“Aaah . . . right . . . I see.”
“My sincerest apologies, former deputy commissioner,” Puri felt compelled to say.
“Yes, well, not to worry, Vish. Send me the bill and I’ll get it sorted. Now, back to the case. I still don’t understand: did Bhatia have Faheem Khan killed or didn’t he?”
“Sir, I believe you have what you and your associates wanted all along: the gambling syndicate is exposed for all to see.”
“Absolutely. And like I said, well done you. But you didn’t answer my question.”
“Sir, I’d ask that you don’t press me on this point. It was a matter of revenge—nothing to do with the world of cricket whatsoever.”
“Surely you’re not going to just let it go?”
“Believe me, sir, if evidence was to hand I’d not hesitate in pursuing the case. But nothing is there. It was a perfect murder—a perfect butter-chicken murder, we can say.”
Scott let out an uneasy sigh. “Well, I suppose you’ve got no argument from me. We’ll just have to leave it at that. As far as the match fixing goes, the next step’s to inform the IIC, obviously. You’ll need to send me all the details. It’s going to create a shit storm. Headlines for weeks.”
“Talking of which, sir . . . I regret to inform you that I don’t wish my name to be associated with the case.”
“You can’t be serious, Vish! You deserve the recognition!”
“Undoubtedly, sir. But it is often the way here in India. Better to remain in the shadows, so to speak. Unfortunately, this will hardly be the end of betting on cricket, sir. Other bookies and all will step in for sure. People are so obsessed with gambling, actually. And there is no way it can be legalized. Too many special interests involved. Better they don’t become aware of my involvement.”
“Well, if that’s how you want it . . .”
The detective hung up the phone as Elizabeth Rani entered his office bearing a cup of chai. From his disconsolate expression she guessed that, not for the first time, he wasn’t going to be able to take credit for solving a major case. Knowing how much he hungered for recognition and how much it would pain him not to be able to show up the Delhi police chief, she decided to try to perk him up.
“Sir, I don’t know how you do it,” she said. “There is not another detective in all of India who could have exposed the entire betting business.”
“Thank you, Madam Rani. As usual, you are quite correct. It was a considerable achievement, I must say. But let it not be forgotten that I received valuable assistance along the way. Had Major General Aslam not been good enough to provide me with certain information, then only the God knows where we would be. Just goes to show that in Pakistan, also, there are individuals striving for truth and justice. That is something we would all do well to remember, Madam Rani.”
“Yes, sir.”
Before Scott called, Puri had been in the process of dictating the details of the case to his secretary. This was something the detective always did at the conclusion of an investigation while events were fresh in his mind.
They now picked up where they had left off, with Puri recounting Megha Dogra’s words in the VVIP stand.
“Sir, there’s one thing you didn’t mention,” said Elizabeth Rani when he was finished.
“Tell me.”
“Megha Dogra, the lady who poisoned Faheem Khan. How did she do it exactly?”
“If I was a betting man—and thank the God I am not—I would put money on one of her husband’s syringes. He is diabetic. That is not common knowledge, by the way. Being a man in his position, he keeps his disease top secret.”
“How did you come to know?”
“His complexion is waxy. That is a sure sign. Yet to be one hundred percent sure, I got his manservant followed. Yesterday, only, he visited the chemist to pick up a supply—of insulin and syringes.
“Aconite, also, is readily available,” added Puri. “But she could not be sure of the dosage. Thus one pooch at Kotla got put out of his misery. And later, at dinner, she added something like double the amount to Faheem’s Khan’s butter chicken.”
“But how, sir?”
“It was easy, actually. Upon her return from the ladies’ room, Megha Dogra found his seat unoccupied. She stopped to do chitchat with Mrs. Anita Bhangu. She was wearing a shawl—it being cold outside. Thus when she leaned over the table to pick up something or other, the syringe could not be seen. Injecting the poison took seconds, only.”
Elizabeth Rani shook her head slowly. “Personally I don’t know whether to sympathize with her or not. She suffered so much . . . and yet to do such a thing . . .”
“It is impossible to fathom, Madam Rani. But that is the human mind, no? An eternal puzzle, we can say.”
Elizabeth Rani saved the case file on her laptop computer and closed the lid.
“I’m afraid there is one other matter for your attention,” she said. “Your client, one who lost half his moustache, Satya Pal Bhalla . . . he called again today. He’s demanding his payment be returned forthwith.”
“Seems I will have to give it to him,” said Puri with a sigh. “The moustache case has hit a quagmire, actually.”
Handbrake had visited all the five-star hotels in Delhi without coming across a newly hired doorman. Calls to the manager of the Palace on Wheels and the Maharaja Express, both luxury trains that employed moustachioed porters, waiters and bearers, had also proven fruitless.
“Thank you, Madam Rani, I would call Bhalla later, only,” said the detective. “For now, some meter down is required.”
• • •
Puri could tell there was something on Handbrake’s mind. However, it wasn’t until they were halfway to Gurgaon and the detective had finished talking on the phone with Tubelight—and suggested he and the team take some well-earned offs—that the driver spoke up.
“Boss, one thing, I think, perhaps you should know,” he said in Hindi.
Puri’s nod in the rearview mirror was encouragement for him to go on.
“You asked me to search for a doorman who’d been hired in the past few days.”
Another nod.
“At one hotel there was a doorman who’d been on leave—sick leave. He’d come back to work only a few days back. It’s probably not important but—”
“He had a moustache?” demanded Puri, suddenly alert.
“Big one.”
“Which hotel?”
“The Durbar, Boss.”
Puri was struck by a terrible thought. On the night Faheem Khan was murdered, Mummy had said something about the Maharani of Alwar staying at the hotel.
“By God! Turn around! Jaldi!”
Handbrake couldn’t turn around. By now they were on the expressway and there were barriers on either side of the road. He had to drive three miles to the toll court and make a U-turn. In the meantime, Puri called the hotel. He asked for the manager and was put on hold. For the next ten minutes he had to listen to the Muzak version of “Greensleeves.” Finally with a frustrated “Arrey!” he hung up and called back, insisting the operator connect him to the front desk.
The concierge who answered said that the manager was on his break and offered to take a message.
“Tell him the Maharani of Alwar’s Golkonda Diamond is to be looted and he should revert urgently!” shouted Puri.
“Yes, sir, I’ll pass it on,” replied the concierge, nonchalant.
Half an hour later, they pulled up in front of the Durbar. The front doors were unmanned. Puri found Mummy’s assistant-manager friend, Rajneesh, on duty and asked him about the whereabouts of the doorman.
“He’s having his khana, sir. Something is wrong?”
“Could be his moustache is not his own,” explained the detective.
“Pardon?”
“He looted it.”
“Sorry, sir, I’m not sure I understand. You’re saying he stole his moustache?”
“Could be.”
Rajneesh looked faintly amused. “Sir, Shant
i Balwa has worked here for some years. He’s always had a moustache.”
“It is my understanding he took leaves not long back.”
“That’s true, sir. He had some medical issues.”
“Cancer,” said Puri.
“I believe so.”
“He underwent chemotherapy. Thus his hair fell out, moustache included, and he required a new one. It explains the white blotches on his skin, also. At first I thought they had to do with being a barber. Then just this evening, only, I remembered one client from years back. He also underwent cancer treatment and came out in blotches.”
“Right, sir.”
“The Golkonda Diamond is quite secure?” asked Puri.
“Special security is in place. There’s no risk.”
Puri thought for a moment. “Let us clear up this matter once and for all,” he said.
• • •
It took Gopal Ragi forty minutes to reach the Durbar. Per Puri’s instructions, he alighted from his car across the road from the hotel. Inspector Thakur was also on hand. They both listened to the detective’s plan.
“We two, myself and you, sir”—he meant Ragi—“will proceed to the front door, where I will ask this Shanti Balwa fellow for the honor of posing for a snap with his good self. You, sir”—he meant Ragi again—“using your portable will play the role of photographer and thus be able to inspect the moustache in question. From there we’ll proceed into the hotel in an orderly fashion. Assuming Balwa is the one, then, only, I will give one call to you, sir”—he meant Thakur this time—“and you will make the arrest forthwith.”
“What if he recognizes me?” asked Ragi.
“He won’t—not without your moustache.”
“Agreed.”
“Tip-top.”
Puri and Ragi climbed into the Ambassador and Handbrake drove in through the hotel’s gates. Shanti Balwa was standing in front of the doors in his blazing uniform—tall and turbaned and sporting a fine bushy moustache.
It would have been a sharp-eyed aficionado indeed who could have spotted that the handlebar was not home-grown. He had shortened its length yet retained the muttonchops. They framed his beaming smile.
“Welcome to the Durbar,” he said, opening Puri’s door and giving a courtly bow.
The detective got out and said, “That’s a wonderful moustache. Mind if my friend takes one snap?”
“A pleasure, sir.”
The moment the Ambassador pulled away, the plan fell apart. Recognizing his own facial hair, Ragi shouted, “That’s it! That’s my moustache!” And before Puri could stop him, he’d thrown himself at the doorman.
“Bastard! Give it back!”
Shanti Balwa was knocked to the ground and Ragi tried to tear the moustache from his face. Guests looked on aghast as the two fought and the doorman cursed in the choicest Punjabi. Hotel security came running. The managers came running. Inspector Thakur and his jawans came running.
Bloody and bruised, the two men were separated and the doorman was handcuffed and led away.
• • •
Puri caught up with Shanti Balwa a few minutes later. By then he was sitting in the back of Inspector Thakur’s jeep weeping like a child. The moustache hung half off his upper lip.
“I wasn’t after any jewels,” he protested in Hindi when Puri accused him of planning to rob the Maharani of Alwar. “I just wanted to keep my job. Without a moustache I was finished. I’ve never stolen anything before in my life. I just thought those men could grow new ones, unlike me, so what was the harm?”
“And the ransom demand?”
“I had nothing to do with that! Someone else must have got the idea of making some money.”
An opportunist. It made sense.
“Please understand, sir,” continued Balwa. “When I got cancer and had to have the treatment, all my hair fell out. If the hotel had found out, they wouldn’t have taken me back. They don’t care about us, sir. They don’t give us any job security or insurance.”
He started to sob again. “This job is everything to me, sir. I plan to pass it on to my son when he’s old enough. He’s growing his own moustache these days. Please help me, sir. Make the police understand.”
The detective left him sitting there and went and found Thakur. He’d impounded Balwa’s scooter; the number plate ended in a goose and two snakes.
“This one is no arch-criminal,” Puri told him.
“He did breaking and entering—kidnapping and assault, also.”
“Correct, inspector, and it is only right and proper he should face punishment. But some compassion should be there. This man underwent treatment for cancer. Then he lost his hair and his job, also. What with inflation and all, people are getting desperate, no? Such jobs are few and far between. The cost of living is on the up and up. I believe we would be seeing more crime, not less, in the coming days and years.”
“A thief is a thief whether he steals a diamond or a cucumber,” said Thakur. “Now, I had better get this one to the station.”
Puri noticed a couple of TV crews racing toward him, microphones held at the ready. He groaned. “Typical,” he said under his breath. “The one case I don’t wish to be associated with and . . .”
“Mr. Vish Puri, saar!” called out a reporter. “Is it true you tracked down the moustache thief?”
The detective straightened up, adjusted his Sandown cap and faced the lights.
“It is my honor to report the following: this evening Dilli citizens sporting long moustaches can rest easy thanks to Vish Puri,” he stated.
• • •
Rumpi had prepared kadhi chawal. As they ate together in the kitchen, he told her about his experiences in Pakistan and how he’d come to see the country and its people sympathetically; about the invaluable role her father, Brigadier Mattu, had played in solving the case; and about Mummy’s extraordinary past and how, after all these years, she’d finally spoken about the death of her brother.
It was late and the food long gone by the time Rumpi broached the subject of a break. The weather was beginning to improve and soon the mountain passes would be open. They should make the pilgrimage to Vaishno Devi, she suggested.
“It’s been so long since we went away, Chubby. And you’re looking so tired. I worry about you.”
“You are right, my dear. So much work has been there, actually. The pilgrimage would be just the ticket.”
Rumpi made tea and they sat together in the living room for a while watching TV. The news was dominated by the arrest of Satish Bhatia. Graphics pulsated and flashed, excited newsreaders and reporters verbally climaxed, and pundits pontificated.
An Action News! anchorwoman said she could “reveal” that two “unidentified” players were facing “possible” match-fixing charges. An umpire was also “said” to be involved.
“An umpire?” asked Rumpi.
“Australian one,” answered Puri.
“Did Daddy figure that out?”
“That was my doing, actually. This Australian fellow was giving signals to the batsman with his feet. Right foot pointing out meant no ball and so forth. Seems he was on the payroll. Now you know what will happen to him, my dear?”
“No, Chubby, what?”
Puri smiled, raising both hands in the air simultaneously as he prepared to deliver his punch line. “He will most definitely be going down under!”
Rumpi burst out laughing. “Not ‘g’day, mate,’ but ‘goodbye, mate,’” she added in a poor excuse for an Aussie accent.
They watched for another ten minutes before turning in.
“By the way, Chubby, Dr. Mohan called today checking on your progress,” she said as they reached the top of the stairs. “We haven’t weighed you in over a week. I’ll get out the scales now.”
Puri felt his heart skip a beat. He’d meant to come upstairs and take care of the scales the moment he returned home, but the smell of the cooking had distracted him.
“Surely it can wait until tomorrow, m
y dear,” he said. “So tired I am.”
“Knowing you, Chubby, you’ll be off tomorrow on another case and I won’t see you for days. Now come. Stand here so I can see.”
Puri looked down at the scales, hoping for the best. He put one foot on the pressure pad, then the other.
The needle reached 196 and held. Rumpi peered down at the dial.
“No change,” she said.
There came a creak, followed by a twang as the peg shot out of the mechanism across the floor.
She picked it up, examined it, and looked back down at the dial. It now registered 201 pounds.
Her eyes narrowed and then a shrill cry carried through the house and, no doubt, across half the neighborhood.
“Chuuu-bbyyyyyyy!”
Acknowledgments
I could not have written this book without having read Urvashi Butalia’s The Other Side of Silence: Voices from the Partition of India (Penguin India, 1998). For those wishing to learn more about the brave and resourceful Indian women who saved hundreds of abductees, there is no better account.
Mouthwatering Dishes from
the Vish Puri Family Kitchen
Vish Puri’s Deadly Delicious Butter Chicken
Serves 6
2 pounds chicken, skinned and (preferably) boned
Juice of 1 lime
Salt to taste
1 teaspoon red chilli powder (or less or more, depending on taste)
2 bay leaves or 1/4 teaspoon crushed bay leaves
6 whole or 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 whole cinnamon stick or 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
4 cardamom pods
10 almonds, roasted, or 2 ounces ground almonds
1 cup fresh yogurt
1 teaspoon garam masala
2 teaspoons coriander powder
1 teaspoon cumin powder
1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
4 tablespoons cooking oil
1 large or 2 medium red onions, chopped
1 teaspoon ginger paste
2 tablespoons garlic paste
1 can (14 ounces) chopped tomato
1 cup chicken stock
2 tablespoons kasuri methi (dried fenugreek leaves)
Tarquin Hall Page 28
