Maya looked at the other documents in the folder. They were sermons to Salome on the same case, as well as a copy of the court judgment. The date of the judgment was 1864 December. Kerry had come to the orphanage in the same year. Salome had a daughter who was killed. Was it possible that Kerry was her daughter and that she had never been killed?
That would make the bald man with the burnt face her father, Thaddeus Cormac. But he had been sentenced to 39 years in prison, which meant that he should still be in captivity. Could it be possible that he had escaped?
SEVENTEEN
An Uncomfortable Dinner
The sky thundered and raindrops clattered noisily on the large picture window of Le Verre restaurant in Olivia Park. Maya saw her reflection against the darkened glass and adjusted her dress, regretting once more her decision to drape herself in the pink two-piece dinner dress that Ernst had gifted her during their last evening together.
The tight bodice had an open neck trimmed with ruffles, and bell-shaped sleeves ending in ribbons, while the layered skirt, which took her half an hour to drape, was queerly asymmetrical towards her hips, an ornate bustle extended behind her, making her feel at once uncomfortable and contorted. She felt itchy at the neck from the ruffles, the corset that she wore under her dress cut into her bony waist while the baggy sleeve made it almost impossible not to knock down cutlery when she moved her hand. Maya stole a glance around her and found almost all the tables occupied by women draped in dresses even more extravagant than her own. She couldn’t help but feel admiration for them. How they managed to carry these torturous garments regularly was beyond Maya. Personally, she had already resolved that this was the first and the last time that she had subjected herself to the hazardous exercise. Trying to honor Ernst’s present had turned out to be harder than expected.
He had gifted this dress to her last month when the two had gone out to watch the theatre to celebrate Ernst being given the Council Medal of Bravery 2nd Class for busting a smuggling syndicate. Maya, he had felt, had played a key role in his achievement and deserved a gift. Maya felt it would be rude to not honor their next meeting with the dress, especially since she had asked Ernst for a favor.
Maya had gone to meet him at the Vasco constabulary in the morning to seek his help to get more details about Thaddeus Cormac. She wanted to know if the convict, sentenced to 39 years in prison, was still serving his term or if he had escaped. Ernst had agreed to help but would only discuss this over dinner.
Maya, though she accepted the proposal gladly, was slightly incredulous. She found it hard to understand why Ernst would want to discuss such a small thing over dinner. It took her a complete afternoon to come to the conclusion that, perhaps, Ernst liked to spend time with her. Maya blushed at the thought but did not let it linger in her mind for long, she found it rather unsettling. She had little patience for matters of the heart, so she tried to convince herself that her relationship with Ernst was purely transactional, he was merely a policeman who was helping her in her case.
Ernst’s conduct in the restaurant left little doubt that Maya’s deduction of the afternoon had some merit. He hadn’t quit smiling ever since the two had seated themselves on a cozy corner table in the dim restaurant.
Maya cut off a kebab with a knife and put a small bit in her mouth with the fork. Using the cutlery in this expensive restaurant caused her almost as much pain as her tight corset, she was not used to such formalities while eating. The movement of her hands and fingers was clumsy and she made too much noise upon the porcelain plate. Ernst, who seemed quite accustomed to fine dining, observed her struggles with mild amusement. He was dressed immaculately in a three-piece suit which, like her own dress, seemed incredibly absurd to Maya in Cardim’s tropical weather. But she kept the thought to herself.
“Which case is it now?” asked Ernst.
Maya had lied to Ernst when the two had first met. She had told him that she was a researcher in the Bombay Detective Agency and her job was collecting information about cases that the detectives of the agency were solving. Her lie had helped immensely in getting information about a grave robber that she was after. But now, Maya felt slightly guilty about continuing her deception. She had a feeling that the two of them were friends now and falsehood between friends was not a good trait. However, she was also apprehensive about how Ernst would react if he found out that she had lied to him so that she could use his position to get help in her case.
“It is nothing much,” Maya decided to continue her deceit, “A simple case about a girl who thinks someone is following her. She thinks that man is Thaddeus Cormac who had been sentenced to 39 years in prison and should technically be still in jail. So I wanted your help to verify if that was indeed the case.”
Ernst nodded biting a piece of bread.
“Actually, that girl has some merit,” said he, “Thaddeus Cormac was released from prison ten days ago. Though his original sentence was 39 years, apparently he had excellent behavior inside the prison and so three judges recommended commuting his sentence. The process was finalized pretty quickly and now the man is out in free air. It doesn’t seem that the judges foresaw that the well-mannered prisoner would revert straight back to stalking young girls.”
Ernst chuckled, taking a sip of red wine.
Her hypothesis was correct then. The bald man was indeed Thaddeus Cormac who had managed to come out of the prison and was now desperate to avenge his false conviction. He had been successful as well, having already killed his wife and, most certainly, his daughter.
“Now, don’t ruin this beautiful evening by trying to synthesize this information here,” said Ernst breaking Maya’s line of thought, “you’ll have enough time for that when you go home.”
“No, no,” Maya smiled, “I was just thinking about this man Thaddeus how it would feel to get out in free air after 14 years in prison.”
“Forget Thaddeus,” Ernst brushed the convict aside, “Tell me what have you been up to this last month? Anything interesting since we last met?”
Maya had spent two days disguised as a beggar on the streets of Anthill earlier in the month regarding a stolen diamond, as well as broken into the den of a snake charmer filled with poisonous snakes.
“Nothing much,” she said, “it was all very dull. How about you?”
Ernst’s face lost its smile. “I would trade the dullness of your life any day,” he said moving his finger across the flame of the candle on the table, “You must have heard about the mayor’s disappearance. Why am I even asking that question, there is not a single soul around who is not spending half his day discussing this issue. Unfortunately, I am involved in the case. I have not slept in three days, have been too busy busting houses of unassuming thieves and petty criminals in the hope of stumbling upon some clue.”
“But you haven’t found any clue?”
Ernst hesitated. “Actually I am not supposed to say. But then again I think it is hardly a secret. We have made no progress, no clue at all as to where the mayor is. I am not even sure if he is alive.”
“Well, that is quite worrying,” said Maya thinking about the army of detectives of the Bombay Detective Agency who were spending all their waking hours looking for the mayor in the hope of getting the 50,000 Cowrie reward, “What about the council elections then?”
“I don’t know. They might be postponed or they might go ahead. I am only concerned about getting some sleep. I don’t intend to suffer for a Greycoat who cares not a Cowrie for my inputs and thinks that I am a foolish kid.”
“I don’t understand,” said Maya confused, “you don’t want to work in the case?”
“Yes,” said Ernst, “Initially I did. I was very interested in the case. I examined the evidence and found what I believed was a very important clue and a seemingly logical train of thought to follow. I was certain it would lead us directly to the mayor. But when I took all this to the Greycoat leading the effort, that arrogant man actually advised me to stop doing things I had no talent
for. Can you believe it, he said that I should leave the investigation part to him and his team and focus on following his orders instead. You cannot imagine how taken aback I was by his rudeness. That was the end of my zeal. I lost all interest in the case at that moment. Now I only do what I am asked. Not a bit more.”
Maya raised her eyebrow. “He told you, you were no good? And that is why you wouldn’t work on the case and follow the lead that you discovered?”
“Yes!” said Ernst struggling to hide the rage he felt when he thought about Leonard.
“But that is absurd,” Maya cried, dropping her spoon on the plate to make a stronger impression, “Countless men tell me that I cannot do this or that. I pretend not to hear them, but when I finally prove them wrong, I make sure that I let them know how wrong they were. I cannot recall how many men I have humiliated in this way. It is quite fun.”
Ernst looked up from his plate to Maya whose pale face was lit by the flickering flames of the candle on the table. It felt like she was burning, with rage or with passion, he couldn’t be sure.
“What you just said,” said Ernst inexplicably emboldened by her statement, “Is actually right.”
He gobbled up the piece of meat on his plate, drained the glass of wine, and then dropped his spoon. “You know, I should have met you earlier. Why should I care what that buffoon thinks about me? I’ll prove him wrong and then he’ll know better than to disregard my views.”
“Exactly,” Maya cheered him raising her glass of wine to drink to him.
“Thanks for jerking me awake,” Ernst said, his face firm with conviction, “I’ll get going immediately.”
He then looked at Maya, her plate still laden with food.
“I am sorry,” he said, “but if you can please hurry up, I have a burning lead which I need to follow. I cannot wait to prove Leonard Rostum wrong.”
Maya smiled and dropped her fork and knife.
“In that case,” she said rolling the sleeve of her dress, “let me drop my inhibitions and use my hand.”
EIGHTEEN
Ernst Goes to the Council
The oil lamp on the small central table in the visitor’s hall of the council building glimmered uncertainly, casting grave shadows upon the white walls. Outside the open window, the night was dark and noisy. Crickets, which had emerged in hordes after the rain, croaked hoarsely disturbing Ernst’s quest to study the attendance book of the council building.
The Lieutenant, inspired by Maya’s passionate encouragement, had decided to explore his theory about the mayor’s kidnapper without any delay. But the High Guard had overestimated his physical condition.
Ernst hadn’t slept in three days. After deducing the involvement of the Dragon Cartel in the kidnap of the mayor, Leonard had ordered a huge exercise of raiding all known hideouts of smuggling syndicates and arresting anyone involved in their activities. His theory was simple, if they could arrest enough smugglers, sooner or later they would come across someone who had knowledge about the kidnapping, or better still had a hand in it. But the theory looked better on paper than in practice. Smuggling in Cardim was a widespread operation and enjoyed the patronage of the local police who often enjoyed a cut of the smuggler’s profits. Even though a major portion of the Longstaffs and High Guards of Cardim had been assigned to follow the orders of the Director, they still were dwarfed by the size of the smugglers in the city, who, by the lowest estimates totaled more than 100 thousand in this city of 15 million people. Their powerful connections also meant that most of the gang leaders got a sniff of the impending police raids and escaped before the guards were anywhere close to them. The only people that the police managed to arrest were lowly workers and porters who knew nothing at all about their own business syndicate, let alone the kidnapping of the mayor. Ernst had his share of disagreements about the method of action, not to mention his general discontentment with Leonard upon being ignored and looked down as a young foolish police officer, but he was forced to be a participant in this planned exercise. Horace Ibrahim, the chief of the Vasco Constabulary had made him the head of a task force of five Longstaffs and given him a daily quota of three raids and at least 50 arrests. In the three days that he had been leading the task force, they had captured more than 200 men and women, most of them native porters, or migrant workers who did not have any idea why they were being rounded off. Many did not even speak English or Hindustani and there was no way that they could even be interrogated. The jail cells of the Vasco Constabulary were already bursting with people and if the exercise lasted a few days more, there would be no space left to put them. Approaching Horace to complain about the futility of the exercise had produced little effort, though the chief had decided to decrease the daily target to 20 men and 2 raids. With no hope of ever succeeding with this strategy, Ernst had decided to take it easy. He had conducted a single raid today on two brothels near the Clock Tower in the morning and arrested 25 men and women. The loud prostitutes and their customers were duly put in jails and Ernst called it a day for his team. He had decided to go home and sleep but had been greeted by Maya who wanted some information about a man called Thaddeus. Ernst had proposed to discuss it over dinner, which would still give him a full night to sleep.
But the meeting with Maya had given him renewed impetus to put his theory to practice, and, disregarding his red eyes and aching frame, Ernst had taken a hansom to the council building straight from the restaurant. He had gotten access to the attendance book of all the council offices and made himself comfortable in one of the visitor rooms.
The council building was mostly empty this late in the night and only a few guards and clerks meandered grimly through its numerous corridors.
Ernst flipped through the pages of the attendance register looking for the entries on 28th July. He was looking for the people who had come to the building on the evening of the mayor’s disappearance. His theory was straightforward. The person who the mayor had planned to meet in the council building on the evening of his disappearance had a hand in his kidnapping. But as Ernst looked through the register, he realized that his theory wasn’t as easy to prove as he had anticipated. More people came to the council building on Sunday evenings than he had initially thought. Overall, 136 people had made their entry into the building on the evening of 28th July.
Far too many to subject each to individual checks. Perhaps, Leonard Rostum had a point when he had said that his theory had loopholes.
The High Guard closed the large leather-bound register in frustration. His endeavor had hit a dead end pretty quickly. Ernst, struggling to keep his eyes open, decided to go home, there was still enough time to pilfer at least a few hours of sleep before office tomorrow. But as soon as he got up, the snobbish face of Leonard Rostum suddenly floated through the open window and burst into a ridiculing laugh. The High Guard renewed his rage-fueled conviction at the sight of the Director.
He could not give up, not so easily.
Ernst harassed the receptionist, an old sleepy man used to not being disturbed during his night shift, once more to get hold of the employee information register. He then began to map each of the 136 people to their shift days, timings of work, and roles. Many of the 136 people on the list were utility workers and guards. Ernst didn’t think the mayor of Cardim would make an urgent appointment to meet them. He also decided to neglect those people who regularly came to the office on Sunday evenings. He was after someone who had specially come here to meet the mayor. But going through the voluminous register one by one, searching more than a hundred names was not a task that he would have found easy on any normal day. Today, devoid of sleep, it seemed almost impossible. Within the first ten names, Ernst’s head had tumbled upon the table thrice with fatigue. So much so, that he was forced to go to the water closet and dip his head in a bucket of water. It did little to wake him up and make him more alert but the high guard braved through his torment imagining the face of Leonard Rostum every couple of minutes. Four hours and six bucket dunks later, Ern
st, wet to the core with sweat and water, had finally pruned the list to a single name. He slapped himself to make sure he wasn’t mistaken, then took the register under the glow of the lamp to ascertain that it wasn’t a trick of the light. No, there was no mistaking the name.
The evening that he was kidnapped, the mayor was headed to the council to meet Claude Labarthe, the Minister of Order.
NINETEEN
Kerry's Uncle
Maya twisted on her bed. It felt like her mind was a battlefield. Contradicting theories and leads and unexplained threads swung fists at each other, kicking and jumping like angry soldiers. The knowledge about Salome and her convicted husband had opened more loose ends than it had answered questions. Earlier, she had been almost certain that once she reached the author of the anonymous letters that Kerry received every year, she would stand on the cusp of solving the mystery, of finding out where Kerry was, if she was alive, and who had killed her if she wasn’t. But her long trip had left her with many new questions.
She now knew that the bald man, Thaddeus Cormac, was Kerry’s father and had been framed for the murder of his daughter and brother in law by the testimony of his wife, who had then sent away her daughter to an orphanage to protect her lie. Now that Thaddeus was out, he was after Kerry to avenge his false conviction by killing her. Going by what Khudabaksh had seen near the riverbank, it seemed like Thaddeus had been successful, he had killed Kerry four days after killing her mother. But that left one very important character – Salome’s brother and Kerry’s uncle Andrew. Thaddeus had been convicted of the murder of 21 people including both Kerry and Andrew. If Kerry was still alive (or at least alive until a few days ago) it was highly probable that Andrew was alive as well. And if that was the case, that was where Thaddeus was headed to after murdering Salome and Kerry.
The Mayor's Abduction Page 9