Your Truth or Mine?
TRISHA SAKHLECHA
Your Truth or Mine?
Contents
ROY
PART ONE
ROY
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MIA
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PART TWO
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PART THREE
MIA
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MIA
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
For Nana
When it all unravels, what will they believe?
ROY
Sunday, 6th December
London
Nothing has changed but everything is different.
I am standing here, in my beautiful kitchen, watching my beautiful wife cook what smells like an incredible breakfast, and I know nothing has changed. I watch her move, measuring, stirring, distractedly dipping her little finger in the batter to taste it, then wincing and snatching it back when she realizes she miscalculated the temperature. She’s lost in her thoughts, earphones plugged in, moving to a soundless beat, pausing every couple of minutes to sip her coffee. I wonder what she’s listening to. It must be something upbeat, peppy, I decide. I lean forward to try and decipher the hum that escapes her earphones and it surprises me how long I take to recognize the song. ‘Way Back Into Love’. Our song. I remember listening to this years ago, both of us still innocent and desperately in love, cramped together on the narrow bed in her room, each with one earphone plugged in, the one on the right hearing the vocals and the one on the left hearing the beats, singing along, trusting that love alone would be enough to hold it all together. We were so naive, so stupid. Despite the warmth of the kitchen, I shiver.
I force myself back to the present and gear myself up for what is to follow. Mia looks happy. Relaxed. I walk up to her and wrap my arms around her, burying my face in her neck, smelling her hair, letting her blissful oblivion envelop me, a momentary shield against the storm that is about to rip through my life.
‘Roy,’ Mia calls out from the kitchen. ‘Who is it? Roy?’
I hear the scramble of footsteps as Mia rushes into the hallway to investigate. Her meddling buys me some time to compose myself and, just this once, I’m truly grateful for her interference in anything and everything that goes on in my life. She cranes her neck to look past me into the front porch and I realize I’ve only opened the door a fraction. I relax my grip on it, turning to look at Mia as I take a small step back.
She looks terrified.
‘What – what’s happened? Is it Mummy? Addi? What’s wrong?’
She’s panicking. Of course. She’s done this before, I think, and I am hit with a sudden urge to protect her.
The woman speaks first. She’s small, slight, perhaps five foot four, with tied-back brown hair, a round face and sympathetic, deep-set eyes. She looks out of place in her skirt suit, standing next to the uniformed officer. She reminds me of Mrs Sen, my primary school English teacher. Her voice is hesitant as she addresses Mia. ‘Mrs Kapoor?’ Mia nods slightly, quickly, and she carries on, her voice more confident this time. ‘Everything is all right, Mrs Kapoor. We’re from the Metropolitan Police. We just have a few questions for your husband. May we come in?’ she says, her gaze fixed on Mia. Another nod and I realize I can no longer refuse without looking like I have something to hide. I let go of the door and step back, giving them a proper glimpse of the hallway for the first time.
The woman introduces herself and the other policeman, but I don’t register their names. We go straight into the dining room. They look around, taking in the high ceilings, the large windows, the newly installed open-plan kitchen. They glance at the array of pictures and knick-knacks on the mantelpiece, souvenirs from Mia’s travels and mine over the years, shimmering under the unexpected winter sun. I can see the envy in their eyes. At thirty-one, I’ve already achieved more than they ever will. In other circumstances I might have let them look through the pictures, I might have even enjoyed showing off a little bit, but right now, right now I want them out.
‘How can I help?’ I ask, putting on my most convincing concerned-citizen smile and motioning for them to sit down as I pull out a chair for myself.
They sit down directly across from me, the dining table between us. I get a waft of something sweet and cinnamony from the kitchen and I realize I’m hungry.
I look around and see that Mia has occupied herself with the business of tea. She might like to think of herself as Indian but she has all those telltale idiosyncrasies that come with being English, albeit half. Tea first. Always. Like that will solve anything.
It’s the woman speaking again. I decide to call her Sen, the association with my harmless English teacher somewhat comforting. I presume her partner is a junior officer or constable. He isn’t armed. His only job seems to be to make notes. He pulls out a biro and starts chewing on its end, his face contorting as he sinks his teeth into the unyielding plastic. He’s tall but his shoulders are slightly hunched. He looks bored.
‘Mr Kapoor, are you familiar with Emily Barnett?’ she asks.
‘Yes, we’ve worked together a few times.’
‘Oh?’ she says, waiting to see if I will elaborate. I don’t.
‘When was the last time you saw her?’
‘A couple of days ago . . . Wednesday, I think.’ I look at the calendar on my iPhone. ‘Yes, Wednesday. I met her for a drink at the Swan near Archway station.’
‘Ah, I see. Were you meeting for business purposes or socially?’
‘Socially, I suppose,’ I say, willing myself to stay calm. They don’t know. They can’t.
‘Alone?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you haven’t seen her since?’
Stay calm. They don’t know. I repeat it to myself like a mantra but my heart is beating fast. I wonder if they can tell.
‘No,’ I say.
Mia’s standing next to me now, the tea forgotten. I can see the cogs in her brain turning, working out that I lied to her about the press dinner at the Shard. I feel myself contract and shrink. That’s the effect my wife has on me these days.
Sen leans forward, for
earms resting on the table, hands clasped. ‘When you met her, did Miss Barnett seem worried about anything? What did you talk about?’
There’s a strange tightness in my chest. I can’t focus. I can barely breathe. While I try to compose my answer, it hits me that I haven’t yet asked why Sen’s questioning me about all this and that in itself might be construed as suspicious.
‘No, she was fine. Look, Ems – I mean Emily – is a journalism student. We’ve worked together on a couple of projects. We met because she wanted some tips on looking for paid freelance work. I haven’t seen her or spoken to her since,’ I blurt out. ‘What’s going on? Is she okay?’
Sen exchanges a quick glance with her partner and he jots something down.
‘Miss Barnett was reported missing on Friday,’ she says. Her voice is even, her face blank. ‘We’ve been going door to door asking people if they remember anything that might help us and your name came up.’
I don’t know what to say. I barely manage a squeak before Sen speaks again.
‘What time did you leave the pub? Did Emily leave with you?’
‘Yes . . . no . . . I mean, yes, we left at the same time, around nine p.m., but then we went our separate ways. I walked her to the end of the road. She lives nearby.’
‘Did she mention any plans for the next few days?’
‘No, no she didn’t.’
‘Right. And you said you’ve had no contact with her since then?’
I shake my head, not trusting myself to speak.
‘Well, as you will understand, we are very concerned for her safety.’ She glances up at Mia as she says this and places a flyer on the table. MISSING, it says in bold red letters.
‘My details are on this. Please call me if you think of anything,’ Sen says, circling a name and number on the flyer. Detective Inspector Brooke Robins. CID. Not Sen. Definitely not Sen.
‘Of course,’ I say, getting up to see them out. I bolt the door behind them.
Mia’s sitting at the table when I return to the room. She looks up as I walk in. Her piercing green eyes are dark and muddled. The moment builds. I wait for her gaze to settle on me and when it does, I know that I’m done. I have to tell her.
It’s starting to unravel, my love.
PART ONE
Three months ago
Jaisalmer/London
ROY
Tuesday, 8th September
Jaisalmer
Just a hundred kilometres from the Indo–Pak border, there is a disarming sense of destiny in the thick air that permeates Jaisalmer. It’s the city that should never have existed, the city built on shifting sand dunes, the city that rises, with its intricately carved sandcastles, from the depths of the Indian Thar Desert, only to disappear as quickly as it appeared. The end of the world, the locals call it.
I was picking Mia up at the train station and, as is the norm in India, the train was late. Punctuality – or, for that matter, organization – has never been a strong suit here. I tried to work my way towards the information desk, weaving through the hordes of people on the platform waiting to pick up relatives and friends, circling around chains of hand-holding children and the army of metal carts being wheeled by men with absolutely no sense of urgency, sidestepping the booksellers, chai-wallahs, and old men crouching around hessian sacks. I stopped when I saw the uniformed ticket collector.
‘Is the Jaisalmer Express late?’ I asked.
‘No, no, it’s on time.’
Yeah, right.
‘When is it scheduled . . .’
My words faded into the cacophony of voices coming from everywhere. The ticket collector had already walked off with the brightly veiled woman on my right who had been begging for his attention. Perfect.
I plodded back to the chai-wallah and bought a cup of sweet milky tea and a packet of Parle-G biscuits. An empty train was pulling up on the other platform, the outsides of the coaches covered in graffiti and urgent, dark red paan stains. As the train came to a halt, I saw flashes of colour moving through the coaches, couples laying claim to the window seats, children clamouring onto the top berths, coolies with red, agitated faces demanding more money. Within moments, the empty coach in front of me was crammed with hundreds of people, all fighting for their six inches of space. A little girl stuck her head out from between the horizontal bars fencing the window and waved to someone. As the train jerked forward, she caught my eye and I realized she was waving at me, probably excited to see a man so clearly out of place amidst this chaos. I finished my tea and turned to look for a dustbin, the creepy face of the Parle-G girl staring up at me from the crumpled wrapper.
I hadn’t been on an Indian train in years, preferring the ease of flights and road travel. But Mia, she loved it. She found air travel mechanical, grim. Trains, on the other hand, offered her a chance to curl up in a curtained cabin and watch the world thunder past. It reminded her of the old days, she said, when there were still four of them. Mia, Addi and their parents would fly to India every summer to see her mother’s family and when they had had enough of the endless feasts with the nosy aunties and overbearing uncles, Mia’s parents would wake up the girls in the middle of the night to catch the Himalayan Queen. They’d board the train half asleep and wake up to steaming mugs of tea and buttered buns just in time to see the hills rise through the dawn haze. It all sounded incredibly romantic, memories saturated with the simplicity of nostalgia.
A loud screeching noise cut through my thoughts. Indian Railways’ chosen voice announced, in characteristic sing-song fashion, that Mia’s train was going to arrive ‘in approximately five minutes’. Finally! I hadn’t seen Mia in weeks and it had been harder than I had imagined. Both of us travelled a lot so we were used to being apart but over the past few months it had felt like I had only seen Mia in passing. The last time I saw her was three weeks ago at Heathrow – she had just flown in after a week in Paris and I was due to fly out to Delhi that same afternoon. I smiled to myself as I thought of the few hours we’d spent huddled together in the Costa Coffee at Terminal 4, talking about everything and nothing, a married couple that would have looked like young lovers to a stranger.
The coolies had clustered together along the platform preparing to get on the train as soon as it arrived and, sure enough, it pulled up in a matter of moments. There she was, my darling Mia. I was aching to touch her and smell her and drink her in but I stood back, knowing it was pointless to try and get close to the doors, and let Mia elbow her way to me instead.
‘Sweetie,’ she murmured as I caught her in a tight hug, ‘this isn’t Heathrow. Sweep me off my feet a little later?’ She pulled away, a naughty smile playing on her lips.
‘Come here,’ I said, grabbing Mia as soon as we were alone in the room. ‘I’ve missed you.’
‘I’ve missed you too,’ she said, trailing kisses along my jaw. ‘Have we got some time or do you need to rush off to meet the crew?’
‘I told them I’d meet them at half four,’ I said with a groan. ‘I’ll need to leave in fifteen minutes.’
‘Why don’t I come with you? I need to see if my husband is as good in front of the camera as he says.’ She pulled away slightly, dipping back and letting my arms support her entire weight.
‘Your husband’s better than he says, madam,’ I countered, pulling her back in. ‘But don’t you want to rest? I don’t mind if you don’t come.’
‘No, I’m fine. I’d rather be with you. Plus I have a litany of obscenities I’ve been ordered to reel off at George.’
I raised an eyebrow. ‘Addi?’
‘Who else?’ Mia laughed, peeling my arms away from her and quickly undressing to get into the shower. ‘Find me an outfit that isn’t creased, will you? Red case. I’ll be quick, promise.’
‘Mia! Roy!’
I looked up towards the sky, shielding my eyes with my hands, the sharp glare from the sun cutting through the dark lenses of my Ray-Bans. George stood on the terrace, waving like a lunatic. There was a shadow behind him
as he leaned over through the crenellations. ‘Mia! Roy! Over here!’
‘Heard you, weirdo. Coming!’ Mia yelled.
We climbed up the steep incline leading into the fort, pausing every few minutes to catch our breath and lean against the pillars of intricate carving depicting the many, many mythical tales that breathe life into this barren land.
When we got to the top, George was standing there with a goofy smile and his hands clasped behind his back. Ignoring me, he turned to Mia and bowed. ‘My queen,’ he said, presenting her with a small cactus.
‘You may rise,’ Mia said with mock seriousness before engulfing him in a hug.
‘Georgie,’ she exclaimed, when she finally tore herself away, her lips scrunched up into a pout. ‘It’s been too long.’
‘It has, hasn’t it? We’ve only got your bastard of a husband to blame for that, though,’ George said as he landed a playful punch on my shoulder.
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.’ I rolled my eyes. ‘Mia,’ I said as I turned, remembering George’s shadow, ‘meet Emily.’
‘Emily’s been helping us out on the shoot over the past few weeks. She’s my brilliant assistant cum location scout cum make-up artist all rolled into one,’ George added, as the two women shook hands. ‘Emily, why don’t you fix Roy’s face and I’ll be with you guys in a sec? We’ll start rolling in fifteen minutes. We have about an hour and a half before the light fades.’
‘Okey-dokey, boss,’ Emily said. ‘Roy? Shall we?’ Emily beckoned for me to follow her to the far corner, the only part of the terrace that the sun wasn’t encroaching on.
‘I didn’t realize George knew your wife as well,’ Emily commented as she rifled through her kit.
‘Yeah, they’ve known each other since they were kids. Neighbours. Mia and I met through George.’
‘Oh, I see,’ Emily said as she pulled out a baby wipe. Her left hand rested lightly on the back of my neck while her right hand travelled across my face and neck in firm, confident motions. I could feel the heat of her fingers through the thin towelette.
She had been doing my make-up every day for the past two weeks but for the first time, this routine act felt strangely inappropriate. I looked around.
A few paces away, George had set up his camera. Mia stood with her back to him, looking out over the city.