Garden of Dreams (14 page)

Hita had been teasing him mercilessly all morning. One of the biggest stars in Bollywood had called him and invited him over for a ‘chat’. Hita was convinced it would be a more carnal encounter. As he sat in his office in front of the portable round mirror he’d set up on his desk, trimming his moustache and nostril hairs, Gupta wondered where his lips would be an hour from now.

‘She has had her eyes on you for a very, very long time, Inspector,’ Hita yelled in from her desk in the next room. ‘No doubt she is still wanting to thank you, more personally, for getting her off that soliciting charge two years ago.’

‘Rubbish, Hita,’ he said, smiling at himself in the mirror. ‘Your imagination is running away with you, my girl. Rein it in.’

Relatively pleased with his face, he returned the mirror to his top drawer and slipped a small notebook into his chest pocket. He was going to the star’s house in Greater Kailash purely on business, he told himself, and Hita should know better. He didn’t mix business with pleasure. Not usually, anyway.

Hita grinned at him as he passed her desk. Her hair was still pulled back in a severe ponytail and she refused to wear make-up, though he swore there was a hint of gloss on her lips these days. Maybe she’d just been eating more sweets. She rubbed the little brass Ganesh, the happy elephant god, she kept on her desk for good fortune. ‘What time can I expect you back? Four o’clock?’

That was five hours from now.

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Hita.’ He tried not to smile at the thought of nearly five hours spent in the aura of this woman, the apex of female perfection, at least in looks. In character she was as scummy as the rest of them. A real low-life living the high life.

‘I’ll call if I’m going to be late.’

‘Ask Bianca for a part in her next film!’ Hita shouted as he walked out the door. ‘And one for me!’

Thirty minutes later the scrawny taxi driver dropped him off in front of Bianca’s house, barricaded by a high white wall and cast-iron gate, with huge statues of dancing Shiva on the columns. ‘Wow, Inspector, you know this woman? She’s done something bad?’

‘Not today,’ Gupta said, handing notes to the driver without waiting for change. ‘Not as far as I know.’

He rang the buzzer near the gate and turned around, a habit, checking what was behind him. The taxi driver was still there, peering out the window. Another stupid fan. Gupta waved him off and he obeyed, slowly pulling away from the curb.

‘Inspector?’ A sultry voice on the intercom.

‘It’s me.’ Or I. It is I. Shut up, Gupta.

‘I’ve been waiting for you.’

The towering cast-iron gate opened slowly, admitting him to this Eden. A garden of intoxicating flowers, dozens of frangipani bushes with pale yellow and pink blooms, rows of roses in apricots, creams and rouges, other exotics whose names escaped him. He thought he might swoon before he reached the front door of the white neocolonial mansion. Probably once the home of a Raj sahib. Most of Greater Kailash was so
new
, but here was something historic, preserved. The woman had taste – and an obscene amount of money.

He expected a butler or maid to open the solid front door, framed by panels of opaque bevelled glass, but it was the star herself who greeted him. She wore a lime green sari with extravagant gold beadwork on the borders. He couldn’t help it: his eyes went immediately to her breasts, clamouring to escape the tight sari top, and then down to the peridot in her navel. He wondered if she changed the stones to go with her outfits.

‘Always on time, Inspector.’ She swept him in with her hand and he caught a whiff of Opium, a deadly perfume. ‘You are such a dependable man.’

‘Not difficult being on time for a beautiful woman.’ Bloody hell, what a suck-up. ‘Also part of the job.’

She led him into an all-white lounge, which looked as though someone had spray-painted it recently. No spots, stains, signs of use or abuse. The two sofas, facing each other near a disused fireplace filled with silver balls and peacock feathers, were white leather; there was a creamy Greek flokati rug on the floor and several whitewashed armchairs upholstered in white linen. A glass-topped coffee table displayed a thick pile of
Filmfare
magazines and today’s paper. In one corner was a tall statue that looked like a hipbone. Very artsy-fartsy. He barely dared to sit down.

‘I just had it redone,’ Bianca said, sitting down on one of the sofas. He sat across from her, on the other. ‘You like it?’

‘It’s very – clean,’ he said, feeling foolish. ‘Which in Delhi is quite an achievement.’

‘I was going for the clean look, Inspector, exactly what I was going for. Good for you to pick up on that. But I am wasting your time now. I have something much better to tell you.’

Just say it, woman.
He couldn’t imagine this bimbo had anything useful to say.

‘I saw the ad for the missing boy in the paper recently …’

‘Which missing boy?’ There were so many of them.

‘The American. The blonde.’ Bianca took a silver case from the top of the coffee table and offered him a cigarette. He took one just for the pleasure of having her light it, which she did, with a gold lighter. Then one for herself.

‘Eli de Villiers?’ It had been a long time since he’d said the boy’s name.

‘That’s it. What kind of a name is that?’ Bianca curled her bare feet underneath her and blew out a long stream of smoke, away from them.

‘He’s South African. Half South African. His mother’s American. Also missing.’ He hadn’t put the ad in the paper and wondered who had. Another mystery, like the poster of Eli on G.B. Road. If he held back long enough, working surreptitiously, the boy’s captors – whoever they were now – would show themselves.

Bianca came over and sat next to him, so close that he could see the irises of her midnight eyes. ‘But I saw him, Inspector. The boy. Eli. I saw him yesterday on a photo shoot in Varanasi.’

‘Are you sure?’ This seemed highly improbable. But, if still alive, the boy could have made it that far. It was the right direction for his flight path. If he was going to his father.

‘Turn to page twenty-seven, you’ll see,’ she said, handing him the morning paper. ‘The Arts section. They gave me a whole spread.’

He opened the paper to the right page, and there was Bianca’s face and voluptuous body, draped in a thirties white-satin number, all over the place, beaming above the beggars. The many faces of India. He didn’t see anything helpful until she pointed to the photo in the bottom right-hand corner.

‘Look there,’ she said, ‘that boy staring at me a few rows back. Blue eyes, definitely a black dye-job, too tall for your average Indian teen. I am sure that is your Eli de Villiers.’

He looked more closely, but the grain in the newspaper print made it
hard to decipher. He couldn’t be sure it was Eli. And he couldn’t be sure why Bianca was sharing this information with him. Unless he asked.

‘Why are you telling me this?’

‘You placed the missing persons ad, didn’t you?’ She looked seriously disappointed.

‘In fact I did not. I will find out who did, however, as soon as I get back to the office.’

‘But, Inspector!’ Now Bianca was pushing his hair gently off his brow.

‘You must find this boy, urgently! Call your men in Varanasi, go there yourself. Surely it looks very bad for the Indian police to lose a foreigner?’

He didn’t understand her desperation to find this boy, rescue him. What was in it for her? Surely she didn’t care about a reward.

‘Bianca, my dear, while we greatly appreciate the lead, we are caught up with matters in Delhi at the moment, we’re understaffed as always. And the force in Varanasi are busy gunning – no, sorry, poor choice of words – for that silly Baba who has been sodomising young boys and making porno movies. So I am afraid this half-half boy isn’t a priority for us.’

The star stood up, crossed her arms and flicked her hair around her, looming over him like a Medusa. ‘I’ll pay you to bring him in, Gupta. Name your price.’

‘What’s your interest in this boy, Bianca? If I may be so bold …’

She turned her back towards him and walked towards the picture window, pivoting on her heels and coming back, as though rehearsing a scene. Then she rubbed her temples with her fingertips and looked straight at him. ‘Let us just say that we share a common enemy, the boy and I. Someone who is after him and is – in my way. That’s all I can tell you, Inspector.’ She sat down close to him again and batted her false lashes, perfectly in place. Quite deceptive from a distance. She could probably help with make-up advice on his next undercover op. Her hand enclosed his in a vice grip.

‘You know I could bring you in for questioning,’ he said, trying to strip her down a little. There were sweat stains under her arms, on the expensive green silk sari top. She was coming undone. ‘If you’re concealing knowledge of criminal activity.’

Bianca grabbed another cigarette from the silver case, without offering him one. ‘Let’s just say it would be good for everyone, or a lot of people, if this person doesn’t get what she wants.’

‘I’ll look into it,’ he said, standing and moving towards the door. Without thinking, he grabbed her hand and kissed it. ‘You and I will continue our conversation later.’

He let himself out; she did not accompany him to the door, just sat where he’d left her, diminished.

In the taxi on the way back to the office he took the small notebook from his breast pocket and started scribbling.
September 20
^th
, Miss B’s residence, GK. Bloody woman is up to something. Reported seeing De Villiers boy in Varanasi on photo shoot with local beggars. Produced fuzzy photo in
Hindustan Times.
Follow up with V. detectives or … possibly investigate self. About time for another dip in the Ganga …

But what explained the superstar’s determination to retrieve the boy? This unnamed person, female – Bianca had said ‘what
she
wants’ – this scourge, as she described her. He of course knew someone who fitted the description. Someone he wanted to bring down even more than Bianca did.

But why was Lakshmi a threat to Bianca? This didn’t bode well. On the road to headquarters, he barely heard the incessant beeping of horns and drivers’ shouts as the taxi just missed the other vehicles. A cacophony of voices in his head was screaming.
Get the bitch! Get both bitches, they’re in it together! Get the boy! No, forget about the boy, he’s a goner! No, find the boy, expose the rotters in the department!

When they reached the security gate at Indraprastha, the seventies faceless façade seemed to stare him in the eye with reprimand.
Do your duty, Gupta,
it seemed to be saying,
no matter what it takes.

He paid the taxi driver, got out and slammed the door with renewed resolve. He hated the status quo, all his fellow officers turning blind eyes and deaf ears towards so much corruption, or, worse, happily diving into the muck. He would not be seduced by money, sex or power – he felt a new mantra coming on. He would get the boy, if he could, or at least knock out those in his pursuit. Starting with the associates, and then going for the kingpin. Or, in this case, queenpin.

No, he would not be seduced. He’d be doing the seducing.

With the chanting outside they were freeing souls for the next life. Reincarnation. The pilgrims below by the pyres willed the dead onwards with their collective wailing. He wasn’t sure how far away they were; the sound was getting louder and louder as though they were coming nearer. Coming for him.

Of course they weren’t. They were preoccupied with the dead, and he was still alive. Barely. He felt as though every bone in his body had been whacked with a hammer, particularly in his hands. Still tied to the chair, they were covered in bruises, the colour of eggplant. He felt bridled by the gag in his mouth. His head flooded with pain, though he could still see, and from the shadows through the window he guessed it was still afternoon, but another afternoon. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been here. How long ago the two men had come to ask him so many questions, and to beat him.

He hadn’t been beaten much in his life. Only a few spankings; his mother had whipped him with words, mostly. As he got older, definitely this year at least, he’d been fighting back, countering even the vaguest threat of physical punishment with a charge of ‘Child Abuse!’, which stopped her in her tracks. No, the only time he’d been assaulted, really, was on the beach at home in America years ago, one summer’s day. He must have been six or seven. He’d grabbed his ball back from another kid who’d stolen it, and the kid’s father, hearing his wimpy son moan, had lunged at him and grabbed him by the neck, shaking him till he fell on the sand. Later, when he told her what happened, his mother had called the police. But she hadn’t been there. Hadn’t saved him. He’d saved himself, by surviving.

Things can go wrong and do. All the time. Just look at this – he, Eli de Villiers, trapped in an abandoned building at Manikarnika Ghat, India. Not knowing who the men were who’d captured him, or when they would come back for him. And hungry. Starving, actually. His stomach felt as though a huge parasite were gnawing through it. Were they planning
to starve him to death? His mother had threatened to send him to bed without supper for his backtalk, but had never done it.

He longed, now, for a samosa – one of those greasy little pockets of potatoes, peas, onions, cumin, chilli and other mysterious spices – and with that longing came a connection: the old blind woman. She was here, somewhere, he realised. If she hadn’t died. Anything could happen in a couple of days.

The room, he saw, was empty except for the chair he was in – nothing sharp to rub his restraints on. He couldn’t walk because they’d tied his feet to the chair, too. He was part of the chair. The chair was the only answer.

He could rock forward and rock back, or sideways. Experimenting, he found a rhythm, forward, back, sideways a bit, until it was beginning to feel like a malfunctioning amusement park ride. Couldn’t quite break the centre of gravity. He thought of the girls somewhere out there, of his father in Kathmandu, of his mother somewhere he didn’t know, of poor Max hopefully not alone, and definitely not snuffed out by the SPCA. His feet, hands and lower torso were hurting as he made these awkward revolutions, faster and faster until
bang
, he crashed sideways to the floor. The echo rre, he realised. If she hadn’t died. Anything could happen in a couple of days.

The room, he saw, was empty except for the chair he was in – nothing sharp to rub his restraints on. He couldn’t walk because they’d tied his feet to the chair, too. He was part of the chair. The chair was the only answer.

He could rock forward and rock back, or sideways. Experimenting, he found a rhythm, forward, back, sideways a bit, until it was beginning to feel like a malfunctioning amusement park ride. Couldn’t quite break the centre of gravity. He thought of the girls somewhere out there, of his father in Kathmandu, of his mother somewhere he didn’t know, of poor Max hopefully not alone, and definitely not snuffed out by the SPCA. His feet, hands and lower torso were hurting as he made these awkward revolutions, faster and faster until
bang
, he crashed sideways to the floor. The echo rre, he realised. If she hadn’t died. Anything could happen in a couple of days.

The room, he saw, was empty except for the chair he was in – nothing sharp to rub his restraints on. He couldn’t walk because they’d tied his feet to the chair, too. He was part of the chair. The chair was the only answer.

He could rock forward and rock back, or sideways. Experimenting, he found a rhythm, forward, back, sideways a bit, until it was beginning to feel like a malfunctioning amusement park ride. Couldn’t quite break the centre of gravity. He thought of the girls somewhere out there, of his father in Kathmandu, of his mother somewhere he didn’t know, of poor Max hopefully not alone, and definitely not snuffed out by the SPCA. His feet, hands and lower torso were hurting as he made these awkward revolutions, faster and faster until
bang
, he crashed sideways to the floor. The echo rre, he realised. If she hadn’t died. Anything could happen in a couple of days.

The room, he saw, was empty except for the chair he was in – nothing sharp to rub his restraints on. He couldn’t walk because they’d tied his feet to the chair, too. He was part of the chair. The chair was the only answer.

He could rock forward and rock back, or sideways. Experimenting, he found a rhythm, forward, back, sideways a bit, until it was beginning to feel like a malfunctioning amusement park ride. Couldn’t quite break the centre of gravity. He thought of the girls somewhere out there, of his father in Kathmandu, of his mother somewhere he didn’t know, of poor Max hopefully not alone, and definitely not snuffed out by the SPCA. His feet, hands and lower torso were hurting as he made these awkward revolutions, faster and faster until
bang
, he crashed sideways to the floor. The echo rre, he realised. If she hadn’t died. Anything could happen in a couple of days.

The room, he saw, was empty except for the chair he was in – nothing sharp to rub his restraints on. He couldn’t walk because they’d tied his feet to the chair, too. He was part of the chair. The chair was the only answer.

He could rock forward and rock back, or sideways. Experimenting, he found a rhythm, forward, back, sideways a bit, until it was beginning to feel like a malfunctioning amusement park ride. Couldn’t quite break the centre of gravity. He thought of the girls somewhere out there, of his father in Kathmandu, of his mother somewhere he didn’t know, of poor Max hopefully not alone, and definitely not snuffed out by the SPCA. His feet, hands and lower torso were hurting as he made these awkward revolutions, faster and faster until
bang
, he crashed sideways to the floor. The echo rre, he realised. If she hadn’t died. Anything could happen in a couple of days.

The room, he saw, was empty except for the chair he was in – nothing sharp to rub his restraints on. He couldn’t walk because they’d tied his feet to the chair, too. He was part of the chair. The chair was the only answer.

He could rock forward and rock back, or sideways. Experimenting, he found a rhythm, forward, back, sideways a bit, until it was beginning to feel like a malfunctioning amusement park ride. Couldn’t quite break the centre of gravity. He thought of the girls somewhere out there, of his father in Kathmandu, of his mother somewhere he didn’t know, of poor Max hopefully not alone, and definitely not snuffed out by the SPCA. His feet, hands and lower torso were hurting as he made these awkward revolutions, faster and faster until
bang
, he crashed sideways to the floor. The echo rre, he realised. If she hadn’t died. Anything could happen in a couple of days.

The room, he saw, was empty except for the chair he was in – nothing sharp to rub his restraints on. He couldn’t walk because they’d tied his feet to the chair, too. He was part of the chair. The chair was the only answer.

He could rock forward and rock back, or sideways. Experimenting, he found a rhythm, forward, back, sideways a bit, until it was beginning to feel like a malfunctioning amusement park ride. Couldn’t quite break the centre of gravity. He thought of the girls somewhere out there, of his father in Kathmandu, of his mother somewhere he didn’t know, of poor Max hopefully not alone, and definitely not snuffed out by the SPCA. His feet, hands and lower torso were hurting as he made these awkward revolutions, faster and faster until
bang
, he crashed sideways to the floor. The echo rre, he realised. If she hadn’t died. Anything could happen in a couple of days.

The room, he saw, was empty except for the chair he was in – nothing sharp to rub his restraints on. He couldn’t walk because they’d tied his feet to the chair, too. He was part of