Last Victim of the Monsoon Express

by Vaseem Khan

  And yet, ultimately, even the Cyrus Zorabians of this world were forced to kneel before the greatest leveller of them all – death.

  They entered an expansive drawing room – fitted out with claw-footed furniture and an ancient Pianola – where the woman Chopra had been summoned to see awaited.

  Perizaad Zorabian was younger than he had imagined. Elegant and attractive, with shoulder-length jet-black hair parted dead centre of her high forehead, an aquiline nose, and piercing brown eyes, she put him in mind of a mortician. There was something unsettlingly clinical in her look, and in the precision with which she greeted them.

  Her gaze rested only momentarily on Ganesha, who shuffled closer to Chopra, unnerved by the scrutiny. For a second Chopra thought she would comment on the little elephant’s presence, but instead she turned to address Buckley. ‘Please leave us.’

  The Englishman frowned, then seemed to think better of objecting. He dipped his head and exited the room. Chopra thought that he detected an unspoken animosity in the air.

  ‘He worked for my father for almost a decade,’ said Perizaad, perhaps sensing his thoughts. ‘I think he still believes he should be consulted on all matters relating to him.’

  ‘I am very sorry for your loss,’ said Chopra automatically, and then regretted the words. He had never been a man for appearances.

  Perizaad ignored the sentiment.

  Instead, she rose from her teakwood desk, and began to pace the room. She wore a grey trouser suit, belted high at the waist. A cloud of perfume trailed her as she weaved figures-of-eight over the marble flooring.

  ‘Thank you for coming so quickly. I know that you must be a busy man.’ Abruptly, she wheeled on them, frightening Ganesha into shrinking back behind him. ‘How much do you know about my father’s death?’

  ‘I know that he was murdered three months ago. I know that no suspect has ever been identified for his killing.’

  ‘As you can imagine, this is not a satisfactory state of affairs.’

  ‘You are unhappy with the police investigation?’

  ‘The police!’ She slapped out an angry hand, accidentally knocking over a vase perched on the corner of her desk. It fell to the floor, where it shattered into a thousand pieces. Ganesha’s trunk vanished behind Chopra’s legs. ‘They have redefined the meaning of incompetence.’

  ‘If I remember correctly they concluded that your father was the victim of a random attack. He was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

  ‘My father was killed inside Doongerwadi,’ said Perizaad. ‘Murdered on holy ground. In the entire history of the Parsees in this country no one has ever been murdered in the Towers of Silence, let alone a Parsee of my father’s standing. No one would dare.’

  ‘And yet it happened.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, a shadow clouding her eyes. ‘It happened. And the killer is still out there, somewhere.’

  Chopra considered the matter.

  He had understood when Buckley had contacted him that Cyrus Zorabian’s murder most likely lay behind his invitation to the Samundra Mahal. The PA’s call had brought back to him the fuss in Mumbai when the Parsee industrialist’s body had been discovered. The sensational nature of the killing, coupled with the victim’s stature, had kept the city’s news editors frothing at the mouth for weeks.

  Eventually, as it became clear that no leads or suspects were forthcoming, the story had died a quiet death. In a city such as Mumbai, with twenty million inhabitants, twenty million stories waiting to be told – or twenty million tragedies waiting to unfold, as his friend and pathologist Homi Contractor would often put it – there was no shortage of news.

  Thinking of Homi – who himself was a Parsee – reminded Chopra that this was a unique situation. The Parsees, so heavily outnumbered in the seething mass of India’s billion-strong horde, were, in many ways, under siege from without as well as from within. Chopra had always found them an agreeable and generous bunch – even Homi, with his surly disposition, concealed a heart of, if not gold, then certainly something approaching it.

  Gold alloy, perhaps.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘what makes you think there is more to your father’s death than the police have concluded?’

  ‘Because of how many unanswered questions remain. My father was a careful man. What was he doing inside Doongerwadi, alone, at that time? And there are other things about the case that the police have simply made no headway with. Either because they were incompetent, or because they simply didn’t care to.’

  ‘Yet you think I might do a better job? I was a policeman for thirty years.’

  She arched her eyebrows at him. ‘Do you know much about my father, Chopra?’

  ‘He was wealthy. He was a widower. He was well-liked – generally speaking. Beyond that I know no more than the average Mumbaiker.’

  ‘My father is – was – an institution in this city. Because of our family’s history here, and our varied business interests, he knew just about everyone with any influence in Mumbai. Yet he was also, socially speaking, a clumsy man. Apt to say the wrong thing at the wrong time. He used to joke that he’d put so many feet into his mouth over the years that he should have been born a millipede.’ She gave a wan smile. ‘The truth is that he was hated by many of the people who run this city, including the chief minister. My father clashed with him last year over the rise of right-wing militancy in the state. He felt that the CM was pandering to the demagogues – not doing enough to shut down their hate speech.’

  ‘Is this why you believe the police haven’t investigated his murder thoroughly?’

  ‘The commissioner of police serves at the pleasure of the chief minister, does he not?’

  Chopra made no comment but privately felt that this was doing the man a disservice. He had met the commissioner on two prior occasions, and although he wasn’t quite convinced that he was the right man – or woman – for the role, nevertheless he was a far cry from the sort of kowtowing oaf that had for so long distinguished the post. The truth was that no one could hope to run the police service for a city such as Mumbai without being a political animal. Wooden ears, a hollow heart and a forked tongue. That was how Homi had described the ideal aspirant to the role.

  ‘Have you spoken with him?’

  ‘The commissioner? Yes, of course.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He told me they had done everything within their power to find my father’s killer.’

  Chopra gave a wry smile. ‘Yet here I am.’

  ‘Yet here you are.’

  A silence passed between them as he evaluated the situation.

  The agency was busier than ever.

  Even with the help of his associate private investigator, Abbas Rangwalla – a former policeman who had served as Chopra’s deputy for two decades at the local station in Sahar – there was more work than they could presently handle. He did not need this case. He particularly did not need to tread on the toes of the Brihanmumbai police, who had only recently begun to invite him back to work on investigations they did not have the manpower to handle themselves. If it leaked out that the Zorabian family had employed a private investigator to look into Cyrus’s killing, Chopra would swiftly find himself the centre of unwelcome attention, a development he did not relish.

  And yet, there was something here that did not sit right with him.

  That a man as well-known as Cyrus Zorabian should be murdered in the city was bad enough – but in a city of twenty million the fact of a single murder was a statistical inevitability. What set this case apart was the conviction of Cyrus’s daughter that perhaps, just perhaps, those who should have followed through in investigating that death had not applied their shoulders fully to the wheel. That, somehow, they had not given of their best because the victim was a man out of favour with those at the very top of the city’s power structure.

  On the day that he had retired, Chopra had been accused by the mother of a murdered boy of not caring because they wer
e poor. Her words had stung him deeply. He was a man for whom the notion of justice went deeper than rhetoric. If a principle was to have any value at all it had to be applied equally to rich and poor, powerful and disenfranchised: this simple truth had always been apparent to him. Did Cyrus Zorabian deserve less because he was wealthy, or because his family name commanded great influence?

  ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I will take the case.’

  Perizaad gave a grimace of acknowledgement. ‘Buckley will give you the names of everyone the police interviewed in connection with my father’s death.’

  ‘Frankly, I would rather speak directly with the man in charge of the investigation.’

  ‘Man?’ said Perizaad archly. ‘How do you know it was not a woman?’

  Chopra raised a surprised eyebrow. ‘I—’ he began, but Perizaad took pity on him.

  ‘Buckley will arrange the meeting for you. I will also speak to the commissioner. Willingly or unwillingly he will instruct his people to give you all the cooperation you need. But I warn you: the man in question is an imbecile.’

  ‘What is his name?’

  ‘Rao,’ said Perizaad. ‘ACP Suresh Rao. He is with the CBI.’

  Chopra’s ears rang like tolling church bells. He suddenly found it hard to breathe, as if the air had been sucked from the room.

  Rao.

  Of all the names that Perizaad Zorabian might have set forth this was the one Chopra had least expected, and would have least wished to hear. For many years, Suresh Rao had served as his commanding officer when Chopra had run the Sahar police station. Even then the man had been a two-chip thug, the sort of incompetent and congenitally corrupt policeman responsible for the terrible reputation enjoyed by the Indian police service. In the recent past Rao and Chopra had clashed when his investigations had cut across Rao’s work at the CBI, the Central Bureau of Investigation. There was little love lost between them; Chopra did not relish the prospect of crossing swords with Rao once more.

  ‘Do you know him?’ said Perizaad.

  ‘Yes,’ breathed Chopra. ‘Unfortunately, I do.’

  She squinted suspiciously at him, but declined to enquire further. ‘I will expect regular updates. If you need anything, anything at all, simply ask Buckley.’

  ‘I would like to ask you a few questions now, to flesh out some background detail.’

  She glanced at her watch, then nodded. Quickly, he went over the basics with her, covering Zorabian family history, a rundown of her father’s closest friends, an insight into the business behind their fortune. Perizaad appeared in a hurry, and he sensed that there was more to be dug out here.

  When she was done, she swept past him, then turned back at the door. Her eyes alighted on Ganesha’s backside. ‘I was informed that you seem to be wandering around with a pet elephant. I thought it might be some sort of elaborate joke. Clearly, I was wrong.’

  ‘He is not a pet,’ said Chopra stiffly. ‘His name is Ganesha.’

  ‘Ganesha,’ echoed Perizaad, as if testing out the name.

  Hearing his name spoken out loud the little elephant flapped his ears, but declined to turn and face the woman. His bottom trembled gently.

  ‘He appears to be of a somewhat nervous disposition,’ said Perizaad dryly.

  ‘He’s not normally like this,’ mumbled Chopra. ‘I’m not sure what’s got into him.’

  ‘I hope his guardian has a stronger stomach for the fight.’ She turned and left.

  Chopra glanced down at his ward. ‘Well, thanks for embarrassing us both,’ he muttered.

  Ganesha gave him a sheepish tap with his trunk, then went back to examining the intricate mosaic between his blunt-toed feet.

  Chopra swallowed his irritation. The little elephant had been increasingly distracted of late. He wondered what was going on beneath that knobbly skull, with its little cluster of short hairs.

  He was prevented from dwelling on the matter further by Buckley, returned to usher them out of the building.

  As he swung briskly along, he handed Chopra the list that Perizaad had mentioned. ‘Ms Zorabian has asked me to arrange an appointment for you with ACP Rao. I shall request that he meet with you first thing tomorrow morning at the CBI headquarters in Nariman Point. I trust that will be satisfactory.’

  At the gates, Chopra paused. ‘Perizaad said that you worked for Cyrus Zorabian for almost a decade.’

  ‘That’s correct,’ said Buckley, glancing impatiently at his watch, an elaborately expensive platinum affair, Chopra couldn’t help but notice.

  ‘In all that time did you become aware of anyone who hated him enough to want to kill him?’

  Buckley blinked from behind his spectacles. ‘The truth? No. He was not a dislikeable man. Yes, at times he did or said things that upset others, but enough to kill him? It’s unthinkable.’

  Chopra nodded, then headed back across the road towards his van, Ganesha following closely in his wake.

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