by Vaseem Khan
Persis knew about the place – it wasn’t far from her father’s bookshop. She’d never ventured inside. ‘You’re implying our victim might have worked there?’
He ran a sleeve across his mouth. ‘Yes.’
She considered this. ‘We should pay the place a visit.’
His shoulders seemed to sag. He couldn’t meet her eyes.
Understanding dawned. ‘You already went there.’
‘I’m the case lead,’ he muttered. ‘I didn’t see the need to wait.’
She counted to five. ‘So, what happened?’
‘I – uh . . .’ He lapsed into silence.
‘They gave you the runaround, didn’t they?’
He looked up at her sharply, daggers in his eyes. ‘I’ll try again.’
‘No.’ Anger constricted her throat. ‘I’ll go. Where are the photographs from the morgue?’
With great reluctance, he pulled open a drawer and dug out a brown envelope.
Inside, she found a sheaf of photographs. Most were too macabre to be of any use, except to the coroner, but there was one, a close-up of the face, that would do. The woman looked almost peaceful, as if she were sleeping.
She walked back to her desk, swept up her cap, and stalked out, aware of Fernandes’s gaze burning a hole in her back.
Chapter 17
Her thoughts lingered on Fernandes as she drove to Nariman Point. Her reaction had been disproportionate to his offence, if there was even an offence there. But everything about Fernandes seemed offensive to her these days. Despite Seth’s rationalisations, she couldn’t bring herself to forgive him. Not just for the betrayal, but for harbouring the attitudes that he did.
Halfway to her destination, she changed her mind.
Fernandes had charged into Le Château des Rêves and attempted to extract information from whoever was in charge there. She could imagine him blundering around like a gorilla at a tea party. But if this was the sort of place where Brits and other foreigners still congregated to play out the fantasy of empire, then she might have just as hard a time of it as Fernandes. She was under no illusion that her senior rank would magically open doors for her. And she was loathe to go back to Seth and ask him to pull strings for her. A dead white woman might be a stink on his doorstep that he could do without, but she wasn’t important enough for him to beg favours from his former friends on the force. Assuming that he still had any.
She turned the jeep around and headed home.
Back at the bookshop, she found her father chatting to Mrs Farnsworth, a seventy-year-old Englishwoman who’d been frequenting the shop for years. Mrs Farnsworth was one of those who’d stayed behind after independence, weathering the difficult years of the sundering with a belligerence as thick as armour plating. Her husband had been some sort of civil service apparatchik; he’d died from dysentery in 1942. Mrs Farnsworth had mourned him for precisely two days, then got on with her life. She taught English at a school in Cuffe Parade. Her class ordered books by the dozen from the Wadia Book Emporium. An opinionated woman, whose pulpit was anywhere she could find an audience, she remained one of her father’s favourite customers.
Persis said a quick hello to the pair, then headed upstairs. It was almost six.
She showered off the day’s sweat, then opened her wardrobe. Akbar leaped gracefully on to the bed behind her and settled on to his paws.
It wasn’t that she didn’t have dresses. Aunt Nussie made it a point to buy her the latest fashions, part of her ongoing mission to transform Persis into the woman she felt her only niece could and should be. She wore them sometimes – a family wedding, an unavoidable party. Truth be told, she enjoyed dressing up on occasion.
It was dressing up for others that put her off.
She now picked out a knee-length black cocktail dress with short sleeves, floral lace shoulders and a white belt. A pair of black peep-toe heels and a small black hat in the shape of a fitted turban completed the ensemble. As an afterthought, she applied bright red lipstick.
She turned to Akbar. ‘How do I look?’
The tomcat slunk off the bed and slipped out of the room.
She took a cab to the nightclub, arriving just after eight. On the door, she discovered a towering Sikh, who nodded at her as she stood there taking in the exterior. Le Château des Rêves. It was nondescript: a white stucco façade and a flat terracotta roof, with a small, lit sign above the door. Nothing to suggest that it deserved its rather grand name or what went on inside.
She passed through a cloakroom where a bored-looking white girl stared sullenly at a landscape on the wall as if assessing its value for the Louvre. She wore round-framed spectacles, was a little too plump for the dress she had squeezed herself into, and had a book open on the counter before her.
With nothing to deposit, Persis moved through the anteroom and arrived at a counter where a slim, officious white gentleman looked at her as if a polar bear had just walked through the door. He was absurdly neat, as if he’d been manufactured by a German doll company, his blond hair glued to his head, his cheeks stropped to a shine. A portrait of Charles de Gaulle hung on the wall behind him. He asked her, in a thick French accent, if she was ‘with companion’.
She took out her police ID and held it under his nose. His pasted-on smile crumbled like a Roman arch. ‘I shall fetch the owner.’
‘No need. I’m just here to spend a quiet evening.’
‘But—’ he began, then tailed off, as she set down a sum of cash on the counter. ‘I’m just here to let off a little steam. We don’t need to make a big deal out of it, do we? On the other hand, I could come back in an hour, in uniform, with a team of boys from the local station. How’s that going to benefit anyone?’
He stared at her, then scooped the cash under the counter. A nod.
She turned and walked away, and into the club proper.
It was small, a lot smaller than she had supposed, gloomily lit, with two dozen cabaret tables, a bar, and a stage on which a jazz trio was playing a tune she half recognised: ‘How Blue Can You Get’. Half of the tables were occupied – almost entirely by white patrons. Scantily clad waitresses in French-maid outfits moved between the tables. A fog of cigarette smoke gave the murk an additional layer of depth.
She hesitated.
An hour earlier, her plan had seemed straightforward. Bursting in here in uniform like George Fernandes would have been pointless. But now . . . she felt strangely naked, out of place.
She walked to the bar and slipped on to a stool.
The bartender, a young white man in a blue tux, smiled at her. ‘What can I get you, miss?’
‘I’ll have a whisky. Black Dog.’
He turned away to fix her drink. She twisted around in her seat to find a woman bearing down on her. Tall, lithe, in a stunning red cocktail dress that ended above her knees, and heralded by a gust of perfume. She had the face of a model: high cheekbones, a wide forehead, and catlike eyes. Raven hair fell in a curtain around her bare shoulders.
She slipped on to the stool beside Persis and beamed at her. ‘You’re a first-timer.’
It was a statement, not a question.
The woman set a small red leather handbag on to the bar. From this she now produced a silver cigarette case, which she offered to Persis.
‘No. Thank you.’
‘Suit yourself.’ She lit a cigarette, a manoeuvre performed with considerable elegance. ‘I don’t suppose you’d care to buy a lady a drink?’
Persis hesitated, then nodded. The woman nodded at the barman, who seemed to know what she wanted without her having to utter the words. He returned in short order, with the Black Dog, and an expensive cocktail for her companion.
‘My name’s Arabella,’ said the woman, holding out a manicured hand. Her accent was French, but only vaguely so, as if it had been watered down.
‘Persis.’
‘Unusual to find a lone woman in here.’
‘So I’m discovering.’
‘What brings
you in?’
‘Curiosity.’
‘Ah. You’re a tourist and we’re the local zoo.’
‘A very expensive one.’
‘Yes. Well, our clientele is quite exclusive.’
‘Let me guess: white men with money to burn?’
Arabella ran a finger around the rim of her glass. ‘Occasionally, a white woman. One with desires that are difficult to satisfy. I’m guessing that’s why you’re here. It’s not my usual ride, but I’ll happily oblige if you tell me what you’d like.’
Persis flushed. She sipped at her drink, then set it down. ‘I’m here because I’m investigating the murder of a woman. I believe she may have worked here.’ She rummaged in her handbag and took out the photograph, setting it down on the counter.
Her companion froze, her gaze locked to the photo. A muscle quivered at her jaw. ‘Who are you?’
‘My name is Inspector Persis Wadia.’
‘You’re with that policeman who came in earlier, aren’t you?’
‘You spoke to him?’
‘No. I heard it from Jimmy.’ She nodded at the bartender. ‘Apparently, your friend spoke with Jules.’
‘Jules?’
‘Jules Aubert. He runs this place. He probably thought it was just another shakedown.’
Persis imagined that for a place like this to survive undisturbed, money would be exchanging hands. The venality of Bombay’s police force was not in question; the only question was how high up the chain the largesse flowed.
‘You recognise her, don’t you?’
Arabella hesitated. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t get involved.’
‘You are involved. You’re involved because you knew her. That places an obligation on you.’
‘I know what this must look like to you. But this place isn’t so bad. The men that come here aren’t your garden-variety john. They pay well, and we get to keep most of it.’
‘What was her name?’
A silence. ‘Francine. Francine Kramer.’
‘She was your friend?’
She stubbed out her cigarette and immediately lit another. ‘What happened to her?’
‘She was strangled and then her body was dumped on to railway lines. A train cut off her legs at the knees.’ There had been no need to mention this, but Persis wanted to see the woman’s reaction.
Arabella’s eyes flickered, and then her head dropped to her chest, as if she were offering up a prayer. ‘Oh, Francine.’ She sobbed quietly on her stool, before straightening with a shiver. She picked up her drink and slugged it fiercely, then wiped the tears from her cheeks, her expression hardening. ‘She was one of the good ones, you know? Some of us do this because we got ourselves into a mess and this is the only way out. Francine wasn’t like that. She came to Bombay to find a new life for herself. Tried to make it at a regular job, but she wasn’t really cut out for anything. She ended up here one day and somehow Jules convinced her to join his enterprise.’
‘He forced her?’
‘No. Jules doesn’t force any of us. He just makes it awfully difficult to get out once you’re in.’
‘If Francine had wanted to leave, do you think he might have . . . ?’
‘Jules wouldn’t hurt any of us, Inspector. Not physically. He’s not that type of man. Besides, he has too much to lose. This place works because he has the best girls in the city. We’ll put up with a lot of things, but not brutality.’
A man loomed out of the smoke. He was big, hefty, like a wrestler gone to seed, but dressed like a banker. A beautiful grey suit with a patterned silk tie, a gold tie-pin, gold cufflinks, and a gold watch. His hair was black, shaved to the scalp on either side, and combed flat on top, much like the pictures of Hitler Persis had seen during the war years. The only things missing were the toilet-brush moustache and the eyes like dead flies. A strong aftershave rode ahead of him like Pestilence, the fourth horseman. ‘Ladies. May I have the honour of buying you a drink?’ The accent was English.
Arabella flicked ash on to the floor. ‘No, thank you.’
‘Ah. You are already spoken for. I understand. What about your companion?’ He turned his lighthouse grin on to Persis. ‘You have an exotic look. Are you one of these Anglo-Indians I’ve been hearing about? I’d be delighted to make your acquaintance.’
‘You can’t afford her,’ snapped Arabella.
His eyebrows rose marginally in amusement. ‘I am a man of some means.’ His eyes stayed on Persis. ‘Name your price.’
Arabella blurted out an astronomical sum. He laughed gently, then realised she wasn’t joking. ‘That’s ludicrous.’
‘So is the idea of a man like you pawing at a girl like her. But that didn’t stop you, now, did it?’
His features folded into confusion. He raised a finger as if poised to begin an oration, then turned and shambled away.
Arabella picked up her drink. ‘Dammit.’
‘Will you get into trouble?’
‘Jules will huff and puff for a while, but he has a soft spot for me. He doesn’t have many French girls left. I remind him of his sister. Apparently.’
‘Tell me about Francine.’
‘Francine was a sweetheart. I mean, you need a certain temperament to work in a place like this, but Francine – Francine had been through much worse. This place was nothing.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean that when she came here, she was hollowed out. Something happened to her during the war, something bad enough to send her out here, to India. She was just a kid then. She had this look. The Americans call it the thousand-yard stare.’
‘Where was she from?’
‘I don’t know. Francine never talked about her past. Frankly, most of us don’t. But if I had to guess, judging from her accent, somewhere in Eastern Europe.’
Persis realised her tumbler was empty. She ordered another. ‘I’ve been told that you get a lot of military personnel in here.’
‘Hardly a revelation. We’re a brothel.’
Persis reached into her handbag and took out the RAF brooch. ‘Do you recognise this?’
Arabella held the brooch lightly in her palm. Sadness infected her expression. ‘Silly girl,’ she whispered, then: ‘She used to wear this all the time. Some English fly boy working at the Embarkation HQ gave it to her before he rotated back out, told her he was going to come back for her after the war. Beautiful kid. Who knows, maybe he even thought he was telling the truth.’ Her hand closed over the brooch. ‘I told her to get out. I told her to walk away.’
‘Why didn’t she?’
‘I think she was punishing herself. She wanted to stay here until she was rescued, until someone told her that whatever had happened in her past, whatever she’d done, it was forgiven.’
Persis dwelt on this, trying to imagine the woman whose mutilated corpse they’d found on railway tracks in this environment, shimmering through the smoke and music, smiling at strange men, while behind the façade: darkness and secrets.
‘Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to harm her?’
‘In here? No. Occasionally, a guy will get a little fresh, but Jules has a couple of enforcers to keep the patrons in line.’
‘Francine had a burn scar on her breast. And she’d had a child, at some point.’
‘She already had the scar when she came here. And no child in tow. Like I said, she never talked about her past.’
‘Did she have friends outside the club?’
‘Most of the girls tend not to drift too far. No point setting down roots, making friends, that sort of thing. Francine was here a good long while. She had her own place. But she never talked about friends. She kept herself to herself.’
‘What about men?’
Arabella smiled. ‘Do you know what a lover is for women like us, Inspector? A client who doesn’t pay for it.’ She drained her glass. ‘Before I ended up here, I was a jazz singer. Toured the States for years. I came to Bombay as part of a jazz quartet, played three weeks in this du
mp. That’s when I got myself into hock with Jules. I like to gamble, you see. Terrible habit. Can’t seem to shake it.’ She lit another cigarette. ‘Francine was seeing someone on the outside. I don’t know who. She wouldn’t say. It was relatively recent. There was . . . something about it, though. I hadn’t seen her so worked up in years.’
‘Worked up?’
‘It wasn’t love. It was . . . something else. She’d been sleepwalking through her life, and then it was as if she’d been given a dose of salts. She was alive. I got the idea there was something dangerous about it.’ She turned her beautiful eyes on to Persis. ‘Jesus, do you think this man might have—?’
‘Can you tell me where she lived?’
Arabella continued to stare at her, then nodded. ‘Sure. It’s not far from here.’
Chapter 18
The house – a small, neat bungalow on a leafy side street off Madame Cama Road – was silent, a single street lamp casting shadows on to the iron gate. She checked her watch – ten p.m. – then looked up and down the street. Deserted.
She pushed the unlocked gate open with the palm of her hand and walked inside the small front courtyard. A concrete statue of a water nymph frolicked inside a dry fountain. She knocked on the front door – nothing. The bay window by the side of the door was curtained.
She considered her options.
She could call one of her colleagues – but that would mean calling either Birla or Fernandes at home. She dismissed the thought immediately. Hell would freeze over before she called Fernandes, and Birla had mentioned he was busy with a family dinner that evening. Alternatively, she could call one of the nearby police stations and see if anyone was on night duty. She dismissed that idea too.
