Still, persuading Ritu Auntie to travel so far was going to take some doing. Recently she’d balked at going after dark to the Ananya Festival at Purana Qila—and that was only a few miles away.
Mummy sat in her bedroom in her house in Punjabi Bagh, where she lived with her eldest son, Bhupinder, mulling over the best strategy. Her thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door.
“Mummy-ji? All OK?”
It was Jassu, her daughter-in-law. Mummy quickly hid the train timetable she’d been studying and her notes from the calls she’d made that afternoon to various friends and contacts in Delhi, Mumbai and Amritsar.
“Much better, thank you, beta,” she said as she opened the door. “Fever has totally vanished.”
“You should still take rest, Mummy-ji,” said Jassu. “Must have been a terrible shock—seeing what you saw last night and all. I can’t imagine. Bhuppie and I have been so worried! And you’ve hardly eaten all day. Only a little curd for lunch, no? I made khichri. You’ll take some?”
“Some hunger is there. I’ll be joining you shortly, na. Just I’ll take bath. Ten minutes only is required.”
Jassu headed back downstairs to the kitchen and Mummy closed the door.
Her daughter-in-law was right about one thing: the events at the Delhi Durbar Hotel had indeed come as a shock. A bigger shock than anyone could possibly know. Mummy had hardly slept last night, tossing and turning on her thin cotton mattress well into the early hours. The image of Faheem Khan’s last moments—arms flailing, froth oozing from his mouth, his taut, terror-stricken expression—had played in a loop over and over again in her mind. She had experienced terrible flashbacks from the past as well. Painful memories she thought she had buried deep down forever.
Finally, at around three o’clock, she’d woken from her tortured half sleep with a cry and sat up in bed, tears rolling down her face. Jassu came running into the room to check on her, but Mummy sent her daughter-in-law back to bed. “Just some bad dream was there, na.”
Rather than going back to sleep herself, however, she bundled herself in a chunky cardigan and sat down on the floor in front of the puja shrine and marigold-draped photograph of her late husband, Om Chander Puri, that occupied the center section of her dressing table. She lit a few diyas and an incense stick and engrossed herself in the Gita.
An hour or so passed before Mummy found her mind calm and at peace, and began to meditate on her dilemma.
She was probably the only person in the world in a position to unravel this murder. Should she act upon what she knew? Surely it was too much of a coincidence that she should find herself at the scene of his murder after all these years.
Mummy did not believe in coincidences. Everything was connected in this life. Everything.
But what would her involvement achieve—assuming, that is, she could identify the killer? What was the point in dredging up the past?
At five, before the rest of the household had risen, Mummy tiptoed downstairs, slipped on her tennis shoes, and, with her shawl wrapped tight around her shoulders and a woolly hat pulled down over her head, stepped out into the cold, misty dawn.
For an hour, she followed the pathway that circled the neighborhood’s tatty communal garden. Round and round she went, head bent in contemplation, the arguments for and against going back and forth in her head, until she came to a decision—a compromise of sorts. She would try to establish the identity of the murderer. Her natural curiosity demanded no less of her. And once she’d solved the mystery and confronted the individual in question, looked that person directly in the eye, then and only then would she make a decision as to whether to inform the police.
This meant that, for now at least, what she knew would have to remain a secret. Not even Chubby could be told. This was her case to solve. It had been from the start.
Besides, when it came to detective work, the great Vishwas Puri never listened to his mummy-ji. What was it he had told her when he had found out she was dabbling in a bit of harmless matrimonial investigation for some of the neighbors? “Detectives are not mummies”? Haa!
Let him make his own way—that is, assuming that he was investigating the murder. “Eleven people will choose eleven routes.” That was the old saying—one of her aunt’s, in fact.
Mummy had returned to the house at around six thirty in the morning with a temperature. Unfortunately Jassu noticed and sent for that total duffer Dr. Mohan. He lost no time in prescribing a course of antibiotics and a sedative and confined her to her bed.
Mummy pretended to take the pills (in fact she flushed them down the toilet, opting instead for ground sunflower seed with honey) and slept a natural sleep until lunchtime.
She awoke feeling much better and started making her calls, the first being to her new friend Rajneesh, the assistant manager at the Durbar Hotel.
By early evening, Mummy had reached the conclusion that a trip to the holy city of Haridwar on the Ganges—to consult with the Pandas, the Brahmin genealogical record keepers—was vital to establish the identity of the murderer.
There was a Shatabdi Express train leaving at six thirty the next morning from New Delhi station. Mummy already had a reservation for two but still needed an excuse for taking Ritu Auntie along.
Fortunately, the solution came to her while she was taking her bucket bath.
“So stupid of me!” she cursed. “Why I didn’t think of it before, na?”
Once dried and dressed, Mummy picked up her portable and found her friend’s number amongst the hundreds stored in her electronic address book.
“Ritu? Yes, yes, quite all right. Now listen.”
But Ritu Auntie was upset: Mummy hadn’t returned any of her calls in the past twenty-odd hours. She wanted to know every grisly detail about the murder. And then she wanted to know all about the page-three types who’d attended the dinner—what they’d worn, how they’d behaved . . .
Only after Ritu Auntie’s appetite for celebrity tittle-tattle had been fully sated was Mummy able to spin her web.
“Never mind all that, na,” she said. “Something urgent is there. Last night, only, I was having one dream. So strange it was. Concerning yourself. And your dear late husband. His ashes are still lying with you, na?”
Eight
Puri’s mobile phone rang shortly after six the following morning.
“Chubby? Bhuppi this side. You’re awake? Listen, yaar!”
It was his elder brother, sounding grumpy. Mummy’s room was empty. She and Ritu Auntie had taken off together for Haridwar, he said.
The detective had been up until two in the morning reading all the witness statements and interviews provided by Inspector Singh. In the process, he’d downed a quarter of a bottle of Royal Challenge. This had not mixed well with the ZeroCal tablets and he had a pounding headache. It took him what felt like an age to register what he’d just been told. When the information finally reached the relevant synapses, he rolled over onto his back and groaned, “By God.”
In the light cast by the digital clock, he could see that the heavy Indian quilt on Rumpi’s single bed was turned back and it was empty. No doubt she’d risen at five, her normal hour, and was down in the kitchen drinking her morning glass of lemon water mixed with kala namak.
“Mummy discussed her plans with you, is it?” croaked the detective.
“Course not, yaar. I’d have given you SMS.”
“So how you came to know she’s going to Haridwar?”
“I’m no detective, but I can read. She left a voucher on the kitchen table.” By “voucher” he meant a note.
“What time they departed exactly?” he asked.
“Five thirty—must have been. Says they’ve gone to scatter Jagdish Uncle’s ashes in Ganga.”
“Why so sudden, haa? No prior notice?”
“My question exactly.”
“You reached her?”
“Few minutes back. The train was already on the way. Lots of disturbance on line. Mummy claims they planned
to go long time back.”
The detective let out a half-exasperated, half-resigned sigh followed by, “What to do, Bhuppi?”
“Think we should order them home? I’m worried about Mummy.”
“Her health was much improved by the time I came last night, no? Fever over, buss.”
“She should rest, yaar.”
Bhupinder went on to describe how Mummy had again cried out in her sleep and how Jassu had found her sitting up in bed in tears.
“Sorry to hear that, Bhuppi, but it’s to be expected,” said the detective. “She was witness to a brutal murder, after all. During my long and distinguished career I’ve seen such a reaction many times over. Doubtless some fresh air will do her no end of good.” He paused. “For peace of mind, I would ask a fellow in Haridwar to keep an eye or two on her. Make sure Mummy-ji and that Ritu Auntie stay out of trouble.”
“He’d better be bilkul number one, Chubby. So strong-headed she is.”
“Just look on bright side,” said Puri. “You’ll be having R and R over next few days, no? Why not enjoy? For every cloud there is silvery lining.”
• • •
The detective lay in bed, loath to get up from beneath the cozy covers, staring up at the damp marks on the ceiling left by last year’s monsoon. There was something else bothering him apart from his headache—a “brain itch”—and it had to do with Mummy.
Her reaction to Kamran Khan had been totally out of character. At the time, Puri had put her behavior down to a natural animosity toward Pakistanis, one he felt keenly himself. Pakistan had long been India’s enemy, after all. The two countries had fought three wars—four if you included the Kargil conflict of 1999. And although Mummy had never talked about her experiences during Partition and the murder of her brother, Anil (he’d always imagined that she was suffering from a kind of selective amnesia, and had long ago learned not to pry into her past), Puri knew that she’d been forced to flee from her childhood home and, along with millions of others, embark on a frightening, arduous journey to Delhi.
It occurred to him now, however, that there might be some connection between his mother and the Khans. She had grown up in Rawalpindi, after all, their home. He would ask her about it when she returned from Haridwar.
Puri also made a mental note to find out if any of the suspects had past connections with Pakistan. It was possible that the motive for the murder had nothing to do with cricket or match fixing.
His brain itch suitably scratched, he sat up in bed and reached for the cup of bed tea that had been brought by one of the servants. While he sipped the contents, he reflected on the events of the past couple of days—the clues he’d collected, the unanswered questions, the steps he now planned to take in order to move the investigation forward.
The interviews and witness statements supplied by Inspector Singh had made a few things clear—at least to Puri.
First, the food had been poisoned after it had been put on the victim’s plate. Faheem Khan’s neighbors had all eaten butter chicken from the same serving dish and none of them had died or shown symptoms of having ingested poison. As for the waiter who’d served the food, he was a shy young man with no previous record.
Next, all the interviews corroborated the fact that from the time the food was served to the time Faheem Khan died, no other guests sitting elsewhere in the banquet hall approached the table. Therefore it was safe to conclude that one of the individuals seated at the center table was the murderer.
What else? Ram Dogra, the “Prince of Polyester,” had knocked over his wineglass while Faheem Khan had been absent from the table. And the actress, Dippy, who’d been seated at another table, had left the banquet hall fifteen minutes before Faheem Khan died.
There was one further important detail that Puri had gleaned. All the suspects had attended a drinks function at a private residence the night before. Arriving for his first visit to India, Faheem Khan had gone there straight from the airport.
As for the dog that had invaded the Kotla pitch, it didn’t even get a mention in the Chief’s interviews. As Puri had anticipated, he’d not made the connection between the pooch’s death and the murder. But assuming the mutt had been poisoned with Aconitum luridum (and Puri would know for sure later today, Tubelight having dropped the carcass off at Dr. Pathak’s laboratory last night), then the following conclusions could be made:
Number one, the murderer had attended both the match and the dinner. That more or less ruled out any of the waiters or hotel staff as suspects.
Two, the murderer had either accidentally dropped or disposed of some of the poison at the stadium and the dog had gobbled it up, or he or she had given it to the dog deliberately to test the effectiveness of the dosage.
If the latter proved to be true—and Puri thought it the most likely scenario—then it meant the murder had not been the work of the Delhi underworld. A hail of bullets was more their style.
The case that former deputy commissioner Scott was investigating—the killing of the alleged Mumbai bookie Vikas Sengar, aka “Fawda”—was similarly unusual. Such goonda types usually ended up getting gunned down by supari killers, who weren’t exactly known for using the subtle approach. Either that or they were “encountered” by the police—in other words executed in a raid to save the trouble of a trial and/or to cover up links with the local constabulary.
Last night Puri had called one of his sources in Mumbai, a female crime reporter on a local newspaper. In her Mumbaiya pidgin jumbled with Indian English slang, she’d told him that Sengar had died from eating poisoned biryani.
“Fawda Bhaiyya was game bajaana suumdi style,” she’d said.
Puri interpreted this to mean that Fawda, the bookie, who hailed originally from north India, was bumped off, but in a subtle fashion.
“Someone made it look like a suicide?” he tried to clarify in Hindi.
“Ji, Uncle,” she replied. “He was dedu foot so couldn’t reach the punkah. Plus, he was totally fultoo and doing balle balle with his biscuit.”
Translation: “He was a short man, so he couldn’t have reached the ceiling fan with the rope with which he is alleged to have hung himself. Also, he was extremely drunk and there’s every reason to believe that he was ‘making happiness’ with his mistress before he was killed.”
It confirmed everything Scott had said.
“The biscuit was questioned?” asked Puri.
“She told some blo bachhan [bullshit] story. That mama [police officer] is a khaali pili [one who scratches his balls]. His boss is even worse—dedh dimaage [one with half brains]. The investigation was a chuna [cover-up].”
Vedika had no idea who had been behind the killing—“Haila [God knows], Uncle!”—but agreed that it hadn’t been the underworld. As for Fawda, she described him as a Johnniewalker [heavy drinker].
There was no doubt in Vedika’s mind that he had been one of Aga’s chief Mumbai bookies.
“Keeda Insect,” she added.
• • •
Breakfast that morning consisted of a bowl of pomegranate seeds—sheer torture given the sight of the crisp aloo parantha being prepared on the stove by Rumpi for herself. Puri sat at one end of the kitchen table as Monica the maidservant chopped fresh methi leaves in preparation for lunch, and Sweetu the houseboy perched on a bamboo stool in the corner, polishing the detective’s black orthopedic shoes.
Malika, the other maidservant, had called to say that she wouldn’t be coming to work today. Her youngest son, one of four, was sick with a high temperature, headaches, aching limbs. It sounded like chikungunya.
“Her husband’s back at home,” Rumpi told Puri.
Subtext: Malika’s layabout, good-for-nothing husband had lost yet another job and was sitting around drinking Double Dog whisky while watching saucy item numbers on Bollywood video channels.
“Malika’s asked for salary advance,” added Rumpi.
Subtext: she didn’t have enough to pay the doctor.
Puri sighed and
reached for his wallet. “I tell you if she was not like a daughter to me . . .,” he said as he fished out two hundred rupees and laid the notes on the table. He considered this a gift; his staff’s health-care costs were his responsibility given that the government failed to provide for them. “That bloody bastard requires a good thrashing, I tell you,” he grumbled, referring to Malika’s husband.
Rumpi placed a cup of sweet milky chai on the table in front of him and sat down with her parantha. Then began the daily roundup of family news and domestic issues.
Their grandson Rohit’s hair-shaving Mundan ceremony was to be held the following Monday, Rumpi reminded him. And Radhika, their youngest daughter, had called yesterday from Pune, where she was studying, to discuss travel plans for Holi.
“She’ll be reverting home?”
“Of course, Chubby. What are you thinking? Jaiya and Lalita are coming also.”
“Wonderful! All our girls at home together. Holi’s when exactly?”
The festival fell on the last full moon in the month of Phalguna in the Hindu calendar and so it was on a different date in late February or early March every year.
“I told you twice already,” scolded Rumpi. “It’s in ten days.”
“Apologies, my dear, my mind is getting overload.”
• • •
By a quarter to seven, Puri was on the Expressway heading back into South Delhi. It wasn’t long before he received his first phone call of the day from Satya Pal Bhalla demanding an update on the moustache case.
“I’ve been trying to reach you!” he said without so much as a good morning.
The detective had no intention of telling him that he had taken on the murder investigation. Thinking fast, he opted for the one excuse no Indian could ever argue with. “One family wedding was there,” he said. “My chacha’s granddaughter.”
Tarquin Hall Page 8
