The post dropped through the letterbox while Soma was getting Louie bundled up to go out for their walk. Sahan was going to be out with his friends, so they wouldn’t meet him, but Louie would appreciate the sunshine, so they were going out anyway. As she grabbed her own light jacket, she glanced at the pile of envelopes and froze. A brown envelope peeked out from under the mass of white ones. Hands trembling, she picked it up. It was addressed to her – Somavathi. No, no, no, no. There was no place in her life for this. If she went with Sahan, this would stop. She scrunched up the letter and rammed it into her pocket.
She was distracted as she stamped to the park and Louie, sensing that her attention wasn’t fully with him, was cranky. He grizzled and grumbled. For once, Soma was too preoccupied to stop and take him out and cuddle him better. She marched the pram up and down the paths. She ran the pram over a rock and jolted it. Louie started to cry. Soma stopped.
‘Oh baby.’ What was she doing? As if there was anything in that letter that was more important than Louie. ‘I’m sorry, bubba.’ She put the brake on the pram and picked him up. It took a few minutes to calm him. A couple of women walking by smiled at her sympathetically. Soma half-smiled back. She had been so wrapped up in what the letter could bring that she’d left a perfectly nice day behind to go live inside her fears.
When she leaned forward to put Louie back in the pram, the letter crackled in her pocket. She took it out and looked at it. There could be nothing in there that was good. She was not giving this life up. She had come too far to let the letters ruin things. There was a rubbish bin not far away. Without opening the letter, she tore it up and threw it away. She felt better immediately.
‘Come on then, baby,’ she said to Louie. ‘Let’s have a nice walk.’
Louie was asleep by the time Soma wheeled the pram back to the house. She had walked a fairly long circuit and, when he fell asleep, decided to bring him back so that she could have a little sit down and drink a cup of tea before he woke up again. She wheeled the pram up to the garage door and pulled her keys out of her coat pocket.
‘You’re home. At last.’
She gave a little squeak and spun round. The man Kemasiri stood behind her. Where had he come from? Had he been hiding, waiting for her? Her mouth went dry. Something about this man set her sixth sense screaming. ‘Uh… Sir and Madam aren’t home. If you come back—’
‘I haven’t come to see them.’ Kemasiri stepped closer. ‘It’s you I came to see. I need to talk to you.’
He was standing too close. So close that she could smell the cigarettes and alcohol on his breath. That smell. Her heart picked up pace. Her first thought was for Louie. Soma edged sideways, so that she was in front of the pram. She slid her hand into her pocket, looking for her phone.
‘Ah, ah.’ He grabbed her hand, his grip strong. ‘You’re not going to do that. We are going to talk.’
‘Wh— what do we have to talk about?’ Her mind whirred. The letter. Had it contained something that could have warned her about this man? She should have read it. She didn’t doubt for a moment that this man was dangerous. The malevolence in his eyes was obvious now. What did he want? Would he hurt her? Or worse, would he hurt Louie? The suburb was quiet at that time of day but if she screamed, surely someone would come? But if she screamed, she’d wake Louie. While he was asleep, he was safe. If he woke up and started howling, there was no telling what this maniac would do.
‘Here’s a funny thing,’ said Kemasiri, stepping even closer. ‘I’ve been thinking. What kind of person fails to respond when their name is called? Strange, no?’
Soma said nothing. Her stomach dissolved in fear.
‘And… even stranger… you weren’t sure of the name of your own home town… but when I described a man I’d made up… you said you recognized him.’ He smiled, like a fox baring its teeth. ‘Now I think, little girl, that you’ve never been there in your life. And I suspect that your name is not Somavathi, which is why you didn’t respond when I called you.’ He brought a finger up to the collar on her coat and ran it down along the zip. ‘So what I want to know is… if you’re not Somavathi. Who are you?’ His finger came to rest above her breast bone and even through the layers of clothing, it made her skin crawl. ‘And what else are you hiding?’
‘I…’ She tried to step back, but the pram was behind her. ‘Please don’t hurt me.’
‘Oh, I won’t hurt you,’ he said. ‘Not if you give me what I want. Now, I could tell your employers that you’re not really Somavathi. And what do you think they would do?’
She shook her head. No. No.
His eyes gleamed. ‘People will start to look for the real Somavathi. And they’ll take you away and lock you up until you tell them where you hid the body.’
‘I didn’t—’
‘And that precious, fancy boyfriend of yours. What do you think he would say?’ He gripped the zip head with forefinger and thumb and pulled, undoing the zip tooth by tooth. ‘Do you think he would like you so much if he knew what a dirty little liar you are?’
Tears sprang to her eyes. ‘Please. I don’t have much money—’
‘Who said anything about money, pretty little one?’ He put a finger under her chin and lifted her face up. She looked into his face and saw greed. She knew that look. Her skin prickled. Bile rose hot in her throat. She would have screamed, but she knew from experience it only made things worse.
‘Please.’ Tears escaped. She tried to pretend they weren’t there. ‘Please. The baby.’ If she could get into the house with Louie she might be able to get to her phone. Kemasiri had her wrist at the moment, but if she could persuade him to let go, maybe she could punch in 999 on her phone. This was an emergency. They listened to all the calls, didn’t they? Even if no one said anything, or was speaking in in another language?
Kemasiri paused, eyes gleaming. ‘What about it?’
‘He… he should be inside. He might wake in the cold.’ It wasn’t even cold, but it was the best she could think of.
‘Don’t think you can get away that easily. I know how minds like yours work.’ He let go of her hand and plunged his own into her pocket. He pulled out her phone. ‘But you’re right. This is no place for us to chat. You let us in. I’ll follow with the baby.’ He spun her sideways and pushed her away from Louie. ‘You behave and the baby will be fine.’
He wouldn’t hurt Louie? Would he? Hands shaking, she unlocked the wicket door and pushed it open. Oh, why hadn’t she been more alert? She might have spotted him and gone back to the park. If only Madam would come home early. She walked slowly through the garage.
‘Hurry up girl,’ said Kemasiri.
There was nothing she could use as a weapon. The garage was used as a garage only. Anything else was tidily put away in cupboards. She would never find a weapon without Kemasiri noticing. And he had Louie. Defeated, she opened the door that connected the garage to the kitchen. Once the door was open, she made a dash into the house. There was a phone at the end of the kitchen. And knives. It would take Kemasiri a moment to get around the pram. That was all she needed.
She lunged across the kitchen. But he was too fast for her. He leapt after her, grabbed her wrist and slammed her back against the wall. She struggled, but his hands were like vices as they pinned her arms up, either side of her.
‘Don’t try your tricks with me, girl. You think people will come to help you? What do you think they’ll say when they find out who you really are? Or who you aren’t? Do you think they’ll let you stay?’
She froze. This was no idle threat. He didn’t need to hurt her. Because he could destroy her with just a few words. A whimper escaped from her throat.
‘And do you think that precious boyfriend will stay with you when he finds out about your lying?’ His eyes gleamed and she was suddenly back in the dark hut, pinned under the alcoholic breath of her tormentor. Points of pain on her ribs and thighs. All the fight left her. All she could hope for was that it would be quick. It was never painless. She squeezed her eyes shut turned her head away.
When he sensed she was no longer fighting back, Kemasiri released one of her hands. It flopped down to her side, useless.
‘Ah now,’ he said. ‘No need to be like that. We can be so much better than this.’
She could smell him. Cigarettes and arrak. Old lessons came back to her. Don’t fight. Don’t scream. No noise, no fighting or things got worse. Look what you made me do, little bitch.
‘Look at me,’ said Kemasiri, his voice wheedling now. ‘We can come to an arrangement. I won’t tell anyone your dirty secret. And you be nice to me.’ He traced the corner of her mouth with a rough fingertip.
She squeezed her eyes shut tighter and wished she was somewhere else. Mustn’t flinch. Mustn’t try to run away. If she stayed still would he be happy? Would he do what he wanted and leave before Louie woke up? Tears leaked down her cheeks. Tears were okay, but no noise.
‘What is this crying?’ Kemasiri pressed a palm to the side of her face and wiped a tear away with his thumb. The touch made her shudder. Not wanting to annoy him, she held herself as still as possible, while he stroked her cheek.
Suddenly, in the middle of the horror, there was a sound. The front door opened. A blast of cold air along the hallway. Soma’s eyes flew open and she twisted her head round to see who it was.
Bimbisara Gamage stood in the hallway, mouth hanging open, frozen in surprise. For an instant Soma’s gaze locked with his. She saw his eyes widen and she knew she’d made a connection. ‘Help me,’ she mouthed.
A beat. No one moved. Then Mr Gamage roared, ‘What the hell is going on?’
Kemasiri leapt back, releasing her. ‘I’m sorry, sir. She said you wouldn’t be back, sir.’
Mr Gamage seemed to swell up. For such a small man, he took up a lot of room in the hallway. ‘You. Get out of my house.’
Soma slumped back against the wall, not sure what to do.
‘We didn’t mean any harm.’ Kemasiri backed away. ‘She was so keen and we—’
‘OUT!’
In the garage, Louie woke up and started to cry. The sound brought Soma back to life. She looked from Mr Gamage to the garage. ‘No,’ she gasped and ran into the garage and picked up Louie. She didn’t trust Kemasiri not to hurt the baby. But Kemasiri was backing out, still explaining to the furious Mr Gamage that Soma had seduced him and that they’d been a couple for weeks.
Once Kemasiri was outside, Mr Gamage locked the garage door and advanced on Soma. He didn’t look directly at her. ‘Are you hurt?’
She held the screaming child against her. ‘No sir.’
‘He attacked you?’
Now that he finally looked at her, she couldn’t respond. If she said yes, then Kemasiri would find out and make good on his threat to tell her secret. She was lying about who she was, but he would make people think she was a murderer as well. She would go to prison for the rest of her life. Her heart pounded. What to do? What to do?
Bim’s eyes narrowed. ‘Soma? When I came in, it looked like… did he attack you?’
If she said yes, this life was over. If she said no… the fear would never be over. Her head began to buzz again. What was best? What was worst?
‘Give me my son,’ Mr Gamage said.
She handed him the baby.
‘Go up to your room. Stay there until Madam returns.’ He took the howling child, in an inexpert grasp and bounced him.
This made no impression on Louie’s crying. Soma hesitated. ‘Sir, it’s not—’
‘Go.’
She turned and fled. In the tiny bathroom, she scrubbed the traces of Kemasiri off her cheek and arms. She checked the landing anxiously, even though she knew no one had followed her, before she dashed across to her room. Downstairs, Louie still howled. She threw the bolt into place, rammed a chair under the door handle and tore off the clothes he had touched. Then, more slowly, she put on clean clothes. She climbed into bed and sobbed. And sobbed.
The sound of her phone ringing made Yamuna jump. She had been reading a journal article while waiting for the centrifuge to finish spinning down her samples. When she saw her home number flash up on the caller ID, her chest went cold. Louie.
‘Hello. What’s happened?’ she said in Sinhalese, assuming it would be Soma.
‘It’s me.’ Bim’s voice. ‘I need you to come home. Now.’
‘What’s wrong?’ She scrambled off her chair, already reaching for her coat. ‘Has something happened to Louie?’
‘Louie? No. He’s fine. Just come home.’
She could hear Louie crying in the background. ‘He doesn’t sound fine. Bim, what’s going on?’
‘I’ll tell you when you get here. Just… Come.’
Yamuna ran to her colleague. ‘Something’s wrong at home. I’ve got to go.’ She quickly outlined what to do with her samples. ‘They’ll keep until tomorrow in the cold room.’ She grabbed her stuff and ran out of the door.
It was hard work concentrating on the drive home. She got there without any memory of the journey apart from burning impatience. She pulled the car into the garage and burst through the door. Bim was sitting at the kitchen table, Louie in his highchair. Both were covered in something which had once been a banana. They seemed unhurt.
‘What happened? Where’s Soma?’
‘Soma is upstairs,’ said Bim. He stopped trying to feed Louie and leaned back. He sighed. ‘I don’t know where to start.’
Yamuna pulled out a chair and held a hand out so that Louie could grab at her fingers. ‘Why don’t you start with why you’re home?’
‘I forgot my phone charger, so I came home to pick it up. I walked in the front door and found Soma in the kitchen, with a man.’
‘What!’ Yamuna smacked her hand down on the table with a loud crack. Louie, surprised, started to cry.
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, baby, shhh. Here. Here, play with this.’ She handed him her car keys, which she knew he loved. Mollified, he took them in his pudgy hands. ‘What do you mean, with a man? What man? What were they doing?’ She knew it. There had been a man! Yamuna felt a stab of satisfaction that she had been right.
‘Kissing… I think.’ Bim was staring into the middle distance, his mouth turned down at the corners.
‘In our house? In front of our baby? I’ll… I’ll kill her. Where is she?’ Yamuna started to rise.
Bim raised a hand. ‘No. Sit down. There’s more to it than that.’
‘More?’ What more could there be?
‘She… I don’t know. There was something about the situation that was… not right.’
‘Well, obviously. She abused our trust. She—’
‘No. No. I mean…’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t know if she wasn’t…’ His gaze darted towards Louie, who was busy covering the keys in a layer of goop, and dropped his voice. ‘I’m not sure she was entirely willing.’
It took a few seconds for this to sink in. She sat back down, slowly. ‘You think she was attacked?’
‘I don’t know. I asked her and she wouldn’t say...’ Bim shook his head. ‘The guy – I’ve seen him before. I think he’s the Pereras’ driver. He implied that they were seeing each other, but—’
‘If he assaulted her, why wouldn’t she say so? She wouldn’t try to protect him, surely.’ Yamuna tapped her fingers on the table. ‘I saw him talking to her a few weeks ago. She said she’d told him to go away, but she must have been lying. I knew there was something going on. I knew it. All those whispered conversations, the walking around smiling to herself… it wasn’t a student. It was him. I can’t believe the cheek of it, bringing him here. To this house.’
‘You think they were seeing each other then?’
Yamuna stood up. ‘One way to find out. I’ll ask her.’