Bad Day at the Vulture Club

by Vaseem Khan

  Perizaad frowned. ‘Buckley was my father’s man.’

  ‘Yet you did not take him on as your own PA when you took the reins.’

  She hesitated. ‘No. I needed a clean break from the past. But that does not mean I think less of him. Frankly, without his help it would have been difficult for me to make any headway with my father’s affairs following his death.’

  ‘Nevertheless, I am certain that he has not been completely truthful with me. And given that he was one of the people closest to your father . . .’

  ‘William Buckley served my father loyally for almost a decade,’ said Perizaad. ‘There is nothing for you to find there.’

  ‘When he joined your organisation, were background checks carried out on him?’

  ‘I assume so.’

  ‘Such records would be with your Personnel office?’

  ‘Yes. I suppose so.’

  ‘May I have access to them?’

  She hesitated, then shrugged. ‘If you feel it necessary. But frankly, you are wasting your time. If there is anything you wish to know about William Buckley, you should ask him directly. My father always believed him to be a scrupulously honest man.’

  Back in the van, Chopra called Homi. ‘Darius Zorabian,’ he said. ‘Can you tell me why he was disinherited by his father?’

  Homi asked him to hold. He heard sounds of banging and shouting, then, ‘The official version was that Darius was branching out on his own. The prodigal son flexing his Harvard-educated business muscles while his father sat back and gave him room to breathe.’

  ‘But that wasn’t the truth, was it?’

  ‘Of course not. Nothing was ever publicly confirmed, but we’re a small community. Gossip travels fast. And there’s nothing we Parsees like better than a family scandal.’

  ‘Scandal? What scandal?’

  ‘It was to do with Darius’s wife,’ said Homi.

  Chopra listened. By the time he ended the call, he had decided that it was high time he confronted the victim’s son.

  The prodigal son

  He drove to the industrial district of Kala Qila – Black Fort – a relatively sparsely built-up area on the marshy banks of the Mahim Creek just twenty minutes from the Alpha Bank, and a short drive across the Sion-Bandra Link Road bridge. It was in this sprawling estate of small- to mid-sized industrial units, nestled around the western edge of the Maharashtra Nature Park, that Sun4Life Incorporated was located.

  He parked the van opposite the local bus depot, where a gang of bus drivers were playing cards in the street as they ate a late lunch from steel tiffins. As Ganesha drifted by, they paused their game and watched with interest. The little elephant, drawn by the smells wafting from the open lunch boxes, stopped to investigate, hoping, perhaps, for a light afternoon snack.

  ‘Pick a card for me, little one,’ said one of the drivers, grinning broadly as he puffed on a hand-rolled cigarette. He tapped the deck splayed before him. Ganesha reached out and gave the deck a quick poke with his trunk. The driver swept up the card, took a quick look, then set down his hand triumphantly. He pulled the pot of cash towards him and turned to Chopra. ‘This elephant is lucky. Why don’t you leave him with us?’

  Chopra gave a rueful smile. ‘I would rather he did not become a gambler. He has enough vices already.’

  Good-natured laughter followed them along the dusty track as they walked to the Sun4Life unit, a large shed-like space with crumbling brick walls and a tin roof. It was a far cry from the wealth and pomp Chopra usually associated with Parsee-run enterprises.

  The temperature inside the tin shed was even higher than outside, a miasma of dead air and indolent heat.

  Chopra’s shirt stuck to his back. Sweat poured freely from his forehead, drenching his moustache. He wondered how anyone could work in this sauna-like environment.

  Then again, millions of Indians did precisely that, in microbusinesses and low-rent factories up and down the land. There was a reason they were called sweatshops.

  A large man in a pair of shabby shorts and a torn T-shirt was poking around inside the guts of a piece of complicated-looking machinery. ‘Ho, there,’ said Chopra by way of greeting. ‘I am looking for Darius Zorabian.’

  The man straightened.

  He was tall, with a dark crew cut and an impressively dynastical nose. It was the nose that gave him away. ‘You must be Chopra,’ said Darius.

  His eyes flickered to Ganesha who was already eyeing the machinery with interest. The elephant calf was insatiably curious.

  ‘Is he with you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Handsome beast.’

  ‘Don’t tell him that.’

  Darius raised an eyebrow but forbore from further comment.

  ‘Thank you for agreeing to see me,’ said Chopra.

  ‘Do not thank me yet,’ said Darius. ‘I only agreed to speak with you out of curiosity.’

  Chopra’s eyes drifted around the space. A number of labourers – men and women – were engaged at various workstations employing simple tools on bits of machinery.

  ‘Solar micro panels,’ said Darius, noticing his expression. ‘It is an assembly line.’

  ‘Solar panels?’ echoed Chopra. It was not what he had expected to hear.

  Perhaps Darius caught the note of scepticism in his tone. He launched into a passionate explanation of his enterprise. ‘Did you know that a quarter of India’s population lives outside the power grid? Our politicians crow about “India Shining”, but in most rural homes even the lights don’t shine half of the time. Despite the government’s promises to “electrify the nation” there is not enough profit for the power companies – and not enough votes for local politicos – to bring electricity to the remoter villages. That is where entrepreneurs like myself come in. The low-cost panels we create can be installed very cheaply. They generate very low amounts of energy – but enough to provide lighting for a single-roomed home, or power for a fridge, for a mobile phone, for an irrigation pump. Slowly but surely, we are transforming the lives of thousands of people.’

  Chopra felt that this impassioned speech was one Darius had given many times.

  ‘It cannot have been easy,’ he said. ‘To leave your family business and strike out on your own.’

  ‘The fact you’re here means that you already know that I did not leave my family business,’ said Darius stiffly. ‘I was kicked out. Disinherited. I am sure my sister told you.’

  ‘She did,’ said Chopra. ‘She was very distressed by what happened.’

  ‘Not so distressed that she stood by me.’

  ‘I believe that is something she deeply regrets. She told me that you and your father disagreed on how to run the business.’

  ‘Run? The only running my father did was running our business into the ground.’

  ‘Your father was a stubborn man.’

  ‘He was more than that. He was the worst type of fool. One who doesn’t know that he is a fool. Allowing him to continue to direct our business was like handing a toddler a loaded gun.’

  ‘The pair of you quarrelled over it?’

  Darius smouldered, but did not reply.

  ‘And yet,’ continued Chopra, ‘that is not why he disinherited you.’

  ‘Perizaad told you?’

  ‘No. I discovered it for myself. It was your marriage that caused the rift.’

  Darius’s eyes gleamed with anger. ‘My father threw me out because I married against his wishes. Because I married outside the Parsee community. When I was at Harvard I fell in love. With an American, a Christian. I asked her to marry me. When my father found out he gave me an ultimatum. Leave her or leave my home. I chose her.’

  It was Chopra’s turn to pause. He knew that the subject of marriage in the Parsee community was a delicate one. Indeed, in the country as a whole, marriage outside one’s caste, community, tribe, or religion was generally the cause of much angst; the phenomenon of honour killings was more prevalent than most liked to believe or admit. But
in Parsee society the interdiction was both deeply entrenched and paradoxical – for they were among the most highly educated and enlightened of communities.

  He noticed that Ganesha had picked up the screwdriver with his trunk and was poking it inside the solar panel that Darius had been working on. He frowned at his young ward, who deftly turned his bottom to him, so that he could carry on his investigation without censure.

  ‘Did you speak to your father after leaving the family home?’

  Darius’s gaze shifted away. ‘No.’

  Chopra sensed that this might not be the whole truth. ‘I am no longer a policeman,’ he said gently. ‘I am merely trying to discover what really happened to him.’

  ‘What happened to him was stupidity,’ spat Darius, suddenly furious. ‘He was a stubborn, foolish, old man. He refused to listen. Who was he to tell me who I should or should not marry? As for the business . . . A blind man could have told him he was heading for ruin. He has singlehandedly squandered my birthright.’

  ‘Your sister is doing her best to salvage things.’

  ‘My sister. Hah! By rights that should have been me.’

  ‘She wishes you were by her side.’

  ‘She told you that? It’s funny, I don’t recall her inviting me back.’

  ‘She feels your anger has clouded your judgement. That it is preventing you from behaving reasonably. Perhaps she is right.’

  Darius’s eyes narrowed. ‘You don’t know the first thing about me.’

  ‘I was a policeman for thirty years. I have seen the very best and worst of human nature. You say your father was blind, unreasoning. Perhaps there is more of him in you than you suppose.’ He paused before continuing. ‘Can you tell me where you were on the night of his death?’

  ‘I wondered when you would get around to that. You need not excite yourself. The police asked me the same question. I was at home, with my wife.’

  Chopra had read this in the police report, but he had wanted to hear it again from Darius. On the face of it, the man had an ironclad alibi for his father’s death. But how much was an alibi from a spouse really worth? It was another example of ACP Rao’s shoddy attention to detail. ‘I’d like to speak with her,’ he said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Routine questions.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ growled Darius. ‘My wife is not well. Stay away from her.’

  Chopra did not pursue the matter. The man was in a truculent mood. He would have to find another way to talk to Mrs Darius Zorabian. ‘Can you think of anyone else who may have wished your father harm?’

  Darius blinked. In that moment, as he stood, alone and defiant, a man cut adrift from the fraternity of his people, Chopra’s words seemed to strike something deep inside him. A gong of regret that tolled within the hollows of his heart. His shoulders slumped. ‘My father was an infuriating man. He stopped listening to those around him, those who cared about him. Yet he could be charming and charismatic when he wanted to be. He could inspire insane devotion or incandescent hatred.’

  ‘Do you know of anyone who hated him enough to kill him?’

  Darius shrugged. ‘The last time I saw hatred like that . . . Did Buckley or my sister mention Anosh Ginwala?’

  ‘The head corpse-bearer at the Towers of Silence?’

  ‘You’ve met him?’

  ‘I spoke with him yesterday.’

  ‘I visited Doongerwadi a week before my father was killed. I may have married a non-Parsee, but my faith is still important to me. I encountered Ginwala. He had been drinking. He recognised me and started talking about my father. Apparently he had turned down a series of demands by the corpse-bearers: a long-overdue pay rise, a request for better housing, better living conditions. He had led them on for years, and then, finally, told Ginwala it was never going to happen. That if he ever mentioned it again he would be fired, his family thrown out of Doongerwadi. In that instant, I saw murder in Ginwala’s eyes.’ Darius paused. ‘They say that, given enough time, history will denounce anyone. Well, my father deserves to be pulled down from his pedestal. He was a tyrant, Chopra. Oh, he cultivated the image expected of him – the Parsee with a heart of gold – but it was just a front. He ran our business like a fiefdom. He ruled over Doongerwadi in the same way. He did exactly as he wished, and no one had the power or guts to stop him.’

  A question of jurisdiction

  On the way back to the restaurant, Chopra first stopped at the offices of the Zorabian organisation. He made his way to the Personnel department, where, citing Perizaad’s permission, he obtained background documents on William Buckley, including photocopies of his passport and a letter of reference from his last employer, a Mr Peter Brewer.

  Brewer’s praise had been effusive, and, on the face of it, genuine.

  Chopra tucked the paperwork away, then headed for the door and home.

  Half an hour later he detoured towards the Sahar police station.

  Evening was fast approaching, but he wished to meet with the station-in-charge. It had been a day of small revelations, and slow, steady progress. Yet the day had also revealed new threads that he could not help but pull at, in the hope that they might unravel some greater truth. It was in pursuit of one of these minor threads that he entered the station and made his way to the office of Inspector Malini Sheriwal.

  Outside the door to the office – his old office, he couldn’t help but think with a squirt of nostalgia – he found Constable Qureshi facing the wall with a terracotta plant pot over his head. The sight was so incongruous that it caused him to halt in his onward progress. ‘Qureshi? Is that you?’

  Constable Qureshi, a stick-thin, knobbly-kneed fifty-five-year-old, had spent a lifetime on the force without managing to graduate out of his blue constable’s shorts. His supreme incompetence had made him something of a legend, and meant that he enjoyed the dubious distinction of being one of the most transferred officers in the service. As the grandson of a once prominent political family, it had been deemed by those in charge that Qureshi could never be fired. He was, instead, passed from station to station, as welcome as a bout of gonorrhoea. He had only just arrived at the Sahar station when Chopra was forced into retirement, but in that short space of time had driven his commanding officer to distraction.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ came Qureshi’s muffled voice.

  ‘What the devil are you doing, man?’

  ‘Inspector Sheriwal’s orders, sir.’

  ‘Orders? She ordered you to stand here with a pot on your head?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Chopra’s expression was mystified. ‘Why?’

  ‘I am being TAUGHT A LESSON, sir,’ intoned Qureshi. ‘Inspector Sheriwal believes that STRONG DRINK IS A MOCKER and that I must be made to see the ERROR OF MY WAYS.’

  Chopra was speechless.

  He had heard rumours that Qureshi had something of a drink problem when he had agreed to take the man on, but he did not think that this was the remedy. From what he knew of addiction, standing by the wall with a pot on one’s head was not the answer. ‘You are dismissed, Qureshi.’

  Qureshi somehow contrived to look uncertain, even though the pot was obscuring his face.

  ‘Inspector Sheriwal will be displeased, sir.’

  ‘Go. Now!’

  Qureshi scurried away, hands holding on to the sides of the pot.

  Chopra knocked on the door to the office, then entered.

  Malini Sheriwal was a tall, broad-shouldered woman who wore her khaki well. A head of glossy black hair was pulled back from a not unhandsome face, the most prominent features of which were a strong, Roman nose and widely spaced brown eyes.

  Sheriwal, he knew, was a woman of firm opinions, and even firmer action.

  Betrayed by her first and only husband, she had shot the man in the foot, before divorcing him.

  As a member of Mumbai’s notorious Encounter Squad, she had brought terror to the city’s underworld, notching up numerous kills with her infamous ivory-handled revolver. So
cavalier had her shooting spree become that eventually the city’s authorities had been forced to disband the squad, and send the ace sharpshooter off to lie low. After her adrenalin-fuelled days on the Encounter Squad, the mundanities of running a small suburban station had proved to be Sheriwal’s worst nightmare; her frustration inevitably found a lightning rod in the less competent officers under her command.

  She looked up from her desk as Chopra came in, blinking in momentary confusion, before recognition bloomed.

  ‘I am sorry to interrupt your work,’ said Chopra. ‘But I wonder if you have a few minutes? I require your help.’

  Sheriwal put down her pen. ‘It seems that helping you is becoming a full-time job for me.’

  Chopra coloured. He realised that he had never properly thanked the policewoman for helping him out of a recent jam. In actual fact, it was Poppy that Sheriwal had helped, aiding her in locating Chopra when he had gone missing, courtesy of ACP Rao’s machinations. But for Sheriwal’s intervention, Chopra might well still be incarcerated in one of the worst prisons in the penal system.

  ‘Your assistance was appreciated. As one officer to another, I offer you my heartfelt thanks.’

  This seemed to please her. She waved at the chair on the far side of her desk. ‘What can I do for you?’

  Chopra took the proffered seat, then reached into his pocket, and took out the press clipping he had found in Cyrus’s office. ‘What can you tell me about this case? I believe the burned vehicle was found in your jurisdiction.’

  Sheriwal scanned the article. ‘I remember the investigation. Mainly because we were unable to make much headway.’ She abruptly bellowed: ‘Qureshi! Get in here!’

  When there was no response, she opened her mouth again, but was cut off by Chopra. ‘I am afraid Qureshi is gone,’ he said. ‘I told him to go.’

  Anger flared in Sheriwal’s eyes. ‘You countermanded my orders?’

  ‘Qureshi is a good man. A bad cop, but a good man.’

  Sheriwal was silent a moment. ‘He has managed to elevate incompetence to an art form.’