‘And so yesterday, when the chance came for a direct confrontation with that item numbar, I played it on the front foot. I wasn’t going to back down in front of that ape! Urvashi pretended to be angry with me later, but I know she was impressed. A woman wants a man to be a man, you know – she may say that she doesn’t, but at the end of the day, she’ll never respect you if she thinks you’re weak – either mentally or physically.’
‘You are so right!’ Bhavani applauds the noble sentiment, then leans forward and asks invitingly, ‘So what exactly was the argument about, Khurana sa’ab?’
Khurana’s face purples. ‘The whole thing was disgraceful! The tambola was clearly rigged!’
‘Rigged?’ Bhavani’s voice holds just the correct amount of concern and wonder. ‘How?’
Khurana puffs out his chest. ‘That all I don’t know! But the entire admin department of the Club, starting from that wretched Srivastava, is corrupted! The bloody clerks are all on the bloody take!’
‘The clerks?’
‘Yes! Take this cottage we’re sitting in, for instance! It’s empty, isn’t it? That’s why you’re sitting in it! But if you go online and check, it says all the guest cottages are booked for the next six months! Why?’
‘Why, sir?’
Khurana’s eyes bug out. ‘Because the booking clerks want a bribe, that’s why!’
Bhavani makes distressed clicking noises with his tongue.
Khurana continues, ‘Urvi wants to clean up all their shady rackets, that’s why they’re shitting bricks at the thought of her becoming president!’
‘Sir, but the argument wasn’t only about the tambola, was it?’ Bhavani says blandly. ‘There was some talk of sharing – or not sharing … Can you please tell us about that?’
Mukki stares at him suspiciously for a while, then decides to give him the benefit of the doubt.
‘There has been some talk … about a chakkar between my wife and Leo,’ he admits huffily. ‘The typical stuff – people can’t stand to see a well-adjusted couple, so they say all kinds of things. I should have known better, of course, but I was already angry about the obvious rigging, and I’d had a few beers, so when he made that vulgar crack, I hit him.’ He adds with a touch of pride, ‘Quite hard, actually. You must have seen the bruises on his face, eh?’
‘O yes!’ says Bhavani Singh, who had seen nothing of the sort.
Khurana smiles smugly. ‘That’s why I didn’t file a police complaint. Yesterday, people kept telling me to file a case of assault and battery, but I thought, what if they see the injuries on his face and book me instead, eh? What then?’
‘Indeed, sir.’
Mukki adjusts his cap again, looking gratified. ‘I’m smart that way. Large-hearted too! I didn’t want to destroy the fellow’s life! He must be having a hand-to-mouth existence – running from here to there, making ladies dance! So I thought, I’ve taught him a sharp lesson and that’s enough!’
‘You were so large-hearted with Thampi also, sir,’ Bhavani adds smoothly. ‘You let him leave early for his girlfriend’s birthday …’
Mukki nods. ‘Yes, I still had ten minutes to go on the treadmill, so I offered to shut the place down for him. It was a bit irregular, I suppose, but he looked so desperate that I said theek hai yaar, tu ja. I’ve been young, I remember what it’s like to have a girlfriend with a birthday! I finished with the treadmill, shut off the lights, locked the door and left. Then I dropped the keys into the locked box at the reception. All that must be on the CCTV camera – your fellows must have checked it by now?’
He looks at Bhavani with wide-eyed innocence.
Bhavani shakes his head gravely. ‘Unfortunately, sir, a bunch of gas balloons came loose, floated up and blocked the camera for half an hour, starting from quarter-to to quarter-past midnight.’
‘What!’ Khurana’s jaw sags. ‘What nonsense! Bhatti’s famous “command centre” took half an hour to react? All the guards were warming their bums on their heaters, I suppose! I told you this place is slackly run!’
‘Er … sir, what were you doing when this happened?’ Bhavani asks. ‘Matlab you were right there, inside the gym – didn’t you notice that the balloons were obscuring the camera?’
Khurana eyes bulge fearsomely. ‘I don’t even know where the camera is, damnit! I was doing my workout!’
Bhavani sighs. ‘Well, sir, it doesn’t look very good for you, frankly!’ He holds up his fingers one by one. ‘Your wife is rumoured to be having an affair with the victim; you had an argument with him yesterday; he knocked you down—’
‘I hit him too!’
Bhavani continues inexorably. ‘And then you were the only person in the gym, alone with the prepared protein shake, during the time when there was no camera visibility.’
Khurana leaps to his feet, snapping his suspenders threateningly. ‘That doesn’t prove anything!’
Bhavani continues to sit, looking up at him serenely. ‘Agreed, sir. But you have to agree it looks bad.’
‘Well, I didn’t poison the bugger,’ Mukki blusters. ‘I’m a straightforward man – if I ever wanted to finish off a fellow, I would shoot him in the chest, while looking him in the eye! I would definitely not tiptoe about, stirring a damnfool drug into a water bottle like a woman!’
Overall, Bhavani is in agreement with what Khurana is saying. The fellow has all the symptoms of someone with high blood pressure in any case – Bhavani can visualize him firing a gun, swinging a club or even throttling somebody at the spur of the moment … but not this simple, cool, almost elegant murder.
He says pleasantly, ‘Sir, please don’t misunderstand. We don’t think you committed the crime—’
Mukki grips the table hard. ‘Then what do you think, Inspec— What was your damn rank again?’
‘ACP.’
‘Ya, so what do you think, ACP?!’
‘We think somebody is trying to frame you, sir.’
Khurana goggles at him for a moment, then collapses dramatically on the opposite seat.
‘Thank you!’ he declaims gratefully.
‘You’re welcome, sir,’ Bhavani replies.
There is a small silence.
After a little while, Khurana sits forward. ‘Do you how tough the CA exams are?’ he demands. ‘They are much more difficult than getting into the bloody army! Or the police, for that matter,’ he can’t resist adding, a little snidely.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And yet this fool Mehra thinks that I’m the fool! That just because my wife is beautiful, he can pull off a poora-ka-poora Othello on me! He’s trying to play that over-smart Narad muni-type character – what was his name?’
Bhavani grimaces with the effort of trying to remember. ‘Oho, our wife would’ve supplied the name at once,’ he rues. ‘We know who you mean, of course. Aago? Ego?’
‘Ego! Ya, he’s been trying to play that chap Ego, and now he’s trying to make it look like I killed my wife’s so-called lover in a fit of jealousy. But I’m too sensible to do that! I know my wife has eyes only for me.’
‘Of course she does, sir. And you may not be a pretty boy, but you have a nice manly way about you, sir.’
Mukki pinks up and says ‘Thank you’ with so much surprise and sincerity that Bhavani feels a twinge of remorse at resorting to such blatant flattery.
‘So then, sir, who killed your wife’s lov— Er … we mean Zumba trainer?’ he asks the accountant. ‘Gen. Mehra himself? Isn’t that rather far-fetched?’
‘No, it isn’t,’ Mukki says at once. ‘These damn faujis have no respect for human life. Killing a human being is like slapping a mosquito for them.’
Bhavani, who has spent a troubled night after seeing Leo’s lifeless body, and who knows many men in uniform who feel the same way, manages to stay unprovoked.
‘Motive is a bit weak, sir,’ is all he says, mildly. ‘He wouldn’t kill Leo just to
frame you and prevent your wife from getting elected! There would have to be something else. Do you know of some other issue between them, sir?’
‘My wife thinks Mehra’s preying on the girl in the Daily Needs.’ Mukki offers doubtfully after a longish pause. ‘She’s been quite vocal about condemning it. But then she …’ He sighs, ‘She can be a little too protective about these young girls sometimes.’
‘But it’s an avenue worth exploring,’ Bhavani suggests.
Mukki nods. ‘Oh, yes.’
8
Selective Hearing
‘This whole thing is terribly unfortunate.’
Dressed in a natty, tightly tailored blazer with monogrammed buttons and a baby-blue cravat that sets off the hazel of his eyes, Lt General (‘Behra’) Mehra, PVSM, AVSM, Yudh Sewa Medal is definitely an improvement, aesthetically speaking, on Bhavani’s previous interviewee.
‘Terribly unfortunate,’ the general repeats.
Bhavani, who has chosen to adopt a slightly stupid expression for this encounter, agrees at once. Beside him, Kashi Dogra, inducted into the meeting to be a social lubricant, nods soberly as well.
They all maintain a minute’s silence for the departed soul, then Mehra looks up, his hazel eyes keen.
‘Chap was poisoned, I hear?’
The other two nod again.
‘Fine thing to happen at the fag end of Bhatti’s tenure! He must be so cut up. But why have you asked to speak to me? I didn’t even know the fellow!’
‘O really, sir?’ Bhavani says innocently. ‘He had your number saved on his phone, actually!’
‘He must’ve had a thousand numbers saved on his phone, ACP,’ Mehra says testily.
‘Mehra uncle!’ Kashi leans forward. ‘Can I just mention that the ACP is a big fan!’
Slightly mollified, Mehra cocks an eyebrow at Bhavani. ‘Seen me on TV, eh?’
Bhavani beams. ‘Of course! During the surgical strikes briefings – and afterwards. Why, sir, you did all the work – you were the brains and the balls of the whole operation! The IJP just took credit for all your hard work!’
Mehra strokes his moustache modestly. ‘That’s the army way, ACP. We don’t hog credit. Never have, never will.’
‘Amazing! Sir, to answer your question, we are speaking to you because Leo Matthew sent a few people this song on WhatsApp, and we feel it may have a bearing on the case.’
Mehra frowns. ‘A song? What song? The chap sent me a song?’
Bhavani nods. Kashi, who has ‘Secrets’ cued, plays it on Leo’s phone.
Behra Mehra listens with polite curiosity, humming a little at the catchier parts. When the song ends, he cocks an eyebrow at Bhavani.
‘Yes? It’s a very old song. What about it?’
‘Any reason why he would send it to you, sir? Along with a link to an orphanage in Badshahpur? An orphanage to which you subsequently made a substantial donation?’
Mehra is openly bristling now. ‘I assume you’re implying he was blackmailing me. Because I have a secret. And because I “think that no one knows” and I am smelling err … “like a rose”. That’s the theory isn’t it?’
Bhavani does not respond. There is a small, uneasy pause and then the general throws back his head and laughs uproariously.
‘I don’t even remember receiving this WhatsApp message, ACP! I get so many messages! It’s the curse of being well-known! People keep sending you all kinds of things all the time – I certainly never opened this video or heard this song.’
‘There are two blue ticks on it,’ Kashi points out.
‘I will give the answer I always give my grandchildren! Yes, baby girl, I opened it, but because I did not have my reading glasses with me, I did not actually read it!’
‘But you don’t need to read it, sir,’ Bhavani insists doggedly. ‘You just have to listen.’
‘Well, I didn’t listen,’ is the rather sharp reply. ‘I don’t listen to stuff I don’t want to hear. Everybody knows that.’
Kashi chuckles. ‘Tell the ACP why they call you Behra Mehra, uncle.’
‘Yes, sir, we were wondering!’ Bhavani picks up the cue at once. ‘Because your hearing seems excellent to us!’
The general grins, flashing yellowing teeth. ‘It is. What happened is that back when I was a second lieutenant, posted in Poonch, we had a small insurgency situation. These six Pakis had crept in and taken over our bunkers during a snowstorm, and I was sent up there with four of my men to flush them out. So we went in there, but they got wind of our arrival somehow, and we lost the element of surprise. There was a shootout and I lost two of my men – we downed three of the Pakis though, and the other three ran for their border. We gave chase, but when we reached the LOC, my superiors starting yelling at me through the walkie-talkies to stop – we weren’t to cross the LOC or it would be a violation of the border agreement we had with Pakistan. But the fog of war had descended on me, ACP – those chaps had killed two of my men… There was no way in hell I was going to let them get away with it!’ He stops, panting. His eyes are glazed; he is seeing things Bhavani cannot.
‘So then, sir?’ Bhavani asks breathlessly.
‘So then, I held my walkie-talkie a little away from my mouth and said, “Reception poor, sir! Repeat order, sir!”’
Bhavani’s jaw drops. ‘No!’
Mehra chuckles. ‘O yes. My superior repeated the order. I held the walkie even further away from my mouth, and again said, “Reception quality poor, sir! Repeat order, sir! UNABLE to hear order, sir!”’
‘That’s too good, general sa’ab!’
‘He bleated out his wretched little order for the third time – that we were to return to our station with our tail between our legs – and for the third time I replied, “Unable to HEAR, sir! Order UNCLEAR, sir!” And then I dropped my walkie into the snow, dove across the LOC and downed those three escaping Pakis. And that, ACP, is why they call me Behra Mehra,’ he finishes with a flourish, face flushed, eyes alight, clearly expecting applause.
Bhavani dutifully bursts into enthusiastic clapping. ‘Wah! Wah, general sa’ab, wah!’
These damn faujis have no respect for human life. Killing a human being is like slapping a mosquito for them.
Mukesh Khurana’s words had been a sweeping generalization, of course, but they do seem to ring true for Behra Mehra, AVSM PVSM Yudh Sewa Medal.
Mehra ducks his head modestly. ‘I applied the same tactics in 2016. You might have seen the movie Jhelum Bridge?’
‘Yes, sir, of course! You were played by Amitabh Bachchan in the movie! It was too good, sir!’
‘Thank you! The IJP was really keen to milk my popularity after the surgical strikes,’ Mehra continues. ‘Offered me a ticket to contest the election from my native place! But I’m a simple creature, ACP. A bit of tennis, a round of golf, some drinks – that’s good enough for me!’
‘So humble, sir!’
They stare at each other in rapt delight for a while.
Finally Bhavani drops his gaze and says in a much more matter-of-fact voice, ‘And your donation to the charity mentioned in the WhatsApp link, sir?’
Behra Mehra furrows his forehead.
‘Somebody mentioned the place to me – said they do good work – so I made a donation and asked them to say prayers in the memory of my wife, who studied at a convent school, and was a big fan of Mother Mary and Mother Teresa. That is all.’
‘Who mentioned it to you?’ Bhavani’s voice is very casual.
The general’s is equally casual as he replies, ‘I can’t remember off-hand.’ He goes quiet.
As the silence threatens to lengthen, Kashi says quickly, ‘Any leads for the ACP, Mehra uncle? You know everybody at the DTC … surely you can point our nose in the right direction!’
Mehra sits back comfortably.
‘There’s a world of suspects out there if you look beyond me! From wha
t I’ve heard, this Leo chap led a colourful life! Any number of jealous husbands out for his blood! Any number of jealous women competing for his affection!’
‘Then these women would kill each other, wouldn’t they? Why would they kill him?’
‘Oh, Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned … blah di blah,’ Behra Mehra says vaguely. ‘What I mean to say is, go digging into his past. He seems a bit of a mystery man to me, frankly – no parents, no girlfriend, no background, no foreground! Isn’t that what they say in all the mystery novels – the psychology of the dead man points an unerring finger to the criminal? I’ve seen all sort of crazy things in the army, and I’m sure you’ve seen all sorts of crazy things in the Crime Branch!’
‘That is true, sir! Sir, we wanted to ask you about the … young lady called Ganga who works in Daily Needs.’
Observing Mehra’s expression closely as he asks this question. Bhavani decides that while the general is surprised by it, he doesn’t look rattled in any way.
Shrugging slightly, he says, ‘My ill-wishers have been busy, I see. What that disgusting rumour has to do with Leo’s death I cannot imagine, but I will gladly answer your question.’
‘If you don’t mind, sir …’ Bhavani looks hugely relieved.
Mehra inclines his head graciously.
‘Young Ganga and I are buddies. We got friendly during an extremely taxing period of my life – my wife of thirty-seven years was grievously unwell, and I had taken on the responsibility of the weekly shopping. Ganga assisted me in picking out my daily needs very sweetly. She had a no-good husband – chap came and went, I believe – drank like a fish, and was a terrible provider. She was lonely; I was retired, my children had moved abroad. To cut a long story short, we hit it off. She started visiting us at home. Meeting her cheered my wife tremendously! We all played teen-do-paanch, drank a little whisky. Then my wife died and I … I leaned on her a little. Like a father would, on a daughter. But then her husband got wind of it. There was a bust-up, I punched his face in, and that night he walked out on her. Left her for good. We always agreed he was a bad lot – me and my dear departed Savitri.’
Club You to Death Page 13