The Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken

by Tarquin Hall

  'I'd be delighted if you would come and visit Pakistan one day. It would be my honour to receive you as my guest,' said Khan.

  'That would be wonderful, no, Uncle?' responded Rohan. 'We could go together!'

  The detective fidgeted with his wedding ring. 'Let us see,' he said.

  'We say insh'allah,' said Khan.

  'Insh'allah - that means if Allah wills,' interpreted Rohan with unwavering enthusiasm. But this drew weak smiles from the rest of the family and he added quickly: 'Bet you could do with a drink, Kam, right? Must be thirsty.'

  'Absolutely,' replied the Pakistani, sounding relieved. 'And I should find my father. If you'll excuse me.'

  'Pleasure,' 'Nice to meet you,' and 'Best of luck,' murmured the Mattus as they watched the tall bowler follow Rohan through the throng of guests towards the bar.

  The family said nothing for a moment, lost in their own thoughts. And then Rumpi's mother broke the silence: 'Such a pleasant young man,' she said. 'And very handsome, also. Is he married?' She made it sound as if she might be interested.

  'Didn't I read in one of those magazines that he's very much attached to Noor Sultana?' asked Rumpi.

  'They were going to marry but it got called off,' said Rohan. 'His father didn't approve, she being a film star.'

  Mummy had gone and sat down on a chair away from the rest of the family. Puri went to check on her.

  'Everything is all right?' he asked.

  She didn't answer.

  'He tried again, placing a hand on her shoulder. 'Mummy-ji, something wrong?'

  She looked up at him with sad, troubled eyes and asked in a faint voice, 'What is that, Chubby?'

  'Look as if you've seen a ghost.'

  She blinked as if waking from a dream. 'Just my mind was doing wandering.'

  'Anything is wrong?'

  'No, no, fine actually. Just one glass of pani is required.'

  The family was sitting down to eat - Rumpi had brought a plate of salad and a token chicken breast from the buffet for her husband - when a waiter approached.

  'There's one Vish Puri present?' he asked.

  'Present and correct,' replied the detective.

  'A phone call for you, sir. You would need to take it in the lobby.'

  'Who exactly?'

  'Mr Gurbachan Singh Oberoi.'

  'Who?' asked Rumpi.

  'A client,' answered Puri. 'I left word that I would be here, only.'

  'Why doesn't he ring you on your portable?'

  'I'm not having the foggiest, my dear,' said the detective as he stood up from the table. 'Must be important.'

  The waiter led the way across the banquet hall until they were out of sight of the Mattu table. Puri slipped him a 100-rupee note and thanked him. He then made straight for the buffet, brazenly cutting into the queue. Halfway along the long table, which groaned with all kinds of delicious delights, he found one of his favourite dishes, butter chicken, and ladled out a large helping. Having also helped himself to two pieces of warm Peshawari naan, the detective stole out through the French windows on to the terrace.

  Finding it deserted, Puri sat down at a table hidden in the shadows, tucked a napkin into the top of his safari suit and dug into his illicit meal.

  He was in the process of lapping up all the delicious orange sauce, and reflecting on how it was some of the best butter chicken he'd eaten in a while, when the French windows opened and an elderly, gruff-looking gentleman stepped out. Puri judged him to be in his seventies and, given the flaccid face, flared nostrils and pockmarked cheeks, unmistakably Punjabi. In fact, he looked a lot like one of his uncles, the detective reflected - especially in that pinstriped three-piece suit, a style that only gentlemen of a certain generation could get away with wearing these days.

  The man stopped roughly six feet from where Puri sat unnoticed, reached into his trouser pocket and took out a round little tin. He twisted off the top, extracted a pinch of a green substance and put it in his mouth.

  Puri recognised it as naswar, dipping tobacco. That made him Pakistani. Could this be Kamran Khan's father? He was certainly the right height.

  A low whistle came from the lawn beyond the terrace. It caught the Pakistani's attention. He looked, searched, spotted a male figure coming out of the darkness, and hurried down the steps.

  Halfway across the lawn, he was met by the other man - short and bald was as much as Puri could make out by the light cast from the hotel. They greeted one another with a handshake, their voices but a murmur.

  Another door opened further down the terrace and a third man stepped out, his face masked by the darkness.

  Puri's attention was drawn back to the lawn. The bald man - 'Full Moon' the detective had decided to call him - was taking something out of his jacket. It looked like an envelope. He handed it to the Pakistani, who slipped it inside his jacket.

  They talked for a while longer and then went their separate ways, Full Moon heading off across the lawn and the Pakistani returning to the terrace into the banquet hall.

  As soon as the doors closed behind him, the Third Man hurried down the steps. Puri pushed himself up out of his chair followed after him as fast as he could manage - which was not very fast at all, given the shortness of his left leg not to mention all the butter chicken in his belly. Out of breath, his brow moist with sweat, he reached the hotel car park in time to see Full Moon pull away in a chauffeur-driven Mercedes Benz.

  Of the Third Man there was no sign.

  When he returned inside, Puri spotted the elderly Pakistani seated at the large, round VVIP table in the centre of the banquet hall.

  'That is Kamran Khan's father, is it?' Puri asked Rohan when he got back to the Mattu table, pointing him out.

  'You don't miss much, Uncle, do you?' responded his nephew.

  'I did not get to be India's number one detective for nothing, beta,' said Puri immodestly. 'What is his name, exactly?'

  'Faheem Khan.'

  'You've met him, is it?'

  'A few times over the years, Uncle. Why? Anything the matter?'

  'Tell me: what sort of man he is?'

  'Very tough, Uncle. He pushes Kamran hard. Too hard, actually. I've seen him slap him around before.'

  'Somewhat old to be Kamran's father, no?'

  'He took a young wife. His fourth, I believe.'

  'He's in business or what?'

  'I believe he's retired, Uncle. The family used to own a lot of land, but he lost it all.'

  Puri kept a close eye on Faheem Khan throughout the rest of the meal. The thought of a Pakistani engaging in some kind of nefarious activity on Indian soil was not a matter he could ignore.

  But Rumpi soon grew impatient with him. 'What has got into you and Mummy?' she asked. 'Both of you have been staring at God knows who or what. Anyone would imagine you were star-struck!'

  The detective couldn't help but glance over at the VVIP table again. Kamran Khan was not in his seat. Faheem Khan, having finished his food, was now washing his hands in a finger bowl.

  Puri noticed him massaging his throat as if it was sore.

  Rumpi lost all her patience. 'Chubby, really! What's so interesting? Tell me,' she scolded.

  'Something suspicious is going on, actually,' answered the detective.

  'What nonsense! What could possibly be going on here?'

  Her words were punctuated by the crash of crockery. Half the room turned and stared. There were a few cheers. A jovial round of applause. Over at the centre table, however, no one was smiling. Faheem Khan had knocked his plate to the floor and was trying to loosen his tie and collar. He grabbed a glass of water and glugged it down, spilling half the contents on his shirt. Then he stood up, gasping for air, his eyes bulging. Foamy, orange saliva started to trickle out of the corners of his mouth.

  Puri was up out of his chair now, heading across the banquet hall.

  'Security! Stand back!' he shouted, pushing past the other guests. 'Any doctor is present?'

  He reached the s
tricken man as he collapsed on to the floor, taking half the tablecloth and most of the plates and glasses with him. Bubbles, the actress, let out a protracted theatrical scream.

  A doctor came forward and knelt down next to Faheem Khan. He lifted the back of his head. 'We must try to keep his air passages open,' he said.

  But blood had started to trickle out of the Pakistani's nostrils. Puri could see that he was fading fast. With some difficulty, he crouched down by the stricken man's side.

  'Who did this to you?' he asked. 'Who poisoned you?'

  Faheem Khan tried to respond, but his mouth was full of saliva and the words came out slurred and incomprehensible. He gripped the doctor's arm, arching his back. A last anguished breath escaped through his gritted teeth with an eerie whistle.

  His body slumped on to the floor, and his eyes fixed on the crystal chandelier above.

  'I'm afraid we've lost him,' said the doctor.

  A shocked murmur carried through the banquet hall. A few seconds later, Kamran Khan burst through the ring of guests and hotel staff gathered around the body.

  'What happened?' he demanded, aghast.

  Puri looked up.

  'Unfortunately, your father is dead,' he said.

  FOUR

  'DEATH BY BUTTER CHICKEN.'

  Puri's eyes lingered on the banner headline on the front page of the newspaper before proceeding to the article below.

  The mysterious murder of Pakistani national Faheem Khan, 76, father of international cricketer and Delhi Cowboys star bowler, Kamran Khan, yesterday evening at a posh dinner in the Delhi Durbar Hotel, in plain sight of numerous shocked cricket and Bollywood celebrities, has been attributed to deadly poisoning of a suspicious nature, police sources said.

  'A very strong dose of aconite was somehow secreted into the victim's butter chicken and thus he experienced an uncomfortable death within minutes,' Delhi's Chief of Police was then quoted as saying.

  'Aconite', the article added, 'is a deadly poison which the Minaro people of Ladakh use on their arrows for hunting purposes.'

  Puri smacked the page with the back of his hand in anger.

  'Ty-pi-cal!' he bellowed. 'What is relevance of deadly poison arrows to the case, I ask you?'

  The detective's patient and loyal secretary, Elizabeth Rani, recognised this as a rhetorical question but answered nonetheless.

  'That I could not say, sir.'

  By now she had been standing in front of Puri's desk in his Khan Market office for more than five minutes, waiting for an opportunity to tell him about the important phone call she'd received. No opportunity had yet presented itself - or rather her employer was completely absorbed in his own thoughts and strangely oblivious to the presence of others. This was typical of him at the beginning of a big case when so many questions loomed in his mind and none of the pieces fitted together. Impossible was the most appropriate word she could think of to describe his temperament.

  'Proper name of aconite is Aconitum, actually,' fumed Puri, who was still talking to the newspaper. 'It is a herb, only. Most common. The roots of certain species are deadly. Aconitum ferox for example - a favourite of the Bengali poisoner Rathin Dey.'

  'Someone you apprehended, sir?'

  'Not at all,' he answered as if to himself, eyes still fixed on the newspaper. 'Dey lived in Mughal times, only. He is most famous for poisoning Emperor Aurangzeb's taxman.'

  Puri read on.

  The article stated that two lakh rupees had been found inside Faheem Khan's suit pocket. Preparations were under way to return his body to Pakistan. Kamran Khan had been interviewed by the police and cleared to leave the country.

  The rest of the report was riddled with inaccuracies.

  'The police quickly cordoned off the hotel and ensured all guests remained inside the banquet hall,' read Puri out loud in a contemptuous voice. 'What nonsense! These VVIPS and VIPs - netas, page three types, everyone - they refused to stay and left forthwith!'

  There was more. Dippy, the Bollywood starlet and girlfriend of Rocky Schroff, could not have witnessed Faheem Khan's 'last desperate breath' as she had fainted at least a minute before the victim expired. And it had been a certain jasoos by the name of Vish Puri whose foresight had prevented the waiters from clearing away Faheem Khan's broken plate.

  The detective would willingly have done a great deal more of the police department's work for them, too, had it not been for that total charlie the Delhi Police Chief who'd arrived on the scene forty-five minutes after the murder and taken charge.

  'What are you doing here?' he'd demanded when he'd spotted Puri, making no effort to disguise his abhorrence. 'I am taking personal control of this investigation. Your services are not required! I'm sure there must be some errant groom you should be chasing! Now go!'

  Puri had done so with aplomb. 'Leave donkeys to their pastures,' he'd mumbled to Rumpi as they'd left the banquet hall. But privately he'd been livid.

  He still was.

  And, naturally, he was itching to investigate the murder. The Chief's involvement was an extra hunk of grist to the detective's ego mill.

  There was just one problem. Puri didn't have a client. And Most Private Investigators Ltd couldn't afford to take on such a time-consuming and inevitably expensive case without someone footing the bill. The agency was starting to face stiffer competition in the market. 'Every Tom, Dick and Harry - not to mention all the Rajus and Viveks - are getting into security and investigation agencies,' as Puri had put it recently.

  Inflation was also starting to bite with the cost of living for the Delhi middle classes fast approaching that of suburban America. The Indian state shamelessly failed to provide the most basic of services, which meant that health care, decent schools, security, and a constant supply of water and electricity had to be paid for privately. The rates of taxation had gone through the roof. And then there was baksheesh.

  Hardly a week went by without Puri having to fork out to some official or other. Renewing his driver's licence had recently cost him 500 rupees. Buying a backup gas canister for the kitchen - another 200 rupees. And a few days ago, an official representing the dreaded Municipal Corporation of Delhi (the body that was supposed to provide civic services to most of the city and was corrupt to its core) had stopped by Khan Market to demand his regular payment for turning a blind eye to the fact that the rooms rented by Most Private Investigators as offices were only authorised to be used for residential purposes.

  Puri had paid him off; he'd had no choice. If he'd defied him the official would have returned with his lackeys and a couple of jawans and 'sealed' the property. They'd done just that recently to poor Mohit, the dry cleaner. He was now operating his business out of a van parked in front of his premises while he looked for an alternative place to rent.

  'What to do, Madam Rani?' asked the detective with a sigh. He finally looked up from his newspaper, thereby properly acknowledging his secretary's presence. 'The most sensational of murders falls directly and most conveniently straight into my lap and I am powerless to do further investigation,' he said.

  She opened her mouth to tell him about the message when there came a knock on the door. It was Bhajwati, the cleaner. 'Safai kar doon?' she asked, greeting him with a timid namaste.

  Elizabeth Rani let her in and she started to clean the floor with a wet rag, crouched down on her haunches and moving sideways back and forth across the room like a crab.

  'You asked her why she was absent last two days?' Puri asked his secretary in English.

  'Yes, sir. She said her boy intervened to stop a fight and got bashed up. Then his friends went and bashed up the ones who bashed him up. Then the mother of the first group came with the police and demanded Bhajwati's boy be arrested. She had to pay 3,000 rupees to get rid of them.'

  Three thousand rupees was the amount Bhajwati was paid each month to clean the offices of Most Private Investigators. It was one of five jobs she held.

  'I tell you honestly and truthfully, Madam Rani, so
metimes I wonder if there is any justice left in India,' said Puri, shaking his head. 'Vast majority of the population are so vulnerable, actually. Their rights are violated each and every day.'

  'Thankfully there are people like your good self working for truth and justice,' said Madam Rani.

  Such naked veneration might have embarrassed many an employer, but not Puri.

  'So kind of you, Madam Rani,' he said. 'Now, what all I can do for you?'

  'You received an urgent call from a Britisher, Mr James Scott,' she answered.