing
Kabaddi
. She was running and running, sprinting for the line where her team-mates were calling for her, cheering her on, urging her to go faster. The opposing team was chasing close behind but she was fast. She had twenty paces remaining. Could she cross the line without taking another breath? One more step. One more step. One more step. Was she there? She had to breathe.

She gasped for air but cold sea water rushed in swamping her tired lungs.

Rule number 1: know your escape route.

Did he? Did he hell.

When the sensor detected him and the floodlights blazed, Cal McGill ran on impulse towards the now brightly illuminated boundary wall. On top of it was a paling fence, erected to protect the new Environment Minister’s garden from the prying eyes of neighbours or curious passers-by. Each plank had been cut to a point, giving the fence a saw-tooth appearance. Cal leapt at the wall but the sudden klaxon wailing of an intruder alarm made him hurry. His foot slipped on a wet stone and he fell, arms flailing, on to the fence, one of the posts stabbing his rib cage. He cried out, threw himself sideways and tumbled into the dark of the back lane. The hard impact of the grass verge knocked the breath from him. He grunted. A pain seared at the side of his ribs.

The base of the wall was lower in the lane than in the minister’s garden. From here, the alarm sounded muffled and distant. Cal lay dazed, wiping grit from his hands, and groaning until an approaching police siren raised him unsteadily to his feet. He attempted to run, but every step tore at his wound and he resigned himself to hobbling along the cinder lane, aware of a sequence of events unfolding behind him.

The police siren gave a final strangulated whoop as the patrol car arrived at the minister’s house.