The Turning - Chapter Twenty

CHAPTER TWENTY

Vinod stared at the Bank Manager in frustration. "But surely a lawyer's letter should be proof enough that I am the sole heir?" he rasped.

The Manager's prim mouth folded in further. He looked with distaste at the young man almost bending over his desk in desperation.

"No control, these young people," he thought to himself disapprovingly. "No control at all! Just out for what they can get!" The Manager was old-fashioned. And Vinod had rubbed him up the wrong way. "I'm sorry Mr. Shahane, but this letter won't Do. Won't Do at all!" he pronounced ponderously. "The Bank will require Letters of Administration or a Succession Certificate from a Court of Law declaring you to be the sole heir of Mr. Prakash Sattar, before we can permit you to operate his accounts." He looked Vinod over with an air of having settled his hash to his satisfaction. His son, indeed! Even the surnames differed!

"Damn," muttered Vinod to himself, narrowly escaping an errant cyclist as he sped back to the hospital. Damn! He'd have to call up his lawyer and try to get an appointment for the next day again. "Hope the old bugger gives it," he said to himself. "I've got to get the dough in the next couple of weeks." Else he'd lose the premises. And the earnest money he had already paid.

* * * *

Mr. Alif Faiz-ud-din (he insisted on two hyphen marks) was a cadaverous old man with a lined, scholarly face. He was indeed a great scholar, an acknowledged authority on Mohammedan law. It was he who had advised Prakash Shahane. As he now advised his son, Vinod.

He had hemmed and hawed. Vinod had had an hour of his time just a day back! He had ultimately succumbed to his client's insistence and had given Vinod an appointment for 5.30 pm the next day. Then he had made another call from his direct line, not routing it through the operator.

Vinod kept his appointment punctually. The old bugger was a stickler for time, and he had no wish to irritate him unnecessarily, by being late. On the contrary he was prepared to expend both tact and flattery to get him to move as fast as possible and get those damn letters, whatever the hell they were!

He was ushered into Faiz-ud-din's cabin at the stroke of 5.30 by a clerk as ancient as Faiz-ud-din himself. Vinod took a step into the cabin and halted, his smile freezing on his lips, his outstretched arm faltering, his antennae warning him that something was wrong somewhere.

With her back to the door and consequently to Vinod, stood a tall figure clad in a black burqa.
Vinod was disturbed. Faiz-ud-din never overlapped his clients' timings. In fact, he scrupulously kept a proper gap between appointments! Then who the hell was this dame and what was she doing in the old man's cabin at the time allotted to him?

The old lawyer himself was on his feet. "Come in, Vinod, come in, boy," in a genial tone that immediately struck Vinod as being all wrong.

Faiz-ud-din had neVer been genial. Never called him 'boy'! It appeared he was trying to tell him something. To warn him.

"You are just in time to meet your step-mother," announced Faiz-ud-din.

Vinod's face was frozen expressionless. The old lawyer droned on. Vinod's numbed mind heard his next words through a kind of haze.

". . . married her in the U.A.E. on one of his visits there. . . she'd been staying there all this time . . . Mrs. Merunissa Prakash Sattar . . . your step-son, Madame: Vinod Shahane."

The sound of his name cut through the haze enveloping Vinod's dazed senses. And then another voice impinged. Her voice. She had lovely voice. Low, husky, distinct. Rather a young voice, his subconscious registered. Surely too young to have been his father's wife? Now his widow?

Vinod quelled the urge to break out into hysterical laughter. His old man seemed to have been a pretty rum fellow! Three wives, and God knows how many mistresses!

She was tall, and that was all he could tell about her. The thick heavy veil hung down almost to her waist. The slit for the eyes was extremely slight, and netted, into the bargain. He could make out neither the shape nor the colour of her eyes, through it.

She would be staying on in Bombay for some time, till she sorted out everything regarding her husband's Estate, Faiz-ud-din informed him.

The veiled lady nodded confirmation. She would be visiting Prakash's flat at Cuffe Parade shortly; but right now she was putting up at a hotel and getting her bearings. This was her first visit to Bombay, to India. And she had so many things to do . . . lawyers to see, business matters to clear up . . . her husband had died so suddenly . . . her voice broke.

Vinod asked her which hotel she was staying at. She told him, adding shyly that as he was Prakash's son, her step-son in fact, would he drop in and see her at her hotel sometime later that evening? She was totally alone, and she would so much appreciate the help of Prakash's son! Vinod pulled himself together, and promised to visit her that evening at around 7.30 . . . 8. She then took her leave.

No sooner had she left than Vinod almost rounded on Faiz-ud-din.

"Who the devil is she?"

"Exactly who she says she is! Your father's third wife," replied the old lawyer coldly. His demeanour underwent a lightning change.

Vinod flopped into a chair, ran his hand over his face in a gesture of despair. Then he asked Faiz-ud-din, "Where do I stand now?"

"Nowhere," was the unambiguous answer. "Merunissa Sattar is the sole heir."

"But don't I get anything as his son? Surely a son is entitled to inherit, along with the widow?"
"If your father had not converted, yes," replied the lawyer. "Or conversely, if you had converted along with him. As it is, he died a Muslim. And you are a Hindu."

"But I performed his last rites as per the Hindu religion, as you advised! He was born a Hindu. Doesn't that mean anything?"

Faiz-ud-din gave a wintry smile. "If this Muslim widow of his hadn't turned up, yes, you might have succeeded in inheriting his Estate. There would have been no one to challenge you then. Now there is! From what I have seen of the latest Mrs. Sattar, she'll put up a hell of a fight if you drive her to it. And she has the law on her side."

Vinod asked Faiz-ud-din suspiciously, "How did this woman come to you in the first place?"
Faiz-ud-din looked at him with deep reproach. "You shouldn't really be asking me such a question! You know quite well that your father was one of my clients. Who else would his widow turn to after his death, if not to me?"

"Did you know about his third marriage, then?" asked Vinod sceptically.

Faiz-ud-din looked reproachful again. "Of course not," he told Vinod. "But this woman must surely have known about me! That I was handling her husband's affairs!"

"Strange coincidence that she should have landed up just at the time of my appointment," murmured Vinod resentfully, still suspicious.

"Now there you are mistaken," said the old lawyer deliberately.

"Merunissa Sattar came to me a couple of days ago. I made a few inquiries with my contacts in the Gulf; ensured that she had indeed been married to your father. Then I deliberately called her today at this time, so that you could meet her in my office, in my presence."

"Damn the woman," Vinod muttered savagely. "How could. . .
how could Father have done this to me?" Just when everything was going so well, he thought to himself bitterly. Faiz-ud-din could at least have warned him! But he said nothing. He did not wish to offend the old lawyer. He still had need of him. Now, perhaps more than ever!

* * * *

While Vinod's world was collapsing about his ears, the veiled lady had taken a cab to one of the modest, inconspicuous three-star hotels at Juhu and gone up to the room she had booked the previous night. She showered, changed, had a snack, made two telephone calls, got into the burqa again, and waited.

At around 8.45 in the evening there was a knock on the door. She opened it to admit Vinod Shahane.

"Please come in," she said in her low, rather seductive voice.

Vinod felt a familiar stirring in his loins. He ruthlessly suppressed it. There was no time for anything but the business at hand. However, it was a pity! His warped mind regretted that he had to pass up a chance of enjoying sex with his 'step-mother'. Some instinct told him she'd be a bombshell, in bed!

His eyes followed her veiled figure as she went to the telephone and picking up the receiver asked him, "What will you have? Coffee? Tea? Cold drink? . . ."

He moved quickly and disconnected the telephone. "No nothing, thank you," he said, smiling down into her veiled face. He only had a few minutes, he explained, and then he had to leave. He had an important dinner engagement he just couldn't miss.

He quickly took in the layout of the room. The bed was at the far end. Close to the bathroom were the mandatory two chairs and a coffee table. He led her there and compelled her to occupy the chair closer to the bathroom, by the simple expedient of himself occupying the other.

"Pardon my asking," he began smoothly, "But when did you . . . er . . . marry my father?

"You see," he went on, as she remained silent, "it was quite sho . . . quite a surprise to me. Father had never said anything about you."

"How could he?" asked that low musical voice, a hint of pathos in it. "He felt it would upset Dina. And she had sacrificed so much for him."

"You knew about Dina?" "Of course!" The voice was a trifle impatient now. "I knew everything there was to know about your father." Was it his imagination, or was there a hint of contempt in her tone?

Vinod became restless. He had not wanted to get into an involved conversation with the lady. Might as well finish what he had come to do, and be done with it! No sense in wasting time with chit-chat. Her voice was really too sexy! But sex, right now, would be a dangerous indulgence! The sperm would be tested and from that the blood group determined and . . . no, he couldn't risk all that.

Also, the shorter the time he was in the hotel, the safer for him. He looked into the netted slit and asked, just the right amount of embarrassment in his voice, if he could use the bathroom.
"Certainly." slight surprise showed itself in her voice at that request. It had hardly been ten minutes since he had entered her room!

He stepped into the bathroom and locked the door. The bath-tub was curtained off. From his pockets Vinod pulled out a pair of fine, transparent surgeon's gloves and a thin cord about two feet long. He then sat down on the commode, drew on the gloves, flushed the toilet, concealed the cord in one of his gloved hands and softly opening the door, stepped out.

Stealthily stepping up to her chair, Vinod whipped the veil off her face from behind, slipped the cord round the slender neck and pulled.

*