by Tabish Khair
She is illiterate. Lick lora, per patter, she says, confessing her absolute illiteracy and laughing silently when one of her people asks her to help them read out or write a letter. She speaks five or six languages, most of them Indian dialects, as also passable French along with English, both of which she picked up while working as an ayah for various families. She cannot read or write a word in any language, though. ‘Likh lorha, parh patthar’, she corrects me.
Once a week, she would ask me to read out all that I had written, heading and all, from the first page to the last. I would do so. She would sit there and sometimes she would nod or shake her head. I would ask her if the reading had helped. She would smile slightly and say, ‘It helps, don’t worry, everything helps, Paddyji.’
I would not press her for more. I knew she would tell me first when she felt she had the answer. I know she will have the answer. She always gets what she wants. I have been with her for two decades now: I know that. She is a deep one, this woman, my Indian wife.
95
It is a strange time for Amir Ali. After his initial angry outburst, he has started to feel a kind of lethargy, as if the idea of vengeance, perhaps even the notion of justice, is tiring. He misses Jenny more than he ever missed Mustapha Chacha and his family, but he feels a reluctance to do anything about it. It is only in the evenings sometimes, when he sleeps in the basement and is entirely alone with his thoughts, that he jolts up, sleepless, filled with anger at the senselessness of it all. He is happiest when, using the forged papers he received from Ustad, he accompanies Gunga to the docks, looking for work on one of the ships, any kind of ship plying the seas or the river, even the new steamships that none of them has any experience of. Gunga wants him to join his gang of lascars. Sometimes Amir feels tempted, but he knows he cannot leave London without finding out what happened to Jenny and why. Qui Hy has told him a little more every week, but he suspects she has told him less than she knows. When he accuses her of keeping back some information, she says, ‘But Amir beta, do you think I am God?’
‘Not God, Qui Hy’, he retorts, ‘but surely someone from His inner circles!’
At that she shakes with soundless laughter and talks of something else.
96
Look at the man. Look at the blasted man, thinks John May. He turns to Shields and says it aloud. ‘Look at yourself, man. When did you last shave? When did you last change your shirt? You are more jumpy than a bloody bean. Even your hands are shaking...’
Shields mumbles something.
‘Speak up, man’, John May barks at him. ‘Speak up. There’s no one else here.’
One-eyed Jack sniggers.
‘They are here, John May’, Shields replies, looking around furtively. ‘They are always around.’
‘Who?’ John May shouts at the shorter man. ‘Who, you goddamn peasant? Who have you seen now? Another trailing maidservant?’
Jack laughs aloud this time.
‘It’s not right, John May’, Shields mumbles back.
‘What, man? Speak up. Speak up, damn you.’
‘What we are doing. It’s not right.’
Jack laughs again. But for a moment John is silent: he has qualms of conscience too, at times. Despite himself. Despite his iron will. But it is a matter of a few weeks now: M’lord is barely interested any more. John May has to make elaborate promises — strange skulls, stranger skulls — in order to keep him interested. It is only a matter of weeks before M’lord stops paying, stops appearing at the pub. John May senses this. M’lord is paying less and less; he acts distracted, like he has other matters on his mind. Very soon, he will vanish as suddenly as he appeared, mask and all. Why not make as much as one could until then? A beggar here, a lascar there, who would miss them?
97
The night Bubba Bookman burst into Qui Hy’s parlour was different. He did not come with information. And he did not enter gently. He threw the door open violently, and entered with two of his men. I was so startled that I reached for the dagger I keep under my pillow, an old army habit. I cannot fall asleep unless I feel the sheathed dagger under my head.
‘Who are they’, he shouted at Qui Hy.
Bookman has a booming voice, a sound that reverberates from the deep well of his being. Shouting comes naturally to him and it is not pleasant to have a man of Bookman’s size shouting at you.
But Qui Hy remained in her rocking chair, stitching as usual. She did not even look up.
Bookman said again, ‘By God, Qui Hy, you tell me who those men are. I know you know of them. You give me the names and I will kill them with my bare hands (He made as if he was twisting off heads). No one murders the poor buggers who pay me for safety, and that too, behead them in my own territory. They have gone too far. One I could have ignored. But two. Two! They killed poor old Crazy Abraham last night...’
Qui Hy looked up then. ‘I know’, she said.
‘You tell me, now, now’, Bookman thundered. ‘Names, names, names...’
It was seldom that Bookman lost his sense of being on a complex stage and slipped into a singular emotion like anger. The beheadings had shaken him. Qui Hy set aside her basket.
‘I always speak to people I know and trust, Bookman’, she said calmly, looking him squarely in the eye.
‘Then tell me, Qui Hy, tell me.’
‘I know you, Bookman. But do I know the men with you?’
‘They are my men.’
‘Do I know them, Bookman?’
Bookman made a gesture of exasperation. Then he grunted and spoke to the men in the reversed English that they used among themselves: Veal im own. Yrruh. Yrruh.
He looked back at Qui Hy, his eyes flinty, amused. ‘You are a hard woman, Qui Hy’, he said in a voice that had recovered some of its sly humour.
Qui Hy waited until the door had closed behind the men. It was only then that she started speaking. Though I had been keeping her notes for her, I had not been able to put together the entire picture as well as she had. Even I was surprised by what she claimed to know.
Over the next thirty minutes, interrupted only once or twice by Bookman, who remained standing, massive and immobile as an oak, she told him what she had found out. She had all the names, all except that of the tall, one-eyed man. She had all the descriptions. She had the address of John May. She knew the pubs where they met. Somehow, by piecing together the evidence and getting people to overhear the conversations of John May and his companions, a modus operandi that appeared confused and disorganized to me but evidently contained its own method, she had figured out that the men were collecting deformed skulls for a masked gentleman. She told Bookman about the masked man, known in the Prize of War as M’lord, who met John May at irregular intervals.
At the end of it, Bookman sat down in a chair. He finally took off his trademark bowler hat. He whistled a pensive tune for at least half a minute.
‘What are we waiting for?’ he asked Qui Hy finally.
‘The masked man’, she replied. ‘We do not know who he is. We do not know where he goes.’
‘What does it matter, Qui Hy?’ Bookman retorted. ‘That masked man is not the murderer. He might be buying skulls, but he has not killed my people. We should just get this John May of yours.’
‘No, Bookman’, she warned. ‘We have to find out about the masked man: never unravel a knot unless you know where the loose ends go. I need to know more. And you, brother, will stay out of it.’
‘Why?’
‘I am taking care of it.’
‘How?’
‘That, brother, is my concern. But I will tell you. I have procured letter paper through one of the ayahs — she has stolen it from her mistress — and I am getting Mrs Duccarol to write anonymous letters about the men to Major Grayper.’
‘Mrs Duccarol? Captain Duccarol’s widow? Why should she write your letters?’
‘She is from my parts, Bookman.’
‘Mrs Duccarol is Indian? She is fair, woman; she has blue eyes; she dresses and sp
eaks English like some Duchess. You are pulling my leg.’
‘She is Indian, Bookman. She was a very young Brahmin widow. Captain Duccarol saved her from a life of widowhood on the ghats; she repaid him by converting and becoming more English than the English.’
‘Damn, this beats anything I have ever heard! You bloody women never cease to surprise me... But what if these letters fail?’
‘Give me time, Bookman.’
‘One month.’
‘Four months.’
‘Two months. That’s it, Qui Hy. Two months, and that’s stretching it.’
‘Three months, Bookman.’
I stared at them in amazement: there they went, haggling, haggling, haggling over time, as if they were selling or buying a fowl or a bloody vegetable! What is it about niggers, whether from the East or the West, good or bad, man or woman, what is it that makes them love haggling so much?
‘Two-three months, it is. Two-three months. But after that, I settle it my way. My way, Qui Hy, my way, the Bard willing.’
With that, Bookman put on his bowler hat and went out in a flurry of colours. Qui Hy looked at me and grimaced. ‘You men, Paddyji’, she said with a sigh. ‘Always impatient, always in a rush.’
‘Not me, Qui Hy’, I replied from my bed. ‘Not me. You know me. I even wait for you to fetch me my pipe...’
98
Shields sometimes sees ghosts in his dreams. But, in real life, even Shields sees only what is visible to him: he sees white men and women. Other kinds of people he often sees through.
That evening, he sets out to meet the other two. Had he looked around the corner into the next street, he would have noticed the one-legged beggar he passed run suddenly, on two legs, scampering across the streets until he meets a gypsy who takes his message and runs to a blackamoor, who runs with it all the way to a large man in a bowler hat and flowing clothes of many colours and cuts.
99
Major Grayper handed the latest letter to Constable Watson, who had been entrusted with the task of maintaining the records of the murders that the press were attributing to the ‘head cannibal. Gutter press was bad enough, thought Grayper; these letters were worse. There was a letter almost every day: letters giving advice, suggesting suspects, ranting about the Beast, talking about mysterious African or Maori rites. The Major had to go through all of them, using his famous detective skills to decide which ones, if any, were useful or legitimate.
‘Take for instance this letter, Watson’, said the Major, gesturing at the letter he had just handed the constable. Watson paused in the process of filing it away.
‘Do you know this is the third such letter by the same correspondent?’
Watson did what he was expected to do. He had been selected for this role because of his ability to follow cues. He shook his head.
‘Read it, read it out.’
Watson took the letter, held it at arm’s length, for he was long-sighted, and read it with some effort.
Dear Sir,
The correspondent begs to bring to your notice that in all the places in which the so-called ‘head cannibal’ has consumed his victims, you may, if you enquire of those who, unfortunately, often have no other roof over their heads but the blue vault of the sky, you may, sir, come across the description of three men who have been seen with the victim or in the vicinity in the days before each murder. These three men are all, contrary to popular supposition, English: one of them fairly well-dressed to be considered a gentleman or an affluent tradesman, and the other two probably belonging to the working classes. One of the men is short and broad, and the other is tall but lacks an eye: he wears a patch and has on some occasions been seen carrying a cudgel. I am sure if your men ask around, they will be able to determine the identity of these three men. These three men are not mad, nor are they part of a mysterious cult. Their purpose is simple and can be ascertained by seeking information — the streets will supply you with much information in the shape of gossip — about the nature of the skulls that were severed and are yet to be recovered. The actions of these three men, your humble correspondent makes brave to suggest, might even be performed at the behest of someone else, a hidden hand too powerful to be easily seen. It is to be feared that these are the men behind the murders and decapitation that have lately tarnished the fair image of Great London.
Yours sincerely,
Truth
Watson looked up, eyes watery with the effort of reading.
‘What do you notice about this letter, Watson?’ asked Major Grayper.
‘It is admirably well-written, sir.’
‘That is good, Watson. Yes, it is fairly well-written; it is obviously the work of an educated person, and certainly not a foreigner. Not a Chancery hand though, or a Text hand. What else do you notice?’
Watson looked suitably blank.
‘Smell it, Watson, smell it.’
Watson smelled it.
‘Well, Watson, what do you think?’
‘It smells nice, sir.’
‘Perfume, Watson. It is perfume. Not a cheap one, either: it is lavender. And what does that tell you, Watson?’
‘Tell me, sir?’
‘Yes, Watson.’
‘That the writer of the letter dropped perfume on it. Perhaps he works in a perfume shop, sir.’
‘Why not in a fish market, Watson?’
‘Sir?’
‘Your logic could work that way too: a person in a fish market might need perfume at home to overcome the smell of his labour! No, Watson. The answer is obvious. It tells us that the writer of this letter is a respectable and rich woman.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And what else does it tell us, Watson?’
‘What else, sir?’
‘What else does it tell us about the authenticity of the letter, Watson, the facts narrated in it?’
‘Sir?’
‘I will tell you, Watson. It tells us that this letter, like the other two, which were worded exactly alike and smelled of the same perfume, is inauthentic.’
‘It does, sir?’
‘Yes, Watson. You see, the letter has been written by an affluent English lady. How would she know about things that even you and I, having walked the streets of this city, have never heard of?’
‘Perhaps her servants, sir...’
‘And how would the servants of a lady know? No, Watson, this is another one of those letters written by a bored young lady for her own entertainment. File it away. There is nothing to it, but file it anyway. One has to be scientific and methodical. Always. That is the first rule of modern investigation.’
Watson filed it away.
100
One evening, with Gunga and Amir there, Qui Hy disclosed the identity of the masked man who had been buying the skulls.
I was surprised. ‘How did you find out?’
The coach, she said, and his coachman. Once we had him trailed to the coach, it did not take very long to find out who owned such a coach and with such a coachman.
‘So what do we do now’, I asked.
‘Nothing’, she replied. ‘We wait for the letters to have an effect on Grayper. It will all come out once those men are arrested. The short one, especially, he will blurt out everything.’
‘Those three do not know M’lord’s identity. That is what you said. And the Peelers would not arrest M’lord in any case. Dammit, woman, we are talking of Lord Batterstone; he is not just anyone!’ I expostulated. And, in any case, he has not committed any murder.’
‘That hardly matters’, said Qui Hy. ‘M’lord is not our concern. He is not a loose end any more, Paddyji. Now that we know who he is, we can ignore him; he will pose no danger to us. Once the three are arrested, the murders will stop and we can get back to normal activities without fear of anyone backing the three or seeking revenge for the arrests.’
But Amir differed here. He argued that the three were not important, that they were hardly even guilty of the murders they had committed; it was M’lord
who was the culprit.
‘I know such people’, he said, suddenly very angry. For a young man, I had always considered him surprisingly even-tempered, some might even call him sly — I wouldn’t, for I saw the suffering in his eyes in the days after Jenny’s murder. Though, he remained remarkably calm even then, apart from that first evening. Then suddenly, on a matter of almost no importance, he got all upset. ‘I know such people’, he shouted at us, ‘they always act through their henchmen.’
Qui Hy and Gunga had trouble calming him down. But after this, Amir started keeping away from us, disappearing for long periods without telling us where he was going. Qui Hy sometimes worried about him getting arrested, though by now it was obvious that his disguise and the papers forged by Ustad were not easy to see through. Unless one of us blabbed to the authorities, he was unlikely to be identified as Amir Ali.
101
Head Cannibal Finds a Stranger Victim
Sketch by Daniel Oates
The Head Cannibal, who started his bloody career in the Rookery by murdering and beheading an old woman, has struck again. And this time his victim is almost as strange as the murderer must himself be. This time the unknown beheading monster appears to have murdered a freak.
