‘If the doctor did it, why would he call the cops in the first place?’
‘I am not saying he did it. I am simply saying it is strange.’
‘What else?’ asked Santosh da.
‘The wife’s attitude. She called him a bastard to my face. Just straight out like that.’
‘It sounds like you are going on instinct alone,’ said DDG.
‘I wouldn’t say that.’
‘I agree,’ said Ojha. Words—any words—were unexpected from him, particularly if they contradicted DDG. ‘When it comes to murder, the police should have taken action of some sort even on the basis of the initial call from the doctor.’
‘Reema,’ said Santosh da, ‘why don’t you make some preliminary inquiries, and then we can discuss the outlook in a few days?’
I looked around at the others. I knew resources were tight, and if I suddenly asked them to cough up money I would be shot down. ‘Sure. I’ll start by visiting the doctor. And Mr Ojha, could you try to find out from your colleagues precisely why the investigation was dropped?’
He hesitated for a moment, but then nodded.
I wouldn’t have asked him to do even this much if it hadn’t been for Ravi Sharma. I didn’t want to involve Uncle Kumar in this. But without my ears and eyes inside the police, my position as an outsider posed a problem. While I had a toehold in the kidnapping of Aloka, thanks to Amit and Uncle Kumar, in the matter of the suspicious death of Prakash Agarwal, I was on shaky ground. There, the CCC network might be required to produce results.
I went back home, pondering all the way how I should proceed. First, I thought I should call Mallika to see if she could help me contact her husband. She didn’t answer the phone. Then, I considered that since the police had abandoned the matter, Mrs Agarwal might be more willing to be proactive. Perhaps I could even tell her my background and offer to ask some questions.
I picked up the phone. ‘Mrs Agarwal, this is Reema,’ I began.
‘I hope I am not disturbing you.’
‘Not at all,’ she said.
‘I just heard that the police have dropped the investigation into Mr Agarwal’s death.’
There was a long pause at the other end.
‘Mrs Agarwal?’ I said at last.
‘Yes, Reema. Thank you for the information. I suppose that settles it, then.’
‘You are satisfied that he died of natural causes?’
‘I don’t see why not. If the police feel no need to look into it, they must have good reasons.’
‘I understand that, but don’t you think—’
‘I don’t feel there is any reason to make this more than it is. I appreciate your call, and your help, Reema. Thank you very much.’
‘No problem,’ I mumbled, hanging up.
I gnawed at my bottom lip. Mrs Agarwal’s blow hot-blow cold routine might be another hindrance, but it left me even more determined than before.
I turned on my laptop and found the file that contained my work material. In it was an audio file of the Prakash Agarwal interview.
I had developed the habit early on of recording all my conversations. I had been the victim of too many people claiming that they had not said what I wrote they had said, and decided that backup was the only way to battle it. Yes, even a food writer could find herself in the midst of a war of words and retractions, fragile egos not being able to withstand the post-print heat that often resulted from stray insults traded by chefs and restaurateurs.
I hit ‘play’.
‘Sit down, beti,’ he began. All the time, I remember, staring at my breasts. It still gave me the shivers. More so because that voice now belonged to a dead man.
‘Please, have some tea,’ he said. I had called him after his name had repeatedly emerged in my conversations with restaurant owners. His company, Gourmet Express, was, in a sense, their lifeline—connecting their kitchens with those across the world. I had thought he’d make an interesting person to profile but within five minutes of entering his office, I had changed my mind.
‘I usually go in for my tea around this time but since you were coming, I decided to have it in my office instead.’
‘It is a pity your wife couldn’t join us,’ I said. I had hoped this reminder of his marital status would help him focus his eyes on a more appropriate part of my body.
To no avail. ‘She is busy.’
I could hear the sound of my teacup hitting the saucer with a little more force than necessary. ‘How did you get started in this business?’
I listened to his raspy breathing, and the tinkling as the snuff box he was fiddling with brown-stained fingers hit the metal frame of his chair. ‘It was about ten years ago. We started by importing one particular brand of chocolates from a supplier who had his regional office in Hong Kong. Then, when they branched out into other products, so did we. They are still our partners.’
‘Which items move the fastest?’ I asked.
‘Italian ingredients do well: dried herbs, pasta, olive oil, vinegar. Then the cheeses and processed meat have great demand.’
He continued to give details about their most successful offerings. ‘Japanese and Lebanese ingredients are also doing well these days.’
‘You also supply to a few of the city’s best bakeries.’
‘Yes. Flours, flavours, colours, chocolate. You women must always have your chocolate, after all,’ he said, breaking out in a raspy, paan masala-stained laugh. I remember the force with which it had struck me at that point that even a relatively good-looking face could be rendered hideous by an expression.
‘When you started out, you were the only one doing this sort of work. Now there is competition.’
‘All the others in Calcutta are small-time operators and charge huge sums for such small, small quantities. No one covers as many products as I do, so every restaurant serving Western food has to come to me, at some point. I take care of all their everything.’
‘Any plans of expanding your business?’
‘Not in the existing form, but we are working on a revolutionary concept.’ He had said the word ‘revolutionary’ to rhyme with ‘mercenary’. ‘And what is that?’ I asked.
Here he had edged forward in his seat, bending towards me conspiratorially, finally addressing my face. ‘A gourmet spice chain to be started in Hong Kong through our partner, and then to be taken across the world! Stores stocking the finest Indian spices, with packaging and service to match. It doesn’t exist anywhere, I am sure. All spice merchants sell cheap plastic bags filled with the best of Indian spices. It is a problem.’
‘It is?’
‘Yes. Many people are now interested in cooking Indian food, but they have no idea what they are doing. Even so many young Indians, like you, living abroad and without their cooks for the first time! We will help them!’
I remember fighting the feeling that his words made sense. That a man such as Prakash Agarwal could actually have vision is not something I had been prepared for. ‘How will your products be different from those already available in global gourmet supermarkets?’
‘The variety and authenticity of the spices. The freshness. We will sell in small quantities, in combinations required to make particular dishes, so the spices do not sit on a damp kitchen counter somewhere getting spoiled. Indian curries, not British ones. It is time to remind the world where curry is from!’
‘How will you be marketing this?’
‘We will make convenient packs with a booklet on how to use them, with recipes. It will be linked to a website, which will have some more recipes as well as videos. We will sell spice kits—not only pre-ground masala, which have a shorter shelf life, but also the whole masalas that consumers can grind on their own with clear instructions. And then there will be high-quality premium products such as saffron and vanilla. And morels, too. And items that Indian homes abroad often miss—kasuri methi, sattu, besan, posto. You Bengalis must always have your posto.’ Then that laugh again.
There was a
pause as Agarwal left his desk to walk over to the cupboard. I could hear the sound of his footsteps on the tile floor of his office, and the gentle creak of the cupboard opening. Footsteps again and then a soft thud. He had put a cardboard box on his desk containing the prototypes of his packaging. I had found myself even more impressed. And then there was the dal starter kit—with different kinds of dals and pouches of the masalas needed to make them with complete directions. Similarly, pulao.
‘In select stores in premium locations, we will also have fresh and frozen produce. But that will depend on the franchisees.’
It was simple and elegant. No salt or oil had been added, so you could be as healthy or not as you desired. I could see myself using such products—a happy compromise between time-consuming preparation of from-scratch cooking which required a fully stocked pantry of spices you might use only once before they took on the charming aroma of dirt, and the guilt of greasy, sodium laden pre-packaged meals and takeout.
I closed the audio file. What I re-heard didn’t seem to provide any additional insight, really. I already knew that Agarwal was an unpleasant man, but a good businessman. That he was slimy in some respects yet slick in others. But still no motive came to me.
So I would have to go searching for it.
I rifled through my drawer to find the notes from my interviews with various members of the culinary community who I thought might give me a better sense of the man and his universe. Flipping through pages of my hurried, near illegible squiggle proved more time consuming than informative but finally I reached a name I thought might be helpful: Manoj Chakravarty, owner of Taste of Punjab. Not my favourite restaurant in town, but Chakravarty was an enthusiastic talker and if I remembered correctly, he had also had a brief tryst in the spice trade.
I gave him a call. ‘Mr Chakravarty? This is Reema Ray,’ I said tentatively.
‘Oh yes, beti! How are you?’
‘I have been fine, Mr Chakravarty. And you?’
‘Very well, very well,’ he replied. ‘I saw you at Mr Agarwal’s house the other day but before I could say anything, you had gone inside. Very sad, very sad.’
I leapt at the opening. ‘Mr Chakravarty, in fact that is why I was calling you. I wondered if you might be able to answer a few questions I had about Mr Agarwal.’
He paused. ‘Questions?’
‘Yes, for an article I am working on.’ I dared not say anything more as he seemed to ponder my query. I could picture him frowning, his lips pursed, duckbill-like, in concentration.
‘Why don’t you come over to the restaurant?’ he said at last.
‘Right now?’ I asked, looking at my watch.
‘I don’t trust cellphones, you see. Embedded technology.’ With that somewhat cryptic remark, Mr Chakravarty hung up.
Taste of Punjab was the unimaginative sort of establishment that dotted the Calcutta food scene. North Indian staples that held no surprises, served in a kitschy dining room. If the fare at Taste of Punjab had been a colour, it would be food-dye red.
The smell of cheap booze, old oil and pickle rushed at me as I opened the glass door. Mr Chakravarty came forward with a smile, his face as impish as his body was round. It was almost a wonder that he did not keel over when he stood up, for his barrel-shaped torso seemed an impossible weight for his spindly legs to support. But remarkably, he usually stayed upright, and did so again as I walked in, rushing forth with quick, short steps that would do a dancer proud.
He put one chubby hand on my shoulder and stuck the other out towards me. Then, mid-handshake, he seemed to think it a rather inappropriate greeting and tried to get both his ample arms around me as I stood there rather awkwardly.
‘How are you, beti? You have become so thin! Aren’t you getting enough to eat?’
I had shed a kilo or two since I saw him last—I better have, for all those hours I had been busting my gut kickboxing. But I could hardly be considered too thin. ‘I eat all day, Mr Chakravarty. That is my job!’
‘True, true. Then you must have worms.’
Before I could even sit down, a liveried waiter arrived with a tall steel tumbler full of lassi, a thick layer of malai floating on top. I took a sip. Too sweet, but otherwise quite pleasant.
‘Very nice,’ I said, smiling at my host across the table.
He nodded. ‘Namkeen lao,’ he told the waiter. ‘Just you taste it, Reema beti. Made from shudh ghee.’
The waiter returned in a moment with a bowl of bhujia and another of nimki. They were both superb. ‘Why don’t you sell this? They are fantastic!’
‘I will, I will. I plan to start export also. And now with Agarwal dead, I may actually have a chance.’
I squirmed in my seat. Mr Chakravarty, however, seemed without any sort of discomfort till he saw my face.
‘This business, very sad, very sad,’ he mumbled.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘But I have to say, someone up above,’ he said, pointing a porky fistful of nimki towards the heavens, ‘saw his bad deeds and decided to put an end to it.’
I tried to keep the new wave of shock from my face. ‘You and he … were you not friends?’
Crumbs flew out of Mr Chakravarty’s mouth at the strength of his scoff. ‘Friends? With that badmaash? Never.’
‘Why? What has he done?’
‘What has he done? What hasn’t he done!’ Mr Chakravarty’s Pekinese eyes seemed ready to pop out of his face. ‘Because you are like my daughter, let me tell you. Agarwal was a cheat, a crook and a liar. A liar, I tell you!’
Mr Chakravarty stuffed the nimki into his mouth. ‘Before, I had a small side business supplying imported foods to restaurants. He saw my business and decided that this was what he wanted to do. He told me his family was spice trader in New Market and he wanted to continue the family tradition in modern way. All lies to play on my sentiments, you see. I have people there, too. I found out his family is cloth trader, and at that too they had failed.
‘But this man came here, and I don’t know how he did it, that shaitaan, he brought in products from Hong Kong and started selling them much cheaper! Can you imagine what that did to my business? Thankfully I had restaurant otherwise what I would do I don’t know.’
I was puzzled. ‘How did he undercut you so much?’
‘I don’t know! Just to steal my customers I think he paid from his own pocket. His products must have been bad, maybe past sell-by date. Or cheaper brands. And these people also, I tell you, they will take anything from anyone as long as it is cheap!’ Mr Chakravarty lunged at his own glass of lassi and tossed it back.
‘And then,’ he continued, wiping a hand across his mouth, ‘when he started raising prices, he still made it a point to keep all rates a little lower than mine. Within three months, I shut down. There was no point continuing to incur loss.’
‘So all of the restaurants in town serving foreign cuisine sourced from Mr Agarwal?’
‘All the big ones. Apart from Mallika Mitra, I believe.’
‘Oh?’ Though I knew this already, I wanted to hear what he had to say. ‘Do you know why?’
‘No, but what I do know is that they were not on good terms. I saw them come face to face at a food festival once a few years ago, and Mallika looked like she had seen a ghost.’
‘And then?’
‘Then what? She walked away and I tried to get her some food. It would make her feel better.’
‘What about him? How did he react?’
‘He seemed fine, smiling and all. But then his missus called him away.’
Mr Chakravarty would not let me go without feeding me a full-on meal. But he also steered clear of saying anything more about Agarwal. When I left his restaurant, I knew little more than when I had walked in—except for the fact that the dead man seemed to be universally disliked. And that perhaps Mallika Mitra knew him a little better than she had admitted to me.
But while Mr Chakravarty may have hated Agarwal enough to not bother to edit his ire despite the
tragic turn of events, I didn’t think he had motive enough to sneak into his home and poison him.
What I needed now was some evidence. Rusty though I was—and utterly inexperienced at investigating anything at the scale of murder—I knew I had to have far more real information and less hearsay if I was going to scratch even the surface of this business.
eleven
Motive, means and method.
In theory, I knew how to solve a murder. In practice, I had never come close, never even had the chance.
So that left me with book knowledge, and gut instinct. My biggest problem was that, usually in a murder investigation, there was something to start with—most often, the means. How was the murder committed: bullet, sharp object, violent beating, poison. In this case, I had only the doctor’s original statement, since retracted, to go by that the victim died under suspicious circumstances.
Assumption #1: Dr Mitra’s initial assessment was the correct one. Without a body or a post-mortem report, I was still working blind.
Assumption #2: Death was delivered via poison.
Without knowing either of these things for sure, it seemed unlikely that I would first be able to uncover how Agarwal’s life ended. I would have an easier time, I felt, trying to discover why.
Which brought me back to Rule #4 of the Pastry Principle: Nothing is ever as simple as it seems.
Day Two of my (unofficial) investigation, first stop: Calcutta Medical Centre. I stood outside for longer than I’d like to admit. I had an appointment with Dr Mitra, but it had been obtained through borderline fraudulent means. I had got the number of the hospital public relations officer and had told her that Face was doing a piece on cardiac health. I had called to set up an appointment, and the doctor asked me to come over immediately as his schedule was packed for the next two weeks.
If he knew of my connection with his wife, I could not tell from his reaction. It was possible Mallika had not mentioned me, and I was happy not to have to bring it up.
Now came the hard part. I would have no choice but to lie to his face. This was not my strong point, but I could see no way around it, so I squared my shoulders and went into the building, navigating my way through disinfectant-scented hallways to his office.
The Masala Murder: Reema Ray Mysteries Page 9
