CHAPTER ONE
JANUARY 29, 2014
The Friday night crowd was thin but growing as it approached 22:00. Brinda Anand, a.k.a. Malavika Lal (or Mel, as she was once affectionately known), sat at the dimly lit bar, staring blankly at the green bottle that rested between her scarred hands. She was outfitted in black dress pants and silken aubergine shirt, concealing respectively a five-inch boot dagger at her ankle, and a razor-blade hand-stitched into the shirttail.
She settled her gaze upon a solemn reflection in the mirror behind the bar, and found herself in morbid consideration of it. Not of the long raven locks that fell past her shoulders, nor of the light brown skin that hinted at her Indian heritage. She wasn’t considering irises of dark brown, nor full lips painted in plum. Rather, she considered the old, deep scar that ran at an angle through her right brow and onto her forehead. She couldn’t count the number of times she’d been asked about it; the number of lies she’d told to explain it. People didn’t want to know those kinds of truths, and Mel didn’t care to recount them.
Evanescence’s Bring me to Life was playing on the juke, the sombre ruminations of Amy Lee ringing out and seeping into Mel’s consciousness. Her melancholy was thrust upon by a cluster of tattooed young men: hippos on the tear for a sup at the lagoon. Her alarm dimmed as she ran a lazy eye over them, and she turned her attention to the lanky thirty-something barman.
He was contemplating her cleavage when he asked, “You wanna try my cock… cocktail specialty? I call it Dusty’s Wood.”
Mel smiled, mostly because she knew she could snap his ulna like a twig. “I’ll have the boring cider, thanks, Dusty.” He chuckled and took a stubbie from the neon-lit fridge, while Mel conducted her usual periodic scan of the room. The crowd was growing, and her desire for company waning. Larger gatherings offered greater anonymity, but they were also harder to keep track. And as much as she’d not fancied the prospect of spending another evening alone with just her thoughts, the idea of feigning interest in someone else’s had grown even less appealing.
The bar-keep with the thin arms drew Mel’s attention from her people-gazing. “I finish at midnight. Will you still be around then?”
Where he got his bravado—or his Cheshire smile—Mel had not a clue. She was on the cusp of a polite thanks but no thanks when a hand draped over her shoulder. Mel darted a glimpse to a beautiful young woman, who’s silky blonde mane fell over the shoulders of her snug-fitting black dress, and who’s blue eyes smiled. Mel drank down a healthy lick of cider.
Sienna purred, “What’s a sumptuous creature like you doing in a snake pit like this?”
“Well, I’m not playing the pungi for them.”
Sienna chuckled. “You don’t need a rodded instrument to be charming, Brinda. You certainly didn’t need one with me.” Sienna raised a suggestive brow, and Mel dipped her eye. A subtle sigh escaped the woman’s lips. “I like you, Brinda. Is that such a bad thing?” She laid a hand on Mel’s arm. “I’m not that girl, you know. I don’t just… meet someone and fall into bed with them. It’s not something I normally do.”
Mel harboured no desire to hurt the woman’s feelings, and none whatever for having to explain herself. “Listen, Sienna, I had a good time with you, I did. But meeting someone and falling into bed with them… that is me. That’s just something I do sometimes.”
Sienna tweaked a smile. “Is there any reason you can’t fall into a woman’s bed a second time? I doubt those motel sheets have ever looked so good, wrapped around that rock hard body of yours.” Sienna slid a hand onto Mel’s thigh, prompting unaffected gaze and offhand remark:
“I have very specific rules about that, actually.”
“Okay. Tell me. What is it? Are you married?”
The idea was so absurd that if Mel had been prone to laughter, a big ole guffaw would’ve erupted from her lungs. “No, I’m not married.”
Sienna swivelled Mel’s stool and spread her knees. She leaned close with a look in her eye that flushed Mel’s cheeks. Sienna dissolved the distance between them, and pressed full lips against Mel’s own. Specific rules aside, Mel found herself grudgingly stirred, and her own lips salaciously engaged.
Sienna whispered, “I want you, Brinda. And something tells me you’ve bent more than a few rules in your time.” Mel bit her tongue, and Sienna smiled. “There is hope for me yet. So, let me buy your unmarried, gorgeous ass a drink.”
“So, tell me, what drives a woman like Brinda Anand?”
“My work, I suppose.”
“You’re a freelance photographer, right?”
Mel turned her attention from the doting eyes of the pretty blonde to the Strongbow in her hands, with a fleeting notion to why she drank cider in the first place. “Yeah.”
“I wouldn’t know a lens cap from a flash bulb. I imagine that must be an exciting lifestyle. So liberating.”
“It’s demanding, unpredictable. But it suits me.”
“Is yours a vagabond heart, Brinda Anand?”
Not by choice. “You could say that.”
“How long have you been in Perth?”
“Not long.”
“Are you thinking of moving on again?”
Not at all comfortable with the inquisition, Mel shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Well, then, I wish I’d met you sooner.”
Mel checked her for any hint of insincerity. “I’m not someone you want to get to know so well, Sienna.”
Blue eyes shone with suggestion. “I think I’d like to.”
Why are you even humouring this woman? Nip it in the bud. Mel lingered an earnest gaze. “Why?”
Sienna’s lips parted, and then pressed. And then, “Well, actually, I have a confession to make. The way we met wasn’t exactly arbitrary.”
Dammit, Mel. “How’s that, exactly?”
“I saw you that day; at that little fuel stop just outside of Butler.”
Mel, you stupid.... “Butler?”
Sienna smiled. “Oh, come on. You know what I’m talking about.”
“It… it was no big deal.”
Sienna lifted the G&T to her mouth. “I saw the fear on that woman’s face. I saw the anger in his. If you hadn’t—”
“It’s not like I thought about it. It just… it just happened.”
Sienna threw her head back and emptied the glass into a slender neck. Then she leaned into Mel’s ear. “I watched you, Brinda. You knew precisely what you were doing. He was twice your size and a piece-of-shit bully. You made him look like an ass. No one else was going to lift a finger for that poor woman. You took off before she could tell you, but I know she was extremely grateful for what you did. And… well, I was extremely turned on.”
Mel took a draw from her cider. Her conduct on the day in question had put her in a precarious position. It worked not at all in her favour, amid a burgeoning use of smart phones and CCTV, to draw attention to herself. As a result, she’d already considered a sea change. Sienna’s interest only fortified the notion: it was time to move on.
Sienna touched Mel’s hand; a gesture to which Mel was no longer accustomed. Delicate fingers curled, and Sienna’s voice stirred. “I think you’re wonderful.”
Mel met Sienna’s gaze, and unwittingly found herself ensnared by it. Something in the woman’s easy smile, in the gentle caress of her voice, something in the way she so tenderly clutched Mel’s hand and settled her admiring eyes; induced a nostalgia that transported Mel back through time. For a moment she felt as though she were looking at someone else, and for a moment, she felt… seen. Suspicion and torment fell away, and Mel let go. Just for a moment. Mel aired a modicum of affection through a subdued smile, and Sienna beamed.
Sienna slipped her arms over Mel’s shoulders, and Mel held onto Sienna’s hips as they swayed to Nick Cave’s and Kylie Minogue’s grisly rock-wielding serenade of Eliza Day.
The mood lighting did nothing to hide Sienna’s desire. “Rules be damned. Come back to the hotel with me.” Sienna slid her hands down Mel’s back and over her buttocks.
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea, Sienna.”
Then hot hands were under Mel’s shirt, teasing the flesh at her back. Sienna’s warm breath tantalised against her lips. “Who is she?”
“Who’s who?”
“I remind you of someone.”
Mel brushed Sienna’s fringe from her fine brow. “There’s no one.”
Sienna tweaked a half smile. “Do I look like her?” Sienna drifted toward her, and Mel closed her eyes. Gentle lips brushed against her mouth. “Do I smell like her?” Mel felt Sienna’s lips there again, delicate and stirring. “Do I taste like her?” Sienna licked Mel’s top lip, and then Mel gave in. They shared a heated kiss, and then the taste of her was on Mel’s tongue, and Mel couldn’t deny she was aroused.
Sienna stroked Mel’s jaw. “Spend the night with me. I will be whoever you need.”
Sienna’s focus shifted, fleeting but conspicuous, over Mel’s shoulder. Mel pulled her close, and inside of a gentle sway, turned them one hundred eighty degrees. Then over Sienna’s shoulder, Mel noted an unduly attentive figure, leaning against the wall. She’d noticed him earlier; a tall man, with skin that hinted at a similar heritage to her own. He was dressed all in black: leather jacket; denim jeans; heavy boots. His eye shifted and he strolled away.
Alarm bells were ringing, and Mel had well learned not to ignore them. She took Sienna’s hand. “Come on.” Sienna beamed, and Mel led her through the crowd towards the restroom. She pushed on the door and found another woman inside—a primping twenty-something brunette—whom Mel paid no mind as she took Sienna into a stall. She pressed Sienna against the wall, and Sienna responded by meeting Mel’s mouth with receptive lips. Mel hiked Sienna’s skirt, prompting the blonde’s excited inhalation. But Mel wasn’t looking to please her. She was looking for a weapon.
Mel lifted Sienna’s arms overhead, then pinned them there. Sienna smiled expectantly, until Mel asked curtly, “Who is with you?”
The smile faded. “What do you mean?”
“The tall guy in the leather jacket. Who is he?”
“I’m not… I’m not here with anyone, Brinda. Only you.”
“I don’t believe you.” Sienna squirmed, and Mel demanded, “Who is he? How did he contact you?”
“Let me go.”
“I don’t like to hurt women, but—”
The outer door thumped, and the room filled with a fury of distorted guitar and angry vocal. Sienna whispered, “Do you want me to scream?” Mel probed her eyes, as if the truth might suddenly reveal itself. It didn’t, and Mel let go. Sienna banged open the door, then fled from Mel in tears.
Mel stepped out of the stall and received a disapproving stare from the brunette, who drifted past to make use of the amenities. Mel caught herself in the mirror, and saw what she almost always saw: a woman she barely recognised, and liked even less.
Perhaps she’d overreacted. Five years of running had a way of skewing a woman’s perspective. On the other hand…
Mel threw the restroom door open and plunged into a swirling, gyrating sea. She bustled her way through the throng, the music thumping as Rage Against the Machine’s Killing in the name of screamed out of the loudspeakers. Mel pushed through the jostle, eyes peeled for both Sienna and the tall man. She arrived at the bouncer on the door, and decided that the tall man was the more pressing threat.
“Did you see a tall guy in a black leather jacket walk out of here in the last few minutes?”
The strongman’s only response was an indifferent shrug, and Mel decided against lingering. She stepped out into the cool night air, the door closing behind her and the pounding bass dulling to a throb. She surveyed the lamp-lit street with a sharp eye: a lot of smoking and talking, and no one paying her much mind in the idleness. Both targets had seemingly vanished, and Mel employed motivated step so that she might do the same. She needed to get to her vehicle. She needed to get out of town.
As the distance between herself and the club grew, so too her anxiety. The pounding bass faded, but was replaced by her pounding heart. The snapping snare became her own clacking heel, echoing amid a gloomy, concrete stretch.
She cut across the street and into a back alley; a thin black void that raised the hairs on the back of her neck. She crouched and ran her pant leg over the leather sheath at her ankle, then flicked the studded clip with a thumb. Then she drew the Smith and Wesson dagger from its pouch. She glanced over her shoulder, then moved steadily forward. From the mouth of the alley, Mel silently surveyed footpaths and shop fronts, driving hard glimpses into long shadows cast by overhead street lamps.
Mel spotted her black Nissan X-Trail across the road to her left, about fifty metres from her cloak. She lowered the matte-black blade and checked her flanks, then fixed a study squarely on the area surrounding her SUV.
On the warm night air, all that sounded was the dissonant drone of distant traffic. She took a breath to settle, then slid out onto the footpath. She stepped cautiously until she was standing directly across from the SUV, then bobbed and checked for heels. None, and a sigh of relief.
Clapping. Rapid. Boots on bitumen. Mel gasped and spun, to see the tall man charging toward her. She darted across the road and fumbled with the key, heard the familiar beep as she jerked the door open. And then she was slammed, and crushed. He jerked the door away and she dropped to her knees. He grabbed her by the shoulders and yanked her to her feet, and then Mel was peering into jubilant eyes.
“End of the line, Vika. Not that it hasn’t been fun.”
Mel jammed the five-inch blade into his side, all the way to its hilt. His face contorted and he cried out, then stumbled backwards. Mel jumped into the car and locked the doors, then started the engine and dropped her boot. Goodyears squealed all the way to the junction, where she slammed on the brakes. Gasping, she peered into the rear-view mirror at a spectre of blue smoke. Mel spun in her seat, desperate for any glimpse of her attacker.
But the tall man was gone.
Mel gripped the steering wheel inside of tight fingers.
‘End of the line, Vika.’
He knew her.
He knew who she was.
‘She died screaming. Just as you’re going to die screaming, if you don’t tell me where he is!’
Mel floored the accelerator.
She’d be heading home to pack her things.
Without delay.
Mel rushed into the bathroom and threw her personals into a cosmetic bag, which she promptly tossed on the bed in the adjoining room. She unhooked the clothes hanging inside the wardrobe, and threw them into the large box at her feet. Over the jumble of cotton arms and denim legs, she dumped the contents of the dresser drawers, at which point the packing frenzy came to a sudden, grinding halt.
She spied the six by four photo frame sitting atop her faux-leather cobalt jacket, and breathed. Breathe, Mel. Mel picked up the treasure, and peered at the two women who had made a home under the sliver of gleaming glass. It occurred to her she hadn’t laid eyes on that faded, worn-out image since the last move: around two months prior.
One of the women was a younger version of herself and a person she no longer recognised. The other, a bright and charming young blonde whom Mel had met in 2005 at the beginning of their BA studies at Melbourne’s Parkville University. A woman with whom Mel had bonded instantly, and to whom she would become best friends. The picture had been taken not long before Mel’s impromptu departure from her home, over five years past. Five years since she had last laid eyes on Jamie Stevens, and still the woman reached out to her from the eyes of complete strangers.
Mel had confessed to Sienna a propensity for casualness, but the truth of it was that such moments of closeness were rare, and what had happened at the club was exactly the reason why. They exposed Mel in ways that she was loath to permit. But from time to time, she found her guard frustratingly flagged, and her resolve momentarily breached.
It did not belong to her, what so easily belonged to others;
Still, lumbered with the reflex.
Mel gazed at the damaged old photograph. She knew she shouldn’t be holding onto it. And with every move, she had the same thought: let her go. But Mel had never been able to let Jamie go. She lay the frame atop the clothes in the box, then taped it shut and carried it out into the living room. Four boxes later, the packing was done.
Brinda Anand had rented the small two-bedroom apartment fully furnished, the lease paid in cash, three months in advance. She had adorned it with nothing of her own, so that nothing of her would remain. And as Mel ran her eye over the empty space, she was confident nothing had.
She was a ghost, drifting from one haunt to the next. It’s how it had to be.
Mel’s thoughts drifted to Sienna. She wanted to believe that the woman was just a victim of bad timing. If Mel had been played, she hadn’t sensed it, and the thought of that was altogether disconcerting. And if Sienna was working with the tall man, how much did she know? Mel palmed her phone and found the image of Sienna’s driver’s licence. She’d snapped the picture during their night together, while Sienna slept. Mel considered the address: St Kilda. Melbourne. Home.
Mel hadn’t been back there since her abrupt departure in 2008. Amir’s promise to her had made that impossible. But this wasn’t about recapturing a life lost. This was about preserving the admittedly shitty one she now occupied.
The only item left to grab was the gun case on the dining table. Mel threw the case into a box, the Glock 19 already nestled comfortably at the small of her back. She saw no need to delay her departure. She’d have rest stops sleeping in the car if she needed. It was time to bid another city—and another persona—farewell.
11:32, DECEMBER 6, 1992
The throng was fevered. The officer’s lining the barricade in which the Babri masjid was secured, had initially felt in control of the quickly expanding mass surrounding the area. But since the benign early hours of a misty winter morn, the mood of the thousands had changed, coinciding with the rousing speeches made by Advani from the Bharatiya Janata Party, and others, who had arrived at around 10:30.
The barricade—constructed of horizontal bars and topped with barb—was manned by defenders sweating under the intensity of the menace that seemed to be replicating itself at an alarming rate. The chanting had become frenzied, as if prelude. To what, Constable Malik could only guess.
Malik was an officer of the Central Reserve Police Force, with members of the Uttar Pradesh State Police also in attendance. They had been warned to expect a lot of kar sevak, but Malik had not envisioned so many. How would they hold the thousands of bodies back if things turned ugly?
Malik had heard that more than 150,000 travellers had arrived at Ayodhya city from all over India, for what was supposed to be kar seva: a peaceful rally. The Supreme Court had ordered the Babri masjid protected, and promises had been made by both the B.J.P. and the government. All just black scribbles on white. What did any of that mean right now with thousands of Hindus on the verge of… what? Something, that’s for sure, and it felt to Malik to be anything but peaceful.
Biding their time. He could feel it, under his green fatigues, sweat running down the side of his cheek, even on this cool winter’s day.
Biding their time.
He could read it in their faces. They were eyeballing him like great cats eyeballing breakfast. One young man in particular, on the other side of the barricade, manning the front line. He was pushed up against the bars, arms raised and holding on, so many bodies stacked behind him—a phalanx—all waiting. What did they know? They knew something. The whole lot of them, it seemed.
It was 11:45 when a file of men wearing yellow bandanas conspicuously made their way through the throng, towards the barricade and the police cordon. Malik sensed another ominous change, as he had after the speeches delivered from the steps of the Ram Katha Kunj, only 300 or so metres from the masjid. Something was about to happen, and everyone there knew it.
Minutes later, a kar sevak made his way over the barricade. He had managed to climb to the top of one of the three domes of the mosque, and waved a saffron flag from his perch. Suddenly a roar filled the air, and thousands of bodies lurched forward. All along the line, they began climbing and heaving and pushing and howling. The barricade teetered with burden, and Malik’s blood surged before he heard his commander screeching at his men to fall back. The barrier was breached within moments, and the swarm of kar sevak trespassed upon the Babri masjid unimpeded. The officers could only stand by and watch as ropes were slung, and soon after, the walls of the Babri crawled with Hindu masses. Some were busy with sledgehammers, some with iron bars, while others simply danced at the top of the domes, waving saffron flags and chanting to the crowd below with unrepentant jubilation.
The first kar sevaks crashed through the barricade at twelve o’clock. The first dome of the mosque fell at around 14:00, and at around 17:00 the entire structure had been reduced to none but dust and rubble. The Babri masjid, which had stood in its place at Ayodhya for more than 450 years, was now nothing but a cloud of ochre over a pile of ash, and unbeknown to a young kar sevak named Naseem Lal, an indelible mark had been stamped upon his soul. His life, and the lives of his entire family—not to mention his country—would be changed forever.
