Tooth and Nail, Fur and Scale Page 13

  ‘You mentioned in your email that you’d hired others to take care of it?’ said Cruywagen.

  ‘Yes. All of them worthless idiots! You’re my last hope, Mr John. If you can’t get rid of this beast, I-I don’t know what I’ll do!’

  ‘You said this animal’s been visiting the loft every single night.’

  ‘For almost a month now!’

  Cruywagen looked at Dalvi with narrowed eyes. ‘These people you hired . . . they weren’t professionals?’

  ‘One of them was. Manthan Mishra. Works for the Forest Department. He was the most useless of the lot.’

  ‘And the others?’

  ‘Just boys who worked for me. You know, these labour-class people? They’re naturally good at this kind of thing. They’ve been doing this since they were kids in their slums—killing crows and pigeons with slingshots.’

  ‘Hmm . . . So these men—they’ve seen the target?’ asked Cruywagen.

  ‘Two of them have, I think,’ said Dalvi, scratching his chin. ‘And they both pissed their pants! You know how these rumours fly, Mr John. All these uneducated villagers think there’s something . . . supernatural about this creature. They think it’s some kind of spirit come to teach me a lesson!’ Dalvi broke into laughter, but stopped when he noticed that no one was joining him.

  ‘Would it be possible to meet them?’ Cruywagen asked.

  ‘Yes, yes, of course,’ said Dalvi, walking up to a spacious coop that housed just one pigeon. The sight of the bird seemed to turn Dalvi’s brain to jelly. His lips puckered in an indulgent pout and his cheeks flushed as he wrapped his sausage fingers around the bars of the cage. ‘Aw-le-le-le-le,’ he told the bird.

  ‘That’s Ranjha,’ Hari explained, looking up at Cruywagen. ‘Mr Dalvi is in love with him.’

  ‘Look at how regal he is.’ Dalvi sighed, not having heard Hari’s comment. ‘Over the last year, he’s won me more races than all the others ever have. I bought him from a London-based fancier for a completely crazy amount of money! But you know, it’s still a good deal, because this one bird is going to improve my whole flock!’

  ‘Mr Dalvi, if I could—’

  ‘You see, Mr John,’ said Dalvi, still simpering at Ranjha, ‘rearing a good racing pigeon is not just about training—it’s also about breeding. Do you know how the race works?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How it works is, they take the pigeons in these coops, right? They take them to this maidan that’s at equal distance from all the competitors’ lofts, and—’

  ‘Mr Dalvi!’ said Cruywagen, tapping his wristwatch. ‘I’m afraid I don’t have any time to waste.’

  Dalvi whipped around to face Cruywagen, his lips pursed.

  ‘The sun will go down soon,’ Cruywagen continued, unruffled, ‘and I have a lot to do by then. It would be great if you could arrange for those men to come here and talk to me while I set up.’

  ‘Hari!’ yelled Dalvi, staring at the tall man with blazing eyes. ‘Go get Prabhu and Virendar! Tell them they have to come immediately. It seems John Sir here doesn’t like to wait!’

  Then he tottered out of the loft as fast as his legs could carry him, Hari hurrying after him.

  When Hari returned, followed by a terrified-looking skinny man in his twenties, Cruywagen was up a ladder, hammering some kind of plastic fixture into the wall. His duffel bags lay at the foot of the ladder, and Hari saw that they were full of gleaming electronic gadgets, at least three of which seemed to be cameras.

  When he heard them walk in, Cruywagen descended.

  ‘This is Prabhu,’ said Hari. ‘He doesn’t speak much English, but I can translate for him.’

  ‘How did Mr Dalvi get in touch with him?’

  ‘He used to work here. In the loft.’

  ‘Oh. And he doesn’t any more?’

  ‘Not since the incident with the bhootbilli,’ said Hari.

  ‘When was that?’

  Hari asked Prabhu.

  ‘Two and a half, maybe three days ago?’ Prabhu said in Marathi, and Hari translated for Cruywagen.

  ‘And he was scared off by this . . . bhootbilli?’ Cruywagen said.

  ‘Of course, sir!’ said Prabhu. ‘Even that pahalwan Virendar was frightened by it, sir. You know his uncle is a gangster?’

  ‘Who’s Virendar?’

  ‘The man who used to work here before me. When the birds started disappearing, Hemant Babu thought Virendar had stolen them and fired him.’

  ‘You’ll be meeting him today as well,’ Hari said. ‘He was rehired after Prabhu quit, but then he got scared away too.’

  Cruywagen nodded. ‘Has this one seen the creature?’

  ‘I was working late one night . . .’ said Prabhu. ‘Cleaning the coops and washing the floors, when something leapt over my head! Only God’s grace saved me, sir! It came so close!’

  ‘What did it look like?’

  ‘It was dark as a shadow, sir! A cat’s shape, but big! Huge! Like the one in that old cartoon film for kids. Chaddi pehen ke phool khila hai!’

  ‘What does that mean?’ Cruywagen asked Hari.

  ‘I think he means it looked like a panther,’ the boy hypothesized.

  ‘A panther?’

  ‘Well, I’m not sure or anything,’ said Prabhu. ‘You don’t think I waited to see its face, do you? I ran right out of there—ran all the way till my house!’

  At about 1.30 p.m., a black Skoda Octavia pulled up in front of the loft, and Cruywagen went out, leaving Hari to gawk openly at the network of wires that he’d slung across the structure at a height of about ten feet. From these wires hung cameras, each connected to a roller that enabled them to slide along the cables. Hari had watched as the South African jiggled the joystick of a remote-controlled device, making them whizz back and forth.

  When the hunter came back, he was carrying a long, matte-black cuboidal case. Hari had never seen a rectangle look deadly before. Behind Cruywagen, the second interviewee of the day swaggered in.

  Virendar Singh wore a tight navy-blue tank top stretched across his broad chest and protruding belly. Around one massive bicep, he had a barbed wire tattoo while a taveez on black thread was wound around the other. He was at least five inches shorter than Cruywagen, and that seemed to bother him a little bit.

  ‘So, you’ve come to kill the monster,’ said Virendar in Hindi after he had been introduced to Cruywagen. Hari had offered to play interpreter again. ‘As you can see, I’m not a timid man, Mr John, but the circumstances are different here.’

  ‘You were hired to get rid of the thing yourself?’

  ‘Exactly. Dalviji offered me Rs 2000 for killing it. And my job back, of course.’

  ‘Why would he call upon you to hunt this animal?’

  ‘I have a reputation.’

  ‘As a hunter?’

  ‘As someone who can get a job done!’ said Virendar, flexing his arms.

  ‘But you couldn’t get this job done.’

  ‘No . . . I did find the beast and face it, though—who else can say that!’

  ‘Describe it for me.’

  ‘It’s black as night and big as a wolf. And its eyes! Believe me, sahib, this is no ordinary beast. It’s come straight from the pits of hell!’

  ‘Where did you see it?’

  ‘I set a trap. Put three pigeons in a coop, which I placed outside in the field, close to the boundary wall . . . I waited for the accursed thing to show up.’ He pointed to a section of the wall where the farm abutted a vast, vacant plot that was overgrown with weeds.

  ‘The coop was locked?’

  ‘Not padlocked, but it was bolted. It’s an intelligent beast, this bhootbilli. One swipe of its paw, and the door flew open! It snatched all three pigeons in mid-air as they tried to make a break for it.’

  ‘How had you intended to capture it?’

  Virendar reached behind his back and pulled a gun out of the waistband of his jeans. Cruywagen took it from him and examined it.

  ‘A countrymade pi
stol?’

  ‘This isn’t the one I used—they fall apart after you shoot them a couple of times, you know.’

  ‘You shot at it?’

  ‘I flung a net over it and fired from six feet away.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘It seemed like the bullets passed right through it! I was staring at it, dumbstruck, as it tore through the net and ran into the trees! There’s something unnatural about this thing, sahib! It cleared the wall with a single leap!’

  ‘What did it look like? Was it feline?’

  ‘Hard to say, sir. It had a long snout—more like a dog’s. I think it’s something else—something strange.’

  ‘All right,’ said Cruywagen, handing him his pistol. ‘Now, if you could help me get this ladder to the other side of the loft, please . . .’

  Cruywagen spent the next two hours installing other gadgets around the space and setting up the trap. Hari and he dragged the most populous coop in the loft towards the exit, and the man laid what looked like rubber mouse pads on top of it. Finally, he reached into one of his duffel bags (which now mostly contained just packaging material) and pulled out a box about the size of a set-top box.

  When he opened it, Hari gasped, ‘Helicopter!’

  Cruywagen gave him a blank stare. ‘Won’t Mr Dalvi be needing you around the house?’ he said. Hari felt a pang of regret. He’d managed to keep his mouth shut all this time, and the hunter had let him stay by his side, watching.

  ‘Dalviji told me to see to your needs, Mr John,’ he said meekly.

  The man carefully extracted the flying machine from its box. ‘It’s a drone, not a helicopter,’ he said.

  Hari noticed that there was a camera attached to the underside of the thing. This man sure had brought a lot of cameras!

  ‘Do you think you could take this outside and put it down over there?’ Cruywagen said, pointing to the door of the loft.

  ‘Me?’ asked Hari, shocked that the man would let him handle what was obviously an expensive piece of equipment.

  ‘Be careful with it. And when you place it on the ground, be gentle.’

  Hari watched his step as he carried it out of the loft and put it on the muddy ground just outside the door. Immediately, its rotors began to whir, and it rose in the air. After a few moments of silent wonder, he looked inside the loft and saw that Cruywagen was manoeuvring it with some kind of remote control that he’d strapped around his wrist.

  The drone rose a little higher than the loft’s roof and then went out of sight behind it. Hari rushed back inside to see how the man was flying it without having to look at it. Awed, he saw that on the device fastened around Cruywagen’s wrist was a small screen that showed him the video feed from the camera on the drone.

  ‘Amazing!’ Hari wanted to say, but checked himself. Cruywagen smoothly landed the drone on the loft’s roof and looked up just in time to see the last respondent of the day walking through the door.

  ‘The famous John Cruywagen!’ said Manthan Mishra as he walked in, arms extended in enthusiastic greeting.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ said Cruywagen, frowning at the rotund man in his frumpy beige shirt and pleated brown pants.

  ‘Huge fan,’ said Mishra, taking Cruywagen’s right hand with both of his. ‘It’s slightly embarrassing to admit, but I’ve stalked you for years on the Internet. I know your every expedition by heart!’ He looked around the loft at all the equipment that had been rigged up. ‘Ah! It’s so wonderful to see all this in person.’

  ‘You must be the man from the Forest Department.’

  ‘Indeed! Mishra. Manthan Mishra. I can’t tell you what a huge pleasure it is to—’

  ‘Mr Dalvi said you’d be here two hours ago.’

  Mishra looked hurt for a moment, but covered it up with a nervous chuckle. ‘Got held up at work, sirji! Sorry. You know how it is in government offices.’

  Hari saw Cruywagen’s mouth twitch. Clearly, he didn’t know how it was.

  ‘Is that a motion-tracking model?’ Mishra asked, indicating one of the cameras hanging from the wires.

  Cruywagen hesitated. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Aren’t they hard to use with all the pigeons flying around? I mean, I’m sure that they work with—’

  ‘Mr Mishra, as you see, it’s late and the light is fading—’

  ‘Oh, yes! I forgot! They must be infrared-enabled if you’re doing this at night-time, right? Nocturnal mode?’

  Cruywagen sighed impatiently. ‘Yes! And as for the pigeon problem, I’m using high-speed object recognition to prevent it from tracking the birds!’

  ‘Splendid! Splendid!’ said Mishra, sauntering further into the room. ‘And you’ve got laser tripwires installed here too!’

  ‘Now, listen here—’ Cruywagen began.

  ‘Who’s the boy?’ said Mishra, turning around and jerking his head towards Hari.

  ‘I’m assisting Mr John,’ Hari said, surprising himself with the statement and feeling his chest swell with unexpected pride.

  Mishra grunted. ‘You’re Dalvi’s servant, na? Do you know who this man is? What he’s done? He’s one of the greatest hunters in the world, you know that?’

  ‘There’s no need to bully the boy,’ said Cruywagen. ‘Especially when we have so little time. Tell me, when did Mr Dalvi hire you to trap this bhootbilli?’

  Mishra stiffened. ‘Not to capture it, sir. To kill it.’

  ‘I thought you worked for the government?’

  ‘Yes, yes. But he hired me on a personal basis. To shoot it down—same as you. Well, except I’m sure he’s paying you much more.’ Mishra scratched the back of his head and grinned. ‘You see, I come from a family of hunters. My grandfather gave my father his first shooting lessons when he was just—’

  ‘Did you see it?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Did you see this animal, Mr Mishra?’

  ‘Pah!’ said Mishra, and sniggered. ‘How could I see something that doesn’t exist, Mr Cruywagen?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Have you heard these people talk about it? This Virendar–Surendar?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So you’ve heard their descriptions! Do you think such an animal could be real, then?’

  Cruywagen watched Mishra, silent.

  Mishra spread his arms wide. ‘This huge, they say it is,’ he said. ‘One man shoots and the bullets go right through it, another man says it looks like a panther! I mean, they want us to believe that they’ve seen some kind of supernatural creature, huh?’

  Cruywagen raised his chin and stared at Mishra. ‘Fear psychoses could magnify the size of some kind of a feral animal, say a civet, or a—’

  ‘Civets? In these parts?’

  ‘It’s possible.’

  ‘I mean, sure, anything is possible, sir. But why not look at what is a lot more probable? These two louts—the guys who managed this place—they stole a bunch of Dalvi’s racing pigeons and blamed the theft on an urban legend!’

  ‘Then why did you take the assignment to kill it, Mr Mishra?’

  ‘Why does anyone take up anything, Mr Cruywagen? For the money! I asked for half my fees in advance for what I knew to be a no-risk venture, and I got paid! Simple! Didn’t even have to waste a bullet!’

  Cruywagen shook his head and turned on his heel. ‘Thank you, Mr Mishra,’ he said, walking away. ‘That will be all.’

  ‘When Dalvi told me that he was thinking of bringing you in, I laughed at him! I told him someone like you would never agree to run around chasing shadows like this!’

  ‘Goodbye, Mr Mishra,’ said Cruywagen, now hardly visible in the shadows at the far end of the loft. ‘You’ve been very helpful.’

  When the sky had turned from red to purple, the hunter and the boy climbed on to the catwalk that ringed the loft at a height of about seven metres, in clear view of the exit and the coop they’d placed near it. Apart from the moonbeams filtering through the skylights and the loft’s open door, the only spot of brightness in t
he building was the monitor on the remote-controlled device strapped around the man’s forearm. The display cycled through the black-and-white feeds from all the cameras. Hari saw that from time to time, a red square would flicker where the pigeons flitted around the camera’s field of vision.

  Even in the dimness, the gun in Cruywagen’s arms gleamed dangerously. Hari had instinctively backed away when the man opened the matte-black box and pulled it out. He’d loaded it from a box of long, pointed slugs, and then put on a pair of glasses with one dark lens and the other clear. As he settled on the catwalk, Hari heard the man click the safety catch off.

  And then they waited.

  Hari had done his best to stay silent and keep out of the way until his help was required, which was seldom. When all the preparations had been made, the man had said, ‘Thank you. I think you’d better go back to Mr Dalvi’s now.’

  ‘But how, Mr John?’ Hari had asked.

  ‘What do you mean, how?’

  ‘Mr Dalvi’s house is many kilometres away. And it’s not safe for me to head out alone at night.’

  Cruywagen had looked surprised, then angry, then slightly confused, before his face fell back to its stand-offish blankness. ‘Okay. You’ll have to be very, very quiet if you’re to stay here.’

  And so here they were, listening to the coos and the flutters and the pervasive silence of the night. Cruywagen alternated between looking through the telescopic sight of his gun and glancing at the monitor on his arm. The man didn’t make a sound. If he hadn’t been moving his head every so often, Hari wouldn’t have known that he was breathing.

  It was close on two hours before they heard something rake against the rooftop.

  ‘What was that?’ Hari whispered.

  Cruywagen put a finger to his lips. From the one eye that Hari could see, he could tell the man was frowning.

  He left the gun on its tiny stand and operated the remote on his arm. Hari noticed that the display had switched to the feed from the drone’s camera again. The rooftop receded as the drone rose higher to show an expanse of dirty brown tiles and bird droppings.