by Khan, Vaseem
She returned to her desk. It was almost ten. Three hours before her appointment with the Deputy Home Minister. She cleared her mind and focused on the day before her.
Her meeting with the minister would hopefully shed light on Herriot’s work, which in turn might reveal more about the man himself. Following that she hoped to talk to Robert Campbell, the man whom Herriot had met on the morning of his death. An autopsy was scheduled at the Grant Medical College at twelve the following day. With a buzz of irritation, she realised she would have to inform Lal’s friend, Archie Blackfinch. The man had seemed competent enough, but she resented the fact that he had been forced on to her. It was going to be difficult enough juggling her own team without having to worry about a clumsy Englishman with a penchant for stating the obvious.
She took out her notebook, flipped through it, and mentally lined up the information she had so far collected.
James Herriot had been murdered at his home. He seemed a well-liked man, comfortable in wealth and influence. Piecing together his life would not be difficult. But what about the circumstances of his death?
Minor details bothered her. The ticket stub. The piece of paper from his jacket with the meaningless jumble of letters and numbers.
She took out the paper from an evidence bag on her desk. BAKSHI. It was a common enough name. Beneath the name: PLT41/85ACRG11. Who was Bakshi? What did the string of characters mean?
Nothing sprang to mind.
She focused on the stamped writing at the top of the page: By a pool of nectar, at the shrine of the sixty-eight.
The sheet had clearly been torn from a notepad. She realised that she could just about make out the bottom of a few printed letters along the jagged tear. Possibly a few ‘E’s, a ‘G’, an ‘L’, and an ‘O’ towards the end. Four words, by her estimation. This suggested to her that the sheet was stamped stationery. Which meant that the line of text – By a pool of nectar, at the shrine of the sixty-eight – was somehow related to the organisation or establishment that had printed the stationery. A motto or identifier. If she could work out the name of the organisation, she might be able to trace Herriot’s movements, and so work out what the characters PLT41/85ACRG11 referred to.
She wrote out the letters she thought she could make out, together with dashes to indicate where she suspected there were letters that had been completely torn away:
_ _ E G_ _ _ E _ _ E _ _ L _ _ O _ _ _
She struggled with the problem for a while – it was a good bet that the first word might be ‘THE’ – but got no further forward. The whole thing might have nothing to do with Herriot’s killing at all.
She pondered a moment on the open safe and the missing trousers. She could understand that a killer bent on theft might take whatever was in the safe, but why take the trousers? How did he get them out of Laburnum House? The same applied to the murder weapon. Both knife and trousers seemed to have vanished into thin air.
Her mind looped around itself.
Chapter 5
By the time she left the office, traffic had built up. The road was clogged with cars, tongas and fume-belching trucks, the roadside with hawkers and pedestrians, bookstalls and handcarts.
A herd of goats blocked the Wellington Fountain roundabout, the chaos exacerbated by a gang of striking mill workers, pumping their fists and shouting anti-Congress slogans. Labour unrest had spread like a disease since independence. Nehru’s socialist ideals collided spectacularly with a society that, for millennia, had been marked by deep divisions and the rule of kings and conquerors. Only last week, Persis had read about agitation in Delhi, disillusioned steel workers marching in the capital. Four of the workers had doused themselves in kerosene in front of Parliament House and lit a match. Self-immolation had become a terrifying means of protest around the country.
She made good time along Madam Cama Road, then on to Marine Drive, a three-mile-long esplanade housing a succession of art deco towers – the Oceana, the Shalimar, the Chateau Marine – home to corporate moguls, film stars, and wealthy Hindu families recently arrived from Pakistan, taking the tenancy reins from chain-smoking European émigrés who had returned home at the end of the war.
As a girl, she and her father would join the Sunday throng gathered on the jagged strip of seafront at one end of the promenade to watch movies projected on to a giant screen. She recalled those days with fondness, the face of her mother a ghost in the breeze blowing in off the sea.
She parked on Alexander Graham Bell Road, then walked up to South Court.
The building, informally known as Jinnah House, had been built by Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the ‘father’ of Pakistan. Jinnah, a trained lawyer, had been a leading light within Gandhi’s Indian National Congress until their campaign of civil disobedience. Jinnah disliked the idealistic underpinnings of satyagraha – literally: ‘insistence upon the truth’ – describing it as ‘political anarchy’. By the forties, he had come to believe that the Muslims of India must have their own country; in 1940 his All-India Muslim League passed the Lahore Resolution demanding a separate nation. Six years later, in August 1946, he announced a day of ‘direct action’, urging a general strike in support of his Muslim homeland. Three days of mayhem followed. By the time the killing ended, five thousand lay dead in Calcutta alone. The prospect of continued sectarian violence on such a scale shook even the British out of their torpor. That was the moment Partition became inevitable.
Persis was met at the arched gateway by a dark-suited civil servant introducing himself as Prasad. He greeted her warmly, then led her past petunia beds and mango trees, through the garden where Mountbatten had once strolled planning the dissolution of empire, and into the mansion proper.
In the dining room, she found the Deputy Home Minister at one end of a long, polished table, leafing intently through a set of papers. Mounds of similar papers were piled up around the table like sandbags.
The minister waved her into a seat beside him.
She sat, recalling that K.P. Tilak was another of those to whom the independence movement had been kind. A small, avuncular presence, dressed in a plain white kurta and leggings, he seemed at ease with his place in the new scheme of things.
‘Thank you for joining me, Inspector. May I offer you a cup of tea?’ He indicated the porcelain tea set at his elbow. ‘Please don’t refuse. Tea is one of those British refinements that simply cannot be partaken on one’s own.’
Not quite sure what to say, Persis did as she had been asked, pouring herself a cup of fragrant Darjeeling.
He smiled at her, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he sipped at his tea. ‘I have been wishing to meet you for quite some time,’ he began. ‘Our nation’s first female IPS officer! You know, one day they will read about you in the history books. The likes of myself will fade into the darkness, Persis, but you will live for ever. Such is the fate of all pioneers.’
She did not know how to respond to this. Blushing, she hid behind her tea. Tilak’s reputation as a charmer was well deserved.
‘But now, you find yourself caught between the crosshairs of fate, an uncomfortable place at the best of times.’
He followed this enigmatic comment with a moment of silence, staring up at the wall where a picture of Gandhi looked down upon them. Beside it was a photograph of Jinnah. She wondered what it was still doing there, and then recalled that the home now belonged to the British. In Indian hands, no doubt, any sign of Jinnah would have been excised from the mansion.
‘He knew him, you know. Or rather, they knew each other. Jinnah and Herriot. They’d sparred over the years. Jinnah was always a cold fish; he never really warmed to anyone. But Herriot, there was a man who knew what made people tick. Do you know, Persis?’
She set down her tea. ‘No, sir.’
‘Passion, Inspector. Inflame a man’s passion and you can make him do anything. Jinnah liked to appeal to people’s intellectualism. The fact is that most cannot see past the ends of their own noses. But tell them they stand to
regain their souls, and they’ll burn down an empire for you.’ He smiled grimly. ‘India is a dream, Persis. A dream we all agreed to dream together. But dreams evaporate upon awakening. It might be strange for you to hear the Deputy Home Minister say this, but the truth is that harmony in our new republic is all but impossible. We are too divided, too factionalised, too fractured by our recent experiences. And yet we must make the effort. For we cannot move forward without it.’
‘Sir, how is this relevant to the death of Sir James?’
He smiled again. ‘I had heard that you were impatient.’ He set down his cup, his expression now serious. ‘On January 26th, India officially becomes a republic. Twenty-five days, that is how long you have to solve this case, Persis. Let me tell you why. Sir James was working on a matter of great import to our government, to our nation. To move into the future, one must first bury the past. That is what Sir James was doing for us.’
‘I don’t follow.’
‘Four months ago, we asked Sir James to take on a secret commission, a commission to investigate atrocities committed during Partition. It was his task to examine reports of brutalities that occurred during that turbulent time and, where possible, identify individuals guilty of actions that might be tried in a court of law. Rape, murder, incitement to murder. Crimes against humanity. The fact is, Inspector, that there are numerous individuals who have gained power in the new India whose souls are stained with blood, a canker at the heart of the country’s economic and political machinery.’
Persis absorbed this silently. Finally, something concrete had emerged from the fog. Sir James Herriot had been given a task that, by its very nature, would have set him on a path of conflict with those who wished their crimes to remain hidden.
‘Did you know him well?’ she asked.
‘Sir James? Yes, I knew him well enough. We’d crossed paths before, during the struggle. He’d always been open about his support for Indian Home Rule.’
‘So he was a good man? In your opinion?’
The question seemed to surprise him. ‘My opinion, for what it is worth, is that Sir James Herriot was one of those men who endeavoured to do good, and if in the doing of that good he might help himself, so much the better.’ He nodded at the picture of Gandhi. ‘He was certainly no mahatma.’
Mahatma, thought Persis. Mahaan aatma. Meaning ‘great soul’.
‘What sort of man was he?’
‘Intelligent. Gregarious. A man who liked the finer things in life. He loved India, not just for what it was, but because of what it made him: a man of consequence. Politically, he was a fierce negotiator. A dog with a bone once something got under his skin. It is one of the reasons we picked him for the Partition Commission.’
‘How many people knew of this commission?’
‘Only a handful of us within the government. It was believed that if it became common knowledge, it would not only incite a great hue and cry, but might also drive those we sought underground, or to rashness of action. Witnesses to such crimes might have been exposed to danger.’
‘And Sir James himself? Was he sworn to secrecy?’
‘To a great extent. Of course, any investigation of this magnitude will generate ripples, as I am sure you will soon discover.’
‘I would like to see the material he collected during his investigation.’
‘I’m afraid that will be difficult.’
Persis frowned. ‘Sir, if you wish me to proceed, I must have access to all available information.’
‘You don’t understand,’ said Tilak. ‘Sir James had yet to file a report. He kept his documents at his home. And, from what I have been told, those documents may now have been destroyed.’
Chapter 6
The Bombay Gymkhana. As one of the oldest clubs in the city the Gymkhana enjoyed a certain cachet among Bombay’s elite. Initially set up to enable British gentlemen to congregate with the intention of enjoying sporting pursuits – ranging from archery and polo to tennis and shooting – membership had become a must-have symbol of success. Now the wait for an invitation might stretch into years. This alone made the place irresistible to a certain type of Bombayite. It was here that Persis had arranged to see Robert Campbell, the man Herriot had met on the morning of the 31st.
On the drive over from South Court her thoughts had lingered on the meeting with Tilak.
‘Sir James had many friends in the British government,’ he had said, as he walked her out to the gate. ‘They will demand answers. I hope you understand?’
She understood well enough. Tilak was gently warning her that failure would not be looked upon kindly.
She had asked him for a copy of the original dossier handed to Sir James, detailing the alleged incidents of Partition atrocities that he had been tasked to investigate. He informed her that a copy of the documents was held in Delhi. He would arrange for the files to be sent to her.
‘I have one last question, sir.’ She hesitated. ‘Why Malabar House? Why have you not passed the case to one of the bigger units?’
Tilak had replied easily. ‘Madan Lal seems to have great faith in you, Inspector. He was Sir James’s right-hand man. If he trusts you, who am I to argue?’
She left her jeep in the car park, then made her way to the front entrance where a concierge in a club blazer led her through the lobby, a fetish of panelled oak and marble, through a smoke-filled billiards room, and out to the rear, where they swiftly arrived at the tennis courts.
On the nearest court a robust-looking white gentleman – she guessed him to be in his fifties – was thrashing a ball over the net at a young redhead. The woman, long-limbed and immaculate in tennis whites, bounced up and down on the soles of her feet before returning the ball with pinpoint precision. Her opponent heaved himself across the court like a three-legged wildebeest, fenced at the ball as it whizzed past, then collapsed to the ground in a shower of phlegm and curses.
‘Game, set and match,’ said the young woman breezily, skipping over to the other side of the net. Persis could not help but note that she was striking, with high, sweat-sheened cheekbones and piercing blue eyes.
The girl stuck out a hand, offering to help up her defeated opponent, but he batted it away with his racquet and struggled to his feet unaided, his face raw and ruddy.
‘That ball was out.’
‘Afraid not, Pater. You lost fair and square.’
The man – Robert Campbell, Persis presumed – scowled. He was a bear, with thick shoulders, a head of bristly, greying hair, prominent jowls and a sort of menacing pout. His eyes were the same blue as his daughter’s.
He was about to retort but Persis stepped forward to interrupt him.
Campbell seemed momentarily puzzled, and then recalled that he had agreed to the appointment.
‘Come on,’ he said, ‘let’s do this in the bar. I need a drink.’
Five minutes later, the Scotsman was hunkered into a leather seat, still in his whites, nursing a beer with one hand while holding a cold compress on his right knee with the other. His daughter, Elizabeth, stood behind him, a glass of pomegranate juice in her hand. Neither had offered their visitor a drink.
Around them, a number of gentlemen chatted, smoked and drank in similar chairs scattered around the bar. The majority were elderly and Indian, accompanied by a smattering of English, Americans and Europeans. Curious glances had been directed their way, no doubt attracted by Persis’s uniform.
‘Desperately bad business,’ Campbell muttered. ‘A man’s no’ safe in his own house any more.’ His Scottish accent had been leavened by a long stay on the subcontinent, but was still jarring to Persis.
‘How well did you know Sir James?’
‘Known him the best part of two decades,’ replied Campbell. ‘We were business partners. Stuck it out when a lot of the old crowd moved back in 1947.’
‘What sort of business?’
‘Construction,’ said Campbell. ‘To be precise, I own a construction company. James was a consultant to the
firm.’
‘What does that mean exactly?’
‘It means that it was his job to go out and find us contracts. I’m a trained engineer. I build things. I’ve never been the type to press the flesh, to talk a man into buying what he plainly doesn’t need. James said I had all the tact of a bull in a china shop. Where I’m from, we call it plain-speaking.’
‘Where are you from, if you don’t mind me asking?’
He grunted, a humourless smile. ‘I dare say the same place you’re from, Inspector. I was born right here. Bombay. Breach Candy Hospital. My father was an old India hand. It was him who set up the firm. Came out here with the Royal Fusiliers, helped build the railways. I was born just before the turn of the century. He’d seen enough by then to know he didn’t want his only son growing up among the heathen, so he sent me back home while I was still a bairn. To his home. Glasgow. I don’t suppose you’ve ever been?’
She shook her head, ignoring Campbell’s casual racism.
‘I didn’t think so. You Indians aren’t much for travelling. Well, let me tell you, Scotland is as far a cry from this place as you could wish for. Burns said it best: “The birthplace of valour; the country of worth.” I grew up among my own people, Inspector. I learned what it means to be Scottish.’
‘And what would that be?’
He leaned forward, his intense blue eyes staring through her. ‘It means not to suffer fools.’ He sat back, satisfied with his little outburst.
‘What about your daughter?’
‘What about her?’
‘Were you also born in India?’ Persis asked, looking directly at Elizabeth.
‘Can you no’ tell from her voice?’ growled Campbell.
‘I was born in Glasgow,’ replied Elizabeth, ‘but moved to an English finishing school at the age of eleven. Elocution was high on the curriculum. I don’t think my father approves.’
