“YOU FORGOT ABOUT your Uncle Oscar last night,” Ma said as she poured me my coffee the next morning.

“Oh God, Ma. So many things happened.” I sipped a little coffee before asking, “How did he get back?”

“A nice gentleman called Loga brought him home. Mr Loga said that he had been with all of you at the Mitre Hotel. He said that Oscar introduced him to Inspector D’Cruz, who he had been waiting to meet for several years. He had not thanked Oscar for this and, when he returned to do so, found both your uncle and coach Choo so drunk that he took it upon himself to ferry them home in a taxi. He asked me to thank Oscar for him as he would not be able to do so himself.”

I was glad Ozzie hadn’t arrested the man.

Later that day I went in to the office. I had a vague notion that Mohan would try to contact me. When he did, I would rather that Ma and Oscar were not around. I sat at my desk fiddling with a pile of flight crew reports. I had been there for over three hours and was about to leave when the phone rang.

It was Mohan. “I am glad there was something to take you to the office today. You wouldn’t have been able to talk as freely if you had been at home.” His voice was jolly. “After some self-searching, I concluded that the arrangements of last night would not deceive the inspector. That being the case, it was possible that your home phone would be tapped. I think I have surmised correctly and I am now what is called ‘a fugitive from justice’.” He chuckled merrily.

It was difficult to know what to say to a man who had killed his father and sister and still had room in his heart for laughter.

“Where are you, Mohan?”

“I would rather not divulge my whereabouts for that would only tempt you to betray me to the police.”

I wanted a chat with the man before the inspector and his crew got hold of him. “I need to talk to you, Mohan. I need to know exactly what has been going on.” I needed to reassemble myself, to find all the missing pieces, and this man could help me do so.

“I tried to give you some indication of the way in which my thinking was leading me. I did this on the morning we cast Vani’s ashes and on the night we had dinner together. You are the one person who would understand my actions and I too need to speak with you. We must meet and talk soon but you must assure me that, whatever you promised them, you will not betray me to the police.”

“How do you know you can trust me?”

“Your word is all the assurance I am asking for, How Kum.”

“All right. I promise I won’t let on to the inspector or his men.” I paused before asking, “Where shall we meet?”

He considered the question for a while. “At the park where you and Vani used to spend your nights.”

“At East Coast Park?” I couldn’t hide my surprise at his choice of rendezvous.

“Yes. It’s as good place as any. And I like open spaces. I can make sure you are alone before I show myself.” He laughed. This time, a little unpleasantly. “Just in case you change your mind about telling the police. I don’t mean to give offence but a man in my position must take all the precautions he can.”

“The park’s a big place. Where exactly in it shall we meet?”

“At the spot where you and my sister used to…get together.”

“Give me a time, Mohan.”

“It’s about four now. Let’s say we meet around six-thirty when it will be cool but still light enough for me to see just how many people I’m meeting.”

I spent the next two hours trying to find things to do in the office, debating all the while whether or not I should get in touch with D’Cruz. If I did, the inspector was sure to want to set a trap for Mohan. I didn’t really care what happened to the man. What I wanted was a chance to talk to him. I feared that, even if D’Cruz allowed me to speak to Mohan, he would be impatient and the trap would be sprung before I had all my questions answered. Despite this, I felt some kind of obligation to the policeman and I reached for the phone several times. Each time I stopped myself before I dialled the inspector’s number.

Mohan had, all along, been straight with me and, though the man was a killer many times over, I felt, perhaps perversely, that I should be likewise with him.

Moreover, if he thought that I was being dishonest, it was unlikely that he would give me the answers to the questions I had. The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that I had no real interest in seeing Mohan punished. All I really wanted was to find out how it came about that the only woman I had ever loved got herself murdered. I knew that Vanita’s ghost would not rest till I had done this. I put down the phone which had, somehow, found itself in my hand. I would go it alone.

The park was beginning to empty when I got there. Teenagers carrying floats, surf boards and other beach things were walking towards the exits. There was an air of disappointment about the place and, despite their sunburns and the music from their transistors, the weekend had not been as good as it could have been to all the young people who were making their way home.

I remembered how Vanita and I were on Sundays: happy, drained of desire but loving each other and the world. It was with difficulty that I put these thoughts out of my mind. I wished to be as unsentimental as possible when I talked to Mohan. I found our old place easily enough. I expected some sense of attachment to the spot where I had known so much joy, and was disappointed on discovering none. It was just another patch of grass sheltered by a few bushes and not popular with the youngsters because it was situated away from the sea. With Vanita gone, nothing remained.

There were few people around. Some late joggers were doing stretching exercises, an elderly couple walked slowly towards the sea, a vagrant who was leaning idly against a tree shot a glance in my direction.

There was no sign of Mohan.

I walked slowly towards the beach. It was beginning to get dark and the tide was in. It was the first night of the lunar month and no moon accompanied the rising waters. Nevertheless, the flecks of foam on the waves would acquire a ghostly phosphorescence as darkness fell. The water was high, but a Sunday evening tide tempted no swimmers. At the far end of the beach, I watched a lone fisherman cast his line. There was nothing optimistic about his action.

I turned and walked back to where I was to wait for Mohan. It was well after six-thirty. Perhaps he thought it was wiser not to come. I couldn’t keep my disappointment from affecting my stride as I began slowly making my way towards the exit. The vagrant who was propping up a tree turned slowly to look more directly at me. Then he raised a hand and began walking in my direction. It wasn’t until I got really close that I recognised him.

Mohan was dressed in a loincloth and had tattered chapals on his feet. The ends of the open slippers were turned up from use. His cotton shirt was threadbare in parts and sweat-stained. What struck me most, however, was the change that had come over his complexion. The Mohan I remembered had a skin that was so clean and smooth that it appeared oiled. It fitted his plump, effeminate body well. The man who stood before me had a complexion that was roughened by dirt and the weather like that of an aboriginal tribesman. On his face and arms were a variety of encrustations made up of a mixture of mud and body secretions. Three days’ growth of beard dappled his chin and, as he got closer, I realised that he smelled strongly.

“Namaste Iyer,” he said, placing palm to palm in traditional Indian greeting. “You are surprised to find me in this condition.” I nodded and he explained, “Things have not been going well with me, old friend, and I have had to make changes in my appearance for the sake of my survival.”

“You must come home with me, Mohan. Have a bath and a meal.”

He looked as though he had not eaten for several days.

“Later. Maybe, later, How Kum. Now let us sit here awhile and let me tell you my story.”

We sat on a patch of grass on which his sister and I once made love.

“Yes, Mohan. I must know everything.”

“I will start at the beginning. First, I will tell you things you want to know about my sister. With Leela in India and father dead, no one else can.” He crossed his legs, then over-crossed them till he was sitting in the lotus position.

“Vani was a sweet child, a warm child, always wanting to show how affectionate she was. Even in her early teens, she began showing her liking for men, first in innocent harmless ways, then in a manner that was less innocent. I took it upon myself to watch over her, to see that no one took advantage of her. I don’t know if that is quite the correct term though. For Vani took what she could from people, not the other way round. I don’t know who her first man was but whoever it was was guilty of statutory rape, for at fourteen Vani was no longer a virgin. I loved my little sister, and I was disturbed by the kind of things she had to do to make her life complete. I spoke to her, told her it would kill father if he found out. I begged her to stop. She was the apple of my father’s eye and, every time she stayed out the night, he aged ten years.”

“This has been going on from the time she was fourteen? For the past six years?” No wonder she was surprised at my being a virgin at twenty-seven.

He nodded. “Till she met you. Then I think it almost stopped.”

“Almost?”

“I think she did go out once or twice, to meet men, but I think these were purely business transactions.”

I remembered Vanita’s own admission on the tape and didn’t push the line of questioning further. “Your father didn’t ask you to stop her…doing what she was doing?”

“He said nothing till you turned up.”

“But I was serious about your sister. I wanted to marry her.”

“That is exactly what bothered him. Our father was sure that whatever Vani did, he could, for a large dowry, get some middle-aged Tamil to marry her. When he found that she was serious about a Chinese called How Kum, he exploded. He shouted at his beloved girl and told her he was going to cut her out of the will in which she was left everything. Vanita said that she wasn’t interested in his wealth. If she needed money, she knew how to make it herself.”

“He was kind to me…”

“Only when he found out from me, after Vani died, that you were not a Chinese at all but technically an Indian, a Malayalee. Then he saved face by thinking of you as the son-in-law that should have been. Our father, you see, was a bigot and a hypocrite. An expert in self deception. A true Hindu does not deceive himself. He has no need to. He sees things as they are and lives for the moment, for the present is the only reality that life offers.”

It was dark now. The lights on ships swinging at anchor became twinkling stars. To the west was the glow of the city. Mohan was a shadow beside me.

“And killing, is that all right too?”

I heard the grass rustle as he moved. “We know only one thing in this world, dharma. One moves from moment to moment, acting as one’s perception of dharma demands, and it is this kind of action that makes each moment of the present complete.”

“So you feel that your sister’s murder was justified?”

“You must try to understand, How Kum. I loved Vani as an elder brother should. But it is proper that the boy in the family inherits. It is contrary to dharma that a girl should come into the family’s wealth. I know that after meeting you, Vani wanted the money. She pretended that she didn’t want anything of the fortune father had amassed, but she began to think about houses and children. She began to do so only after she became serious about you, How Kum.

“I talked to her. I begged her. I told her that the wealth was mine by right of birth. I explained that she was threatening the ways of a thousand years. I said that I had important things that I needed to do with the money. If I was a wealthy man, even if I looked like becoming a wealthy man, I and our group could change the face of Hinduism. We could make it more like the religion it once was and should be today.”

“But your sister didn’t want the money. You could have persuaded her, given her more time to think about things.”

“As I said, she sometimes pretended that she didn’t want father’s money. Said that she had good reasons for rejecting it. She also claimed that she had ways of earning money herself. But what she sold would not make her what she wanted quickly enough, and Vani was an impatient girl.”

I asked, “Did you feel no pity for this sister that you loved, no remorse, no shame…?”

“Pity, shame, guilt, fear…even love, are all terms we use to conceal how attached we are to our personalities. Unless we can get detached from ourselves, we are doomed never to understand why stars move or what initiated the explosion that started the universe. Only the moment exists, the act. The victim is not superior to the murderer.”

At last I was able to find out something that had been bothering me for a long time. “Why did you not kill me as well?”

“If you had woken up, I would have had to. But as it was, you were asleep under Vani’s body. And I had ensured that both of you slept well. I knew that Vani spiked the semolina with Benedictine. I added several helpings of valium to the Benedictine at home so you could both sleep well. And die without pain.” He chuckled.

I thought again of how I saw Vanita and me, of the sky-goddess Nut lying over the body of her lover, the earth-god Geb, remembering as I did Vanita’s voice on the tape. “I will protect you with my body, keep it snugly around you, so no one can harm you.” I thought again of my shame at not waking to defend my love the way that Lip Bin and Stella had, and felt absolved of guilt. It was valium not indolence that had caused me to sleep.

I would have stayed with my thoughts but Mohan was speaking, leaving me no time for reminiscing. “It was clearly not the moment to kill you.”

“And you, of course, live from moment to moment?”

“If you will only admit it, you will see that we all do.”

“Killing the other people, the young couple and the two girls, that was all right too?”

“Once one sees the path, one closes one’s eyes and follows it, unfettered by sentimental rubbish like the value of life. Life and death are both part of the Universal consciousness and one, therefore, cannot be superior or inferior to the other.” He sighed contentedly. “If I was convicted of murder, my sister’s death would have been for nothing. It was necessary therefore that the four died to throw suspicion off me.”

“But they had nothing to do with your problems. They were innocent, Mohan.”

“We are all innocent, just as we are all guilty. We find the road laid out for us and walk along it. The only immorality is to deny the existence of the road.”

A plane, its headlights streaking the sky, came in from the west and began its descent. The sea was silent and the hum of jet engines was the only sound in the air.

“Why was it necessary to kill your father?” I added as an afterthought. “You did kill him, didn’t you?”

Mohan was silent. He seemed to be listening to the noise of the aircraft. He waited till this had quite faded away before speaking.

“Our father announced, after the so-called raising of Vani’s spirit, that, though she was gone, the money would be dedicated to her through the power of Kishore. He was going to put the family fortune in the hands of that crook. I had no choice but to kill him; I had to do this before father had a chance to change the will in Kishore’s favour. The existing will left all to Vani but, with her and father dead, I, as the only surviving member of the family, would inherit. Father was talking about going to a lawyer with Kishore on Monday. You know what that would have meant?”

It seemed as good a time as any, and I told Mohan about Vanita’s tape diary, and how Kishore had known so much about her personal life, and what her voice was like.

“Thank you, How Kum. I see the whole plan now. What he did not reveal at the first session would be revealed at later seances. And once faith was established, he would simply invent things as he needed to.” I was quite sure that Mohan was smiling to himself. “Perhaps I should have killed Kishore instead of father but then the old man would have only replaced him with some other crook, and the whole thing would start all over again.” He was silent. “No, How Kum, I did things in the way that my own dharma demanded and I was not wrong to act as I did.”

Somewhere in the darkness, a ship began to move, initiating the flurry of waves that crashed on to the beach.

“What made you get in touch with me, Mohan?”

“You were the only one who might understand. I have expounded my views to you and you seemed sympathetic. Even though you were so carnally attracted to my sister, I do not think you are sitting in judgement over me. It is good for a man like you to know the truth.”

“But that is not the only reason for your seeing me?”

He breathed deeply before speaking. “No. There is a more practical reason. My father suspected that I had a hand in Vani’s death. Last night, he had a long session with Kishore. After it was over, he called me to his room and accused me to my face. He knew I was not at home on the night I had to kill the two girls and, all in all, guessed how I was throwing the police off the scent.”

“Did he threaten to expose you to them?”

“Not directly. I knew, however, that I would never be safe as long as father knew and Kishore was around. Last night, father went on and on about killing one’s flesh and blood. I tried to explain that it was he, in fact, who was responsible for his beloved daughter’s death. If he had not disinherited me, if he had been true to custom, none of this would have happened. But his mind was too poisoned by Kishore’s nonsense to understand true causality. Karma eludes those who are tied to the imperatives of this world. As father went on and on about Vani’s death, he worked himself into a kind of rage I have never seen him in. Suddenly, a man who had never struck me, even when I was a child, began to scream and slap. I knew then that he was out of his mind and would not be guided by reason. We struggled and, as we did, the lights went out. I was behind him. Both my palms were round his neck. I pushed down a little, not strongly the way I had to do with the girl. I was only trying to frighten him, to show him how strong I was through yoga. Then I heard a crack and he went limp in my hands.

“There was nothing I could do. No one would believe that, though it was necessary for our father to die, I had not intended to kill him then.” A cool breeze began blowing in from the sea and I heard Mohan sigh against it.

“Why are you telling me all this? I only wanted to know about Vanita.”

“There is something I need to know from you.”

“What is it?”

“When I knew that father was dead, I decided to make it look like he hanged himself. I had some difficulty in stringing him from the fan as I had to do this in complete darkness. But I have doubts that the deception was successful.” He paused before asking, “The police inspector in charge of this case is in touch with you. Has he said anything about father’s death?”

The man was guilty not only of killing Vanita but five other people. All I had to say was that D’Cruz was convinced that Sundram had committed suicide. Mohan would have returned home and justice would have been done.

I said, “No, Mohan. The inspector knows that your father’s neck was broken before he was strung up.”

“So he must suspect me.”

“He knows that you are the murderer. I thought so myself after we had dinner together.”

“What shall I do?”

“There is nothing else you can do except give yourself up. Singapore is small and well policed. There is nowhere you can hide.”

Far away, I could hear the murmur of traffic and, if I listened very carefully, make out the sound of human voices. Both of us seemed to be listening in case they had something important to say to us.

Finally Mohan spoke. “That would not be in keeping with dharma. I have acted in all propriety and now I will have to live out the consequences of my actions. I will go into hiding or find ways of leaving the country. I cannot let them hang me.”

He stood up, lifted his hand in a farewell salute, and began moving off. I did not try to stop him.