by Vaseem Khan
Chopra frowned. ‘Your commanding officer styles your hair for you?’
‘I mean he’s a shouter,’ snapped Bomberton. ‘Last week he gave my deputy such a blast the man’s glass eye fell out.’
Homi has an idea
‘Have you ever seen a four-month-old corpse? It is not a pleasant sight.’
It was the following morning and Chopra was splayed in a plastic seat inside the badly air-conditioned office of Homi Contractor, deep within the bowels of Sahar Hospital.
He had arrived at the facility half an hour earlier, his first stop of the day, and had spent the better part of that time trying to convince his old friend to help in the identification of the two burned bodies. He still had no idea if they had anything to do with Cyrus Zorabian’s death, but his instincts were once again making a nuisance of themselves.
And besides, there was an unspoken obligation here.
Call it fate, karma, or simple bad luck, but the burden of unravelling these two brutal and unsolved deaths had fallen to him. The sight of those blackened corpses would haunt his nightmares for years to come; it was not within him to walk away from their unspoken plea.
‘I am in need of some expert advice,’ he had said when he had entered the cramped office to find Homi writing up an autopsy report.
‘Really?’ Homi had replied without looking up. ‘When I need expert advice I usually consult myself.’
Chopra smiled. Modesty had never been one of Homi’s strong suits.
Quickly, he had launched into an explanation of the circuitous path that had brought him to his friend’s doorstep.
Homi had considered the problem; he was less than enthusiastic. ‘I remember those two – we did the autopsies right here. Shot in the head, then burned to a crisp. Someone had used an accelerant on them. Wanted to make sure there was no chance of an ID. It worked, too.’
‘There has to be something we can do.’
‘Ah,’ said Homi, staring curiously at his friend. ‘It’s one of those cases, is it?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’ve seen all this before, you know,’ replied the pathologist evenly. ‘When something gets under your skin. It’s like watching a man with a terminal case of haemorrhoids. You simply cannot stop yourself from scratching.’
Chopra coloured. ‘We owe it to them.’
‘If we all started thinking like you, the whole system would collapse in a week. Our resources are limited. And there is only one of me. If I could clone myself, I most certainly would. My gift to the world. But alas that is not possible.’
‘If it is a question of funds . . .? That can be arranged. Within reason.’
Homi’s ears perked up. ‘Is that so?’
‘The Zorabian organisation is not without means.’ Chopra did not bother to mention that Cyrus’s company had fallen on hard times.
Homi’s eyes glittered. ‘Well, there is something we might try. A procedure I saw at a medical conference in Helsinki last month. I’ve been itching to give it a go, but have never been able to convince our budgetary taskmasters at the hospital. It’s expensive – I’d have to liaise with a couple of overseas experts. There’s also some rather costly software I’d need to buy . . . But, yes, I think it could be done.’ He seemed to be talking to himself, his rubbery features suddenly animated. He leaned forward over the cluttered desk, his autopsy report temporarily forgotten. ‘Have you ever heard of forensic facial reconstruction?’
‘I have come across it. On TV documentaries. Do you think such a procedure can provide us with a likeness of their faces?’
‘As good as makes no difference,’ said Homi confidently. ‘We would have to dig them up. It won’t be a pretty sight. Bodies that long underground.’
‘Out of interest: how is it that they were not cremated?’
‘It’s the law, I’m afraid. Without a positive ID we could not ascertain their religion. So into the ground they went. Can you imagine the fuss if we’d cremated them, and then it turned out they were Muslims? Or, even worse, Parsees? I’d never hear the end of it.’
Chopra could well believe it.
It had always struck him as faintly ridiculous the rituals that human beings had invented to make the cold hard reality of death more palatable. Ceremony, prayer, meretricious outpourings of grief, convoluted burial practices. The simple fact was that once a man passed into the next life – or wherever the soul went after death – there was nothing but an empty carcass left behind. Anything you did to it or for it was moot, an exercise in pointlessness.
‘How soon can we get this done?’
Homi had stood up and was pacing his office. ‘We need a court order to exhume the remains. I know a couple of friendly judges, so that shouldn’t take long. Then we need approval from the city’s Public Health Department. They’re a real pain to work with. But you leave that to me. The head man owes me a favour. I am pretty sure I can get him to fast-track the application.’
‘Application?’
‘Digging up the dead is a dicey business, old friend. You wouldn’t believe the paperwork involved. But I will take care of all that for you. With a fair wind we’ll have those cadavers breathing fresh air by this evening.’ Homi clapped his palms together. ‘This will be a first in Mumbai. I shall document the whole process. There’ll be at least half a dozen papers in it. Maybe even a TV documentary. “Homi Contractor – the face of Indian forensic facial reconstruction.” Get it? The face of?’ He grinned wolfishly.
Chopra could see that his friend was intoxicated with the possibilities. He hoped that he did not forget the reason behind the endeavour.
‘Two young people were brutally murdered,’ he said, in mild admonishment.
‘Well, you didn’t murder them, did you?’ replied Homi. ‘Neither did I. We cannot change what happened.’ He scooped up a polished skull that he kept on his bookshelf, a souvenir from his college days. Turning to face Chopra, he worked the skull’s jawbone up and down in a parody of speech. ‘Alas, poor Chopra! I knew him, Horatio. A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.’
Chopra did not smile. He got up, gave Homi his sternest look, then turned for the door.
The skull’s jawbone rattled again: ‘My name is Gladiator.’
Chopra grasped the handle. ‘Keep me informed,’ he muttered, as he swept from the room.
‘I am your father, Luke!’
A Latin detour
Chopra arrived at the St Xavier Catholic School for Boys in the plush suburb of Juhu as it was approaching midday. The temperature had already risen into the upper thirties, with little breeze to leaven the baking atmosphere. As he and Ganesha entered the extensive grounds he saw that the grassy fields were already turning brown from the heatwave.
The school, over a century old now, had begun life as an orphanage, the legacy of Portuguese missionaries who had been zealously active once upon a time, eradicating poverty, doling out Christian charity, and converting the heathen. A hundred years on and St Xavier was routinely ranked as one of the finest educational establishments in the city.
It was also the place of employment of one Poppy Chopra, the first and, to date, only woman to serve on the school’s staff roster.
Chopra remembered the fuss when his wife had discovered this peculiar omission; the fact that in a hundred years the school had not seen fit to utilise the talents of a single member of the gentler – and, in his wife’s opinion, wiser – sex had incensed her. A campaign of aggressive petitioning had followed, almost driving a number of the school’s ageing trustees into early graves, the end result of which had been the appointment of Poppy as St Xavier’s first drama and dance tutor.
Chopra had suspected that, having made her point, Poppy would quickly tire of the role. She had never worked before, contenting herself with pursuing a never-ending catalogue of social causes over the years of their marriage.
But she had surprised him.
The job seemed to suit her perfectly. By all accounts, she was a
big hit.
‘Hello!’
Chopra turned.
Talk of the devil.
There was Poppy now, striding purposefully over the grass towards him in a bright yellow sari, her dark hair pulled into its usual bun.
Chopra always felt his good fortune most acutely in the presence of his wife. They had married young – Poppy was only in her early forties, and he himself, though in his late forties, did not feel a day over thirty – passing a quarter of a century together, a union that had seen its share of ups and downs. Nevertheless, he believed – no, he knew – that both their lives would have been poorer without the other. They had grown up in the same village together, out in the Maharashtrian interior; their fathers had been the best of friends – so in some sense perhaps destiny had played its part.
Yet it had remained for them to live out the partnership they had committed to, and in that living, define each other. That they had done so successfully, in spite of the vicissitudes of fate – most notably in their childlessness – was a testament to the decision they had made all those years ago.
Ganesha bounded over to her, wrapping his trunk around her waist as she leaned down and hugged him.
Chopra’s gaze, however, was drawn to the man jogging behind her, struggling to keep up, clad head-to-foot in a strangely unsettling costume. He looked for all the world like a giant mound of chocolate ice cream, or a brown Michelin Man from the tyre adverts on television. There was something queasily familiar about the whole thing . . .
‘Who is this?’ he asked.
Poppy turned to the man, who was bent double, hands on knees, gasping for breath. ‘This is Mr Poo. The mascot of the Poo2Loo campaign. I have invited him to deliver a talk to the boys today.’
Chopra felt once more the surreal disembodiment that stole over him whenever he encountered the Poo2Loo campaign. It still seemed fantastical to him that a country touting itself as a global superpower was struggling to control the profligate bowels of its populace.
‘But that is – that is preposterous,’ was all he could find to say.
The mascot straightened. He lifted a hatch from the ‘face’, revealing wide eyes and a sad little moustache. ‘Oh, you think my life is easy, do you? Parading around in this outfit?’ He lit a cigarette. ‘You think I dreamed of being a giant turd when I was growing up? I trained at the Prithvi Theatre. I have performed Shakespeare. The Ghatkopar Express called my Macbeth a “most acceptable” performance.’
Still shaking his head, Chopra followed his wife into the school. He had asked Poppy to arrange a meeting with the school’s principal.
‘I must warn you, he is not in a good mood,’ she remarked as they arrived at the frosted-glass door of Brother Augustus Lobo’s office.
‘Has he ever been in a good mood?’ muttered Chopra.
‘I must leave you to it,’ said his wife. ‘I will see you afterwards for lunch.’
‘Take this,’ said Mr Poo, handing Chopra a leaflet. The slogan read: Defecation need not be desecration. He watched the six-foot-tall turd waddle after his wife, before vanishing around a corner.
Taking a deep breath, he knocked on the principal’s door.
‘Come!’ bellowed a voice from within.
Chopra entered to find Principal Augustus Lobo hunched over his desk, fountain pen in hand.
The principal of St Xavier was in his early nineties, but, with his thick grey hair, looked like a man in his sixties. Lobo, a strict disciplinarian, was a man who believed in the ‘stick and bigger stick’ approach to tutelage; he had been meting out such salutary lessons at the school for more than half a century, passing on his own sense of moral righteousness to cadres of bright (and not-so-bright) young men who had gone on to shape Indian society. Politicians, businessmen, film stars – many famous backsides had felt the ire of Augustus Lobo’s cane during their formative years.
‘Ah, Chopra,’ said Lobo, glancing up. ‘Short back and sides today, man.’
Chopra blinked in confusion. ‘I – ah – I am here about the Latin letters.’
Lobo’s expression crunched into a glare. ‘What does a barber need with Latin?’
‘I am not a barber. Sir.’ Chopra wondered why he instantly felt reduced to his ten-year-old self in the presence of the old man. ‘I am Poppy’s husband. Here about a case.’
A light came on in Lobo’s eyes. ‘Ah! The detective with the elephant. You helped us with that dreadful statue business.’
A sense of relief washed through Chopra. The agency had recently assisted the school in recovering a missing bust of one of its founders, thereby averting both a scandal and Lobo’s incipient hernia.
Chopra pulled out the sheaf of letters discovered in Cyrus Zorabian’s bank locker. ‘Poppy tells me that you are fluent in Latin. These were recovered as part of an ongoing investigation. I would be most grateful if you could translate them.’
Lobo took the letters, adjusted the pince-nez spectacles balanced on his nose, then furrowed his great, winged eyebrows. ‘Hah! Typed!’ he muttered. ‘Where have the days of penmanship gone, eh? In the old days, you could tell where you stood with a man just by examining his handwriting.’
Grumbling under his breath, Lobo worked swiftly. In his neat hand, he wrote each translation on to a single sheet alongside the original Latin.
Chopra waited for the ink to dry, then picked up the sheet, and began to read:
Salus populi suprema lex esto.
The welfare of the people is the highest law.
Radix malorum est cupiditas.
Greed is the root of all evil.
Bonum commune communitatis.
Common good of the community.
Sit sine labe decus.
Let honour stainless be.
Boni pastoris est tondere pecus non deglubere.
It is a good shepherd’s role to shear his flock, not to flay them.
Faber est suae quisque infortunii.
Every man is the artisan of his own misfortune.
‘What do they mean?’ he murmured to himself.
Believing that the question had been directed at him, Lobo responded: ‘They are fairly well-known exhortations to moral behaviour. From the likes of Tiberius and Cicero. It would seem that whoever sent these was urging your victim to reconsider his actions. Possibly the man was in some position of responsibility and had failed in discharging that duty. The world is rife with immorality, Chopra.’ Lobo rose from his desk. ‘At any rate, I have Brother Machado’s lecture to deliver. Bloody fool managed to stop a javelin with his foot out on the sports field. Not paying attention, too busy fiddling with his mobile telephonic device. Hah! Divine providence, if you ask me.’
Back out on the grounds, Chopra found a whitewashed bench where he waited for Poppy.
He watched Ganesha playing soccer with a group of boys out for their physical exercise class. The little elephant was surprisingly nimble with a ball at his feet. His presence delighted the youngsters, and the sound of their laughter drifted over the tinder-dry grass.
Lobo’s translations circled each other inside Chopra’s head like a flock of honking geese.
Who had sent those letters? Why?
Clearly, Cyrus had taken them seriously enough to secrete them inside his bank locker. Yet they were hardly threatening. There was no overt malice, merely a rather condescending sense of moral righteousness. Was it possible that the Parsee industrialist was being blackmailed? If so, what for?
This line of thought opened up complicated new avenues of investigation, and Chopra spent the next thirty minutes scratching in his notebook.
When Poppy arrived, she plopped on the bench beside him, startling him.
‘We shall eat together,’ she announced, rattling her tiffin at him.
Chopra checked his watch. He could spare the time.
As the beguiling aromas of home-made chicken kolhapuri and saffron rice wafted around them, his thoughts lingered on the letters.
If the possibility of blackmail wa
s set to one side – for Chopra really had no reason to suppose this – then what else might these letters mean? What was it Lobo had said? That the phrases indicated a man who had failed to discharge his duty. Cyrus Zorabian had ground his ancestral business into the dirt. How many lives had been affected by the decisions he had made, by his pig-headedness, his refusal to listen? Could it be that someone had written these letters to wake Zorabian up to the effect of his actions? Any number of employees would have been justified in sending these missives – those who had their ear to the ground and had put two and two together, at any rate – including his disinherited son.
But why in Latin?
Chopra could only guess.
Perhaps, by writing to Zorabian in this way, the sender had hoped both to attract the Parsee magnate’s attention – Perizaad had stated he had studied Latin – while also disguising his or her own identity. Which hinted that the sender might be known to Cyrus. But who . . .?
‘Have you taken your pills?’
Chopra shook himself out of his mental divagations. He smiled at his wife. ‘I was just about to.’
Poppy poured him a glass of water so that he could gulp down the angina pills that were the bane of his existence.
‘How did it go with Lobo?’ she asked.
‘Very well. I have inched a little closer to the mountain. What about your talk? How did the kids take to, er, your friend?’
‘Boys will be boys,’ said Poppy, arching a rueful eyebrow. ‘I am afraid they were quite merciless. In the end, he tore off his suit, shouted “I quit”, and ran off. He was arrested in the street. He was not in the habit of wearing anything beneath his costume, you see. Because of the heat. It has not been a good day for Mr Poo.’
Chopra stared at his wife. Something moved in his gut. He tried to ignore it, but soon he found his shoulders shaking. And then he could control it no longer. The laugh erupted from inside him, a great, convulsive roar of glee. His wife looked on in astonishment, as tears of mirth squeezed out from the corners of his eyes. It was so rare to see her husband this way.
