“Chutiya,” an officer barks, holding up the car’s papers. “Is this your boss?”
But this young man called Ajay is too drunk to speak.
“Asshole, did you take his car?”
One of the cops walks to the side and looks down at the dead. The girl’s eyes are open, skin already blue in the cold. She is bleeding from the space between her legs, where life has been.
* * *
—
In the station Ajay is stripped and left naked in a cold and windowless room. He’s so drunk he passes out. The constables return to throw icy water over him and he wakes with a scream. He is seated, and they press his shoulders against the wall, pull his legs apart. A female constable stands on his thighs until his circulation goes and he roars in pain and passes out once more.
* * *
—
By the next day the case has gained traction. The media is appalled. At first it’s about the pregnant girl. News channels mourn her. But she was neither photogenic nor full of promise. So the focus shifts to the killer. A source confirms the car is a Mercedes registered to Gautam Rathore, and this is news—he’s a fixture of the Delhi social scene, a polo player, a raconteur, and a prince, genuine royalty, the first and only son of a member of Parliament, Maharaja Prasad Singh Rathore. Was Gautam Rathore driving? That’s the question on everyone’s lips. But no, no, his alibi is watertight. He was holidaying away from Delhi last night. He was at a fort palace hotel near Jaipur. His current location is unknown. But he has released a statement expressing his horror, sending his condolences to the deceased and their kin. The driver, his statement reveals, only recently began working for him. He seems to have taken the Mercedes without Gautam’s knowledge. Taken whisky and the Mercedes and gone for an illicit spin.
A statement from the police confirms as much: Ajay, employee of Gautam Rathore, stole a bottle of whisky from Rathore’s home while his employer was away, took the Mercedes for a joyride, lost control.
This story becomes fact.
It settles in the papers.
And the FIR is registered.
Ajay, son of Hari, is booked under Section 304A of the Indian Penal Code. Death due to negligence. Maximum sentence: two years.
* * *
—
He is sent to the crowded courthouse and presented to the district magistrate, the magistrate takes two minutes to send him to judicial custody with no consideration of bail. He is driven with the other prisoners on a bus to Tihar Jail. They are lined up for processing; they sit in sullen rows on wooden benches in the reception hall, surrounded by placards with rules hammered into the damp, pockmarked plaster of the walls. When his turn arrives, he’s taken into a cramped office where a clerk and a prison doctor with their typewriter and stethoscope await. His possessions are laid out once more: wallet, money clip containing twenty thousand rupees, the book of matches bearing the name Palace Grande, the empty shoulder holster. The money is counted.
The clerk takes his pencil and begins to fill out the form.
“Name?”
The prisoner stares at them.
“Name?”
“Ajay,” he says, barely audible.
“Father’s name?”
“Hari.”
“Age?”
“Twenty-two.”
“Occupation?”
“Driver.”
“Speak up.”
“Driver.”
“Who is your employer?”
The clerk looks over his glasses.
“What is the name of your employer?”
“Gautam Rathore.”
Ten thousand rupees are taken from his money, the rest is handed back to him.
“Put it in your sock,” the clerk says.
* * *
—
He is processed and sent to Jail No. 1, led through the courtyard to the barracks, taken along the dank corridor to a wide cell where nine other inmates live crowded and packed. Clothes hang from the cell bars like in a market stall, and the floor inside is covered with tattered mattresses, blankets, buckets, bundles, sacks. A small squatting latrine in the corner. Though there’s no room left, the warden orders a small space to be cleared out for him on the cold floor next to the latrine. But no mattress can be spared. Ajay lays the blanket he’s been given on the stone floor. He sits with his back to the wall, staring vacantly ahead. A few of his cellmates come and tell him their names, but he says nothing, acknowledges nothing. He curls into a ball and sleeps.
* * *
—
When he comes to, he sees a man standing over him. Old and missing teeth, with frantic eyes. More than sixty years on earth, he is saying. More than sixty years. He’s an autorickshaw driver from Bihar, or at least he was on the outside. He’s been here awaiting trial for six years. He’s innocent. It’s one of the first things he says. “I’m innocent. I’m supposed to be a drug peddler. But I’m innocent. I was caught in the wrong place. A peddler was in my rickshaw, but he ran and the cops took me.” He goes on to ask what Ajay is charged with, how much money he has hidden away with him. Ajay ignores him, turns in the opposite direction. “Suit yourself,” the old man cheerfully says, “but you should know, I can get things done around here. For one hundred rupees I can get you another blanket, for one hundred rupees I can get you a better meal.” “Let him be,” hollers another cellmate, a plump, dark boy from Aligarh, who is picking his teeth with a piece of neem. “Don’t you know who he is, he’s the Mercedes Killer.” The old man shuffles off. “I’m Arvind,” the fat boy says. “They say I killed my wife, but I’m innocent.”