“Only the dice are loaded,” said Puri.
“Right. That’s India for you. Always count your cards.”
Puri asked him how someone went about making a bet. He wanted to understand the mechanics of the process.
“By phone, yaar. Used to be a separate line was required. But now any number will do.”
“And you provide a password.”
“These days it’s computer-generated. You get it over e-mail.”
“These days?” repeated Puri. “These changes came when exactly?”
“Six months back. Whole thing runs like clockwork, Chubby. Odds are updated by the second. Not like before.”
“Tell me about Mohib Alam.”
Rinku, who had his glass up to his mouth, hesitated.
“He’s having a satta party tomorrow night,” continued Puri. “At his farmhouse. During the Goa-versus-Mumbai match. I plan to attend. Have some fun.”
“Chubby, last time you had any fun you were still pissing in your chuddies. Look, I warned you before. Walk away. Think I’m a BC? This guy killed his own brother over an argument about a milkshake.”
“Milkshake?”
“He doesn’t like chocolate.”
Puri stared at Rinku with granite-hard eyes. “Listen, you bugger, when I asked for your help, ever, haa?” he asked, switching back to English. “This is top priority. I need to get close to this fellow.”
“He’ll see you coming, Chubby. You’ll stand out like a white chick at a black orgy.”
“You can make the introduction.”
“What makes you so sure?”
Puri made a gesture. “To use your words, Pappu, ‘Don’t talk bullshit.’”
“You’ll need a lot of moola, buddy,” sighed Rinku. “Where are you going to get it?”
The detective eyed the wads of notes on the table.
“What? Now you’re wanting to borrow money, also?”
“Don’t do tension. I’ll pay you back, you bugger.”
Whoops of joy came from the other room. Rinku checked the match score.
“Shit, yaar,” he complained. “Two lakhs down the bloody crapper.”
Eleven
“Yes, yes, quite all right,” Mummy told Puri when he called her at around nine that evening. “Air is so fresh and sweet here, na . . . Pardon? What you said, Chubby? I didn’t get . . . Want to talk about what? Pakistan? Hello? Hello? Bad reception is there. Your voice is absent. Must be mountains and all. You’re hearing me? Oh dear, so much disturbance. Should be I’ll be reverting day after. Don’t worry, na! Everything is totally fine.”
• • •
In fact, things had not quite gone to plan. At five thirty that morning, when Mummy went to pick up Ritu Auntie, her would-be traveling companion had announced that she didn’t want to go to Haridwar because it was a Tuesday and it was inauspicious to start any new endeavor or venture on the second day of the week.
It had taken ten minutes to persuade her otherwise and then, before setting off, Ritu insisted on performing a puja for Ganesh, friend of travelers. A further delay came after they got downstairs and bundled themselves into the waiting car and Ritu realized that she’d forgotten to eat a pinch of sugar before leaving the house. Five more minutes were lost while she remedied this oversight.
Despite these delays, they might still have caught the train had it not been for Mummy’s idiot driver, Majnu, who dropped them on the wrong side of New Delhi railway station. This meant they had to climb the steep stairs up to the pedestrian overbridge, where they faced a tidal wave of pilgrims from Varanasi, all carrying bundles and big plastic containers of Ganga water.
By the time they reached platform four, the 0530 Haridwar Express was pulling out of the station. The next train left an hour or so later—a local that reached their destination at six in the evening.
By the time they’d checked into the Good Luck Hotel, washed and eaten, it was almost nine o’clock.
Mummy’s quest was going to have to start tomorrow. And she was fine with that. Ritu’s idiosyncrasies were infuriating at times, but her husband’s ashes had provided the perfect cover story. Besides, who was to say they weren’t supposed to leave on the later train? Perhaps some terrible fate would have befallen them on the Haridwar Express.
Still, she would need to make an early start tomorrow—and find a way of splitting off from Ritu Auntie. There wasn’t a lot of time—two days at the most. Bhuppi had already called three times to check up on her. And Chubby had sounded suspicious—wanting to talk about Pakistan.
He was obviously thinking along the right lines. Not my son for nothing, Mummy reflected.
Ritu had fallen asleep in front of the TV. Her mouth was wide open and she was snoring gently. The urn was on the side table next to her bed. Tomorrow evening they would need to find a priest to carry out the Asthi Visarjan scattering ceremony.
Wrapping her shawl around her shoulders, Mummy stepped out onto the balcony of their room. Below lay a lawn lit by lollipop lights. A family was sitting around a brazier, three generations in all, eating their dinner and warming their hands. At the end of the garden flowed the British-built canal that carried the crystal-clear waters of the Ganges to the lush farmland of Uttarakhand. The lights of the old city on the far bank colored the water’s surface in liquid gold. The sounds of clanging bells and chanting reached her from temples dotted amongst the dense profusion of narrow buildings. Flags fluttered above tapered roofs. Down on the far bank, some pilgrims were taking a dip, washing away their sins.
Mummy pulled up a chair and took a folded piece of paper from her handbag. There were three names written on it:
Megha Dogra (wife of Ram Dogra, the Prince of Polyester)
Harnam Talwar (wife of Sandeep Talwar, politician)
Jasmeet Bhatia (mother of Satish Bhatia, Call Center King)
All three women looked to be in their late seventies to early eighties, roughly the same height and the same build. None of the three had any distinguishing marks, either. Indian government records being unreliable and easily doctored, the only surefire way of checking their past was to consult the genealogical records kept by the thousands of Pandas living in the city.
That, though, was for tomorrow. There was still today’s unfinished business to deal with.
Mummy took out her daily diary and began to write. This was a discipline she’d adhered to religiously since her sixteenth birthday.
“Ritu saw a gecko on the ceiling of our hotel and said it portends success,” wrote Mummy in Hindi using the elegant Perso-Arabic script she had been taught as a child. “Let’s hope she’s right.”
• • •
Tubelight called Puri late at the office. He and his boys had spent the day doing background checking. When it came to Sandeep Talwar, they’d struck a rich seam. There was nothing “sahib” wasn’t into. He controlled something in the region of four hundred companies, many of them money-laundering fronts with pretend directors. Through these companies he owned thousands of acres of sugarcane fields, numerous sugarcane processing plants and at least four trucking companies. His illicit portfolio also included an IT park, a handful of hotels, a software development company in San Diego, an import-export business and a coal mine. Tubelight had it on good authority that he also got a 30 percent cut from the petrol mafia in his home state of Madhya Pradesh.
Talwar was also a big gambler.
“One, two lakhs minimum. Goes to Dubai often.”
“Any direct connection with Aga?”
“Doubt it—fiercely patriotic.”
“Willing to screw India just as long as he’s doing the screwing.”
“Exactly, Boss.”
“How about Talwar Madam?”
“First name Harnam. Comes from a village near Indore. Sixteen when she married. Numerous assets to her name. They’ve five children total.”
Tubelight had much less to say about Ram Dogra, the Prince of Polyester. He had his detractors, those who said he exploite
d his workers, and had done all kinds of shady deals to secure land upon which to build his factories. But he gave generously to all the political parties and was on good terms with the country’s major newspaper proprietors as well.
As for Satish Bhatia, the Call Center King, he was a golden boy.
“Pays his income tax, gives to charity, campaigns for child literacy.”
“Keep checking. No one does business in India without getting stains on their kurta,” said Puri.
• • •
Satya Pal Bhalla, the former moustache raja, called ten minutes later. Puri held the phone away from his ear as he listened to his tirade, this time about how Gopal Ragi had been released without charge.
“I’m aware, sir,” said Puri, although he doubted his client heard him.
He put the phone down on his desk. It continued to crepitate for another few minutes until, finally, the detective picked it up again and delivered a string of platitudes, assuring his client that he was on the case and would contact him “in coming days.”
He hung up and reread the fax that had been delivered earlier by his secretary. The message was typed on a blank piece of paper—no letter heading or signature. Just:
Dear Sir,
It has come to my attention that you are engaged in the investigation of the murder of the late Mr. Faheem Khan. I am writing to inform you that I have in my possession important information regarding the case. For reasons of my own, I am prepared to provide you with the aforementioned information in person only.
Provided you are able, I suggest you travel to Pakistan this coming Friday so that we might meet and discuss the matter further. Please take a room at the Pearl Continental in Rawalpindi, where I will find you.
It was signed “A Friend,” and the sender ID in the top left-hand corner of the page was a London number. Puri tried it but got a disconnected message.
It was a trap, obviously. Aga had come to know that Puri was nosing around in his business and planned to lure him to Pakistan, where one of his henchmen would put a bullet through his head.
There: that was a good enough reason for not traveling to Pakistan. Final. Decided. Thank the God!
Puri locked the fax away in the top drawer of his desk and decided to head home. It was getting late. Rumpi would be wondering where he was.
He got only halfway down the stairs when suddenly he stopped, shouted out at the top of his voice, “Bugger it all!” and gave the wall a hard kick. Storming back up the stairs and into his office, he retrieved the fax and read it again. The language was polished, old-fashioned, written by an older man. This was not the work of Aga. Nor the Pakistani intelligence service. This “friend” might well be able to provide vital information about the case.
Puri slumped back in his chair, defeated by his own conscience. He poured himself a drink and finished it quickly. Then, with grave reluctance, indeed with a sense of impending yet unavoidable doom, he called his client James Scott in London.
“I would be needing that visa we talked about in a jiffy,” he said.
• • •
It was ten P.M. by the time Puri left the office. The Khan Market bhelpuri vendor was still open for business. A few youngsters stood around his stand in the car park devouring plates of puffed rice laced with tamarind chutney. The detective tried to will himself to his waiting car, but the sight of all the crisp papdis and yogurt proved too much for him.
“Usual, sahib?”
“Extra chutney and chilli.”
His order was soon ready and he joined the other customers, eating in silent solidarity. It was broken by the sound of an Ambassador pulling up. The car had government plates. A short, pudgy assistant-type got out.
“Shri Vish Puri?” he asked.
The detective answered with a mouth full of sevpuri. “Present and correct.”
“Sahib sent me.” Puri was being summoned by politician and all-round crook Sandeep Talwar.
“It’s a sin to waste good sevpuri,” said the detective, holding up his half-finished plate.
The PA looked unmoved. “Sahib is waiting,” he insisted.
Puri crammed in a last mouthful, threw away the rest and got into the car.
Their destination was the Lakshmi, a hotel owned by the Ministry of Tourism and one that clung faithfully to its kitsch 1980s décor. The lobby, a vast expanse of gray marble as polished as an ice rink, was dotted with atolls of brown leather couches upon which the occupants sat, as if stranded. The reception desk was half the length of a football field, the dozen or so staff members standing behind it as dwarfed as Soviet leaders watching a military parade in the vastness of Moscow’s Red Square.
Sandeep Talwar’s suite was on the top floor.
Puri was led through a series of rooms, each occupied by businessmen, lawyers, junior ministers and bureaucrat clones in white shirts—all waiting patiently to meet the minister, many of them with stacks of papers on their laps. A final set of doors opened and disgorged overfed, suited men with briefcases. The detective was shown into a reception room where sahib lounged in an armchair, drink in hand.
Sandeep Talwar was almost eighty and obese, his gray suit trousers pulled halfway up his stomach like clown pants. His lower lip was weighed down by a crumpled chin scoured with lines. Drooping jowls obscured the edges of his mouth so that even when he smiled his whole face looked turned down. His sunken eyes completed the picture of a cunning, duplicitous individual racked by greed.
Puri could barely conceal his contempt. Talwar hadn’t garnered power because of his ideas or inherent wisdom. Nor because he gave two damns about his constituents, most of whom lived on less than two dollars a day. No, Talwar had risen to power, prominence and wealth thanks to his abilities as a deal maker. He was a horse trader, nothing more.
“My PA says you came to my home this morning asking to see me,” he said, studying Puri through steel-rimmed glasses.
“I happened to be passing, sir.” Puri stood with hands held behind his back like a petulant schoolboy.
“Happened to be passing,” repeated Talwar, his tone mocking. “You usually just drop in on ministers and request to meet their wives, also?”
The detective countered with flattery: “You’ve a reputation for being an open individual, sir, accessible to the aam admi. No offense was intended, I assure you.”
Talwar’s eyes blinked slowly like an iguana’s. He looked half asleep. But it would be a mistake to underestimate him, Puri reflected. He could be dangerous, this man.
“What’s your game exactly, Mr. Puri? What is it you want?” asked Talwar, careful not to sound too concerned.
“I’m investigating the murder, sir—of Faheem Khan.”
“That’s the job of the police.”
“I’m a private investigator.”
“And you’re working for?”
“That I cannot say, sir.”
Talwar showed startled dismay. “You’re refusing me, Mr. Puri?”
“Confidentiality is my watchword, sir.”
“I see,” said Talwar, as if he finally had the measure of the detective. “You’re one of these do-gooders, no? Like an NGO type? Think the system is not working properly so take matters into your own hand.”
“This is my job, sir,” answered Puri, putting it as bluntly as he could.
“And I suppose I’m on your list of suspects, am I?”
“You and madam, also.”
“You’re suggesting my wife murdered that man?” The politician’s words were liquid indignation.
“Sir, she is a suspect, that is all.”
“Now you listen to me,” said Talwar, his tone controlled but menacing. “I’m a politician and must therefore put up with a certain amount of scrutiny of my affairs. My wife, on the other hand, is a private person and she is not in good health these days. She’s made a statement to the police and that’s an end to the matter. Is that understood?”
“Most certainly, sir. Thank you, sir.”
Talwar di
smissed him with a perfunctory gesture.
Puri left the room in no doubt that he had made a powerful enemy. The encounter had been worth it, however. Sahib was getting sloppy. He’d made the mistake of warning Puri away from his wife.
Mrs. Harnam Talwar had something to hide—no doubt about it at all.
Twelve
“We make the dream of having a loved one’s cremated remains (cremains) scattered in the Holy Ganges a reality!” read the brochure for Sacred Rights, a travel agency that doubled as a kind of Hindu funeral home. “Now even Non-Resident Indians can send us their cremains from any location in the world by secure shipment and we’ll take care of the rest! You’ll receive a custom-made DVD of the ceremony. Alternatively we offer our exclusive ‘Secure Air Express Brahman Priest Escort Service’ from any country of your choice! That’s right! A genuine Indian priest will fly out and collect your ashes and deliver them safely to the bosom of Mother India.”
Mummy handed the brochure back to Ritu. They were standing in the small foyer of their hotel.
“This is for NRI types, na,” said Mummy, confused.
“Not that part,” said Ritu, turning over the brochure. “There. Where it talks about the boat. It says here they’ll take us out into the middle of the Ganges to scatter the ashes.”
“A priest and helper will accompany you at sunset,” said the hotel manager, who was standing behind the front desk. “It is experience of the lifetime, I can tell you.”
It had taken the manager all of three or four minutes, the time Mummy had used to visit the WC, to sell Ritu on the boat scheme. It was a nice idea but obviously flawed.
“You’re doing seasickness,” pointed out Mummy.
“Madam, seasickness comes only at sea,” admonished the manager. “On Ganges there is hardly a ripple. So smooth it is.”
“Honestly, I think it should be fine,” said Ritu.
“You were getting sickness in a paddleboat on Sukhna Lake in Chandigarh, even.”
Tarquin Hall Page 12
