Bad Day at the Vulture Club

by Vaseem Khan

  ‘Sorry,’ apologised Lucy. ‘It came with the flat. Darius said we’d replace it as soon as we could afford to, but . . .’

  Chopra decided to plunge straight in. ‘I understand that you and Darius met at university?’

  ‘Yes. We were at Harvard together. I was there on a scholarship. I don’t come from money like Darius. My folks are farmers; they’ve pretty much lived hand to mouth for as long as I can remember. One bad harvest and they’d lose everything. I suppose they hoped I’d take over one day, but I could never see myself doing that. I was always ambitious. I wanted to see the world. I guess I got my wish, much good that it did me.’

  ‘You and Darius were on the same course?’

  ‘No. He’s a few years older than me. He was on a one-year executive MBA programme; I was an economics undergraduate, there for the long haul. I met him when an Indian friend of mine invited me to a Republic Day celebration that the Harvard Indian Society was holding. He was there dressed up as Gandhi – you know, all wrapped in a white robe with a bald wig on. And then he got on stage and started doing this ridiculous breakdance routine. I thought it was hilarious. We started chatting and hit it off. A year later, when he was finishing up his studies, he asked me to marry him. I was only twenty-two, but he was dashing, funny, exotic. You could say he swept me off my feet. I still had a year to go on my degree – and so I told him I needed time. He was a gentleman about it. Said that he would wait for me. He was as good as his word. After the year was up, he invited me to India so that he could introduce me to his family. I couldn’t think of a place further from the life I’d known – and so I said yes.’

  ‘And when you came to India did you meet his father? Cyrus?’

  The smile died in her eyes. ‘Only the once. Darius took me to Samundra Mahal. It was a big mistake. Darius hadn’t told him about us. When he sprang it on him – the fact that we were going to be married – Cyrus went ballistic. Darius asked me to step out of the room, but I could hear them shouting through the door. When he came out again, he was as white as a sheet, practically dragged me out of his home. We stayed at a friend’s house for two weeks before he found this place. His father had cut him off completely, you see. No allowance, no financial support of any kind. He gave his son an ultimatum. Ditch me, and marry the girl he’d chosen for him, or face being disinherited.’

  ‘You knew that Darius was heir to the Zorabian fortune?’

  ‘What you mean is, did I marry Darius for his money?’ She waved her hands around the room. ‘If I did, it hasn’t exactly worked out for me, has it? Look, I’m no gold-digger, but I’d be lying if I said that Darius’s wealth wasn’t part of the attraction. I’ve always had a practical head on my shoulders. I promised myself a long time ago I wouldn’t marry the first village idiot to flex his biceps at me.’

  ‘Why did you go through with the wedding? I mean, you knew that Cyrus was going to disinherit his son if he married you.’

  ‘I thought it was just bluster. I thought the old man would calm down once he saw that we were serious about building a life together. I guess I didn’t realise just how stubborn they both were.’

  ‘Did you know that Cyrus had all but run the Zorabian empire into the ground before his death?’

  Her eyes widened. ‘No. I didn’t know that.’

  ‘Darius didn’t tell you?’

  ‘He doesn’t tell me much. I think he’s a little disappointed that I haven’t exactly taken to our reduced circumstances. Hah! I have a degree from Harvard. By rights, I should be scaling the ladder at one of the world’s top companies. Instead, I’m stuck. And on top of it all, I’m about to have a child.’

  ‘The child is an issue between you?’

  Lucy rubbed her belly. ‘It wasn’t exactly part of the plan. I thought we were being careful; clearly not careful enough. Before you ask, yes, I thought about getting rid of it. But Darius wouldn’t hear of it. Our baby became another pawn in his battle with his father. The Parsees, as you probably know, are hyper-sensitive about their low birth rate. They’re always pushing each other to have kids. I saw this cartoon, once, on the wall of my gynaecologist’s office. A couple of grumpy pandas in a cage. One says to the other, “So much pressure on us to breed – what do they take us for, Parsees?” ’ Her lips cracked into a mirthless smile. ‘I have half a mind to take the kid back to the States when it’s born. But the thought of running back to my parents with my tail between my legs, back to the farm I swore I’d have nothing to do with . . .’

  Chopra gave the woman a sympathetic look. ‘Where is Darius? I need to talk to him.’

  ‘He’s gone to Pune for the day. To try to nail down a big contract for his solar panels. He’s obsessed with those things, convinced he’s going to strike it rich. He’s borrowed heavily, put everything he has – we have – into it. If things don’t turn a corner soon, we’ll be out on the street. What kind of a life will that be for our child?’

  Chopra sensed, finally, the deep despair sloshing around behind Lucy Mulvaney’s façade of brittle cynicism. The woman was drowning; life had hit her hard, the vicissitudes of fate a rude awakening she had been wholly unprepared for.

  He pushed his sympathy to one side. He had a job to do, and difficult questions to ask.

  ‘Lucy, did Darius ever threaten his father?’

  Her eyes flashed. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I am working on the theory that the person who murdered Cyrus was known to him, that it wasn’t a random crime.’

  ‘Surely you don’t suspect Darius? I mean, I know he was angry with his father, but—’

  ‘Just how angry was he?’

  ‘Furious. But that doesn’t make him a killer. If rage was all you needed I’d be on the Most Wanted list by now.’

  Chopra considered this, then asked, ‘Does Darius read Latin?’

  ‘Latin? Yes. He studied it in school. He went to the same school as his father; it was a point of pride for them, the Zorabians, I mean. But what has that got to do with anything?’

  Chopra dug out the letters and showed them to her, with the sheet of translations. ‘Cyrus was sent these before his death.’

  Lucy’s brow furrowed. ‘You think Darius sent these?’

  ‘I do not know.’

  She shook her head slowly. ‘No. This isn’t Darius’s style. He’s a bull in a china shop, a regular chip off the old block. When he wants to make a point, he goes charging in, all guns blazing. This is too cryptic for him.’

  Chopra took the letters back. ‘This is a difficult question, but on the night that Cyrus died, where was Darius? He claims that he was at home with you. At least, that’s what he told the police.’

  A look of surprise flashed over Mulvaney’s features. ‘I – ah – well, yes, of course he was.’

  ‘Lucy,’ said Chopra gently, ‘I need the truth. It is important.’

  ‘He’s my husband. The father of my child.’

  ‘If Darius had anything to do with his father’s death – and I am not saying that he did – surely you would wish to know?’

  Lucy bit her lip, her expression troubled. She rubbed her belly, unconsciously. Tears welled in her eyes.

  ‘It’s a boy,’ she said. ‘You know, I suggested to Darius that we name him after his father. I thought it might be a gesture, help get them talking again. Darius tore my head off. Even the idea of it sent him spinning into a rage.’ Her face cracked. ‘The way he looked at me. I – I never thought I’d see so much hate, such anger in him. He was such a funny, good-natured guy when we first met. Now I hardly recognise him.’

  Chopra leaned forward. ‘Lucy, listen to me very carefully. Providing someone with a false alibi is a criminal offence. My instincts tell me that you have not been entirely truthful. I will make you a promise. If you tell me the truth, it will remain between us, unless and until I find other evidence that Darius may have been involved in his father’s death.’

  Mulvaney shuddered, and then, to his shock, collapsed in on herself, burying
her head in her hands. He sat back, watching as her body heaved with sobs. A dam had burst, and he sensed that Lucy Mulvaney had finally reached a crossroads.

  Eventually, she brought herself under control, and looked at him, her face scarlet with tears. ‘You promise me that this will stay between us?’

  ‘You have my word. Anything you tell me will be used only to see justice done. I am not Darius’s enemy.’

  She wiped a sleeve across her face. ‘All I can tell you is that he was with me that evening, at the beginning, at least. Then I fell asleep – I was tired; I’d had a prenatal appointment earlier in the day – but he stayed up to watch TV. It was the sound of the TV that woke me a few hours later. Darius wasn’t in the living room, though the TV was still on. I didn’t think anything of it. He often goes out for a walk late in the evening. He’s never been a good sleeper. I went back to bed, and the next morning he was right there beside me.’

  ‘What time did the TV wake you?’

  She shrugged. ‘Around half nine.’

  Chopra pushed himself to his feet. ‘Thank you. I know this hasn’t been easy.’

  ‘Look, whatever else my husband is, he’s no killer.’

  ‘I pray that you are right,’ said Chopra. ‘For the sake of your unborn child.’

  On the way back down to his van, Chopra reflected that Darius Zorabian had now leapt to the top of his list of suspects. Disinherited, desperate, angry and with no alibi. The man was a walking time bomb; had that bomb exploded on the night of his father’s death?

  Dead men can tell tales

  Chopra arrived back at the autopsy suite at the Sahar Hospital at five. He found Homi in his office deep in conversation with Dr Coin and the German forensic artist he had invited to help with the reconstruction, a large woman with square-framed glasses, close-cropped hair and an austere expression that Chopra found a trifle condescending. His impression was reinforced when the woman stood to introduce herself. ‘My name is Klara Bekker,’ she said, in a clipped, heavily accented tone. ‘I am one of the world’s foremost experts in this field.’

  ‘That is good to know,’ said Chopra, glancing at Homi. Clearly, the woman had as much use for modesty as his friend.

  ‘The gang’s all here,’ said Homi, clapping his hands briskly. ‘Let’s get this show on the road.’

  They made their way to the autopsy suite, ploughing through the crowded hospital corridors.

  Back outside the suite, Chopra saw, through the viewing window, that the bodies had been returned to cold storage; the two white plaster casts stood on their pedestals, ghost-like in the room’s dimmed lighting.

  ‘Ah, the patients are ready,’ said Bekker, with a grim smile. She pulled on latex gloves, snapped the edges. ‘And Gott said: let there be light!’

  Homi hurried to the socket panel, and wrenched the switch, so that the room was bathed in its usual bright white light.

  ‘Yes, yes, come to me, meine Lieblinge.’ Bekker advanced on the casts, a dreamy look overtaking her blunt features. ‘I shall raise you from the dead as Jesus once raised Lazarus!’

  ‘Is that woman sane?’

  Chopra turned to find Sheriwal at his shoulder.

  ‘I am not entirely sure.’

  They watched as Bekker hefted a boxy chrome make-up suitcase on to a bench, snapped open the latches, examined the array of tools within, and selected a dusting brush. She turned to the casts, ran a critical eye over them, and said, ‘You have done an adequate job, gentlemen. Now stand back and permit me to do my work.’

  Homi and Dr Coin exchanged glances. Adequate job? But neither man had the courage to challenge the German woman’s assessment.

  Silently, they drifted to the rear of the autopsy suite.

  Bekker began by placing coloured plastic markers at twenty-one sites around each cast. These corresponded to landmark areas inferred from the reference data, providing a contour map of facial thickness based on the race, age and sex of each cast. Next, she removed a tub of modelling clays, selected the correct shade, then began to work it on to the first cast.

  Over the course of the next hour she layered on to each cast the facial muscles – the temporalis, masseter, buccinators and occipito-frontals – and, finally, the soft tissues of the neck. She then reconstructed the lips and nose. ‘For the lips, one usually takes the interpupillary distance as a good approximation,’ she said to her rapt audience and for the benefit of the video-camera – once again manned by Rohit, who was gazing at Bekker with a love-struck expression. ‘It is the nose that is the problem.’

  They watched as she took a steel ruler from her bag, and bent to measure the width of the nasal aperture, and the nasal spine. ‘We can estimate the length of the nose by using a calculation of three times the length of the nasal spine multiplied by the tissue depth estimate at this point. It is a remarkably effective method.’ She wheeled on Homi, causing him to flinch involuntarily. ‘Your nose, for instance, is unusually big. But I am certain that if your skull came before me I would be able to estimate its length to within the nearest few millimetres.’

  Homi passed a self-conscious hand over his bulbous nose. He noticed that Rohit had turned the camera towards him, and was smirking from behind it. He scowled at his assistant, who hurriedly swung the instrument back on to the forensic sculptor.

  ‘Getting the pitch of the nose right is a different matter,’ continued Bekker. ‘It is down to experience and instinct.’ She bent to the task, aggressively moulding clay in her hand, then applying it to the cast.

  ‘This is pointless,’ muttered Sheriwal. ‘This woman is making it up as she goes along.’

  ‘Let us see what she comes up with,’ said Chopra. ‘This technique has worked in a number of high-profile cases abroad. Perhaps it will work for us too. At this point, we have nothing to lose.’

  Sheriwal subsided with a grumble. She glanced at her watch. ‘I shall be back,’ she said, and slipped out of the anteroom.

  Once the nose had been completed to Bekker’s satisfaction she began to build up the outer layers of the face, using her thumb to work the modelling clay, creating the contours of the cheekbones, jawline and chin.

  Gradually, the facial thickness markers that she had put in place at the outset vanished below the clay.

  Bekker stood back to examine her handiwork.

  She seemed to consider the blank face before her, then stepped forward and began to use her fingers and a plastic forensic spatula to work the clay, adding superficial detail to the face: wrinkles, facial lines and micro-contours. The countenance took on a more human aspect, became something more than just a lifeless doll.

  As Chopra looked on, the ghost of a shiver eased up his spine. There was something inherently discomforting about watching the dead revivified in this way. Rationally, he knew that what Bekker was doing was little more than a best-guess reconstruction of what-had-once-been. But a deeper, primordial part of his brain imbued the act with a significance that spoke to the basic humanity that was part and parcel of a life, and that was shed at the moment of death. If there was such a thing as a soul, it seemed to him that Bekker’s act of recreation had somehow breathed that nebulous vapour back into these wax-like visages.

  Another hour passed as the German woman completed the second face.

  Then she returned to her bag and extracted two black-haired wigs. She looked at Homi. ‘Based on what you have told me, I felt these would be most suitable.’

  She adjusted the wigs on to the casts. The female wig was traditionally Indian in style, hair parted in the middle of the head, and gathered into a long ponytail. The male hairstyle was simpler, short on all sides with a neatly combed parting on the right.

  ‘Of course, you can photograph the casts and use modelling software to apply different hairstyles to them.’

  Bekker stepped back, her demeanour suggesting the word: ‘Voilà!’

  Homi and Coin looked at each other and then moved tentatively forward, like two errant schoolboys approaching the he
admistress. ‘Fabulous!’ ventured Homi. ‘You have done a remarkable job.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Bekker matter-of-factly. ‘I am very pleased with the outcome.’

  ‘Of course, one must be careful to note that there is always a degree of subjectivity involved in such reconstructions,’ said Coin.

  The temperature in the room fell several degrees.

  Bekker turned slowly and incinerated the Australian with an icy look. ‘Thank you for your input, Herr Coin,’ she said. ‘However, it is the experience and skill of the forensic artist that ultimately determines how closely the end result might match the deceased person. I believe that with the data made available to me, no one could have done a better job.’

  ‘No, no, of course not,’ said Coin hurriedly, backtracking at Olympic speed. ‘I merely meant that our detectives should view these models as a starting point. In the eventuality that they have no immediate success in identifying the deceased parties.’

  Bekker subsided with a final glare.

  Chopra took out his phone, then said, through the speaker, ‘I’d like to photograph the casts.’

  Homi and Coin both looked at Bekker. ‘Yes,’ she said imperiously. ‘You may.’

  As Chopra emerged from the autopsy suite, he found Inspector Malini Sheriwal bearing down on him, swinging a thick folder by her side.

  ‘Just in time,’ said Chopra. He held up his phone. ‘This is what our two victims may look like.’

  ‘Assuming this entire charade has any validity whatsoever,’ responded Sheriwal. She hefted her folder. ‘I have brought along all the missing persons photographs that we accumulated during the initial investigation. We narrowed it down to one hundred and twenty-seven potentials. Too many to make any headway. Perhaps we can use these reconstructions to narrow that number down further.’

  Chopra waved a hand along the corridor. ‘We can use Homi’s office. I am sure he will not mind.’