The Case of the Love Commandos

by Tarquin Hall

  “Question is, who all would want to frame Vishnu Mishra for murder?”

  “I’m sure there must be a long line of people,” said Facecream.

  Seven

  Mummy and Rumpi both had numerous cousins in Jammu, the city being predominantly populated by Punjabi Hindus and Sikhs. They’d spent the better part of the day crisscrossing the city in Jagdish Uncle’s faithful 1994 Maruti, which he affectionately referred to as “Sweetie.”

  The fact that the car was designed to take only two in the front and three in the back hadn’t proven an issue. Like any Indian extended family, the Puris were as seasoned as circus clowns at packing themselves en masse into tiny hatchbacks. Their all-time record, on a six-hour drive from Delhi to Chandigarh, was fourteen—four adults, three teenagers, five children and two infants—although admittedly they hadn’t quite made it all the way under their own steam, the engine having overheated outside Ambala.

  Sweetie accommodated twelve—and that with Chetan occupying the entire front passenger seat, save for a token toddler on his lap, and no one sharing the driver’s seat because the door had a way of popping open when the car went over humps. Mummy and Rumpi shared the backseat along with their nephews Abhishek (who had to stick his long neck half out the window) and Harish, a niece, and Jagdish’s wife, Sonam Aunty. The space just behind the handbrake was taken by three-year-old Akhil, who stood. And the twins went in the dickie, where they thrilled at making faces out the back window.

  The absence of air-conditioning (the high that day was an even forty-two degrees Celsius), the loose springs in the seats, and the necessity of having to pass Akhil out the window whenever he needed to stop for a pee (opening any of the doors invariably risked someone falling out) had proven the only “nuisances.”

  Otherwise everyone had “just enjoyed.” Jagdish Uncle played old Bollywood classics on his decrepit tape deck and sang along, his voice high-pitched and out of tune; and everyone ribbed Harish, who was twenty-nine and had been turned down by five prospective brides in the past couple of months alone, the main turnoff being his premature hair loss.

  There was no schedule to keep as such, no prescribed time at which they were expected at each house. They simply arrived when they arrived. And at each address, without fail, they were warmly greeted and ushered into reception rooms, where couches and armchairs were arranged along the walls and coffee tables groaned with plates of barfi and ladoos.

  A decade had passed since Mummy had last been in Jammu, and over chai, chai and more cups of chai, she passed the hours chatting with numerous new wives, husbands, toddlers and babies and distributing envelopes containing money, the rupee variations correlating to the closeness of kinship, yet always containing a single coin on the outside for good luck.

  Sadly, there’d been commiserations to convey as well. In three of the nine households, photographs hung on the walls garlanded with strings of marigolds, commemorating aunties and uncles now passed. In a fourth household, Arjan and Poonam, cousins on Rumpi’s mother’s side, had suffered a tragedy, the loss of their teenage son in a motorcycle accident, and the Puris all joined the parents in offering teary prayers before the family mandir.

  Mummy noticed changes of a different nature, too. The city itself had quadrupled in size. There were plenty of new cars on the roads. A couple of shopping malls offered pizza and imported men’s shirts from England. Billboards everywhere also presented images of swanky new housing complexes. “Live livelier life” read one advertisement.

  It was a mantra that the younger generation seemed to be adopting wholesale. Markedly less parochial than their parents, many were pursuing their higher studies in Delhi or other “metros.” They were marrying Punjabis from other cities, albeit within their own castes and gotras. And they were developing a growing awareness of India’s place in the world as well as a recognition that other cultures offered different viewpoints. It was even said that the daughter of Harjot Aunty’s neighbors had entered into a love marriage with a boy from Karnataka! They were living in London, where he worked for an international bank.

  “Very prestigious,” everyone agreed.

  But some things never changed. Jagdish Uncle was still estranged from his brother. The two hadn’t talked for at least twenty years, despite sharing the same haveli, which had been divided by sealing off the connecting doorways. And Sonam Aunty still made the best rajma chawal in Jammu.

  At nine P.M., exhausted from all their house visits, the family stood in Raghunath bazaar eating golguppas and kachaloo.

  They were planning to return from there to the haveli to get an early night’s sleep—meaning that after sitting around drinking hot chocolate and watching a movie, they would finally turn in at two in the morning.

  Mummy hadn’t given the events on the train a second thought for hours, but as she finished off her snack, she saw Pranap Dughal walk past. He stopped briefly to look at some tiffins stacked in front of a shop specializing in stainless steel items and then continued on toward the old city.

  Unable to resist the temptation to follow, Mummy told the rest of the family that she needed to go to the toilet and slipped away. The busy bazaar, with its crowds of late-night shoppers and lengths of bright cloth displayed in front of the tiny shops, provided her with excellent cover and she was able to maintain a suitable distance from Dughal without being spotted.

  She was hoping to catch him in the act of picking someone’s pocket and raise the alarm. But although he bumped shoulders with a couple of passersby and had ample opportunity to plunder unzipped handbags and wallets protruding from back pockets, his fingers didn’t stray.

  Near the Hanuman mandir, where Dughal stopped to ring the temple bell, he entered a pharmacy–cum–dry cleaner’s–cum–money changer’s.

  Mummy followed him inside and, without being noticed by her mark, approached the dry-cleaning counter. She told the assistant that she’d left a shawl the week before and subsequently lost her ticket. He duly asked to know her name and started to check back through his ledger. While she waited, Mummy pretended to powder her nose and, in the reflection of her compact mirror, kept her eye on Dughal, who stood at the counter behind her.

  A pharmacist took down a small white cardboard box from the shelves and handed him a blister pack.

  “What’s the recommended dosage?” Mummy overheard Dughal ask.

  “One before sleep,” answered the pharmacist.

  “One? Must be powerful.”

  “Very powerful, sir.”

  “What if the patient is obese?”

  “Administer one-quarter of one tablet more, only.”

  “Give me ten pieces.”

  The dry cleaner closed the ledger. She must have made a mistake, he said—there was no record of any shawl.

  Mummy gave a tut. “It is hanging there, na,” she said as she pointed to a rack in the back of the shop. “See in the middle.”

  The assistant went to look while Mummy waited for Dughal to leave. Then she stepped over to speak with the pharmacist. He was still holding the white cardboard box.

  “Those are sleeping tablets, na?” she said.

  “Yes, madam, diazepam.”

  “A prescription is required?”

  The pharmacist jiggled his hand as if to say, “What’s a prescription between a helpful pharmacist and a customer?”

  Mummy made for the door, but the dry cleaner called after her. “Madam, your shawl?”

  “I just remembered I collected it some days back,” she said.

  Dughal took an auto rickshaw to a guesthouse where he and his wife had a room on the ground floor. The couple was due to leave the next day for the Vaishno Devi pilgrimage site, the clerk at the reception told Mummy.

  Mummy found it hard to imagine Mrs. Dughal making it to the top of an escalator, let alone the steep mountain trail, and the clerk whispered that he was inclined to agree.

  “Madam spent half the afternoon in the restaurant,” he confided. “She’s got a big appetite�
��ate four or five dishes, including a whole biryani. And just one hour back, she called to say she was hungry! We sent her butter chicken, three naan and a double helping of kheer!”

  A couple of minutes later, a shrill voice penetrated into reception. It was Mrs. Dughal. She was giving her husband yet another browbeating.

  Mummy and the clerk listened for a minute or two, both wincing as the language and tone grew progressively more abusive. A crash of dishes—apparently the receptacles in which her second meal had been served—brought her tirade to an abrupt end.

  “That’s the third time I’ve heard her abusing him,” the clerk commented. “If my wife spoke to me like that I’d … well, I don’t know why he puts up with it.”

  Mummy’s face showed alarm. “What was that?” she asked.

  “Living with a woman like that … it would drive you mad,” said the clerk.

  Maybe mad enough to kill, Mummy thought to herself.

  Facecream had returned to the school with supplies and was cleaning the teacher’s sleeping quarters when Puri called to update her on the day’s dramatic developments. After they talked, she arranged the bedroll she’d purchased in town on the floor and then washed in half a bucket of brackish water drawn from the school’s bore well. Feeling refreshed, she then decided to take a walk. Stepping out into the cool night air, she found Atif, the caretaker, sitting by the gate, smoking a bidi.

  “You shouldn’t go outside the compound at night,” he told her as the smell of smoldering tendu leaf wafted over her.

  “What could possibly happen to me?” she asked. “It’s such a lovely evening. Can you feel that breeze? I won’t be long.”

  She started to open the gate, but he looked genuinely alarmed.

  “You don’t understand,” he said. “The Yadav boys, they drink.” He paused. “This isn’t a place for an unmarried woman. They shouldn’t have sent you.”

  Something in the distance caught Atif’s eye. Headlights had appeared on the lane, lancing the night sky. A vehicle was heading their way.

  “More outsiders,” he said.

  “Have there been others?”

  “Some fat man in a cap was here earlier. He was from Delhi. I didn’t like the look of him.”

  “I heard there were some other visitors a couple of days ago,” said Facecream, who suppressed a smile.

  “Some men came on Friday—gave a couple of the Dalits a thrashing.”

  “That’s terrible! Who were they?”

  The caretaker gave a shrug. “They must have been working for Vishnu Mishra. They were looking for one of the Dalit boys—Ram, the son of the midwife who was killed.”

  By now news of Kamlesh’s murder had reached the village and Atif was in no doubt that Vishnu Mishra was guilty.

  “I heard that Ram fell in love with his daughter—only he didn’t know who her father was. Had he known …”

  The headlights were close now, lighting up the trees that stood on either side of the lane and casting long, fleeting shadows across the fields. Atif hid behind the concrete gateposts. Following his cue, Facecream stayed out of sight as the vehicle sped past. It was a white sedan.

  “Is it the same vehicle that came a few nights ago?” she asked Atif.

  “No, that one was big and black—and you couldn’t see in through the windows.”

  Facecream wondered if this was the same vehicle that had been spotted outside the Love Commandos safe house in Agra.

  “Looks like the car’s stopped in the middle of the village,” said Atif as he watched the progress of the headlights.

  A minute later, he added, “Now it’s heading into the Dalit section. Looks like there’s going to be more trouble.”

  Facecream slipped out through the gate and, ignoring Atif’s renewed warnings, set off along the lane by the light of the moon. She reached the center of the village within a matter of minutes and, keeping to the shadows, avoided being seen by three young men, who were drinking country-made liquor under the banyan tree. Passing the temple and the sacred bathing pool, she found her way to the clutch of mud houses and the stockade.

  The sedan was parked in the rough track that ran between them.

  Facecream could see now that it was a hire car with an All India Tourist Permit number painted in yellow on the rear fender. A driver sat behind the wheel, music playing on his stereo.

  She took cover behind a low-lying wall. Thirty minutes passed. And then a short, thin man carrying a kerosene lantern and a lathi stepped out of a brick building. He was followed by another disheveled-looking individual who was clearly drunk. Both men had cuts and bruises on their faces.

  Behind them, a third man appeared—tall, fifties, salt-and-pepper hair, big bushy moustache, immaculately pressed trousers and expensive brown slip-on leather shoes with tassels.

  Facecream stared in disbelief. What was he doing here?

  She shrank back, making doubly sure she couldn’t be spotted, and watched as the visitor got into his vehicle and drove back the way he’d come.

  Facecream waited a couple of minutes and then started back herself, anxious to call Puri from the privacy of her room and tell him about this extraordinary development. In the village center, she found the three young men surrounding a young, scruffy-looking boy.

  “Hand it over, maaderchod,” one of them cursed, and gave the boy a shove that knocked him to the ground.

  Facecream didn’t hesitate in stepping forward to intervene. “Hey, leave him alone!” she cried as she brushed past the trio and knelt down to check that the boy wasn’t hurt.

  The boy himself looked as perplexed by her sudden appearance as his persecutors and stared at her, dumbfounded.

  “What is this? Who the hell are you?” demanded Bully Number One.

  “The new teacher,” answered Facecream.

  “At the school?” asked Bully Number Two, his words badly slurred.

  “Yes, the school. Where else? Now, you three go home and sleep it off.”

  Facecream stood up and offered the boy her hand. He took it, albeit with reluctance, and got to his feet.

  “You’re free to go,” she told him.

  The boy sent his tormentors a quizzical look, as if perhaps they could provide an explanation for this bizarre development, and then picked up his bicycle from the ground. Tentatively, he began to wheel it away. The bullies made no attempt to stop him.

  “I don’t want you picking on him again,” Facecream told them once the boy had reached a safe distance and taken the track that led to the Dalit part of the village.

  “You can’t tell us what to do!” bawled Bully Number Three, who could barely stand.

  “I told you, I’m the new teacher.”

  “Do you give private tuition?” asked Bully Number One with a grin.

  “Yeah, how about some one-on-one?” guffawed Bully Number Two.

  Facecream didn’t deign to answer and started back down the lane toward the school. Although they caterwauled and called out lewd comments, she reached the gates without further incident.

  Eight

  When Facecream phoned ten minutes later, Puri was sitting in a hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant in Lucknow with a young local journalist named Vijay Tewari.

  Vijay, he’d been reliably informed by a senior-newspaper-editor friend in Delhi, knew the local beat inside out and had a reputation for trustworthiness. Puri needed him to explain the lay of the land. But he couldn’t risk the journalist overhearing his conversation with Facecream, so he stepped out of the restaurant to talk in private.

  “By God, don’t tell me,” said the detective. “You’re certain, is it?”

  “It was him, sir, definitely,” said Facecream. “I’d recognize those shoes anywhere.”

  Puri sighed into the phone. The universe was still conspiring against him. The prayers and offerings hadn’t done the trick.

  “What all he was doing there?” he asked.

  “He spent more than half an hour inside Ram’s house,” she repl
ied. “I saw him talking with the village chowkidar and the father. I have the number plate of his hire car. Do you want to take it down?”

  Facecream waited for a response but none was immediately forthcoming. Boss was taking this worse than she’d feared. Hari Kumar, head of Spycatcher Investigative Services, which had swanky offices in Namaste Towers, was his chief competitor. He also happened to be the one man in the world with the capacity to really get under Vish Puri’s skin. She was in a unique position to understand the rivalry between the two men given that she’d worked for both. And the hard truth was that when it came to detective work, Kumar was Puri’s equal. A former spy, he’d cracked a number of high-profile cases during his career. The Harpreet Triple Murder and the unmasking of the Coorg Conspiracy had propelled him into the national limelight. True, India Today magazine had never featured him on the front cover (an “accomplishment” of Puri’s that he never tired of bragging about), but then Kumar was better suited to the pages of glossy men’s magazines. The Indian edition of GQ, for example, had pictured him smoking one of his trademark Cuban cigars. “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier … Spycatcher” read the title, a reference to his role in the capture of the Chinese mole Mannan Kakkar.

  Indeed, Puri’s rival was an altogether more polished-looking individual. He preferred Italian-style suits and drove a maroon sedan, and his favorite tipple was Sula Cabernet Sauvignon. Hari didn’t shun physical exercise and got in at least thirty minutes of brisk walking every day and often one or two rounds of golf. He was also a TV interviewer’s dream, with stories of shoot-outs and derring-do and well-honed anecdotes about famous personalities he’d known.

  In part this explained why, given the choice between the two, Delhi’s “creamy layer” was often inclined to lean toward Spycatcher rather than Most Private Investigators Ltd.

  Kumar also benefited in financial terms from the fact that he had few scruples. He’d work for anyone and was not averse to playing dirty. In Puri parlance, he was a “cheeter,” by which Puri meant someone not to be trusted.