Open Arms Read online

  She was whisked through the VIP arrivals and within minutes was in the High Commission Jaguar whose sporty exterior disguised the armour plating, evident only when it became necessary to open the unnaturally heavy doors. She had hoped to soak up some of the atmosphere of India; she had never been to Mumbai and was keen to explore it. But she was unable to take in very much, flashing through the suburbs with a motorcycle escort and trying, with the help of High Commission staff, to do some last minute cramming for her first meeting in the Arctic air conditioned business suite of the Taj.

  It was all happening very fast: a blur of faces and voices. But she was able to take on board that a meeting had been fixed with the Indian PM, to the pleasant surprise of the High Commissioner whose extensive schmoozing with the PM’s advisers and staff at his residence had paid off – or so he thought, being blissfully unaware of the role played behind the scenes by the Red Admiral and his contacts. They would all fly up to Delhi tomorrow, the only time the PM was free, double up with a call on the Defence Minister and come back to Mumbai for the rest of the visit. She protested, mildly, about the time pressures, and the onset of jet lag, but it was gently pointed out that our PM had recently ‘done’ India in a day and then China in a day; her two and a half days for Delhi and Mumbai was really quite leisurely.

  There was to be an evening reception for her business delegation to meet the Mumbai business community: then, yes, she could change and have thirty minutes to herself and work on her address to the gathering. But first there was official business, a formal meeting chaired by her Indian opposite number. In the official hierarchy he was a junior trade minister, a very small fish in the Indian political ocean. He had been given the job to placate a sub-caste with a lot of votes in an important state and knew nothing whatever about trade, or the UK, or any of the subjects on the agenda.

  In the absence of content or controversy the meeting finished very early and, after elaborate exchanges of goodwill and thanks for an invaluable discussion, most of the participants disappeared rapidly to be early in the queue for food. The High Commissioner saw the opportunity to effect an introduction between Kate and Deepak Parrikar. Her brief told her she could usefully exchange a few pleasantries, which she had memorised from her ‘line to take’ drawn up by officials who assumed she had never met anyone from India before: the weather in London (awful); the test score (eight wickets by Ashwin); the state of Anglo-Indian relations (excellent as always); our common history (but avoid controversy) and other inanities. Mr Parrikar was largely unknown to the High Commission having avoided social events and being closer to the Americans. The father was known to be the power behind the family company and spoke little English.

  The pleasantries weren’t needed. Her carefully rehearsed Namaste was aborted by the offer of a handshake. He cut short her halting introduction. He seemed to know everything about her: Oxford friends, most of the British Cabinet, her husband’s business partners, all on a Christian name basis. When she had recovered from the welcoming blast she started to appraise the man described as the Indian George Clooney. He wasn’t remotely like him but extremely handsome nonetheless: tall, with very dark, almost black, skin that highlighted his large, dazzling smile; enormous brown eyes radiating warmth, engagement and sympathy.

  Disregarding the private secretaries and various flunkeys hovering around the room, he took her by the elbow to the window. They looked down on the Gateway of India where the King Emperor had alighted over a century earlier and, to the right, the entrance to the Taj.

  ‘I wanted you to see this before we sit down and talk about the deal and the equipment your country is selling us through the two linked companies, one of which I own. That, over there, is the old India when white-skinned people ruled over us and when India had its own hierarchy of privilege that for centuries confined my ancestors to the dirtiest and most menial tasks. I am from the new India where businesses like the one my father built up have broken through and where we increasingly have technology as advanced as yours.

  ‘And over there,’ he continued, pointing to the hotel entrance, ‘is a symbol of the main threat to this new India. Back in 2008 a group of Islamic militants, organised by Pakistani intelligence, and helped by one of the Mumbai mafia clans, stormed the hotel. Hostages were taken. Many people were killed in cold blood – a hundred and twenty-five. This was Mumbai’s 9/11.

  ‘Our enemies are also uncomfortably close-by. We have fought four major wars since you lot left India, three against Pakistan. We face two nuclear powers, allied against us, one an almost-failed state close to being overrun by jihadis who would happily take us to Paradise with them so they can enjoy screwing all those virgins to eternity. Sorry, I am not being politically correct, am I? But I am telling you what most Indians feel.’

  Kate leaned towards him, fascinated by the frank explanations which were so different to the usual political correctness.

  ‘I believe in Indian democracy, secularism, religious tolerance – I don’t do religion myself – but I recently broke the habit of a lifetime and voted for the lot we have in power at the moment. Holy cows, all that nonsense, but they are also about making the country strong. That is why I am here, and why you are here. I’m sorry,’ he apologised again, ‘I wanted you to understand my position before we started talking about technical and business things.’

  ‘Don’t apologise,’ Kate replied. ‘I am not here to judge. I have been to India a few times but I am always overwhelmed by the scale and variety of the place. I simply don’t know enough about your country to have a sensible answer. I just have a job to do.’ But his outburst had flicked a switch inside her. She was used to charming, handsome, articulate men, to being pursued and flattered by them and to diverting any incipient feelings into harmless channels. But this passion and intensity was new, and troubling; and also very attractive.

  She knew she should stick to her – excruciating – brief and its ‘line to take’. But curiosity – and something stronger – took over. ‘You obviously know more about me than I know about you. I don’t like to be at such a disadvantage. So tell me more about your family and yourself.’

  The coughing and spluttering behind them was becoming uncomfortable, from those who had overheard snatches, like the Red Admiral who had somehow crept up to within hearing distance, or who simply wanted to get on with proceedings. The High Commissioner himself stepped forward to take the two into a side room where there was a discussion with the business delegation about their itinerary and a visit to the Parrikar factory. Kate struggled for a while to keep pace with the detail and was clearly flagging, but encouragement from the big brown eyes across the table kept her going until she was able to make a dignified exit to enjoy the promised thirty minutes of rest and recuperation. She saw the same pair of eyes following her to the door.

  In another part of the city, altogether less salubrious than the environs of the Taj, there was an unexpected and unwanted visitor to the office of Deepak Parrikar’s father. He arrived in a black Mercedes with darkened windows. Out stepped an elderly but distinguished-looking bearded man in dark glasses wearing the white cap and gown of someone who had recently left prayers at the mosque.

  The Sheikh had been visiting his friend for half a century but the frequency of the visits had declined as the trajectories of their businesses had diverged. The borderline between legitimate business and organised crime was very unclear in Mumbai but Parrikar had leaned, albeit uncertainly, towards the former and the Sheikh to the latter. Parrikar had drawn the line at narcotics and guns while the Sheikh and his brothers had embraced them, accumulating great wealth and a fearsome but unsavoury reputation in the process. The family now mainly operated out of the Gulf, of necessity in the case of one of the Sheikh’s brothers who, reputedly, had financed and provisioned the terrorist raid on the Taj and was high on India’s ‘most wanted’ list.

  The Sheikh had not been invited but, then, the length and depth of their friendship had always transcended formality. Wh
en he entered his friend’s office, there was a chill beneath the effusive welcome and customary exchange of family news. Parrikar was acutely aware that the visit, if witnessed, would attract curiosity and criticism and he worried that the Sheikh, knowing that perfectly well, had decided to come regardless.

  They conversed in the street patois of their joint upbringing, a mixture of Marathi and Hindi. When they had exhausted the pleasantries, the Sheikh got to the point. ‘Brother, I hear that you are having troubles with the Versova development. There are some bad, bad people in the city these days; not the respect we once had. Greed has taken over. When we were working together there was much less violence. Shocking what happened to your project man.’

  ‘Yes. Patel. You have good sources.’

  ‘I read the press. But nothing much happens without my being told. My friends say that Patel was not paying what had to be paid for services. Showing lack of respect.’

  ‘Patel was a good man. An honest man. My son wanted him to rise in the business.’

  ‘So what are you doing about this killing?’

  ‘The police…’

  ‘That pile of turds is useless. We both know that Mumbai CID stands for “Criminals in Disguise”. If they know anything they will be involved.’

  ‘You would know, my friend.’

  ‘Come, let us not play with each other. I can help you. I can stop this.’

  ‘There is a price, no?’

  ‘There is no price. We are old friends. We trust each other. I want to see your business make good money. Like mine. Otherwise the gangsters get to run this city.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I have a small favour to ask. A very small favour.’

  ‘How much?’

  The Sheikh shifted in his seat. ‘This isn’t about money. I have a nephew, a very well-qualified engineer. First class degree. PhD in America. He is ideal for your son’s company. But he is a good Muslim and we know what will happen: the security people will find reasons for losing his application. Can you please speak to your son?’

  ‘My son doesn’t work like this. No caste or cousins. No backhanders. Professional hiring, and security vetting. The new India, like the West.’

  But the Sheikh knew that his old friend belonged to the old India, not the new. There was a long pause and then the Sheikh started to leave. ‘Thank you, my friend, I know that you will try to please me. I know we can work together again.’

  He was right. Parrikar and he had grown apart but deeper bonds united them. They owed each other their lives. Parrikar had given the Sheikh’s family sanctuary a quarter of a century earlier when religious fanatics ran amok in the streets of Mumbai and Muslims were being hacked and beaten to death. Many years earlier, in a violent skirmish between street children, the young Parrikar had been surrounded by knife-wielding teenagers from the Sheikh’s clan. The Sheikh had pulled him to safety, then protected him and become a partner in crime and property development.

  The few seconds between the Sheikh leaving the building and entering his chauffeur driven limousine was enough for a mobile phone, held by a young man standing in the shopfront opposite, to capture the event for his newspaper. And he wasn’t the only person to observe and monitor the visit. India’s counter-terrorism team, having received maximum cooperation from the local gangsters in the wake of Desai’s meeting at the five star hotel, were also represented in the crowd outside the office.

  Parrikar slept badly after the Sheikh’s visit. He saw trouble ahead. The ground was shifting underneath him. The old certainties were going. Parrikar had been trying to manoeuvre from his original, less legal and decidedly underground, business into a professional legacy for his children. But the question of how to complete the transition increasingly preoccupied him. He had never explained to his children the complex accounting behind the Mumbai operations, much of which did not exist on paper, let alone on computers. Had they known how much of their shiny factories and luxury condominiums had been financed on the back of Mumbai slum dwellers and revenue defrauding scams they would have been seriously alarmed. But the Patel murder, and the unsolicited visit from the Sheikh, had now persuaded him to open up rather more to his family. Breakfast with Deepak was to be the start.

  They sat outside the family bungalow set in extensive gardens where fountains played and peacocks flaunted their plumage on the carefully manicured lawns tended by a small army of servants. The setting, along the ridge of Malabar Hill looking down on Chowpatty beach, framed the most expensive real estate between Hong Kong and Monaco and it was one of Parrikar’s early business coups to have acquired it cheaply.

  Starting with elaborate, convoluted, childhood reminiscences to ease himself in, he soon lost Deepak’s attention, which was torn between the exchange rate risk on the Pulsar contract, the stunning British Minister he had met the previous evening and the cricket commentary from Melbourne emanating from the servants’ quarters. His multi-channel reverie was interrupted when his father started to talk about the disappearance and murder of Patel. Deepak had identified him as a talent but they were in different areas of the Parrikar empire. They hadn’t been in touch for several weeks and Patel had given no indication of the pressures he was under. The murder hadn’t been reported in the English language newspapers and none of Deepak’s staff had known enough to brief him on the murky goings on in the Mumbai underworld.

  His father described, haltingly, some of the background, skirting around the problems that Patel had created for himself by his attempts to be honest. He was, he said, being blackmailed by a man who knew of some irregularities in the business – without divulging the long, unedifying, history of collaboration with the Sheikh. He had initially ignored the blackmail. Patel had been the casualty. Of course the matter was now with the police but Deepak needed to understand that the blackmailer could no longer be ignored and was making fresh demands, including the posting of a ‘nephew’ in Deepak’s factory. Otherwise more killings could follow.

  Deepak took the news calmly. While he had never probed his father’s dealings too closely, he had long since realised that Daddy-ji didn’t belong to the Mother Teresa school of ethical business. The fact that his father had made moral compromises in his rise from poverty did not diminish Deepak’s love and respect for him. He just didn’t want or need to know the gory details.

  ‘Daddy-ji, you have got to look after your staff and your family first of all. No heroics. No need to take risks. I will take on this young man. I will keep a close eye on him. But not obviously. We will make it look as if you are complying with demands. You will have to make sure your project people do what is needed to keep out of trouble.’

  ‘Thanks, son. I knew you would understand. Things are changing in India. It isn’t easy to find your way. These politicians talk about “clean hands” and pass new laws on corruption. Then they increase “commission”. The goondas and the politicians are the same. And some are involved in this Muslim terrorism. Maybe even this “nephew”?’

  ‘We can handle that. In our technology business there are always people snooping and spying. We know and we manage the risks. This country is corrupt and incompetent in lots of ways, like the clowns in the Mumbai police, but high tech businesses like mine know what they are doing. Don’t worry about it. Just tell your gangster friend that you will do as he asks. And that I am playing ball. And then, please, get out of this dirty property business as soon as you can.’

  The old man listened for a while, and then tears appeared in his eyes. There was a long silence broken only by the cawing of the crows along the hill where the Parsees had their Tower of Silence, where the birds disposed of the flesh of the dead.

  Shaida arranged to meet Steve, with her brother, in the old part of town where she had grown up and where most of the town’s Muslims lived. She hoped he would better understand the environment in which Mo and his friends were now being radicalised, though she was aware that online recruitment was just as important as peer pressure. Indeed, in one of their a
ngry exchanges at home he had admitted surfing the internet for material on ‘our fighters’. This revelation made her desperate to find a sympathetic third party who could help her stop her brother drifting towards disaster. Mo had agreed, reluctantly, to come along.

  Even as one of the town’s civic leaders, Steve was unfamiliar with this area and struggled to find the café. The district was full of cheap terrace housing once occupied by the white working class, who had been moved to council housing or fled to a different part of town – the one he represented – to escape the Pakistani influx. Despite being a fully paid-up multi-culturalist Steve felt uncomfortable, the only white face in the street where many women were shrouded in black, some with veils, and many of the older men had dyed orange beards, flat woollen hats and the loose pyjamas of their homeland. The café, he had been told, was in the middle of a shopping arcade. He wandered, fascinated, past halal butchers, kebab restaurants, shops selling gold jewellery and fashionable but religiously sanctioned women’s clothes, newsagents advertising cheap flights to Lahore and cheap phone calls anywhere and open-air greengrocers with stalls overflowing with coriander and ginger, onions and garlic, okra and brinjal, mangoes and papayas.

  Eventually he found the café, brilliantly lit by neon lights, with shiny Formica tables and a large picture of Mecca advertising the owner’s Haj. A table of five young men was waiting for him, with Shaida who was, conspicuously, the only woman in the place. At the other tables, men stopped their conversation when he entered and looked suspiciously at the group he joined.