Bhavani Singh, busy staring down at his knobbly knuckles and radiating sympathy for all he’s worth, takes a moment to react to this direct question. And in that moment, Ganga looks beyond him, and her eyes widen as she sees somebody in the doorway.
‘Oh!’ she says softly.
Urvashi Khurana is standing in the doorway. There is something oddly menacing about her stance today.
‘What’s going on over here?’ she asks sharply, her eyes going from Ganga’s expressive face to Bhavani’s suddenly wooden one. ‘Ganga, are the police troubling you?’
She walks into the store, and Bhavani notices that she doesn’t look very well today. There are purplish smudges under the huge, beautiful eyes and the make-up seems to have been applied with a shaky hand. The expensive but airily loose salwar kameez is immaculate, but the pale, pearl coloured nail polish on two of her nails is actually chipped. Urvashi Khurana is unravelling fast, decides Bhavani Singh. Why?
‘Hello, Urvashi madam,’ he says politely.
But she is having none of that.
‘You shouldn’t be harassing the girl, ACP!’ she rebukes him. ‘You shouldn’t even be speaking to her without a lady constable present. Surely you’re aware of that?’
Bhavani steps away from the counter, speaking placatingly. ‘Madam, we are not speaking to her about the murders. We are just enquiring about her well-being.’
‘He came to buy apples,’ Ganga tries to explain.
‘You are unbelievably naive,’ Urvashi snaps. Then she turns to Bhavani. ‘Please don’t come in here pretending to buy apples and acting all fatherly! The girl already has a father – who isn’t speaking to her any more, thanks to all these new reports!’
‘But the ACP is nice, Urvashi madam!’ Ganga says earnestly.
‘You thought the general was nice too,’ Urvashi reminds her bluntly. ‘Until you didn’t. Then you and Bambi came crying to me. Now let me help.’
Ganga stands back, subdued.
Bhavani, seeing that Urvashi is on edge today, decides to provoke her while the iron is hot.
‘So good you came, because we wanted to ask you something too, madam,’ he says genially. ‘How did you select the proposed location for your rainwater-harvesting plant? Matlab, why did you want it to be in the kitchen garden only?’
She gives a light, disbelieving laugh. ‘I called in some experts and they chose a spot. There was nothing dodgy about it.’
Bhavani turns the screw a little more. ‘It just seems to be too much of a coincidence, madam.’
‘What?’ Her exquisite nostrils flare a little. ‘Do speak plainly, ACP.’
He moves about a little, half-shrugging, half-wriggling.
‘That you chose the very place where the body was buried. It makes it look like you had some inside information.’
Her lovely eyes kindle.
‘And how would I have that?’ she asks.
Ganga’s head is now turning from one speaker to the other like that of a spectator at a tennis match.
‘Madam, you are right. We shouldn’t be speaking to you without a lady constable present …’
Urvashi’s ante is fully up now. She slaps the counter top. ‘How would I have that, Bhavani ji?’
‘We don’t quite know,’ he replies steadily. ‘But it has worked out very nicely for you, hasn’t it? Your husband and you were the top suspects, till the second corpse was found, after which the needle of suspicion shifted neatly to your rival in the election.’
‘Perhaps my rival is guilty,’ she says forcefully.
‘What’s all this?’
General Mehra has just walked into the Daily Needs too, dressed in checked Bermudas and a firozi-blue cardigan that brings out the hazel of his eyes.
Wah, Bhavani thinks resignedly, kya timing hai! This situation is swiftly descending into pure farce. How we wish we didn’t have a flight to catch!
‘It is nothing,’ he says genially. ‘We were just leaving.’
Mehra points an accusing finger at Urvashi. ‘She was saying something about me! I heard her!’
‘I was saying you’re an unprincipled, lecherous ass,’ Urvashi retorts sweetly. ‘That’s all.’
Ganga gasps, then giggles nervously. Around them, the entire store goes very silent.
‘Excuse me?’ Mehra walks right up to Urvashi, his eyes bulging with disbelief.
‘But you are inexcusable,’ she flashes back coolly; her eyes burning as brightly as coals in her lovely translucent face.
His jaw sags. Foam starts to gather at the corners of his mouth. ‘Whuh … what the hell is this rubbish!’ he roars thickly, looking around the store to see how many people are watching. ‘I will haul you up before the core committee for this!’
‘Oh shut up, Mehra,’ she says contemptuously. ‘I just have to tell them about the stunt you tried to pull with Srivastava and they’ll bar you from the Club, along with your two sons who don’t even talk to you any more!’
A low, cautious whoop sounds from one of the aisles behind them. Mehra’s face purples.
‘Who told y— I deny … I will …’ He takes a hasty step towards her, clenching and unclenching his hands.
Bhavani steps nimbly into the middle. ‘Please, general sa’ab, keep your cool.’
Behra Mehra’s eyes bulge. ‘ACP, I am perfectly capable of keeping my cool! I have commanded operations that require split-second decision-making in the thick of enemy action!’
‘Oh, enough of your stupid little war stories,’ Urvashi says curtly. ‘I have pushed out a baby without any painkillers and without any fuss, while there were rioters at our door and the entire city was burning!’
More whoops sound from the aisles behind them. An unseen female voice starts to chant.
‘Vote for? Urvashi!’
‘Vote for? Urvashi!’
‘Vote for? Urvashi!’
Urvashi bites her lip, flushing, then smiles and bows to her unseen audience.
‘Thank you.’
Thoroughly routed, Behra Mehra turns on his heel and flees the store with as much dignity as he can summon.
The Poddars’ white-pillared bungalow in Alipore is set far back from the main road. The driveway is imposing and the garden beautifully lush – ringed by a high wall and topped off with jagged bits of broken glass.
Bhavani, who is having a very eventful day, smoothens his economy-travel rumpled clothes and regards the imposing gates with a fair amount of trepidation.
The Poddars prefer to keep a low profile, but they are an incredibly wealthy family, almost billionaires, with fingers in over half-a-dozen pies, and connections by marriage to some of the richest families in India. If their son and heir, presumed dead, were alive and running around murdering his ex-fiancée’s paramours, they would have immediately, ruthlessly, suppressed all news of it. Pulling strings in New Delhi’s Crime Branch, and pinning a crime on a mere general would be a piece of cake for their dirty tricks department.
His chief’s word echoes in his ears.
‘For heaven’s sake, keep it nice, Bhavani. You will have to tread very, very carefully. These Poddars are not people at whose homes we can just show up, flash a police ID and say ki hain-hain-hain we are investigating a crime, please cooperate.’
A man dressed in a spotless white safari suit opens the door and looks at the chunky fellow in the crumpled clothes inquiringly.
‘We have come from Delhi,’ Bhavani repeats the same thing he has explained at the gate, ‘to meet Shri Arihant Poddar. He is expecting us.’
A scented, white wet towel is presented to him with a low bow. Bhavani wipes his hands thoroughly, and divested off common germs, is led into a large, sunny room that looks out onto the front lawn.
‘Sir aaschen,’ says the man in the white safari suit, and withdraws with another of one of his low bows.
Bhavani looks around at the plump, upho
lstered furniture, and finally picks a large wingchair that seems to have a hard seat. Sitting down, he finds himself facing a large oil painting of a laughing, well-built, young man with broad shoulders and a deep cleft in his chin, dressed in mountaineering gear, standing against a stunning vista of snow-capped peaks.
‘Anshul,’ he murmurs softly as his eyes scan the expensive, gilt-framed painting critically.
Bhavani’s respect for Pankaj Todi and his kleptomaniac wife rises: they had definitely arranged a spectacular match for their only daughter.
He has looked Anshul Poddar up online, and the painting seems to be a faithful rendition of the original. The artist (Bhavani recognizes the signature in the corner as being that of a famous Padma Shri awardee, and nominated member of the Rajya Sabha) has captured not just the setting, clothes and features, but a remarkable amount of personality as well. Anshul Poddar seems ready to stride out of the painting to shake hands with Bhavani. His eyes ablaze with the joy of being alive, the hint of arrogance in the tilt of his chin, this is a man who knows exactly how attractive he is.
He was a little vain. He talked a lot about how good-looking our children would be. If he got … burnt … or scarred very badly, or became crippled in some way so that he couldn’t climb mountains any more, or do any physical activity, it could have destroyed his mind.
There are several framed pictures below the portrait. One of them is a laughing candid photo of Bambi and Anshul. She is wearing the gold-and-yellow lehenga she had described to Bhavani, and Anshul is tucking a cluster of white roses behind her ear, into the loose waves of her soft, brown hair. They are both staring into each other’s eyes, oblivious of the camera.
Kashi was right, Bhavani Singh thinks as he gets up to study the picture more closely, they do look like they’re made for each other. Very discreetly he turns the picture around. There is a monogrammed label at the back: Flames&Flowers – Your fairy-tale Indian wedding.
‘ACP Singh?’
It is a very soft voice, but powerful too, the voice of a man who never has to speak loudly because everybody always listens to him. It makes Bhavani turn around at once.
‘Sir!’
The older Poddar is an aged version of the young man in the painting. The face is puffier, the lips thinner, and the hair grey and thinning at the temples.
Arihant Poddar gestures towards the chairs. ‘Please.’
They both sit down, facing each other. Poddar is all polite attention, but it has been clearly communicated to Bhavani that the great man can spare only fifteen minutes. He has to make this quick.
‘Young Bambi Todi,’ he begins without preamble, ‘has been receiving letters from somebody claiming to be your son.’
Arihant Poddar had been leaning forward, one arm resting on the arm rest of his chair, but at this revelation he seems to slump slightly. Taking off his rimless glasses, he massages his eyes, then sighs.
‘Not again.’
‘Sir?’ It is now Bhavani’s turn to register shock. ‘She has … We mean to say, this has happened before?’
Arihant Poddar nods. ‘She’s a lovely girl, Bambi. We all fell in love with her the first time we met. Anshul was immediately smitten. Of course – I can be frank with you without sounding crass, I hope, ACP Singh – he had received several, far grander offers, the daughters of billionaires, of superstars. Anshul, with his height and physical attractiveness, his easy charm and, of course, our family background, was extremely sought after. But he found all the girls we introduced him to … to be bland, boring, conventional. Just when we had started to despair of ever finding a girl to be our daughter-in-law and fill this house with joy and warmth, along came little Bambi.’ Arihant Poddar’s stern face softens. ‘She wasn’t like the other girls. She was razor smart for one, with a bloody good head for business. She was funny and warm and, most importantly for Anshul, whose one demand in a life partner was that “she must be able to camp with me high up in the mountains in a tent, and bathe with ice cold, melted glacier water”, she wasn’t namby-pamby in the least.’
‘Why did you say “not again”, sir?’ Bhavani prods, very conscious of his fifteen-minute deadline.
Arihant Poddar sighs. ‘You must be aware of the details of the tragedy. Neither Bambi nor my wife took the news of the accident well. Fresh from the engagement party, with the mehendi they had applied that day still blooming on their hands, they both went through a stage of complete denial. And when they found out that there was a little bit of a grey area – that there had been thirty people on that doomed bus but only twenty-two bodies were recovered from the water, they decided that Anshul had somehow survived. For the next three days, they kept feeding each other false hope … It was an utterly ghastly situation – I wouldn’t wish such a tragedy on my worst enemy.’
He goes quiet for a while. Bhavani, on tenterhooks, resists the urge to prod him again.
‘Finally, Pankaj Todi and I decided that enough was enough. There was no way Anshul could have survived the accident – the bus had rolled over twice, exploded, then plunged into the roaring river. The bodies were all so battered and dismembered that it was hard to tell their gender, let alone their identity. We zeroed in on one body – a young man, six feet tall, fair, muscular – and identified him as Anshul.’
He pauses, his eyes far away, seeing things Bhavani cannot.
‘It was Anshul,’ he says strongly. ‘As a father, I felt it in my bones. I remember the moment I held my baby boy in my arms for the first time, I had such a strong sense of confirmation then! When I saw that battered body, I got the same sense of confirmation. It was a soul recognition. It was him. Not everybody is blessed with a long life, and Anshul’s, though short, was complete. He had lived a full life – adventurous and successful. He had found true love, bid goodbye to all of us on that final night, and embarked upon a new adventure. Except the journey he had embarked upon turned out to be far greater than the one he had anticipated. Pankaj Todi and I identified him, cremated him, and brought the ashes back to Delhi.’
He pauses, then continues.
‘We all travelled together as a family to immerse the ashes at Banaras. After the prayers were said, and we sailed upon the holy Ganges at dawn, I thought both my wife and Bambi had found their closure. They certainly seemed to settle down, stop railing against the fates, and accept that a terrible, random tragedy had ripped apart the fabric of their lives, and slowly, very slowly, come to terms with their grief.’
‘That’s good,’ Bhavani murmurs. ‘You handled it brilliantly, sir, so sensitively, so correctly.’
Poddar gives short, mirthless laugh. ‘Hardly correctly!’
‘Why do you say that?’ Bhavani asks, confused.
Poddar raises pained eyes to Bhavani’s. ‘My wife still sleeps with a lock of Anshul’s hair beneath her pillow. Every single night. And if Bambi is “receiving letters” from him, then that means that the poor child has still not found her closure.’
‘Meaning?’ Bhavani asks, confused.
Arihant Poddar rests both arms on the armrest of his chair and steeples his fingers. ‘Don’t you see, ACP Singh? It is Bambi’s deepest desire that Anshul be alive. Bambi wants Anshul to be alive. It is her dearest fantasy. Investigate all you like, but my personal theory is that she’s been sending those letters to herself.’
‘Well?’ the chief demands. ‘How did it go?’
Bhavani breathes a heavy sigh. He is sitting outside his departure gate, eating a very soggy mayonnaise sandwich; the flight has been delayed by two hours. ‘It turned out to be a bit of a dead end, sir,’ he admits.
Squawking noises emanate from the other end. Bhavani winces, holds the phone away from his ear, and continues to chew.
When the sounds die down, he ventures to speak again. ‘Sir, Mr Poddar was very cooperative but he seemed to be of the view that …’
Lowering his voice, he brings his superior up to speed.
&nb
sp; ‘Sending them to herself!’ the chief says finally, sounding rather relieved. ‘Well, that isn’t so bad at all! Much better than having a crippled, demented, billionaire scion on the loose! Do you think that is what she’s been doing?’
Bhavani licks the mayonnaise off his fingers. ‘Well, as to that, sir, we couldn’t say. Of course, her mother is a little unbalanced …’
‘So it runs in the family.’ His chief sounds quite satisfied. ‘Well, well, we did our due diligence, basis this new evidence, and now it’s time to put General Mehra away!’
Bhavani registers his protest by keeping quiet. There’s no point telling the chief that he has already contacted Flames&Flowers – the wedding planners mentioned on the back of the ornate Bambi–Anshul photograph displayed in the Poddar’s living room. He fully intends to commandeer the recording of the entire engagement ceremony, and spend the weekend watching the footage minutely.
‘Are you listening, man?’
‘Sir, there is still the angle about Ajay Kumar being Aryaman Aggarwal’s dealer,’ Bhavani replies doughtily. ‘And we’ve made a new discovery as well.’
He briefs the chief about his 7 a.m. encounter with Cookie Katoch.
‘This woman’s reliable? Not a client of drug dealers herself, is she?’
‘She has provided a video recording, sir. And then there’re the Khuranas too – Urvashi Khurana has been behaving very oddly lately …’
‘They have no motive, Bhavani!’ the chief interrupts. ‘You’ve found absolutely no evidence of an affair between Urvashi Khurana and the Zumba master, and I doubt the husband, no matter how crazed with jealousy, could have been worked upon to commit a murder without some evidence. Even Othello needed to see Desdemona’s underwear, or whatever it was, in Cassio’s sweaty grasp. In modern parlance that would mean a sex tape at the very least! Besides, didn’t you say the Zumba master was having an affair with the Todi girl? And with the woman who was making his YouTube videos? How many women could he have been pleasuring at the same time?’
Club You to Death Page 27