by Monabi Mitra
‘You talk to me first. If the information’s good, I’ll see about putting you across to him.’
‘Oh, it’s good, very good.’ Raja looked about the room, then lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘I hope no one can hear us, I mean, if any of the men outside rat to Babul I’ll be dead.’
Just my luck to be saddled with the dramatic kind, thought Ghosh morosely. Then he remembered Siddique Ali and softened a bit.
A dishevelled boy of fourteen or so, carrying two cups of tea and a plate of samosas, entered and put down his tray on the table. Ghosh reached out hungrily for a samosa, pushing a cup of tea before Raja at the same time. Raja goggled as if he’d been offered a gourmet meal.
‘Thank you Sir. This is most kind of you. If I may take a sip …’ He slurped noisily at his cup and rubbed his hands to show Ghosh that he appreciated the gesture and loved the tea. Then he darted some more furtive looks around and lowered his voice again. ‘What I’m telling you now is big time. We are part of an organization called the …’ Here his voice dropped so much that Ghosh heard nothing. He could only see Raja’s mouth form an exaggerated O.
‘What? Stop mumbling! What did you say?’
Once again Raja formed a silent O, his voice inaudible, his face contorting wildly.
Ghosh had his second samosa, wiped his hands with his handkerchief, leaned back, belched and looked at Raja with a benign expression. ‘You’re quite a comedy circus, aren’t you?’
Raja looked genuinely injured. ‘I’m just trying to help you,’ he began sullenly.
‘Help, you son of a swine?’ roared Ghosh. ‘You think I have all day to sit and hear you drivel and slurp like a fool? Just wait till Babul gets to hear of this …’
‘But you won’t know where Babul is until I tell you, and I won’t tell you if you shout at me like I’m some common thief,’ said Raja. ‘All right, all right, just joking,’ he continued hastily for Ghosh was beginning to look like he would burst. And Raja realized he still hadn’t managed to wangle out the number of the other police officer.
‘It’s called the Dhoor Syndicate. Yes, Dhoor,’ he spelt it out in Bengali. ‘It’s an organization that helps ferry people and things across the border, from Bangladesh to India and reverse. I work at this end, the North Twenty-Four Parganas end, though I was thinking of switching over to the Sunderbans side. There’s good money there too, not just tigers but birds and turtles, easy money, just ship the turtle stuff to Bangladesh and off it goes to Bangkok and Dubai as legal exports. And good fun too, the deer are so easy to catch, the meat is delicious, especially with a bottle of …’
‘Get on with it,’ thundered Ghosh. ‘Stop babbling about tigers and turtles. Tell me about Babul.’
‘I’m just coming to it.’ Raja sounded truly hurt. ‘Just trying to help you, in case you want to conduct some wildlife raids. Anyway, Babul brings people from over the border and sends them to Mumbai and Delhi as servants. These guys are so well trained they can lie low for months, sweeping and cleaning, and then, one day, they can clean the place out in one shot. The “servants” then disappear, only to resurface two months later in a completely different place. Babul does it so well, he even gets them to convert from their religion and take on Hindu names, do pranam to Krishna and Hanuman; teaches them a smattering of Hindi, as if they were from Bihar or UP. He acts as a fence for the stolen goods, and transfers the servants’ money home across the border. I used to handle the financial side of the border transactions, then he sent me to do the networking in Mumbai, the shithead that he is. I told him that place didn’t suit me but he wouldn’t listen.’
Raja paused to catch his breath. Ghosh, who had been playing with a paperweight, now used a matchstick to dig into his ears. It appeared as if he was only half listening to Raja but his brain was furiously turning over. His first thought was that Siddique Ali had failed to tell him Babul had become a national player. Now, tripping him up would not be so easy.
‘Anything special about him?’
‘About Babul? Like what?
‘Any particular likes and dislikes, habits, anything funny about him?’
‘Funny? I don’t know. He loves biryani and wears only white clothes, just like a sahib, you know, white shirts and white pants and those shirt-coats that have buttons down the front and two pockets.’
‘Safari suits,’ said Ghosh mechanically.
‘Is that what they are called? He gets them stitched by some tailor on Circular Road. Expensive. I had to pick up a set once, eight hundred apiece. He wouldn’t be caught wearing stuff like mine.’ Raja looked down at his striped T-shirt and tight pants. He dusted at a whitish patch near his thighs and studied his fingers adorned with three rings: one red coral, one a grimy pearl and one horseshoe. Then he looked up. ‘You obviously know about Babul’s hand injury.’
Ghosh didn’t, but was not prepared to reveal that to him. ‘Wasn’t it an accident with a grenade or something?’ he said evasively, pretending to fiddle with some papers and look bored.
‘That was early on in his life, when he was still making cheap guns and selling them near the coal mines,’ said Raja. ‘Took off his thumb and half his forefinger.’
‘Left hand, wasn’t it?’
‘No, the right one. That’s why he needs people to do his dirty work all the time.’
Raja leaned forward again and Ghosh got a blast of the mingled odours of tea and garlic. ‘If you can catch him off his guard, hit him on that right hand. He’s weak there, fumbles at things.’
At that moment Ghosh’s cell phone rang. It was Bikram, summoning him to a quick chat in the evening over the Robi Bose death. ‘Where are you now?’
‘Tollygunge PS, with that leech guy, Raja.’
‘Anything interesting there?’
‘Some.’
‘I would have liked to have a go at him too, but now, with this other thing, and all those court forwards …’ Bikram’s cell phone beeped its call waiting and Ghosh rang off. He looked dispiritedly at Raja. ‘Where will you go now?’ he asked.
Raja smiled. As his face lit up he looked boyish and guileless. ‘Home,’ he said simply.
Ghosh reached into his uniform pocket and extracted a hundred-rupee note. ‘Here, buy something for the family.’ He looked away as he put the money before Raja, refusing to meet his eyes.
‘Thank you, Sir, but it’s okay, I’ve got some of my own …’
‘Take it!’
Raja reached out and humbly put the note into his pocket.
‘Give me a ring now and then and don’t do anything foolish. Stay away from Babul and his cronies and remember to put in an appearance at the court as agreed.’
Ghosh rose and, as Raja made as if to fall at his feet again, skipped nimbly out of the way, surprising in a man of his girth.
‘When can I meet the other sir?’
‘Give me some good leads and I’ll set up an interview.’
‘I will, I surely will. Can I call you up tomorrow, maybe by the end of this week …’
He’s going to manufacture information just to meet Bikram, thought Ghosh disgustedly as he creaked into his car.
The rest of the day passed in a whirl of activities. Bikram wrote a lengthy report on a complaint from some members of an apartment block. A residential apartment had been converted into two open kitchens to illegally make potato chips and assorted snacks. The neighbours had sent deputations to the local police station, the municipal councillor, a member of the legislative assembly, the health department, three newspapers and four television channels to protest the highhandedness. Since the man who owned the factory had unleashed an impressive shower of money on almost everyone concerned with the case, Bikram knew precisely in which dustbin his report would end up. The thought was liberating. It freed him from all linguistic restraint and fired his dormant literary talents. In bursts of imaginative fervour, between telephone calls and visitors and leave-requisition letters that had to be signed, he indulged himself. When he leaned back at last he
found that he had almost scripted a lurid potboiler.
Ghosh was not so lucky. Dogged by bad luck, he ended up supervising the arrangements for the shooting of a reality show in a water-sports park on the fringes of the city. He spent an unhappy hour touring the stage, tripping on wires and being addressed as ‘uncleji’ by an impresario with earrings, a tattoo and a sweatshirt with a picture of a spider’s web on it.
Sheena Sen spent the day investigating a sexual harassment case filed by a research assistant against her supervisor who had tired of her.
Chuni Sarkar, having finalized some personal and delicate financial deals with the head of a truck-drivers’ union, sought to assuage his guilty conscience by hurling headlong into a mess of reports.
Raja went to a flat in Howrah, rented under an assumed name, spent fifteen minutes placating his wife, inquired after his mother’s health and loped off to the Savoy Hotel for a quick glass of beer and a chance to catch up with local news.
At 6 p.m., Bikram’s cell phone rang. It was Sudip Pyne. ‘Any luck with the post-mortem report?’ There was a suppressed excitement in his voice. Bikram wondered at the stupidity of the question, coming as it did from a doctor who was fully aware of the post-mortem procedure and what it involved.
‘You know how it is,’ he said as non-committally as he could.
‘Have you talked to Geo Sen?’
‘Not yet.’
‘But you should,’ said Dr Pyne. ‘That man knows more about the secret lives of these high-society types than he does about medicine.’
‘Did Robi Bose have a secret life?’ asked Bikram.
‘Obviously.’ Dr Pyne sounded incredulous that he was being asked the question. He then rang off.
Bikram rose from his chair and walked a few paces, stretching, then looked moodily out of the window. Cars had already lined up, waiting for the officers to go home, and the clerks had fastened the strings on the cardboard files and exited, crowding the bus stops and the Metro railway platforms. The cobbler and the fruit-seller were packing their cases while the hawker was removing his shiny calendars of Shiva and Kali from where they were strung on the wall. Was this a good time to call Geo Sen, who might have a room full of patients in his waiting room? But he would be even busier later on, at a party or at the club, a glass of Scotch before him. He sighed and reached for the phone.
A silvery voice answered, ‘Dr Sen’s chamber, how can I help you?’
Bikram explained.
‘Do you have an appointment?’
‘No. But it’s not for a consultation, I need to speak to him … on business.’
‘Hold on a minute, please.’
Bikram found himself holding on for three minutes.
‘Hellow.’ A thin voice with a British accent came on the line, the impatient voice of a man used to giving orders. Bikram explained again.
‘Robi Bose? But I was away when he died. You’d better ask whoever treated him, then.’
‘But he was one of your regular patients. I’d like to know a little bit more about his medical condition.’
‘But I told Toofan all I knew when I met him at the club yesterday!’
‘I’m afraid this is part of an official inquiry. I suppose you discussed the matter casually with Mr Kumar at the club, but that’s not enough.’
‘And why not? Who are you anyway?’
Bikram gave his name and waited. He thought it would make an impression, as it usually did. He thought of Shona and the ways in which their worlds overlapped, sometimes, as it undoubtedly would do now. The tone changed from cold disdain to effervescent conviviality. ‘Oh, but of course, Mr Chatterjee, I would be glad to help you. Forgive me, I didn’t quite realize who you are, you know how it is, with all these patients. How is Shona? It was nice to see you that evening at the Kumars’ party. And poor Robi of course! How about seven-thirty? We could meet at the club.’
Bikram politely declined and settled for a meeting at the doctor’s chamber. Then he put down the receiver and assembled the Robi Bose team in his office. They were a sad-looking bunch as they entered. Ghosh looked visibly tired and Chuni Sarkar, who was always hot and sweaty, had patches of sweat under his armpits. The April sun had been merciless and the heat seemed to have seeped by way of their uniforms into their souls. They sat dispiritedly at the table and refused the tea offered. Bikram knew this listlessness well; it was the usual mood at the start of an investigation that promised nothing but trouble. It was easier to tackle a dozen demonstrations, accidents, forgery and cheating cases than a high-society death under suspicious circumstances. Gauging their mood, Bikram was quick and brief.
‘Chuni, you’ve done the preliminaries for the F.I.R., but we have to take it from there. Ghosh and you had better take down the details of the servants and check up on them. Also the dailies who came and went,’ said Bikram, remembering the plethora of masterjis and masseuses and sweepers described by Nisha on his first visit there. How odd that this death should have taken place so soon after that visit!
‘Could there be a connection between the death and the money stolen?’ asked Ghosh, accurately reading his mind as usual.
‘There must be,’ said Bikram.
‘Then that will clear her,’ said Ghosh. ‘If she was planning to kill her husband she wouldn’t ask for a band of policemen to walk around her house a few days before the deed.’
‘But did she actually want it?’ said Bikram. ‘Remember, it was TK who jumped at the opportunity of doing her a favour.’
‘Why would she take the risk of talking about it then, and that too before Kumar sahib?’
‘Loose talk,’ said Bikram, describing the endless prattle that flowed at parties.
Ghosh said, ‘She might not have done it herself, you know? She could have had any one of the guests at the party fix Robi his weak drink.’
‘Or,’ said Chuni Sarkar, ‘it could have been an accident. Perhaps one of the more adventurous guests was spiking his drink with something more potent than alcohol but spiked Robi Bose’s instead.’
‘Which means that we need the names and addresses of all those at the party and have to interrogate each one of them. It will be hell, considering the set. Put one of your well-mannered, good-looking men on the job, the kind who can inspire confidence,’ said Bikram.
‘It could be suicide,’ ventured Chuni Sarkar.
‘Without writing a note? Robi Bose wasn’t the type of man who would leave without a dramatic farewell.’
‘He couldn’t really have died of cardiac arrest, could he?’ asked Ghosh hopefully.
‘It is a difficult case,’ admitted Bikram. ‘This is not an ordinary middle-class neighbourhood, with neighbours bursting with information, and the problems of the family fairly public. The rich keep their secrets well.’
He stretched and looked at the large colonial-style clock on the wall, salvaged from a pile of old files and rat droppings in a back room. It always reminded him of the clocks of his childhood, whirring out the time in stately chimes, sandwiched between mounted deer heads, and photographs of Rabindranath Tagore and of grandfathers in dhotis and severe black coats. ‘In any case we must be careful not to ruffle any feathers at this stage. Just brief questions, in the manner of routine inquiries. The case is at the thana level, the crime branch still hasn’t been given the investigation officially, so there’s no need to be too proactive. We’ll leave the rest till after the post-mortem report comes through. But that party list must be followed up.’
Bikram decided to go home and change before his meeting with Dr Geo Sen. The day had been hot and steamy and his clothes stuck to him damply. The lift which serviced the block of flats housing police officers clanked ponderously to a stop with a shuddering groan. The heavy iron grill door had to be manoeuvred back and forth twice before it shut painfully and the contraption began its reluctant ascent with a whining sound. Bikram slouched and put his left heel on the wooden wall behind him to steady himself. Grumpily, he eyed bits of straw scattered around in
the lift.
He was unhappy but couldn’t put a finger on the reason for it. The day’s work came back to him in fragments. He remembered the illegal maker of potato chips and the helpless deputations against him, and then the men and women he had met at Nikki Kumar’s party, sleek and glitzy, riding high on fortunes built on adulterated cooking oil and low-grade cement, money-lending, dubious chit funds and sham finance companies.
The lift ground to a halt and Bikram entered his flat. He went to his bedroom and sat down on the bed while the cook brought him a glass of chilled water and asked if dinner was to be served. ‘No, I’m going out now. Get me a glass of lime sherbet though.’
He stared at the room for a minute, unlike a bachelor’s den in its neatness, the books well arranged, the reading lamp with its raw silk shade, the wooden cupboards polished to perfection, the photograph of his parents encased in a leather frame, the whole set-up put together and cared for with the fastidiousness of a family man.
He rose and opened one cupboard. What should he wear? Something subtle and expensive so that Dr Sen could not slot him as a typical state service officer trying to rise from the DSP level. Bikram dug into piles of shirts and T-shirts for a blue checked shirt of an expensive make that he had stored after dry-cleaning and hadn’t worn for quite some time. Where on earth was it? He rooted through the piles till, suddenly, his hand encountered the crackly feel of paper. He drew his hand out. It clutched a yellowed newspaper with Union Public Service Commission Examinations emblazoned on it. New Delhi, April 1996.
Bikram went very still. For a few moments he stared at the paper blankly, registering nothing, till the years shimmered and the memories broke and he was once again in a room filled with books, piles of them, a copy of Manorama Yearbook open before him, others scattered around him, a pillow over his eyes, weeping because the results had been declared and he had again failed to qualify for the Indian Police Service and this was the second time it had happened. Outside, someone was knocking on the door. Bikram, open up, you fool, it’s not the end of the world, open the door, what are you up to, but it was the end of the world for him as he sat shivering in pain and the utter desolation of being rejected. He had preserved this futile reminder of his last attempt, but why? And all at once Bikram remembered Toofan Kumar and realized that his dislike for the latter had, at its core, envy. For all his brash and loudmouth ways Toofan had passed the one examination that mattered. And Bikram, for all his elegant ways and convent education, was still only a bloody DSP! So what did it matter what he wore? Bikram slammed the cupboard door shut, strode past the cook and the lime sherbet, took the steps two at a time and was in his car in two minutes. ‘Drive fast,’ he said to Mistry.