And the Rajdani Express had left on time. To the second. When they had arrived just two minutes afterwards.
Then he had conceived the notion of getting to Bombay by air while high-principled Mrs Popatkar was slowly chugged over the many miles in her third-class bogie.
There had been the taxi he had taken from the station out along the twenty-odd kilometres to the Babatpur Airport. Would its driver remember him? He had not been able to prevent himself every few minutes shouting at the fellow to go faster. But, if he did remember, would that journey itself betray him? Surely not. He had the right to make some inquiries at the airport rather than going to the Indian Airlines office near the Nadesar Palace. But at the airport . . . In his agitation he had altogether lost his temper when the girl at the facilities desk had said the flight to Bombay was full house. He had shouted and stormed. He had made much of being a member of the Lok Sabha. To no avail. And then the stuck-up brat had rejected the bribe he offered. Probably too junior to be able to get anyone on to a fully booked flight.
She certainly would be bound to remember all that. So if some Bombay police officer came asking . . . But no one would. There was nothing, nothing, to make any police officer think of coming to Banares simply because Mrs Popatkar had been killed.
Thank God, he had been more discreet next day. But no more successful. Whether others had offered bigger bribes or whether they were civil service high-ups or other MPs with more influence, there was not a seat to be had.
So then he had thought of Vikram. Vikram and his Flying Club. How often had he said to the boy’s father that it was wrong for a grandson of his to belong to such a rich young men’s club. To be flagrantly wasting so much of time and money. But then he had rejoiced in the thought that the boy might be able to fly him down to Bombay.
In time. And, yes, he had been in time to reach that flat just after Mrs Popatkar herself had arrived. And then . . .
No. I will not think of it any more. I must blot it all out as if it had never happened.
It had never happened. I am here in Banares now. Sacred, safe Banares where I was born, where I married, where I watched over my wife’s body on the funeral pyre at the Manikarnika Ghat. And where I absolutely intend to die myself. All has been forgiven, blotted out. It has been. It has.
He seized his fresh dhoti, wound it round.
How clean it smells. How smooth the starched cotton. And now the kurta. How pleasant it feels. How nice. Now to peel off those sweat-sticky socks, to slip into cool chappals.
Another man. My own man again. The man who soon, once all those last-minute details have been dealt with when Jagmohan Nagpal comes from Delhi, will be none other than Minister for Social Upliftment.
And a good Minister too. Not one of your bribes-takers, your money-makers. No, someone of integrity. There in his seat to do good to the common man. To do the right thing.
Twenty-eight hours in the Rajdani Express had not given Inspector Ghote any clearer idea what in Banares could have brought someone to Bombay to strangle respected, aged Mrs Shoba Popatkar. Spotting the red headcloth of a porter, he called to him to take the railway bed-roll he had hired for the journey. As he followed the man, he could not prevent himself uttering a little groan of misery.
His time in the train had not been pleasant. A swami, going to Banares for a meeting of the All-India Union of Saints and Holy Persons, had come on board at Nasik with a bevy of disciples who had stayed awake all night singing bhajans. And in the morning, bemused by lack of sleep, he had failed, out of his familiar morning routine, to brush his teeth. Now his mouth felt like the floor of an opium den, and, worse, he was possessed by a dim, uncomfortable feeling of a duty omitted. There was going to be some penalty somehow to be paid. The thought filled his mind now with smog-layers of pessimism.
Had he been stupid to have gone on and on trying to persuade the ACP to let him go to Banares? Stupid in that if he failed it would be a heavy black mark against him. Stupid but not wrong. Not wrong. Despite the scanty evidence he had, he was still sure the murder must have its source outside Dadar where Mrs Popatkar was such a loved and admired figure.
Of course it was possible the crime had been committed by a goonda from some other part of Bombay, or from anywhere. But only remotely possible. Why should anyone take it into their head to go to Dadar and rob that particular flat? On the other hand there was evidence, however scanty, pointing clearly to Banares. Including the one item he had thought it wise not to expose to the ACP’s scorn.
But there had been the black much-worn address book he had taken from Mrs Popatkar’s handbag when he had found her rail ticket. In it there was just a single Banares address. That of one Manzoor Syed.
And Manzoor Syed – the name had rung a faint bell – had proved to be, when he had telephoned a long-standing acquaintance, the crime reporter of the Free Press Journal, an industrialist with a somewhat doubtful reputation. He had half-remembered reading about him, the owner of factories all over India making office furniture, accessories for rail carriages, any number of similar things. Thanks to a certain unscrupulousness, generally unspecified, his enterprise had reached its present size from small beginnings in his native place, Banares.
It was possible, then, that Mrs Popatkar had come here to see him. Certainly there had been nothing else to indicate why she had made her sudden visit. Dull-brained Tantya had had no idea at all. So could it be – a scuttling shadow of doubt crossed his mind – that something arising from what she had said to Manzoor Syed here had made him, almost at once, follow her to Bombay? Or, perhaps more likely, made him send some goonda to do his dirty works for him?
In any case this was the only slight thread he had. Unless when he reported to the Senior Superintendent of Police some other line came up. That might happen. Banares, sacred city though it was, could not be without its wrong-doers.
A dart of memory brought back his encounter, as he had left Headquarters, with burly, guffawing Inspector Tarlok Singh. He had received a ferocious dig in the ribs accompanied by the old warning, ‘You are going to Banares, beware of whores, bulls, steps and holymen.’ Then an equally ferocious handshake and ‘That is not so wrong, you know. I have been to that place, and I can tell you – personal experience, bhai – very much beware of one of those things.’ A mighty booming laugh.
Ahead, his porter contrived, despite the bulky roll on his head, to make a swift namaskar to a naked sadhu, marching down the platform towards them, body from head to foot burnt dark by the sun, brass-tipped danda staff held high, even a little threateningly. He hurried past, wondering whether he, too, ought to have greeted the holyman. Or was this one of the ones to be wary of, together with the whores – no sign of any here – the sacred bulls and the many steps leading down to the sin-cleansing Ganges?
Gritty with tiredness, doing all he could to keep down his swelling heaves of depression, he waited until the sole clerk with authority, it seemed, to receive his bed-roll had come back to his place. Then he waited yet longer while the fellow looked high and low for the Bed-roll Register. And then he waited again while the necessary carbons were hunted out. And finally waited once more while, with tongue moving carefully over his lips, the fellow laboriously entered each item in the register. One pillow, one pillow case, two sheets, one and a half towels . . .
Ticketless Traveller Is A Social Evil. A tattered poster on the wall of the booking office caught his eye.
And there, in a far corner, was a white hippy of some sort, looking at him over the discarded newspaper he was making a show of reading. Was even that boy, coming from the West and acting like a beggar itself, taking in at this moment a news item about the Popatkar murder?
He felt a new sliding of despondency. Had he been utterly foolish in insisting on coming to the sacred city?
Out in the forecourt at last, he saw that at least the city provided plenty of transport. He made his way over to the lines of waiting vehicles, opting for a modest auto-rickshaw rather than a taxi. If his
visit turned out to be pointless, at least he would not have incurred more expenses than strictly necessary.
Then, as his driver trod again and again on the starting lever of the frail vehicle’s motor-cycle, a face was thrust in under the tattered black plastic hood. A lean, eager-eyed face above a naked torso with a gamcha scarf across one bony shoulder.
‘Gentleman, have you come to Holy Banares before?’
He was tempted to say he had not. It would avoid complicated explanations. But the truth was that for one day, years before, he had brought his wife here when she had begged him to make the pilgrimage. Duty at the time had limited their stay. But telling all this to this fellow, now loping along beside the autorickshaw as they slowly set off, would probably mean going on to say that he was a police officer. Perhaps even saying why he had come here, or avoiding saying it with difficulty. He might even feel obliged to state that he himself had not at all wanted to make that pilgrimage with Protima. Yet somehow he felt it would be wrong to begin his time in the city with anything of a lie.
‘No, no, I was here before. But for one day only.’
Further explanation, mercifully, did not seem to be wanted.
‘Then you cannot have done all that any person coming here should do. Were you even taking one dip in Mother Ganga herself?’
Should he lie now?
‘No. No, I was not. That is— You see, I was not able to remain.’
‘But even then you should have carried out your duties.’
The face of the man trotting beside him was fiercely stern, for all the sweat now glistening on it. And, abruptly, he knew what the fellow must be. A panda. One of those brahmins versed in all the complex rituals considered necessary to lead the sacred city’s pilgrims through the proper discharge of their religious duties.
‘Where is your native place?’
Inflexible inquiry.
‘Er— Er— I am coming from Bombay.’
Not the whole truth now, but the easiest answer.
‘Then it is at Rama Ghat or the Panchganga that you must be carrying out the rituals. I will tell the driver to go there.’
‘No.’
He had shouted. But a shout seemed necessary.
‘No, I have very urgent business. I would go to these ghats at some other time.’
He must not say that he was going directly to the Senior Superintendent’s office.
‘No business can be more urgent than performing the rituals beside Mother Ganga. It is your duty as a Hindu. Your duty to complete the rituals under a brahmin’s guidance, and to pay also for this boon. I will tell your driver to change direction. Where is he taking you now? I will ask him.’
They had been forced to a temporary halt. A train of four or five camels, loads swinging bumpily across their backs, had blocked their path in picking their way round the mountainous shape of a sacred bull seated in deep contemplation in the roadway.
Ghote leant out and faced the panda eye to eye before he had a chance to get hold of the driver.
‘I am not going to the ghats. I am going to the office of the Senior Superintendent of Police, Cornwallis Lines. On urgent and confidential police business.’
It was enough. The panda stepped back, glaring with affronted displeasure. Ahead, the last of the camels swayed past the great purply body of the bull.
3
Ghote had hardly been speaking to the Senior Superintendent for two minutes before he realized he was not going to get any suggestions for new lines to investigate. In fact, it was all too clear that an officer from elsewhere creating complications was highly unwelcome.
‘No, Inspector, I am very much of opinion that you would not find any clue whatsoever here in Banares. You would do very much better to approach the case from Bombay itself.’
Flawless uniform behind a desk dotted with neatly piled papers, each under its heavy little round silvery paperweight. Leather-covered swagger-stick lined up in exact parallel with the desk’s edge, precisely six inches in.
‘First of all, you are not at all knowing Banares, isn’t it?’
Ghote would have liked to have replied that he knew quite enough of the city. But truth must prevail.
‘No, sir. I am not knowing.’
‘Yes, well, in that case you would have great difficulties working here. This is a city of almost one million inhabitants, and they are not at all like the riff-raffs of Bombay. Here we have many, many respected pandits, teaching religion itself. Also perhaps as many as one lakh of pujaris conducting worship at our more than two thousand temples. Then there are the ghatias at the side of Mother Ganga leading pilgrims through the rituals, and the pandas, worthy of respect at all times. You must also count the vyasas, tellers of holy tales. How can you break into the discourses of such persons with your questions? Especially if there is, here itself, nothing any investigation is—’
Ghote interrupted.
It was hardly right to contradict a senior officer, especially when he had not finished what he was saying. But the exasperation he felt at being told once again he was wrong to see Banares as the source of Mrs Popatkar’s murder was too much.
‘Sir, it is up to you to provide assistance to any officer coming to investigate definitely suspicious circumstances. If I am needing some colleague to take me here and there, it is your bounden duty to provide.’
‘Look here, Inspector, I am not going to be told by any Bombaywalla what is and is not my duty. You seem to forget you have come to a city that was here for thousands of years when Bombay was just only a string of swampy islands. To a city that was here in all the glory of civilization when no other city in the world was at all existing, not your Rome or your London, not your Jerusalem or Washington itself.’
‘Nevertheless, sir, I am requiring your co-operation. One of India’s great fighters of Independence days has been altogether done to death. In whatsoever part of the country there is one clue to who is her murderer, then at that place a full investigation must be carried out.’
Opposite, the Senior Superintendent reached out to his swagger-stick, lifted it, then banged it back on to the desk. It lay just three or four degrees out of true.
‘Very well, Inspector,’ he said through rage-stiffened lips. ‘I will provide you your assistance. But kindly do not expect me to produce some officer out of my hat. The post-monsoon time is when pilgrims are coming here not by the thousand but by the hundreds of thousands. Each and every one of my officers is fully employed.’
But then a quickly-come, quickly-gone gleam came into his eyes.
‘However, if you are coming in three–four hours I would see what I can do.’
Ghote had observed the expression under the peak of the Senior Superintendent’s cap, the hat from which no assisting officer could be produced. And he guessed that some surprise, probably of an unpleasant sort, had just be devised for him. But he had, it seemed, won his battle. He would be content with that.
‘Very well, sir,’ he said, glancing at his watch, ‘I will return at twelve-thirty precisely. Thank you for all your helps.’
After all, he thought, I have the address of Manzoor Syed, industrialist of doubtful reputation. However many times I am having to ask the way, surely I must be able to find his place on my own. And perhaps when I have tackled that fellow face to face there will be no more need for any assistance from Senior Superintendent sahib, offered in some decent manner or with snag concealed therein.
H. K. Verma began to feel the day was going well. He had been telephoned from Delhi with confirmation that Jagmohan Nagpal, deep in the counsels of the High Command, would be coming to Banares next day. He would arrive in time for a holy dip in the Ganges before lunch. It would be appreciated if a press photographer happened to be at the ghat.
That had been arranged. Not for nothing had the people at both the morninger Aj and the eveninger Gandiva been cultivated over the years. Then, too, the string of petitioners in the courtyard outside his office had been more rewarding than usual. Pr
omises had been accepted with many a grateful salaam. Garlands, three or four, had been draped around his neck and after a minute laid aside.
Perhaps in a day or two, or a week or two at the most, he would be in a position, Minister for Social Upliftment, to fulfil some of those easily given pledges.
By then, too, perhaps some antisocial in Bombay would have been pulled in for the Shoba Popatkar murder. Some fellow just only a bandicoot to be skinned alive. A real history-sheeter with a list of crimes to his name as long as a fakir’s beard. Some fellow put behind the bars, an under-trial to stay there until the crime itself had all but been forgotten. The whole business, with its overhanging threat like distant thunder, would then be safely laid to rest.
The Shoba Popatkar murder. For an instant, with those words, the thought of it, of what had actually happened – that bare room, the old woman’s body, her sari flung wildly out on the stone floor – rose up like the hundred-headed snake Kaliya emerging from the blackened waters of the lake it had poisoned in the Forest of Brindaban. But at once he slew the demon, as God Krishna had slain Kaliya, before its presence in his mind began to infect his whole life. What had been done had been done. Standing in sin-lifting Mother Ganga, he had sought forgiveness for a necessary action. And now life must go on.
Where should he take Jagmohanji for lunch? It must be somewhere good. He must show full appreciation.
Suddenly there swept over him a longing for the old days when politics had not been all to do with keeping sweet those who might be of some advantage. When he had been young . . . Young and full of good ideals. When getting rid of the British had been the only thing that had to be thought about.
He brought his lips together in a hard, puffed line.
Those days were gone. Things were different now. Good had to be arrived at by whatever means were necessary. Toadying to those above, promising to those below, bribing your way to a little publicity for the party, writing letters to the press about nothing that mattered. Good had to be arrived at these days even by – Even by that. By what he had done. What he had been forced to do.
Doing Wrong (Inspector Ghote) Page 2
