Murder at the Grand Raj Palace

by Vaseem Khan

  The Ministry of Corporate Affairs—or MCA, as they preferred to be styled in Hip New India—was on the sixteenth floor.

  Chopra crowded into a busy elevator.

  On the third floor, a man in a brisk business suit squeezed in, dragging a goat by a leash. Chopra resisted the urge to enquire as to the reason for this surreal sight, but by the eleventh floor he could stand it no longer. The goat had begun nuzzling at his shoe and, when he tried to surreptitiously toe it away, had become offensive and belligerent, attempting to bite his ankle.

  “I am sorry,” he blurted out. “I have to know. Why do you have a goat with you?”

  “You mean Guru?” replied the man. “He is a mascot. For my company. Guru Goat Products Incorporated. We produce goat’s milk. And goat cheese. Goat yogurt. Goat chips. Goat ghee. Goat pickle. Goat salami. Goat cake…” Chopra listened, regretting having asked the question, as the man launched into a long-winded and passionate extolling of the virtues of goat-based merchandise. The goat, meanwhile, continued to stare coldly at Chopra, like a spurned lover.

  “I have an elephant,” Chopra said, more to get the man to stop talking than anything else.

  The man gave a thin smile. “I considered that,” he said. “But it’s bloody hard work milking an elephant.”

  Contrary to Chopra’s expectations, the offices of the MCA were a world apart from the underground murk of the FRRO records bunker.

  He was pleasantly surprised to discover a well-lit, neatly laid-out space, decorated with blown-up pictures of top Indian businessmen—from steel czars, to dot-com entrepreneurs, to private space rocket visionaries—accompanied by inspiring, if somewhat schmaltzy exhortations to corporate endeavour: “I dragged myself up from the slum, you can too”; “Make India great again!”; and a rather dubious contribution from the founder of a national e-retailer: “If at first you don’t succeed… do something else.”

  There was even a picture of Gandhi—a man Chopra greatly admired, but not one he had ever considered a “businessman,” unless one viewed him as a man in the business of helping redefine a nation. The quote beside Gandhi’s picture was one of his favourites: “It is difficult, but not impossible, to conduct strictly honest business.” During his years in the Brihanmumbai Police, Chopra had had a plaque with this same quote installed in his office. It had been a constant reminder that, even in an organisation routinely accused of venality, it was still a simple matter for each individual to set his or her shoulder squarely to the wheel of diligence and incorruptibility.

  One need only decide to be honest, he had always felt, and it could be so.

  Chopra was attended by a youngish man in a suit and tie, and designer spectacles. A cloud of expensive aftershave preceded his entry into the little waiting room in which Chopra had been parked.

  The young man introduced himself as Rangoon, and briskly asked Chopra to explain what it was he was looking for.

  “I require the employee list of a company that operated in India some thirty years ago,” Chopra said. “I am fairly certain that it was active in 1985, but I can find no record of it now.”

  Rangoon picked an imaginary piece of fluff from his perfectly creased shirt. “That should be very simple, sir,” he said, in a condescending tone. “Assuming you have the proper authorisation to view such records.”

  Chopra showed Rangoon his identity card.

  “Very well,” said the young man, in a more cooperative tone. “Please follow me.”

  They walked through to a bank of computer terminals.

  Rangoon slipped into a chair, flexed his fingers like a concert pianist and then attacked the keyboard.

  Moments later he stopped, a puzzled frown on his features. The Olympian self-confidence had slipped from his demeanour. “Well, this is curious,” he said.

  “What is curious?” said Chopra, hovering at his shoulder.

  “The records of the company that you mention—Fermi Engineering—have been sealed.”

  “What do you mean ‘sealed’?”

  “I mean that they have been placed under restricted access. Which means that I cannot access them,” he added helpfully.

  “Well, who can then?”

  “That’s just the thing,” said Rangoon. “The level of access is listed as Classified. Which means that no one at this office can help you. The records have been sealed by New Delhi. I am afraid that you are out of luck, sir. Only someone in the government can authorise the release of these records.”

  PONDICHERRY BLUES

  Poppy found Anjali Tejwa’s grandmother—the woman known as Big Mother—in the Banyan restaurant.

  She had manoeuvred her dreadnought of a wheelchair to the restaurant’s counter, employing it like a medieval siege engine laying onslaught to a castle, as she berated the cowering maître d’ for the shortcomings of the meal she had just been served.

  The poor man, prematurely stooped and grey, appeared to wilt further with each lash of her tongue.

  Poppy stepped forward. “Big Mother, may I speak with you? It is about Anjali.”

  The woman turned to Poppy, giving the maître d’ the opportunity to slink away, a look of grateful relief shuddering over his face.

  “Ah, the woman who worked out how my granddaughter vanished from a locked bathroom,” said Big Mother. “Poppy, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” said Poppy. “And I have found something else.” She held out the sheet of paper she had discovered in Anjali’s valise.

  Big Mother took the sheet, scanning it with her quick, dark eyes. “This is a travel itinerary. A train to Pondicherry, first-class reservation. Leaving yesterday afternoon.”

  “I found it inside Anjali’s luggage.”

  Big Mother drew in a sharp breath. “Was the ticket there too?”

  “No.”

  “Which means that Anjali has already gone.”

  “It seems that way.”

  Big Mother’s lips compressed as she lapsed into thought. “What else was missing from her room?”

  Poppy glanced behind her to Huma Dixit.

  “A small rucksack, Big Mother,” said the girl, miserably. “A few clothes. Some cash she had brought with her.”

  “What is a ‘rucksack’?” said the old woman suspiciously.

  “A bag that you put on your back.”

  “Strange place for a bag,” muttered Big Mother. “Bags are usually on the backs of servants.” The index finger of her right hand tapped the arm of her wheelchair. “There is no mention of a hotel in this itinerary.”

  “No,” said Poppy.

  “Pondicherry is a big place. I went there once, when I was a girl. For a wedding, in fact. The Maharaja of Yanam was marrying his twenty-eighth wife. The man was in his seventies by then, as big as a house. He was a real glutton, and not just for food. A connoisseur of every excess imaginable. The old royal families were never paragons of virtue, but most had an unspoken agreement with the people they ruled. Part of that agreement was never to push them beyond the limits that human dignity should be forced to endure. Old Iyengar didn’t give a hoot for that sort of thinking. He was a royal of the old school. Blood and Guts, they called him. Used to go out shooting tigers. If there weren’t any tigers around he’d settle for putting holes in a few peasants. Of course, it didn’t help that he was a notorious opium fiend. Dedicated swathes of his realm to cultivating it. Once charged a herd of elephants armed with nothing but a blunderbuss.”

  Behind Poppy, Irfan placed a hand on Ganesha’s skull, patting him gently. Irfan usually enjoyed hearing stories about the old maharajas of India, but he didn’t appreciate this story of a royal who went around shooting at elephants.

  Ganesha’s ears twitched.

  His trunk snaked up onto the table of the diner nearest to him—who was avidly following the conversation between Poppy and Big Mother—and lifted off a pastry, which he smartly tucked into his mouth. Comfort food.

  “But that is our past,” said Big Mother. “Our future… our future is in our g
enes. All we have is our children.” Poppy saw for the first time just how old the woman was, but in that magnificent way of ancient monuments. In a way Big Mother was a monument, to a vanishing way of life.

  “But what do we do, Big Mother?” asked Huma, plaintively.

  “The real question, young lady, is why did Anjali choose to go to Pondicherry. Does she have friends there that I am not aware of?”

  “I-I don’t think so,” replied Huma. “She never mentioned anyone like that. But I can’t be sure. I mean, it’s so easy to make friends these days. On Facebook, and Twitter, and—”

  She stopped as Big Mother held up a gnarled hand. “You are talking about the computers again. Haven’t I warned you about that? It makes my head hurt.”

  “But it is a fact of modern life, Big Mother. And Anjali may have made a friend that way. Someone who invited her to Pondicherry.”

  Big Mother gave a grudging sniff. “Can you find out if Anjali has such a friend?”

  “I can try,” said Huma, uncertainly.

  “In the meantime, there is something else we can do,” said Big Mother firmly, turning to Poppy. “You seem to be a woman with a good head on her shoulders. If you still wish to help, then perhaps you can accompany me to Victoria Station.”

  “But why?” said Poppy. “Anjali’s train left yesterday.”

  “Yes,” said Big Mother. “And there is something about that I would like to check.”

  A commotion behind Poppy diverted the attention of the restaurant.

  A thickset man had stood up from his chair. Red-faced, he was holding his hands to his bald pate. “My hairpiece!” he bellowed, glaring accusingly at Ganesha.

  All eyes turned to the little elephant.

  Resting atop Ganesha’s skull was, indeed, the incriminating presence of a glistening black toupee.

  “Ganesha!” scolded Poppy. She turned to Irfan. “I suppose you are going to tell me this wasn’t him either?”

  “But it wasn’t!” protested the boy. “I know he wouldn’t do that.”

  Poppy plucked the hairpiece from Ganesha’s head, and held it out to the irate gentleman.

  He snatched it from her, and slapped it back onto his skull. It sat there, looking like a small furry animal that had just died.

  She glanced back down at Ganesha, at the distressed way the little calf was flapping his ears. A worm of doubt gnawed into her anger. She turned back to the thickset man. “Did you actually see him take it?”

  “What do you mean?” said the man, belligerently. “It was snatched from my head while I was looking the other way. When I turned around there it was on his head.” He jabbed a finger at Ganesha. “If your elephant cannot keep his trunk to himself he should be locked up. You know, in some parts of the world they cull them so they don’t become a nuisance.”

  Poppy folded her arms. “Cull them?” Her voice had become dangerously low.

  “Yes,” said the man firmly. “In Kenya, for instance, they shot a load of them a few years back. Elephants lay waste to the land, you know, make it unliveable for everything else. It’s fashionable these days to go around talking about saving the elephant, but, as far as I’m concerned, they’re just big ugly eating machines.”

  “You’re a big ugly eating machine!” shouted Irfan, from behind Poppy. Ganesha had huddled up close to him, his head down, ears flat against his skull, a sure sign of distress. The little elephant always understood when he had become the object of ire.

  “Irfan!” said Poppy, as a nervous titter ran around the restaurant.

  “Hah!” said Hairpiece Man, waving a hand in the boy’s direction. “Is it any wonder the elephant is such a thug when you cannot even teach your child basic good manners.”

  Poppy had had enough.

  Her chest heaved as she opened her mouth to annihilate the bad-mannered buffoon—but she was stopped short by the sound of Big Mother’s voice booming out across the restaurant. “You oaf,” said the old woman, powering her wheelchair forward. “Just when I think I have met every manner of fool in my life, an even bigger dolt comes along. So the elephant took your hairpiece? Who cares! It is a child and children get up to mischief. But you, you are an adult. A malicious, wicked man, so stuffed with your own self-importance you think the world revolves around you. What gives you more right to live on this earth than that elephant?”

  “But-but—” spluttered the man.

  “They were here thousands of years before us,” continued Big Mother, relentlessly. “We stole their land. I tell you, if there is to be a cull, then the best place to start is with the likes of you.”

  “But what’s an elephant doing parading around a hotel anyway?” whined the man.

  “I could ask the same of you,” said the old woman, poking a finger at his ample belly. “It seems to me you’ve done a good job of laying waste to the land yourself.” She turned to Poppy. “Let us go. We have work to do.”

  Poppy led the little band out of the restaurant.

  As they neared the exit, she caught sight of the golden-furred monkey she had seen in the hotel garden the day before, the film star’s pet. It was perched on a child’s high chair at the rear of the restaurant, surrounded by the film star’s minders. She observed it, as its beady eyes tracked the despondent Ganesha.

  Poppy’s own eyes narrowed, recalling how Irfan had been certain the monkey had been responsible for the fracas with the priest’s robe. Could it be…?

  FERMI ENGINEERING

  During his thirty years as a police officer Chopra had become used to hitting brick walls.

  Such was the nature of a police investigation, particularly on the subcontinent, where the service lagged behind in the technology that in other parts of the world appeared to solve cases at the click of a mouse. As a younger man, this had frustrated him, and he had thrashed about trying to make things happen. But, as time went by, he had learned that there was only so much that could be done. The wheels of justice sometimes became stuck in a muddy rut, and it took time, effort and—more often than it would be prudent for the public to know—a slice of good fortune to get the cart moving again.

  The revelation that the records of Fermi Engineering had been sealed was a disappointment.

  And yet, at the same time, Chopra’s nose was tingling. Questions elbowed themselves to the forefront of his thoughts: why had the records of a seemingly ordinary company—now defunct—been sealed by the government? What was the link between Fermi Engineering and Hollis Burbank?

  He knew that if he were to progress the investigation into the American billionaire’s death, he must seek answers to these questions.

  But his reach did not extend to the marbled halls of power in New Delhi.

  Fortunately, he knew someone whose influence did.

  Chopra had recently earned the undying gratitude of the British government by helping to recover the legendary Koh-i-noor diamond. The great jewel, once the world’s most valuable stone, had originally been mined in India and had passed through a succession of kings and emperors before the East India Company had shipped it off to Britain to offer as tribute to Queen Victoria. The British monarch had instructed her master jewellers to incorporate it into the Crown Jewels, and that was where it had remained ever since.

  Until the Crown Jewels had been brought to Mumbai’s Prince of Wales Museum as part of a special exhibition and the Koh-i-noor subsequently stolen in a daring heist. When Chopra’s old friend had been arrested for the crime, he had felt duty-bound to investigate.

  Ultimately, he had been successful, though his role in the return of the great diamond had been kept a secret. The British government had expressed its gratitude through the medium of the High Commissioner to India, a diplomat based in the suburbs of Mumbai.

  It was this man who Chopra now called.

  At their first meeting Robert Mallory had struck Chopra as an eminently practical man. He supposed that the post of High Commissioner to India could easily be considered a poisoned chalice. On the one ha
nd, it was a high-profile posting, a seat at the table in the world’s newest superpower. On the other, the commissioner would be forced to deal with the office-bearers of the Indian government, a task marginally less conducive to personal well-being than being thrown into a pit of spitting cobras.

  Nevertheless, from what he had learned of Mallory, he seemed competent, and unafraid of the task he had taken on.

  “How’s that little elephant of yours?” Mallory asked, having answered Chopra’s call to his mobile.

  Chopra could hear a cacophony of bleating noises in the background.

  “He is fine, sir,” he answered. “I-ah-I require your assistance.”

  “Give me a second. Let me get inside. Can hardly hear myself think with all these camels.”

  Chopra wondered for a second if he had misheard.

  When the commissioner came back on the phone, he briskly explained: “I’m in Jaipur. There’s some sort of camel festival going on, and the chief minister insisted I attend. He’s got this hare-brained scheme of exporting baby camels to Britain. Thinks there’ll be a big market for it, just like the alpaca craze a few years back.”

  Chopra had no idea what an alpaca was, but he sincerely doubted that the good people of England would wish to keep camels. While humans believed they had domesticated the camel, no one had actually told the camels that. Camels were large, smelly, surly and extremely obstinate. Not to mention dangerous. With their plate-sized hooves, a kick from a camel could easily break a man’s back.

  “Anyway, camels aside, what can I do for you?”

  Chopra quickly explained the circumstances surrounding the death of Hollis Burbank, and his subsequent investigation.

  Mallory fell momentarily silent as he considered the matter. “Even if I could help,” he said, eventually, “the issue here is why should the British government care? I mean, Burbank is an American. It’s bad luck that he’s been killed, and worse luck that it might raise a stink. But it’s not our stink, is it? I’ve learned not to meddle in the affairs of others. Bad smells have a way of clinging, if you’re not careful.”