‘Do you have any ideas about who might have killed Amenla?’
‘How do I know? Must have been one of her friends.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Well, who else would come at night? And she opened the door for the person.’
He blew out a stream of smoke and checked his laptop again. There was something he was withholding, Arjun could feel it. But what was it?
‘When are you next here in Delhi?’ he asked.
‘I’m not sure. Might be some time soon. Depends on my father.’
‘Had you met Amenla’s ex-roommates, by the way? The two girls she was staying with before she moved here.’
‘No.’
‘Not even once?’
‘Never met them. I’ve heard Mama talking about them once or twice.’
‘Okay. Could you please give me your phone number and email ID? In case I need to get in touch with you.’
‘What?’ For a moment Vivek seemed lost. Then he read them out for Arjun. He stood up and started moving up and down the balcony once more.
‘Where are you working in Singapore?’ Arjun asked.
‘The Mount Elizabeth Hospital.’
‘You like it there?’
He nodded. ‘Good working environment. Actually I’m trying to get my parents there. Let’s see if it works out.’
‘Have you ever been to north-east India?’
‘No. But why? Why did you ask me that?’
‘Oh, just like that.’ Arjun rose and picked up his Gold Flake packet. ‘I thought your father was posted there for a while?’
‘Yes, but I was going to school here in Delhi, so I stayed with my aunt. My mother would keep going back and forth.’
‘Ah okay. Thank you for your time, Vivek.’
20
FROM SAFDARJUNG HE WENT BACK to CR Park, to see how his staff were handling their cases. Negi hadn’t arrived yet; he had called Liza and told her that he had to go out for a few more interviews and would return by midday. His secretary was typing out notes from their present pre-mat case. Chandu was in the inner room, sorting out bills and invoices at the junior detective’s desk. Satisfied that all was going well, Arjun turned to his computer to have a look at his emails. There were three new emails from the same ID, one that wasn’t in his address book, and he would have left them for later if it wasn’t for the subject line: ‘Nagaland girl files’. He had given Inspector Sharma his card—it mentioned his email ID.
Opening the emails, he saw that each had several attached photo files; he downloaded one file and it turned out to be a page from the case diary, dealing with the account of Amenla’s case. So the investigating officer had decided to cooperate, most probably from an anonymous email ID—Arjun knew there would be a call soon. Telling Liza that he was stepping out and might not return for the day, Arjun headed home. He would go through the case details on his laptop at home. Sure enough, just as he unlocked the front door and stepped in, his phone rang. It was Inspector Sharma.
‘Detective Arora?’ he asked.
The rough voice reminded Arjun of the unfortunate women in the cell.
‘Speaking.’
‘I’ve sent you a few emails. The mail ID was created only for that.’
‘Got them. I was just about to check them.’
‘Arora, my bosses didn’t want anything shared with you, do you understand? However, I did some checking on my own, you seem to be a useful fellow. Go ahead with your inquiries, and if you come across anything, get in touch with me, okay? Only me. Do not, under any circumstances, contact SHO Kamlesh, understood? You call me first. Understood?’
‘Don’t worry about that, Sharmaji. Anything new, you’ll hear about it first.’
‘Go through the photos of the case diary, and of the crime scene. Have you found out anything so far?’
‘Yes, there’s a link to Manipur. North-east. I might have to go there.’
There was silence at the other end, then the inspector said, ‘Good luck, detective.’
As Arjun hung up, he wondered why he had said that. He sat down at the dining table and switched on his laptop, and downloaded the photos from the three emails. If SHO Kamlesh had told Inspector Sharma not to help Arjun, then the investigating officer might be hoping Arjun would find out something which Sharma himself might not have been told about. Whatever the angle to it, he would have to be careful now that the police were involved.
He went through the crime scene photos first. They were copies of the actual photos, taken with a mobile phone probably, and could have been clearer, Arjun thought. There were photos of the door to the terrace, of the kitchen (a pot on the burner, a wooden mortar lying on the floor) and of the bedroom. He remembered Mrs Sodhi’s words: lying on the bed as if she was sleeping. It did look like that, with Amenla’s body spread out on the bed, wearing grey trackpants and a white T-shirt, her head turned to one side on the pillow. A photo taken from closer up showed red marks on her neck and darkened lips. Her eyes were closed. More photos, of the room. On the floor were a phone charger, a couple of clothes flung here and there and a lock—was it the same broken lock he had come across in the desk drawer with the other stuff? The rest of the room looked the way Arjun had found it—shoes and high heels in the shoe rack, the calendar and bamboo cylinder on the wall. The same went for the bathroom—everything in place. There were a few photos of the exterior of the room. The terrace floor was clean, and a towel and a few clothes hung on the clothesline.
Arjun went through the photos a second time, then went out to the balcony and lit a cigarette. The sky was still overcast and chilly; the park was deserted. It would seem that Amenla had been cooking when whoever killed her came up to the terrace. She might have opened the door for the person, or even opened it earlier (maybe when Abeni had called?). He thought of the second possibility because the lack of signs of a struggle suggested that she might have been taken by surprise. Had the wire of the phone charger been used to strangle her? The clothes and lock on the floor made him think of what the grocery store owner opposite the RWA gate had said: a man of medium height coming out of the lane with a suitcase and getting into a big grey SUV. In that case, the person would have been after what was inside the suitcase. What could that be?
The doorbell rang. He went to answer it, and found Rhea standing there, a plastic bag in one hand. She was wearing jeans and a red-and-black flannel shirt, with a canvas tote bag slung over her shoulder.
‘Here’s the meat,’ she said, handing him the plastic bag as she went in.
‘But how much have you bought?’ he asked, hefting the bag.
‘Two kilos. You’ll have enough for later too.’
‘Very thoughtful of you,’ he said, closing the door.
She had opened the fridge and was inspecting the items inside. Arjun took the meat to the kitchen, where he emptied it out into a colander which he placed in the sink. Rhea came in with a half-filled two-litre bottle of Coke.
‘This has been lying around since I last came here, hasn’t it?’ she asked.
‘Yes. But the cap’s closed tight. Here.’ He took the bottle, and as he twisted open the cap there was a small hiss of fizz. ‘There. Still drinkable.’
She made a face at him and poured herself a glass.
‘So how are you going to cook that?’ she asked as she watched him washing the three pink-and-white slabs.
‘With akhuni. You remember what that is?’
‘The black smelly stuff. Fermented soya beans, right?’
‘Correct. Aged akhuni given to me by someone from my football club.’
‘Oh. I thought maybe you’d make a roast.’
‘Let me roast these two pieces then. And chop this piece up and stew it with akhuni and potatoes. I’ve been craving a Naga meal for some time now.’
‘Oh, why?’
‘A case I’m working on. Let me just put this on the stove and I’ll tell you.’
‘Okay. But go easy with the chillies in the stew, all right?’
While Rhea settled down on the couch, he put two chunks of pork into the pressure cooker along with some ginger and soya sauce (after searing them in a little bit of refined oil) and half a cup of water. The other chunk he chopped up and dumped in a hot kadai, stirring it from time to time to release the juices—the ginger and garlic paste and the akhuni would follow. He put up some rice in the cooker, and then poured himself a small glass of Coke.
‘Only Coke?’ his daughter asked as he came out.
‘Yes. Dry for three months now.’
Rhea let out a low whistle. ‘I’m impressed.’
‘Go tell that to your mother,’ he said. ‘How is she, by the way?’
‘The same as ever. So, tell me about this case of yours.’
He sat down on the sofa, turned down the volume of the movie on the television, and started with Mr Longkumer’s visit. Getting up from time to time to stir the pork in the kadai and add water to the pressure cooker, he moved on to his visit to Safdarjung Enclave and the police station, then to his meetings with Abeni and Chon, Rohit Chaudhry and Vivek Sodhi. He also told her about the shoebox and the receipt from the Hungry Rabbit, the Manipur number and Tony, the meth tablet, and the emailed photos. When he was done she asked if she could see the crime scene photos.
After she went through the photos (she didn’t flinch or react in any way, he noticed) he asked her what she thought.
‘Seems complicated. But I think you need to talk to the American guy.’
‘If he decides to meet me,’ Arjun said, ‘but in the meantime there is something you can help me with.’
‘Now I see why you called me over.’
‘Don’t worry, you’ll get paid just like my employees do.’
The previous night, while he had been in the movie hall, Nancy Jamir had sent him a message with Amenla’s Facebook and Instagram details. Arjun now forwarded the message to Rhea and asked her to go through the Naga girl’s profiles. He returned to the kitchen, to crush a few green chillies and add them to the stew, where the meat pieces and potato slices were bubbling in the rich brown gravy.
‘Lunch in fifteen minutes,’ he announced.
Rhea looked up from her phone. ‘Her Facebook account has privacy settings, so only some office photos and a few links she shared are visible, along with her friend list. There’s no Tony or Anthony there. I can see Abeni and Leiyachon though. However, her Instagram account isn’t protected, and it seems she was quite active on it. Look.’
She held up her phone to him (he observed with relief that it wasn’t a new model; she was not spending too much of her stepfather’s money), and with her forefinger scrolled up, sending digital squares of Amenla’s life past his eyes.
‘Slow down, let me have a look,’ he told her.
There were photos of food, well arranged, of friends, photos from the North-east and photos of Delhi with a grimy urban feel: rickshaw drivers, tea sellers, stray dogs.
‘Interesting photos,’ Rhea commented.
‘Have a look while I get lunch ready,’ he told her.
While she pored over the photos he put the pork stew in a serving bowl, and cut slices from the roast pork. From the fridge he took some leftover dal and sabzi and heated that in the microwave. As he was laying the food on the table Rhea suddenly said, ‘Hey, what was that restaurant you mentioned, the hungry something?’
Arjun hurried over to her. ‘The Hungry Rabbit. It’s in Splendour City Mall.’
‘Look. Isn’t this Amenla herself?’
It was her. Seated at a table holding up a wine glass, she was wearing a formal cream-coloured shirt, a gentle smile on her lips.
‘Yes. But how do you know it’s the Hungry Rabbit?’ Arjun asked.
‘Look at this hashtag: #thehungryrabbit. It has to be that place. And look at the date.’
It was 15 September, the same date as on the cash receipt from the Hungry Rabbit, exactly a week before her death. The caption on the photo read: ‘A memorable lunch.’
‘But who do you think took this photo?’ he asked her.
‘Looking at her, someone special, it would seem.’
She went back to the main photo feed, and another photo beside it caught Arjun’s eye.
‘Isn’t that the Select Hotel?’ he said. ‘Click on that.’
It was the entrance to the Select Hotel, taken at an upward angle.
‘When was this put up, which date?’
Rhea checked and told him. The same day as the restaurant photo of Amenla.
‘That’s interesting,’ he commented.
‘Why?’
‘The Select Hotel is near the Splendour City Mall. So maybe . . .’
‘Whoever took the photo was staying there?’ she completed for him.
‘Exactly.’
‘So we need to go there.’
‘Only after we’ve eaten.’
They had their lunch, helping themselves to the akhuni and pork stew and the roast pork. Finally Arjun leant back in his chair, sated, while Rhea helped herself to two more slices of the roast.
‘We need to go to the Hungry Rabbit too,’ she said.
‘What good would that do?’ He explained how the mall’s CCTV system would work.
‘You never know. Some stray bit of information might come your way.’
‘I suppose you’re right. But after a while. I’m really stuffed now.’
Rhea helped him clear the table, and while she went back to the sofa and channel-surfed, he went through the photos the IO had sent him of the case diary. It was in the usual government-record-style garbled English, but thankfully the photos of the pages were clear and the writing was legible, and after he had been through them twice, he had a fair idea of the official police version.
A 100 distress call had been routed to a PCR on the Ring Road near Hyatt Regency, following which it reached the Sodhi residence and the crew saw the body. Inspector Sharma from the Safdarjung thana was informed, and he arrived thirty minutes later with a constable. The terrace was searched and statements taken from the landlord Mr Sodhi, his wife and his son. The body was transported to AIIMS for a post-mortem, and a couple of items (broken lock, phone charger, clothes) were taken as evidence. The post-mortem confirmed strangulation as the cause of death (‘strangulation by means of transverse ligature’), at sometime between 8 p.m. and midnight of the previous day. The throat bruises and internal injuries were consistent with those made by a length of wire, and the phone charger was almost certainly the instrument of murder—but there were no fingerprints on it.
Following interviews conducted by the IO, Rohit Chaudhry was arrested on suspicion of the murder, but had to be let go the next day as his friends confirmed his alibi. He had reached a friend’s place in Vasant Vihar for a party around 7.30 p.m. (the parents of the boy had seen Rohit) and had left after midnight, vouched for by the six youngsters who had still been present then. No other arrests had been made. The results of the viscera examination by the forensic science laboratory had come in about four months later, and hadn’t indicated the presence of alcohol or drugs in the body. Cursory follow-ups had been entered, but it was clear that the investigation had lost steam: there were no more suspects.
Arjun had on his own unearthed two more, Tony Haokip and Cooper Grant, but that didn’t give him any satisfaction. There were still too many unanswered questions.
21
FATHER AND DAUGHTER WERE AT the Select Hotel near the Splendour City Mall just after 4 p.m. Arjun had taken a short nap after lunch and felt the better for it. He parked at the entrance, handed the keys over to the valet and went in with Rhea. A few inquiries at the reception saw a middle-level manager come out, a woman in a sari, and she took them to the lobby, where they sat down. Arjun introduced Rhea, and then made up a convincing tale about a friend from Manipur who was missing for a year now after a trip to Delhi, and that he wanted to check the friend’s booking details at the hotel before approaching the police to lo
ok into the matter.
‘But now, after a year?’ she asked.
‘I didn’t know he had gone missing,’ Arjun said. ‘His number was switched off and I thought he had changed his number. I tried to contact him just last month, and when I called a relative of his in Imphal, the person told me that Tony had been missing for more than a year.’
‘Hadn’t they been looking for him?’
‘They thought something might have happened to him involving the army.’
‘And how do you want us to help?’
‘Just check whether Tony, or Anthony, Haokip was staying at your hotel in the month of September last year.’
The woman looked at Rhea, then asked them to follow her back to the reception. She told a receptionist to look for the name, but it drew a blank.
‘Try the words separately,’ Arjun said, ‘Tony, Anthony, Haokip.’
This time the receptionist said a Haokip had stayed at the hotel during September of the previous year.
‘Just one last thing,’ Arjun said with a smile at the receptionist, ‘could you show me a copy of his ID please?’
The receptionist looked at the manager, who nodded. A scanned copy of a licence in colour came up on the screen. Before either woman could react, Arjun had taken a photo of the monitor with his phone.
‘Thank you so much,’ he said, and hurried out with Rhea, leaving two puzzled women behind.
From the hotel they went to the Splendour City Mall, and up to the Hungry Rabbit. The resto-pub was done up in bright, vibrant colours, and handwritten signs in coloured chalk on small blackboards informed them that drinks were served along with a pan-Asian menu. It was just past 5 p.m., and only a few of the tables were occupied. Arjun looked around, and guided Rhea towards one of the far walls. A framed poster behind one of the tables caught her eye, and she turned to her father.
‘Isn’t that . . .’
‘Yes, this must be where Amenla was sitting when the photo was taken.’
He drew out the light-blue painted wooden chair and sat down. There was a good view of the whole place from here, even the outside corridor. A waitress caught his eye and came over. After going through the menu they ordered dim sums with fresh lime sodas. Rhea asked him to show her the photo of the scanned licence, and he took out his phone. It was a longish, dark-complexioned face, but definitely tribal. A middle-aged person, born 1980. The name was ‘Anthony James Haokip’.
More Bodies Will Fall Page 12
