The Retribution

by Shankar Kashyap

  “The play at the theatre has finished now. I don’t think you will have any more problems.” Officer Mark Henson had said when he came to tell them that the police watch was going to be removed. “If you get any more problems, please give me a call.”

  He had left his card with Dev. When he was called after the next threatening call, he said, “I suspect these crank calls are made by the same guys and chances are they are harmless. Keep me posted.” And had hung up.

  “I think we should all be careful.” Ramacharan said “There will be a lot of people during the festival and we don’t want any problems. I think you better give that officer another call and ask him to post some men outside the temple during the festival days.”

  Mark Henson was good to his word and had agreed to post a couple of men over the three days of the festival. He came to the temple that evening as they were closing up.

  “I caught you just in the nick of time.” He said to Dev. “Have you got a minute?”

  Dev was looking forward to get home quickly and get changed before going to the Quebec.

  “I am on my way to meet some boys in the city. Can you make it quick?”

  “Yes, sure. I just wanted to touch base with you about the security arrangements for the upcoming festival.”

  “I think my father has become a bit paranoid since that threatening letter.”

  Dev laughed.

  “I don’t think we should take any chances with so many people attending the temple around the festival days.” Mark said. “I will speak to your father if he is in the temple.”

  “My father is not in today. But you can speak to Kishen. I really must go now.”

  As Dev was about to shut the door, Mark said, “I would not use the public toilets at the Belgrave flyover at night if I were you. It is not quite safe.”

  Dev’s heart was beating fast as he walked to the car.

  Harrison Road

  The noise of a telephone ringing woke him up. He tried to go back to sleep as it sounded distant. He could not go back to sleep as the sound became increasingly irritating. ‘Why does not someone pick up the bloody phone’ he thought to himself. It kept ringing incessantly and he decided to do something about it. As he stumbled out of bed he noticed the nude form of the girl half covered by the sheets next to him. For a minute he could not remember who she was. Then a smile spread on his face. He had met her a few weeks ago in one of the pubs and for a change she had not wrinkled her nose at his unkempt appearance. In fact she had gone out of her way to get friendly and ended up in his bed before long. She must have been in her thirties and was obviously well educated. That surprised him the most. His exploits generally had been young school drop outs or middle aged frustrated alcoholic housewives. It was his first Asian conquest. He wanted this to last.

  He was going to thump on the wall to shout at his neighbour to pick up the bloody phone when he realised it was his own phone. He fumbled around the desk which was littered with pizza boxes and empty beer cans looking for the phone. It must be here somewhere. I can hear it. He picked up the girl’s skirt from the chair and threw it down on the floor. There it was on the chair hidden under the skirt. ‘This better be important to wake me up in the middle of the night.’ He looked at his watch. No watch on the wrist. He remembered giving the watch to the shop guy for the four cans of beer. ‘Shit, this is worse than I thought’ and picked up the phone.

  “This better be important. Tell me you are dying or someone is trying to kill you. If not, I’ll come around and bloody kill you.”

  His voice sounded gruff from lack of sleep and too much beer.

  “You better get your ass down here now, Sean.” Said the voice on the phone. It was Peter Marshall, the sergeant from his precinct. “We have a stiff down here. He has been done in.”

  “Shit. What happened?” He was wide awake now. He shook his head to clear the cobwebs off his brain. “Where is this?”

  “It’s in Harrison road. It looks like a slaughter house down here. Blood all over the place. They tried to burn the place down. Can hardly see anything with the smoke.”

  “Nobody touch anything!” Sean shouted down the phone. “Nobody moves a muscle until I get down there.”

  He slammed the phone down and moved back to the bed where the brown beauty was still fast asleep. He roughly pulled the sheets off and slapped the exposed hip.

  “Come on sweetheart. Wakey wakey. It’s time for you to go.”

  She tried to pull the sheets back over her nakedness and mumbled,

  “It’s middle of the night. Leave me alone. Where do you want me to go?”

  “I don’t care. It’s time for you to go home. I have to go out to work.”

  “It’s all right, you go. Let me sleep. I will be here when you get back.”

  Sean pulled the sheets off again and said,

  “No. You won’t. Now come on be a sweetheart and get dressed. I have to go now.”

  He did not want to upset the girl as he had enjoyed the night and did not want to end it there.

  “OK, Ok. Hold your horses.” She shouted as she got out of bed and picked up her clothes on the way to the bathroom. “You men are all the same. Don’t come crawling back to me again later,” and slammed the bathroom door.

  Sean sighed deeply as he pulled his trousers up and started looking for his shoes. He was out of the dingy apartment before the girl come out of the bathroom. He felt dizzy as he walked down the dimly lit corridor towards the lift in the corner.

  ‘Bloody hell. I better pull myself together or I will have an accident.’

  He stopped at the water cooler in the corner and poured himself a glass of ice cold water. He felt somewhat more human after the third glass. The cold October air outside the apartment block gave him a shock. The easterly breeze was not strong but freezing cold. He pulled his jacket collar up and tucked his arms under as he walked towards the car, which was parked around the corner in a side street. It was still quite dark outside and the car was covered in a slight frost. He was not going to pay fifty quid a month to park in the apartment car park. By the time he reached the car, he was out of breath and shivering.

  Too many beers and cigarettes and too little food and exercise was showing. He cursed himself as he struggled to fit the key into the door of his old banger. A ten-year old Ford was the only one he could afford. It spluttered to life at the third attempt, just as he was cursing the car and the fate that he firmly believed was the cause of his present state. He could not afford to be a member of the AA and he would have had to call his sergeant to pick him up again. That would be the fourth time this month. He hated doing that. It took him another five minutes to scrape the frost off the windscreen and get going. The clock on the dashboard said ten past four.

  By the time he reached Harrison road, there were two patrol cars, a couple of fire engines and an ambulance parked on the roadside kerb. He did not have any trouble finding the house with the flashing blue lights visible for miles. There was already a small crowd of onlookers despite the early hours of the morning.

  The front of the house had been screened off with police ribbons stopping onlookers from getting too close to the scene. The incident van pulled up as he was getting out of the car. The bobby standing outside the door recognised Sean and gave him a weak smile. His reputation on the force was wide spread and there were bets running as to how long before he gets the sack.

  “Morning Sean.”

  “Morning. Don’t let them get inside before I have had a look first.”

  “You won’t like what is in there.” The bobby said. “It is a mess. You need to go around the back.”

  “How do I get there?”

  “There is an alleyway just down the street. That will take you to the back of these houses. You can’t miss it.”

  Sean just grunted in reply and walked down to the tiny alleyway littered with garbage and fallen rubbish bins. The bobby was right, there were two more cops hanging around the back of the house with more
ribbons and more sheets. There was a rickety iron gate leading up a stone path to the back door. The back garden was filled with rubbish from renovation work being done inside – broken bath, toilet, sink and even some old furniture littered the back yard. There was no “garden” as such that he could see. As he pushed the back door open to go inside, acrid smell of smoke and gas hit him and he wrinkled his nostrils involuntarily. All the lights were on and he could still see wisps of smoke coming out of the living room. Sergeant Peter Marshall was talking to the fire crew, turned around and saw Sean.

  “Welcome to the slaughter house. Mind your step though. There is blood all over the place.”

  Sean nodded at the fireman and smiled at Peter.

  “Not something you want to see at this time of the morning.”

  “You are right Sean.” Peter replied. “It is in the front room. You go through the dining room.”

  “I hope none has moved anything?”

  “The firemen had to move a few things to get inside. The whole place was covered in smoke when we got in.”

  Sean grunted something under his breath and walked through the dining room towards the sitting room door. He stood at the doorway without moving and took in the scene. There was a half burnt settee on its side, near the front door, still smoking. The fire extinguisher foam covered part of the settee. Part of the front door was on the floor in pieces. A thick plastic sheet screened off the doorway. The front wall of the room was black covered in soot. Then he saw him. He was lying face down in a large pool of blood which had spread around him. The left hand was hidden underneath and the right hand was stretched out in front of him. As he glanced down on the floor, the carpet was stained in several places. Nondescript colour and the gaudy pattern hid some of the stains, but he could still make out the stains across the floor. It looked as if either the body had been dragged on the floor or the dead man had dragged himself along the floor. Closer inspection showed hand prints on the wall just below the window. The curtains were mostly burnt leaving a tiny skirting at the top. The paint of the window frames was burnt and flaking off. It looked as if he was trying to reach out for the window. ‘Was he trying to open the window? Call for help?’ Sean thought.

  He knelt down to have a look at the body on the floor. First thing that stuck him was the fair complexion of an Asian man, tall well-built and well dressed. The bright pink shirt was soaked in blood and the light blue jeans was stained in places. Black shiny shoes looked expensive. There was an Armani jacket hung over the large settee against the wall.

  There were two other cops standing round looking bored and a bit annoyed at being hauled up in the middle of the night. Peter who had followed Sean, turned to one of them and said,

  “Go and make yourself useful. Get the neighbour in here for Sean.”

  “Sure will do Sarge. I’m sure he will love me to wake him up again.”

  “Little chance of that. He would be peering out of the window to see what is happening. He looks like a nosey bugger to me.”

  “Who is the stiff? Do we know?” Sean asked Peter.

  “We don’t know. Not really. We are waiting for the forensics to come before we touch anything.” Peter replied. “The neighbour who called the fire brigade said he saw some fire but don’t doesn’t know who the house belongs to. Or more like he doesn’t want to tell us.”

  “What do you mean? Is this guy not the owner of the house?”

  “I have already asked the guy who called the firemen. He says that all he knows is that some Asian guys have been coming around for a while trying to renovate it.”

  “I’d better go and talk to him. Don’t let anyone touch anything until I come back.”

  “What about the forensics?” Peter shouted as Sean left through the back. Sean stopped, turned around and said,

  “Tell the buggers to be careful. I want to examine things myself. I don’t want anything being moved.”

  The cop had brought the neighbour along to the back of the house. It was a portly guy in his pyjamas stained with last night’s dinner at the front and fingers dark brown with nicotine stains.

  “This is Mr James Maddison. He is the neighbour who called us.” The cop introduced the guy. Sean shook his hands and said,

  “Thank you for helping us Mr Maddison. We are ever so grateful. I am Detective Inspector, Sean O’Connor.”

  “It is no problem, Inspector. Glad to be of help.” His voice was guttural and his breath still reeked of stale beer. Sean was used to foul smells, but a combination of strong curry, sweat and stale beer was a bit too much even for him. He took a step back before continuing.

  “I am sure you have already told my colleagues. But can you tell me what you saw please?”

  “Sure. I was woken up by a dog howling incessantly in the early hours of the morning. That is when I smelt smoke. I sleep with the window open you see. I’ve done that for as long as I can remember.” He said showing his nicotine stained teeth which were rotting away. “I looked out of the window and saw the smoke.”

  “Where was the smoke coming from Mr Maddison?” Sean prompted.

  “It was coming from under the front door of the house. I had heard a car drive up last night and voices coming from the house. So I quickly ran outside and knocked on the door. There was no reply. Bill from the opposite house heard me and came across. We both were shouting and knocking on the door for a while. When we did not get any response, I called the fire brigade and the police. I was sure the fire would spread to our houses.” He was gesticulating wildly by now. It just made the smell emanating from him worse.

  “What time do you think you saw the smoke Mr Maddison?”

  “I can’t honestly say for sure. But, it must be after four in the morning. Cause, the milkman came around just as the fire brigade arrived.”

  “Did you know the people living in this house?”

  “I can’t say for sure. It had been empty for a while. I think this Indian bought the house and was getting it made up. There have been workmen on and off for the last six months at least.”

  “You never met the owner?”

  “He said hello a couple of times, but never really talked.” Maddison said. “Good looking lad, tall for an Indian I thought. I’ve seen a couple of other Indian guys come and go once or twice.”

  “Do you know where he lived?”

  “No. We never really spoke.”

  “Thank you Mr Maddison.” Sean said forcing himself to shake his hands again. He had to fight hard not to wrinkle his nose as he did. “Is it all right if I come back to you if there are any other questions?”

  “Sure.” He replied. “Is it true there is a dead body inside?”

  “I will let you know what has happened soon Mr Maddison. Rest assured that the fire has been taken care for now.”

  “Yeah. The firemen were very quick in coming.” Maddison said. “If there is nothing else I better get back home. I got to get ready for work.”

  “Thanks again, Mr Maddison.” Sean said as he turned to go back inside again.

  The forensic team were already in the sitting room. There was Tanya, in her usual blue jeans, a black jacket and gloves going around spreading some white powder on the walls and furniture to get fingerprints. There was a young guy, looked just out of school with a camera bigger than him taking photographs of anything and everything.

  “I hope you guys haven’t touched anything?

  They hadn’t noticed Sean coming in.

  “No chief.” They said in unison.

  “Sean, meet Charlie Sands. He is the new photographer. Been with us for a month now.” Tanya said introducing the young kid.

  Sean just snorted in reply and shoved his hands deeper into his pockets.

  “Good. Let me know when you have finished. I want to have a look around.” Turning to Charlie, “and you, be careful what you touch. Tanya, you better keep an eye on him. This all I need. A rookie at the start of a murder case.”

  Sean left them in the sitting room, st
aring at each other and went into the dining room. He had worked with the girl, Tanya, before. But the kid was someone he had not come across before. There was pine dining table in the middle with a couple of chairs pulled out and one of the chairs was lying on its back. He called out to the sergeant.

  “Has anyone been touching anything here, Peter?”

  “I don’t think so, Sean.”

  The sergeant wandered over into the dining room and looked at the scene. “We could not get in through the front door and got in through the back through the kitchen. Nobody has been into this room yet. Apart from the fireman, that is. I don’t think they have touched anything here. Looks like something has happened here too.”

  “Yeah. Looks like it. Get the forensics to get prints off here as well.” Sean said as he scanned the room slowly.

  Apart from the chair on the floor there was nothing out of the ordinary. There was a sideboard with a couple of empty glasses on it. A damp patch on the dining table caught his eye. He bent down to take a closer look. The smell was unmistakable despite being masked to some extent by the strong smell of the smoke. He had smelt enough junk in his life to immediately recognise it. He took his nose down almost to touch the table and make sure. That is when he noticed the spoon on the floor. He knelt down on the floor and there they were, a syringe with the needle still attached and a burnt out candle. The candle must have been still lit when it had fallen on the floor as it had dripped on the floor and stuck down with wax, which had solidified. The spoon was still facing up and he could see a tiny bit of brown residue in the spoon. He crawled around on all fours around the table look for any other clues. Nothing. He got up and turned to the sergeant,

  “Get Tanya in here please Peter and the photographer kid too.”