Tarquin Hall

by The Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken

  Puri had lost count of the number of times this particular niece had been married over the years.

  “Listen!” insisted Bhalla. “Gopal Ragi declared himself owner of the longest moustache in India—on national television! Didn’t have the common courtesy to wait even twenty-four hours out of respect for my loss! I saw him smiling. Celebrating, Puri-ji! Saala kutta! What are you doing about it?”

  Puri assured him that he was well on top of the case, gave his usual “no stone will go unturned” assurance and hung up.

  “Son of an ox!” he cursed, wishing he hadn’t taken on the moustache case. The Khan murder deserved his full attention and this bloody Bhalla was going to be calling every hour on the hour.

  Oh, how he hated impatient, pushy clients! They had no appreciation for the special talents required for detective work. Worst were the ones who read that bloody Agatha Christie. They imagined that because some old memsahib in an Angrezi village with a population of a dozen—mostly Christian priests and old duffers and the like—could solve a murder over a cup of Earl Grey, the same could be done in India. India with its sixteen-hundred-plus languages; myriad ancient religions; castes, subcastes and tribes; five-and-a-half-thousand-year-old culture—not to mention a billion-plus-strong population and cities expanding before your very eyes.

  But there was no turning back. Vish Puri, Most Private Investigator, winner of one international and six national awards, and the only Indian PI ever to be featured on the cover of India Today magazine, had given his word.

  In fact he was on his way now to start his inquiries.

  • • •

  It was shortly after seven when he reached H Block, Laxmi Bai Nagar, and found the night watchman who’d tackled the intruder into Bhalla’s apartment.

  “Illiterate Bihari village type” was how Puri summed him up in his mind. He was thin and swaddled in a dirty shawl but stood up straight and looked the detective in the eye.

  “Namashkar,” said Puri, greeting him.

  “Namashkar, sahib!”

  “What’s your name?” the detective asked in Hindi.

  “Dalchand.”

  “I want to ask you some questions. About the attempted robbery the other night.”

  “I did nothing wrong, sahib! I was only doing my duty!”

  Realizing that the police had probably given him a hard time, Puri tried to put him at ease. “I’m working for Bhalla sahib to catch the thief,” he explained.

  Dalchand’s smile revealed a crooked row of paan-stained teeth. “I’ll help in any way I can to catch that son of a bitch,” he said, beaming.

  Puri took out a pack of Gold Flakes that he had anticipated might come in handy. He offered one to the guard, who readily accepted the cigarette and lit up.

  “I was on my rounds when I saw a figure climbing up the balcony,” he began, the smoke spilling from his mouth indistinguishable from his breath in the chilled morning air. “I rang the police but they never came. So I went up the stairs and started banging on the front door. After a couple of minutes the maid answered. I ran inside and the man fled. He went to the balcony again and started to climb down.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Went after him, of course, sahib!” Dalchand said this with pride. “When I reached the ground I ran very fast. I’m good at running! I cut him off before he reached the gate and tackled him.”

  Puri asked about the thief’s size.

  “He was big, much bigger than me, over six feet tall! He was strong, also. I managed to get my teeth into his ankle. He cried out and let go of his bag—the one in which he was carrying some of Bhalla sahib’s moustache. I grabbed it and ran.”

  “He pursued you?”

  “I got up that tree over there—I am good at getting up trees! He shouted at me, told me to give him back his bag. Promised to make me rich.”

  How much had he been offered?

  “Twenty thousand, sahib!”

  The detective whistled.

  “A fortune, I know! But I refused. I spat at him. I told him he deserved to hang. He cursed me and swore vengeance. Called me a son of a whore, son of a pig, sister f—”

  “What happened next?” interrupted Puri.

  “Another watchman came running with a flashlight and he ran away.”

  “You chased after him?”

  “Of course, sahib! We didn’t give up. But he had a scooty.”

  “You saw the number plate?”

  Dalchand averted his eyes, embarrassed. “Sorry, sahib, I’m not good with letters and numbers. There was some writing—a goose and two snakes curled around themselves.”

  Puri took out his notebook and wrote “2 8 8.”

  “Like this?” he asked.

  “Exactly, sahib! Those three came at the end.”

  “What make was the scooty?”

  “Hero Honda. Red color.”

  “What language did he speak?”

  “When he cursed it was in Punjabi.”

  “You speak Punjabi?”

  “Since coming to Delhi I’ve become very familiar with Punjabi insults. I hear them often.”

  “You said you bit him. Did you draw blood?”

  “Yes, sahib!” Again this was said with pride. “The man was limping as he ran.”

  Puri made a note of this. Dalchand looked pleased with himself.

  “Anything else you can tell me about him?”

  “Did I tell you he was very strong, sahib? He had the strength of five men and yet I managed him.”

  “Aren’t you worried he’ll come back?”

  “Let him come, sahib!”

  • • •

  The local police station was nearby. In a cold, sparsely furnished office, Puri found Inspector Surinder Thakur huddled behind his desk, a small glass of chai cupped in his hand.

  “You’re wasting your time, sir,” he said after Puri had explained the purpose of his visit. “I’ll be making two arrests later this morning.”

  “Accha?”

  “There’s only one man who stands to gain from putting Bhalla sahib out of the picture. And I have all the evidence I need to charge him and his accomplice.”

  “Gopal Ragi?”

  “He’s been after Bhalla sahib’s crown for years. Recently he accused him of cheating and threatened him and his moustache.”

  “That is by no means enough to prove his involvement,” pointed out the detective.

  Thakur was smugness personified. “I’ve come to know that Ragi has a Punjabi driver, one Sunil Singh, a charge-sheeter,” he said. “He matches the description of the thief given by the night watchman—six foot tall, very strong.”

  Puri still looked unconvinced.

  “And this individual walks with a limp,” said Thakur, cracking a wry smile.

  “Is it?” said Puri, eyebrows raised.

  “Like I told you, sir, the case is in the bag. All that is required now is a confession.”

  “Still one question is there, inspector,” said Puri. “Assuming Ragi instructed his driver to do the needful, why he didn’t cut the moustache to ribbons? Vandalize it, so to speak. Why he tried to carefully remove the moustache?”

  “I believe he wanted a trophy, sir. These people are obsessed with moustaches. I’ve come to know that Ragi and Bhalla and one hundred or so others belong to a kind of moustache club. These people actually get together and talk about their moustaches! Can you imagine?”

  Puri managed a strained smile. “It is a way of being sociable, no? Such like-minded people have a good deal to talk about.”

  “They’re all like-minded, that’s for sure, sir!” exclaimed Thakur.

  “Y-yes, well, seems I have taken plenty of your time,” stuttered the detective. “Best of luck to you, inspector.”

  He left the station hoping Thakur was right. Puri had very little to go on, after all. In a city of sixteen million he was after a tall, limping Punjabi who drove a scooty with a number plate that ended in a goose and two snakes.

&n
bsp; Nine

  Puri rendezvoused with Tubelight at eight thirty later that morning at Shyam Sweets in Chawri Bazaar, Old Delhi. They both ordered plates of bedmi aloo, stood at one of the elevated tables and got straight down to business.

  The operative had traced Full Moon’s Mercedes-Benz from the Delhi Durbar Hotel. It was owned by a certain Mohib Alam.

  “Bingo!” exclaimed Puri.

  “Know him, Boss?” asked Tubelight in Hindi.

  “Our Angrezi client has been doing investigation of his match-fixing affairs. Mohib Alam—I am calling him ‘Full Moon’—met with our most esteemed Pakistani victim, Faheem Khan, in London last year only.”

  “This one’s into everything, Boss.”

  “Let me guess. Builder? Marble? Runs medical colleges on the side? Who’s his godfather?”

  “Sandeep Talwar—recently appointed president of the Indian Cricket Board.”

  Puri clapped his hands together with glee. “And very much present at the dinner! Dots are beginning to connect!”

  Their breakfast order arrived: drowned in each of the servings of steaming potato curry was a whole red chilli. As if that wasn’t enough spice, the stuffed bedmis came with a dollop of green chutney.

  Both men dug in, eating with their hands and talking with their mouths full.

  “Full Moon’s got a farmhouse in Chattarpur,” said Tubelight. “You should see this place, Boss. The Mughals never knew such luxury.”

  “Give me round-the-clock surveillance,” ordered the detective in English, a trickle of curry running down his chin. “Phone tapping, home tapping, car tapping. Garbage analysis, also. I want to see the dark side of Full Moon.”

  The joke was lost on the operative, whose English was rudimentary. “Right, Boss,” he said. “One other thing: he’s having a satta party tomorrow. During the Goa Beachers– Mumbai Bears match.”

  “Pukka?”

  “The tent wallah told me.”

  Puri gave Tubelight a mischievous look to indicate what he was thinking.

  “Tight security, Boss. Invitation only,” he warned Puri.

  “We’ll manage, no?” said the detective with a flick of his hand. “Always remember, yaar: will-and-way, will-and-way.”

  Their salty lassis were brought to the table, straws protruding from both glasses. Puri sucked on his as he passed Tubelight a piece of paper: a list of the guests who’d sat at the center table during the dinner. He had already scratched out six names. These included:

  Nilesh Jani, chairman of the ICT, and his socialite wife, Mini, who were the only guests who hadn’t risen from the table during the meal (this having been corroborated by the hotel staff and all the other witnesses).

  Sanjay Sala, the actor, and his wife, Bubbles, who hadn’t left the stands once during the match at the Kotla stadium and therefore could not have deliberately or inadvertently poisoned the dog.

  And J. K. Shrivastav, the cabinet secretary, and his wife, who had attended only the dinner.

  “That leaves ten total,” said Puri. “Give me background checking on each and every one of them—top to bottom, inside out, no stone unturned.”

  “Background checking” meant dirt, rumor, word on the street.

  The operative cast his eye over the list, tilted his head to one side and said, “Bilkul.”

  “Also, should any of these individuals have any connection with Pakistan, past or present, I would want to be knowing,” added Puri.

  “No problem, Boss.”

  Shyam Sweets was open to the narrow, dirty street, which was getting busier by the minute. Bedraggled laborers pushed handcarts piled high with every kind of merchandise—fans, engine parts, great packages swathed in muslin cloth. A bicycle rickshaw appeared with a teetering mountain of hose pipes balanced on its passenger seat. Motorized three-wheelers weaved past honking like irritated geese. A wandering holy man in patched garb held up a steel tin soliciting donations.

  “You suspect Kamran Khan?” asked Tubelight, pointing out his name on the list.

  “His father was doing match fixing—no doubt about it at all. For that Kamran Khan would most definitely be involved. Who knows what all went on between them? There is no honor amongst goondas after all. It has come to my attention also his father stood in the way of his marrying one Noor Sultana.”

  At the mention of the actress’s name, Tubelight puffed out his cheeks and blew out the air like a wolf baying at the moon.

  “Beautiful, haa?” asked the detective, who’d never seen an image of her.

  By way of a response Tubelight started to sing from a 1960s Bollywood hit made famous by singer Asha Bhosle: “Man has prayed to me / The angels have bowed their heads to me.”

  This drew smiles from the customers standing nearby: “Under my veil there is such a beauty / Lifting it you will be mesmerized!” one of them chimed in, prompting more smiles all round.

  “Kamran Khan had motive for sure,” said Puri as everyone returned to their business.

  “But he’s in Pak,” said Tubelight.

  “That indeed presents something of a problem,” said Puri, who was still hoping that he could avoid traveling to Rawalpindi to interview him.

  His operative started cleaning between his teeth with a toothpick. “My money’s on Full Moon’s godfather, Sandeep Talwar,” he said. “Remember few years back his son ran over two Jats, killed them? Witnesses vanished. I tell you, Boss, his mother mated with a jackal.”

  Puri gave a loud, dismissive tut. “I’ve told you before, no? Leave stargazing to stargazers. Now tell me: where is Flush exactly? He’s reverted or what?”

  The young electronics and computers whiz had gone to visit his family in his “native place.”

  “In that hole he calls home,” answered Tubelight. “Eating Domino’s and reading adventures of Savita Bhabhi—”

  Puri looked up from his food and frowned; he considered pornography to be immoral, even in the land of the Kama Sutra.

  “—I meant Spider-Man,” added Tubelight hastily. “Reading Spider-Man comics.”

  “I’ll give him call after,” murmured the detective. “We would be needing him.”

  After they’d finished their food, Puri phoned Satya Pal Bhalla and broke the news that the arrest of his nemesis, Gopal Ragi, was imminent.

  “Excellent work, Puri!”

  The detective tried to explain that it was Inspector Thakur’s decision, but to no avail.

  “I knew it was that bastard,” he kept saying. “Let him rot!”

  Next, Puri rang Elizabeth Rani and explained that he needed the goose-and-two-snakes license plate traced.

  “Only a partial number, sir? That will be difficult,” she said.

  “I’m quite aware, Madam Rani. Please just do the needful.”

  • • •

  From Chawri Bazaar, Puri set off on a fool’s errand: trying to question some of Delhi’s most powerful and wealthy individuals. The likelihood was that few of them would deign to see him. And there was a good chance that he’d be reported for harassment and arrested on some trumped-up charge. At the very least, it wouldn’t be long before the Chief and the murderer would know of his involvement in the case.

  Yet as an outsider, this was often how he was forced to work. He took pride in calling his approach “jugaad investigation,” “jugaad” being a useful Hindi term that meant “to improvise.” To the detective, as to many an Indian, it was a fine concept, the idea that they could make do with anything and come up with a solution.

  His first stop was the Lutyens bungalow on Janpath in British-built New Delhi, where the politician Sandeep Talwar and his family resided. It was the detective’s understanding that the MP for Ghaziabad and president of the Indian Cricket Board was usually to be found at this hour sitting on his veranda consulting with his astrologer.

  Handbrake pulled up outside the main gate, where three Special Protection Group soldiers stood guard. Puri sent in his card. It drew out an obsequious minion in a kurta and sleeveles
s Nehru jacket.

  “You’ve an appointment?”

  Puri explained that he was investigating the murder of Faheem Khan and was eager to know from sir and madam whether they had seen anything at the dinner that might assist in the successful identification of the murderer.

  “Sahib has engagements all day.”

  “Perhaps madam could spare five minutes?”

  That was out of the question. As the patron of a number of charities, she couldn’t possibly spare the time.

  The minion turned and headed back in through the gate.

  One of the soldiers gave a flick of his hand as he might have done to a fly.

  “Out for a duck,” said the detective.

  • • •

  NOIDA, the New Okhla Industrial Development Authority, Delhi’s sprawling eastern suburb, lay across the giant sewer where the sacred Yamuna River once flowed. A pristine eight-lane highway, better known as the Flyway, swept past the colossal, Disneyfied Akshardham Temple complex to a cityscape of luxury tower blocks and shopping malls wreathed in the ubiquitous golden arches.

  Satish Bhatia’s company, Outsourcing Consultants, was housed in a glass tower off Knowledge Boulevard. The foyer was all shiny marble, leather furniture and giant canvases splattered in colorful paint. A row of clocks above the reception displayed the time in seven cities.

  “You would be having an appointment, sir?”

  In this instance, Puri was able to answer in the affirmative; he had called ahead and Satish Bhatia, the Call Center King, had agreed to give him ten minutes of his time.

  “Please follow me, sir.”

  A security guard led the detective to a glass elevator activated by an electronic pass. Puri glided up the side of a towering atrium, past open-plan floors where rows of young Indians wearing headsets stared into computer screens. He’d visited many a call center before and always found them surreal places—filled with people with names like Palaniyappan Kurukulasuriya passing themselves off as Robert or Steve and selling car insurance to people in Newcastle.