10

Beyond whispering her name twice after he sits down, he makes no attempt to wake her, although he does switch on a bedside lamp. Just after he places a bag on one of the chairs and pulls up the other to be closer to her, I take another step towards identifying him. At this distance, the resemblance is clear: he must be an older brother. And someone Malti is close to, no doubt, although he wouldn’t know she was just dreaming about him.

I can see him taking her in by the light of the lamp. I feel his winces at her facial injuries. Then I’m surprised to see Prashant come to him, but of course his was a popular store in the neighbourhood. Malti’s brother would have known him well.

Surprisingly, the phone rings, not a cell phone, but the one under the lamp on the table. Malti’s brother picks up on the third ring, although Malti shows no signs of stirring. She isn’t dreaming just now either.

‘No, sorry, no one by that name, please check the room number you want,’ and he hangs up. He is still thinking back to all the times he bought things from Prashant, their hands touching, money being passed. Tears come. ‘Please forgive me, Malti,’ he thinks, then whispers.

I wish I could go over and ask him to forgive himself, because no one could have suspected such an extraordinary truth, all the more so for being under their noses. We’re all waiting to learn how Prashant grabbed Malti in the first place. Each time I tried to burrow inside him, his Shakti blocked me; later, Malti was beaten up for my troubles.

‘But I tried to atone by calling the police today. That was me, Malti, from a PCO. I wanted to tell you first; I haven’t shared this yet with anyone else. Over several days, I followed Prashant from the shop and noticed how long he spent in his warehouse. I never gave up on you …’

I’m stunned. Why are you lying about this? What could you stand to gain? It was a passing driver I used, and what’ll happen if the police find a witness or CCTV? This isn’t the way to atone to your sister …

The bedside phone again! The brother answers more quickly this time.

‘Abey yaar, I told you na, check the room number. This is an intensive care unit, and the patient’s name isn’t Jaya!’

I’m slow to react. He’s putting down the receiver as I land in his head — too late to hear the caller’s voice. Something even larger had floored me! Yes, larger than the brother’s lie or this mysterious person asking for Jaya!

No one barring Shivani would know I’m here, and she won’t use a phone, is what I’ll think in just a while. Before that, I’m astounded at what I’ve overlooked.

Of course Malti’s brother knows Prashant, and may even have been a regular customer.

But that’s not what I saw a while ago, even if, at first glance, I missed every clue. Yes, Prashant was handing him a black plastic bag the size of a bar of soap or a pack of condoms, which is what filled Malti’s brother with grief: that she was barely two hundred metres away, just around the corner, being held by this very man.

That was my unbelievably knuckle-headed first reading, in between the phone calls. What I ignored — lulled into drowsiness by Malti’s condition, although more likely it was just complacency — was the setting for the transaction, even though the brother pictured it.

The black plastic package the size of condoms, soap or cigarettes didn’t change hands in Prashant’s store. That would have been normal: it was what I saw at first, because it’s what I expected to see. Except they were metres from Malti, because they were meeting inside Prashant’s warehouse!

Which customer visits a grocer’s warehouse to buy one pack of something?

Her brother leaves a few minutes later, after some more crying, some silence, an unvoiced plea to Malti to believe him, more warehouse flashbacks, although never of the basement. I wonder if he knew of it, or about the shackle. Also some pictures of being marched down the hospital hallway by police, and of police at his front door. He even sees them in his living room, but not himself in a cell (as yet); nor does his self-pity extend once to imagining Malti’s captivity.

Malti sleeps on. I’ve barely known her a few hours. I cannot begin to imagine the traumas she carries, quite apart from her visible injuries. How can I inflict this next, most gruesome of shocks upon her?

That at least one brother of hers had known of her fate, and Prashant was paying him off! And that his tears today were of fear, of someone preparing for imminent exposure if this last-ditch lie didn’t come off. Prashant would certainly take him down if the attempt failed to stitch up Gagan.

But, am I sure of this enormous charge I’m concocting, based on one transaction inside a warehouse and a puzzling attempt to play a hero? Have I considered other explanations for what I just glimpsed? And how should I break this news to Malti? Oh, by the way, the family you’ve been dreaming of seeing again, the brother you have such fond memories of, I have zero concrete evidence for what I’m about to claim, but I think he was …

‘Taking money from Prashant for almost the entire time he held me? I know. Prashant often taunted me. Where will you go, he would say. Your own family is happy for me to have you. I pay them rent every three months.’

At this moment, after Malti has stunned me by answering right back as though I was seated at her bedside, the phone goes again and she opens her eyes.