The Masala Murder: Reema Ray Mysteries

by Madhumita Bhattacharyya

  ‘What about the people she was with?’

  ‘Two of her oldest friends—neighbours she has grown up with, all equally affluent.’

  I swallowed my pride to ask the next question. ‘When I called you…’

  ‘It had already happened, but the friends hadn’t bothered to call me—they first contacted Aloka’s parents. There I was, thinking Aloka was at dinner with her mother, and then safely

  home. I only found out when I returned at about 3am that she hadn’t made it back.’

  ‘Where were you so late?’

  Again, a pause. ‘I work for a newspaper now and had the night shift.’

  I barely hid my surprise. Amit hated the media with a vengeance long before it became fashionable to do so. Writers like him, he believed, were reduced to whores in the incessant hunt for stories. Aloka’s father must really have worked his influence to reduce him to this.

  I still didn’t see how I fit in. ‘Amit, I’m sorry, but—’

  ‘Please!’ Amit exclaimed, finally showing some emotion. ‘You know how difficult it was for me to come to you. I can’t take back what I did to you, but I also wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t do everything in my power to bring Aloka back to safety.’

  Amit’s anguish filled the room, and I struggled to breathe. I was torn between doing what my head told me—which was to help—and what my heart demanded—which was to run away as fast as I could. This was the man I had once loved and trusted. This was the man who had left me devastated with his lies.

  I walked over to the window and opened it, hoping the cigarette smoke would vacate the room and leave me some breathing space. On the street, a boy and girl walked hand in hand down the road in school uniform. A coaching centre occupied the house beside me, and young people left at all hours. I had known Amit—and Aloka, for that matter—since we had been much younger than that boy and girl. And it was for those three children—and not the adults they had become—that I made my decision.

  But if Amit was right and Aloka’s father was behind this madness, it wasn’t Aloka who was in any danger, it was Amit. There was no telling how far Kishan Mohta would go to make his point.

  ‘Give me a few hours to think,’ I said. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow morning to tell you how to proceed.’

  Amit nodded curtly. ‘I should admit straight out that I have no money to give you.’

  ‘I wouldn’t take your money.’

  ‘What do you want me to do in the meantime?’

  ‘Let me know if there is any news.’

  ‘How do I get news?’

  ‘Stay in touch with Aloka’s friends who are close to the family.

  And keep an eye on the television.’

  eight

  As soon as I showed Amit out, I dialled Uncle Kumar’s number.

  ‘Hi, Uncle Kumar!’ I said, happy to hear his voice.

  ‘Reema, hell-o dear! To what do I owe this pleasure?’

  I loved to hear him speak. Uncle Kumar had been fantastic on stage, that deep booming baritone of his filling every inch of the auditorium with his clipped Queen’s English. It was he who had introduced my father—one of his oldest friends—to my mother, an actress in a play he was in. The friendships had survived though my parents’ marriage had not.

  ‘Oh, you know me, always poking my nose where it shouldn’t be.’

  ‘Does it smell foul?’

  ‘Acutely.’

  ‘And what can I do to alleviate your suffering, my dear?’

  ‘The kidnapping of Aloka Mohta. You know who she is, don’t you?’

  ‘Kishan Mohta’s daughter.’

  ‘I don’t mean in that way.’

  ‘In which way, then?’

  ‘Do you remember Amit?’ A purely rhetorical question, as my parents’ closest friend had met my ex-boyfriend numerous times. Lunches, dinners, weddings—Amit had been a fixture on the family scene for years. After it all ended, Uncle Kumar had even threatened to have him picked up and taught a lesson in the lock-up. All talk, of course, but I couldn’t say it hadn’t helped at the time.

  ‘That ragamuffin you once called boyfriend?’

  ‘That’s the one. Aloka is his wife.’

  ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘He came to me, and all I could think of was calling you.’

  ‘You are thinking about helping that scoundrel?’

  ‘Yes, Uncle Kumar. It would be rather spiteful if I didn’t.’

  ‘Then you have a more forgiving heart than I.’

  ‘Uncle Kumar! Please!’

  ‘Okay, okay. What can I do for you?’

  ‘I think I need to explain the situation face to face. As far as I know, they have been given three days to produce the ransom money.’

  ‘That was rather generous.’

  ‘But Amit may be in danger too.’

  ‘All the better, I say.’

  ‘Uncle Kumar!’

  ‘Oh well. Why don’t you come over tomorrow morning around ten with the nincompoop. But be sure to leave him outside. I might smack him if I see him.’

  I hung up, my head reeling. Suddenly there were not one but two cases on my plate. Maybe, all this while, I had been trying too hard. Maybe, if I had just sat still for long enough, the mysteries would have come to me.

  Less than twelve hours later, I was sitting in the same chair I had sat in as Uncle Kumar disabused me of every childish notion I had regarding the life of a policeman. I repeated to him in detail the story I had heard from Amit the previous night.

  Uncle Kumar heard me out in silence. When I finished, he spoke at last. ‘How do you expect me to get involved on the strength of this theory?’ he asked.

  ‘I honestly don’t know, Uncle Kumar. But I had to do something and coming to you was the only thing I could think of.’

  ‘Do you believe him?’

  ‘He seems so lost, so desperate.’

  ‘That doesn’t answer my question.’

  I shook my head. ‘No, I guess it doesn’t.’

  Uncle Kumar wasn’t about to cut me any slack—he had me squirming in my chair with the unforgiving intensity of his gaze.

  ‘Yes,’ I said at last. ‘I guess I do believe him.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ he said with a gentle smile. ‘But you’ll forgive me if I reserve judgement till I have seen the scoundrel myself.’

  Amit had been waiting outside the police station, and I texted him summons. As he walked in, sweat on his brow yet shoulders squared in the face of Uncle Kumar’s evident hostility, I knew that I had been right to put my resentment aside. This was the first man I had fallen in love with, fighting to save the love of his life, and who would I be if I punished him at a time like this?

  ‘You think the police and your father-in-law are partners in crime?’ Uncle Kumar began. He had never been one for chitchat.

  ‘Yes,’ Amit said, falling right in with the pace.

  ‘Why should I believe you?’

  ‘Because if it wasn’t true, if I did what they say I have, why would I come to a cop?’

  ‘Reema brought you to me as a friend, though I fail to understand why. She knows I’m hardly going to arrest you under the circumstances, much as I’d love to.’

  ‘Even so, a guilty man would run a mile from a uniform. What do I have to gain from this sort of exposure?’

  ‘Who knows? I’ve seen my share of stupid criminals.’

  ‘And you believe I am fool enough to come to a woman who has every reason to hate me for help?’

  I kept my eyes glued to Uncle Kumar’s unsmiling face, surprised by how much pain I felt at this statement.

  ‘Explain the situation, as you see it,’ Uncle Kumar said. ‘Why would a man go to such lengths just to break up his daughter’s marriage?’

  ‘Because he has tried just about everything else. In the time we’ve been married he has had us threatened, chucked out of jobs, followed, spied on, separated. He’s even had me beaten up on one occasion. And he has just discovered th
at we are planning to leave town, to go to Delhi, and he’s afraid that he has finally lost his daughter to me for good.’

  ‘One might say that he’d lost her the day you two married against his wishes.’

  ‘Then you don’t know Kishan Mohta. There is nothing he hates more than not getting his way, and his child disobeying him in such an important decision—marrying someone so wrong, so beneath her—went against everything he believed. His determination to separate us only seemed to grow stronger after we got married.’

  ‘But to put his own daughter in danger?’

  ‘She isn’t in any real danger, is she? Whoever has her will ensure that she is afraid, but not at serious risk.’

  ‘I find it difficult to believe a father would put his daughter through the torment.’

  ‘Don’t honour killings happen all the time in our country? Isn’t that proof enough that parents are sometimes capable of causing the greatest possible harm to their children when they act against the family’s wishes?’

  I could see that Uncle Kumar was moved by this last statement.

  What seemed beyond the pale in the air-conditioned comfort of a Park Street office—a father teaching a daughter to toe the family line at dear cost—was all too believable in a different context. Who was to say Aloka’s father was above it?

  ‘How do you suppose it happened?’

  ‘Kishan Mohta must have found out where Aloka would be from her mother and ensured the family car that was supposed to pick her up after the movie never arrived. He hired someone—maybe one of the goons he employs in his factory—to stage the abduction. He probably has her stashed away somewhere, perfectly safe and, I hope, only slightly uncomfortable. And he will be making sure that whoever is in contact with her has left her in no doubt that I am behind the whole thing. In a few days—long enough to ensure she is done with me forever—he will make it look like the ransom has been paid and she will be released. He will win, I will lose and perhaps even get locked up as an added bonus.’

  ‘Sounds a little far-fetched.’ said Uncle Kumar, raising a sceptical eyebrow.

  Amit shrugged. ‘Yes, of course. It’s crazy. But no more so than his accusations against me that I have kidnapped my own wife, and those seem perfectly believable to the police. The only difference is the alleged ends—mine, apparently, is cash; his, revenge.’

  ‘If Kishan Mohta is behind this, what are you really afraid of? Your wife is safe and will be released soon. If they have tried to poison her mind against you, she may not believe them.’

  For a moment, Amit was at a loss for words. ‘That is true,’ he said deliberately. ‘But if he manages to sell the story that I am behind it, what will become of me?’

  Uncle Kumar narrowed his eyes ever so slightly before turning to me and back to Amit. ‘You may leave now,’ he said abruptly.

  Amit stood up, and I followed suit.

  ‘No, Reema, you please stay. Amit, give us a few moments alone, please.’

  I watched Uncle Kumar follow Amit’s retreating body with his eyes. I heard the door close as Amit let himself out.

  ‘Are you sure about this fellow?’

  ‘What they are accusing him of is ludicrous. And it is true, why would he agree to come to you if he was guilty?’

  ‘I’d have an easier time believing he was capable of such clear thinking had he not left you for another, decidedly richer woman,’ he said.

  ‘Uncle Kumar, you’d hate anyone who hurt me.’

  ‘And with good reason. He’d have to be very greedy—or insane—to leave my Reema for that insipid waif of a woman.’

  ‘Uncle Kumar!’ I admonished, though perhaps my outrage would have been more authentic had I not thought the same thing on many an occasion.

  ‘It’s true, I’ve seen the pictures,’ said Uncle Kumar, tapping his pen against his desk. ‘The whole business stinks, if you ask me. But I have to say that I am inclined to believe him. The entire unit dealing with the case is a particularly unpleasant lot. And a businessman of Mohta’s calibre would have plenty of influence.’

  ‘Who is in charge?’ I asked.

  ‘Unfortunately, it is my old friend Ravi Sharma.’

  ‘Oh no!’ Sharma and Uncle Kumar’s fallout had been very public. Though they had once been friends, the origin of their mutual dislike was a murky matter, and one I had never really spoken to him about. ‘I don’t want you to have to ask him for a favour.’

  ‘Don’t worry, child. No favours will be asked for at this juncture.’

  ‘But you’ll look into it?’

  Uncle Kumar nodded. ‘I will make a few calls. I can’t promise any more at the moment.’

  I walked out to find Amit standing outside the main door of the station smoking a cigarette. Even now, it seemed like he couldn’t work up the energy to be palpably anxious.

  ‘He said he’d make some calls,’ I said.

  He closed his eyes for a fraction longer than a blink, the only indication he was pleased with the outcome. ‘Thank you, Reema.’

  ‘Let’s go to your place now.’

  ‘Why?’ he asked, throwing his cigarette down and killing it with his heel.

  ‘I want to look around, see if I can find anything.’

  ‘Like what? Aloka was taken from the street. Why would there be any clues in our home?’

  His discomfort was clear, but I wouldn’t budge. Even if I couldn’t find anything, I needed a sense of the place, of their life together, to understand something of what was going on here.

  We took the Metro into the bowels of north Calcutta and trudged into a building that made my old office premises look like Victoria Memorial. An old wooden staircase was disintegrating. A paintbrush had not touched the walls in years and cobwebs hung from the corners like party streamers. We climbed three treacherous flights up, which felt like six. The lift, of course, was out of order. Permanently so.

  Once inside the massive wooden door, I was shocked to see how small Amit and Aloka’s flat was. It was one big room. The living area had a little cupboard to one side with a small one-burner stove on top of it, the wall above it stained with trails of oil and masala and sprays of dal from an angry pressure cooker. Four wicker chairs were arranged around a small glass-topped table, which evidently served as both dining area and living room. At the far end was an old wooden bed big enough for four, with a lumpy mattress. A dated TV stood on a small stool at its foot. One corner was walled off and had a cheap PVC door, which I assumed was the bathroom. On the faded turquoise walls, the only embellishments were a Bengali calendar three years old pasted to the wall and a creeping pattern of mould that seemed to have been making itself at home at least as long.

  ‘The landlord’s stuff,’ Amit mumbled.

  He hadn’t been exaggerating the depths to which Aloka’s father had plunged them. I knew that Amit’s own family hardly had the resources to be of much help, so the two of them would have been on their own. And if Mohta had done his best to keep them out of gainful employment, it was no surprise they lived so sparsely.

  I looked through the shelves to one side. T. S. Elliot. William Blake. Tagore. Rumi. Amit’s books, worn with use.

  ‘What does Aloka do?’ I realized I knew next to nothing about her.

  ‘She worked at a bank till about a year ago, when she was asked to leave for no apparent reason.’

  ‘Her father?’

  ‘We think so. Since then, she has been doing some work for a friend who is a fashion designer.’

  ‘And when did you start working with a newspaper?’

  ‘A couple of months ago. I had been working with a small, independent publishing house, but after Aloka lost her bank job, I needed to make more money.’

  ‘Your father-in-law hasn’t orchestrated your sacking yet?’

  ‘It’s not like he hasn’t tried. Lucky for me, my boss doesn’t take kindly to his interference in HR matters.’

  ‘You’ve had a rough time of it.’

  ‘Even more so becau
se we need to support my mother as well.’

  ‘Could I ask why you don’t just live with her?’ I had been to the house Amit grew up in and, while it was small, Amit and Aloka would surely be more comfortable there then they were here.

  For once, my question seemed to give Amit pause.

  ‘Sorry if that’s a personal question.’

  ‘No, it’s just that my mother didn’t take very well to Aloka in the early days. It’s better now, but it would be a little uncomfortable for Aloka, for us, to stay there.’

  A picture of their marriage—lonely, verging on desperate—was emerging and, despite myself, some of the resentment I had been clinging to was slipping away.

  nine

  I got home and started work on the Middle Kingdom piece for the magazine, with a self-imposed deadline of tomorrow. If I had any additional questions, I could ask later that night at Mallika’s house when I went for the promised dinner. I also hoped to get a chance to speak to Agarwal’s doctor, if he did in fact turn out to be Mallika’s husband.

  I started typing out facts and quotes. But when it came to framing my thoughts for the actual writing, I was all over the place. Mallika Mitra’s restaurant. Her attempt to reveal a Chinese cuisine that India seldom got to taste. Her insistence that she knew nothing about Prakash Agarwal’s business. Her attack of nerves on learning he was dead.

  I finally cobbled together a rough draft at around 6 pm. Then I checked in with Amit: there had been no further developments, no further contact, as far as he knew, from the men who had Aloka. There was nothing else I could do for the moment, so I spent a little more time than usual getting ready, and arrived at Mallika’s place shortly after 7.30 pm.

  She lived in an apartment above Middle Kingdom and I had expected it to be small and noisy, but it was neither. Her home was, in fact, as cosy as her restaurant. Large windows overlooked the Lakes and city lights twinkled in the distance. It could have been a scene straight out of a home improvement catalogue, with every throw pillow in place, the coffee table stacked with lusciously illustrated volumes, textures carefully put together for a luxurious feel.