The Dead Don't Confess

by Monabi Mitra

  Monabi Mitra

  The Dead Don’t Confess

  Contents

  About the Author

  By the Same Author

  Dedication

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  Read More

  Follow Penguin

  Copyright

  About the Author

  Monabi Mitra was born in Calcutta and educated at Loreto House, Presidency College and Jadavpur University. She teaches English at Scottish Church College, Calcutta. As the wife of an Indian Police Service officer she has developed a keen interest in police procedure. This has led to the writing of the DSP Bikram series.

  By the Same Author

  F.I.R.

  For my sister, Mishti

  1

  ‘But it is not always an easy task to solve a homicide mystery, and the police are sometimes as much puzzled as is the citizen.’

  It was Diwali night. While the air in Calcutta was thick with smoke and revelry, the atmosphere inside Broad Street Police Station was cheerless. The constables on duty muttered frostily between scratching themselves and fiddling with their mobile phones, moodily kicking at their lathis. The sub-inspectors seemed to have been touched with the same air of despondence. They grimly cleaned their spectacles, swallowed successive cups of tea and eyed their dismally cackling wireless sets with loathing before answering them. The ragtag of pickpockets, drunks and junkies in the lock-up shoved and pushed for space and slapped at mosquitoes. Only the station stray dog slept contentedly under a bench in the veranda, impervious to the sadness around it.

  Five hundred metres away, Arun Biswas, the officer-in-charge of the Broad Street police station, took position near a plush high-rise to keep an eye on the Diwali merrymakers. As he engaged the gateman in conversation, he wondered how many influential people he was likely to be up against that evening. At this point his phone rang.

  ‘Murder case? You’re sure?’ he barked his question into the phone.

  The police station duty officer was sure.

  ‘Male or female?’

  The duty officer answered and helpfully added that it was a case of shooting.

  ‘Are you sure it’s in our area? Couldn’t it be palmed off to Park Circus PS?’ Biswas asked.

  The duty officer was emphatic in his answer. It wouldn’t be possible. ‘It’s the sixth house from the thana, sir, the “dog house” as we call it. The owner has been killed and Chotu from the paan shop nearby was called in to see the body. He reported it to us, sir. We can’t convince him that it’s not our area of jurisdiction.’

  ‘Stupid Chotu!’ mumbled Biswas darkly. ‘He needs a night at the lock-up, that man. How many more complaints do we have at the PS now?’

  ‘Three. One drunken brawl and two eve-teasing complaints. They’re waiting for you to return.’

  ‘Tell them to go away. I’ll drop by at the police station to pick

  up Chotu. What a night to die!’

  * * *

  Chotu had inherited from his father, Gagan, the paan shop at the corner of the road as well as a fair amount of good sense. Over the years he had fed free paans and cigarettes to constables, given Sprite on credit to sub-inspectors and inspectors on duty and made yearly presents of mango pickle and temple flowers from his ancestral village to officers as they came and went. In return he had listened in on their gossip, gained access to the thana, puzzled out police methodology and acquired much theoretical knowledge. This added much excitement to his mundane life, also making him a point person for all gossip.

  So when the woman from 21, Broad Street stumbled into Chotu’s shop babbling incoherently and crying, he calmly got a grip on the situation. Along with his assistant, he accompanied the woman to her house, took a good look around, left his assistant in charge of her with strict instructions not to touch anything and to keep a sharp eye on her, and finally, ran to the police station to report the crime. He now stood, flushed with importance and excitement as Biswas grudgingly hauled him into the back of his scarlet Maruti Gypsy and set off for the murder victim’s house.

  Biswas braced himself with wearying distaste for the scenes to follow and entered the house. He passed through what must be the living room, with its sofa set and a cupboard full of decorative knick-knacks, to a large space in the middle of the house that functioned as the dining room. To the left was an open bedroom door through which he could see a television set and a dead body slouched on a sofa. The man had been watching the news on the television, unaware of his imminent end. Now he lay slumped sideways on the worn-out sofa while the newsreader gazed in his direction with mechanical eyes and breathlessly intoned the weather report. A pair of spectacles lay crushed beside him and a single overturned slipper lay in front. Next to the slipper lay a dead dog. A quick glance told the officer that there were no visible injury marks on the dead body. A chair had been knocked over, and a syringe and a piece of white rope lay on the ground. Close by was an empty vial with the name of the drug printed in blue on its label.

  To the right was a closed door from behind which came animal squeaks and moans. In the dining room, a woman sat crying on a chair with her head in her hands. A little to the woman’s right lay another dead dog, its entrails spilt on the floor and its face frozen in a glassy snarl. Dribbles of dog pee snaked across the patterned mosaic. Biswas wasn’t disgusted. He had seen too many of these gory scenes to be shocked. Instead he stared at the floor and thought with a stab of nostalgia of the flowery tiles in his childhood home before that rascally uncle of his sold the house and the buyer tore it down. Then he pulled back his thoughts and got down to the matter at hand.

  Half an hour later, when a Crime Branch team arrived, Biswas got locked in a stormy conversation with another inspector.

  ‘Someone’s got to remove these dead dogs!’ the inspector cried, disgustedly.

  ‘We can hardly get people to cart away the corpse and you want me to arrange for pall-bearers for the stray dogs?’ Biswas retorted.

  ‘Ask some newly recruited constable then, dammit!’

  ‘Newly recruited constables are graduates with degrees. You can’t order them around like the old ones. Suppose they refuse?’

  ‘I’ll see about that. How many dogs did you find?’

  ‘Two dead, three living.’

  ‘Have you chalked the markings?’

  ‘Yes, but the second dead dog is almost un-markable. It was shot, then slashed at and sliced into two. Head half severed from torso.’

  ‘Any bullets found?’

  ‘Yes, on two walls, one in the dead man’s room and the other in the dining room. We’ll have to wait for the forensics fellow.’

  ‘Got anyone?’ The inspector sounded dubious.

  ‘With great difficulty,’ said Biswas disconsolately. ‘He was out at a friend’s house for Kali puja and almost refused to come. Wanted to finish his puja before stepping in; said it’s inauspicious to start a murder case without the blessings of the Goddess. Fair enough. I gave him some time.’

  ‘By the way, are you sure there were no bullets on the body? Did you check the head? It might have been a clean wound.’ This time the inspector sounded hopeful.

  Since this was nothing but a fantastic hope, Biswas kept quiet.

  ‘I see there is a shoe print on the floor. All red, so I suppose it’s blood from the dog?’

  ‘Yes, while he was hacking at it, I th
ink. What a disgusting thing to do. Look at that creature, with its head half off and the tongue lolling out. Who can we ever get to pick up that mess?’

  They were back to where their conversation had started. Since there was nothing more to be said at this point Biswas strolled to the drawing room and looked over the shoulder of his assistant taking down the statement of the woman who had found the dead man.

  Monica Sarkar, aged forty, resident of 21, Broad Street, wife of the deceased, Piloo Adhikary, aged fifty-five . . .

  The officer frowned. He sat down on the sofa beside his assistant and watched Monica Sarkar sniffling and dabbing her eyes with a Mickey Mouse print handkerchief. Which was not even damp! There was a hawk-eyed look about her that he didn’t quite like. Her lipstick was smudged and sprigs of hair had come loose from her top knot. She was large, with huge breasts that strained underneath the tight kurta of her white salwar suit. Her nails were lacquered red and around her wrist was a thin gold bracelet. Her kajal streaked down the edges of her nose and a plastic red bindi was stuck on her forehead.

  His own wife? He screwed up his eyes suspiciously and wondered. From the looks of it all, it seemed very likely that she had done him in.

  ‘Why not? Is it a crime to be married?’ she asked. Then she turned to look at him with wary eyes.

  The officer wanted to say that wives of murdered men usually show more emotion but refrained from commenting.

  ‘And your household seems to consist chiefly of dogs?’ he asked guardedly.

  ‘My husband and I are animal lovers. You know that, the whole neighbourhood knew that. Is that also a crime?’

  ‘Not in itself.’

  Biswas sniffed.

  ‘We had many complaints over these dogs. Your neighbours objected to the noise and the way in which you set them free to romp down the road and attack unsuspecting people.’

  ‘We did nothing of the sort!’ shouted Monica Sarkar defensively, abandoning grief for anger. Her ears had turned red with indignation and a vein stuck out in her forehead. ‘We are friends to these poor abandoned strays. It’s our house and we can do what we want inside it. We’ve only been trying to help these poor dears . . . which leads me to think . . . one of the neighbours must have killed Piloo!’ She began to wail.

  The officer continued regardless, ‘Do you usually lock the dogs in when you leave the house?’

  Having received no sympathy, she was more forthcoming. ‘No. They are restless and jumpy on Diwali because of the crackers. I gave them sedatives to calm and soothe their nerves and then put them in different rooms. Not all the dogs get along with one another, there are groups even in their world and I didn’t want a fight breaking out.’ As she spoke her eyes welled up and she dabbed them with her hanky. ‘Poor Brownie,’ she whispered. ‘He must have tried to defend Piloo and got shot. Blackie must have died the same way. Poor things!’

  Monica Sarkar’s shoulders quivered as she asked amidst sobs, ‘Who could have wanted to shoot Piloo and the dogs?’

  ‘Only the dogs were shot at,’ said the officer. ‘Your husband was killed in . . . some other way. . . .’

  Monica Sarkar gave him a puzzled look. He hurried on, ‘So how did the dogs get out of the room in which you had locked them?’

  ‘Oh, Brownie always stayed with Piloo. He’d become his shadow ever since we rescued him from a rubbish heap two years ago. The other one . . . maybe Piloo let him out, I don’t know . . .’ She looked confused.

  ‘Where were you at the time of this incident?’

  ‘At a friend’s house for Kali puja. I’d left at around three-thirty,’ she said firmly, looking into his eyes.

  Biswas moved on. ‘When did you return?’

  ‘Around eleven-thirty.’ The decisive tone was back.

  ‘What did you find when you got here?’ asked Biswas, trying to recreate the scene.

  ‘I found the front gate half open. I thought someone had come in and was wondering who it could be. Then I found the front door open too and I thought the person must be leaving and Piloo must be seeing him off. I came in and heard the television playing too loudly and . . . other sounds and . . . saw the dogs . . . and . . .’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘Piloo lying on the sofa with Brownie at his feet, I realized, I rushed out, oh, please don’t . . .’

  Monica Sarkar burst into tears. Biswas pushed brutishly on.

  ‘Madam, please be calm. I need you to give as accurate a description as possible if you want the murderer caught and since there is no one else I can ask, I will have to continue with the questioning. Now answer me—you must have seen the empty vial beside your husband. Where do you think it could have come from?’

  Monica Sarkar stopped snuffling into her handkerchief and a stricken look came upon her face. ‘I have them . . . in the house,’ she said slowly in a low tone.

  It was the officer’s turn to be shocked. ‘You mean you have more of these?’

  She nodded and said falteringly, ‘In my bedroom.’

  Biswas stared at her, perplexed. Didn’t the woman know that by admitting to the police that the fatal injection had come from somewhere in her room she was virtually accusing herself? But he said calmly, ‘Show me.’

  Monica Sarkar shuffled across the floor into another room. She pointed to a glass-fronted bookcase. The shelves were stacked with an assortment of papers and books. On the top shelf were a jumble of medicine and some vials of liquid. Monica Sarkar pointed at them. ‘It must have come from here,’ she whispered. ‘We use it for anaesthetizing dogs if there’s an injury or when they’re having pups.’

  The officer peered at the bottles without touching them. The names meant nothing to him.

  ‘Was your husband expecting anyone?’ he asked.

  ‘No, he never said anything.’

  ‘Is there anything missing from the house, any jewellery, papers or valuables? Have you looked carefully?’

  Monica Sarkar shook her head. ‘I’ve gone through the house once. There’s nothing missing.’

  ‘Do you have any idea who might have committed the crime? Any suspects?’

  The woman’s face crinkled up in tears again.

  ‘No,’ she said hoarsely, ‘except perhaps one of the neighbours. They hated us for sheltering strays. For all you know, they must have got together and killed him.’ She started sobbing again.

  Since it seemed highly unlikely that the neighbours had got together to kill this man, like in an Agatha Christie novel, Biswas’s innate distrust of the woman returned. ‘What proof do you have that you came back home at the time that you say you did? Did anyone see you return?’ he asked.

  Monica Sarkar dug into her handbag, sniffing all the while, and came up with a crumpled piece of paper. ‘Look, I took a dial-a-cab. I have the receipt,’ she said demurely.

  Though he had asked the question in an offhand manner, her ready proof bothered him. It set him thinking.

  While they waited for someone from the forensics department to be kind enough to pay the murder site a visit, Biswas and his assistant toured the house once more.

  In the kitchen, were a large curry-stained wok, a spatula, a plate and a glass. The remains of a meal lay scattered in the sink; a bay leaf and a soggy green chilly were stuck in its slatted mouth.

  In the bathroom adjoining the dead man’s room, there were a cake of Dove soap, a bucket half filled with water, a dripping tap over it, well-squeezed tubes of toothpaste and face wash, a tongue cleaner, a shaving brush, a razor and a toothbrush. Nothing out of the ordinary here either.

  In Monica Sarkar’s bedroom, there were umpteen fairness creams and age-defying lotions and every brand of make-up in boxes and tubes. A kaftan was spread over the bed and the floor was slippery with talcum powder. They carefully skirted around the room, noting the furniture—two Godrej steel cupboards and a wooden bookshelf stood alongside a wooden fluted puja stand with metal idols and framed pictures of various gods.

  The rest of the house wa
s full of dog bowls, dog food, dog shampoo, dog talcum powder, half-chewed bones and sheets of newspaper spread in strategic corners.

  In all the rooms hung a smell of animal faeces and sour food. It was definitely not a pleasant house to be in but they saw nothing beyond the ordinary. They would have to wait for the forensics expert to throw more light on this.

  * * *

  At midnight, when the noise pollution and smog from the riotous Diwali revelry was at fever pitch, DSP Crime Bikram Chatterjee sat patiently inside his battered Tata Sumo and waited for two children to finish lighting a row of noisy bangers in the middle of the road on which he had been travelling. He had been assigned the wearying task of conducting a recruitment exam for fresh young constables in far-off Murshidabad, 250 kilometres away from Calcutta, and had decided to leave a day early. Mistry, his driver, had frowned and grumbled under his breath when he had been told that Diwali night would mean a five-hour journey down a bumpy and potholed National Highway 34. Mistry’s annoyance had caused him to drive at a rough pace and he had screeched to a halt only because Lalbahadur, the security guard, had put out a warning hand. Bikram was wondering whether to reprimand Mistry or let it pass, when his cell phone rang.

  ‘Control Room speaking, sir. There’s been a murder at a house in Broad Street. A team from the local thana as well as the Crime Branch is at the scene of crime.’

  ‘Address?’ Bikram stifled a yawn as he reached out for a piece of paper and found what looked like an ATM receipt. He scribbled on it with a pen that had to be shaken and scratched before it emitted some tired-looking ink, then wound down his window and threw the useless pen away.

  ‘Strangulation or bullets?’ Again the yawn that had to be beaten back.

  ‘Neither, sir. Sub-inspector at the scene of crime says the dead man was killed by a poisonous injection. Of the five pet dogs that lived with him, two were brutally shot dead.’

  ‘You don’t say so!’ Bikram looked at his watch and noted that if he dropped in for ten minutes, he could still reach Murshidabad by dawn and sleep till eleven. The Police Line officials would be ready to receive him only around midday, so it could be managed.