Garden of Dreams (8 page)

The fire was still smouldering in certain places in the charred rubble. Inspector Gupta held a handkerchief to his nose as he poked his way through the mess with his baton, careful not to step on any hot spots. Asthmatic as a child, he was still sensitive to radical shifts in air quality. Not that bloody Delhi air didn’t choke you most of the time. As the sun rose and illuminated the damage, he was the lone investigator at this one site, though others, scavengers mostly, wandered through the burnt lots down the street. Crows watched and waited on the wires overhead. It didn’t matter so much to him who or what started the fire, what happened to the people living further down. What mattered was what had happened to the people living here.

To one person in particular.

He’d known which was Auntie Lakshmi’s kotha for some time, had his eye on it. Passed and circled it on his expeditions to the Road, a big cat closing in for the kill. Whenever he thought of that woman, and others like her, he had murderous feelings. Feelings that took him far too close to his sorry childhood, to his mother who, while not a criminal, knew how to abuse children. Especially her own son.

Whenever his thoughts went there, back to the beatings, the face slaps and bloody noses, the nights locked in with no supper, Gupta immediately threw himself more fervently into his work. Now, trying to avoid charcoal smudges on his khakis, he searched intently for signs of life – and death. If Lakshmi were still alive, he would find her trail and follow her.

He’d seen these scenes before; there were regular fires along the road, some destroying a countertop, some destroying a whole block like this one. Arson, probably. If these poor souls captive here had any sense they would burn down the whole caboodle. Wished he could do it and get away with it. Purify this part of the city, like the corpses burning on the banks of the Ganga. Reduce it to ash and scatter it to the winds.

Of course it could have been a mistake, a careless gesture, an untended
bidi. Ojal would know, if he could find her. She knew nearly everything, past, present and future – though she hadn’t yet contacted him about the missing boy. It wasn’t looking good. If children weren’t found within a few days of their kidnapping, they were probably lost forever. It had been more than a month since the boy’s report had been filed.

The police had already removed three bodies from the scene, three young prostitutes. Burnt badly but not completely, identifiable. Well, identifiable as young girls. Nameless young girls, Lakshmi’s property. Off to the morgue, then the fruitless search for relatives. It had to be done.

The fire hadn’t spared much. Walls were half-standing, and a single staircase rose towards the heavens. A bar fridge, blackened, stood in what must have been the kitchen, the stovetop pitched against it. A few metres away was a ball-and-claw bathtub, also black. As he prodded the debris, more artefacts appeared: several sooty china dolls; miscellaneous pots and pans, plates, kitchen utensils; several sets of skeleton keys; and an incinerated boom box. With the tip of his baton he knocked the ‘eject’ button and a tape emerged. Melted, but he could still read the label: ‘Clarinet Concerto in A Major, K622, Mozart’.

Bloody hell, who had the taste to listen to Mozart in this place?

You never know about people
. He was fond of saying this to his secretary, Hita, and said it often during the course of a case. It was his job to know, or to find out, but, damnation, people always surprised him. Sometimes in good ways. Usually not.
Trust no one
was another of his favourites, but in fact he longed to trust people, trust someone. Though it probably served him better not to. He could probably trust Hita, though. Dear devoted dogged Hita.

Should call her. He pulled out his cell phone.

‘I’m still here … Any calls? What? Yes, at Lakshmi’s kotha … not much … casualties removed already … no sign of her … no idea, no … I’m not sure … Why? Hita, you are asking too many questions now.’

Gupta didn’t need to be reminded that he had more questions than answers at this point. Where was Lakshmi? Her whores? Her goonda Anand? Ojal? Who were the three dead girls? And all the other dead down the road, twenty-nine by latest count? Was the missing boy’s corpse among them?

The sun was fully up now, and he was sweating, more like cooking over the kotha’s coals. He didn’t expect to find much more; he would talk to his colleagues who’d explored the other fire scenes. Bother, with that high a death toll he’d have to take this further, chase up an arsonist or two. Couldn’t leave it here, written off to mere human folly.

As he stepped gingerly away from the heart of the collapsed kotha, swabbing the sweat off his brow and neck with his soiled handkerchief, he knew what he had to do. Yes, find the cause – and perhaps culprits – of the fire. But beyond that, much more important, he had to do something he had been avoiding for months, even years.

He couldn’t arrest Lakshmi for running a whorehouse. Prostitution slipped through the legal loopholes, unless people were openly soliciting on the street. It had become a tradition in the district, an accepted indulgence for many in power. A notorious red-light doyenne, Lakshmi was servicing important people, even the bloody Home Minister. Love to know where that wanker was sticking his willy.

But now that Lakshmi’s kotha was gone, she was a loose cannon, rolling anywhere. He was sure she could lead him into the trafficking underworld, into the belly of the beast so he could strike from within. He’d been skirting around the edges of that world for too long now, it was time to penetrate. He was tired of staring at photos of suspected traffickers on the walls at HQ; he wanted them physically in his grasp. Too bad much of the force was in their pockets. Too bad there was so much rot at the top.

Never mind. Put your money where your mouth is, Gupta. Time to stop blathering on about children’s rights and the wicked of the world, about police corruption and thin budgets and and and. Shut up and do something.

With new resolve energising his step, Gupta walked towards the edge of the ruins. He twirled his baton and found himself humming the Mozart, adagio: Dan dan … dan dan dan dan …

As he stared up at the crows squawking overhead, he tripped over some blackened bricks, and fell, luckily sideways, not face first. As he hoisted himself up, sleeve torn and one hand bloodied, he spotted what looked like an old rag used to clean out a car engine, wedged between chunks of concrete. He yanked it out and stood to examine it. Just a scrap, but preserved enough to decipher. A piece of a T-shirt, emblazoned with a skull, two silver guns and a bunch of roses. Not your typical young whore’s garment of choice.

Gupta folded the scrap into his pocket, and headed towards the nearest juice-wallah. The sweet taste of mangoes would be a relief about now.

Ten minutes later, mango juice in hand, the inspector slipped into the alleys behind G.B. Road, warrens of rubbish, foraging cows and children
playing hide-and-seek, impervious to the slime. He regretted taking this route, a shortcut back to HQ, when he stepped in a large patty of cow dung. Against his better judgement, he leaned against a pockmarked building and used part of the T-shirt scrap to clean his shoe, an imported Bruno Magli. As he did so, a small girl, seven or eight maybe, in a very short dress, barefoot, with spiky short hair, raced around the corner and grabbed on to his leg, nearly knocking him over.

‘Help me, uncle!’

‘Why?’

‘They want me to see the body and I won’t!’

‘What body? Where?’

‘Just over there, around there. The dogs are sniffing and fighting for it.’

What was he thinking? Now he completely chastised himself for going this way. First cow shit, now probably blood to deal with. Some poor sucker done in and left here to rot – or, if Lady Luck was kind today, a drunkard poised to wake up when the dogs sank their teeth into him. He followed the little girl, who’d started skipping, around the corner.

The girl stopped a few metres away from a lump lying against the wall, covered in a stained purple and red sari, embroidered in gold. Expensive. Flamboyant. There was definitely a person under there, or part of a person, the way the dogs were growling and edging closer.

‘I think you should go find your friends, my dear,’ Gupta said. ‘I’m a policeman and I will see what’s going on.’

The girl’s tiny, grubby palm was extended. ‘Ten rupees.’

Gupta handed her the note, dirtier than her hand. ‘Thanks for the tip-off.’

When the girl had disappeared, he approached the corpse, for he was sure it was one. It was quite fresh, not stinking yet, though a large pool of blood had coagulated near the head and around the neck. With his walking stick Gupta drew back the sari; stuck on the drying blood, it wouldn’t come free. Finally he pulled the silks apart and saw the face of the victim: eyes wide open, mouth agape as if to protest, full lips and tiered ruby earrings still dangling from her ears.

A six-inch slash around her throat.

He recognised her in an instant and felt sick that he hadn’t foreseen this, hadn’t prevented it from happening.

He felt even sicker at the thought: Ojal, his best source on the Road, was dead, and her murderer, whatever vile goonda it was, probably now had it in for him.

There weren’t many obvious places to run in the city. Not to another kotha – the one other malkin she was vaguely friends with had also lost hers in the blaze. The rest, madams and malkins alike, despised her, she was sure of it, profit-monger that she was. Clients had come to Auntie Lakshmi’s like wasps to Coke, sipping the drops at first then diving headlong into the sugar. This was most unfortunate, this fire, wiping out everything she had built up over eighteen years. She wasn’t sure if she should take it as a sign, or as merely a crime. Enough people out there hated her enough to commit it.

She’d checked into a hotel temporarily, some forgotten place near the train station; she could have afforded much better. She’d saved some cash from the fire and had a fat bank account. But why not let someone else pay? No point in spending money if you didn’t have to. So she’d thought of the Singh brothers, who in her book still owed her. Their ‘payback’ was gone now, everything was gone, and she needed favours. Besides, she knew how useful she could be to them.

The Singhs’ headquarters, where they collected and channelled the kids, was a long taxi ride southeast, in the Okhla Industrial Area. A long way from the wide boulevards, colonial houses and English gardens left behind by the Raj in the heart of New Delhi. In the back seat of the cab, Lakshmi focused on her face in a small mirror, deftly applying foundation as they jolted through the potholes. Too depressing, all the slums, workers, and this glut of industry, factory after factory, and producing what? Millions of robotic Indians supporting India’s bid as a new world power. She’d rather look at herself.

It was an electronics factory, the Singhs’ place, at least on the surface. Well it was a factory, in part; they made electronics there, computers, cell phones, printers, other office supplies. Much of the labour, though, was young children, trafficked in. Held there against their will. Small little fingers perfect for assembling all those minuscule parts. She’d never seen the factory floor, but the brothers, Sanjay and Gautam, had told her
about it. They did their business – supplying kids for the sex trade – in a flat upstairs.

The taxi driver had been quiet the whole ride out, chewing his betel nut and twiddling his thick moustache. But now he spoke, as they pulled into the short drive, framed with barbed wire fencing, to the factory.

‘Why you coming to such a place, madame?’ he asked, eyeing her in the rear-view mirror. ‘You own it?’

‘Not yet,’ she said, and tipped him handsomely as he opened the door for her, purple silks flapping in the dust.

The guard was asleep in his little olive box, so she swept past him to the door round the back. She’d been here several times before, so knew her way up, via the antique elevator in the back hall. It had an attendant whose name she forgot; she’d never liked the look of him. Hawklike, cadaverous, he didn’t look physically threatening but his eyes (sunken) and voice (laconic) disturbed her. He tended the elevator like Charon guarding his boat on the Styx.

‘Are the brothers in?’ she asked, forcing a smile.

‘Who wants them?’

‘You don’t recognise me?’

The man peered at her and leaned closer. He smelled like bidis and British Sterling. He seemed to sniff at her. ‘You’re from G.B., isn’t it?’

‘Was from G.B. I’m a business partner. Now, are you going to let me up, or must I take the stairs?’ He waved her into the elevator, a very grubby place. It looked as if someone had vomited on the carpeted floor. What she put up with, the idiots, the slime. As the two of them ascended she was tempted to bolt, to tell the man to take her down again, to run outside, call another cab and never set eyes on these men or others like them ever again.

But she wouldn’t. They were going to help her with the one thing she was sure she wanted. They were going to help her get the boy back.

The man led the way down the dingy hall to the brothers’ door, knocked, mumbled something. The door opened. One of the Singhs stood there, she could never remember who was who. Like a married couple, they were growing more and more similar over the years. Both were lumpen, with poor complexions from too much time indoors. Maybe one was a bit taller than the other. Both had moustaches, and both wore Western dress with shiny expensive shoes and bling around their necks. One, if she recalled correctly, had a long scar across his neck. Not this one. She took her chances, fifty-fifty.

‘Sanjay?’

‘Auntie-ji, come in please. We heard about the fire …’

‘It was on the news.’ Gautam, from behind, peering around his taller brother. ‘Headline-making.’

To the sounds of Indian pop playing on the boom box, they ushered her into the room where she’d met them before, much more snazzy than the hallway. Red and blue kilims, velvet sofas, chandeliers and, dominating the room, a dark wooden bar. Lots of bottles lined up on the shelves and Kingfisher on tap. She never used to drink much but was developing a taste for whisky. They must have seen her staring at the Johnny Walker.

‘Gautam!’ Sanjay ordered. ‘Get the lady a drink. And me too, while you’re at it.’

She settled into an armchair, across from the brothers on either end of the sofa. All with their whiskies in flashy crystal glasses. Before her, a coffee table littered with porn mags and two ashtrays full of stubs.

‘What will Auntie-ji do now?’ asked Gautam, a mournful look on his face, palms opened as a question mark. ‘Poor Auntie-ji, poor us. What a blow for our best customer.’

‘Is anything left?’ It was Sanjay, more sombre. ‘Anyone?’

In the plush red chair she felt as though she was sinking into a pool of blood. Wrong colour choice, boys. ‘Nothing …’

‘Anand …’

‘Gone.’

‘Children, workers?’

‘All gone. Some dead, I think.’

‘Can we get them back?’ Sanjay was already going to the bar for a refill. He checked her glass, barely touched, on the way over.

‘Sanjay, you must be joking.’ Gautam was shaking his head. His neck scar was so deep it was incredible his head was still on. ‘You don’t remember what happened the last time we tried this? Big, big problems. Info leaks and police coming this close.’ He pinched the air to make his point. ‘Better to just get a new lot for Auntie-ji.’

‘The insurance will cover the kotha, no doubt?’ Sanjay fingered his heavy gold chain and dog tag.

‘No doubt,’ she smiled. ‘But that will take time. You have only your small bureaucracy to deal with, but I have to deal with the big guys. Big Brother, and all the kilos of red tape.’

‘So what can we do for you?’

‘Sanjay, let’s first talk about what I can do for you.’ Desperate for air,
she walked towards the window to open the heavy crimson drapes. But there was only wall behind them.

‘Security,’ said Gautam. Obviously.

‘Or not …’ she added.

The whining CD ended and a low moan from the back rooms took over. Sanjay jerked his head towards Gautam, who leapt up and disappeared through a door. He was gone for just a minute, a silent minute in the room with Sanjay. The moaning stopped, and Gautam reappeared.

‘Sweet dreams,’ he said, smiling, and sat down again.

‘So let’s talk,’ Sanjay said.

She sat down again, this time on the edge of her chair, and took a big chug of her whisky. ‘You obviously want Auntie Lakshmi’s kotha in business again …’

‘Goes without saying, Auntie-ji,’ Gautam said. ‘We’ll set you up again, no problem.’ Sanjay lit another cigarette and blew the smoke to the side. ‘Just sort out the insurance …’

‘I already have another place in mind, further down the road – bigger in fact, not so slummy. Quite promising, according to the star charts.’

‘Available?’ they both asked.

‘Not for a couple of months. I’ll need a place to live in the meantime.’ Now she was going for it. ‘A flat in Greater Kailash would be fine.’

Gautam laughed but Sanjay didn’t move. ‘Auntie-ji, you have expensive taste!’ Gautam said. ‘Breaking the bank for the Singh brothers!’

‘And what if we decline?’ Sanjay was looking at her like a cobra about to strike.

She stood and picked up one of the girlie magazines. Not too bad on the cover but inside, as she thumbed through, all sorts of titties and crotches and bums, jewels in navels and noses and bloody everywhere else.

She threw the magazine down on the coffee table. ‘You know who you’re dealing with. You know that half, more than half, of my clients wear khaki uniforms and little pompous badges and caps and carry revolvers in their belts. They listen to me, and when I tell them this so-and-so is doing this, they pay attention. I can talk – or I can keep my mouth shut.’

‘So what else do you want?’ Sanjay straightened the girlie mags into a stack.

‘Well, there is something …’

‘Name it, Auntie-ji!’ Gautam slurped his drink.

‘The boy you sent me once … the American …’

The brothers shifted on the sofa.

‘He disappeared in the fire. If he’s not dead I want him back.’

Gautam bounced slightly. ‘Oh, you fancied him, did you? A little tender white meat now and then, heh?’

What rubbish. ‘Get your thoughts out of the sewer for once – if that’s possible.’

Sanjay persisted. ‘Where do you think he’s gone?’

‘The US Embassy?’ Gautam looked hopeful.

‘That’s it, Gautam!’ Sanjay was shaking his head. ‘We’re all going over to the ambassador’s office and asking, “Please sir, help, we’ve lost one of our kids, a bloody gorgeous young boy who the queen of G.B. Road is missing terribly!”’

‘Possibly,’ she said, ignoring him. ‘But somehow I doubt it – if he was with any other children. I’ll ask around. You ask around. I suspect he’s on his way north – to Kathmandu and his father.’

‘We could ransom him this time!’ Gautam had a bright idea.

‘Absolutely not.’ She stood again and started circling the sofa. ‘Get him, and give him to me. Otherwise these loose lips will sink lots of ships.’

‘We’ll get him, Lakshmi.’ Sanjay was on his feet now, towering over her. ‘But you must help us sort out the kids for the new kotha. Supplies are thin at the moment, too many patrols on the border, so we’re going to have to go local.’

‘Local?’ Even Gautam didn’t get what he meant.

‘Take them off the factory floor. Boys too.’ Sanjay came towards her with a curved arm to steer her out the door. ‘Starting now.’

They took a different elevator, a service elevator, straight down to the ground floor and straight into the factory. It was vast, like a football field, all in shades of grey with spotlights hanging overhead. Hundreds of children busied themselves at long tables with pieces of metal, plastic, wire, working industriously like ants at a picnic. Most of the little ragamuffins were barefoot, snatched or lured from the villages and fields and brought to this dead-end place. She felt her heart softening, but knew she had a job to do.

As they started walking down the aisles, her pulse quickened. Spoiled for choice. ‘That one.’ She pointed at a lovely little girl with a long braid and soulful eyes.

‘Him.’ She nodded at a cherubic boy, a fast worker.

She shook her head as they passed a row of plain ones.

The next was a good row, full of healthy, bright-eyed kids. She gave the brothers a thumbs up for all of them.

They were in the middle of the factory floor now. ‘Enough?’ Sanjay asked.

She looked around at the room full of children, many looking up now as they passed by, whispering to each other. Some even waved to her. She walked up to a girl, waving from the end of a row. A beautiful girl, maybe ten, exotic, with slanted eyes, from the north no doubt, towards Tibet. Eyes that still had a hint of trust in them. She asked the girl her name and if she’d like to come live with Auntie-ji. The girl smiled and touched the purple silk of Auntie’s sari.

‘Why not?’ Lakshmi smiled, feeling the Singhs’ admiration. ‘This is no place for a pretty girl.’