by Vaseem Khan
Chapter 5
Fernandes had taken the news that they’d be working together with wide-eyed shock. He’d listened to Seth’s instructions in silence, then turned and walked stiffly back to his desk, swept up his peaked cap, checked his revolver, and headed upstairs to the lobby.
They’d taken Persis’s jeep. The silence between them was as dry as tinder; a single word and Persis felt the very air might combust. The truth was that she was astonished that George Fernandes remained at Malabar House. Following the Herriot case, she had lodged a formal complaint against him. An officer who had compromised an investigation by talking to the press? She’d expected the man to be hauled over the coals. Yet, somehow, he’d escaped censure.
She couldn’t understand it; Seth had remained tight-lipped on the matter.
She expected to work with officers who despised her because she was a woman intruding on what they believed was their exclusive domain. But Fernandes had seemed different, an officer of integrity, consigned to Malabar House only because he had inadvertently shot an innocent bystander while chasing down a known criminal.
They arrived at the scene to discover a pair of constables, one tall, one short, standing at the base of a bridge shelling peanuts and chatting to a trio of women in revealing saris and an excess of make-up. Persis recalled that the red-light district at Kamathipura was close by. A single dull street lamp lit the darkness, a cloud of insects dancing around the light fixture.
She looked up at the bridge, an iron construction that ran over a double set of rails. The bridge lay close to the Prince’s Dock, a kilometre to the east. She imagined that workers from the dock would pass this way, using the footbridge to cross the tracks.
‘You two!’ The constables turned from their discussion to gawp at her uniform.
Eventually, they walked over. Behind them, the three prostitutes melted away.
‘Where’s the body?’
The constables stared at her as if she was mad. Both men swivelled their necks towards the hulking figure of Fernandes.
‘What the hell are you looking at him for?’
Their heads snapped around.
‘Madam,’ the taller of the two ventured, ‘the body is further along the track.’
‘Then what are you doing here?’
‘There’s no light there.’
A man walked across the bridge behind the pair, lighting a cigarette as he went.
‘This is what you call guarding the body? How many people could have trampled through the scene while you’ve been standing here?’
He exchanged glances with his partner, but did not dare reply.
‘Take me to her.’
The tracks veered around a corner and into darkness. Ballast crunched under their boots.
‘Did you stop the trains?’
‘No, madam.’
They arrived at the scene, a flat, open area, undeveloped, dry grass and scrub stretching into a rustling darkness on either side. A dirt path ran parallel to the tracks.
She came upon the body almost without realising.
The woman – what remained of her – was small, slender, lying on her front just clear of the nearmost track. Her face lay on its side, partially covered by raven hair. Her lower legs had been cut off at the knees. Of the missing limbs, there was no sign.
Persis stared down at the scene, overcome by a strange light-headedness. It was more than the sight of a mutilated corpse – she’d seen plenty of those during the Partition years, discovering, to her own surprise, that she had no weakness of constitution that made the sight of death unpalatable.
It was the dress. A short-sleeved navy polka-dot tea dress, rucked up just above the knees.
A scab of memory. She was transported back to her childhood, a year after her mother had passed, wandering into Sanaz’s room, opening her wardrobe. Her father, still coming to terms with his wife’s death, had refused to throw out her clothes – in the wardrobe Persis had found a selection of fashionable dresses. There had been one, a navy, polka-dotted dress, that had taken her fancy. She’d slipped it off its hanger, put it on. Hopelessly large for her, but, as she’d flapped around inside it, pretending to be her mother, the memory had become a needle note of unhappiness.
The dress rustled.
There was no breeze.
Horror gripped her and she stepped forward, reached down and shook the woman’s right leg, what remained of it. A rat appeared from under the dress, lean and dark against the flesh of her thigh.
Persis staggered back, stifling a cry. The rat ran for cover.
She waited until her pulse had steadied. ‘Was this how you found her?’
‘Yes, madam,’ said the taller constable.
‘Where are the lower halves of her legs?’
The constables exchanged glances. ‘We don’t know, madam.’
Her fingers itched. She wanted to slap them both, as hard as she could.
‘Spread out. Find them.’
It didn’t take long.
‘Madam!’ The shorter of the constables waved her over. He pointed with his lathi into the scrub, about thirty metres from the tracks.
They lay in the grass, pale calves shimmering in the weak moonlight, feet shod in black-heeled sandals. The feet were shapely, the toes painted red.
She must have lain across the tracks, Persis thought. Waited for the train to run her over. Had she changed her mind at the last instant, attempted to crawl out of the way? That would explain why she had been severed at the knees, rather than higher up the body.
But if she wanted to kill herself, why not just step in front of the speeding train?
Bombay’s railways were a magnet for suicides. Every officer in the city knew that.
That’s why suicides received so little attention.
But a white woman taking her own life in this way? That was rare enough to make it a bureaucratic headache.
A train horn sounded in the distance; a dull vibration hummed along the tracks.
Persis returned to the body. ‘We have to move her further away.’ She stepped forward, but Fernandes got there first.
‘I’ll do it.’
She watched as he stood over her, put his hands beneath her armpits, then lifted her bodily upwards, swinging her around like a rag doll – she could not have weighed half as much as him – stepping away from the tracks, and then gently placing her on the ground, this time on her back.
Something slithered away in the grass.
Persis dropped to her haunches, pushed the straggle of hair out of the woman’s face.
She was beautiful, that much was apparent. Red lipstick smeared her mouth. She looked like a starlet. Or a model. The sort of woman that graced the fashion magazines her father ordered in for bored housewives.
‘Did you search the body?’ she asked the constables who had gravitated back to the corpse.
‘No, madam. We were told not to touch anything.’
She wished that Blackfinch was here. She could send one of the officers back to their station to call for him, but by the time he got here, who knew how many more trains would have thundered through, further wrecking the scene.
‘Who found the body?’
‘A dock worker. He was on his way home. He practically tripped over the woman and decided to report it at the station.’
‘He found nothing else?’
The constable smirked. ‘If he had, he wouldn’t tell us.’
She thought for a moment. ‘Wait here.’
She jogged back to the jeep, returning swiftly. She handed out gloves and torches. If there was one thing she’d learned from Archie Blackfinch, it was to be prepared. The constables looked at the items as if she’d handed them sticks of lit dynamite.
‘Put the gloves on. We’re going to carry out a fingertip search.’
‘A search of what?’ said the smaller of the two.
She reined in the urge to hurl abuse at him. Instead, she explained what she wanted them to do. As she did so, th
e tracks began to vibrate steadily, then clack loudly. Before they knew it, the train was upon them, rounding the curve in a thunder of noise and light. They waited as it roared by.
Spreading out, they went over the ground on their knees. Fernandes had looked dubious at the suggestion but had decided not to argue, lowering himself painstakingly to the earth with the rest of them.
‘Madam!’
She got to her feet and walked over to the taller constable. He held something in his palm.
It was an enamelled brooch, about three centimetres tall, round and topped with a red and gold crown. At the centre was the somewhat spoiled image of what looked like a sword, superimposed on a crossbow, with a blazing red sun behind. Around this motif were words in gold that she couldn’t make out – the brooch had suffered damage. Below the circular section was a banner on which were two further words, in black, this time just about legible: VERUM EXQUIRO.
She turned it over. Around the edge of the reverse: H.W. Miller Ltd, B’Ham.
The brooch felt heavy in her palm, something made of more than base metal.
‘You can’t be sure it’s hers,’ said Fernandes, appearing at her shoulder.
‘Who else could have dropped something like this out here?’ She gazed into the surrounding darkness. The night swelled around her. ‘How did she get here?’
‘She could have come on foot. Taken a cab to the main road and then just walked out here.’
It was possible. ‘Why here?’ she whispered, to herself.
‘What?’
She refused to look at him. ‘Why did she come here to kill herself? Why not throw herself into the sea? Why out here?’
Fernandes had no answer. In the darkness, she saw a pair of eyes glittering. The dog barked; another responded.
‘We have to get her to the mortuary.’ She sent one of the constables off to the Dongri station to organise a mortuary van.
They returned to the woman.
Fernandes dropped to his haunches, reached out for the body.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m searching her.’
She realised that this should have been her first act. She hid her anger by raising her voice. ‘Don’t touch her. I’ll do it.’
Fernandes stared at her. She sensed his rage, but then he stood up and stepped away.
She completed the search quickly. ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘No wallet. No ID. No suicide note.’ Her mind whirred. ‘How did she get out here without a wallet? How did she pay the cab?’
‘Maybe she carried just enough cash. Or told him to keep the change. She wasn’t going to need money where she was headed.’
She glanced sharply up at him, but he was staring down at the body.
‘She doesn’t look like a woman dressed to kill herself. She looks like a woman ready to go out.’
‘How many women have you known that killed themselves?’ he said.
She felt herself flush and was glad of the darkness. She pushed herself to her feet. ‘Our first priority is to find out who she is.’
She stared down at her. Such beauty! What could have pushed a woman like this into taking her own life? How desolate her end seemed. How meaningless.
It bothered her how the constables had abandoned the body.
Partition had shattered her illusions. For years, it had been the British who’d been held up as the epitome of evil – no Indian could behave with the unthinking cruelty that distinguished the white man. But the murderous sectarian violence that had marked the riots had amply demonstrated how her own countrymen could value human life just as cheaply.
Who was she? Who had she been?
Bombay. The city of dreams. But dreams soured. While the city went on, regardless, indifferent. The struggle for independence was fading into the past; Bombay was once again the city of good times. The bars and clubs were booming and the movie industry was churning out films, a healing gloss over the recent horrors that had wracked the nation and still simmered below the surface.
Open wounds in some parts of the country.
On the way back to Malabar House, she sensed that Fernandes wanted to say something. Needed to say it. The tension became unbearable.
Finally, he spoke, without looking at her. ‘You said “our”.’
‘What?’
‘Our first priority is to find out who she is.’
‘So?’
‘Seth asked me to lead this investigation.’
She sucked in a deep breath. ‘Under my supervision.’
‘For me to run the investigation, I must give the orders.’
‘Leading an investigation isn’t about giving orders.’
An angry silence huddled between them like an unwanted child.
They remained this way until she dropped him back outside Malabar House. She watched him as he walked stiffly away towards the rickshaw stand on the corner.
As he slipped into the rickshaw, her eye alighted on a black Studebaker parked across the road. The silhouette of a man in the driver’s seat. She couldn’t make out his features, but the profile . . . something about him . . . Recognition reared up inside her. It couldn’t be.
She stepped out from the jeep, began to walk towards the car, her heart suddenly pounding against her ribcage. But before she could get within a dozen yards, the Studebaker started up, pulled into traffic, and powered away along the road.
She stood there, momentarily unmoored, her blood humming. It couldn’t have been him. It was just a trick of the light.
She took a deep breath, spun on her heels, and walked back to the jeep.
Chapter 6
Sam was sat by the window, fingering notes on the Steinway. Akbar, her overfed grey Persian cat, sat atop the piano, looking vaguely traumatised. Back at home now, Persis had showered, changed into pyjamas, then returned to the living room to find her father had arrived from the bookshop below.
‘You’re late,’ said Sam.
She walked over and kissed him on the cheek. ‘And you are incorrigible. I’m surprised you got out of the agiary alive.’
He grunted, then wheeled his chair over to the dining table. ‘Krishna!’ he bellowed, startling the potbellied manservant up from the sofa where he’d been comfortably dozing.
Krishna staggered to the kitchen area, helped himself to a glass of water from the sink, then began clattering about with pots and pans.
The door rang. Persis answered and was immediately smothered in a hug by Aunt Nussie. A cloud of Chanel parfum invaded her nose. ‘Persis! How lovely to see you!’
Aunt Nussie had been away. A week in Pondicherry with friends. Contrary to all that was holy, Persis realised that she’d missed the woman.
Usually, she saw more of her mother’s younger sister than she would have preferred – Nussie made it a point to invite herself over for dinner two, sometimes three, times a week. She had long ago taken it upon herself to manage her only niece’s feminine affairs, as she put it, believing Sam incompetent in such matters, not without reason.
Persis appreciated her aunt’s efforts, but the past few years had been distinguished by Nussie’s ham-handed attempts to marry her off to her cousin, Nussie’s only son, Darius. Recent events had made that an untenable proposition – Persis had managed to insult Darius, sending him scurrying back to Calcutta where he was busy climbing the ladder at a prominent managing agency. It was not that Darius was unhandsome or lacking in intelligence; marriage was simply a matter that could not be further from her thoughts.
She hated hurting her aunt’s feelings, but there was as much chance of her wedding her cousin as there was of her father joining the circus.
Nussie bundled into the apartment, flapping shopping bags at them. ‘Gifts!’ she announced. ‘How are you, Sam?’
Sam gave her a surly look, then belched.
‘Charming, as ever,’ said Nussie. She rummaged in a bag and took out a black slip of cloth, a vision of satin and lace. ‘For you, Persis. They call this a step-in teddy. It’s
all the rage in Paris, by all accounts.’
‘And why precisely would she want to wear something like that?’ growled Sam.
‘Maybe not now, but in due course. When she marries.’
‘She’ll marry when she’s good and ready.’
‘Did I say she was getting married today?’
Sam looked set to launch into another of his diatribes, but was prevented from doing so by Krishna slapping a plate on to the table under his nose.
Persis ate quickly and in silence – lamb dhansak and rice – tuning out her aunt as she launched into an exhaustive recounting of her adventures in the south. Her father watched her from under thick eyebrows. ‘Is there a race on?’ he said. ‘How about telling us about your day?’
She apologised. It was a habit they’d fallen into. Each evening they would eat together and she would apprise Sam of her working day. He would listen in silence, occasionally bursting in with opinions and critique, usually of the dolts he believed she worked with.
She briefly outlined the investigation that had begun that day at the Asiatic Society. She decided not to mention the mutilated woman on the railway tracks.
‘I’ve met Forrester before,’ said Sam when she’d finished. ‘She and her cronies think the Society is some sort of British citadel; a place where they can halt time, keep everything the way it was. Hah.’
‘She seemed pleasant enough.’
‘More fool you,’ he muttered. ‘Did you know that in the beginning the Society wouldn’t admit Indians? They soon learned you couldn’t study India without speaking to the bloody natives.’
Sam’s opinions of the British had changed with the advent of the independence movement. Having grown up holding the British in the highest esteem, once it became apparent that the arch colonialists would do anything to hold on to power, he had, like millions of his contemporaries, flocked to Gandhi’s banner. His revolutionary fervour had infected Persis at an early age. Later, as an adult, she too would live through years of protest and rebellion, spurred on, in no small part, by the death of her mother.
