Midnight at Malabar House (Inspector Wadia series)

by Khan, Vaseem

  He pirouetted on his heels and walked stiffly from the apartment, Nussie trailing in his wake. She spun around at the door. ‘Persis, you are incorrigible. When will you learn to behave like a woman? Even in that dress you cannot change. You may as well have worn your khaki trousers beneath it.’

  When they had gone, Persis slumped back in her seat.

  ‘I should probably leave too,’ said Blackfinch.

  Persis ignored him. She was still white-faced with anger. Partly her fury was directed at herself. She had been unforgivably rude, had upset her aunt, and for what? Had Darius’s blundering really offended her so? Why was she so quick to take offence? Tact, caution, these were the hallmarks of a good police officer. A thin skin, a fiery temperament: these qualities rarely went well with deductive reasoning.

  ‘Do you feel better now that you’ve got it out of your system?’ asked Sam.

  ‘Is this where you tell me that you’re disappointed in me?’

  ‘If I have to tell you, then it’s not worth the telling,’ he said. ‘Goodnight, Mr Blackfinch. It was nice to make your acquaintance.’ He wheeled his chair around and left the room.

  The cat Akbar slunk in as the door closed behind him, bounded on to the table and began nibbling at a cold cut of chicken.

  Blackfinch carefully folded his napkin into a neat square and set it down on the table. ‘It’s been a very interesting evening.’

  She ignored him, her gazed affixed to some distant point in space and time.

  ‘I’ll let myself out then, shall I?’

  He waited a second longer, then walked to the door and left the apartment.

  Chapter 14

  4 January 1950

  The morning proved an exercise in frustration. There was still no sign of the missing jeweller Vishal Mistry, no sign of the missing knife or the missing trousers. She had phoned the Victoria station ticket office and been told that the details of the ticket stub she’d discovered in Herriot’s jacket were yet to be recovered. Birla had got no further in finding out where the Golden Temple Hotel might be. They still had no idea who Herriot’s female companion had been on the night of his death.

  With no new leads, she went back over the testimonies of those she had interviewed. She felt instinctively that there was more there than she was being told.

  Because there was another truth out there. Of that she was certain. Sir James Herriot was not the man the public believed him to be. The Englishman may have been a consummate diplomat, trusted by the Indian government, but he was also a cad, a cad on the verge of bankruptcy.

  Seth arrived shortly after eleven, in a vile temper.

  She followed him into his office, where he threw himself into his chair and flung a newspaper on to the desk.

  ‘I’ve just been to see ADC Shukla,’ he revealed. ‘To say that he was unhappy with Channa’s latest article would be an understatement.’ He picked up the paper, snapped it angrily, and read from it. ‘“The investigation into the death of Sir James Herriot has met with little progress. There are no suspects, no clear lines of enquiry, and no real motive established for the murder. The lead detective has chosen to keep the press in the dark. But the Chronicle has discovered that her team of officers are busily interviewing some of the most respected residents of the city, in the hope that rattling cages at random will break open the case. One cannot help but feel that this demonstrates a lack of experience and judgement. The investigation is superintended by Roshan Seth, once a name to watch in the service, but no longer.” ’

  Persis said nothing. She had been expecting it. Channa was not the type to take rejection lying down.

  She felt another rush of anger towards Oberoi. No doubt he had been feeding Channa scraps, fanning the flames.

  Back at her desk, she resumed working through her notes. She could feel the weight of expectation bearing down on her. It was the first time in her fledgling career that she had felt such pressure. Seth had warned her, but she had ignored him.

  For an instant, her mind swarmed with panic. What if she failed? She hadn’t even admitted the possibility, but now . . .

  She closed her eyes and allowed the case to float around her mind. The things that continued to bother her. Vishal Mistry. The knife. The missing trousers—

  A thought wormed its way up her spine. Something Aunt Nussie had said the previous evening. You may as well have worn your khaki trousers beneath it.

  She opened her eyes, sat very still, allowing the thought to complete itself.

  Finally, she stood and went to Seth’s office.

  The SP was clutching an empty whisky tumbler, staring glassy-eyed at a report open before him.

  ‘I have a theory,’ she said. ‘It’s about the trousers.’

  He stared at her blankly. ‘The trousers?’

  ‘Herriot’s trousers were missing. I think I know what happened to them.’

  She drove through the gates of Laburnum House at just after twelve.

  The sun beat down on the gravel forecourt as she and Sub-Inspector George Fernandes made their way to the front of the mansion.

  The door was answered by a surprised Mrs Gupta.

  ‘I’d like to talk to Maan Singh. Is he here?’

  ‘He’s working in the garage.’

  The housekeeper led them to the side of the house where a low red-brick shed housed a row of motor vehicles. They found Singh bent inside the hood of a red Bentley. He was wearing a white vest beneath his customary turban, revealing the thickly corded muscles of his arms and neck. A smudge of grease on his burnished right bicep only accentuated his powerful physique.

  He straightened as they approached, a spanner clutched in his ham-like fist.

  Persis stopped, considered what she was about to say.

  Back at Malabar House it had seemed to make sense. But here, facing this hulking giant, the words shrivelled inside her. The theory she had run by Roshan Seth now seemed ludicrous.

  She licked her lips and glanced at Fernandes. Curiosity etched his features. She hadn’t yet told him why they were here. She would have preferred Birla accompanying her, but he had been out on another case. She wondered what Fernandes, as level-headed a man as she knew, would make of her conjecture.

  She took a deep breath, and plunged in. ‘By your own admission, you stated that you were the one to discover Sir James’s body. Lal was the second person to see the body and he confirmed that Sir James’s trousers were missing. So, between the murder and Lal showing up, the trousers went missing. We know that the killer did not leave the premises, not unless he climbed a fifteen-foot-high wall topped with barbed wire. If we assume that Sir James’s killer took the trousers, what would he have done with them? He could hardly have wandered around with them, not with a houseful of guests and staff. Someone would be bound to notice. Nor could he have hidden them for later removal from Laburnum House. That would run the risk of them being found by us.’

  Singh was silent, staring at her with a curiously deadened expression.

  Persis took another breath. ‘I believe you took the trousers. I think you put them on underneath your own trousers and walked out of Laburnum House with them. You are a big man, as was Sir James. You could have slipped them on with ease.’

  For an instant, she thought Singh would erupt. She tensed, her right hand closing around the butt of her revolver. If he charged them, she doubted that even a bullet would stop him.

  Singh stepped forward. She heard Fernandes reach for his own weapon.

  And then the big Sikh held out his hands, fists facing upwards. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I killed Sir James.’

  Afterwards, it was the sense of relief with which he said those words that would haunt her.

  Chapter 15

  Arthur Road Jail, known as Bombay Central Prison, was the city’s oldest place of incarceration. Originally built to house eight hundred inmates, its population had swelled in recent years, the result of post-independence judging zealotry. Within its forbidding walls many luminaries f
rom the struggle had whiled away the changeless hours penning revolutionary epistles or singing themselves softly to sleep with thoughts of martyrdom.

  Persis logged in at the guardroom. As she signed the day register, the door opened behind her and a familiar figure walked in.

  Madan Lal was dressed smartly, as usual, in fawn trousers and a linen jacket. But a darkness encircled his eyes that hadn’t been there a few days ago; Sir James’s assistant had been having sleepless nights.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked.

  ‘I was told you were coming to question him. I’d like to accompany you.’ His voice was cold; she sensed an anger behind his words. She suspected that he had not taken kindly to the fact that Singh had been arrested at Laburnum House while he had been elsewhere.

  ‘You’re a civilian. You cannot be present during the questioning of a murder suspect.’

  ‘Rules can always be bent, Inspector,’ countered Lal. ‘Singh won’t speak to you.’

  She weighed his words. There was something furtive about Lal’s manner that made her hesitate. But her previous encounters with Singh did not inspire confidence that he would open up to her now. The man had not said a single word since his arrest. Not a word on the ride to the Marine Drive station lock-up. And, from what she had been told, not a word while he had been transferred to Arthur Road Jail as she had returned to Malabar House to update Seth and discuss her next course of action.

  The SP’s initial shock had mirrored her own. But then he had lifted himself from his seat and clapped her on the shoulder. ‘You were right!’ he said. ‘You did it, Persis.’

  She could see the machinery whirring behind his eyes. This was the break he had been waiting for. With a confession in the bank, he could finally get the likes of ADC Shukla off his back.

  But something about the situation bothered her. The ease with which Singh had capitulated in the face of a frankly outlandish theory. She had not a shred of proof of her conjecture and yet he had instantly confessed to murder.

  Why?

  She needed Singh to talk.

  ‘Very well.’

  Singh had been installed in one of the solitary cells, deep within the bowels of the prison. The warden insisted on escorting them personally. They entered the flagstoned cell to find Singh manacled to a steel desk awaiting their arrival.

  His eyes flickered momentarily as he saw Lal follow her in.

  Persis turned and ushered the warden out, the man’s round face collapsing into an ‘o’ of disappointment.

  They took the two seats on the far side of the battered steel table.

  ‘You have confessed to the murder of Sir James,’ began Persis. It was a statement, rather than a question.

  Singh said nothing. His eyes moved to Lal. Light falling in from the barred window high on the rear wall reflected from the aide’s spectacles.

  ‘You should not have come,’ rumbled Singh.

  She wasn’t sure if he meant herself or Sir James’s aide.

  ‘Did you do it?’ she asked.

  ‘I have confessed,’ growled Singh. ‘What more do you want?’

  ‘I want to know why.’

  Singh opened his mouth, but then confusion clouded his expression. He seemed to Persis like an actor who, finding himself on stage, facing his audience, forgets his lines. ‘Every man earns the death he deserves,’ he said finally.

  ‘What did Sir James do to deserve his death?’

  But Singh simply shook the question away with a thrust of his turbaned head.

  ‘Did he do something to anger you?’ she persisted.

  Silence.

  ‘Why confess now? Why not on the night of his killing?’

  Silence.

  ‘Why did you take the trousers? It makes no sense.’

  Silence. Her sense of unease grew. There was something illogical about Singh’s actions. If he had killed Sir James, and had intended to confess all along, then why the charade with the trousers? Surely, a wild accusation couldn’t have crumbled this giant of a man into accepting guilt for such an enormous crime?

  ‘They will hang you. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Singh. ‘And I will die a proud son of Punjab.’

  ‘Is that what this is about?’ said Persis. ‘You killed Sir James to prove a point?’

  ‘You wouldn’t understand,’ said Singh, and his eyes were full of contempt. ‘People like you worship the Anglos. You are no Indian.’

  Blood darkened her cheeks. In the old days, she thought, a man espousing that sort of rhetoric would have been whisked away to some covert holding cell run by British intelligence. Marked as an anti-imperialist, he would have been tried, judged and summarily executed.

  The trial was important. It wasn’t enough for the British to hang a man; they had to ensure everyone knew he deserved to be hanged. Due process was paramount, even if the outcome was rigged.

  ‘Where is the knife?’ she asked.

  ‘I threw it away.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘It is gone.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  Instead of reacting with the fury she had expected, a curious uncertainty entered Singh’s eyes. ‘What do you mean?’

  Emboldened, she leaned forward. ‘I don’t believe that you killed Sir James. You are lying.’

  Lal twisted in his seat and looked at her in astonishment.

  Singh merely stared at her in sullen silence. ‘I can prove that I killed him,’ he said finally.

  ‘How?’

  ‘I have the trousers. They are in my home. You will find them hidden in the bottom of my almirah.’

  Outside the cell, Lal paced the corridor in agitation. ‘What will happen to him now?’

  ‘We will search his home. If we find the trousers, he will be tried and, if he continues to insist on his guilt, he will be convicted. And then they will hang him.’

  ‘Why did you say that you did not believe him?’

  ‘I . . .’ She hesitated. How to explain to Lal that something about Singh’s manner, at once evasive and belligerent, bothered her? Why had he kept the trousers but thrown away the knife? Why take the trousers in the first place? Why wait to be confronted before confessing? Why not march down into the New Year’s Eve party at Laburnum House and brazenly announce his deed?

  ‘Tell me about him,’ she said. ‘How did he end up at Laburnum House?’

  ‘I was forced to dismiss Sir James’s driver a month ago for theft. Singh came to the house looking for work. Sir James was impressed with him. I offered him a trial period.’ He looked morose. ‘It’s my fault, isn’t it? I should have checked his background more thoroughly.’

  ‘Has he expressed any sort of nationalist sentiment since he joined?’

  ‘No. He has been a perfect employee. Punctual, committed.’

  ‘Was he dissatisfied with his salary? His circumstances?’

  ‘Not that he mentioned. We paid him a good wage.’

  ‘What about his personal life? Was there a reason for discontent there?’

  ‘Frankly, I don’t know much about his private affairs. No wife or acquaintances that he maintained – but I would not expect him to discuss such matters with me.’

  ‘What about family?’

  ‘None in Bombay. I never heard him talk about any elsewhere.’

  She paused, her mind churning.

  ‘The Sikh character is a strange one,’ Lal continued, his voice calmer now. ‘Feuds, vendettas, blood vengeance. These are part and parcel of life. Many years ago, while driving in the Punjab, I witnessed an altercation in the street. Two cars had collided. Words were exchanged. In one of the cars was a Sikh, elderly, small; in the other a big, heavy man, dark-skinned: he looked like he was from the south. The Sikh went to the boot of his car, took out a large sword, and cut the man down right where he stood.’

  Persis gazed at his troubled features.

  ‘As hard as it is for me to accept,’ said Lal, ‘I can only conclude that Singh d
id kill Sir James. Your case is solved, Inspector. Your work is at an end. It will be a relief for all concerned to put the matter to bed. Life, after all, must go on.’

  She returned to Malabar House two hours later, having first driven to Singh’s home to carry out a search of the premises. She had called the office from the prison and asked Birla to meet her there.

  Singh lived in a small two-room dwelling on a patch of waste ground behind the Walter de Souza Park, crowded with makeshift homes, some built by the municipal authorities, others built by free enterprise and a prayer. Singh’s was one of the better ones: brick walls and a tin roof. A small padlock rattled on the plywood door – Birla struck it off easily with the butt of his revolver.

  The interior of the home was sparse. Whitewashed walls, a single light bulb, a four-legged charpoy, a small kitchen area with an assortment of mismatched steel pans, plates and cups. A wooden table, barely large enough for two, with a single stool. A steel almirah housed Singh’s collection of clothes, including three work uniforms. At the bottom of the almirah, in an old jute bag, were Sir James’s trousers.

  She held the soft red fabric in her hand. Darker spots indicated the presence of blood.

  ‘Looks like he did it,’ said Birla, staring at the garment.

  In a small pouch inside the wardrobe she discovered papers. Among them was a ration card. The card noted a permanent residential address, in the northern city of Amritsar.

  She wrote the address in her notebook then added the ration card to the evidence.

  Back at Malabar House she discovered Oberoi holding court, spinning a story for Sub-Inspector Fernandes and the two constables, Subramanium and Ray. Oberoi’s grin vanished as she stalked into the room; he watched her sweep by with uneasy eyes.

  Seth was eating, picking at a plate of pilaf with a fork, a napkin tucked under his chin. The radio was on. Cricket.

  As she entered he let out a sigh, flicked off the radio, and set down his fork.

  ‘I don’t think Singh did it.’

  Seth’s shoulders fell a little. ‘What makes you say that?’