‘Mr Nadkarni, I am sorry to detain you further, but I would like to give you the opportunity to make your opinion perfectly clear. Am I right in understanding, although perhaps the term guru-chela relationship is not quite accurate in describing the high regard which Inspector Ghote had for Mr Kelkar, that at the time we are referring to Ghote did indeed feel for this officer, senior to him in age, experience and success, something not far short of reverence?’
I did, Ghote thought. Yes, that was what I felt for him then. Reverence. And I felt it yet more when he came to Vigatpore.
This time Nadkarni did not hesitate to answer. But his answer was clearly not what R.K. had expected. Nor was it what Ghote had dreaded. The old man’s sagging cheeks darkened.
‘Really,’ he said, his voice rising in a pettish squeak, ‘I have given you my answers. Both to you, sir, and to the lady representing Inspector Ghote. I cannot be asked to repeat and repeat what I have already stated.’
It was an outburst, like a late flurry of monsoon rain, that was so uncharacteristic of the Nadkarni that Ghote had known, and so much respected, that he could hardly believe what he had heard. That the man who never to his knowledge had betrayed a single sign of loss of temper, who had been a perfect example of pure patience as an investigating officer, should have been brought down to this display of weak rage: it was a blow almost as sharp as the knowledge of how much Nadkarni would have disapproved of the course he was here and now taking.
‘Very well, Mr Nadkarni,’ R.K. said, unmoved. ‘I shall not press you.’
Hesitantly old Nadkarni made his way over to the door, walking almost as if he might need a stick. At the Board table there was a buzz of consultation. Then, tall and authoritative, S.M. Motabhoy turned and addressed the room.
‘Mr Sankar,’ he said, his confident, rich tones contrasting poignantly with Nadkarni’s irate screech of only a few moments before. ‘Mr Sankar, we feel that the matter you have brought to our notice is of some importance. We need to know, in so far as we can, just what regard Inspector Ghote felt for A.D.I.G. Kelkar, both a year ago and at the most distant time you have been asking about. Would you now, therefore, kindly direct some questions to Inspector Ghote himself?’
Ghote felt shocked. He had realized that at some stage he would have to face R.K.’s famous lashing tongue. But he had assumed this would come only towards the end of the Inquiry, days away. But to have to stand up to it now. It was as if he had been suddenly knocked off his feet by a whirling wind gust.
It seemed that Mrs Ahmed had, too, made the same assumption about when he was to be called.
‘Mr Presiding Officer,’ she protested, ‘my client and I have not even discussed whether he is to go into the witness-box. This is monstrous.’
‘Madam,’ S.M. Motabhoy replied, blank faced behind his moon-like spectacles. ‘Let me repeat what I saw fit to say at the outset of this Inquiry. We are not met as a court of law. Indeed, there is no witness-box as such for your client to go into. This is an inquiry only, an inquiry for the purpose of ascertaining what exactly occurred in Vigatpore on the night of June the 24th and the early hours of June 25th last year. As such we feel it right that questions should be put to Inspector Ghote at whatever stage of our deliberations seems appropriate.’
He turned to R.K. without waiting to see if Mrs Ahmed had resumed her seat or not.
‘Mr Sankar.’
R.K. rose, more than ever putting Ghote in mind of a cobra rearing itself sinuously up, hood expanding, forked tongue ready to strike with cold venom.
Stiffly, Ghote rose to his own feet and presented himself rigidly at attention.
‘Well now, Inspector,’ R.K. said in quietly conversational tones. ‘We have heard that you and the late A.D.I.G. Kelkar were some years ago close colleagues. Is that correct?’
‘Yes, sir.’
No possibility of denying that. It was a tiny relief to be able to answer one question with complete truth.
‘You were, in fact, both members of what, I understand, was called the Black-money and Allied Transactions Squad?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Another plain fact.
‘But your own duties in that organization were a little different from those of the other officers?’
‘Yes, sir. Yes, I suppose that they were.’
Ghote had answered with more hesitation. It was indeed a fact that he had been seconded to the squad more to seek out an officer giving away its secrets than to work directly at its main task. But he felt that this was entering unexpectedly on a more dubious area.
‘Good, Inspector. And it was, was it not, your particular duty to suspect the then Inspector Kelkar of corruptly betraying confidential information?’
Ghote could not stop himself pausing noticeably now before he answered. But without too much delay he brought out his reply.
‘Yes, sir. It was my given duty to suspect Mr Kelkar. But also – ’
‘Yes, to suspect Mr Kelkar. Falsely to suspect him. So, tell us, Inspector, did you not feel that having regarded an officer of such high repute as being capable of committing a most serious crime, a crime that would strike at the very heart of the police service, did you not feel you were bound afterwards to offer him some compensation?’
‘Sir,’ Ghote answered, his held-in determination at last breaking out. ‘Sir, it was not only Inspector Kelkar, as he was then, that it was my duty to suspect. It was each and every member of the squad.’
R.K. gave a long weary sigh.
‘Inspector, we are not asking you about your feelings at that distant time. They are of no concern to us whatsoever. What we are asking is whether, when the later A.D.I.G. Kelkar was unfortunate enough to kill a subordinate in a moment of reckless anger, you then recalled that you had owed him over a period of many years a debt of honour.’
Ghote felt a spurt of justified rage at this blatant attempt to blacken him.
‘No, sir,’ he answered with stone-block firmness. ‘Mr Kelkar when he was first meeting me at Vigatpore had said that our former relationship would have no bearing on present matters, and I was happy also to put the past into the past.’
‘No doubt you were, Inspector,’ R.K. said blandly. ‘But let us return to that period when you and Mr Kelkar were close colleagues. During that time when you had many opportunities of observing how Inspector Kelkar, as he then was, went about his work, you developed towards him a certain attitude?’
Another trap here, plainly. But not one it was easy to see a way of not entering.
‘A certain attitude, sir?’
‘Yes, Inspector.’ A long drawn sigh. ‘Surely a man of your intelligence, a C.I.D. officer, must know what I mean.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Then, Inspector, kindly provide an answer.’
Ghote licked his dry upper lip with the merest tip of his tongue.
‘I was – Well, sir, naturally I admired Inspector Kelkar.’
‘Yes, Inspector, you admired him. You wished that you could emulate him?’
Ghote swallowed. He felt that the five members of the Board sitting intently at their long table must have seen his adam’s apple rise and fall in his throat. That was always taken to be the sign that a lie had been told. Or was about to be told.
His answer, when at last he brought it out, came with a rush.
‘Yes, sir. I did wish to emulate. Inspector Kelkar was a Number One model investigator.’
‘So you admired Inspector Kelkar – I understand he was frequently given the sobriquet “Tiger” – you admired Tiger Kelkar and you wished to emulate him. You did your best to emulate him?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Ghote answered, not seeing how else he could answer.
‘Would it be fair to call such an attitude, from someone rather junior to a senior, a guru-chela relationship, Inspector?’
Caught. Transfixed. Like a fish on a hook, dangling and wriggling in the air for everyone to see.
‘I – I do not know. Perhaps that is the way you
are liking to put.’
‘Ah, but, Inspector, is it the way that you would put it? That is what the Inquiry wishes to know. Did you consider yourself to be an ever-faithful chela to A.D.I.G. Kelkar?’
What to answer? It was true really. He had considered himself Tiger’s chela, though never in just those words. But Tiger certainly had been everything that he thought he ought to be himself. It had been because of this that he had been so ready to offer him, when the thought had suddenly blossomed within him, that way of escape from the appalling entanglement that had, out of nowhere, enmeshed him. But to this he could not admit.
He swallowed again. And again cursed the tell-tale gulp of his adam’s apple.
‘Sir, I did not even say that I was Tig – That I was a chela to Mr Kelkar.’
‘No, you did not say it. But you felt it nonetheless, did you not?’
And in that instant Ghote thought I do not care: I will tell the truth. Touch gold and say truth.
‘Yes, sir. I did feel in the end that Tiger Kelkar was my guru, and I was proud if I could be his chela.’
Behind him he heard Mrs Ahmed give a little, half-suppressed gasp. But he could not tell whether it was of dismay or of approval.
R.K. Sankar sat down then with all the dramatic suddenness he was accustomed to use in the criminal courts. And, as soon as he was sure his action had made its effect, he rose to his feet again.
‘I would like next,’ he said, ‘to call one Sitaram Shinde, peon at Vigatpore Police Station. But I understand, Mr Presiding Officer, that he will not arrive in Bombay until this evening.’
‘But you have other witnesses?’ S.M. Motabhoy asked.
‘Yes, Mr Presiding Officer. But we have made a good deal more progress than I anticipated and they are not yet ready.’
‘Very well then, we shall have to adjourn until tomorrow.’
Ghote, back on his hard little chair again, felt a new dart of anxiety. Shinde, loyal, simple, splay-fingered saluting Shinde, would it still be within his powers to cooperate in the deceit he had asked him to agree to all that time ago? Certainly he must have repeated the lie when Inspector Sawant had been in Vigatpore. But, summoned all the way to Bombay, finding himself in the awe-inspiring surroundings of the Old Secretariat, symbol of British might and power of old, would he continue to persevere?
Tomorrow was going to be a bad day.
13
Next morning, when on the radio Ghote had heard, not surprisingly, that twelve inches of rain had fallen in the previous twenty-four hours, he arrived at the Inquiry hot and bothered. His scooter had come to a halt in a new foot-deep puddle and he had thought he was going to be late and might even find his former peon – he did not know – already being questioned by R.K. Sankar. Perhaps even the fellow would have broken down under that formidable examination.
But in fact it was just on the stroke of ten when he entered the big room and, to his surprise and sweat-pouring relief, there was no sign of the proceedings even being about to begin. Poor Shinde was nowhere to be seen. R.K. and the four junior officers of the Board were chatting together in low voices. Mrs Ahmed was standing at her table rummaging in her big bag, the shorthand writer was sitting glumly at his desk.
Ghote went up to Mrs Ahmed.
‘I am sorry if I am late,’ he said. ‘There was a waterlogging and my scooter engine died.’
‘Nothing to worry,’ Mrs Ahmed answered. ‘S.M. Motabhoy has been delayed also. He was telephoning to say he would be late by some time. I do not know for what reason.’
‘Well, that is a fine piece of luck for me.’
He leant forward nearer her and spoke more quietly.
‘I am sorry for what I was saying under R.K.’s questioning yesterday, about Tiger Kelkar and what I was feeling about him. It was the entire truth, and I was not able to hide.’
Mrs Ahmed glanced up from the papers-thick mess in her bag.
‘No. It was much best for you to speak up. In the end the truth is always best.’
The truth is always best, he thought dismally. Mrs Ahmed so plainly had made that an article of faith, and he was cheating her. Worse, he was letting her put his lie before the Inquiry with all the force which believing it to be a truth gave to her.
He turned away and went and sat, hunched, on his chair, though he knew that by the end of a long day its hard surface would be a misery to him.
Almost at once he started feeling furious that the session had been delayed. It was all very well for senior officers to decide at their own sweet will that they would come late. Probably S.M. Motabhoy was visiting some shops, perhaps to a tailor to be measured up for a suit to wear when he landed his soft job after retirement. Or he might be spending some time at a health club having massage. He had had all the afternoon yesterday unexpectedly free also.
And all the while here he was sitting waiting for poor Shinde to appear, wondering how he would come up to fierce examination. There was no reason, after all, why he should back up to the hilt the story about not seeing him when he had come back from Lake Helena that night. He himself had done nothing to entitle him to the fellow’s good opinion. Except once, giving him the single cigarette Desai had sent him to buy and had not been there to smoke.
Would the fellow commit perjury for one cigarette only?
But he had been devoted as he was long before that night. For whatever reason, he had taken this liking to him. And it had seemed to be cent per cent.
Time passed. Ghote shifted about on his chair. R.K. and the officers of the Board appeared content to chat away. Mrs Ahmed, ignoring them, had settled down to study a clutch of documents she had taken from her bag.
In amongst them Ghote saw that morning’s Indian Express and after a little, since there was still no sign of S.M. Motabhoy, he asked if he could borrow it. Desultorily he read over the headlines, Three Die in Police Firing, Pharmacists on Indefinite Strike, PM Urges National Unity. But they did not catch his interest. What did the ups and downs of national life signify when there hung over his whole career this black cloud, blacker even than the thick pall above them now sending the heavy warm rain tumbling and tumbling down?
He turned uninterestedly to the paper’s Bombay news page.
Killer Turned Mourner Held.
Some good police work done somewhere then.
It was like an Agatha Christie murder story. A mourner of the victim turning out to be the killer! … Within four hours the police arrested him on the charge of murdering his friend … According to police, Shripat went to Patya’s house where both consumed liquor and slept. In the early hours Shripat woke up his friend as they had to go out for some work. This annoyed Patya. He assaulted Shripat with a stick which had an iron ring in the end.
Not a very difficult case by the sound of it. Only small fries involved. But someone had cleared it up promptly. And he himself was sitting here, suspended from duty, unable to clear up any case. Useless.
And a man dead just because of a fit of stupid anger caused by being in an alcoholic state. And Desai dead because of another fit of anger. Yet … Well, at the moment of decision in Vigatpore he had put himself squarely behind Tiger, and he did not regret that even now. Consequences regret, yes. But what he had done, no, no regret.
He was roused from this deep reverie by a change in the sound of the voices of the officers chatting amongst themselves.
He looked up.
S.M. Motabhoy had arrived, evidently with a story to tell.
‘… unbolted the door and stepped out of the flat, and I thought I was still having that nightmare. People down at the bottom of the stairs screaming their heads off, servants everywhere in huddles wailing and whimpering. Little boys with raincoats over their nightclothes shrieking and laughing. Took me almost ten minutes down in the lobby to find out what was happening. Well, you know Sun Flower building where I stay, on Malabar Hill? Actually it is built in a hollow, and it turned out some retaining wall had broken under the pressure of flood water and the whole com
pound round was turned into a lake. You know what the weather was like last night.’
Ghote knew. The slapping pellets of rain had kept him awake hour after hour. That and the thoughts churning through his mind.
‘Well,’ S.M. Motabhoy went on, ‘it was pretty dangerous. Petrol had leaked out of cars under water in the garages in the compound, and it was obvious that if anyone struck a match or if the water rose up as high as the electricity meters and caused a sparking the whole place could go up in flames. So panic set in, believe you me. There was a diamond merchant from the flat above us – he was a chap we knew just to wish hello in the mornings – and his wife was screaming at him to rescue her jewelleries, and, meek old Gujarati though he is, I thought he would turn on her and strangle her. And people were cursing the Fire Brigade because our calls were not answered. Ladies using language I never thought they were knowing. And all the time the water level was getting nearer and nearer those damn meters.’
‘So what did you do, sir?’ asked one of the junior officers.
‘Took over the phone and got on to a chap I know at the B.E.S.T. and he got his engineers to cut off the current. Then at last a fire engine turned up and they pumped away enough water for it to be safe for us to evacuate. But I tell you I’ve ceased to think of the monsoon as fun any more. You know, going with the children for roasted bhutta on Marine Drive and watching the waves crashing over, and hot toddies and bowls of steaming soup. No, I suddenly felt sorry for all the hutments people soaking wet from monsoon start to monsoon finish and flooded out, too, as often as not, let alone the beggars who die from exposure.’
There was a murmur – sycophantic, Ghote thought – of appreciation.
S.M. Motabhoy looked round him.
‘Well, sorry for the delay,’ he said. ‘But I think we should make a start now. Mr Sankar, you were going to call a fresh witness, wasn’t it? Has he arrived all right? No rail lines cut?’
Ghote felt abruptly as if he had in a dream stepped over the edge of a precipice and was falling, falling.
Under a Monsoon Cloud: an Inspector Ghote Mystery Page 12
