by Piyush Jha
Virkar had discovered the bar by accident. It was while working on a case that involved surveillance of a scamster who was admitted as a patient at the nearby Bombay Hospital that he had chanced upon it. Early one morning, Virkar had seen the scamster emerge from the hospital gates and make his way surreptitiously through the back alleyways. Virkar had trailed the scamster and had seen him walking into a crumbling building that looked like it had seen better days. An inconspicuous signboard on the peeling walls read ‘Sunny Bar’. After the scamster had gone back to his hospital bed, Virkar had visited the bar pretending to be a desperate alcoholic. The cracked and peeling paint on the walls and the low hanging bulbs covered with wide lampshades bathed the bar in darkness. The hard, wooden benches next to the worn laminate tables were seats that only the hardcore alcoholics would choose to linger on. And yet, Virkar had been quite amazed at the activity he had seen inside. He was ready to crack down on the bar till he noticed that they were serving Godfather Beer. It had been a long night for Virkar and, suddenly, his suppressed tiredness had welled up inside him, begging for a sip of his favourite beer. Shamefaced, Virkar had ordered a Godfather and sat down in the vacant corner of a table already occupied by two men who looked extremely sleep deprived. Sipping his beer, Virkar couldn’t help but eavesdrop on the conversation between them. He gathered that they were out-of-towners, tending to their mother who was fighting for her last breath at Bombay Hospital. The men had apparently taken a quick beer break after a long night of uncertainty. They were due to head back to the hospital shortly, bracing themselves for the inevitable. Virkar had looked around the dimly-lit room and noticed other customers who were more content in the bar than the world outside. He had realized that, despite overtly breaking the law, Sunny Bar did actually cater to a needy clientele. Virkar had walked away from the bar that morning deciding to let it thrive while making a mental note to avail of its offerings sometime again when he was in need.
Today, as Virkar took assured steps towards Sunny Bar, the sky was breaking into dawn and the first chirrups of birds could be heard. At 6.30 a.m. that morning, twenty minutes after entering the bar, Virkar kept his glass mug down on the laminate-topped table. He had just finished his first bottle of beer. He glanced at the waiter who was standing expectantly beside him. As if by magic, the waiter produced another chilled bottle of Godfather from behind his back and, with a small flourish, popped open the cap, allowing the foam to trickle tantalizingly out of the bottle’s mouth. He poured the golden liquid into Virkar’s mug and placed next to it, a plastic bowl of crunchy chaklis and a bowl of fresh coriander and mint chutney. Virkar smiled. This was the cue for the waiter to make himself scarce and let Virkar mull over his drink.
As he took a sip of the precious liquid, a familiar female voice rang out in the room. It sounded totally out of place in the muted murmur of Sunny Bar.
‘So, is this what you do in the mornings, Inspector Virkar?’ Raashi looked down at him, an amused smile playing on her lips.
She looks very different from her TV show persona, thought Virkar as he took in Raashi’s appearance. She was dressed in a pair of jeans and a smart but plain T-shirt. Her hair was tied up in a ponytail and her face seemed devoid of make-up. In the dim light of Sunny Bar, it looked like she wasn’t wearing her sky-blue contact lenses. Virkar couldn’t be sure, but her eyes looked dark and were shining.
He was at a loss for words. Raashi’s sudden appearance and her amused smile made him feel like he had been caught with his pants down. He looked around and saw the grins plastered on the men’s faces and heard some hushed sniggers. Whispered comments like ‘Pakda gaya!’ and ‘Ab toh iski dandi gul!’ were heard around the bar, adding to Virkar’s acute embarrassment.
Virkar was still trying to compose himself when Raashi sat down across from him saying, ‘Normally, at this time I do yoga, but maybe I should give this drinking-in-the-morning thing a try.’ Virkar’s glanced suspiciously at her sling bag and her hands. Noticing this, Raashi held them up and said, ‘No spy cameras, Inspector. I’m here in an unofficial capacity.’
What is this Hunterwali after now? Virkar’s mind was racing but he managed to maintain a deadpan expression. ‘I’m off duty,’ he said perfunctorily. Raashi nodded and added in a sympathetic voice, ‘And also off the case, I know…’
Virkar’s lips curled with sarcasm. ‘Thanks to you, madam, thanks to you.’
‘But I did say good things about you…’
Virkar’s eyes bored through her. ‘Yes, among all the bad things you said about the police department.’
Raashi flinched. ‘I thought I was doing my job. As it turns out, I overstepped a line when I placed the spy cam in the ACP’s office. The channel bosses have asked me to go on a long leave,’ shrugged Raashi.
‘Then what are you doing here? You won’t get any sympathy or further information from me,’ hissed Virkar.
Raashi blushed. ‘I…I…followed you to…express my regrets. You’re a brave man, and I’m sorry that my actions have caused you trouble. I’d like to make amends.’ Her voice had a sincerity that was not lost on Virkar.
‘Looks like following me has become your life’s mission,’ he retorted, looking her in the eye. The unflinching transparency with which she returned his searching look made something shift inside Virkar.
‘Look, just give mere mortals like me a few moments of peace when we can drown our regrets.’ He sat back, relaxing his tense muscles for the first time since he had seen her. Raashi lowered her eyes but made no move to leave. For a while both of them sat in silence. Finally, Raashi reached into her sling bag and pulled out a mini voice recorder. Virkar sat up and eyed her suspiciously. Raashi pressed a button and suddenly Colasco’s dying words filled the air between them. ‘Hurry…tracing…tracings ward.’ Raashi lowered her voice and said, ‘Like you, I believe that there is a clue in these words. I’ve played it over and over again, but haven’t been able to come up with anything.’ Raashi pressed a button and Colasco’s words began playing in a loop. Virkar and Raashi bent their heads forward in complete concentration, listening to the muffled desperation in Colasco’s voice. For a while Virkar didn’t say anything, but noticing Raashi’s earnestness, he finally spoke up. ‘After watching your show last night, I realized I couldn’t just step away from the investigation.’ Raashi didn’t say anything but the look in her eyes indicated that she wanted him to go on talking. Virkar cleared his throat. ‘I went straight to Colasco’s Slum Baalak Suraksha office and was there all of last night going through his papers and records trying to find anything that might be linked to his last words, but I didn’t find anything useful.’
‘I know,’ said Raashi. Virkar threw her a sharp look.
‘I’ve been following you all night; how else would I know that you were here?’ She broke into a self-conscious grin. For a few seconds, Virkar held his stony stare but then broke into laughter himself. Virkar and Raashi laughed together and suddenly lapsed into an embarrassed, self-conscious silence.
Raashi spoke after a long moment. ‘Look, now that another Crime Branch team is taking over the case, you can’t officially speak to anyone, but if there is anyone or anything that you would like to investigate unofficially, let me do it for you.’
Virkar studied her eyes, which, as he had discovered that evening, were luminous brown. His gaze trailed along her unpainted mouth and the smooth texture of her skin. Was this a trap? He shrugged off the notion. The Hunterwali came across as genuine enough now. Virkar nodded. ‘Okay, but right now I’ve got nothing. Maybe you can tell me what “Smooth Operator” means? Is it some kind of slang?’
Raashi replied in a heartbeat. ‘The only “Smooth Operator” I know of is that old song by Sade.’
Virkar raised a quizzical eyebrow. ‘Shaade? I’ve never heard of this singer. Does he sing playback for Hindi films?’
Raashi giggled. ‘Sade is a she—a British singer from the eighties.’
Virkar face turned red with embarrassment. H
e cleared his throat. ‘A female British singer? How can she be connected to our Compass Box Killer?’
Raashi shrugged.
Virkar continued to think out loud. ‘Hmm…maybe the killer is not Indian. Perhaps the killer is an NRI? From the NGO files I saw at Colasco’s office, I discovered that he was connected to many international aid organizations that regularly send foreigners and NRIs to Mumbai for volunteer work.’ Virkar took out three hundred-rupee notes and slipped them under the beer mug. He gave Raashi a small nod and rose to leave.
‘Hey, where are you going?’ Raashi looked surprised.
‘I’m going back to Colasco’s office. I have to check out this NRI angle, I hadn’t thought of it before. I probably have a couple of hours left before the peons come to open the office.’
Raashi clicked her tongue. ‘Take it easy, Virkar, I was just showing off my knowledge of western pop music. How can you jump to conclusions based on an old song called Smooth Operator?’
Virkar turned to go. ‘Maybe I am jumping to conclusions. But I’ve got to check out all the possibilities. I’ve overlooked too many things already and made too many mistakes.’
Raashi got up to join him. ‘I’ll come with you.’ But Virkar put out a restraining hand. ‘No, thanks. I’ll do this on my own.’ Raashi looked at him, a little miffed.
‘Don’t worry. If I find something, I’ll definitely let you know,’ he added, his tone reassuring.
Raashi attempted to protest as they walked out into the back alley that served as the exit for patrons of Sunny Bar’s morning shift. But Virkar smiled at her and ducked into a narrow bylane where he had parked his Bullet. As he rode away, Raashi’s face bore an indecipherable expression of concern and dread.
19
‘Tracy Barton. That was her name. Tracy Barton from Durham, England. “Little Orphan Tracy”. Taken in by abusive foster parents who cared less for her and more for drugs, an addiction that they both succumbed to when she was sixteen. Tough Tracy. Who had put herself through school and got herself the best college education through sheer grit and intelligence. She had landed herself a plum corporate job as soon as she graduated and was well on her way up, climbing the rungs of the corporate ladder, when suddenly, at the age of twenty-five, Tracy quit her job, left London and travelled to Indian shores—to Dharavi, Asia’s largest slum in Mumbai, to be exact. Tracy planned to dedicate her life to orphaned children in India. She wanted to set up the biggest Adoption Agency in the UK. But first, she wanted to understand the way the system worked. After coming to India, she moved from one orphanage to another to try and understand the formalities that came with adoption in India. She travelled to nearby villages, helped out in blood donation camps, taught English in sundry literacy drives, cleaned slum drains till her hands were calloused, worked tirelessly for the underprivileged till her clothes carried the smell of her travels and her white skin turned a crisp brown under the harsh Indian sun. Her delicate looks, however, did not fade. Despite her dishevelled hair, her chipped fingernails smelling faintly of dried wood smoke, she was never short of attention from the opposite sex,’ said the forty-something Lourdes D’Monte, Colasco’s long-time private secretary.
She paused to take a brief respite from her outpouring and then continued, ‘Tracy was such a good soul. She used to tell me that even while studying in London and working two jobs to pay her college fees, she managed to save enough money to send to India to sponsor the upkeep of orphans like her.’ Lourdes’ eyes turned moist. Loyal, God-fearing Lourdes who had been party to all of Colasco’s secrets had remained mum all through the investigation. But now that Colasco was dead and Inspector Virkar had landed at her respectable, middle class home in C.G.S. Colony, Antop Hill, at an early morning hour, stinking of sweat and stale beer and scaring her two little children, Lourdes’ tongue had let loose. ‘Tracy first came in contact with Nigel Colasco when she met him during one of her many trips to the Mumbai slums. Later, she worked briefly with Slum Baalak Surakasha. Tracy was…’
Virkar, who had been listening to Lourdes patiently, suddenly cut her short, ‘Was?’
After he had thought of the ‘NRI/foreigner’ connection to Colasco during his conversation with Raashi, Virkar had remembered seeing an email folder the previous night called ‘International Contacts’ in Colasco’s inbox on his office computer. Virkar was desperate to join the dots. Colasco’s last words had been echoing in his mind even though ACP Wagh had dismissed their significance. He had gone back to Colasco’s office and picked the lock, as he had before, to quickly gain entry. At Colasco’s table, Virkar had turned on the computer and hacked into Colasco’s email account again by keying in Colasco’s date of birth and month as the password. The fact that most people still foolishly used their date of birth or their mother’s maiden name as their email passwords never ceased to amaze Virkar.
Having gained access to the ‘International Contacts’ folder, Virkar had typed out Colasco’s last words, ‘hurry’, ‘ward’ and ‘tracing’ one by one in the search bar. The first two had yielded no results but as he typed T-R-A-C it had thrown up the name and email address of someone called Tracy Barton. Virkar discovered that, though the name did exist in Colasco’s email address book, there were no email exchanges between him and Tracy. This could only mean that the emails between them had been deleted. His policeman’s instinct had urged him to follow this lead, however slender it seemed to be. He quickly looked through all the files on the computer but found no emails or letters. Glancing at the filing cabinets lined up on one side of the office, he realized that he didn’t have time to go through them. In any case, since he had already gone through them the previous night, he felt he wouldn’t find anything. But Virkar wanted to dig deeper, which meant that he’ d have to shake information out of someone. And he knew exactly who that person was. He had immediately ridden his Bullet to Lourdes’ house. He was, in fact, quite taken aback at the ease with which he had managed to squeeze out information from Lourdes. He wondered if Tracy Barton could be the ‘tracing’ in Colasco’s last words. Was he inching closer to finding the Compass Box Killer?
Now Virkar repeated his question. ‘Why have you been using the term “was”?’
Lourdes raised a quizzical eyebrow in response.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand your question,’ she replied.
‘You keep referring to Tracy in past tense. Where is she now?’ asked Virkar, trying his best to remain patient.
Lourdes gave him a strange look. ‘At the Christian Cemetery in Lonavala.’
Virkar felt as if someone had punched him in the gut. ‘What…when…did she die? How?’ Virkar managed to croak.
A tear rolled down Lourdes’ cheek. ‘She died in 2004 in a car accident in Khandala.’
Virkar sank back into the ratty old sofa. Suddenly, he felt tired. Very tired.
‘Nigel sir was very shaken by the suddenness of her death. He couldn’t bear to be reminded of her, so he deleted all her mails and photographs,’ Lourdes added gently.
‘Colasco was her…?’ Virkar’s mind struggled to focus as he tried to probe further.
‘Her good friend,’ replied Lourdes, her loyalty towards her deceased boss reasserting itself.
Virkar changed tack. ‘Hmm… Where was Colasco when Tracy died?’ he asked.
‘Here, in Mumbai,’ Lourdes stated. ‘Tracy had gone on one of her solo weekend trips to Khandala, borrowing Nigel sir’s car. She had drunk a lot of booze and fell asleep while driving. Later that night, Nigel sir was woken by a call from the Khandala police who told him that his car had been found at the bottom of a ghat with Tracy lying dead at the steering wheel.’
Virkar’s policeman’s instinct was completely alert now.
‘How old was Tracy when this mishap occurred?’
‘In her mid-twenties, I suppose,’ replied Lourdes. ‘Why?’
‘A young foreigner drunk and dead in a car crash should have made headlines,’ Virkar said, looking pointedly at Lourdes.
Virkar made a mental note to check newspaper archives. ‘What about her family? Didn’t they come to claim her body?’
Lourdes now looked tired. ‘Haven’t you been listening to me, Inspector? Tracy was an orphan; she had no one in this world. Some of her friends sent a few condolence emails, that’s all.’
‘Why was Tracy driving drunk and alone at night?’ Virkar asked, his fingers drumming against the sofa ’s armrest.
Lourdes looked at him blankly and shrugged. ‘I… I never asked Nigel sir; he was so devastated.’
Virkar was not satisfied. ‘But what about the police? Wasn’t there an investigation?’
‘Yes, of course there was one,’ said Lourdes. ‘The investigation declared it to be what it was—an unfortunate accident.’
With some effort, Virkar raised himself from the sofa that he was sorely tempted to make his bed. Thanking Lourdes and apologizing for his sudden appearance at her doorstep, Virkar walked out into the bright and busy street. It was 8.30 a.m. He turned his face up towards the sun, letting it warm his skin before getting on his Bullet and riding into the busy Antop Hill traffic.
His body was begging for some rest but his racing mind wanted him to ride straight to Khandala. To Tracy’s grave.
20
Khandala
Up until the mid-noughties, Khandala and Lonavala, the small hill stations that lie on the Western Ghats of Maharashtra, perhaps ranked highest on a list of weekend vacation retreats in India, courtesy the weekend-warriors from Mumbai who mercilessly swarmed the twin hill stations for rest and recreation. The allure was such that, at one time, almost every self-respecting ‘yuppie’ from Mumbai aspired to own a weekend retreat on the green slopes of the ghats. Many of them did manage to fulfil their dream, leading to houses being built in droves and transforming Khandala and Lonavala from quaint, picturesque hill towns, to concrete-stricken, hilly suburbs of Mumbai. The twin towns’ weekend charm fell on hard times as the average corporate Mumbaikar’s disposable income increased and their travel ambitions soared. While the flushed-with-funds Mumbaikars began seeking solace in better climes, Khandala and Lonavala slowly became the holiday destination of the budget tourist from interior Maharashtra. As the breezy Mumbai-Pune Expressway eliminated the need to pass through Khandala and Lonavala while travelling between Mumbai and Pune, it is only the die-hard trekkers who make their way along the old Mumbai-Pune Highway to partake of Khandala and Lonavala’s faded glory these days.