FIR

by Monabi Mitra

  ‘Very unlike the dead man. Poor relations. They didn’t have their own car and had borrowed one from a neighbour. The old man was getting very restless about the car and made a phone call to the neighbour apologizing for the delay in sending it back. Kept saying police case, police case, over and over again on the phone.’

  Bikram dimly remembered a thin man and a frumpy middle-aged woman in one of the rooms, sitting with worried expressions. He had spent most of his time with Dr Pyne and Chopra in the dead man’s bedroom and had left the visitors to Chuni Sarkar.

  ‘Anyone else?’

  ‘That terrible woman called Nikku something who kept threatening us. Once you came, she stopped bothering us of course but, before that, it seemed as if every IPS officer in Calcutta was her friend.’

  Bikram winced slightly as he remembered how Nikki Kumar had swooped down on him when he entered the house that night. He also remembered how Chuni Sarkar had hovered around in great excitement at such a scoop. Bikram had shaken Nikki off with great rudeness but she had continued to trail him. She was no doubt responsible for the phone call he received the following day.

  ‘I’ll talk to her myself,’ he added hastily, not wanting Chuni Sarkar to savour details of his personal life. ‘Ghosh, you had better interrogate the cousin and her family too.’

  ‘What about Sudip Pyne?’ asked Chuni Sarkar.

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Shouldn’t we talk to him? Check to see if he had known the family earlier? Did he have some personal interest in the case? Or a personal grudge? This insistence on an autopsy could be Pyne getting back at them.’

  ‘He wouldn’t draw attention to his own crime if he had committed it,’ said Ghosh.

  ‘You never know,’ said Chuni Sarkar obstinately. ‘I find it difficult to believe in a conscientious doctor.’

  ‘Just as most people find it difficult to believe in uncorrupted policemen,’ Ghosh said pointedly.

  ‘I think it’s time to begin work before we’re assigned another demonstration to break up,’ interposed Bikram smoothly.

  After they left, Bikram fiddled with the paperweight, studied his nails, drew a monster head on a memo pad and then reached for the phone. He had to wait for a while before being connected. A personal assistant with a quavering voice asked him to hold on and played Mozart while on hold. Then the assistant came back and asked him to hold for some more time before Toofan Kumar’s gruff voice came on. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘The post-mortem reports have come through, Sir.’ Bikram outlined what it said.

  ‘This is such a big mess,’ Toofan Kumar said, as if Bikram had personally carried out the poisoning.

  ‘Sir.’ For lack of a fitting reply, that was all Bikram could manage.

  ‘Have you gone to the house or have you left that for me to do?’ shouted Toofan.

  ‘I am going now.’

  ‘You’ve been there before, you knew the woman. She is a friend of that girl of yours, isn’t she? How could you agree to this investigation?’

  Bikram said nothing and waited. Toofan Kumar was one of the few who succeeded in disturbing his carefully cultivated composure. And every time he said ‘your girl’ he made Shona sound cheap. Bikram’s head swam in rage.

  ‘Chuni’s the officer-in-charge at the thana, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Tell him to report in two hours.’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘Make some arrests by the end of the day.’

  ‘I’ll try.’

  ‘You’d better. I’m going to be facing the reporters in the evening and I need something to say to them. And be careful with Nisha Bose. I don’t want to hear that you’ve been unnecessarily harassing her.’

  It was late noon when he reached Robi Bose’s house. The heat was unbearable and the air heavy with fumes from the maddening traffic. As they reached the porch, though, the noise dropped away and the air felt cleaner. The house seemed to be slumbering in the noon haze. Bikram paused near the steps and looked around him. He was standing under an old-fashioned porch whose slanting top, once probably done in wood, was now a sheet of white asbestos. He remembered the air conditioning inside which meant that there were double windows, the wooden ones outside and the new glass panes inside. A creeper climbed picturesquely over the drawing room window and waved tendrils of yellow flowers in the hot noon breeze.

  Inside, it was cool, as cool as on the day of his first visit. Once again, Bikram was led into the drawing room but, this time, he was permitted to sit on the satin sofa. The impassive maid who opened the door waited for a moment, as if ready for questioning. Wait till Ghosh gets to you, thought Bikram. He asked for Nisha Bose.

  Nisha glided into the room. She was wearing an embroidered cotton salwar kameez. Her hair had been gathered in a loose ponytail and her face was scrubbed clean of make-up. A faint smell of flowers came from her. She had tried her best to look subdued, and to present a picture of calm acceptance, but it was obvious that death had no place in her existence. As Bikram rose, he wondered whether she was aware of the palpable feeling of relief that she was exuding.

  As if she had read his mind, she said, ‘I won’t pretend to be the grieving widow, Mr Chatterjee, at least not before you.’ And after a pause, ‘But I didn’t kill him. It would be too obvious, don’t you think?’ She had been given a copy of the autopsy in the morning.

  ‘Why were you resisting the post-mortem then?’

  ‘Resisting?’ Her eyes widened in challenge. ‘Put yourself in my place, Mr Chatterjee. My husband had been as good as dead once before, and now, there he was, as stiff and unmoving as the first time. Obviously I assumed he had had a stroke. The doctors had told me to be careful and be prepared for any mishap. When that chit of a boy came in and started acting funny, I thought he was making a mistake because he knew nothing about Robi‘s medical history. Besides, who wants to have policemen crawling about the house? You’re different, but the rest are not. Nasty, bumbling, fat creatures, frightening servants and getting in the way, tramping around the house and spoiling the carpets. They would have asked for bribes, too, I’m sure. Oh, I know you hate me for saying all this but I just had to get it out!’ She took a deep breath. ‘There, it’s finished. Buro told me about the post-mortem and how the morgue works. Oh, it’s terrible, what you are doing to me!’

  Her hands were working on the sofa, plucking at the piping, elegant manicured fingers which were now shaking under some intense emotion. Bikram cleared his throat and said, ‘And the bedcover?’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘The doctor claims that it had been changed.’

  Nisha shrugged. ‘I can stand here till the world ends, protesting my innocence, but you have made up your mind, anyway.’

  Bikram figured nothing much would come out of further discussion and decided to leave the matter there. They had searched for the bedcover on the fateful night and hadn’t found it anywhere. It was unlikely they would ever find it.

  He changed the subject. ‘How long had your husband been ill?’

  ‘It would be five years this year.’

  ‘What happened to him?’

  She began in a monotone, in the manner of a rehearsed speech. ‘His career had just reached its peak. He had changed three jobs and was working in a German firm that paid him excellently. We had been cautious with money till then but Robi told me not to scrimp any longer. Enjoy yourself, he said.’

  ‘What kind of a job was it?’

  ‘Sales, mainly,’ said Nisha vaguely. ‘He used to travel a lot. Sometimes he would come in the morning and take the evening flight out. But he always squeezed in time to see me and ask how I was.’ As she spoke, her voice had lost some of its tonelessness. It was difficult for Nisha Bose to be lifeless for long. ‘It was Diwali. He had cancelled a trip to be at home. We had eaten out for three nights running. You know how it is, meeting friends, joining up in bars, going on to someone’s home. Robi had blood pressure problems and was on medication, but he al
ways complained that the medicines made him use the loo too often and he felt he looked like an old man. He didn’t tell me anything, but I think he skipped doses, or maybe he was too tipsy to remember, or maybe we were just on a high and felt invincible and that nothing could go wrong with us.’ She paused, as if to remember, but the whole exercise was beginning to feel like it was for effect. She was looking at the window and presented her perfect profile to him.

  ‘What happens to perfect couples?’ Nisha turned around and looked Bikram in the eye. ‘What do you do when you’ve spent years working for something and it all goes for a toss? You see your husband lying on the bathroom floor, for god knows how long, twitching a little now and then, while the garden outside is all lit up with diyas and candles. I thought he was dead. Fortunately, one of our friends is a doctor and he rushed him to the hospital. I still thought he was dead. But twenty-four hours passed and forty-eight and seventy-two, and then they said he would live but in a wheelchair.

  ‘I’ve been a good wife ever since. At first, his friends would fill the house and it was like Diwali again. As soon as he was better he would pretend to do some work and the office would dutifully give him something to chew on. Then the friends dropped away and his office settled his compensation and everyone went back to their own lives … but ours changed forever.’

  Bikram looked down at his cell phone. He had put it into silent mode and it had been vibrating every few minutes. He wished he had brought someone else along with him. He cleared his throat and asked about money. She said that with the compensation, as well as their investments, they were comfortable. She herself had gone into some small businesses—partnerships with one or two close friends that gave some returns. ‘We have no children and lived for ourselves,’ she finished. ‘In a sense, that spoilt us more. We lived from day to day.’

  She leaned forward to pick up an imaginary something from the carpet and her ponytail fell over her shoulder. Even underneath her dress, Bikram was made aware of her fair throat and full breasts.

  He asked her about the house and, all at once, a subtle change came over the conversation. The impassioned unburdening of the heart gave way to a sudden restraint. ‘I suppose it’s Tara. What’s she been saying?’

  ‘I want your version.’ Bikram hoped she wouldn’t realize he had no idea about either Tara or her accusations.

  ‘What Robi did was stupid. I told him to leave it to me but he went ahead …’

  He listened intently to Nisha’s account of the spat between her husband and her sister-in-law. He listened without comment when he asked about the servants and she reiterated their devotion to her. He was unaware that he had made as strong an impression on Nisha Bose as she had on him, because men either fidgeted, tongue-tied, in her presence or became garrulous and awkward; few listened keenly with deep grey eyes. Before he left, he asked about the stolen money.

  She seemed anxious to play it down. ‘It must have been a mistake. I probably left it lying around and then put it back absent-mindedly.’

  ‘You forgot repeatedly, over a month or so?’

  ‘It sounds absurd and I know you think it suspicious but I honestly forget such things. I just mentioned at a party that I must be getting old, I misplace money and Toofan jumped to help. I thought he would forget but then you came along and I was too embarrassed to say the whole thing was just party chit-chat and not to be taken seriously. You do understand, don’t you? I mean, you’ve worked so long with Toofan, you know him.’

  She had changed the subject by establishing a cosy understanding between them and excluded Toofan Kumar from this linkage. She had been at Nikki’s party and had researched Bikram well, including his relations with his superiors.

  ‘What do you think happened to your husband?’

  ‘It was a mistake, what else?’

  ‘Someone fed your husband a lethal dose of high-potency painkillers and sleeping pills by mistake?’

  ‘Do you think it’s one of the servants? If so, where would he get it?’ She hesitated, knowing that whatever she said would go against her household. ‘He may have taken it himself, I suppose.’

  ‘But he seemed to enjoy partying, meeting people, forgetting his illness in the laughter and music of a full room, and he had enjoyed himself that evening. That’s what you told my men.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Was he suicidal or depressed?’

  ‘Robi? My god! He was so scared of dying, he has made me check his blood pressure twice daily for two years!’

  Bikram ran into Ghosh as he was leaving the house. Ghosh’s arm was wrapped in a crepe bandage, his collar was limp with sweat and there were patches under his armpits. On seeing him Nisha resumed her icy manner. All three stood uncomfortably on the porch. Ghosh proposed that the servants be interrogated at the police station. Nisha replied in glacial tones that she couldn’t spare all at the same time and the questioning had better take place in the house. Ghosh, looking angrier by the minute, demurred. Sensing a potentially explosive situation, Bikram decided to leave. Ghosh was a veteran at dealing with social sophisticates and would eventually get what he wanted.

  He left with a sense of relief. The house and its mistress had a cloying femininity about them which was suffocating. In the car, Bikram settled his missed calls. The evening rush was on and the traffic lights seemed permanently red. Squat Ambassadors were stuck alongside purring Hondas and, beside them belched his battered Sumo. Many of the cars had stickers lettered on the front and back denoting the owners’ rank and importance and, by extension, the car’s immunity from traffic rules. Bikram counted five stickers announcing members of the press, a sessions court judge, the office of the accountant general, the ministry of defence and his own police. Then he gave it up and closed his eyes. He must have been dozing. When he awoke something was buzzing near his chest. For a second he wondered if he was having a heart attack, and then realized it was his cell phone on vibrate mode. All this talk of heart attack and cerebral strokes had clearly seeped into his subconscious.

  ‘Bikram?’

  It was Prem Gupta.

  ‘Sir!’

  ‘If you’re not busy, nip down to the airport police station. They’ve just nabbed a man who might be part of that fake-currency gang. Take a look at him.’

  It would be a welcome change to go back to the world of regular crime. Bikram happily redirected Mistry towards the other end of town.

  The scene at the airport police station was melancholy as only a police station can be. Ceiling fans ground away with mournful squeaks above piles of abandoned files. A medley of visitors and complainants moved between various tables and negotiated different kinds of rudeness. There were law-abiding citizens who had come to report thefts of purses and cell phones. The regulars—either the officers’ hangers-on, goons from the local political parties or junior lawyers looking for bail cases to pick up—looked aggressive and well settled, as if this were a home away from home. Needless to say, it was hot and dusty.

  Chairs screeched back and there was a flurry of khaki and batons. Bikram picked his way daintily through salutes. The police station had been considerably enlivened by the arrival of two pickpockets rescued from a mob bent on stoning them to death, a vagrant caught chasing heroin outside a residential building and a boy of about twenty who stood with tears streaming down his face. The boy was being bullied by an assistant sub-inspector who had slapped him six times already and had stopped to have his tea. On seeing Bikram, the sub-inspector hastily put down his cup and aimed two more blows at the slobbering boy.

  ‘Now tell us again, why did you not stop when you saw the VIP pilot car and the convoy behind?’

  The boy fell at his feet and grabbed the sub-inspector’s shoes. ‘Let me go, Sir, it was a mistake, I had a bet with my friend and it was only a joke …’

  The officer-in-charge at the police station hurried out of his room, nearly tripping over the pickpocket who had been tied with ropes to the leg of a nearby table. He had a bustling
, cheerful manner, like a kindly uncle welcoming guests to his home. ‘I’ve got a room ready for you, Sir,’ he lied.

  He shouted to a constable who entered with another beggar tied with a rope. ‘Hey there, get those guys out from the room at the back, move it, quick. DSP sahib will conduct an interrogation there.’

  The constable looked around him helplessly and, finding an empty chair nearby, tied the beggar to the chair leg and scurried off.

  Ten years of policing had desensitized Bikram too to a great extent, but a vestige of some squeamishness remained. He stopped before the lock-up where the heroin addict was sliding into cold turkey. His face was contorted in a terrible grimace as his body shook in great spasms, a gust of agony lived out in a private world where nothing else existed.

  ‘What can we do, Sir, it gets worse day by day.’ The officer-in-charge looked disgustedly at the addict. ‘We had to bring him in here. He was shooting up in front of the house of a high court judge and the judge saw him.’

  ‘Have you made the necessary arrangements?’ Bikram asked softly.

  ‘Yes, it should be here by now, though once these guys figure out they can get stuff here for free, god knows how many more will come crowding in.’

  The back room had by now been emptied of five constables grinding tobacco in their hands. They stood in a row, clicking and saluting. A squat dark man sat on a broken bench. He, too, had the standard rope around his middle, but looked calm and self-possessed. Bikram signalled the accompanying constables out of the room, sat on a crimson coloured plastic chair and looked around. He first untied the man, then located a pen and a piece of paper. He began.

  ‘Name?’

  ‘Montu Mondol.’

  ‘Age?’

  ‘Thirty-four.’

  ‘Residence?’

  ‘Borojaguli, district Nadia.’

  ‘Family?’

  ‘Father, mother, three sisters, and one brother studying in class eleven.’

  ‘Married?’

  Hesitation, then, ‘Yes.’

  ‘Children?’

  ‘One son.’