Moonrise, Sunset

by Gopal Baratham

  From behind the screen came Quincy’s piping voice, “You have all seen how Madam Zoroastris has used her psychic powers to recreate the crimes from the killer’s point of view…”

  “Psychic, my arse,” D’Cruz hissed. “The bloody DCP has probably given her photocopies of the investigation papers.”

  Quincy continued, “She is now locked into the thought processes of all the five subjects involved in this experiment.”

  “Five?” D’Cruz repeated in a soft voice.

  Quincy heard him and said, “Yes, five. For the purpose of scientific study, How Kum is classified as a subject whom we like to call the recipient. Madam Zoroastris will be involved in his thought processes as well as those of the other four.”

  “What should I do?” I asked.

  Quincy replied, “Just let your mind go blank while the psychic makes physical contact one by one with the four subjects on this side of the screen.”

  “What could I expect to feel?”

  “A psychic thrill, not unlike fear. Very rarely, and only in subjects with very strong tele-psychic propensities, does this feeling amount to blind terror.”

  I made my mind go blank as best I could. Nothing happened. Behind the screen I could hear Zelda moving slowly around.

  “Say ‘yes’ as soon as you feel anything,” Quincy piped.

  “Nothing,” I said, feeling slightly disappointed. “I feel nothing at all.”

  Zelda spoke in a faraway voice. “The recipient is resistant. I’m aware of very strong oscillations from one person from this side of the screen.” She sighed. “Run the programme, Quince.”

  “I will, Mamma. I will.”

  “You, Dr Lum, watch the screen carefully for any alteration of the recipient’s parameters.”

  “I will do that, madam,” said Lum dutifully.

  “I have located agitatory vibrations in one of the subjects,” said Zelda. “I will now touch the person from whom these vibrations emanate and you watch the screen to see what happens to the recipient’s parameters.”

  I examined myself very carefully as she did. I felt no fear or excitement, nor even a little flutter of expectation. The same could not be said for Dr Lum.

  “This is really quite remarkable,” he said, his voice shrill with excitement. “As soon as the psychic makes contact with this one suspect, the recipient’s parameters show great turbulence. The main change is in the EEG, as expected.”

  “Note,” said Quincy, “the concomitant change in his galvanic skin response and a slight but definite tachycardia.”

  “This is most convincing,” said the psychiatrist.

  “The objective signs are clear enough, though the recipient is unaware of anything happening, even the slight change in his heart-rate. I might add that this is due to the excellent interceptive faculties Madam Zoroastris possesses. She is interfacing with the oscillations between How Kum and the suspect but, such is her skill, that neither is aware of it.” Quincy’s voice was all admiration. “However, we are practitioners of science not witchcraft and, to make absolutely sure that this is not some random phenomenon or some glitch due to variations in your Singapore voltage, we will repeat the process and show that the disturbances in How Kum’s parameters only occur when contact is made between our psychic and one of the suspects.”

  There was a murmur of admiration from Lum as the process was repeated. “Even Dr Freud couldn’t be more scientific than this. Every time Madam Zoroastris makes contact with this particular subject we record changes in the recipient’s heart-rate, blood pressure and EEG.”

  “So we’ve got the murderer, have we?” asked D’Cruz in a matter-of-fact voice. “Because if we have, I’ll free How Kum from all these bloody gadgets.” He began undoing the straps and wires.

  “We don’t approve of judgemental terms like ‘murderer’,” said Zelda as the screen separating us was removed. “We prefer to call this kind of person psychobiologically damaged rather than labelling him a criminal.”

  “Psychobiologically damaged, my arsehole,” said Ozzie D’Cruz. He added, “And yours too for good measure, madam.” The inspector had clearly recovered his composure and was beginning to take command of the situation.

  Zelda seemed exhausted by her performance and said, “Tell him, Quincy baby, that dirty talk is a definite sign of sociopsychopathic behaviour.”

  The little man nodded. “It has clearly been demonstrated that aggressive language is a precursor to overt acts of sexual violence.”

  The inspector was not impressed. “You can take your psychosociobiologico-sexual whatever and ram it up any hole from which you see shit coming.” He snapped his shoulders back several times as though spoiling for a fight. “I have come here to solve a murder…several murders, in fact. I was informed by a man I used to respect that these new-style criminologists would tell me who the murderer was. Perhaps they can.” He let out a breath as though it was cigarette smoke. “OK, you three scientific criminologists, which of these poor slobs is the killer?”

  It was Lum who spoke. “From the data recorded on the polygraph it is clear the killer…”

  “Dr Lum,” said Zelda sharply. “You are no doubt unfamiliar with our procedures. It has always been our practice to let the killer identify himself.”

  Lenny Drigo was the only one who seemed interested in the proceedings.

  Zelda stared at the four for several minutes before saying, “I have, of course, already made a positive identification of the killer. It is now up to the maniac, the sex maniac, to tell us who he is.”

  “I’m the man, sir,” said Lenny in the general direction of D’Cruz.

  “My God, Lenny,” said the inspector with a laugh. “You’re a wanker, son, not a murderer.”

  “He’s the man though,” said Zelda, nodding her head slowly. “He was identified by my psychic sensibilities which the polygraph confirmed.”

  Ozzie turned slowly to Jafri. “Ask them, my learned friend, to be quite sure of who they mean because in this country murder, whatever its psychosociological cause, is punished by hanging.”

  “Listen, Ozzie,” said Jafri, irritated at last by the inspector’s baiting. “Not only have the newer techniques identified our man, he has himself confessed. What more do you want?”

  “An explanation for this,” he replied, fishing from his pocket a sheaf of papers which he handed to Jafri. “These are the IPs, the investigation papers, concerning one very minor nuisance called Lenny Drigo.

  “You can see from these papers that, on both nights when he was supposed to have been in the park murdering people, he was in the Central Police Station lockup.”

  He turned to Zelda. “Perhaps he did it by telekinesis. Maybe the knife jumped up and killed people because of psychosexual impulses beyond his control.”

  Jafri frowned at the papers and gradually his face went blank. Then he nodded and said, “I see.”

  “What do you see, Jafri,” I asked. “What was Lenny locked up for?”

  “For indecently exposing himself,” he replied. “Lenny, it appears, is a habitual offender. The police would not have done anything about it except for the fact that the lady who reported him on both occasions was a close friend of one of our Ministers.”

  “Poor Lenny,” said D’Cruz. “He’s not even a flasher, he’s just a wanker. And if you saw his equipment you’d see that he hasn’t got much to flash.”

  “But he confessed” said Jafri without conviction.

  “Like eyes are balls he confessed. Lenny thought we were accusing him of being a sex maniac and in his eyes he is. He was brought up to believe that masturbators grow hair on their palms, that they go blind, that they become madmen. Of course, he confessed. And there is one other thing that needs to be considered.”

  “Which is?”

  “He’s the only one of that sad lot that speaks English.” He looked slowly round the room till his gaze rested on Jafri. “I rest my case.”

  JAFRI STEERED THE BMW carefully through the r
ush hour traffic. He had been silent after we had left Quincy and his handsome face was expressionless. When we got into Holland Road, the traffic thinned a bit and he said, “The Arabs have a saying: if you’ve been a fool, the wise thing to do is to tell everyone, for only then will they realise that you are not still a fool.” He looked at D’Cruz who sat in the seat beside him.

  Ozzie said, “Case closed.”

  I leaned forward, “Conmen or not, they seemed to be able to interfere with my pulse rate and some of the other things they were measuring.”

  “And you didn’t feel any different for the changes taking place in your body, right?” Ozzie laughed. “You remember Zelda making sure that Quincy had put in her usual computer programme? Well, this saw to it that, after a specified period, it cut out the recording coming from your body and replaced this on the computer screen with something pre-recorded. It did this at intervals which were based on something Zelda could count, like your heart rate. The interference would appear irregularly, after five heartbeats the first time, after ten the second and so on. The only requirement was for Fatso to know when it was going to come, so she could at that precise moment put her hand on poor Lenny’s head. The hand on his head had nothing to do with the change in the pulse rate or EEG.”

  When we reached Buona Vista Road, Jafri said, “I’ll drop you off here How Kum, and Ozzie, wherever he is going…”

  “I’ll get off too,” said the inspector. “There are a few things that I have to discuss with big guy here.”

  As soon as we were settled I told him about Symons, Loong and the investigation the CPIB had begun. I also told him what Mary Lourdes had insinuated about Vanita’s possible role in the business.

  “I’m very unhappy about Vanita being involved in any way in an investigation of this sort.” As I spoke I looked over his shoulder and saw Vanita’s ghost perched on the window-sill.

  He laughed. “Even the CPIB boys aren’t vindictive enough to tarnish the name of a murder victim.” Over his shoulder the lady in question nodded agreement. “You, How Kum, should be burning your arse out trying to find out who killed her instead of worrying about her reputation.”

  Vanita applauded.

  “But I know who killed her.”

  Ozzie smiled. “Whatever you may want to believe, it’s not those two villains from Nats.”

  “It isn’t Loong and Symons I was talking about, Ozzie.” I paused deliberately. “Our killer is Vanita’s brother, Mohan.”

  The inspector put down his beer glass with a thump. “What makes you say that and why so confidently?”

  I told him.

  He brooded on it for a while then said, “We still have a problem about motive. Killing the girl wouldn’t secure the fortune for the brother. The old man could still leave everything to the temple or, worse, to that scoundrel, Kishore.”

  “Kishore was not very much in evidence till after Vanita had been killed. Mohan may not have realised quite the kind of influence he would have on the old man. He may have believed that with Vanita dead, Sundram would simply leave everything to him.”

  D’Cruz lit a cigarette and I found him an ashtray.

  He said, “I have difficulty seeing this Mohan as a mass murderer, however neutrally his philosophy views suffering and death.”

  He drew on his cigarette. “But I think that I have made it clear how much I value your opinions in this case.” He paused. “You see things differently from other people, you make pictures out of little pieces. And pictures sometimes make more sense than bits and bytes of logic.” I was a little surprised that the inspector understood my impression of the world as clearly as he did and seemed to be using my own words to describe the way I saw things, but said nothing.

  He continued, “What is more, murder investigations are always full of ghosts. You are familiar with the ghosts in this case. I am not.” From the window-ledge, Vanita applauded. “Speaking of ghosts, you never did tell me what happened at the ghost-raising party that Kishore conducted.”

  I told him what happened at the seance, how Kishore spoke with Vanita’s voice, though as far as we knew they had never met, and how the man had intimate details of my sex life.

  “You are sure the man had never met or spoke with Vanita?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “And these bedroom secrets that he got hold of…could anyone other than your girlfriend know about them?”

  “How? They are terribly private things.”

  “People talk about their love life, you know. Even boast about it.”

  I was indignant. “Not me, inspector.”

  He laughed. “Maybe not you, but your girlfriend could have told the girls in the office about this marvellous fellow she’d got hold of.”

  “And they all rushed off to tell Kishore and did it imitating Vanita’s voice.”

  Ozzie threw up his hands. “OK. It’s impossible to work out a trick till it’s been explained to you.”

  On the window-sill, Vanita was clapping her hands and swaying her body rhythmically. It took me a while to understand what she was getting at.

  “There is some kind of tape-recording, a collection of Indian songs that Vanita used to sing to me. Leela, the family maid, gave it to me but I don’t think they could have anything to do with what we are discussing.”

  He looked at me slyly. “Then why did you bring it up?”

  I couldn’t tell him that a ghost behind his shoulder had prompted me to, so I said, “I haven’t listened to it myself and feel a little guilty about this. If you like I’ll pass it on to you later.”

  “Do you have any objection to my listening to it with you?”

  “None at all, though I doubt you’ll like Vanita’s taste in music.”

  “Why don’t we listen to it now?”

  Ozzie sat on the edge of my bed and we listened to the tape on my little compo. After a few bumps and long hiss Vanita began speaking.

  “I don’t know why I waited so long about it, my little tape-diary. I usually get on with things if I want a fellow. I had my eye on him for a long time. He looks at me in a funny way as he walks down the line of preset girls and I don’t see him looking at any of the other girls like that. I look at his face then down his legs to tell him that I like him that way too, but I think he is very shy. I should go up and ask him for a date but I think he is so shy that I will frighten him off. I don’t think he is very experienced. He looks so innocent, but you never can tell. Wow, it’ll be great if I was to be his first girl. Forget it. That’s not poss. Simply not poss. He must be nearly thirty years old. Old man Loong says he’s worked with Nats for nearly eight years.” There was a short hiss before Vanita began talking again.

  “Lucky my working overtime and getting the late bus. Just the two of us and he had to talk to me. A bit shy at first but no sweat once we got going. He says such strange things sometimes. Not crazy like. Just strange. After a few minutes I told him I had watched him looking at me. Didn’t say anything, so I said that I looked at him too and told him what I wanted. What I really wanted. He didn’t seem surprised. Said that’s what he wanted too. Silly boy. He should have told me long ago and we wouldn’t have wasted all this time.”

  The tape went quiet.

  Ozzie looked at me inquiringly. I nodded. This was Vanita’s most intimate diary and I was happy for him to listen to it.

  The voice began again.

  “Well I was right about one thing. He’s not just innocent. He’s brand new and I’m the lucky girl that broke the seal. My friend, Anita, says that with men it’s not called deflowering, it’s called defrosting. Just like an ice lolly. He looks like a Chink, but down there he’s no Chink. The best equipment I’ve ever seen, and under my expert tuition he has learnt to use it well. I think he got a shock when I got him hard the second time round, turned him on his back and rode to glory. No shyness after that. Very loving and will do anything. Not like that shit Loong and his ‘Chinese culture does not allow man to spend time with head between woman
’s legs’.

  “And How Kum is so loving about everything that the action just flows. I think I am falling in love. I must be in love. How can it be so good if I’m not in love? I must keep him to myself. He thinks I’m perfect. Well, I am, and I will never let him near another woman, so he’ll always think I’m perfect. Even after I’ve had our six children and I’m old and loose, he’ll still think I’m perfect. I’m so, so happy. I know this is the man I want to grow old with.”

  She began to croon a bajan.

  Ozzie looked at me. “Now we know how Kishore did it. The voice, the sord…the intimate details. He must have found this tape, listened to a bit then copied it before replacing it.”

  The song over, Vanita began itemising the events of her life. I knew she loved me and now I had it in heartrending detail. I yearned for her, and, for the first time in my life, understood the meaning of absence. Vanita was talking about the house we would live in, the children we would have. I didn’t mind Ozzie listening to the details of our sex life, but my grief wanted to keep private, and I was having difficulty in holding back the tears.

  He realised this. “I don’t think this bit concerns police work.”

  I nodded. He leaned over and turned off the machine.

  I would listen to the rest of the tape alone and in the silence of my room.

  “I could use more beer,” said Ozzie.

  We returned to the living-room.

  “We know how that villain Kishore did it but I don’t think you are going to find the motive for the murder on that tape.” He sipped his beer. “And, whatever you say, I don’t go in for people committing murder just because they’ve junked up a philosophy that is neutral about killing, any more than I go in for the theory that people commit mass murder because they are mad dogs with defective limbic systems.

  “Nevertheless, I’ll give this Mohan character a closer look. I’ll do this, for no other reason than my trusting your intuition, How Kum.”

  Before I could say anything, the door opened and Ma and Oscar walked in.