What The Eyes Don't See

19 | So Close!

Kautuk's face went pale. His fingers trembled and his phone slipped away from his hands. For the first time in ever, he looked afraid. Truly afraid.

"What is it?" Anay asked. "What the fuck is it?"

"He... met with an accident," Kautuk managed to say.

"Who? Who met with an accident?"

"Vishwa. His brother called. He was hit by a bus."

"What the fuck!" Anay shook Kautuk by his shoulders. "What are you saying, Kautuk?"

Kautuk merely nodded. "And do you know where it happened?"

"How the fuck would I know? Where?"

"Outside your old Versova house. On the road outside."

Anay and Kautuk fled to the hospital where he had been taken. Frantic inquiries with bawling relatives informed them, in bits and pieces, that the bus had gone over his legs. He might never be able to walk again, not without years of physiotherapy, and that too if the doctors could put him back together again. The bus had been slowing down at a bus stop, which was the only thing that had saved him from death.

"This is his doing," Anay told Kautuk when they stepped out of the hospital complex for a cigarette-break. "I tell you, this is his doing!"

"Why? What's the logic?" Kautuk asked.

"Why was Vishwa near the Versova house? What was he doing there? He does not know anybody there."

The boys sat down on the platform built around a banyan tree. Many sacred threads had been wound around the tree, a common sight outside most hospitals. These were the threads of divine petitions made by the friends and relatives of those admitted inside for their recovery and restoration to good health. Anay touched the sturdy bark of the tree, perhaps hoping for some of that divine energy to pass through him too. For what else could save him from this prolonged waking nightmare but some divine intervention?

A blue police van stopped right at their feet. Anay looked up, already shuddering, and saw the grim face of Inspector B. Sawant mostly hidden by dark aviators. Anay hoped that he would not recognize him, but the inspector seemed to have the eyes of a hawk and the memory of an elephant. He stopped, stared at Anay, and the next moment, he beckoned at him with his forefinger.

"What are you doing outside the hospital?" he asked as Anay walked up to him, his feet shaking. Kautuk held his hand in reassurance.

"O-our friend is admitted in there."

"That bus accident victim?" Sawant said, raising his brows.

"Yes, sir."

"Damn. I was at the hospital. Just saw his broken body wheeled into the hospital. Versova, no?"

"Y-yes, sir."

"And Versova is where you stay, no? In fact, I think the accident was on the same road as your house."

"I don't stay there anymore."

"Why?"

"I had to..." Anay fumbled for the right words, "give up the apartment."

"Where do you stay now?"

"At a motel, temporarily. Why are you asking me all these questions, sir?"

"No reason. I must know where all my suspects are."

Anay looked at Kautuk with a frightened expression.

"Well, get in the van." Sawant said in a low but firm voice.

"What?"

Kautuk held Anay's hand firmly.