‘She was sent home?’ Nikki asked softly. Sheena nodded. She took a tissue out from her purse and dabbed the corners of her eyes.
‘After Karina returned, Gulshan didn’t hear from her. Gulshan’s parents warned her to stay out of it but one day, she broke down and said, “Sheena, something terrible is going to happen to my little cousin. She is going to die.” Even I struggled to believe it at first. Karina’s father had started a charity drive for newcomers to the country. He had come to my family’s assistance when we first arrived in England. He had helped to fill out all the paperwork, tax forms, employment, everything. I reminded Gulshan that young girls have a tendency to exaggerate. I was sure this man wouldn’t kill his daughter. Karina was probably on her way to India to get married to save the family’s honour.
‘Then I turned on the news one night and Karina had been reported missing to the police. It was her father who had reported her missing. That’s when it hit me.’ Sheena paused. In the quiet, the sound of another car could be heard making its way down the gravel path. It pulled up near them and a family with two children emerged and made their way across the field. Sheena stared past them and continued.
‘If her father was telling the police that she had disappeared, then he knew that she wasn’t coming back. A few days later, her body was found in the wooded area near Herbert Park. That was a frightening time for the community. Everybody shut their daughters away at home, convinced that a killer was on the loose.’
‘But Gulshan suspected the father of murdering her,’ Nikki said. A sense of dread crept into her body.
‘Yes,’ Sheena said. ‘She didn’t know for sure. But after the fuss was over and the media went away, she started asking her own questions. Wasn’t it strange that Karina’s father had reported her missing to the police, but had kept things quiet the first time she ran away? Why hadn’t he hired another bounty hunter? He must have known that she was dead. Then one day, Gulshan called me up. She was very excited. She said, “Sheena, there’s proof now.” She had gone with her parents to Karina’s house to pay their respects at a prayer session. She had managed to sneak away to Karina’s room, which she searched until she found a diary. There were entries detailing Karina’s worst fears – that her father would murder her to save his reputation. Gulshan couldn’t take the diary out of Karina’s house without being noticed so she put it back where she found it. She thought it would be safer to call the police and tell them to search the room. But then …’ Sheena bit her lip.
‘The accident,’ Nikki said. ‘Gulshan died before she could contact the police.’ She closed her eyes as if momentarily shutting off the world would ease the injustices of Karina’s and Gulshan’s story.
‘Somebody must have told Karina’s father about the questions Gulshan was asking, about her seeing the diary,’ Sheena said. ‘The – the diary was never found.’
‘Who else did Gulshan tell about the diary?’
‘She told me,’ Sheena said softly. ‘And I told my mother-in-law. It was the early days of my marriage and we were bonding. I didn’t think anything of it. Likewise, she didn’t see the harm in telling a friend, who told another friend …’ Sheena shook her head, her words catching again. ‘Out of a sense of duty, somebody felt it necessary to stop Gulshan. Stop her before she embarrassed the community. Before she made us look like a group of barbarians who killed their own daughters.’
‘Oh, Sheena,’ Nikki said. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Me too,’ Sheena whispered.
Sheena’s secret hung heavy in the air. They both stared straight ahead, watching the lake shimmer and ripple like a jewel. A breeze ran through the surrounding parkland, turning up blades of grass revealing their dark underside. London’s buildings were mere outlines in the distance.
‘Do you come to this spot often?’ Nikki asked.
Sheena stared out the window. ‘All the time. Gulshan didn’t live far away and she went jogging here three times a week. She had to put up with comments, you know – Punjabi girl running around bare-legged.’
‘The driver of the car would have known where to find her then,’ Nikki said.
‘Exactly. After Gulshan died I visited the scene of the accident and saw how the road curved. There’s a blind spot. The council petitioned to have a sign put up to warn pedestrians after the accident. Perhaps she had her earphones in and wasn’t paying attention. You try to tell yourself it could just be an accident, that the simplest explanation is the most likely.’
‘Maybe that’s all it was,’ Nikki offered. ‘An accident.’ The coincidence nagged her immediately. She could only imagine the struggle this created within Sheena.
‘I won’t ever know for sure,’ Sheena said. ‘But in this community I’m suspicious of accidents. A few years later, Karina’s father was hospitalized with liver cirrhosis. I heard from people in the community that he was in great pain and I thought, serves him right. He had stopped hiding his drinking. People blamed Karina’s death. They called him a broken man, a mourning father. I didn’t have an ounce of sympathy for him. At his funeral, I wore Gulshan’s necklace for the first time. People stared but they said nothing. They all knew.’
Nikki could practically feel the burn of those stares. ‘You’re very brave for doing that,’ she said.
With one hand, Sheena rolled her pendant between her thumb and forefinger. She shrugged. ‘It was just a small gesture. I’m sure nobody even remembered afterwards.’
‘They probably did.’
‘Or they didn’t,’ Sheena said. The force in her tone surprised Nikki. Perhaps Sheena felt responsible for Gulshan’s death in the first place. Nikki said nothing else, waiting for the tension to leak away.
‘Let’s head back,’ Sheena said. She twisted the key into the ignition and backed out of the park. The radio came on and an old Hindi love ballad filled the car. As they gained distance from that lonely park, Sheena seemed to relax. She hummed along with the song.
‘You know this song?’ Sheena asked as the singer reached his chorus.
‘My mum would know it,’ Nikki said.
‘Oh, definitely. It’s a classic.’ Sheena turned up the radio. ‘You can actually hear the sorrow in his voice.’ They listened to the singer crooning about his heavy heart and his longing. Nikki had to admit that the tune touched a nerve. The streets of Southall came into view, the ballad providing a soundtrack to the passing rows of jewellery shops and jalebi stands. Despite the sinister story that Sheena had just told, Nikki could understand how this place could be home, and why leaving would be unimaginable to some.
They were pulling into the bank’s car park when Sheena muttered, ‘Shit.’ Her eyes were trained on a figure in the distance. ‘Is that Rahul?’ Nikki asked, squinting. Sheena nodded. She parked in the farthest spot from the entrance and turned off the engine but made no move to leave the car. ‘I’ll wait till he goes back inside,’ she said.