‘But,’ Hamid Pasha said, ‘was he even in the house on that day?’
‘He was in his office,’ said Lakshman. ‘But it is not a long walk from there to here.’
‘So you are saying he came from his office, somehow made his way in without the two workers seeing him, went to the well without anybody in the house seeing him, waited for the old lady to come, pushed her over into the well, and then went back to his office the way he had come without anyone seeing him again, only to return later in the evening to “discover” the body?’
Lakshman nodded. ‘Yup. It is not as hard as you make it sound. Praveen is a gymnast. He can scale that wall quite easily.’ He nodded at the compound wall. ‘Oh, yes, quite easily. I think even I could, if you ask me.’
‘With the glass pieces on top?’
‘Yes,’ he said, scoffing. ‘That won’t stop a driven man, you know. What will they cause, a couple of scratches? We used to climb that wall as kids all the time, all of us.’
‘Who do you mean, “all of us”?’ asked Hamid Pasha.
‘Well, all of us—Praveen, me, Kotesh Bava...’
‘The girls too?’
‘What? Oh, no, not the girls. If you were to ask me who among the current lot would have climbed that wall with no trouble at all, I would say only Praveen. I could do it, but I would be huffing and puffing by the end of it. Kotesh Bava could, on his good days, but he doesn’t have many of them, does he?’
‘I say, miyan, what is the matter with him?’
‘None of us knows,’ said Lakshman gravely, and Nagarajan felt he saw genuine affection in the man’s face for his cousin. ‘He used to be the fittest of us all; still is, I reckon. But half the time he’s beat.’
‘And the same thing is wrong with his sister too, I imagine? Karuna?’
‘Karuna?’ Lakshman grinned. ‘Oh, she is an actress, that one. She has always been that way, since we were kids. She always managed to act her way out of trouble, and the old people always took her word over ours.’
‘You mean she is only acting?’
‘Oh, I would not go that far. But who can tell? She lives in Hyderabad. She only comes here once every—oh, I don’t know—three months, four months? Her husband lives in Dubai, and she has a child to look after. Surely she cannot be managing the house all by herself if she is as sick as she claims to be.’
‘But once again, you do not have any evidence, do you?’
‘Ah, humbug! What more evidence do you need but the things you see with your eyes, and the things you hear with your ears? My wife went to Hyderabad once and found out that Karuna was acting in a play at one of the auditoriums in Padmaraonagar. A play! Now are you going to tell me a lady who cannot muster up enough strength to cook has the energy to rehearse for—and act in—a play?’
‘The severity of the disease might be less in her case than in the doctor, could it not?’
‘Oh, it could. Anything could be the case. I only concern myself with what is. Do you know that until last year she was perfectly fine? All her medical complaints only began during the last twelve months. Very suspicious, don’t you think? No, I don’t believe her. She is just a drama queen. In fact, I seem to recall that she was the one who encouraged Praveen to give acting a shot after his degree. She told him she could get him into that school she is part of.’
‘Ah—now that is interesting.’
Lakshman looked up. ‘Is it? I suppose that gave the old woman another reason to say no. Is that what you mean? They did not like each other, those two. We always used to hear arguments from downstairs, between the three women—grandmother, her daughter, and her daughter.’
Hamid Pasha scratched his beard with vigour. ‘Indeed,’ he murmured. ‘And who won these arguments, generally?’
‘Oh, they were all big talkers,’ Lakshman remarked. ‘None of them gave an inch. Besides, when you were up there and when they were all yelling at the tops of their lungs, all three of them sounded alike. We used to play a game of “Who said what?” Invariably, the sharpest tongue belonged to Karuna.’
‘Why do they hate each other so much, the two of them?’
‘Oh,’ said Lakshman, ‘here I must side with the old woman, I must say. Karuna is the absolute black sheep of the family—or should that be something else? The black ewe, maybe? Yes, nobody likes her. In fact, everyone positively hates her.’
‘But there must be some reason for this hatred?’
‘I told you, sir. These things have little reasons which build up on one another, and suddenly the weight becomes too much to bear. Swamannayya and Karuna also hate each other with a vengeance.’
‘Oh yes? How do you know that?’
‘I have thrown a matchstick between them many times, and each time it resulted in a bonfire.’ Lakshman grinned that lopsided, cynical grin again. ‘But seriously though, it is not hard to see. You ask anyone in the house and that is rivalry number one. If Karuna had been a man he would never have been allowed into the house. Swamannayya would have seen to that.’
‘I heard,’ Hamid Pasha said cautiously, ‘that it got much worse after your uncle went to stay at Karuna’s place last year?’
‘Once again, that was the last straw,’ Lakshman said. ‘Many things built up on one another all their lives, and that was the last straw. After that they just simply cannot stand each other. Until then they were at least civil to one another. Cold, but civil. After that, it has been open war— correction, open wars; many open wars.’
‘Do you think, then, that she could have wanted to kill the old lady?’
Lakshman paused in thought, as though the idea had struck him for the first time. ‘You ask an interesting question; it’s an interesting angle. I confess I have not thought of it. What could her motive possibly be? She would not get any money out of it—well, not much, anyway, because she is the old woman’s daughter’s daughter. There is too much filtration there. Practically nothing would trickle down to her.’
‘So you think she had insufficient motive?’ Nagarajan saw that though Hamid Pasha was asking the questions in a seemingly innocent tone, his eyes were darting up and down Lakshman in close scrutiny, sizing him up along with his replies.
Lakshman too, Nagarajan saw, was not completely oblivious to Hamid bhai’s probing stare. He returned it with a hint of mischief, as though letting him know that he enjoyed the attention. ‘Is hatred enough to make someone kill someone else?’ he asked reflectively. ‘Even if it is, I think a less subtle way—my way—of killing would have been expected if it was a crime of hatred.’
‘Oh,’ said Hamid Pasha, ‘hatred can evoke different responses from different people, no, miyan?’
Lakshman shrugged. ‘Even if Karuna did want to kill her, she did not arrive until in the evening.’
‘Yes, that is there.’
‘Rather inconvenient, isn’t it?’ said Lakshman. ‘It would suit everybody in the house just fine if she were the killer.’
‘I cannot make her the murderer just to satisfy your whim, miyan—where were you on the day, by the way?’
‘Up there, in my room.’
‘All day?’
‘Most of it, yes. My wife had gone to her mother’s place in the village, so I was pretty much by myself.’
Hamid Pasha paused delicately for a minute and then asked, ‘What is it that you do, for a living?’
Lakshman said cheerily, ‘They all say I am a useless bum. I say I am a gentleman of leisure, and an occasional businessman.’
‘An occasionally successful businessman?’
‘I would not say that, no.’ His tone was still light, though a tiny edge had crept in.
‘So you were in the house all day from morning to evening?’
‘I was in my room, yes. I was taking care of some business.’
‘And you were sitting by window over there, yes?’ asked Hamid Pasha, pointing at it.
‘Yes.’
‘So you must have seen everything that went on down here along
this path.’
Lakshman nodded dreamily. ‘I saw most of it, yes.’
‘Will you tell us whom you saw down here that day and at what times?’
‘Well,’ said Lakshman, ‘the timing might be a bit off here and there, but yes, I can tell you. First, the old woman goes up the path and disappears around the bend. Then half an hour or so later, I look up from what I am doing and I see Durga go up to the well, and then soon after, the servant-girl goes as well.’
‘And you saw nobody else go?’
‘I didn’t, but I was not watching the path continuously, sir. I was doing some work, as I told you. I only looked up every now and then. For instance, I did not see either Durga come back from the well, though I suppose she must have done so at some point.’
Hamid Pasha nodded slowly. ‘But you saw Gauri come back?’
‘I did see her come back from the well, but she did not walk back to the house. She took the right turn and walked towards the gate. Maybe she had an errand to run? I don’t know.’
‘Ah, so you say that she walked back to the gate?’
‘Yes, so she did. And she had wrapped the end of her sari around her head. I thought it strange that she did so, because it was not particularly hot on that day. But I didn’t give it any more thought.’
‘And was Ashok still by the front wall when Gauri left by the gate?’
Lakshman frowned in thought. ‘I would not know that. I would guess that Ashok had already left by then, because this was around two-thirty, and the matinee show in Vijaya Talkies starts at one-forty-five. I remember Swamannayya gave him a free matinee ticket, so I am going to guess Ashok was not around then.’ He paused and ran a hand through his moist beard. ‘But I do seem to remember Ellayya was there, near the front gate.’
‘Ah, indeed!’
‘Yes, and he was staring after her, but that’s no surprise because Ellayya stares after every woman, especially when he’s not “feeling well”.’ Lakshman mimed upending an imaginary bottle into his mouth. ‘I have seen Durga give him a dressing-down a few times about that. But she loves him.’ Again Nagarajan saw a quick flash of affection on the man’s hard face. ‘She did not stop for him that day, though. He took a few steps in the direction she was speeding away, stopped, scratched his head a couple of times, and staggered away.’
‘Ah, yes,’ declared Hamid Pasha. ‘This is probably the most important detail in this whole case—the most important detail!’
Nagarajan almost rolled his eyes. Hamid Pasha, he knew from experience, was a man given to hyperbole. On this very day he had heard him make that declaration at least once before. Now he took only a cursory interest in its repetition and put it out of his mind. If it was important, he thought, it would come up again.
‘Do you think so?’ asked Lakshman skeptically. ‘I don’t see how, but you’re the boss.’
‘Yes,’ said Hamid Pasha as if he were in a dream. ‘I do not see how either, but I do see that it is important. But no matter, I will see how—very soon. It is not very often that I do not see all, you know.’
Lakshman shrugged and said, ‘I don’t really care. I’m just telling you all this because I am not the only one in the house who could have killed the old woman. I may have said that I would love to kill her, and maybe I would have if I had the chance, but I did not.’
Hamid Pasha said, ‘I think I believe you.’
‘Yes,’ said Lakshman. ‘My methods would have been a little—blunter.’
Hamid Pasha nodded absently and walked past Lakshman. He signalled to Nagarajan and said, ‘Come, we have to go.’
16
NAGARAJAN SLIPPED HIS bike into third gear and sped past Vijaya Talkies. It was nearing six now, fifteen minutes before the evening show, and though the movie running in it was an old re-run, it was a favourite, and any moment now the road would start to choke with people from all corners jostling forward to watch it. With the new multiplex coming up where Sridevi Talkies once stood, Vijaya’s days seemed numbered, though it had to be said it had been running on its last legs for nigh on three years now. Every time Nagarajan drove past he saw either advertisments for an old devotional re-run or sleazy posters on the walls. The people who owned Vijaya couldn’t be doing too well if they were putting all their eggs in those two baskets.
At least they were evening out their spread, he thought, and wondered what the road would be called once Vijaya Talkies was levelled to the ground—surely what happened with Sridevi was only the first of a series, and soon Vijaya and Ashoka and would follow suit. Maybe the name will stick, he thought almost hopefully; fifty years ago he had seen his first movie in this theatre. He did not want to see Vijaya go. He liked the samosas there.
Maybe it will be just like Alankaar, another movie theatre right in the middle of Hanamkonda and Warangal, which had given way to first a function palace, then to a food supermarket. But even today, seven years after it closed down officially, auto-drivers and rickshaw pullers knew where ‘Alankaar Talkies’ was. It would be at least five more years, Nagarajan estimated, before ‘Reliance Super’ replaced it in people’s memories. Maybe the next generation of people—who had never seen or known Alankaar Talkies—would call it Reliance Super instead.
The bike moved forward as if it had a mind of its own, and his thoughts returned to the present when it stopped by the little lane which branched off the mouth of Vijaya Talkies Road. Two dentists, a gyanaecologist and a neurologist occupied the ground floor of the building by which he parked. The owner of a medicine shop, also on the ground floor, raised his hand in a respectful salute when he saw him alight. Nagarajan nodded at him and said to Hamid Pasha, ‘Praveen’s office is on the first floor.’
‘Ah,’ said Hamid Pasha, clutching at his hips and looking distastefully at the flight of stairs confronting them. ‘Do we have to climb again? Why is there no light in that room, miyan?’
Nagarajan looked up and immediately thought there was something wrong. To be sure it was not yet dark enough to preclude vision, but every shop in the locality and every house in the opposite streets had their lights on. This one room stood out—although not in complete darkness, Nagarajan noticed. A smudge of orange light flickered from behind the closed windows. Whether it was reflecting off the street lamps or whether it was coming from inside, he could not tell.
‘Come,’ he said, and jogged to the stairs and began to bound up them, two at a time.
‘Ah, wait,’ Hamid Pasha protested feebly.
Nagarajan did not listen to the older man. The closer he got to the top of the stairs the more he could feel that tingle in his nose; something was not quite right. He heard the voices of the crowd swell at the gate of Vijaya Talkies, and downstairs, too, people were assembling in front of the medical shop and dragging up chairs to sit on; all of them with weak, vacant expressions. Behind him, he heard the clunky tread of Hamid Pasha, slow and unsteady, but right behind him.
When he got to the top he pushed the door once, twice; it did not give. He ran along the balcony and peeped in through the window. Nothing was visible except that reddish-orange light within, checkered against the frosted glass. For a moment he considered putting his fist through the window.
No, he thought immediately, bad idea. He bounded back in two strides to the front door, and heaved back against the railing for momentum. From behind the clunk-clunk-clunk-clunk of Hamid Pasha’s steps rang in his ear. He rushed forward towards the door; no, at the door, aiming his right shoulder and the right side of his head at it.
He heard Hamid Pasha beginning to protest before everything went quiet, especially in his right ear; then he realised it had not gone quiet, but there was a distant, continuous buzz that he could hear, and in front of his eyes the figure of a man danced and waved from left to right. Oddly enough, the man was not standing on the ground. It seemed he was floating in the air like a guardian angel. Nagarajan almost smiled and waved back at him as he staggered and held himself steady against—against something. He looked down a
t what he was leaning against; yes, a chair. The door, he saw then, was lying flat against the floor.
‘Hai Allah,’ he heard someone say, and cleared his head with a violent shake. ‘Hai Allah!’ the voice exclaimed again.
And Nagarajan saw what it was that Hamid Pasha saw. The floating, waving angel now disappeared from his eyes and became a hanging, drifting man, shoulders hunched up to the neck and turning, slowly, turning, turning, turning... his shadow cast long and dark against the orange wall on the side.
With a leap Nagarajan was at the man’s legs, his arms wrapped around them and lifting him up. He felt a little chill wash through the body, and he yelled, ‘He is alive!’ Hamid Pasha had brought the chair to where he was and he was upon it in a flash, and out came his pocket-knife and set to work on the rope.
The man collapsed on Nagarajan’s shoulder. The Inspector checked for a pulse. It was there; it was weak, but it was there. Nagarajan murmured a prayer, then checked the back of the neck for cuts. All he felt was a rough bruise. ‘The light!’ he shouted. ‘Get a light!’ In a second a light came on. ‘Do you have brandy on you?’
‘I do not drink, miyan.’
Swearing, Nagarajan started slapping the cheeks of the boy. ‘Oye!’ he called out. ‘Oye!’ Over his shoulder he said, desperately, ‘CPR?’
He felt Hamid Pasha’s hand on his shoulder as he bent over the prostrate body. ‘Miyan,’ he said. ‘See. He is breathing.’
Nagarajan tore open the boy’s upper buttons and felt his chest. There was a beat. There was a heave. The lips parted once, and a second later, quivered.
‘He will live,’ said Hamid Pasha. ‘Why do you not go down and get some sodas?’
Suddenly Nagarajan felt there was too much light. Everything in the room was sharply lit now. The table and the chair had evidently been pushed away to the corner. On the table-top a hurricane lantern stood, wick burnt halfway, now overshadowed by the harsh light of the mercury tube. The door lay in between the three of them, old and thin and rotting. A rusted lock hung by the bolt.
Banquet on the Dead Page 17
