by Tarquin Hall
“Witness accounts always differ, Inspector,” said Puri. “Eyes all work the same, but the mind… that is something altogether different, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir,” intoned Singh, who had learned to put up with Puri’s little lectures.
“I would be needing to do interrogation of all these gentlemen myself, also,” said the detective.
The inspector had already anticipated this and written their names and addresses down on a piece of paper. Without a word, he handed it to Puri.
“You know me better than I know myself, isn’t it?” He smiled before beginning a more thorough examination of the scene.
Singh stood nearby watching the detective’s actions closely as if he was trying to decipher some hidden method.
“Inspector, your boys’ boot prints are everywhere,” scolded Puri after a minute or so. “A three-legged dog was present, also. But there is nothing else here apart from one bloodstain.” He paused. “Anything is missing?”
His question anticipated key evidence having been removed from the scene by petty criminals. In the past, Puri had known pickpockets posing as doctors to rob corpses of wallets, wedding rings, even shoes. It was not unknown for constables to do the same.
“Sir, regretfully, the murder weapon itself is nowhere to be found,” answered Singh.
“Could be anyone stole it.”
“It’s possible, sir, but…” The inspector looked suddenly unsure of himself.
“Tell me,” prompted Puri.
“It’s ridiculous, I know, but Professor Pandey says he saw the sword disintegrate before his very eyes while still in the victim’s chest.”
“Disintegrate?”
“Into ash, sir.”
“You found any of this ash?”
“I found some gray dust next to the spot where Dr. Jha fell. I’ve sent it to the lab. The results won’t be back for a few days.”
Puri referred to his notebook again.
“This fellow Pandey was closest to the body. Could be why he saw the blade disintegrate and others didn’t.”
“But, sir, you told me you didn’t believe anything paranormal occurred!” objected Singh.
“Correct, Inspector. But it may be the blade did in fact disintegrate. A good detective keeps an open mind.”
By now, Puri was stooped over the bloodstain, the only indication of where Dr. Jha had fallen.
“Seems there was a good deal of blood,” he said. “How long the body lay here?”
“Five minutes at the most. Professor Pandey drove the victim to AIIMS, where he was declared ‘arrived dead’.”
Puri inquired about the wound.
“I saw it myself, sir, an inch to the left of the heart. The medical officer says he died quickly.”
“You released the body?”
“Yes, sir. The cremation will be later today.” Puri nodded. There was nothing unusual about this; funerals in India were usually held within hours of death.
“Do one thing, Inspector,” said the detective. “Go and stand behind the tree.”
Singh did as he was asked while Puri went and stood in each of the spots where the Laughing Club members had been.
“It is as I suspected,” he announced. “Anyone hiding behind the tree would have gone unseen. The trunk is too wide.”
“But surely they would have seen the murderer approaching,” said Singh as he reappeared.
“Not if they came directly from the south. From there the tree is providing more than adequate cover.”
“They?” asked Singh.
“There were at least two persons, no? One to do the actual deed, another to release the fog and make those flashes so as to distract the witnesses.”
“That makes sense, sir,” said Singh, sounding encouraged. “I suppose the second man hiding behind the tree could also have released some laughing gas – that would explain why the members all started laughing uncontrollably.”
“That is one possibility, Inspector. Why not check into how readily laughter gas is available? Who all is having access to it? No doubt there are small canisters available that are readily portable.” The two went quiet for a moment, both deep in thought. Then Singh asked: “Sir, do you have any theories about how the murderer levitated?”
“As of now, I am certain of one thing only,” replied Puri.
“And that is?”
“This is one of the most extraordinary crimes I have encountered during my long and distinguished career. Those behind it are master criminals. No doubt about it at all.” He paused. “But tell me, Inspector. These holes you mentioned earlier. They’re where exactly?”
Singh led the detective to the east side of the tree and pointed out four small holes bored into the bark at a height of about ten feet.
“Looks like they held some type of bracket,” suggested Puri on tiptoe.
“For holding up a winch perhaps?”
“A small one, possibly. But only time will tell.”
They made their way back across the lawn to the jeep.
“So you’re willing to take on the case, sir?” asked Singh, sounding hopeful.
“More than willing. But usual rules apply. I will update you on any and all major developments. Meantime I work alone.”
“But if there’s an arrest to be made…”
“Not to worry, Inspector, that is your department. When the time comes, I will be calling you, only.”
Singh was frowning again.
“Sir, one thing still worries me: Maharaj Swami. Some of the richest men in India bow down to touch his feet. Even the prime minister visited his ashram not long back. You should be careful.”
Puri smiled. “No need to worry about me, Inspector. Danger is my ally after all.”
♦
Having called the Jha household and been given the time and place of the funeral, the detective traveled north along Ring Road, past the sheer, red sandstone walls of the Old City, the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan’s once magnificent capital. He passed the milky white audience hall, which once housed the Peacock Throne, and the octagonal tower of the Shahi Burj, the king of the world’s library.
Ten minutes later, the Ambassador pulled up at the entrance to Delhi’s principal cremation ground on the west bank of the Yamuna River.
To Puri, no other place served as such a powerful reminder of man’s mortality, the fact that for all of us there is but a single breath between this life and the next. Facing that reality was no bad thing. But the place held sad memories for him all the same. The first time he had come here had been as a five-year-old for the funeral of his great-grandmother; more recently, he had brought his beloved papa to be cremated.
Om Chander Puri had suffered a massive heart attack while out on his early morning walk. Less than twelve hours later, in accordance with Hindu custom, Puri and his brothers had carried their father’s body into the cremation ground on a stretcher and placed him in one of the forty or so shallow cremation pits that lay just a few feet apart under a blackened metal roof. A crowd of ‘near or dear’ had gathered round as a pandit had performed antim-samskara, the last rites, helping to bring the union of the soul, atma, with the Holy Spirit. Sprinkling Ganga water on the body, the priest had pulled back the cotton shroud to reveal Papa’s face, and a little honey and a small dollop of ghee had been poured into the mouth.
Slowly – carefully – Puri and his three brothers had piled pieces of wood on top of the body. Two bags of fragrant-smelling mulch had been scattered over the pyre to disguise the smell of burning flesh. And then Puri’s elder brother had applied a flame to the kindling.
Now the detective watched another family enacting the same timeless rituals in more or less the same spot where his father, and thousands of others since, had been cremated. The heat of a blaze burning nearby felt hot against his right cheek. Six other pits contained charred, smoldering hunks of wood and blackened bones. They would there remain undisturbed until the following morning, when the male relatives of the respective fam
ilies would return to sift through the ashes by hand and retrieve the remains of their loved ones.
This was not where Dr. Jha was to be cremated, however. The Guru Buster, who had spent his adult life railing against religious ceremony (not to mention the precious wood that the traditional Hindu funeral demands), had left strict instructions for his body to be cremated, without fuss, in a gas incinerator.
Puri therefore turned away from the fire pits and walked the short distance to the nearby CNG (compressed natural gas) crematorium.
A more soulless structure could hardly have been imagined. Like something out of a Nazi death camp, it was built of cinder blocks and corrugated iron and there was a big, ugly chimney sticking out of the roof.
It was here that the city’s unclaimed and unidentified bodies were brought, along with the poorest of the poor. A no-frills funeral cost just 500 rupees and was devoid of aesthetics. A cavernous concourse housed six giant ovens replete with gauges, knobs and levers.
Puri arrived in time to see Dr. Jha’s body, which had been sewn into a shroud, carried onto the heavy metal trolley that fed oven number five. His widow, Ashima, who was some twelve years younger than her late husband, stood in front of it dressed in white. Her daughter had one arm around her. Both women were sobbing quietly. About seventy family members and friends were gathered around them.
The detective stood toward the back of the gathering, hands held respectfully in front of him, as one of Dr. Jha’s former colleagues from the Wireless Planning and Communications Wing, where the two had worked for some thirty years, read a touching tribute. It included a quote from Marx and an anecdote about how the deceased had once asked the Godman Sai Baba why he gave the gold chains he claimed to materialize out of thin air to the wealthy and not the poor.
This brought fond smiles to many faces.
And then Puri noticed a man standing in the shadow cast by oven number four. He was holding a video camera. Judging by the red light on the front of the device, he was recording Dr. Jha’s funeral.
It occurred to the detective that this individual might be working for a news channel, which would explain why he was standing at a distance, apparently trying to remain inconspicuous. But the camera he was holding was much smaller than the ones used by professional cameramen.
Curious, Puri began to inch to his right, hoping to get a look at the man’s face. But as he did so, everyone was asked to step back from the oven and the detective found himself hemmed in by his fellow mourners.
Two crematorium employees pushed the trolley inside the gaping mouth of the oven and the detective’s attention was drawn back to the proceedings.
A heavy metal door came down with a clang. Unceremoniously, the crematorium foreman turned a couple of knobs on the control panel, waited a couple of seconds and then pressed a red button. The oven trembled as the gas inside ignited.
The temperature gauge rose abruptly and settled on red.
A moment later, when Puri looked for the man with the video camera, he was gone.
∨ The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing ∧
Five
Puri hurried home to greet his second daughter, Jaiya, who was driving from Agra with her husband.
Jaiya’s baby, Puri’s third grandchild, was due in eight weeks. As tradition demanded, she was returning to her parents’ house, where she would remain until the infant was at least a month old.
Over the past few weeks, frenetic preparations had been under way for Jaiya’s arrival, and every evening Puri had arrived home to learn that his bank balance had taken another hit. Rumpi, who could usually be relied upon to be frugal, had called in the decorators to paint the largest of the three guest rooms. The adjacent bathroom had also been retiled in matching pink. An imported coil-spring Slumber mattress (14,000 rupees!) had been procured, along with an unusually large cot, numerous sets of sheets and pillowcases printed with motifs of elephants and penguins, and countless baby outfits. A strange, boomerang-shaped pillow had also been bought at one of the exorbitant shops in the Great Mall of India – “A Mall for All.”
The detective, who kept a close watch on everything that transpired inside his house, sometimes even bugging the servants, had also discovered a large stash of imported disposable nappies hidden away in the servants’ quarters.
This had prompted him to object to the exorbitant sums being spent.
“Why you’re buying so much of everything? How many outfits this child will need? You think paisa can be plucked from trees in the jungle, my dear?”
Rumpi had said nothing to this. Emboldened, Puri had continued with his protest: “No need for all these imported products. Made in India is just as good, if not better. We were all fitted with cloth nappies and our bottoms never suffered.”
At that, his wife scowled, telling him that he was the one who needed nappies.
“Why exactly, my dear?” an incensed, bemused Puri had asked.
“Because of so much of verbal diarrhea!” she’d snapped.
The next day, the detective had opened his lunch tiffin to find it packed with celery sticks. The day after that plain bean sprouts. And so on…
To make amends, he had bought Rumpi a new mixie, something he had been putting off for months (the old one was only nine years old, after all). The model he had purchased was one of the best on the market, made in China, as almost everything was these days. According to that bloody bastard of a salesman who had refused to give a discount, “It slices and dices in a thrice.”
There had been a marked improvement in the quality of Puri’s lunches after that. But the frivolous spending had not abated.
The latest purchase, which Puri found propped against the wall in the corridor when he reached home at seven o’clock, was a plastic tub shaped like a whale. The attached price tag was for 3,500 rupees.
“By God,” muttered Puri, “it is practically a swimming pool!”
“What was that you said, husband?” asked Rumpi as she emerged from the kitchen to greet him.
“Nothing at all, my dear,” he said with a smile, refraining from pointing out that he and his brothers had all been bathed in a steel bucket and it had done them no harm. “Just I was admiring this beautiful tub. The child is going to learn swimming, is it?”
“Nothing of the sort, Chubby,” Rumpi said brusquely. “And I don’t want to hear about how you were washed in some balti of yours.”
“Yes, my dear. Nikhee must be getting close, is it?” Nikhee, Little One, was Jaiya’s nickname.
“She called twenty minutes back. A truck turned turtle on the road. She won’t reach here for another hour at least.”
Rumpi brought Puri up to date with the rest of the affairs of the house: all the food apart from the kadi, which Malika had burnt, was ready; the geyser in the downstairs washroom wasn’t working again; the diyas needed filling with oil.
“Now don’t just stand around, Chubby. Make yourself useful. Our son-in-law will be arriving soon!”
Rumpi returned to the kitchen.
“Yes, my dear,” murmured Puri as he took off his shoes and slipped on his monogrammed VP slippers.
He mounted the stairs. Halfway up, he stopped and suddenly bawled at the top of his lungs, “Sweetu!”
The houseboy came running out of the kitchen.
“Sir?” he asked, standing to attention in the hallway with an alertness that pleased his employer.
“Sweetu, what is five times six – tell me?” Puri asked him in Hindi.
“Five times six, sahib?” He murmured to himself nervously and then declared: “Thirty… sahib?”
“Very good. You’ve done your homework?”
Puri had enrolled Sweetu, who had been working in the house for over a year now, in afternoon maths classes. Next year, the orphan boy would begin an apprenticeship as a mechanic; when he was old enough, the detective would also find him a wife. This was the sort of help all well-off Indians should have been providing to those less fortunate than themselves, in the de
tective’s opinion. It was their dharma, their duty, if only they knew it.
“All done, sahib,” replied Sweetu.
“Very good. Go help madam.”
Puri went upstairs, had a cold bucket wash, changed into a freshly pressed kurta pyjama, splashed on some Sexy Men aftershave, and donned a cloth flat cap.
A few minutes later, he was standing up on the roof, a generous tumbler of Royal Challenge whisky in hand. He watered his prized chili plants and then stood for a few minutes looking out over the lights dotted across the landscape twinkling in the polluted night air.
When Puri had moved to Gurgaon some sixteen years ago, it had still been a flyspeck of a village. He had built his house, a mock Spanish villa with an orange tiled roof and matching awnings, on land surrounded for miles by mustard and sugarcane fields. But there had been no escaping the city. In the past decade, it had expanded at a dizzying rate. Gurgaon, a part of the NCR, the National Capital Region – now the largest human agglomeration on the planet with a population fast approaching 17 million people – had been quickly transformed into a land of housing estates, monster shopping complexes and shiny glass office blocks that seemed to grow overnight as if they came from magic beans. Were the cranes that loomed over the concrete superstructures giant watering cans?
In the cracks and shadows of this newfangled, corporate world, on plots of yet-to-be-developed land, tens of thousands of migrant workers were living in makeshift shelters without toilets or running water. Rickety stands selling chai, tarra and one-rupee shampoo sachets had rooted along the sides of the roads, as tenacious as Japanese bindweed. Barbers and earwax cleaners were to be found plying their trade between yet-to-be-laid concrete sewage pipes.
As he gazed out, Puri’s thoughts turned to his guru. In his great work of 300 BC, The Arthashastra, literally The Science of Material Gain, Chanakya had emphasized the importance of wealth creation. Perhaps the world’s first economist, not to mention a political genius, he was also an ardent capitalist.