by Vivaan Shah
‘Look, man, I can’t keep track of every douche bag that rings the doorbell.’
‘Did the bell ring more than once?’
‘I don’t remember, man.’
Warren tried shutting his eyes in order to ignore Nadeem’s questions, but they opened involuntarily, as if by habit. Only the whites of his eyes were visible. His appearance was not by any means likely to inspire any hospitality if their landlord were to catch a glimpse of him in that state. He had been sitting in front of the television in his vest and shorts for two days straight. His long black hair, which was once parted sideways into an earnest picture of acceptability, hung aimlessly over his forehead, partially obscuring his face. His once clean-shaven jaw had been conquered by an attempt to grow a beard like the one he had seen on the lead singer of Metallica. He had failed miserably at doing so and hence wore it inconsolably along with his thick-framed spectacles.
He didn’t manage to do much to contribute to the household. He had spent his better years working at his father’s garage in Chimbai, and so had neglected developing any other skill that would deem him employable. He was a slacker, liked to hang around, sleep all night on the couch, watch television and eat chips. Temperamentally, Nadeem didn’t exactly associate with him but perhaps that’s what made their bond so strong. The two of them seldom felt the need to say anything to one another, especially when immersed in the tube. It hypnotized them into a submissive stupor from which no force seemed to be strong enough to extract them.
The sound of the NASCAR tyres screeching on the asphalt managed to awaken Warren. Often, his curiosity did not comply with his pathological tendencies, and even though he wasn’t as much of a car freak as his compatriot, he suffered through the programme as a show of companionship.
‘Oh, by the way,’ Warren broke the morose silence, bringing up one of the few concerns that had occupied his mind over the past few days. ‘Uhh . . . did you . . . uh . . . have a word with . . . uh . . . what’s his name . . . Feroz?’
‘Yup, I was just with him.’
‘What’d he say?’ asked Warren from the corner of his mouth.
‘He said he’d give us an extension if I went upstairs to collect rent from Makhija and notified him of his dwindling time.’
‘That weirdo! I wouldn’t go anywhere near his flat. I’d probably get rabies.’
‘You hate everyone, don’t you, Warren,’ said Nadeem drearily, as he lifted his rear end out of the beanbag.
‘There are some exceptions.’
‘Like myself.’
‘Don’t give yourself so much importance. You don’t choose your friends, you’re subjected to them.’
Nadeem let out an accidental laugh that was somewhere between a grunt and a cough. He couldn’t help but snigger as he ran his fingers through his hair in front of the mirror. He buttoned on a shirt, put on his slippers and headed out the door, forgetting to close it shut.
‘Shut the door, you idiot!’ Warren wailed.
Nadeem got into the elevator which crankily insisted in its mechanized female voice: ‘Please close the door.’
Staying with Warren for so long, Nadeem had always been susceptible to being infected by some of his contagious laziness. He usually preferred to take the stairs, but his newly acquired habits prevented him from doing so, and so he pressed the button for the fifth floor after adjusting the lift door. It always refused to shut properly and would make an awful racket, giving all the building residents another worthy cause for irritation. Careless visitors would often leave it that way, forget to close it, unaware of its obtrusive noise, as a result of which the voice would keep playing until somebody took the trouble to shut it.
The fifth floor had only two flats on either side, unlike the rest of the floors which had three. Little Heights was one of the few buildings in the area which was not blessed with an A-wing and a B-wing. Nadeem had specifically chosen a building of this sort, after having suffered considerable embarrassment knocking on the doors of strangers, only to be told that he was in the wrong wing.
He knocked on the door of flat no. 502. There was no response. He tried ringing the doorbell a couple of times, but again in vain. He got back into the elevator and headed down towards the lobby where the watchman, Kishorie Lal, was snoring into the breeze of a table fan with his legs resting on a desk. Nadeem checked the register for the last two days and found a column where two visitors had signed in for his flat, 303. The time of their visit was 5.45 p.m. and the time of their exit was 6.30 p.m. The names they had given were Ganpat Shukla and Jasmeet Zhaveri. Rather clumsily chosen, thought Nadeem. They were the most obvious ones that could have possibly occurred to the two visitors, and Nadeem half considered that they might have selected the names from the flat nameplates that adorned the ground floor walls. Ganpat was a name native to Maharashtra or Gujarat and Shukla was most certainly an Uttar Pradesh surname. The two didn’t go together. Similarly, Jasmeet was most likely to be Punjabi and Zhaveri was a Gujarati surname.
Nadeem tapped Kishorie Lal’s legs till he woke up.
‘Where’s Makhija?’ he inquired. ‘He stepped out?’
‘No,’ replied Kishorie Lal, grumpily. ‘He’s upstairs. He hasn’t stepped out in weeks.’
Nadeem got back into the elevator and went back up. He knocked again, louder this time. There was still no response. He put his ear to the door to grasp any sound that would indicate Makhija’s presence or absence. All he could hear was the sound of the television. A teleshopping infomercial could be faintly heard, something to do with the Ab-King Pro. Nadeem hesitantly turned the doorknob and, to his astonishment, it opened. The door had not been locked from the inside and there was no one in the living room in front of the television. All the lights were on, the microwave was beeping furiously, the fans were rotating at the slowest speed possible, the living room windows were open, but the grills were securely fastened. The house looked like it had not been attended to for quite some time.
Nadeem called for Mr Makhija but got no response. He walked over to the terrace balcony. The sliding doors were jammed when he tried to open them and the mosaic flooring had withered with the departing monsoons. As he turned to catch a sight of the bedroom, he could hear the sound of water trickling. He called out once again but heard nothing in reply except the incessant flowing of a tap. It was coming from the direction of the bathroom that was in the farthest right corner of the passage. Nadeem walked slowly towards it, looking left and right, overcautious from being fully aware that he was intruding on someone else’s private property. The tubelights in the passage flickered. The sound of the water flowing from the tap was becoming louder and more distinct as he approached the bathroom. He first put his ear to the bathroom door as he could see it was occupied. He could tell that the water was flowing into a bucket, but there was something about the sound that suggested the bucket was full and that the water was spilling over the edges and flooding the bathing area. He considered the possibility, wondering whether or not the toilet was empty. He first knocked on the door but got no response. As he glanced down at the latch, which looked locked from the outside, he noticed water flowing out from under the door. He lifted the latch and creaked the door open slowly, keeping an eye out for whatever it revealed. As it opened completely, Nadeem’s eyes widened at the sight before him.
Mr Makhija sat on the commode, his mouth firmly agape, his eyes looking on into the distance and his neck greatly swollen and disfigured. An irregular bulge was detectable along the indentation that arched from the collarbone up towards the Adam’s apple, which may have been the result of strenuous exertion or force exerted. It was turning violet, abandoning maroon, and spreading clear across the throat, giving his wide-eyed, open-mouthed expression the gawking idiocy of an idiot child staring into the sky. Although the absence of the usual marble-like stiffness suggested a recent demise, the dryness of the saliva that had trickled down the side of his mouth betrayed the evidence on his face, hinting at a longer time period than might be expected by the
apparent lack of decay. Around him lay scattered a profusion of toiletries, all possible remnants of some vigorous struggle that might have occurred within the confines of the toilet.
The sight of this gruesome mess made Nadeem sick, but he had a stronger stomach than he thought. God knows how many days he must have stayed in that condition. The water flowing from the tap ceased just as soon as Nadeem mustered up the courage to enter the bathroom. It was apparent that the entire tank had drained but it still gurgled out a few drops. Nadeem contemplated whether or not to turn the tap off. He hated to see water go waste, but given the circumstances leaving his fingerprints at the crime scene was not a good idea, even if it was in service of environmental preservation.
Forensic Lab Inspection
Inspector Praveen Nagpal of Malwani police chowki, surrounded by two of his deputies, bent down to get a good, thorough look at the corpse, after which they covered it and instructed the constables to seal the flat for a forensic inspection.
The house was out of bounds for all residents of the buildings, save for Nadeem and Mr Machhiwaala, who stood solemnly trying to be of some help. The elderly and bespectacled Mrs Miranda, followed by Mr Paritosh Sahoo of the second floor and old Mr and Mrs Sawant from the first floor had congregated outside the fifth floor lift, whispering to each other inquisitively, gesturing towards the door of 502, expressing abject disapproval in their frowns. Finally, a hawaldar was sent to shoo them away.
By the time the coroner and the forensics arrived on the scene, it was evening. No one had touched anything in the house, save the fingerprints expert who was collecting samples from glasses and windowpanes, and Inspector Nagpal who was looking around the house, going through the cabinets and drawers. The rest of the hawaldars stood dutifully in a corner, maintaining a mournful silence. They gathered around the body as Inspector Nagpal uncovered the sheet for Dr Laabru of the Crime Lab.
‘So?’ asked Dr Laabru. ‘What have we got here? What does it look like?’
‘Possible strangulation,’ Inspector Nagpal remarked. ‘Lacerations around the neck. His face took some time to acquire the pallor and texture characteristic of such cases.’
Dr Laabru bent down to open the mouth of the victim and gaze inside. The windpipe had definitely been throttled. There were pockmarks and cuts all around the throat, an acute inflammation of the epiglottis, the tonsils and uvula were severely scalded, and the cartilage ascending from the collarbone up to the jawline protruded alarmingly.
‘Did he spill any blood?’ asked Dr Laabru, looking up at Inspector Nagpal.
‘Not enough to suit me. If he did, we couldn’t find it. All we got are the mucus and bile lying in the basin.’
Dr Laabru turned back to the victim, confounded, his lower lip rolling upwards and his eyes squinting at the attempt to go over every inch of the upper torso with microscopic precision. He tilted his head, running his fingers all along the Adam’s apple up to the chin.
‘Did he have goitre or something?’ he asked.
Inspector Nagpal took out a piece of paper from his pocket. ‘We found a medical prescription slip or definitely a prescription slip, whether medical or not, I don’t know. It was found in the pocket of his pants. It’s from a doctor by the name of G.D. Vengsarkar.’
Nagpal read from the prescription slip before handing to it over to Dr Laabru.
‘The drugs prescribed,’ Inspector Nagpal read, ‘were Synohydraloxide and Bentamine 350 with a 2 mg measurement of Nimulid.’
‘What the hell was he suffering from? Midlife crisis?’ remarked Dr Laabru, as he snatched the paper from Inspector Nagpal’s hands to get a look at it. He wanted to study the prescription slip, but he could hardly read it. The handwriting was vividly illegible, as if written in some hieroglyphic code or deliberately written not to be deciphered.
‘Have you found any of the medication?’ he asked Inspector Nagpal.
‘No. None of the specified medication.’
He took Dr Laabru towards the medicine cabinet next to the key hanger. The first-aid kit burst open with an assortment of pills pouring out. It contained a wide range of allopathic, antibiotic and prescription drugs, along with ear drops, eye drops, nose drops, aspirin, antacids, insulin shots for diabetes, vitamin B-52 tablets, painkillers, paracetamols, the works. A bottle of Phensedyl cough syrup lay by the windowsill next to the phenyl and mosquito repellent, but they scarcely noticed it.
‘Check with this Dr G.D. Vengsarkar, who was his general practitioner, what condition he was suffering from and if he was visiting a specialist,’ Dr Laabru instructed Inspector Nagpal. ‘Also check all the pharmacies in the area, show them this prescription slip. To purchase these kinds of prescription drugs, they have to make a note in the files and their system. It can’t be sold without registering the patient’s and doctor’s name.’
Nagpal turned to his deputy, Srikant, and handed him the prescription slip.
‘Go first to Apollo Healthcare,’ he told Srikant, ‘then Noble Chemist, then 24x7 and Asian Chemist. Check if they’ve registered this prescription slip. If they have not heard of it, check at every hospital pharmacy in the area.’
Inspector Nagpal signalled the rest of the constables to wrap things up so they could load Makhija on to the stretcher.
‘How long did you say he hadn’t paid his rent for?’ he asked Mr Machhiwaala.
‘For the last two months!’ Mr Machhiwaala replied promptly.
‘When did you last speak to him?’
‘Just last week.’
‘And no one has had any contact with him since?’
‘Even the watchman hasn’t seen him step out.’
Nagpal told his second deputy, Dilip, to have a word with Kishorie Lal and to go through the register to note down the names and numbers of everyone who had visited the building in the last week.
‘You will be required at the police station for a statement,’ Inspector Nagpal told Nadeem. As they exited the flat, he stopped to look at Makhija’s mailbox, which hung next to his door. He opened it to find three envelopes, one of which was his Vodafone bill, another a circular from Little Heights society and the third was a notice from ICICI prudential funds. Makhija’s mobile phone was already in the possession of the fingerprints expert in a ziplock plastic bag and Nagpal summoned him to ask for it. He handed the phone to Inspector Nagpal, who took it out of the packet and got into the lift browsing through his recent messages, contacts and missed calls. Nadeem and Mr Machhiwaala took the stairs.
Downstairs, people from the neighbouring buildings had gathered and assembled around the front gate to look at what was going on. They were peering into the compound confoundedly as they tried to make sense of the reason behind the police presence.
Inspector Nagpal stormed right out of the elevator, past the front lobby and called for his jeep with a dexterous swishing of the fingers. That hand signal seemed to communicate more to his deputies than any number of words. As the jeep pulled over with a screech, he got into the front seat telling Nadeem to get into the back.
‘Does he have a car?’ Inspector Nagpal asked Mr Machhiwaala, who stood near the lobby with his hands behind his back.
‘I do,’ said Nadeem. ‘But it’s not in my possession at the moment.’
‘Not you!’ Nagpal frowned. ‘Did Makhija own a car?’
‘Oh!’ replied Mr Machhiwaala. ‘Yes, it’s parked behind. It’s a white Indica, 2008 model. He had recently bought it. The watchman has the keys.’
‘Dilip!’ Inspector Nagpal barked. ‘Have the men check his papers, registration, licence and call a mechanic to figure out when the engine must have run last.’
‘My . . . uhh . . . flatmate used to be a mechanic,’ Nadeem informed Inspector Nagpal.
‘Very well, then,’ he said. ‘Have his flatmate brought down for an inspection of the engine. Whatever you do, don’t turn on the ignition.’
Nadeem got into the back seat of the police jeep as Inspector Nagpal slammed the door shut, flicking his fin
gers to the driver signalling him to carry on. The jeep stuttered out of the main gate past hordes of onlookers and unwarranted curiosity.
Malad (West) Police Chowki
At the Malad (West) police station, a long line of people had assembled at the registrar’s desk. When Nadeem got out of the jeep, following Inspector Nagpal, he remembered the days when he was one of those men waiting in line. He remembered the long hours of procedure and the sordid, morose faces that haunted the police station, all rabid with a look of anticipation in their eyes, waiting for any sign of movement in the ever-stagnating queue.
A hobo was creating quite a stir in the waiting room and it was quite apparent from his demeanour that he was wasted. Inspector Nagpal darted into his cabin, ignoring the commotion around him. Nadeem tried to keep up with him as he gazed at the derelicts that crowded the registrar’s desk. Tejaswini, the lady clerk in the administrative branch, was getting some papers signed by the assistant sub-inspector. The chaiwaala was doing the rounds, watering the plants, laughing and chatting with the friendlier hawaldars.
As Nadeem walked into Inspector Nagpal’s cabin, the duty officer followed, slamming the door shut. He sat down next to Nadeem and opened a rather large and intimidating register where he was to note down Nadeem’s statement. Inspector Nagpal seated himself in the chair behind his desk, breathing heavily and staring at Nadeem, trying to size him up. The door flung open as Tejaswini popped her head in to ask the inspector a question.
‘What do you want to do about Vicky Sahib’s son?’
‘Get me the commissioner’s report on that,’ Inspector Nagpal said. ‘Until then, I’m not authorized to do anything. I’m not going to go out of my way to help some big businessman’s spoilt son. Let him go through routine procedure, nice and slow, take your time on the paperwork, make him wait. These rich bastards think they can get away with anything. So what if he’s Vicky Solanki’s son? We’ve had four fights in the same area, two accidents, three totalled cars and nine busts in town, plus eight instances of exceeding the permissible decibel limit! We’ve shut down all private parties. The youth is going to the dogs!’
