Up in Flames

by Evans, Geraldine

  He went in search of bubble wrap and brown paper, carefully removed the rest of the broken glass from the frame and wrapped the whole with its precious contents. He would have to get it repaired.

  Perhaps he should put aside his qualms and get his credit raised on all of his cards. If he got that organised and could get the bailiffs to agree a cash payment, his parents might be back home as early as the end of the week. And he would have his haven restored. For Casey, his home and the Bansi investigation, it couldn’t come a moment too soon.

  After dinner, no longer able to bear the squalor to which his previously austere, but comfortable living room had been reduced, he took himself off to the box-room where he kept his computer, switched on and logged onto the internet. While the search engine was checking out likely sites, he made himself some tea and brought it back upstairs with him.

  He checked the screen, glancing through the listings, discounting the more obviously touristy sites, he quickly jotted down those he thought might be most informative. He took a gulp of tea, and clicked on the first site.

  Several hours later, his tea long since gone cold, he sat back, gazed at the pile of printouts and began a more thorough read through. He discovered that his mother and Shazia Singh hadn’t exaggerated. Sati or suttee, wasn’t a thing of history. According to his research there had been over 40 known cases of voluntary or involuntary suttee since India’s independence in 1947.

  One of the most recent cases was in Rajasthan, that of the young woman in her late teens whom his mother had mentioned. Her husband had died no more than a seven months after their wedding. The young woman had been well-educated by all accounts and had apparently spent most of their brief married life with her parents rather than with her new in-laws. All the more strange then, that at the time of her husband’s death, and briefly living with her in-laws, she had, according to them, elected to commit sati. The evidence as to whether this had been a voluntary act was conflicting. But what didn’t seem in doubt was that after being clad in bridal finery for the meeting with her young husband at the bridal altar in heaven she had led the procession to the funeral pyre, been assisted aloft and burned to death.

  Several witnesses had claimed the girl’s sati was far from voluntary. In fact, getting an inkling of what was planned for her, the young woman had reportedly fled her in-laws’ home and hidden herself in a barn. She had been found, dragged out, decked out in her bridal finery and led to her death surrounded by sword-brandishing youths. Witnesses said she had appeared drugged. Drugged or not, she had attempted to struggle from the pyre when it was lit, but had been weighed down by logs and coconuts, hemmed in by the sword-flourishing youths. The fact that she was an educated young woman and from a well-to-do family hadn’t saved her.

  Nine years later, in 1996, all those accused of murder, of ‘assisting’ the young widow to commit sati, were acquitted. The case had caused a furore in India.

  Casey read on and discovered one of the attractions of sati - for the widow’s in-laws, if not for the widow. And now he remembered that Shazia Singh had also mentioned it. A woman committing sati, according to some Hindu beliefs, not only saved her husband’s family and seven generations after the painful cycle of birth and death, it also guaranteed them entry to heaven. Some kind of guarantee, thought Casey. Some kind of motive for murder - if you were a believer. Even if you weren’t, the gaining of an inheritance alone had proved sufficient motive for many murderers.

  So far, apart from the house-to-house team checking out their alibis, Casey had spared little time on Chandra’s in-laws. Even now, it seemed far-fetched to believe that such reasons would prompt them to murder, even given that in their grief they had blamed her for their son’s death. Far more likely that they had baulked at Chandra inheriting her late husband’s share of their business.

  But they weren’t alone in that. When it came to arguments - and violence- over inheritances, the British could teach the world a thing or two. Maybe, Casey thought, we didn’t produce social codes that required women to immolate themselves to save their honour, but we had our share of raping, pillaging and plundering invaders. The history of most countries produced a long, depressing catalogue of violence and grisly death.

  England had had forced marriages aplenty in earlier centuries. History books contained countless episodes of war, family feuds and murder over inheritances. Impossible, then, to adopt a high moral stance and condemn a practise begun from honourable motives during centuries long gone.

  Yes, in these modern times, sati did seem barbaric, but the First World had had a century or more of wealth and decades of widespread education to discover more sensitive modes of behaviour. India, like much of the Third World, was trying drag itself from its feudal past straight into the technological world; what more natural, that in its struggle towards the 21st century, some practises still lingered?

  Even in India, a country heaving with assorted religious fervour, there had been scarcely more than forty cases of sati since Independence, a drop in the ocean given the size of the population. It could hardly be said to be endemic. And India wasn’t the only country where young brides suffered mother-in-law problems...

  That reminded Casey. Rachel was due home from her tour at the weekend. He must ensure his parents had left by then. For a musician, Rachel was very clean living, very keen on order, and like Casey, abhorred clutter. Even though she had met them, she had no idea what his parents were really like. He’d made sure of that. Made sure, too, that his parents were on their best behaviour after issuing dire threats. He’d even demanded they stop calling him Willow for the occasion. He hated to be so censorious, but really, they gave him little choice.

  He’d bought them new clothes; a conservative blue suit for his father, much to his disgust, and a subdued, grey silk dress for his mother. He’d even prevailed upon her to wear her wild bush of kinky, greying black hair in an elegant French pleat. They had looked so different when he and Rachel arrived at the restaurant they’d booked for the occasion that he hadn’t recognised them and had walked straight past their table. He’d had to be light on his feet to explain that one away. Families really were the very devil.

  To his amazement Rachel and his parents had got on fine; even discovering a mutual admiration for some musician that Casey had never heard of. They’d had a ball. Well, everyone except Casey had had a ball. After days of anxiety about the occasion he’d ended up sulking and excluded from the conversation while the talk of the other three ranged over musicians they had known, who they’d seen at festivals and in concert and who was the greatest of all time.

  Ironically, with his simmering sulks, he’d been the one who had caused shame and embarrassment. He the cause of the evening ending early. He the subject of reproachful glances and tart remarks. The unfairness of it, the supreme irony of it, took his breath away even now.

  His gaze rested contemplatively on the screen and he realised he had got away from his research. Forcing his tired eyes and brain to concentrate, he read on, and learned that the majority of cases of sati seemed to have occurred in Rajasthan, the bulk around the Sikar district. He sat up straighter as it occurred to him that the drop in the ocean suddenly appeared far larger concentrated as it was to a particular area.

  Casey realised that he didn’t even know where in India the two families had originated. Maybe it was time he checked the backgrounds of Chandra’s family and that of her in-laws. It might be interesting to learn if either of them came from Rajasthan, which appeared to be the sati capital of India.

  Too tired to concentrate any more, he shut down the computer and went to bed, if not to sleep. The vivid pictures brought on by reading of yet another young woman’s agonising death churned on through a wakeful night. Mercifully, since Casey had finally got around to reminding his parents of the house rules, they weren’t accompanied by overloud music.

  When he got to work the next morning, Casey handed the pile of printouts to Catt and suggested he have a read.


  ‘Reckon you’re on to something?’ Catt enquired.

  ‘Don’t know yet. Could be.’

  Catt grinned. ‘I know that look. Something’s stirring.’

  Something was, but it had yet to clearly reveal itself to Casey. It seemed that clarity required an extra input.

  While Catt began to read the computer printouts, Casey got on to the Passport Office and asked them to check the birthplaces of the older members of the Khan and Bansi families and get back to him. He presumed by now they had all taken British citizenship. As for the grandparents, no doubt they held Indian passports. He would have to get on to the Indian High Commission and hope the notorious Indian bureaucracy wasn’t too long-winded.

  And while he had the services of Shazia Singh he might as well make use of them. Grabbing all the notes on the case, he went in search of her and thrust the paperwork at her in the hope that she would see something his own culture blinded him to.

  It only took her an hour to put her finger on at least one part of the evidence that had been niggling Casey.

  And as she sat down in his visitor’s chair and pointed out the relevant section, she said, ‘See, sir. These red fibres and the jewellery round the body. Seems to me someone was trying to make Chandra a sacrificed bride.’

  ‘Or trying to make it look that way,’ Catt pointed out from his seat in the corner.

  Shazia shrugged. ‘Whichever. Presumably, whoever did it, not being able to persuade Chandra that ritual suicide was a good thing, had done the next best thing and thrown the clothes and jewels over her so she would have the appearance of a widow dressed to meet her dead husband in heaven. You know, of course, that when Hindu widows were immolated in funeral pyres they were dressed as brides, not the widows they actually were?’

  Casey nodded. ‘I’ve been doing my homework,’ he revealed. ‘But as Sergeant Catt remarked, was this set-up done for religious reasons or to deliberately to throw us off track?’

  Shazia Singh shrugged. For once she had no answer.

  More to the point, neither did Casey. But at least he was beginning to get a few ideas. He ushered both Shazia Singh and a protesting ThomCatt out of his office and shut himself up alone to think them through.

  Chapter Fifteen

  In spite of his splendid isolation and hours of thinking time during the day, when Casey reached home that evening, he had still not managed to acquire clarity.

  Casey’s father, trying in his own way to be helpful, with a shaking hand offered him a half-smoked wacky-baccy cigarette. Exhausted, drained, feeling beaten and with his mind elsewhere, unthinkingly, Casey took it, and drew in a long, deep drag. Then another one.

  It didn’t take long for the drug to take effect. Soon, he was as relaxed and laid-back as his parents. In his drug-induced dreamlike state, Casey found himself travelling back over the investigation from a curiously high, Godlike altitude, with a detachment that was equally Godlike. He saw again the burned, blackened bodies; the charred floorboards at the centre of the fire; the threads of cloth and twisted metal that forensic had recovered. He saw the blue-skinned idol that had sat in the corner of Chandra’s room. He even recalled its name. Krishna. Hare Krishna. Hare Krishna. Hare Hare, he muttered in sing-along tones, to which his father’s reedy voice companionably joined in.

  He remembered also that Shazia Singh had said that Krishna held a special significance for widows. What was it again?

  His mind went off at various tangents - Chandra - the manner of her death and that of her child - the idol in the corner that the neighbour didn’t recall seeing - the first meeting with Rathi Khan and his family.

  In the distant reality, beyond the suffusing, rosy glow of his father’s ultra-strong wacky-baccy, Casey thought he heard someone knock at the door. He ignored it. Moments later, he became aware of his mother’s voice, saying, ‘Willow. Willow Tree, hon. There’s someone to see you.’

  Casey looked up to see Thomas Catt standing in the doorway, a bottle of wine in one hand, a bunch of flowers in the other and, on his face, an expression of open-mouthed astonishment as he sniffed the air and took in Casey’s sprawled figure.

  Casey waved him to a seat, wafting the wacky-baccy’s aroma towards him as he did so. ‘Wondered when you’d turn up.’

  ThomCatt, with his parental fixation, had a habit of latching on to the parents of others and practically adopting them. Once he’d learned that Casey’s parents were visiting it had only been a matter of time before Tom turned up. Casey, imbued with love for his fellow man, couldn’t understand why it should have bothered him.

  ‘Willow Tree?’ Wearing a bemused expression, Thomas Catt perched on the sofa beside Casey’s now comatose father. ‘I always thought you were a William.’

  ‘That’s what you were meant to think.’ Somewhere, in the back of Casey’s mind, anxiety stirred. But the anxiety was immediately swamped in a rosy euphoria and he sniggered. ‘Willow Tree’s the sort of name you get when you have hippies for parents,’ he explained. He waved his arm again. ‘Meet the folks - Star and Moon.’

  Catt nodded politely towards Casey’s mother, who immediately offered him a joint. Catt declined, equally politely. But a grin was starting to edge in on the corners of his mouth. ‘I won’t stop,’ he said. ‘I can see you’re relaxing. I just thought I’d call on the off-chance that after shutting me out of the office you might have hit on something.’

  ‘Hit on something?’ Casey slurred. He sniggered again as he regarded the curling smoke from the wacky-baccy. He’d hit on something all right...

  ‘About the Chandra Bansi case.’

  ‘Oh that. Thought I was getting somewhere a minute ago. Gone now.’

  Catt stood up.

  Casey stared up at the length of him. ‘You going already? Just got here.’

  ‘Just remembered I’ve got a date. I’ll see you tomorrow. Don’t get up,’ he said to the three slumped figures, none of whom showed any signs of stirring. He held up the flowers and the wine and said, ‘I’ll just put these in the kitchen and let myself out.’

  When Catt had gone, Casey took another puff, leaned back and a few minutes later, the earlier vague stirrings sharpened and he found the clarity of vision that had previously eluded him. Suddenly, like one of those revelations about the secret of the universe that drug-taking was supposed to induce, he saw everything sharply for the first time. He was surprised to find that now, as his inner mind was suffused with feelings of contentment and warmth towards all, the whole thing made sense. He wished Catt hadn’t gone. He wanted to explain this marvellous clarity to him. Because he knew who had committed the double murder. He even knew why. The only thing he didn’t know was whether he could prove it...

  He gazed at the smouldering hand-rolled spliff and grinned inanely. Maybe he should have tried this earlier? Maybe it was time he gave over being the stuffed shirt his parents proclaimed him to be. Maybe...

  The next morning, Casey had trouble meeting his own eyes in the bathroom mirror as he shaved. He hoped Catt’s arrival the previous evening had been a figment of his drugged imagination. But he suspected it wasn’t.

  Thinking of his sergeant reminded Casey of something Tom had said right at the beginning of the case. Catt had been inspired when he had said that whoever had done the killings must be either, mad, bad or dangerous to know.

  Casey wasn’t sure whether it was the weed to which he had succumbed in a weak moment the night before that had enabled him to stumble on the solution to the case. He hoped not as he didn’t want some devilish corner of his mind tempting him into a repetition the next time a case proved troublesome.

  But, he’d worry about any possible inherited addictive-personality traits later. For now, he wondered how he could prove his conclusions - his father’s wacky-baccy wasn’t that miraculous. He also wondered how he could explain his weak self-indulgence to Catt. After taking the high moral ground so often in the past on the drugs issue, he was conscious that the previous evening’s exhibition made him look lik
e a hypocrite. Catt would never believe it was his first smoke since his teens. He didn’t want to lose his sergeant’s respect. It meant too much to him.

  After he climbed in the shower and took a long, vigorous scrub and shampoo to wash any lingering drug-scent away, he was careful to dress in his most sombre suit from a wardrobe sombre with similar hues. Fortunately, the suit selected had just come back from the cleaners. It was still encased in its protective plastic so was uncontaminated by tell-tale odours; it wouldn’t do, after such a thorough scrub to risk wearing yesterday’s suit. Especially, as he realised that the PC Purgatory which had plagued him throughout was likely to be replaced by a hellish chorus as various combatants derided his conclusions.

  Because, even though he was confident that he now knew the who and the how and even the why - if such a killing could have a reasonable why - he knew he had no proof worthy of the name and if, as seemed likely, Chandra’s family remained silent, his conclusions would receive a sorry reception.

  He drove to the station through puddles of rain. The weather had changed overnight. The oppressive, sticky heat of the past week or so had finally gone, washed away by a heavy shower. Today was drizzly, grey and miserable and for bodies briefly acclimatised to sticky heat, the little breeze struck chill.

  He picked up a grinning Catt at the station. For once, Catt had the good sense to keep his mouth shut and made no reference to the previous evening. Casey gave him a quick explanation of his conclusions on the investigation as they headed for the Khans’ home. But when they got there the house was empty, truly so this time, Casey thought, as there was not even the tell-tale and swiftly withdrawn face at the window. There was an air of abandonment, desolation even, about the place.

  ‘Perhaps they’ve flown the coop,’ Catt suggested. ‘Would be the best thing all round, if they had. At least it would bolster your case.’