‘What are you smiling at?’ Bhumika asked, interrupting her train of thought.
‘Huh? Oh, nothing, nothing. I just thought of something.’
‘Something you can share?’ Bhumika asked with a coy smile.
Christabel was thinking of something to say when Sneha chimed the Tibetan cymbals. She looked up, relieved. Bhumika was looking at the front of the class too, eager to hear what Sneha was about to say.
‘Welcome to my VIP class,’ Sneha said. ‘It’s been interesting watching you all for the last five minutes as you waited for the class to start. You can tell quite a bit about a person by what they do when they have five minutes to entertain themselves. Very few sit still, but I noticed at least a couple of you meditating. You, and you know who you are, are already on the path to unblocking your prana.’
Christabel wondered if Sneha was referring to her. She was attempting the lotus position; she could have been meditating. Sneha couldn’t tell she was eavesdropping instead.
‘Let’s begin by connecting with our muladhara, our root chakra. This is located at the base of your spine,’ Sneha said, but Christabel wasn’t listening. She was still focusing on the two men in front of her, wondering about Arthur’s reaction when he happened to see his fiancée having an early supper with Tim.
‘Now set your intention, send your feeling of positivity into the world. Today is a new day. Today is the start of your spiritual journey,’ Sneha said. ‘First get into balasana, child’s pose.’
‘I like her. I want to date her,’ Tim said.
‘You’re going to meet her?’ Erik asked.
Was Erik referring to a date? It was possible. Christabel looked up from her pose to see Tim nod. Her hands began to sweat. Was Tim going to ask her out?
‘After class,’ Tim said.
‘Today?’ Erik asked.
‘Soon,’ Tim replied.
Christabel sighed with relief. She came out of balasana into pigeon pose. She couldn’t quite manoeuvre her right leg in front of her left and arch her back the way Bhumika was. She was looking around the room, wondering if she was the only inflexible one in the class when she saw that Tim too was struggling to get into position. Sneha walked around the room and stood behind Tim, then she pulled his shoulders back, and he let out a short yelp. She looked in the mirror at the front of the class and could see that his face was contorted in pain. Sneha didn’t seem to notice. Christabel looked away, hoping she wouldn’t notice her.
When she looked up, back into the mirror, she saw that Sneha was mouthing something to Erik over the top of Tim’s head. Erik nodded. It was an odd exchange that happened so quickly that Christabel wasn’t sure if it had even taken place. But then Erik had caught her eye and smiled at her in such a Machiavellian way, it sent a shiver down her spine. She may have been plotting how she would use Tim to help her make Arthur commit, but Erik and Sneha seemed to be doing some scheming of their own. She hadn’t been the girlfriend of Detective Arthur Chupplejeep for two years and not picked up how to spot when something shady was going on.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The sun was fierce. He could feel it burn the back of his neck as he walked towards the jetty. After sharing a breakfast of pomelo and rose apples with him, Christabel was back at the yoga retreat, and he had to admit it was having a positive effect on her. Just yesterday she easily dismissed one of her friends on the telephone when they asked if she had set a new wedding date.
A new wedding date; it was something Chupplejeep had to consider. There was a reason it was called tying the knot, he thought, feeling a tightening in the pit of his stomach. He wanted to be with Christabel till his dying day, he just didn’t want to commit to marriage – the church, the piece of paper that bound them together, all that formality. It was an issue that shouldn’t have been an issue, but it was, and he couldn’t pinpoint why.
Chupplejeep stepped onto the boat and squatted. He ran his hand over the weathered wood. The wooden benches were smooth where countless passengers had sat while Jackpot took them for a ride around the lake. He was sure the old boatwalla would have pointed out the jamblo bote that often sat to the northeast of the lake, a regular spot for the old heron who hunted on the lake at night. Although Chupplejeep hadn’t seen the bird since his arrival at Toem Place – it was likely that the noise and commotion from the building work on the new hotel had scared the brown-and-grey bird away.
The boat smelled of stale alcohol where the Old Monk had seeped into the damp wood. The bottles had been disposed of, as Kulkarni had said, and apart from some old boat ride ticket stubs, there was nothing worth noting. Chupplejeep felt under the wooden seat for the black cord he had seen the day the body was found. It was where he had remembered it, a lark’s head knot securing the pink stone in place. The detective rubbed the polished stone in between his thumb and forefinger and closed his eyes. He had seen similar stones before, displayed in velvet cases at the Tibetan flea market in Baga and perched on jewellery trees on roadside gados, where hawkers stood selling their wares. It was an odd piece of jewellery for a man like Jackpot to wear. Locals had said he was no more interested in appearance or aesthetics than he was in wealth – he just wasn’t that type of man. His passions were the waters and drink. Not his family, one local with a wiry moustache was keen to point out. Not even his daughter? Chupplejeep had enquired of this loose-lipped local, at which the man backtracked and said he had forgotten about Roshni as she had not been seen in a long while. Roshni was the apple of his eye, the man with the moustache said. It was his wife he no longer cared for, the man said, still keen to get his point across.
Chupplejeep pocketed the necklace, raised himself and sat on the passenger bench. He looked out over the lake and noticed two oars were hooked into their rowlocks. There was no harm in rowing out to the middle of the water. He hadn’t been on the lake in years, and he wanted to get a closer look at the building site and yoga retreat without having to walk all the way around.
He took a deep breath, untethered the boat and set out towards the middle of the lake. Rowing was tough; just a few minutes into his journey and Chupplejeep was out of breath. He wasn’t sure he could make it to the other side, another gentle reminder that he no longer had the fitness he required for his job. He would have to do something about it. He liked being out on the water. The stillness of the lake and the solitude made rowing the perfect exercise for him. Maybe he would ask Talika if he could use the boat while he was staying at the lake. It would be a step in the right direction, although he doubted her response would be favourable. When Chupplejeep reached the middle of the lake, he looked over at the hotel site. It was positioned well; guests would have access to the lakeshore, and he could envision the restaurant they had planned, overlooking the beautiful lake. It was a perfect spot, if a little cramped. It was obvious the hotel required more land. He wondered now if negotiations were taking place with the various owners to either side of the hotel site. The developers could buy the yoga retreat to the right or the bungalows to the left. It was another question to ask his old friend Dilip. The old boy seemed to know exactly what was going on in the area.
Chupplejeep turned the boat in the direction of the yoga retreat. A yoga class would be a good alternative to rowing. He would take Sneha up on her offer and visit the place, maybe try out some yoga poses too on his first visit. He wasn’t one for stretching and meditating, but if he was going to get healthy, a visit would be a good start – even if he just popped in for a watermelon cooler with Christabel. Chupplejeep started rowing back towards the old rickety wooden jetty. It had been part of the lake for as long as he could remember, occasionally patched up by the rental company that leased the villas to the north of the site. As he tied the boat to the jetty, he heard a voice call out to him.
He turned and looked up, squinting in the glare of the sun, and saw that Jackpot’s wife was holding her hand out to him. He took it and heaved himself out of the boat and onto the jetty, thanking Talika for her help.
‘I have some information for you,’ she said. She was dressed in white, a traditional mourning colour, but her clothes were modern – western, unlike the previous attire he had seen her in. She looked taller standing in white linen trousers and blouse, her shoulders straight, her head held up. She stared at him with a new confidence, and he noticed that her hair had been cut to shoulder length. She looked sombre, but Chupplejeep couldn’t help but think she was wearing a mask, concealing her true feelings underneath.
‘Information? Relating to your husband’s death?’ he asked.
Talika shrugged. ‘I don’t know what to think anymore. The medical examiner tells me my husband died of heart failure brought about by his drinking. They have assured me that the death certificate will only say heart failure. I thought it would help, but people will still talk about the drinking…’ She trailed off. ‘Ranjit drank despite knowing that it was going to kill him. Not only did he make a fool out of himself and his family but eventually he killed himself. How does that look? It is almost like a suicide. Did he hate this life so much that he was determined to leave it?’
For the first time, Talika looked remorseful, almost sad, but Chupplejeep couldn’t help but reflect on her choice of words. She was concerned about how Ranjit’s drinking habit made her look, not what it had done to his health.
‘I don’t recognise your name. Are you Hindu?’ Talika asked.
He was an atheist; he chose not to believe in anything when he realised he was alone in the world, an orphan till twelve, with no family willing to take him in. Religion had not done him many favours. His biological mother was a catholic, his father a Hindu. They had defied their families and got married. Chupplejeep was the product of their union, and when they died – sorry, disappeared, he corrected himself – nobody wanted this child who was half catholic and half Hindu until Nana had rescued him.
He had always believed his parents had died. Religion was to blame, one of the mammas in the orphanage had said, because they had chosen to shun their own faiths. That is when Chupplejeep had decided to follow the same path. How could he believe in a god when god seemed to have taken his parents away from him. Except they hadn’t been taken away. They hadn’t been killed in a road accident like he had been led to believe. They were alive; they had just not wanted him. They had left him to survive on his own, and he had been on his own for a long time until he met Christabel. Now she wanted something from him, something he wasn’t sure he could give her. He wasn’t sure he could commit. That feeling of abandonment had always been with him, in the pit of his stomach, making sure he didn’t get too close, too close to hurt someone, like he had been hurt.
Chupplejeep looked at Talika and shook his head, suddenly remembering what she had asked.
‘Suicide like this is a selfish act. It’s a sin. His atman, soul, will suffer. What he becomes in his next life is decided by karma, the consequences of his actions in this life, and what can that mean? He has not valued this life by drinking like he did. His spirit will suffer.’
‘Was your husband a strong believer in his religion?’
Talika made a face. ‘Drink was his religion.’
They were both silent for a moment until a crow in the coconut tree next to the jetty cawed, then Talika spoke once again. ‘But you’re saying it’s possible that my husband was murdered. You’re saying this, and you seem determined.’ Talika folded her arms across her chest and stared at the detective.
Talika told him there had been a robbery at their bungalow, exactly two weeks before her husband’s body was found. She had been shopping, and Ranjit had been ferrying people around the lake in his boat. When she returned, the door to their bungalow was closed but not locked. Not uncommon for her husband to leave the house like that, she said, but she could tell that something was amiss as soon as she stepped into the villa. She knew someone had been through her possessions. Several items were out of place, items that Ranjit would never have touched, like pots and pans. And her hairbrush was on the floor. That was when she knew for sure that someone had been in the house. ‘Ranjit would never have touched my hairbrush,’ she said. ‘He had no hair. No, it was clear someone had been in the property, looking for something, and it had fallen in their haste.’ She shivered then as she recalled the incident. ‘It’s horrible, Detective, to have someone go through your things, unnerving. Someone had been in our house.’
‘Items were taken?’
‘I am no fool, Detective,’ Talika said. ‘It crossed my mind that a cat may have gotten into the house. It wouldn’t have been the first time that that has happened. Once I caught a mazar, wild cat, in the house, feasting on our mackerel supper. So I checked if anything was taken, and some of my things were missing.’
‘And you reported this to Detective Kumar?’
Talika shook her head.
‘Why not?’
‘Because nothing much was taken, and Detective Kumar wouldn’t have done anything about it.’
Chupplejeep let out a small sigh. It wouldn’t be the first time that a widow had used a diversionary tactic like this. He once had an attempted murder case where a widow cut off one of her fingers and blamed her neighbour to divert the attention away from her son, who was eventually found guilty of the crime.
‘What was taken?’ he asked.
‘Just some jewellery.’
‘Expensive jewellery?’
‘Do I look like I have expensive jewellery?’
Chupplejeep studied the woman’s face. It didn’t ring true that items were taken from her house and that it went unreported. Chupplejeep had dealt with countless burglaries in his time. In small villages like this, it was often a known petty thief who was to blame. He was sure Kumar had a list of local thieves as long as his arm back at the station. He may have even been able to retrieve Talika’s items.
‘Worthless items?’
‘They didn’t hold much value.’
‘And you think that the two incidents are related. This theft and the death of your husband?’
‘You seem determined to prove my husband was murdered, which is why I am telling you this. There could be a connection. Don’t you think it’s a possibility?’
‘It’s true that when two crimes happen in such close proximity like this they’re often linked,’ Chupplejeep said, taking a breath. He had to be honest. ‘It has not yet been classified as an unnatural death, and I have no jurisdiction to investigate.’
‘I see, but here you are, sitting in my dead husband’s boat.’
‘You’ll accept the verdict the medical examiner gives?’
‘I’ll have to, won’t I?’
Chupplejeep nodded. He had accepted that his parents were dead when he had been told so. He was only a child then, but accepting their deaths was the easiest thing to do. Talika was willing to accept that no foul play was involved in her husband’s death. For someone who seemed so fiery when he first met her, determined that an autopsy would not prove anything, she had little gumption to fight for justice for her husband now, to clear him of being labelled forevermore as a drunk. Why?
Talika turned to leave.
‘Mrs Bhobe, can you tell me something?’
Talika turned back to the detective. ‘What is it you want?’
‘Can you describe for me the jewellery that was taken from your house?’
She looked at her watch. ‘O-of course,’ she said with a stutter. ‘But it’ll have to be another time. I’ll be late, late for the reading of the will. My husband’s will.’
Chupplejeep couldn’t help but notice a sparkle in her eyes as she said this last sentence. He patted the pendant in his trouser pocket and made his way towards his house.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Chupplejeep took a gulp of the cool Limca, allowing the sweet, lemony drink to quench his thirst. He had chosen a shaded spot in Pinto’s Taverna, which gave him a direct view of the solicitor’s office without being seen. The last thing he wanted to do was to draw any further attention to himself
. He hadn’t heard from Detective Kumar since their last run-in, and he hoped the useless fellow had forgotten about him. Kulkarni said the coroner’s report was going to be made official within the next seventy-two hours, and Jackpot’s murderer would go free. Kumar could retire in peace, possibly getting away with murder, but Chupplejeep wouldn’t be able to sleep. He would lie awake for hours because his conscience would not let him rest until he found the truth about what happened to Jackpot. He remembered the kindness Jackpot had showed Nana when she stumbled that day at the market. Now that he had time to think, he was certain it was the ferryman that had helped his adoptive mother after a nasty fall. Jackpot deserved justice.
After he had returned to his villa with the pendant from Jackpot’s boat, he realised he still had time before Christabel returned from her day of classes. With nothing better to do, he decided to follow Talika. Dressed in white, with her daughter Roshni by her side, she left her bungalow an hour later. Chupplejeep watched from the safety of his veranda, hidden behind a blossoming pot of yellow Indian mallow. They stopped briefly to talk to the man he had first met when Jackpot’s body was found, Arjun. He noticed how Roshni tilted her head and played with her hair at the nape of her neck as he spoke to them. When mother and daughter were a few meters away, making their way down the path towards an auto rickshaw, he immediately made his way to his own car, and in no time he was following the yellow-and-black vehicle away from Toem Place, past the large white house on the hill, towards the town.
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