by Piyush Jha
Virkar smiled to himself as he zoomed past the usual morning traffic of struggling trucks that were huffing and puffing their way up the winding Bhor Ghat section of the old Mumbai-Pune Highway. The workhorse Bullet engine ate up the arduous eight-kilometre Khopoli-Khandala stretch, climbing the height of 369 metres with the ease of a champion steed. Virkar’s dark mood began to lift as his Bullet crested the stretch in record time. After leaving Lourdes’ house, he had called the on-duty officer at the Crime Branch headquarters and reported sick. Then he had gone back to his tenement, showered, changed into a fresh pair of faded jeans and a T-shirt and quickly packed a small backpack for his trip to Khandala. Then he had ridden his Bullet to a nearby cyber cafe to find Sade’s music video for Smooth Operator as well as archived Internet news reports on Tracy’s accident. Twenty minutes later, he was back on his Bullet, making his way to the Eastern Express Highway leading out of Mumbai.
As he entered Khandala, Virkar mentally debated whether he should head directly to Tracy’s grave at the Christian Cemetary in Lonavala or visit the Khandala police station first to look up old police reports on the accident. His cursory search of the Internet had yielded only a sketchy account of the accident and Virkar was curious to read its exact details. But he decided to first check into a hotel and change into ‘sober’ clothing befitting an Inspector from the Mumbai Crime Branch.
Virkar turned his Bullet into a winding bylane hoping to find his way to Katrak Villa, the old guest house that he used to frequent in his teens. Virkar and his friends would beg and borrow from their respective relatives for weekends filled with cheap liquor and hundreds of rounds of Mendicoat, their preferred gambling card game. To his delight, Katrak Villa still existed, looking almost the way it had when he visited it last, around fifteen years ago. Rustomji Katrak, the old Parsi owner had died and passed the ownership to his son, Pesi, who had decided to run the small guesthouse much the same way that his father had. Unfortunately, times had changed and people’s desires had expanded, leaving Katrak guesthouse with only a few odd customers for the weekend. This suited Virkar just fine as he was able to take his pick of the rooms, and despite the dampness and the cracked walls, he chose the corner room he had frequented in his youth—it had the best view of the greenery surrounding the property. Changing into a simple full-sleeved shirt and cotton trousers, Virkar left for his destination, locking his room with the padlock provided by Pesi.
‘Shinde saheb?’ asked Virkar of the constable on duty at the Khandala Police Station. Even though Virkar was not in uniform, the constable saluted him. Policemen can always spot one of their own ilk because of the manner in which they carry themselves. Besides, the authority with which Virkar had spoken left no room for doubt that he was a policeman, and an officer at that. The constable got up respectfully and led Virkar to Senior Inspector Shinde’s office at the back. As he entered the station, he surveyed the solid, whitewashed walls and the brick-and-tile construction of the old army barracks undoubtedly built during the British era to house the Indian soldiers who protected the vacationing British officers and their families. Senior Inspector Shinde’s office was in a small hut at the back of the barracks that housed the main police station.
Outside the door that displayed the senior inspector’s name, the constable halted in deference but Virkar brushed past him without breaking his stride. Pushing the door open, Virkar strode into the room. Inside, the stocky, bushy eyebrowed, dark-skinned Senior Inspector Shinde looked up, startled, a little annoyed at the interruption. His eyebrows shot up to the middle of his forehead.
‘Shinde saheb, I’m Virkar.’ He saluted smartly.
Shinde’s eyebrows relaxed. A broad smile broke across his dark face. ‘Ah, yes! Apte had telephoned me about you. Please have a seat.’
Virkar thanked him and pulled out a chair to sit down. Earlier, Virkar had made some enquiries and discovered that Inspector Apte, his police academy batchmate, had served with Shinde in the Ratnagiri district in coastal Maharashtra. Shinde banged his hand on a steel call-bell lying on the glass top of his desk. Almost immediately the constable’s head popped in. ‘Two special chais, phataphat,’ Shinde ordered. Turning his attention back to Virkar, Shinde smiled again. ‘Please tell me how I can help the Mumbai Crime Branch.’
Virkar cleared his throat. ‘Uh…Shinde saheb, I’m here on an unofficial matter…’ Shinde’s eager voice cut Virkar in mid-sentence, ‘Yes…yes…of course. But you are from the Mumbai Crime Branch, isn’t it? It is not often that people like you come to meet forgotten policemen like us in Khandala.’
Virkar opened his mouth to speak just as his gaze fell on a large wooden signboard on the wall behind Shinde’s chair. He froze. The signboard listed the senior police inspectors who had headed the Khandala Police Station over the years, along with their year of joining and leaving. Shinde’s name had been freshly painted at the bottom of the list, giving his year of joining as 2010, but what had grabbed Virkar’s attention was the name of one of the two predecessors above Shinde: ‘Tukaram Akurle 2002-2004.’
21
The shifting seasons have made the Khandala and Lonavala hill stations prone to sudden cloudbursts right from June to late November. So it was not surprising that a light drizzle accompanied by a thin layer of fog had begun to make its presence felt by the time Virkar left the Khandala Police Station and got back on his Bullet. As his light cotton clothes turned damp while trying to make his way down the now slick slopes, Virkar cursed under his breath, wishing he had carried a windcheater along with him. Suddenly, a thought struck him and he pulled to an abrupt stop by the side of the road. Getting off, he lifted the seat of the Bullet and from the small cavity below, he extracted a folded plastic carry bag that he usually stashed there for such emergencies. Realizing that his palms were wet, Virkar rubbed his fingers on the seat of his pants, the only dry part left of his clothing. He then dug them into his right trouser pocket and fished out the slightly damp, folded sheets of paper on which were photocopied the Panchnama and police report of Tracy Barton’s fatal accident along with her death certificate. He folded the plastic carry bag in such a way that it would become completely airtight and then, stuffing the package back into his trouser pocket, he swung his leg over the seat and gunned the Bullet back on to the road. By now the temperature had dipped a couple of degrees and the cold wind that swept past him made him shiver but it didn’t stop him from making his way to the Christian Cemetery in Lonavala.
No one was in sight when he reached the locked iron gates of the cemetery. Virkar parked his Bullet outside along the stone wall that bordered the property. The watchmen had perhaps taken off to seek the comfort of their dry homes as soon as the drizzle began. He made his way into the cemetery by scaling the gate, all the while looking around for someone to come and stop him. But no one did.
Virkar let his eyes wander over the dense overgrowth that had obliterated most of the paths between the old, ornate European tombstones that stood in stoic silence…wet sentinels of days gone by. A rampant overgrowth of lilies, with droplets weighing down their petals, nestled over most of the graves, threatening to choke the life out of them. At the police station, Virkar had been told that the Protestant burial site was to the left while the Roman Catholic burial site was to the right, but he had no idea to which side Tracy belonged. Sighing to himself, Virkar started walked down the path to his right. He saw a number of European names—Ballard, Roberts, Smith—but didn’t find the one he was looking for: Barton. Walking slowly, row by row, grave by grave, making his way through the wild lilies, Virkar kept searching. Suddenly, tucked away in a corner behind a large headstone that belonged to a nineteenth-century British gentleman named Charles Worthington, he found what he was looking for—an unkempt grave below a rotting wooden cross with an inscription that read: ‘Tracy Barton (1976-2004)’.
Virkar stood at the foot of the grave and silently regarded the cross that seemed to have been hastily stabbed into the head of the grave. The drizzle had now
soaked through his clothes but he paid it no heed. Instead, his mind wandered to the police report and death certificate which were firmly ensconced in the plastic carry bag in his trouser pocket. Virkar had studied these in detail earlier and, to his surprise, found that, while the police report was signed by Senior Inspector Akrule, the death certificate was signed by none other than Dr Prabhat Bhandari, the Compass Box Killer’s second victim. The last sheet of paper that the eager-to-please Inspector Shinde had given him was the Morgue Release Sheet that certified that Tracy’s body was released into the custody of a certain Nigel Colasco. Virkar had finally found the connection between Akurle, Bhandari and Colasco. But instead of being happy about his discovery, a sense of sadness had taken over him.
Virkar’s thoughts were disrupted by the sound of distant footsteps. He turned around, startled, but only rows and rows of graves stared back at him. On seeing nothing except the fog and drizzle in the fast-fading light, Virkar dismissed the sound as that made by a twig snapping in the wind. Turning his attention back to the Tracy’s grave, Virkar wondered if it would give him a clue as to why the three dead gentlemen, Akurle, Bhandari and Colasco, had conspired to do away with the kind-hearted young woman from England. And who was the Smooth Operator? Was he the fourth conspirator?
Virkar let the question boil inside him till he couldn’t hold it in any longer. ‘Who is the Smooth Operator? Tell me, Tracy, tell me!’ he shouted into the rain that had started to pelt against his skin. The sound of his voice railing against the rain and the wind broke the spell. An embarrassed Virkar swiftly turned and began to find his way out of the cemetery.
As Virkar trampled his way towards the gate, the thin, dark figure of the killer shrunk back ever so slightly into the main arch of the mausoleum that was situated at the back of the cemetery. Merging totally with the dark, wet, stone structure, the killer stood still, watching Virkar depart. He did not move until the roar of Virkar’s Bullet faded into the distance. When the only sounds that could be heard were those of the raindrops falling on the lilies, the killer broke away from the shadows and silently walked towards Tracy’s grave.
At the foot of the grave, he slowly lowered himself on to the ground at the same spot where Virkar had stood just a few minutes ago and stared at the engraving on the tombstone while the rain beat down relentlessly around him.
22
‘Smoothy and I are leaving for a dirty weekend in Khandala, if you know what I mean,’ laughed Tracy into the phone, making that gurgling sound deep inside her throat that always indicated her sense of mischief.
Listening to her on the other end of the line, he wondered if what Tracy had said was good or bad. And then he suddenly understood. His face flushed red, turning his ears hot with embarrassment. For a couple of seconds he froze, not knowing how to react. Flustered at his own reaction, he cut the line abruptly.
Tracy and he had been chatting as they usually did on Friday evenings. She had told him that she had just met her friend, Nigel Colasco, and was on the way to her apartment to get ready for her weekend trip with Smoothy. Weekends were sacred to her, coming from a culture that believed in worshipping the last two days of the work week. He never understood her obsession with the weekend, but she had explained that it was the only time that she seemed to be able to relax.
He stared at the mobile phone in his hands. Suddenly, the screen lit up as she called him back, just as he knew she would, asking why he had hung up abruptly. He let the ringtone jangle away; he was in no mood to talk to her again. He put the mobile phone down on his wooden desk and walked towards the ceramic basin that protruded from the wall in one corner of the room. He turned on the basin tap and splashed some cold water on his face. The heat immediately dissipated from his face. He grabbed the thin cotton sheet that performed the role of his towel, and wiped his face. He walked back to his desk and saw that he had received two more calls from Tracy, but he wasn’t ready to call her back…yet.
It was now almost twelve years since he became aware of her presence in his life, but he had only got to know her personally in the past two years. He remembered the excitement with which he had awaited her arrival from Mumbai, how he had wept at the first sight of his angel walking through the gate towards him. She had come bearing numerous gifts, but the only gift he had wanted was a few precious moments in her company before she left for Mumbai again.
Tracy had returned to Mumbai the next day, but had kept in constant touch with him, assuming the proverbial role of his friend, philosopher and guide. His Godsend. Her tendency to use expletives and the occasional sexual innuendo were the only traits that bothered him. It went against his conservative Indian mindset. But she was perfect in every other way.
He had begun to share with her his deepest, darkest fears and found that she could relate to all of them. The ease with which she could pull him out of a bad mood only brought her closer. In turn, she spoke to him about her ideas, her vision, her dreams of alleviating the misfortune of the underprivileged children of India. She confided in him, seeking his opinions and valuing each one.
But lately she had been very distracted; her calls to him had reduced in their frequency. He had guessed it was because of that man, the one she called Smooth Operator, or Smoothy. She had met him a couple of weeks ago at one of Mumbai’s high society parties that her friend Nigel Colasco had hosted to attract contributions to his NGO. For a young, beautiful foreigner, partying was a sacred ritual—where all caution was thrown to the wind, inhibitions were shown the door, and mingling and mating were high on the agenda. At this particular party, she had been accosted by a suave young man who had walked up to her with a flute of champagne in his hand and a conversational skill that was as smooth as silk. In her defence, she had tried to maintain some semblance of propriety and sought to involve him in her life’s mission to save the orphans of India. The Smooth Operator had listened attentively and then countered with his equally passionate opposing views. Anyone who knew of Tracy’s deep-rooted commitment to her work would have thought that that would have spelled the end of their budding romance. But in hindsight, something in that conversation—or perhaps it was the champagne—worked for her and by the time the evening drew to a close, she had become almost besotted with him. After that day, most of Tracy’s telephone conversations were peppered with references to the Smooth Operator, to the point that unnatural jealousy had begun to rear its ugly head inside his mind.
A loud ‘ding’ had announced the arrival of a text message. He had grabbed the mobile phone to read: ‘Sorry for making a silly joke. Still not used to our cultural differences. But you need to grow up too. Have a great weekend! ☺’ The smiley seemed to mock him. Indignant heat prickled his ears, his knuckles turning white as he clenched the mobile phone in his hand, fighting the urge to send her a caustic reply. But he had managed to refrain from saying what he really thought of her vulgar jokes.
Unfortunately, she had not considered him close enough to seek his opinion on this Smooth Operator. When he had asked her why she called that man by that strange name, she had let out a flippant laugh and asked him to watch Sade’s music video. When he had told her that he didn’t understand what she was talking about—he hadn’t heard of Sade—she had laughed again but offered nothing further. That was when he had decided to be honest with her. He had shared his misgivings about this Smooth Operator who seemed to be taking up so much of her time and pulling her away from her work and friends. But Tracy had brushed his doubts aside, telling him that he wouldn’t understand her feelings even if she explained it to him. ‘You are too inexperienced for matters of the heart.’
But he did understand the way she felt. He understood every bit of it.
Still on his knees in front of Tracy’s grave, the killer felt his tears mix with the raindrops as they fell hard on the ground. He wished, as he had every single day since, that he had picked up his phone and called Tracy back that fateful night.
23
As Virkar rode from the Christian
Cemetary to Katrak Villa in the rain, he kept trying to figure out why a police officer, a doctor and an NGO activist would conspire to cover up the car accident of a British woman in Khandala.
On entering his room, Virkar quickly stripped off his wet clothes and changed back into the faded jeans and T-shirt he had worn earlier that morning. He then headed for Pesi’s living quarters in the outhouse of Katrak Villa to ask for directions to the nearest bar. He was advised to go to Pesi’s favourite, the Ryewood Bar. Pesi was in a magnanimous mood and even lent him his old knee-length raincoat—the khaki-coloured, rubber-blended ‘duckback’ that went out of fashion a few decades ago. But it suited Virkar just fine, keeping him dry as he quickly made his way to the bar.
As was the case with many older establishments in the Khandala-Lonavala area, at 9.00 p.m. on a rainy night, the spacious confines of the Ryewood Bar were almost empty save for a smattering of people. The newer generation of visitors to Khandala and Lonavala yearned for excitement rather than rest and relaxation. They favoured the brightly lit bars equipped with TV sets that blared non-stop Bollywood music from high-wattage speakers, drowning out any possibility of conversation.