The Darya Nandkarni Misadventures Omnibus: Books 1-3

by Smita Bhattacharya

  For several days after the bodies had been found, Darya lived as if in a stupor—a suspended state of nothingness—going from day to day with little sense of time or place. Both Alina and Bogdan let her be, telling her they were around if she needed to talk or needed a shoulder to cry on.

  Alina, on her part, bore it better than Darya did; she was stoic by nature and merely shrugged it off as unfortunate. She said she’d always known Oleg was a psychopath and only regretted not warning people about him earlier. To the police, Oleg denied he had anything to do with the bodies—he wasn’t even in Sibiu when the other two were killed and he’d been in the farmhouse only because he’d been riding around in the forest and had decided to stop for a rest. No, he hadn’t smelled the stench that had made the police go inside and look up the chimney. They’d been expecting to find a dead animal instead of what they eventually did. No, he didn’t know anything about anything. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and he hadn’t been able to leave because his bike had a deflated tyre.

  Darya knew nothing more than that. Oleg had been questioned by the police because he’d been found around the bodies and had been behaving suspiciously. Did the police confiscate Brian’s backpack from him? Did they even know it was Brian’s? Had they found out about the connection between Oleg and Brian? She knew Oleg had been subsequently released with a warning not to leave Sibiu and make himself available for further questioning if need be. The police were looking for a motive and conclusive evidence that refuted his claims and connected him to those that had died.

  ‘How could they have let him go? He obviously has something to do with it,’ Darya asked, consumed with grief.

  She was talking to Helenka, who had come home. On Darya’s request, she handed over some of her prescription Zoloft, warning her it was a one-time favour, and she should not expect refills.

  She then told Darya about the death of Draco Lambru, the four-year-old whose body had been found at the very same place sixty-three years ago. ‘Long before my time, but it’s like a legend in Sibiu,’ she said.

  ‘I know about it,’ Darya said. ‘So, you think Oleg’s a copycat killer?’

  Helenka looked doubtful. ‘Draco’s death was termed an accident.’

  ‘The bodies were found the exact same way.’

  Helenka glanced up, nodding slowly. ‘That’s why I’m telling you.’

  ‘Maybe he was inspired?’

  ‘Maybe. Maybe not. Oleg is not talking, and without an obvious motive, it’d be difficult to pin it on him. It could well be as he says. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

  ‘He had Brian’s backpack. He knew where to find it,’ Darya said. ‘I followed him from the market. He knew where he was going.’

  ‘And you’re sure you don’t want to talk to the police about it?’ Helenka asked.

  Darya shook her head. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘I understand. You’re a foreigner. It’s not easy. I don’t want to get involved myself.’ She took a deep breath in. ‘Another thing.’ She looked hesitant to continue. Darya waited. Then, ‘Don’t tell Alina I told you. She doesn’t want any negative attention on herself or the café, but the girl they found, Maddox, she’d been to Handsome Monk a couple of times. Alina didn’t know her, but she’d left a postcard on the board next to the WC. You’ve seen the board, right?’

  Darya stared. ‘You mean …’

  ‘I don’t know what I mean and why it may be important. I cannot tell anyone else, least of all the police. I thought maybe you should know.’

  Of course, it was important, Darya thought. She’ll have to ask Alina about it.

  ‘Don’t tell her I told you,’ Helenka said immediately, noting the excitement on Darya’s face. ‘She has taken the card off.’

  ‘It’s evidence!’

  ‘Please, Darya,’ begged Helenka. ‘If we give it to the police, we don’t know what might happen. The attention on us right now is bad enough. And it’s not like the police are always honest and by-the-book.’

  ‘Don’t you have family members in the police?’

  Helenka raised an eyebrow and left it at that.

  Darya had been learning all about the investigation from Helenka, who was gleaning it from news articles and family sources. Helenka had told her while Oleg continued to be the main suspect, the police were exploring other possibilities. But the municipal elections were due next month and resources were being slowly but surely diverted towards them.

  ‘And what does a vagabond tourist matter?’ Darya asked, sourly. It had surprised her at first how little coverage the case received, until Helenka guessed the reportage was being clamped down by politicians afraid it might sully Sibiu’s image; Sibiu was, after all, Romania’s tourism poster child. Also, Oleg’s name was not mentioned once; and that was owing to his dad.

  ‘But why would Oleg do it?’ Darya murmured, unable to let it go. ‘Did he come to Sibiu specifically for this? And he went back to the farmhouse to retrieve the backpack. I’m sure of it. Why? Had he realised later he’d forgotten an important piece of evidence back in the house? Did someone ask him to do it?’ She paused and added thoughtfully, making the implication clear by her tone, ‘Alina was supposed to have called him on her way to Mihai’s house.’

  ‘What? No!’ Helenka shook her head. ‘She was supposed to have gone but did not. Mihai couldn’t meet her. She was with me. She made no calls.’

  ‘In that case, could …’ Darya looked at Helenka, as something struck her ‘… Irina have called him?’

  A surprised chuckle escaped Helenka’s lips. ‘What are you saying?’ she muttered. ‘That’s impossible, too.’

  Darya’s mind was racing. It wasn’t impossible.

  Though the question remained. Why?

  ‘I hope someone has talked to Brian’s family,’ Helenka murmured.

  ‘He didn’t have one. At least not an immediate one. And the one number I have isn’t going through.’ Darya had rung Valerie’s number yet again the night before, but no one had picked up.

  ‘Let’s leave it to the police then, shall we?’ Helenka said. She sounded tired. ‘They’ll find his family. They’ll call them. They’ll do everything that needs to be done.’

  ‘They don’t seem to be doing much. They let Oleg go.’

  ‘He may not be …’

  ‘You know that can’t be right!’ Darya cried and sprang up from her bed, startling Helenka. ‘I should do something myself.’ Her resolve firmed as she repeated. ‘I should do something.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Helenka asked.

  ‘Find out why Oleg did it. What was his motive? How well did he know Brian? And how did he kill the other two? What connects all of them?’ And if Irina was involved. Or others …’

  ‘That …’ Helenka shook her head. ‘… that sounds like an impossible task. Isn’t it better left to the police? What about Ana Maria? What do you think she’d have to say to all this?’

  ‘She’d only tasked me with finding Brian,’ Darya said.

  Helenka nodded. ‘And now that you’ve found him, your job’s done.’

  Darya sat back on the bed. ‘In that case, she’ll simply have to contend with more than she asked for.’

  They stared at each other, each thinking a different thought.

  ‘Just …’ Helenka managed a faint smile and touched Darya lightly on her shoulders. ‘… Be careful,’ she said.

  Darya’s immediate task was to find the answer to three questions burning in her head: Who was Brian? Who was Oleg? And what connected the two?

  There were also other questions: Why had Brian come to Romania? What research project was he on? What had Oleg and he talked about? What had Mihai and he talked about? How well did he know Irina? If Darya asked Mihai or Irina about Brian, could they tell her something she didn’t know?

  Darya had tried asking Alina again.

  ‘What was Brian doing in Sibiu? What had you two talked about?’

  Alina had repeated w
hat she had many times before. ‘Brian was an anthropology major. He was interested in Sibiu’s history, the tie-ins between its societies and cultures. He wanted to know all about me, about Helenka, about the Rosettis. The attention felt good. He did not talk much about himself.’

  ‘He spoke to Mihai and Irina too,’ Darya said.

  ‘Perhaps Mihai knows more. But how are you going to speak to him now?’

  Mihai’s condition had deteriorated; Irina and he hadn’t come to the café in a while. The police had questioned him at his house, but Helenka told her he hadn’t had that much to tell them. No one went to the farmhouse anymore and the Rosettis had ceased its upkeep, except for a few minor additions made for Mihai’s benefit. He had been planning to sell the house anyway. Irina and he probably had as much information to give to the police as Alina and Darya had, when they were questioned.

  Which had not gone well for the police either.

  Both Darya and Alina told the police they’d known Brian as a customer in the café, nothing more. Darya knew why Alina did not want to get involved, but Darya’s reason was largely Ana-Maria, and also the scepticism she’d witnessed in the eyes of the slim, bespectacled cop who was questioning her. She was a foreigner, after all. She was not going to be taken seriously, or worse still, she might come under suspicion. Either way, it couldn’t work well for her.

  Ah, bummer.

  How could she find out more about Brian? What else did she have to go with?

  Brian Roberts—his name. She’d briefly searched for him on the internet, but while there were several social profiles registered with the same name—it was a common one—she didn’t find any that looked like his. She could try again but didn’t have much hope it’d yield something new.

  What else?

  That his mother had died in a freak skiing accident in Canada the year before.

  Darya curled up on the sofa in her living room, a giant bag of hazelnuts on her lap. Her appetite hadn’t recovered, but Helenka had left the bag behind with a clear decree to finish it before she came next.

  Opening the flap of her laptop, she put the keywords into the search engine, and hit enter.

  Keywords.

  Enter.

  More keywords.

  Enter.

  The bag of hazelnuts lay uneaten on the couch over the next hour as Darya typed, scanned through the words that came up on the dazzlingly bright screen, and made notes. She confirmed a few things she’d already known. That Brian’s mother had died in an unexpected skiing accident a year ago. Darya found online newspaper archives covering the incident. In the articles, as immediate family, apart from Brian’s mother, there was mention of only a grandmother. She’d once worked at the same hospital Brian’s mother had worked in. Darya wrote down the name of the hospital.

  A thought struck her: could Valerie be Brian’s grandmother?

  Should she try her number again? She’d tried it several times before, and each time, nada; no response. However, if Brian had written it down, there must’ve been a reason? It belonged to someone he knew; someone he was close to. He had listed it as his emergency contact, after all.

  She slid off the sofa and reached the writing desk in quick steps. Yanking open the drawer, she impatiently cast aside the array of pens and earrings and took the frayed photograph out.

  What time was it in Calgary now?

  She picked up her phone and dialled.

  Fifteen minutes later, she sat down back on the sofa, flopping her body, disappointed.

  No one had picked up. Again.

  It was a landline number; there was probably no one around to attend to it. Darya would simply have to call again another time.

  Now … what else did she have to go on with?

  The other page she’d torn out from the Lonely Planet.

  She scraped the bottom of the drawer and picked up the torn page, attempting to straighten it as best as she could, her eyes simultaneously scanning the words.

  They were a bunch of names, written one after the other, without as much as a full stop. She had to walk closer to the lamp and re-read several times to decipher Brian’s handwriting, written as if when he was drunk.

  Andrei Andrew Andre Adrian Andreea Andreda Anghel

  Rose Roseti Rosetti Rosi Rosti Rosti Rosseti Rossetti Rosetii

  Darya let out a noisy exhale.

  What the hell did this mean?

  At least one thing was clear. Brian was quite keen to learn about the Rosettis.

  When she went to Harlequin again, the manager confronted her this time.

  ‘What you want?’ he asked gruffly. His face was pale and orange, like a pumpkin out too long in the sun, and despite Darya’s sombre mood, the thought brought her a momentary smile.

  ‘What is it?’ he repeated, with narrowed eyes.

  ‘I wanted to talk to Nikki,’ Darya explained.

  ‘She’s off today.’

  ‘Can I have her phone number?’

  ‘Cannot.’

  Darya suppressed a sigh. She’d wanted to ask Nikki if she knew anything else about Oleg. About Brian. Had she overheard them talking? What had they talked about?

  ‘Do you know Oleg?’ Darya asked.

  His eyes narrowed further. ‘The man caught by police?’ he said and added emphatically, ‘Nu.’

  ‘He came here often.’

  He looked surprised that Darya seemed to know about it and replied quickly, ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘What about Brian?’ But by the expression on his face, Darya realised the name wasn’t familiar to him.

  She turned to go. Then, a thought occurred to her, and pirouetting on her feet, she faced the manager again.

  ‘How long have you been working here?’

  He had been writing something on a pad. ‘Seven,’ he replied, without looking up.

  ‘Years?’

  He straightened his back and nodded. ‘From start. Became waiter to manager.’

  ‘Do you know why it’s called Harlequin?’ Darya asked, pointing to the picture of the clown on the menu. The eye. Why had Oleg tattooed the eye on his body?

  The man went back to his pad. ‘From Biertan,’ he replied. ‘It was in church and Rosettis got idea.’ He glanced up at Darya, paused for a second, as if debating whether he should say more. Darya bobbed her head encouragingly.

  ‘Some bodies were found there. Teribil.’

  Her ears pricked up. ‘What bodies?’

  ‘Dead bodies,’ he said. ‘No one knows. Like the bodies found in Sibiu.’

  ‘In Biertan, too?’

  ‘Da.’

  ‘In a chimney?’

  ‘No, church.’

  Her spine tingled. Her heart thudded in her chest.

  That. That was the connection between Oleg and Brian. And perhaps, to more.

  She couldn’t help herself when she said next, ‘And yet, Mihai kept the name of this restaurant Harlequin?’

  He looked at Darya as if she were daft.

  ‘Arlechin is old story,’ he replied curtly. ‘No one knows why dead bodies came in church. No connection in them.’

  It had taken her a whole day to get to the church at Biertan. She’d told Alina she was unwell and needed to take the day off. Darya hadn’t wanted to tell her where she was going. The story that was forming in her head needed backing before she could talk about it.

  The change of two trains and two buses would have been exhausting, if not for the sights she saw on the way: miles of nodding corn panicles; distant looming church spires standing watch next to a cluster of higgledy-piggledy houses; rolling hillsides of poplar, beech, and flowering ash. The majestic Carpathian hills gliding along with her, keeping her company … She would’ve better appreciated this carousal of natural wonders if only she had not been so overwrought, her heart filled with misgivings.

  She knew that the tiny village church rarely opened for visitors anymore; only for weddings, funerals, and the occasional celebrity guest visit. Sometimes, desperate pleadings by tour
ists also worked; she’d read that on a blog post. She was going to try her luck.

  She’d also learnt that the local county had purchased the church from the family it had belonged to and plans were underway to rebuild it as a church of Lutheran faith. The architectural drawings were yet to be approved and converted to brick and mortar, and two local women were keeping watch until restorations began in full earnest. Now and then, when site engineers and architects visited to take measurements and pictures, the women opened the church’s doors, assisting the visitors, answering their questions.

  For a cost of 300 lei, the women agreed to let Darya inside. Also, fortunately for her, one of them spoke passable English and gave her a brief history lesson.

  The fifteenth century church of Biertan was originally built by the German Transylvanian Saxon community at a time when the area belonged to the Kingdom of Hungary. It later passed on to a wealthy local family. The church was a small structure and it took Darya less than an hour to see all of it. It was dark inside, so they had to use torches. The church was compactly constructed, dedicated to the Virgin Mary and built in Gothic style, with renaissance touches.

  The floors were dusty, and the interiors looked disused. Even so, Darya sensed the easy charm of the church: the pink sandstone walls decorated with rosettes, ogive-shaped windows, neo classical chandeliers which appeared to be the only indulgence in the otherwise modest insides. The church’s hall constituted a nave with a rib-vaulted ceiling and a twelve-panel polyptych altarpiece created by local artists. Even in its current state of disrepair, the artwork on the polyptych appeared magnificent—combining complex light effects and subtle plays of shadow—achieved through oil paint and transparent glazes. At the centre were the sculpted figures of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene, the upper panels showed visions of Ezekiel and Augustus, and the lower panels depicted a gathering of saints, sinners, clergy, and soldiers.

  Darya fingered the Bible lying on a table near the altar; its cover was ornate, wood-carved. Another beautiful mosaic adorned the wall next to it. The scene depicted on it looked familiar. Of course! She remembered the landscape from Ana-Maria’s attic. The women explained to her that replicas of the landscape along with a copy of the Bible used to be given as gifts to those who studied in the church. But while the school no longer ran, every now and then, the owners got them made for locals who requested it. ‘They kind people,’ they gushed.