More Bodies Will Fall

by Ankush Saikia

  ‘When were the police last here?’ he asked her.

  ‘Oh, a long time ago. During the winter.’

  In the other room the wide bed against one wall was covered with a flowery bedcover. Above it was a small shelf with a couple of books. The windows had been blocked with a plyboard to keep the heat out, and one had the air-conditioner fixed in it. The old blue Godrej almirah had a couple of decorative magnets and stickers on it, and one magnet held a photo in place: Amenla, and another girl and a youth, again in formal church wear.

  ‘Her elder sister and brother,’ Mrs Sodhi said, again from the doorway. Did she have the same superstitions as the maid?

  ‘So that morning you found her body in here?’ he asked, in an attempt to confirm the newspaper story.

  She nodded. ‘Yes. Lying on the bed as if she was sleeping. The poor girl. I couldn’t sleep for a few days after that.’

  ‘What condition was the room in? Did it look like a struggle had taken place?’

  ‘There were things moved around here and there. Not really like a struggle though.’

  ‘Okay. And who tidied up the room again? The police?’

  ‘No, that was her cousin sister, Nancy. A few months ago. Said she had asked Amenla’s father.’

  ‘Since her . . . death, who all have been up here?’

  ‘Just her family members, including Nancy. Also my husband and I. And our worker.’

  ‘Does Nancy stay in Delhi?’

  ‘No, she was visiting. She had come from the North-east.’

  Arjun looked around the room. Beside the almirah was a wooden desk with newspapers and magazines on it. Opposite the bed was a flat-screen computer monitor on a TV table, a DVD player and a set-top box below it, along with a stack of DVDs. Hanging on the wall above the monitor was a Nagaland state government calendar from the previous year, and a carved and polished length of bamboo. By the door was a shoe rack with a collection of Amenla’s high heels, sneakers and sandals.

  ‘Was she a stylish girl?’ Arjun asked. ‘Paid attention to her clothes?’

  ‘Yes, she was. Most of them are, girls from the North-east.’

  ‘This almirah, is it locked?’

  ‘The keys are in one of the desk drawers.’

  He moved to the light-brown plastic door at the far side of the room and opened it. A small, neat bathroom, with buckets and mugs, and shampoo bottles and cosmetics on shelves beside the sink. But now there were also cobwebs on the walls, stains on the floor, and a damp, mouldy smell. He closed the bathroom door. Beside it was a raised alcove in the wall with two suitcases. He heard a phone ring—the old Nokia tune—and then Mrs Sodhi’s voice. As she talked outside he went across to the desk and opened the three drawers one by one. There was a heavy bunch of keys in the first drawer and he took those out. Apart from that the contents were a mix of the useful, the sentimental and the plain junk: a torch, measuring tape, scissors, a hammer, bank and telecom company bills, a pair of worn leather gloves, an open packet of nails, a small broken lock, the prospectus of a Canadian university, candles, an unopened condom at the back, mosquito repellent refill, an unopened packet of naphthalene balls, a set of unused postcards from the Himalayas, coins . . . all of it the unremarkable detritus of a person’s life.

  ‘Achcha, listen Mr Arora, I have to go down to take a courier delivery,’ he heard Mrs Sodhi say from the door. ‘Some book my husband had ordered. You’ll manage by yourself? I’ll come up again.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Arjun. ‘Go ahead.’

  After she had left he switched on the tube light and tried the keys till he could open the almirah. Neatly folded clothes, jackets on hangers, bottles of perfume. A flowery feminine smell mixed with stale, mouldy air. On one shelf was a small pile of undergarments, folded as neatly as the clothes. There was an inner compartment, unlocked, with some papers and trinkets inside it. He stood there looking at this intimate collection of the dead girl’s belongings. Closing the almirah, he remembered her father’s bowed head the previous morning. Wouldn’t it be better to just drop the case instead of giving the old man another reason to be disappointed?

  What else now? The suitcases, both unlocked, had some woollen clothes and old magazines inside them. He looked at the books on the shelf above the bed. The bed, where Amenla would have lain lifeless, waiting to be found—he put his hands under the mattress, lifted it up and leant it against the wall. Below were two plyboard covers with handles, for turning the bed into a storage unit. He lifted one and looked inside: the cavity was lined with folded newspapers and held a quilt and two blankets inside plastic covers, the Chinese kind, maybe brought by Amenla from Dimapur.

  He looked around the room. Was that it? His eyes fell on the polished length of bamboo on the wall, and on an impulse he took it down. The sides were carved with simple motifs. An ordinary item in Nagaland, but here in this room in Delhi it seemed special. Arjun took it near the bed and angled it, peered inside: by the light from the tube he noticed a speck of red at the bottom of the cylinder, where the joint was. He turned the cylinder around and shook it over his left hand but nothing came out. He banged it twice on the table, and something fell out.

  It was a small, round tablet, pinkish red and roughly the size of the nail on his small finger, with the edges crumbling. There was something stamped on it. He quickly tore off a square of newspaper from the inside of the bed and folded the tablet in it. Then he hung up the bamboo. He had replaced the mattress and was smoothing the bed cover when Mrs Sodhi called out, ‘So, have you found anything?’

  Arjun turned around, and shrugged. ‘Nothing of any note,’ he said. The folded piece of paper was in the coin pocket of his jeans.

  ‘Yes, I don’t know what her father expects you to find over here. Of course I didn’t tell him that. He’s suffered enough as it is.’

  Arjun picked up the heavy bunch of keys. ‘What were these for?’

  ‘The keys to the grille below, and also to her room and the outside door. Why don’t you come down and have some tea?’

  ‘Do you mind if I take a few photographs?’ he asked, and took out his phone and took a few photos of the bedroom and bathroom, the kitchen and terrace, before going down.

  5

  ‘YOUR PARENTS, WHERE ARE THEY?’ Mrs Sodhi asked as she placed the tray on the centre table.

  ‘Here in Delhi,’ Arjun said, then added, ‘They’re in their seventies now.’

  ‘Do they stay with you?’ she asked, handing him a large cup of tea and putting the plate of chocolate biscuits within easy reach.

  ‘No. They stay in west Delhi.’

  Arjun took a sip of the tea. Sweet and milky. He really didn’t want to be discussing family matters, but he needed to start talking to her to get what he wanted.

  ‘I hope you visit them? My son stays in Singapore, but he calls us every night.’

  Must be running up quite a bill, Arjun thought, and said, ‘Yes. Every week.’

  ‘And your family?’ Mrs Sodhi went on, settling herself comfortably in one of the cane chairs. ‘Wife? Children?’

  ‘We have a daughter. They’re here in Delhi.’ He put the cup down on the table—enough small talk already. ‘Was there anybody in the first-floor flat that night?’

  ‘Yes, my son Vivek had come from Singapore. He comes home every two months or so. He was very disturbed by it.’

  ‘What is he doing there?’

  ‘He’s a doctor. On contract with a hospital group. Neurosurgery.’

  Arjun nodded. ‘Is he single? Married?’

  ‘Married with two children.’ Mrs Sodhi pointed at a framed photo on a side table, which showed two adults and two small children.

  ‘Does he plan to come back to Delhi?’

  ‘Yes, after his contract is over next year. I hope he comes. We miss our grandchildren.’

  Arjun smiled. ‘So who else was in the house that night?’

  ‘The same people as always: me, my husband and our helpers, Mala and Suresh.’

&nb
sp; Arjun had caught a glimpse of a short woman in a sari when he had entered.

  ‘Where do they stay, the helpers?’

  ‘In a room at the back. See . . .’ she put her cup down and gesticulated with her hands to help her explain what she had to say, ‘. . . they’re a middle-aged couple, and after Mala has made dinner they go out through the kitchen and I lock the door from inside. Usually around 9 p.m.’

  ‘Okay. And anyone wanting to come in has to ring one of the outside bells?’

  Mrs Sodhi nodded, and answered Arjun’s next question even before he asked it: ‘We didn’t have any visitors that night. Vivek and his family were down here and had dinner with us. They left late. We were watching a movie.’

  ‘Around what time?’

  ‘Close to midnight.’

  ‘And you had shut the iron grille by then?’

  Mrs Sodhi nodded again. ‘At 11 p.m. as usual.’

  ‘What time did you lock the kitchen door?’

  ‘A bit late that night, as my son and his family were here. About 10 p.m. I would say.’

  ‘Did Amenla have any visitors that night?’

  ‘Not that I know of, no.’

  ‘If she had a visitor, you might not have known? With all of you inside, here?’

  ‘Yes, there could have been someone. But she didn’t have too many friends.’

  Arjun drank some tea and helped himself to a biscuit. The red tablet, he thought briefly, what was it?

  ‘The light outside the first-floor door: you put it off every morning?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, there’s a switch on the outside, same as on the top floor. I used to put off the top-floor light too. Even if Amenla had a holiday, she would be sleeping at the time I got up.’

  ‘That night, do you remember if her light was on at any time?’

  Mrs Sodhi thought for a moment. ‘Yes, after I spoke to Amenla that evening I was standing at the gate for a while because Vivek and his family hadn’t returned yet. When I went back inside I saw that her outside light was on.’

  ‘So sometime during the night someone put off the light? It could have been her too?’

  ‘Yes, I guess so.’

  ‘Okay. What sort of a girl was Amenla?’

  ‘She was a nice girl, very pleasant, very polite. She was almost like a daughter to us.’

  ‘Not too many friends, you said?’

  ‘She had a small circle. There were two girls and a boy I used to see sometimes.’

  ‘Who were they? Do you know their names?’

  ‘The girls were from the North-east, I don’t recall their names. They were her roommates earlier, in another flat. The boy was from here itself, Delhi. Rohit, his name was.’

  ‘Was he her boyfriend?’

  ‘Well, he used to visit her. Things are different nowadays from our times, aren’t they? I had started seeing less and less of him though. The day before her day off, they had a fight.’

  The maid, Mala, came in to ask what to cook for lunch. Arjun looked around the cool, shaded sitting room as Mrs Sodhi gave her directions. An upper-middle-class Punjabi family, he sensed, more broad-minded than usual. When the maid had left, Arjun asked, ‘Your husband . . . is he at home?’

  ‘He’s gone to the bank. Should be back in a while.’

  ‘Achcha. This fight you mentioned, you saw it?’

  ‘I heard it, from the steps outside. They were shouting at each other on the terrace. Then the door at the top banged, and he stormed out of here.’

  ‘What were they fighting about, could you hear?’

  Mrs Sodhi shook her head. ‘I just heard their voices raised at each other. And then he rushed off, didn’t even say a word to me. He was a very cocky boy.’

  ‘Had you heard them fighting before?’

  ‘No. It was the first time. I was surprised to hear Amenla shouting.’

  ‘You mentioned this to the police?’

  ‘Yes, I told them. But they let him go. Anyway, being guilty or innocent doesn’t matter in this country, does it? What matters is who you know.’

  ‘Is his father someone influential?’

  ‘Must be, the way he walks around.’

  Arjun leant forward on his chair. ‘Do you think he killed Amenla?’

  ‘It could be him.’ Mrs Sodhi rubbed her nose and looked away. ‘Or someone else.’

  ‘Just the two of you in this house. Doesn’t that worry you?’

  ‘Not really. The building next door has a guard on watch during the night.’

  ‘What time does he get there?’

  ‘9 p.m. He was there that night. Says he didn’t see anything odd.’

  ‘Okay. Mrs Sodhi, you said Amenla would let you know if she was going out and was going to be late. How would she get back inside then?’

  ‘She had her own set of the grille keys—you saw them. And we trusted her.’

  ‘Do you think her . . . boyfriend stayed over sometimes?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. Maybe occasionally, but not regularly.’

  ‘Did she feel at home staying here?’

  ‘Yes, I think so. She never had any complaints. Her parents had visited her here too.’

  The doorbell rang, and Mrs Sodhi got up to open the door. Arjun looked at the photo on the side table of the son and his family. A tall man, wearing glasses, an oversized polo tee hanging on his lanky frame. How old would he be? Around Arjun’s age maybe? He seemed to Arjun as someone who might have been bullied at school. Mr Sodhi came into the room. He was tall as well, with a slight stoop, and he took off the blue blazer he had been wearing.

  ‘Want to have a cup of tea?’ his wife asked him.

  He shook his head and sat down. ‘Just a glass of water, please.’

  Mild-mannered, with the wife seemingly the dominant one in the marriage. Could that have had a bearing on the son?

  ‘This is Arjun Arora. The detective Amenla’s father had told us about.’

  Mr Sodhi nodded at him. ‘You’ve been up to see her room?’

  ‘Yes, I had a look.

  ‘Did you find anything?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I also have to look at the police report and talk to her friends.’

  Mrs Sodhi came in and handed her husband a glass of water and then left the room.

  ‘Very sad it was,’ Mr Sodhi said, and drank the water. ‘Such a nice girl.’

  ‘How did she find your place?’

  ‘She was staying in Humayunpur nearby, and she asked someone from Nagaland who had opened a cafe there if they knew of any places available in Safdarjung Enclave. The cafe owner knew a girl from Manipur who was staying here but was going to vacate the place.’

  ‘Why was she vacating the place?’

  ‘She was moving to Mumbai. Amenla came and saw it, and decided to take it.’

  ‘You were okay letting out the place to girls from the North-east? Some people . . .’

  Mr Sodhi raised a hand to interrupt Arjun. ‘I don’t have any problems with them. We were in the North-east for a few years, you know, when I was in the telecom department.’

  Arjun nodded. ‘Do you plan to let out the place again?’

  ‘Yes. My wife and I wanted to remove her things and get the place painted. Let someone else take the place. Mr Longkumer is paying the rent, but there are too many memories. We’ve told him so, and he understands. He’s just asked for a month or two more. To see if anything might still be found.’

  ‘Do you have any ideas about who might have done it?’

  Mr Sodhi shook his head. ‘I can’t say. Such a gentle girl she was, Amenla. But it must have been someone who knew her.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘She wouldn’t have opened the door otherwise.’

  His wife returned to the sitting room with a black shoebox in her hands which she handed over to Arjun.

  ‘Some of Amenla’s things. Her father put them in a box and asked me to hold them for a while. You might want to have a look.’

  Arjun op
ened the cardboard lid: inside were a passport, a Nagaland driving licence, a bundle of currency notes, a longish leather wallet, some jewellery, a couple of envelopes with stamps on them, an old diary and a small-sized photo album. He said, ‘Can I keep this for a while?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Mrs Sodhi said, looking at her husband, who shrugged.

  ‘And one more thing. Can I have a look at the workers’ room please?’

  ‘Come this way,’ Mrs Sodhi said, appearing slightly irritated now.

  She led him through the dining area abutting the sitting room and into the large, well-equipped kitchen where the maid was washing dishes at the sink. At its end was an open double door, and through it Arjun could see a shed-like structure with a tin roof at the corner of the high outer walls. He went down two steps and approached the door of the rough brick dwelling where an old sari hung in place of a curtain. Mrs Sodhi called out from behind him, ‘Suresh, one minute,’ and the sari was pushed aside and a balding, middle-aged man with a tired face came out. He was wearing a faded vest, and looked the epitome of the anonymous urban worker, the type who wouldn’t warrant a second glance from anyone when he was out on the street.

  ‘Where are you both from?’ Arjun asked, after Mrs Sodhi had explained why he was there.

  ‘Sonepat in Haryana, sahab.’

  Arjun asked him what he recalled of the day when Amenla’s body had been found. Suresh said that he had woken up around 5 a.m. as usual and was sweeping the driveway when madam had come hurrying down to tell him that something was wrong with Amenla.

  ‘You didn’t know she was dead by then?’ Arjun asked Mrs Sodhi.

  ‘I wasn’t sure . . . I hoped she wasn’t . . . I couldn’t even think of it at that time.’

  ‘What happened after that?’ he asked Suresh. The worker had gone upstairs with Mrs Sodhi, they found out Amenla wasn’t breathing and then they had called the police. Arjun asked him what they had done the previous night after finishing work in the house.