Dead in a Mumbai Minute

by Madhumita Bhattacharyya

  ‘She needed a favour to get her into the film industry. I don’t usually do this sort of thing, but it was at the request of a particular friend.’

  ‘Who was the friend?’

  ‘A hotelier in Goa. He introduced her to the ashram. He was a regular of hers, and many of my ashram guests stayed at his hotel. It was an innocent request, one that I was happy to help with.’

  ‘You were the producer?’

  ‘No! Oh no. I made a couple of calls for Adil to help him get financing.’

  ‘Why were you pumping her for information if you had nothing to do with any of it?’

  ‘A favour to another friend.’

  ‘Who?’

  He smiled. ‘You can’t expect me to give up all my secrets so soon.’

  Shayak was stony faced. ‘Rishi says it was you who told him about the job at Titanium. Who put you up to that?’

  ‘It was a while ago.’

  ‘Don’t give me that crap,’ said Shayak, finally losing his patience.

  ‘Look, I thought it was a random tourist who had come for a drink to the bar. Got talking with Rishi and me one night. The next day he swung by and told me about this opportunity at Titanium. Now I realize it was a set-up.’

  ‘You really expect us to believe that?’

  ‘I make my living not asking too many questions about people. But now that I think about it, the method makes sense. There are a certain set of people who rely on me to give them assistance from time to time. I don’t really meet them face to face – I only ever meet the messenger.’

  ‘What sort of assistance?’

  ‘I think of myself as a connector.’

  ‘So basically you are a fixer?’

  ‘You might call it that. But I don’t have blood on my hands. I try not to know what my associates are up to.’

  ‘Ignorance doesn’t protect you from the law.’

  ‘I beg to differ. What exactly are you accusing me of? Getting Rishi a job interview? Helping Afreen out with a role in a film? Go searching, as I am sure you will, boss, and you will find me guilty of nothing more than some tax evasion, probably not more than your average business man.’

  ‘Money laundering?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘If that is true, help us.’

  ‘Why would I do that?’

  ‘Because if you don’t, we’ll make it our mission to find something on you and, trust me, you don’t want Titanium as your enemy. If it is only tax evasion, as you say, at the very least we can arrange a deportation. It won’t even take more than one phone call.’

  I wasn’t sure if Shayak was bluffing, but George’s sudden pallor told me he had bought it. ‘What do you need?’ he said.

  ‘We’ll let you know, in time,’ said Shayak.

  ‘It sounds like you aren’t leaving me with a choice.’

  ‘More or less. For now, we only want you to return to Goa and act as though everything is okay. Which it is, for now.’

  George nodded, and left us.

  ‘So does that mean I will be going undercover?’ I asked hopefully.

  Shayak shook his head – but it was more out of exasperation than anything else. My spirits lifted.

  ‘Is that a yes, then?’

  He left the room. Yes.

  I woke up to a dark room. I could hear voices. Loud voices.

  It took me a moment to remember where I was: Shayak’s apartment. Just for the day. After which Sohana was kidnapping me until I got better, for the sole purpose of vegging out in front of her TV and the promise of beer.

  I scrambled out of bed and turned on the light, looking at myself in the mirror. My right eye was still a little swollen, my arm in a sling adding to the rough-and-tumble look. I didn’t have any of my things so making myself presentable wasn’t an option. I ran a brush through my hair, straightened my crumpled T-shirt and headed for the living room.

  There was Shayak, staring me down. Pratap and Poonam Puri had both swung around to face me, arms akimbo. ‘Why are you out of bed?’ asked Shayak.

  ‘What, and miss all the action? What’s going on here?’

  ‘Shayak is trying to resolve our situation, as it were,’ said Pratap.

  ‘Can I help?’ I must have been giddy from the pain meds because otherwise Poonam’s death glare would have sent me scurrying. ‘I think you’ve done quite enough,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t believe you’ve formally met,’ said Shayak.

  ‘No introductions required,’ she snarled.

  ‘Don’t blame Reema, she’s just the messenger,’ said Pratap.

  For some reason, I was smiling.

  ‘Sit down,’ said Shayak, more gently. Perhaps he was afraid that it had all finally caught up with me.

  I took a seat. ‘What did I miss?’

  ‘You were right about everything,’ said Pratap. ‘Poonam was stealing company secrets through my head of tech and hawking them to the highest bidder, hoping to inflict deep damage before our IPO.’

  Poonam rolled her eyes. ‘You left out the part where you were cheating on me and planning to leave me.’

  ‘You know as well as I that our marriage has been over for a long time.’

  ‘Here we go again,’ said Shayak.

  ‘I was merely protecting my interests.’

  ‘You thought I’d leave you wanting? Don’t you know me better than that at least?’ I saw what appeared to be a genuine look of pain in Pratap’s eyes. It seemed Poonam had registered it too for her anger deflated and she sat down. When she spoke next it was with a mix of sadness and bitterness.

  ‘Jasmine tea,’ she said, raising the delicate blue-and-white china cup before her. ‘The good stuff, at least, is the result of tea leaves being mixed with jasmine buds till the tea itself takes on the fragrance of the flowers. Marriage is just like that. Bad marriages, too. For years I slept next to Pratap, inhaling the perfume of his deceit till it became a part of my fibre. I could have cheated right back, like so many scorned spouses, but I knew I could do better than a cheap lay. I wanted to really make him bleed. Tell me, given a chance, would you do any different?’

  ‘Poonam,’ said Shayak, ‘you know how I feel about this stuff. But it’s time to let go. Pratap has agreed not to press charges and to honour your pre-nuptial agreement which, you have to admit, is hardly harsh. Neither of you have been at your best in this business, and this is a chance for both of you to make as clean a break as possible and move on.’

  Poonam shook her head, angrily wiping away a tear that had escaped. ‘You know he is just going to turn around and marry your ex-wife. You are okay with that?’

  ‘I’m happy for them, Poonam. The only thing about this situation that upsets me is the two of you tearing each other up in this way. And that I don’t like being lied to,’ he said, directing his attention to Pratap.

  ‘What do you mean?’ he said.

  ‘For starters, you should have looked elsewhere for your witch hunt against Poonam.’

  ‘I didn’t lie about anything! She had been behaving so oddly, I thought she could be having an affair.’

  Poonam, looking exhausted, stood up. ‘I’m going home.’

  ‘So you’ll look over the papers?’ asked Pratap.

  ‘You’ll drop the case against me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then I’ll look at the papers.’ She walked out.

  Pratap shot Shayak a cheeky grin. ‘Thanks, man.’

  ‘Don’t thank me,’ said Shayak. ‘If I hadn’t known you for so long, I would have punched you in the face and advised her to hang you out to dry.’

  Pratap laughed. ‘That’s a load of bull and you know it. Shayak Gupta stand by a criminal? Never.’

  ‘When the victim is pathologically incapable of keeping it in his pants, my standards are prone to change.’

  The insult didn’t seem to affect Pratap one bit. He turned to me. ‘It wasn’t an accident that we met in the nightclub that night, was it?’

  ‘Nope.’


  ‘Why were you following me instead of my wife?’

  ‘Just testing a theory.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘Your wife was clearly not cheating on you. So why were you so keen to prove that she was?’

  ‘Hey, it turned out she wasn’t cheating on me – she was just plain cheating me!’

  ‘Anyhow, I’ll admit I was wrong. I shouldn’t have wasted my time following you. You were the client, and your motives were none of my business.’

  ‘That’s a rather noble admission. Maybe you should have continued following me for a while longer. Who knows, right?’ he said with a wink.

  Shayak rolled his eyes. ‘Okay, Pratap. I think it is time you left now,’ he said. ‘Unless you want to sample Reema’s self-defence skills first-hand.’

  Shayak let Pratap out. When he returned, his face was strangely haunted.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s going to be dangerous, what we have to do in the coming months.’

  ‘I’m ready.’

  ‘No you are not. Before you begin we’ll have some fairly intense training.’

  ‘Bring it on.’

  ‘The stakes are high. Everything that Rishi and George have told us points to an outfit that operates much like a terrorist cell, using people who know little about the overall operation to get the job done. These are people who work smart, with deep resources and network. They’ll stop at nothing, and their intentions are currently far from clear. If you want to back down I’ll understand.’

  ‘Not for a moment. So I will be going undercover?’

  ‘We have a lot of work to do before that. We have to find out everything we can about George Santos before coming to any kind of arrangement with him.’

  ‘And we need to determine how the Daanish Alam murder and the warehouse shoot-out tie into this.’

  He nodded. ‘It’s a long game.’

  It was hard to contain my excitement. No matter what the danger, my moment had come. Till two months ago I had been playing at detective. Now I was the veteran of three murders and an attempt on my life. Finally it felt right – the risk and the sacrifice. This job was no longer what I did, it was who I was.

  ‘I’m in – on one condition.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘No more boats.’

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I would like to thank everyone who read, appreciated, critiqued and helped spread the word about The Masala Murder. I hope you stay with Reema for this, and all her future adventures.

  The team at Pan Macmillan India, new and old. Pranav and Shiny. Saugata and Pallavi. Thank you for your hard work and commitment to make these books better.

  My friends at The Telegraph, for some stellar support.

  Finally, a shout out to Debjani, official first reader; Shradha, launch genie; Shabari, Lakshman, Maitri and Venky, the best customers ever!

  Dead in a Mumbai Minute

  Madhumita Bhattacharyya wrote for The Telegraph newspaper in Calcutta for a decade, interrupted by a stint in the non-profit sector. She is currently working as a freelance writer and editor. After some fairly crazy hopping around over the past few years, she has landed in Bangalore with her husband, beautiful baby and manic dog. Her debut work The Masala Murder was published in 2012. This is her second novel, also featuring detective Reema Ray.

  Also by Madhumita Bhattacharyya

  The Masala Murder

  First published in the Indian subcontinent 2014 by Pan

  This electronic edition published 2014 by Pan Books

  an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

  Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR

  Basingstoke and Oxford

  Associated companies throughout the world

  www.panmacmillan.com

  ISBN 978-1-4472-8831-2

  Copyright © Madhumita Bhattacharyya 2014

  Cover Design: BLACKINNOVATION

  Cover Images: SHUTTERSTOCK

  The right of Madhumita Bhattacharyya to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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