The Miss India Murders

by Gauri Sinh

  I walked up to Parvati, grabbed her arm. What a role reversal! Four days ago, she had grabbed mine after Lajjo’s stabbing, and I had been the reluctant one.

  ‘I have it now,’ Parvati understood my impatience, and appeared to be expecting it. She added calmly enough, ‘My diary. But it went missing the entire morning.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked, afraid of both her calmness and what she was implying.

  ‘I was unsure,’ Parvati’s tranquil mood seemed to harden as she spoke fiercely. ‘I thought I was suffering from stress, I had misplaced it. I turned everything upside down looking for it. And when I couldn’t find it, I finally gave up and came down for Josy’s session.’

  ‘Go on,’ I said, watching her intently.

  ‘But I couldn’t stop thinking about it, so I went back up in the break to look for it again,’ she continued.

  ‘So that’s where you were,’ I interrupted. ‘I was looking for you!’

  ‘Akruti—the diary was in my room, in my drawer when I went back up. Locked.’ Parvati pressed on. ‘It wasn’t there during my frantic search all morning. But it was there on my return,’ she emphasized. ‘Someone took it. And replaced it, thinking I wouldn’t miss it.’

  ‘Tania, your roommate?’ I asked, horrified.

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ Parvati said. ‘Tania left the room very early, I wasn’t even awake then. She came down to Josy’s session without returning to the room. She didn’t see my frantic search for it.’

  ‘She seemed very eager to know what was in there yesterday,’ I mused. ‘But Parvati—your drawer was locked.’

  ‘Yes,’ Parvati nodded. ‘Before and later, when I found it. Someone has obviously gotten a key or has made one, because mine is always with me. This person made me think I was losing my mind …’

  Parvati’s shoulders shook, I realized with a start just how heavy a toll the incident had taken on her. Impulsively, I gave her a sudden hug, but she stepped back awkwardly, surprised at my gesture.

  ‘I thought it was stress, that I hadn’t been careful enough,’ Parvati met my gaze, the corners of her eyes deceptively watery. ‘I was so distraught. But then I realized how particular I always am,’ she said, her chin suddenly up, shoulders square.

  ‘I realized I wasn’t mistaken, I hadn’t lost it, someone took it,’ she added, her voice trembling.

  I realized with a start that Parvati was crying … with rage!

  ‘This person made me second guess myself,’ Parvati was saying, voice low but steely. ‘I won’t let it happen again.’

  ‘Have you asked Tania?’ I asked.

  ‘If she is the culprit, she has no clue I knew it was gone,’ Parvati said. ‘She wasn’t in the room when I searched. Nor when I came to ask you if you had it. I prefer her or whoever it is, to think I don’t know they had it. We work from there,’ she said.

  ‘But certainly, she seems to be the only one who could’ve had access,’ she further mused. ‘Didn’t seem like a thief, though.’

  ‘If she was just curious, it’s still okay,’ I said. ‘She’d have read it and that’s all. But if it wasn’t her … if it were someone else, someone who is also a killer …’

  ‘And who’s to say Tania won’t talk or share what she’s read?’ Parvati countered. ‘She or whoever did it. Either way, we have to assume that their intentions were harmful.’

  When Parvati spoke like this, it brought to my mind that she had grown up watching her RAW agent dad at work, possibly imbibed some tricks.

  ‘So you’re saying we’re in danger?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m saying we need to make sure we aren’t caught out in the same situation, twice,’ Parvati looked at me, suddenly smiling to break the tension. ‘You keep my diary now, Akruti.’

  ‘Oh-hh. Okay,’ I said, a trifle nonplussed.

  ‘What did you want me for, earlier?’ Parvati asked, suddenly changing the topic.

  ‘To discuss whether a mentor could’ve killed Lajjo and Nuzhat,’ I told her. ‘I was watching Josy earlier, it came to me then. He is so strong. And it was a person of great strength who hit Nuzhat and stabbed Lajjo.’

  ‘It could be anybody,’ Parvati said. ‘Not just a mentor. The part about the strength, I do agree with. Only a very strong person could do this. But what motive could Josy possibly have to kill them? And if Doreen’s murder is linked, Josy wasn’t even there. Nor could he be Laddo, he has no hair!’

  I smiled at her attempt at levity, but also, I was stumped—it was true, all she said.

  ‘Could either Vandana or Nessie have done it?’ I asked. ‘They found Nuzhat, remember?’

  ‘It’s like saying could either you or me have done it,’ Parvati spoke wryly. ‘You held Lajjo as she toppled. I found Doreen, along with Tania. But even if it were a serious question—what motive? Neither Nessie nor Vandana were really the butt of Nuzhat’s malice. And neither of them could be Laddo—they had finished hair and make-up early at the swimsuit round.’

  I marvelled at Parvati’s power of observation again. She saw so much, without appearing to. I was known for my own retentive ability in modelling circles, but somehow at this contest, I found myself lacking. I had been in a position to notice things on two occasions, with both Lajjo and Doreen and yet managed not to. Sharp as I might seem, I had much to learn from Parvati, I decided.

  It was time for us to go to the final session of the day, that led by event head Anjali Rodrigues.

  ‘Let’s speak after Anjali’s talk,’ Parvati said to me. ‘It is crucial we find Laddo.’

  I nodded, following her into the room. Just as we were to be seated, she turned, looking at me.

  ‘By the way, Akruti, to answer your earlier question …,’ Parvati said softly. ‘We were always in danger. You, when you publically clutched at a murder victim who was also your arch-rival. And I, when I announced there was a phone call for Laddo—and no one came forward …’

  18

  From the pages of Parvati’s Diary

  2 p.m.

  The final session. I find this SO BORING, but we have to get through it. I’m writing as event head Anjali Rodrigues speaks. I like her hair though, so individualistic, that electric blue!

  She’s going on about how we are in the midst of a huge crisis, but our characters will be stronger for it if we keep our heads down and concentrate on why we are all here. No other contest has attracted this kind of publicity. But then few other contestants would be as pressured as we have been over the last few days. Unusual times call for unusual measures, she’s telling us. And unusual courage to continue with our dreams, despite all. A remarkable pep talk, I have to say.

  As Miss India contests go, this year is surely one from hell for everybody behind the scenes. And for all those competing of course. But listening to Anjali brings everyone some comfort, we need it, definitely.

  3 p.m.

  Anjali’s speech is over, I like how she kept it short and sweet. Fiery lady, audacious too in her comments about ignoring other people’s agendas and concentrating on your own. The police wouldn’t be too thrilled. Though she didn’t mention anyone in particular, we all understood her.

  We are to forget we were suspects in two murders and simply think about the crown. Anjali’s cool-headedness is admirable, but so much is resting on her ability to pull this off without glitches tomorrow.

  I would actually look upon her as a possible suspect for this very cool-headedness! But what could she gain by making the contest go awry? Her reputation depends on it running smoothly! So strike Anjali from suspect list, I guess. Unless a bigger angle appears … like the one Brij was referring to. But for that I need assistance, so I won’t count that in yet.

  3.30 p.m.

  We have the rest of the day free. Time enough to figure out who Laddo is. Time enough to try and find out why my diary was taken. And yet … not enough time to save Tara from incriminating herself?

  6 p.m.

  Akruti and I, we’ve been sitting together for the last fe
w hours in Akruti’s room, trying to clear our heads about what’s been happening. Roxanne isn’t here so it’s private enough for now. We certainly can’t meet in my room now, not after the missing diary incident—it would be foolhardy. Anyway, as to our effort so far: we’ve decided to take it step by step, go over each murder and scene of crime.

  So, about Lajjo’s murder: we assumed Lajjo was stabbed before she walked the ramp, looking at the video recording. She was already stumbling, pre-empting the music, possibly befuddled from acute blood loss, though nobody realized it then. But Lajjo didn’t leave the stage at all.

  So whoever did it had to be stationed either at the very far end of the stage where Lajjo was waiting, or have come in and slipped out in record time in the thirty-second blackout.

  Going over the last few girls who were next to Lajjo or could’ve moved to stab her, there are Smriti and Nessie, of course, who left the stage and messed up the formation. There is me obviously, who could be regarded as suspect for the same reason. And then there is Nina who was closest to her during the blackout, but who never left stage at all.

  The dilemma being, Lajjo was standing last, the girls were all in front of her. So, if we go with the theory that she was stabbed before she walked—it discounts everyone on stage automatically, whether or not they shuffled position. Which leaves the three of us, who left the stage and I know no one did it. I followed the girls to the restroom and back … so how do we tackle this?

  ‘What if we assume that Lajjo was not stabbed earlier?’ Akruti says.

  But she was walking unsteadily from the very beginning, I tell her … unless she was walking that way not because she was stabbed, but because she had been drugged …

  We were suddenly energised by this surmise—how else to explain an inexplicable dilemma?

  We need to find the Addl.CP to confirm it, the post mortem would tell us if indeed she was also administered something. Which would change how we viewed the murder, change our list of suspects—change everything, in fact …

  ‘Take for a moment that Lajjo was stabbed on stage,’ I muse. ‘Whose costume would be such that a blade could be hidden in its folds? One so sleek and elegant, but one where such an instrument could be made easily accessible when needed?’

  This was an angle we hadn’t even thought to ponder on earlier. I wonder if the police had.

  ‘It would have to be one of the girls standing at the very beginning of ramp,’ Akruti says. ‘Because even with this theory, that she was stabbed on stage, it would have had to have been in the thirty-second blackout—in the mayhem of the girls shuffling and shifting position to accommodate the sudden presence of Smriti and Vanessa, returning to stage …’

  We had all been in gowns, but each gown was cut differently, and many were revealing, to ensure our figures were on display. It would have been difficult to hide a blade in many of them. But not all. So, which of us could’ve tried?

  As we got ready to list the girls in their gowns, there was a knock on the door.

  ‘You’ve been summoned,’ Akruti’s chaperone popped her head in as the door opened, looking at us both. ‘By the police.’

  19

  Akruti

  Everything it seemed, was coming to a head all at once. There was intense anticipation in the air now, and it wasn’t only because the long-awaited finale would be held the next day.

  ‘The Addl.CP wants you in the interrogation room downstairs,’ my chaperone had arrived unexpectedly to tell me. She seemed unsurprised to see Parvati with me. ‘You, as well.’

  ‘Thank you, Sheila,’ I said to her, as we headed down. I felt a bit sorry for all the contest chaperones. Like in most pageants, they had been chosen from the mainly lifestyle sections of the vast Eye India employee pool, to supervise and tend to the contestants’ needs. But the job, entailing constant running around, and carry-fetch situations, could get tiresome on long days. At the 1995 contest, it would’ve been positively dismal. Not just because of some of the petulant demands of the nervy girls, but because the Eye India bosses no doubt felt they could’ve managed their charges better—not allowed for such catastrophes to descend at all, as they had, one after another.

  Right now however, the plight of the chaperones was farthest from anyone’s mind. We both made haste to meet the Addl.CP, we believed he might have need of us at this point. As we entered the room, we realized that our guess had been right.

  ‘I need you to identify someone,’ Addl.CP Mhatre launched into the reason for our summons, without pleasantries, the moment he saw us. ‘We have attempted to go over the tape recording the night Lajwanti Khan was stabbed, moment by moment. We could not see this part till we zoomed in.’

  He had already switched on the recording on the monitor beside him. We saw a blurry enlarged close-up of the beginning of ramp, close to the stage. It was in darkness, shot during the thirty-second black-out, and figures were in shadow, indistinct.

  We saw the formation shift as Smriti and Vanessa scrambled back to ramp from their restroom visit. As the girls moved, the Addl.CP froze the frame, then pointed to a corner, deep in the shadows, almost in the wings, where the ramp met the stage. A figure, partially hidden by the curtain but visible on stage, was revealed. The person appeared not short, but not as tall as the rest of the contestants. As the Addl.CP advanced the recording frame-by-frame in slow motion, the figure moved behind the wings and then was gone.

  ‘Who is this?’ Addl.CP Mhatre asked us.

  We were shell-shocked. The figure could not be a sound and light or stage technician. They had strict instructions never to step out of the wings or be seen, even in darkness. Nor could it be backstage help, for the same reasons

  It wasn’t one of us obviously, there was no hesitation or haste in the movements of this person, no scrambling to be on ramp before the lights came on. We were unsure as to whether it was a man or a woman, because it was all in darkness, only a frontal silhouette was seen.

  Not in heels, so definitely not one of us. In fact, even in the small time-frame the figure appeared, the person seemed confident of their movement—this was no restless event representative, shifting in and out of the wings, revealed by mistake. The shadow was deliberately there, half-hidden, but watching the ramp, then slipping away. Watching … what?

  ‘We have no idea,’ I told the Addl.CP, even as Parvati nodded her ignorance.

  ‘Does this mean your suspect for Lajjo’s murder is not one of the contestants?’ Parvati asked quietly, then added deliberately, ‘Therefore … not Tara?’

  I was alarmed at her forwardness. This was, after all, an on-going investigation, and to all extents and purposes, Tara had been taken into custody, though not officially named as a suspect.

  ‘This means we need to look for this person,’ the Addl.CP’s reply revealed nothing. He did not seem to have been offended by Parvati’s bold query, but he wasn’t revealing anything further either.

  ‘I’m disappointed you do not know who this shadow form could be,’ he added. Then, addressing Parvati only, he said, ‘Especially since you had stepped out of the ramp formation too. What was it you said you had needed to do … ‘stretch your legs?’

  ‘I do not know who this person could be,’ Parvati met his eyes squarely, as was her habit. She did not rise to his bait either, the one underlining the fact that she had changed formation as well, to ‘stretch her legs’ as she’d insisted.

  ‘Did you get a post-mortem done on Lajjo, Addl.CP?’ Parvati pressed on with her concern, her eyes serious.

  ‘Yes,’ Mhatre was observing her keenly. ‘What is it that you are getting at?’

  ‘Was there some uncommon substance in her system?’ Parvati asked gravely. ‘Drugs, or something like that?’

  The Addl.CP’s eyes narrowed. ‘Is there something you know that you want to tell us?’

  ‘What if she wasn’t stabbed before she walked the ramp, as we thought when we saw the tape first?’ Parvati stated. ‘What if she was drugged first, so she was no
t herself, not in touch with reality … and then stabbed, very much on ramp? Remember, she had already begun walking, pre-empted the music cue before the lights even came on … so in actuality, she was walking, passing each of the girls on ramp in darkness for the first few minutes. Time enough to drive a knife in …’

  ‘The tape doesn’t show much,’ the Addl.CP’s eyes were speculative. ‘In fact. it’s all a blur at the back of ramp in that blackout, a confusion of dark shadows as the girls scramble to shift into position. It’s a wonder we managed to get that silhouette I asked you about …’

  Then, as if coming to a decision, he said, ‘It is possible. We did find a substance. But we weren’t paying much attention to it. It was a psychotropic drug. The kind that would no doubt, make a person very sleepy. We assumed it was a leftover from medication she was under, to calm herself before the finale. We understand she was suffering from extreme stress.’

  Parvati’s eyes looked jubilant. ‘You know Tara could not have done this,’ she told the Addl.CP. ‘You know this.’

  ‘I will not discuss any suspects at this point,’ Mhatre was being his maddeningly aloof self. ‘It would help Tara, though, if you managed to think of who this person so silhouetted could be …’

  Mhatre had all but dismissed us, but I had one more thing on my mind.

  ‘About the Doreen case …,’ I was silent all this while, but had to ask. After all this was Parvati’s pet project. ‘Who is Laddo, Addl.CP? Did you find out?’

  ‘Not yet,’ the Addl.CP’s reply was curt, as if he was done with us for the time being.

  ‘She may well be the killer,’ I spoke out, emboldened by Parvati’s earlier frankness.

  The Addl.CP didn’t reply, but we knew he had heard and noted the comment. Our interview was done, we let ourselves out.

  ‘We must find this Laddo,’ Parvati said, as we walked out of the room, to head back upstairs. ‘The police are chasing different leads, we must follow ours …’