Inside, frustrated anger boiled and bubbled. So near. So near. Almost with the damned Recollections in his hand. Almost able to take the Cheetah Fight matches from his pocket, strike one, put the flame to the corner of the thick wad of paper. And burn it. Burn every damn word of it. Burn away the truth. That truth that could finish him.
Barely six inches away, Mr Srivastava’s face was shiny now with sweat. Shiny forehead. Shiny, drawn cheeks. Shiny nose, thin and twitching just noticeably at one side, spectacles canting over. Shiny chin. Mouth, hanging open. Teeth, old, loose-looking. Breath smelling of cardomum.
‘Where are they itself? Where? Where?’
‘They are under lock and key. After what Mrs Popatkar was doing I felt it my duty to take such security measures as were appropriate.’
But the old man had been unable to prevent himself giving one quick sideways glance towards a tall green metal filing cabinet.
So they are there. Almost under my hand. Key. There must be a key to that cabinet. Where will he have it? In one of the pockets of his kurta. Must be. On some key-bunch? Yes. That must be it. So what to do? Take hold of him? Pull him up to his feet? Push my hand into his pockets? I could. I could. Or will it be enough just only to demand?
‘Give me the key to that cabinet. Now. This instant.’
‘No.’
It was a squawk. Like a kicked cat only.
‘Give it to me.’
‘No. No, it is my duty. It is what I have to do. The right course. Correct. Correct procedure.’
‘Give me that key.’
‘No, Mr Verma. No, sir.’
The old man put both his hands flat on the table.
‘Mr Verma.’ His voice was strained with the burden of what he must be feeling. ‘Mr Verma, I do not know why it is that we are born – we are all born – with this need to do the right thing deeply implanted within us. But we are so born. We are.’
He looked up again.
‘I know what it is right for me to do now, and I will do it. I cannot do anything else without being false to what in the core of my heart I feel to be the one and only right thing.’
The words struck home. He stepped back. Almost staggered back.
‘But what exactly do you want from Mr Srivastava?’ Mishra said, abandoning at last his interminable history lesson.
Ghote, not knowing where they were, felt a little jump of pleasure. If the Banarasi had begun to think what the object of their dash to the BHU might be, they could not be too far away.
‘It is this,’ he answered. ‘It is this. I cannot think of any reason why some person—’ He baulked at saying H. K. Verma. ‘Why some person should have come to Bombay from Banares and murdered Mrs Shoba Popatkar unless it was because of what she had done here in the city itself on that one day she was here. And what she was doing, all that she was doing, was to go through the Recollections of Krishnan Kalgutkar. So, unless I can go through them also, I will not know what possible motive that murderer could have. But when I do know, I will be able to charge-sheet that fellow straightaway.’
Mishra gave him a sharp glance.
‘So you are knowing who it is?’
Damn. Did not mean to let that out. However . . .
‘Yes. Yes, I am knowing. Almost to a certainty. But I must find out why he was needing to kill Mrs Popatkar. What there is in those Recollections that is so dangerous for him.’
‘Yes, I see. But what are you going to do? The Recollections, you were telling me, are under a one-hundred-and-one year ban.’
‘I know. But that is why I was asking you to come with me to the BHU. I am going to persuade that fellow Srivastava to let me see them. Somehow. Perhaps I have only to demand. But, if he is making difficulties, as I suspect he will, then I am counting on you to get round him. At least to persuade him to turn the Nelson’s eye.’
He looked over at Mishra.
Mishra did not look at all happy.
‘Yes, Srivastava sahib, you are quite right,’ H. K. Verma said. ‘You must forgive me. I was altogether in the wrong.’
He smiled down at the old librarian.
Smile of cunning, he asked himself. Or smile of truth?
A question he found he could not answer.
‘Let me explain. You know, of course, that Mrs Popatkar was murdered in Bombay almost as soon as she had reached home after leaving here. After leaving you here itself, having read the Recollections’
Mr Srivastava straightened himself up, pulled a handkerchief from the sleeve of his kurta, dabbed at his forehead, his cheeks, his mouth.
‘Yes, that Bombay inspector was telling me.’
‘Of course, of course. But do you know what he was saying to me also? It seems police inquiries down there elicited the fact that some Banarasi fellow near where Mrs Popatkar has her home was asked by a stranger, whose Bhojpuri Hindi he later recognized, the way to her flat. Now, at the time I paid little attention to that. But I have subsequently come to give it some thought. One wants, of course, the perpetrator of such a brutal killing to be brought to justice. If at all possible. Now, it seems to me that some indication of who that Bhojpuri-speaking fellow must be could lie in the Recollections.’
He paused, looking to see whether Mr Srivastava had followed.
‘Why, yes, Verma sahib. I am not at all an expert in detective work, but that appears to me to be not unlikely.’
‘So now you see, my dear Srivastava, why it is important that I see the Recollections.’
But that conclusion plainly came as a surprise to the librarian.
He blinked rapidly, adjusted his spectacles, looked down at the ledger still open in front of him.
Did he expect to find the right answer there among those meticulous pages?
‘Yes, yes. I understand all that. However, I am not sure that in any circumstances—’
He must cut in quickly as he could.
‘No, no, my dear fellow, I would not for one moment suggest you should be derelict in your duty. Not for one moment. On the other hand, however, you must see it can only be to the good that the Recollections are examined.’
‘Well . . .’
‘Now, it seems to me there is one way out of the dilemma which unfortunately I have had to place you in. I believe, you know, that there is a right way through any of life’s thickets, if we only look hard enough— No, work hard enough. If only we work hard enough to find it.’
‘Yes . . .’
He let the tension drain away from his whole hot body.
‘Suppose, my dear fellow, you are needing to answer a call of nature?’
‘But I am not. I—’
‘No, no, you misunderstand. Let us merely suppose such to be the case. And let us also suppose that you find keeping a heavy key-bunch in your pocket somewhat irksome. So what could be more natural, more right even, but that you should place the key-bunch on your table while you were out of the room? Out of the room for barely two or three minutes?’
‘We are nearly there?’ Ghote asked.
‘Yes, yes. Five minutes only. Or ten. We are now in University Road itself. You can see the BHU campus to your right, and just here the Panchkroshi Road rejoins once again. So we are really on that pilgrimage once more. But in reverse direction.’
Mishra smiled happily at the notion.
‘Then why ten minutes more?’
‘Oh, it may not be so long. We have only to go round as far as the BHU gate, and then there is usually not much traffic inside the campus.’
Ghote looked at the long wall of the university. What a huge place it was. What a seat of learning. What a triumph. Into his mind there flicked one of the innumerable pieces of information Mishra had tumbled out on to him. Pandit Malaviya, the founder of the BHU, and how he had refused to enter the safety of Holy Kashi at the end of his days because he wanted another life to go on with his work.
And he himself? Would he like another life as a CID-walla? Yes. Yes, perhaps he would. Better anyhow than coming back as a buffalo
, or worse.
‘Inspector,’ Mishra said abruptly.
‘Yes?’
‘Inspector, you know, I do not altogether see how I can persuade that fellow Srivastava to turn the Nelson’s eye. I suppose you Bombay CID chaps are different. But I was never liking to employ trickery in my work. It is somehow not right.’
Ghote sat straighter.
Was he being judged? Being found wanting?
‘But if the object is right, you should not have too much of scruple,’ he answered, with more firmness than he felt.
Mishra gave him a look of mournful unhappiness.
‘Well, I suppose . . . If it is right . . .’
H. K. Verma snatched up the keys almost before Mr Srivastava had closed the door behind him.
Damn the fellow. Just leaving the bunch where he was dropping it. No indication which key to use.
What seemed like minutes of fumbling. Then at last the smallest key slid into the little round lock.
He twisted it back.
Immovable.
He pulled the key out, compared it to the others. No, none quite as small.
He thrust it back into the lock. Not the least resistance.
It must be the one. It must.
He wriggled it furiously. And suddenly, twisting it forwards, he heard the tumblers click round.
He had locked it. Locked it. The damn cabinet had been open all along.
Unlock it. One turn of the key. Tug out the top drawer.
And there. There it was. In the drawer, empty of all other documents. The thick bundle of paper fastened together with two long brass paperclips. A sheet of buff card on top with, in large sprawling capitals slanting slightly to the right, the one word.
Recollections.
A match to it now? No, no. Srivastava will be back at any second. Say two–three minutes to that fellow, and not one second more than three minutes it would be.
He pushed the thick wad up under his kurta, gripped it with his arm, wondered for a moment whether the sweat in his armpit would do it harm, thought how ridiculous that was.
And at a waddling run left the room.
What will Srivastava think when he returns and finds no one, the keys dangling in the cabinet, the Recollections gone? Never mind what Srivastava thinks. Too late for any objections from him now. Let him keep his mouth shut. He will not dare do anything else.
But the thing is I have got them. The Recollections. And in just a few minutes, as soon as I can find some quiet corner, they will be no more than one heap of charred paper. That admission of despair KK was making will never be known to anyone.
There will be no hint of what motive I had to kill Mrs Popatkar. Oh, yes, little Bombay mongoose will have his suspicions. But now he will be able to do nothing. Nothing.
And I have gained time. Time to look at myself. Time to ask am I a justified murderer, or not? Time to decide. And then to act. To take whatever path I know to be right. To the end. Whatever end it may be.
22
‘Stop!’
The shout, almost a scream, burst from Ghote’s lips. Their taxi came to a slewing, side-skidding halt.
Within a foot of its front wheels the overturned motorcycle lay on its side. Its engine still wildly racketed. Its rear wheel spun furiously. The youngster who had been riding it, and had moments before overtaken them at full speed, had been flung right across the road when his machine had collided with the man in its path. He was, however, already scrambling to his feet, apparently hardly injured. But the man lay now an inert, blood-pumping mass in the roadway.
‘Mishra, look, look,’ Ghote jabbered out, heart still racing. ‘Look who it is. It is H. K. Verma himself. It is him.’
He pushed open the taxi door, tumbled out.
There had been a number of spectators of the accident, people who had been waiting to cross the road. Already half a dozen of them were crowding round the injured man. As many again, Ghote took in, had decided their duty lay in running over to the young motor-cycle rider to shower him with abuse.
While he and Mishra hovered, looking to see what help they could provide, the men round H. K. Verma began to hoist him up.
‘Hospital,’ an old gentleman waving a badly furled black umbrella cackled out. ‘Hospital is just only here. What a mercy of God.’
The men who had lifted H. K. Verma turned in the direction of the great bulk of the BHU Hospital and set off with their heavy burden, dipping and ducking awkwardly.
Ghote, starting to follow beside Mishra, saw that H. K. Verma was at least still alive. Blood was dripping on to the dusty ground below as he was carried along. But it seemed to be pumping out at a horrible rate, and the chances of survival looked appallingly slim.
Then he glimpsed something out the corner of his eye, lying a few inches inside the road. He turned back without quite knowing why, thinking vaguely that the road must often be very busy and the object might be run over. In a moment he saw what it was. A thick bundle of papers, bound up together. He darted over, picked it up, read the single word on the buff outer cover.
Recollections.
In sudden understanding he smiled to himself, turned back, caught up with Mishra. The old man with the black umbrella came skittering along beside them.
‘What a mercy of God, what a mercy of God,’ he kept repeating. ‘BHU Hospital, best in all India. BHU Hospital, the best, the very best.’
Then, suddenly, his high cacklings seemed to penetrate to the inert bulk being lugged towards the hospital.
‘Hospital,’ Ghote heard H. K. Verma pronounce in a deep interior groan.
Perhaps, he thought in a lightning-flash of hope, forgetting everything he knew about the man, he will survive after all.
‘BHU,’ H. K. Verma uttered then in a muffled, wild-sounding shout. ‘No. No.’
With a tremendous roll of his bulky body, he tipped himself out of the hands of the men carrying him and stood swaying as if storm-rocked.
He turned at last in the direction they had come from and began a lunging, staggering walk back towards the road.
‘Kashi, Kashi, Kashi,’ he seemed to vomit out with each lumbering step.
Mishra moved as if to halt him and allow his helpers to take him to the hospital and its waiting medical staff.
‘No,’ Ghote said. ‘No, Mishra, let him be.’
‘Let him— But why?’
‘Kashi. Holy Kashi. Do you not see? He is wanting to die within the bounds of Holy Kashi.’
Mishra took a step back.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes. He must be . . . But, Ghote, if he is the one do you think we should allow . . .?’
‘I do not know,’ Ghote answered. ‘I do not at all know.’
But, as if statue-struck, he stood and watched H. K. Verma’s blood-pumping, staggering progress.
At the back of his mind he realized, too, that he was not alone in his indecisiveness. Both Mishra now and all the others seemed equally unable to move. Only the umbrella man was still feebly cackling, ‘BHU Hospital, best in India . . . Best in all . . .’
H. K. Verma reached the edge of the road. University Road according to the municipal map. The Panchkroshi Road of old, according to religious precept, border between Kashi, City of Light, and the outer darkness.
Ghote took one horrified look to left and right. Traffic? Speeding cars? Thundering trucks? Heedlessly swishing tourist buses?
But there was nothing.
H. K. Verma put one foot into the roadway, plunged forward almost to the ground, heaved his whole weighty body back up, took another wavering step forward.
Will he make it, Ghote asked himself. And do I want him to make it? Should he make it? He is a murderer. I know it. Beyond any doubt whatsoever. So should he be allowed to escape justice? If that is what he is doing. Escaping the ordained justice of the ages, escaping from the interminable cycle of birth and rebirth, gradual gaining of merit, sudden lapses, painful grappling upwards once more. Until at last moksha. Release. But should H.
K. Verma, the man who strangled Mrs Shoba Popatkar, be allowed to cheat on this ages-long travail by setting foot in Holy Kashi?
If such release was really possible. If the long, long scrabble from life to life really existed.
He took a couple of running strides forward in the direction of the bending, blood-spattered figure in the once-white kurta and dhoti. And then halted.
In the roadway H. K. Verma had taken three or four more onward steps. But now he came to a stop. Stood swaying there, almost on the point of toppling sideways.
Ghote, transfixed, simply watched.
Mishra, he saw, and all the others were as dumbstruck. Even the old man with the umbrella seemed now to have realized what was happening and had fallen silent.
Now H. K. Verma had brought himself to go forward once more. Each single step a huge exercise of will. One. Two. Three. Four. And a halt again.
Stay up, stay upright, Ghote found he was willing the bulky, blood-splashed figure. All doubts about what he really wanted for him gone. Walk. Move. Yes, go on. Go on.
And, as if receiving a jolt of transmitted willpower, H. K. Verma suddenly lurched into motion again. Now he was halfway across.
‘Mishra,’ Ghote begged, his voice coming from he did not know where. ‘What is the boundary itself? Exactly? Do you know? Where? Where is it?’
‘It— It— I think it must be just as soon as the road is crossed. Should I— Should I help him only?’
‘No,’ Ghote said, at once sure of his answer. ‘No, he must do it himself. Or it will not . . .’
He was by no means sure what it would not. But he felt through and through that it must be somehow right to leave the battered, wounded man, the battered wounded murderer, to make this long crossing entirely through the force of his own will.
Behind him the thought that had occurred to Mishra seemed to have infected the other onlookers. They made a concerted move forwards.
‘No,’ Ghote repeated, filled with authority. ‘Leave him be.’
The little crowd halted. As if mercifully relieved of a difficult duty.
In the roadway H. K. Verma had come to a stop again. And had, almost visibly, forced himself to go on once more.
Five more yards to go. Four. Three.
Doing Wrong (Inspector Ghote) Page 20
