by Vaseem Khan
Persis bit back a retort. Grant was like many successful men that she had recently met, puffed up with a sense of his own importance.
She dug out her notebook and showed him the inscription Healy had left behind.
What’s in a name? Akoloutheo Aletheia.
‘I’m told that this second statement means “follow the truth”. I was wondering if there might be another meaning, one that might link to the first sentence?’
Grant studied the line for a moment, then sat back and laced his fingers over his stomach. ‘It’s a question of subtlety. The word aletheia, in its original Greek sense, means “unconcealedness”, a philosophical notion sometimes equated with truth, though this is not, strictly speaking, correct.’ He glanced at Forrester. ‘The philosopher Martin Heidegger equated its meaning more closely to the notion of “disclosure”, the idea that matters become intelligible to us only when interpreted as part of a greater whole.’
Persis considered his words, but nothing seemed clearer. ‘Anything else?’
His face fell. He looked away, back to his manuscript, as if dismissing her. ‘Of course, if we wish to be prosaic, then the word aletheia has also been employed as a name, an all too common one. In Greek mythology, Aletheia was a female daemon of truthfulness and sincerity. Can you guess the modern derivation of the name?’
‘No.’
‘Alice,’ said Grant emphatically. ‘Your line might be interpreted as “follow Alice”. Or, to be more precise, “follow in the footsteps of Alice”.’
Persis allowed this conjecture to flow around her mind. She felt certain now that Healy’s first line – What’s in a name? – had been intended to lead them to decipher his Greek words as “follow Alice”. But who was Alice?
‘Did Healy have an acquaintance by the name of Alice?’
‘You received the list I sent you?’ asked Forrester.
‘Yes.’
‘Was there an Alice on it?’
‘No.’
‘Then you have your answer.’
Persis flushed. ‘Is there anyone else at the Society named Alice?’
‘No.’
She continued to examine the problem as Forrester led her back out.
On the portico steps the Englishwoman spoke. ‘Inspector, I’m not certain that I impressed upon you just how imperative it is that we recover the Dante manuscript. Perhaps you received the impression that the political fallout was my main source of concern. Nothing could be further from the truth. My responsibility is to this institution. We rely on donations to survive. To lose one of the world’s great treasures would be a scandal I fear may mortally wound us. The Society is more than the sum of its parts. It is in this building that Queen Victoria’s 1858 proclamation took place, abolishing the East India Company and transferring administration of the country to the crown. It is here that a portion of Gandhi’s ashes were kept so that his devotees could pay their last respects. The Asiatic Society is, in and of itself, living history.’
Persis turned her gaze to the Horniman Gardens, deserted at this hour.
By the evening the gardens would be alive with office workers, smoking, chatting, courting, taking a moment to recover from the tribulations of the day before heading home. Not long ago, a band had played there in the cool of the night. With independence, the band members, a jazz quartet from the American south, had returned home.
Forrester’s words resonated with her own growing feelings about the case. That it was about more than a lost manuscript. The Society was a link to the past, a tangible thread that connected the India of her ancestors to the India that was now taking shape under Nehru’s stewardship. Healy’s theft felt like a betrayal of that legacy.
Her thoughts fell again to his parting missive. Follow Alice . . . But which Alice? Her mind wandered around Healy’s home, the nearly empty fridge, the spartan bedroom, the living room with its bookca—
The thought came like a thunderclap. The bookcase.
She turned to Forrester. ‘I’ll bear your words in mind. Thank you for your assistance.’
Fifteen minutes later, she broke the police seal that Birla had set over John Healy’s front door. Walking straight to the bookcase in the living room, she bent down and picked out the copy of Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass.
The book was new, a recent purchase. She opened it to the flyleaf. Healy had signed and dated it on the day he’d vanished.
Follow Alice. Follow in the footsteps of Alice.
She walked into the bedroom and stood before the large ormolu mirror. Then, stretching her arms across its expanse, she lifted it from its fittings and laid it down on the bed.
She looked at the wall. Nothing.
Disappointed, she hesitated a moment, then turned back to the mirror. She saw that it had a thin plywood backing.
She went to the kitchen, rummaged in the drawers, and returned with a knife.
Quickly, she levered her way under the rim, then popped out the backing. Turning it around, she found what she was looking for.
Written there, in inch-high letters, was a message:
Sundered from Alba’s hearth he came;
To beauty’s bay, seeking Sinan’s fame;
Enjoined to begg, his labours Empire’s pride;
His infernal porta, a King denied;
’Neath Cross and dome, his resting place;
Together we await in fey embrace.
Chapter 8
The meeting with Franco Belzoni was due to take place at midday, at the Victoria and Albert Museum. It took Persis half an hour to drive the seven kilometres north to the site, through unusually difficult traffic. Ongoing protests were clogging up the city’s arteries; she was forced to wait as a gang of striking mill workers added to the daily havoc outside the Victoria Terminus railway station. The workers had chanced on the clever idea of bringing along a herd of cows. These now formed a perimeter around the chanting labourers, preventing the police from getting rough. It was one thing beating down those demanding their rights in the new India, quite another laying hands on avatars of god.
She left the jeep outside the museum and entered through the front door into the central hall, with its soaring, patterned ceiling, parquet flooring, and grand gallery. Visitors were greeted by an unsmiling bust of Queen Victoria and an equally unsmiling host sat behind a marble counter. Persis introduced herself and was duly led through the museum, her guide taking it upon himself to provide a running commentary, as if a string had been pulled and he could no more stop his recitation than a clockwork soldier could stop the movement of its mechanical limbs.
The Victoria and Albert was the city’s oldest museum, established to commemorate the transfer of power from the East India Company to the British crown and to serve as an expression of the loyalty of Bombay’s merchants to the new Raj. As such, many of its older exhibits came from a temporary ‘economic museum’ once housed at the barracks of the Bombay Fort. During the 1857 rebellion the fort had been requisitioned to barrack British troops on their way to Calcutta; to make room, most of the exhibits had been unceremoniously thrown into the street. Those that hadn’t suffered terminal damage had been relocated to the V&A, and the lush botanical gardens within which it sat.
She found Belzoni waiting for her in a small office on the upper floor, overlooking the gardens. The Italian rose as she entered, proffering a hand.
‘Dr Franco Belzoni. You must be Ispettrice Wadia.’
He was of middling height, younger than she had anticipated – no more than thirty – with thick black hair, quick, dark eyes, and a strong jaw. He was dressed conservatively in a suit, though the jacket had been discarded, and the tie was hanging loose at the neck.
She couldn’t blame him.
It was early in the year but the daytime heat had already become stifling. If this kept up, the city would parch – the monsoon was a good four months away.
A ceiling fan blew the smell of sweat and carbolic soap towards her.
‘May I
offer you coffee?’ Belzoni’s copper skin glowed against the whiteness of his shirt. As did his teeth.
‘No. Thank you.’
‘Please, have a seat.’ He waved at the table before them, then realised that it was covered in books and a selection of Mughal miniature paintings. ‘Mi scusi,’ he said, and then clapped at a peon lurking in the corner. The man leaped to action; in short order, the table was cleared. ‘I was invited here today to present a talk,’ explained Belzoni, slipping into a seat. ‘I requested an office for our meeting and this is what was available.’ He leaned over the table. ‘Tell me, how may I help you?’
Quickly, she explained the situation to him.
Belzoni listened intently, his eyes darkening as it became apparent that La Divina Commedia was missing.
‘Impossibile!’ he finally managed. For an instant, he was too stunned to say anything more. He stood and began to pace, muttering under his breath.
‘I’m told you knew Healy well.’
He spun around. ‘Me? No. I knew of him, sì, but I only met him three weeks ago, when I arrived in Bombay.’
‘Why are you here?’
‘For the manuscript, of course. I am an art historian by training, but I have a passion for rare manuscripts. I am employed by the University of Bologna. Three years ago, the oldest known complete copy of the Hebrew Torah was discovered in the library there, a parchment scroll wrongly catalogued as belonging to the seventeenth century. The scroll has now been authenticated to the late 1100s. I was one of those who worked on the authentication.
‘I am currently working on a catalogue of all extant copies of La Divina Commedia. Of course, there are no surviving copies in Dante’s own hand, but at least four hundred copies from the fourteenth century are known to exist. Many are in the possession of private collectors. The copy here at the Asiatic Society is molto importante because of its age.’
‘Is it true that Mussolini once offered a million dollars for it?’
Belzoni flashed a rueful smile. ‘It is true that Il Duce was obsessed by Dante. But then, so are many Italians. He is the man who gave us the Italian we now speak. The Divine Comedy is not just one of the great works of world literature; in Italy, it established the Tuscan dialect as our national language.’
‘You’ve studied it for a long time?’
‘All my life.’
‘Tell me, who might be interested in the manuscript? I mean, someone who would go to any lengths to possess it.’
He waved his hands around as if conducting an invisible symphony. ‘There are unscrupulous collectors everywhere – the trade in rare manuscripts is very lucrative. I once held in my hands a stolen copy of De revolutionibus orbium coelestium by Copernicus, the book that redefined our place in the cosmos. The collector had paid thirty thousand dollars for it. In his private vault, we found another of the rarest manuscripts in the world, a 1455 Gutenberg Bible, one of only forty-nine that still exist. The Gutenberg Bible was one of the first books created using mass-printed movable type, the technique Johannes Gutenberg invented.
‘Rare manuscripts are not simply valuable artefacts. They are our connection to our past, the building blocks by which humanity has ascended the steps towards enlightenment.’ His eyes shone. ‘Can you imagine what it would be like to return to the past and walk through the halls of the Great Library of Alexandria? To hold in my hands the original works of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, men who have shaped human thought for two thousand years?’ He sighed. ‘Of course, not everyone holds knowledge in such esteem. Sometimes, illuminated manuscripts are butchered – the engravings they contain are cut out and traded in the art market, piece by piece.’ A shudder passed through him. ‘I will do one thing for you. During my career, I have come across many international dealers who might be able to traffic the Divine Comedy manuscript. I will contact them discreetly and find out if they have heard anything.’
‘You expect honesty from them?’
‘They are fiercely competitive. If one has it, the others will not hesitate to volunteer his name.’
She nodded unenthusiastically. If the manuscript had already found its way into the hands of such a dealer, then the case had already moved beyond her purview.
His dark eyes lingered on her. ‘It is unusual, sì, a poliziotta in your country? A woman, I mean?’
‘Is it usual in Italy?’
He conceded the point. ‘Our polizia is very, how you say, cosa di maschi – a male thing.’
‘When I put on my uniform I forget that I’m a woman,’ said Persis. ‘All that matters is the task at hand.’
‘Le chiedo scusa. I did not mean to cause offence.’
‘I’m not offended. Just . . . tired of the question. Sometimes I feel like a zoo animal, a rare exhibit. Maybe as rare as one of your manuscripts.’
He nodded sympathetically, but said nothing.
‘How did you end up here?’ she asked. ‘I mean, after the war . . .’
‘Ah. I was wondering how long before you mention the war. Mussolini and our Pope, together they have ruined Italy’s reputation. All I can say is that not all of us wore the Camicia Nera.’
‘Did you know of Healy before you arrived here?’
‘Yes, of course. His reputation as a scholar is excellent. I contacted the Society and asked for permission to view the manuscript. When they informed me that Healy was working on a new translation of La Divina Commedia, I was delighted.’
‘What did you make of him? I mean, what kind of man was he?’
The question seemed to surprise him. ‘A very private man. I am Italian. We are like Indians. We live for food, family, and conversation. But Healy . . .’
‘Did you get to know him well?’
‘I don’t think I got to know him at all.’
‘Looking back, is there anything that he said or did that might offer a clue as to why he may have taken the manuscript or where?’
He shook his head. ‘I can think of nothing.’
She pulled her notebook from her pocket. ‘I discovered this written on the back of a mirror in his home. Does it mean anything to you?’
She waited as he scanned the odd inscription.
‘What makes you think this has anything to do with Healy?’
‘It was written in his hand.’ She leaned forward. ‘I believe that Healy has left behind clues. I believe he wants us to find him.’
‘Why would a man steal one of the most valuable historical artefacts in the world and then leave a trail for those following him? It makes no sense.’ He waved the notebook at her. ‘These words make no sense.’
She sat back, disappointed. ‘Are you planning to return to Italy?’
‘I cannot. My work with the manuscript is not yet complete. And now I cannot leave the country while it is missing.’ He stood. ‘You must find it, Inspector. Rapidamente. This has the makings of a political disaster.’
Chapter 9
As disasters went, the recent death of the city’s chief pathologist, Dr John Galt, had struck Persis as particularly tragic, more so given that his replacement was a man who could not have differed more – in look and temperament – from the patrician Englishman.
She arrived at the Grant Medical College in good time for the scheduled post-mortem, making her way quickly into the interior of the depressingly bleak building – it always put her in mind of some ogre’s keep with its multiple turrets and austere façade. She recalled reading somewhere that entrance exams had once included a test based on Milton’s Paradise Lost. She’d often wondered how mastery of a novel about the fall of man might be a reasonable examination of someone’s ability to carry out surgical procedures on the college’s hapless early victims. On the plus side, the college had decreed that admittance would not be decided on the basis of caste or creed.
Only women, of course, were barred from applying.
A plaque outside the mortuary declared that the very first autopsy had been conducted there in 1882. She wondered briefly who that unfortunate
individual had been and whether his misfortune had extended beyond death to having a man as incompetent as Raj Bhoomi hacking away at his cadaver.
Perhaps she was being unfair.
In the short while that she’d known him, Bhoomi had proved a more than able pathologist. It was his manner that set her teeth on edge.
She found him in the autopsy suite on the first floor, examining a corkboard on to which had been pinned a series of photographs of women.
He heard her enter and turned, a small man, bulbous-nosed, peering at her through round-framed spectacles. She saw that he’d tidied up his moustache. The last time she’d seen it, it had resembled a spider that had crawled under his nose and died there. An odd smell emanated from him . . . She realised, with a faint horror, that it was some sort of aftershave, as powerful as a gas leak.
‘What do you think?’ He turned back to the board and waved at the photographs.
She looked at the women, the sad faces, the glassy-eyed stares. The pictures had been taken during life, but now, transformed by death and the macabre environment of the morgue, they reminded her of shades, wavering between this world and the next.
‘It’s . . . terrible,’ she said. What else was there to say?
Bhoomi looked confused. ‘What is?’
She waved at the women. ‘Their misfortune.’
He coloured, his back stiffening. ‘Inspector, I must say I find that rather insulting.’
It was her turn to look confused. ‘I don’t follow.’
‘Well, I would hardly label the prospect of encountering me a misfortune.’
‘And I would have thought that anyone who ends up here must be unfortunate indeed.’
They stared at each other. Then Bhoomi said, gently, ‘Inspector, these women are not dead. They’re prospective brides. My mother is attempting to arrange my marriage.’
An apology stumbled around her mouth. She was saved from having to force it out by the arrival of George Fernandes.
The sub-inspector bundled into the anteroom, led in by a heavy smell of sweat.
