Jackpot Jetty

by Marissa de Luna

  ‘But Arthur, look inside the boat. The man was a drunk. He was always going off. Talika tried to keep it quiet, but the man was a true bevda, a total drunk! It was bound to happen sooner or later.’

  Chupplejeep had already looked into the boat, which was why he had come to the conclusion of a suspicious death. Dilip was right: two empty bottles of Old Monk rum rolled around on the floor of the wooden vessel as it rocked, but they could have easily been placed there by someone post-mortem. It was the clues on the body that made Chupplejeep suspect murder.

  ‘You’re a detective; you think everything is suspicious,’ Dilip said.

  But this wasn’t just Chupplejeep being suspicious by nature. Jackpot had a bandana wrapped around his neck, but it wasn’t fully in place, and he could see that there were two dark marks – a sure sign of strangulation.

  A gunshot to the heart or the head, a stab to a main artery were easy ways to murder. But in his experience, the killers that chose strangulation were a force to be reckoned with. Maybe more spontaneous than someone prepared with a gun or a knife, but nevertheless just as coldblooded as any killer out there. After all, they watched their victims as the life slowly drained out of them. That flesh-to-flesh connection was something that took strength to do, not just physically, but mentally as well.

  He walked over to the boat, took out his smartphone and started taking photos of the victim and the wooden vessel. As he did so, he noticed something that didn’t quite fit with the scene. He took a closer look.

  Wedged in between two of the boat’s wooden panels was a black cord. Attached to it was a pink stone. Chupplejeep took a photo of it and slipped his phone back into his pocket.

  ‘Did Jackpot ever wear any jewellery?’ he asked.

  Dilip laughed. ‘What, you’re mad a-what? Jackpot wore a lengha and a singlet his whole life. Jewellery, bah! He wouldn’t know what jewellery was.’

  ‘Interesting,’ Chupplejeep said, twisting one end of his moustache. ‘Very interesting indeed.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  On Chupplejeep’s insistence, the police were eventually called, and when they arrived, he could see why the locals were reluctant to get them involved.

  The detective sent to investigate was lazy, refusing to see the suspicious elements of the case. And his pathologist! Kulkarni would have proclaimed this forensic pathologist as useless as a village snake charmer.

  ‘Tcheh, it’s clear what happened here,’ Detective Vivek Kumar whispered to Chupplejeep after they had cleared the crowds and coaxed Talika back to her home. A sub-officer was collecting evidence haphazardly, failing to put markers in the correct positions where various items were collected. Chupplejeep held his tongue as one of the sub-officers fell into the boat as be bent down to pick up the rum bottles. Now the evidence in the boat would truly be contaminated. Trace evidence transferred from the sub-officer’s clothes to the boat would be mixed up with what was already in the boat, making it impossible to differentiate between the two. Chupplejeep used all his willpower to resist the urge to pull the sub-officer up by his collar and give him a good dressing-down. This was not his crime scene. This was not his case.

  ‘Ranjit Bhobe, aka Jackpot, was a known drunk. His sin and depravity has led to his ultimate end,’ Detective Kumar said.

  ‘Sin and depravity?’ Chupplejeep asked incredulously. ‘Are you serious?’ Chupplejeep had more than twenty years of experience in the police force. He had seen all sorts of incompetence, but this was something else. This fellow who called himself a detective was judging the case before he had even examined the evidence.

  ‘It is a sin to take alcohol in such large quantities. The gods do not approve of this.’

  Had this man been living under a rock?

  ‘But the evidence must be looked at carefully,’ Chupplejeep said. ‘Examined properly, before a decision is made.’

  ‘Heart attack induced by alcohol, na?’ Detective Kumar said to the pathologist, ignoring Chupplejeep.

  The pathologist, a young man, was nodding in agreement with whatever Kumar said.

  ‘But what about those marks?’ Chupplejeep said, pointing to the victim’s neck. ‘What do those tell you?’

  Detective Kumar folded his arms across his chest and looked at his watch.

  ‘Do you need to be somewhere else?’

  Kumar shook his head. ‘Oh no, no. I’m at work, na.’

  ‘Yes, that’s correct,’ Chupplejeep said pointedly.

  ‘But I do have my retirement coming up soon, and we are preparing a celebration,’ Detective Kumar said with a smile.

  ‘How soon is soon?’

  ‘At the end of the month. You know how it is. You start something new and you get caught up in it.’

  ‘You have a replacement? Some handover time, maybe?’ Chupplejeep asked, hoping someone with a bit more skill and competence would take charge. As he was thinking this, he heard a rustling in the bushes behind them. Both detectives looked towards where the noise was coming from. At this time of year, it was so hot that the leaves on most of the trees and shrubs had dried up and fallen to the ground. It was therefore almost impossible for someone to sneak up or hide, especially in a bush.

  Detective Kumar stayed motionless, but Chupplejeep started towards the noise. Was a witness lurking in the bushes? Was someone watching them, listening to what they were saying? Suddenly a brown lizard darted out of the bushes, making Chupplejeep jump backwards, before it scuttled up a tree. A shiver ran down his spine, and he shook his shoulders.

  Kumar laughed, then he shrugged. ‘They haven’t found someone to replace me yet. It’s such a sleepy village. Nothing ever happens. Who would want to come here, unless there is a local fellow who wants the job, and there are none.’

  ‘None?’

  ‘None of my calibre.’

  Now Chupplejeep stifled a laugh.

  ‘In my experience, there have never been any murders here.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. So why would there be one now? Not possible. And just before I go? Really, it’s too much of a coincidence. The examiner will confirm it’s a heart attack.’

  Chupplejeep couldn’t quite follow Kumar’s logic. ‘Murder doesn’t work like that.’

  ‘And you are on holiday, na. Why are you taking so much tension?’

  Kumar was right. He was on holiday, and this wasn’t his business. But as a detective with sights on a superintendent position, it was his duty to make sure this death was looked into for what it was and not let it get swept under the carpet because Kumar was too indolent to care. And regardless of his potential promotion, Chupplejeep wouldn’t be able to sleep at night knowing that Jackpot’s murder was being overlooked. Poor Jackpot would be known as the fellow who killed himself through excessive drinking, and then what about his poor wife? That verdict wouldn’t do her any favours either. Chupplejeep couldn’t remember seeing her when he came here on holiday all those years ago, but back then he hadn’t really paid attention to the grown-ups.

  ‘Who is the inspector general of this area? It’s not Gosht, is it?’ he asked.

  ‘Why do you want to know?’

  Chupplejeep looked at the body as the men from the coroner’s office zipped up Jackpot’s body in a black bag. ‘You know, an autopsy would be essential in a case like this – a sudden and unexpected death. It would provide such relief for Jackpot’s wife – to know what happened to her husband.’

  Kumar crossed his arms over his chest again. ‘Tcheh.’

  ‘You’ll organise it.’

  ‘If the wife agrees to us cutting open her poor dead husband, then yes. But the poor woman has been through enough already. I doubt she’ll give consent.’

  ‘But you’ll ask?’

  Kumar looked at the sub-officer, who was looking gormlessly at a crow drinking water at the edge of the lake. ‘You heard him,’ Kumar begrudgingly barked at the sub-officer. ‘Go and ask Mrs Bhobe for permission to do an autopsy.’

  The sub-officer looked st
artled but seemed to understand and ran off in the direction of the Bhobes’ house. Kumar looked back at Chupplejeep and picked his teeth. ‘It’s not Gosht over here. He’s not our inspector general.’

  ‘So who is?’

  Kumar uncrossed his arms and laughed. ‘Watch out for those lizards; they are particularly rampant at this time of year,’ he said before turning and walking away.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Christabel pulled the old rocking chair out onto the veranda and retrieved a package from her handbag. She opened the newspaper parcel to reveal six onion bhajjis, which she had purchased from a hawker on the way. She popped one into her mouth and made a face. They were a little dry and over-spiced, and would have benefitted from some mint chutney, but she strongly doubted that this hut would have any, and now that she was seated with a beautiful view of the lake, she really didn’t feel like getting up to look around.

  She finished chewing, swallowed her first bhajji and then quickly popped the second one into her mouth. The setting may have been peaceful, but she was certainly not feeling serene. As she chewed the third bhajji, she wondered two things. Firstly, where was Arthur? He had asked, no, begged her to come to this place so that he could make it up to her, and here she was, but he was nowhere to be found. It was as if he came, saw the state of the house and left. If he thought she was going to play the good housewife and clean it up for him, he had another think coming. Fair enough, if she had the title of housewife, but she did not! And that was the second thing that had been playing on her mind.

  ‘How can you go back to that man?’ her mother had asked as she left the house this afternoon. ‘After all that he did to you. I don’t know why you are even speaking to him.’ She had ignored her mother, as she usually did these days, but on the bus ride here, she had time to think. Why was she here? The one thing she had wanted her whole life was marriage, and Arthur Chupplejeep hadn’t given her that. Instead, he had called the wedding off just weeks before the big day, and still she stayed. Okay, so he had some commitment issues, she had known about those, and perhaps she had pushed him too far when the guest list went beyond the agreed five hundred. And maybe it was just too much, surprising him with his long-lost parents who had abandoned him as a child, especially as he had thought they were dead. The cockroach in the paella hadn’t been the only surprise that day at their lunch at Sombrero. But who knew he would react that way. She had only been trying to help when she tracked them down.

  After Arthur had called the wedding off, they had a show to put on. There was no way that Christabel was going to tell their guests the real reason for calling off the wedding. As it is, gossip was a little dry during February, and she knew most of her guests would pounce on her misery had she told them the truth. In Goa, the only thing better than a good wedding was a good breakup. They told the guests that Arthur was sick – some rare form of malaria that had made him too sick to participate in a wedding. People may have accepted it, but Christabel knew a lot of whispering must have gone on behind closed doors. Especially as Arthur maintained his rotund belly and only agreed to be housebound for three days throughout his apparent sickness.

  The only people who knew the truth were her mother, Pankaj and her good friend, Lisa. Of course, she had sulked and nagged Arthur for this palaver. She had to make him refuse visitors whilst he was faking his illness, as it was impossible for her to force him to lie to people. ‘I can’t lie,’ he had protested. ‘I’m a detective. I abhor liars.’ Instead, she had to spread the lie. But now that she thought about it, she wondered if Arthur had told people the truth, or some skewed version of it, behind her back. Christabel shook her head at the thought. That would make her out to be an even bigger liar. Her annoyance with him was starting to flare up again, like a stubborn pimple.

  She blamed Arthur for her being single with yet another birthday approaching – the penultimate birthday, before her thirties would soon be left behind. Her thirties were supposed to be filled with marital bliss and babygrows, not failed marriage plans. She had sworn and cursed at her once fiancé to her friend Lisa, and her friend had patiently listened. That was why she liked Lisa – she was a good listener. But when she had finished her tirade of abuse towards Arthur, Lisa had something to say. She deftly pointed out to Christabel the part she had played in her own downfall. She had been thoughtless in her mission to locate his parents. It had started out so innocently, her quest to find a photo of his doomed parents who everyone believed had died in a vehicular accident. She was going to present him with the photograph the night before the wedding. Instead, she had stumbled upon an old friend of his parents who thought it was about time that the truth was told, thereby revealing that Arthur’s parents were very much alive. At the time, Christabel had been excited to surprise him with the news. In hindsight, it had been foolish, very foolish indeed. So she accepted that she was as much to blame as Arthur, probably more. Although she would never tell him that. Let him suffer.

  Since they called off the wedding, she had avoided Arthur, seeing him only on her terms. But she knew they couldn’t continue this way for long. She had to make a decision. If she stayed with Arthur, she risked waiting for the next leap year to get married. She couldn’t afford the time, because she was certain her ovaries were going to dry up soon. And Arthur wasn’t even keen on children. If she couldn’t get him to marry her, how would she persuade him to give her a child.

  Her age was the crux of the matter. If she left Arthur, who would look at her now? She was past it, zoon like a finger of old okra too stringy to chew, as her mother would say. She had no patience to play the dating game again. And who was left in her age group? Divorcees with extra baggage or men who had hair everywhere but on their heads, who scratched their bellies and farted, because they didn’t have a wife to tell them how to behave.

  But if she was honest with herself, it wasn’t just her age that was the problem. There was something else tying her to Arthur, something she could not deny. She loved him. She loved his deep laugh and his moustache, his quick mind and the way he looked at her with those kind eyes that creased in the corners when he smiled and made her feel like she was the most beautiful woman in the world.

  ‘Damn you,’ she said. ‘Damn you, Arthur Chupplejeep.’

  ~

  ‘You’re here,’ Chupplejeep said, a smile spreading across his face as he walked up the steps to the villa.

  ‘Of course I’m here. Where else would I be? You invited me, didn’t you?’ Christabel said.

  ‘I wasn’t expecting you till tomorrow. I wanted to clean the house and get…oh no.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The container of food. It’s in the car.’

  ‘Well, you better go and get it.’

  ‘Yes, I’d better. I brought sheets and things for the bedroom and…’

  ‘The bedroom. I hope there is more than one.’

  Chupplejeep shook his head.

  ‘Well then, I hope you got some sheets for the grandfather chair.’

  Chupplejeep looked through the door to the dusty old wooden chair in the corner of the living room and back at Christabel.

  ‘You ditch me at the altar and then expect me to sleep in the same bed as you, raan dukor, pig.’

  ‘Christu, we’ve been over this. I didn’t ditch you. Seeing those people just… I don’t know, it set me ten steps back.’

  Ah, so he hadn’t called them yet. Soon after Arthur stormed out of the restaurant, she had told his biological parents to leave. Since then, she and Arthur had avoided speaking about his parents, but she knew eventually he would want to reach out to them – to find out why they had abandoned him. So she had left their phone number and address on the kitchen table, and she noticed the following day that the piece of paper had disappeared. He had either put it in the bin or kept it somewhere safe; she expected the latter. She should have been angry at them, not Arthur. But they were not here and he was.

  ‘So what were you doing all day, if not getting the house ready
?’ she asked.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Chupplejeep said.

  ‘What do you mean it doesn’t matter? Are you keeping secrets from me? Why call me up here in the first place if you don’t want me here?’ Christabel pouted and did her best to look wounded.

  ‘It’s not like that, Christu.’ Chupplejeep walked over to her and put his arms around her. She shook them off.

  ‘Then what is it?’

  Chupplejeep held his hands up. ‘Okay, okay. It’s like this. Now don’t get angry.’

  Christabel crossed her arms over her chest and shook her head from side to side. ‘I won’t get angry, unless you give me a reason to.’

  ‘A body has been found.’

  ‘Where?’ she said, uncrossing her arms and leaning in towards Chupplejeep. ‘In this house?’ She peered through the door and sniffed the air. ‘I can’t smell anything. You know how good my sense of smell is, and in this heat, a dead body would smell to high heaven.’

  ‘Not here, love.’

  ‘Where then? Why are you being so cryptic?’

  ‘Over by the lake. It was someone who lived by the lake in that house over there,’ he said, pointing towards Jackpot’s house.

  ‘Heat exhaustion? It happens, you know, at this time of year. People don’t talk about it, but it happens. My Aunty Freeda collapsed the other year with heat exhaustion. Terrible, terrible business.’ She put her hand on Chupplejeep’s arm and gave it a squeeze.

  Chupplejeep thought of the overweight and sweaty Aunt Freeda. The woman who ate samosas like they were going out of fashion but never seemed to drink any water. No wonder she had collapsed like that. ‘It wasn’t heat exhaustion. At least, I’m almost certain it wasn’t that.’

  Christabel shook her head. ‘Oh, I see. I see what’s happened. It’s suspicious, this death. I can see it on your face. You think it’s a homicide.’

  ‘Perhaps.’