by Anita Nair
‘What do you think?’ Gowda asked carefully. He didn’t expect much from an arselicker like Lakshman but you never knew. He may have tired of rimming his way up the ladder.
‘I have already informed the ACP, sir,’ Lakshman said, indicating he still hadn’t.
Gowda’s mouth twisted into a line. ‘The CCB will be here too … so what is your reading this far?’
From the corner of his eye, he saw Santosh put on a pair of gloves and do a spiral search. Good, the boy had imbibed some of what he had told him. ‘Never ever start your search for evidence in a haphazard manner. There is a method even to that. When I am alone or when I know that I have to do it before the rest of the circus turns up, I do the inward spiral.’
‘I don’t actually understand, sir,’ Lakshman admitted. There was no point trying to put on a face with Gowda. He would realize in a matter of minutes how clueless he was. And that was the thing. There was no evidence of any sort to even form a preliminary opinion. Everything was in place and even the victim seemed at rest, almost as if he hadn’t known until the last moment what was happening to him.
Santosh checked the windows. They were all shut from within except the ventilator in the bathroom. There was only one door through which to enter the room and that had been shut as well until the police broke it down. So the assailant had entered the room with the victim’s knowledge and left the crime spot after pulling the door shut.
At first, the landlord had thought Kiran was unwell. He had heard the bike come in two nights ago at about 10 p.m. So he knew Kiran had returned home. On Saturday morning, the bike had stayed in its place. It was his wife who first thought something was amiss. A day later, the milk sachets lay where they had been left. When her husband sat down for breakfast, she mentioned it to him. He called the young man. They could hear the mobile ring upstairs. The landlord went up and rang the bell. There was no response. Meanwhile, a boy called Suraj whom Kiran had introduced as his colleague came by. He had a worried expression. Someone had called him two nights ago saying Kiran was dead. Suraj had laughed it off. Kiran and he had been at the gym together that evening. But he had been trying to call Kiran since yesterday evening, he said, and Kiran wasn’t picking up the phone.
The landlord was terrified now. He hammered on the door and hollered. But there was still no response. That’s when he called the police.
‘Where do we go from here, sir?’ asked Lakshman.
‘Let’s see what the post-mortem comes up with. Meanwhile, let me know what you discover about the victim. Look at the calls made on his phone, talk to his friends and get a sense of his routine, ask around and corroborate when and where he was last seen alive. Seen, not heard … And talk to this Suraj right away. See if you can trace the number that the call came from. That’s going to be vital!’
The corporator stared at his fingernails thoughtfully. Tiger sat at his feet, looking up at his master with an equally thoughtful expression. Both man and dog had something on their mind that required someone else to make a move, Chikka thought from his customary perch on the courtyard ledge. He sighed. He would have to do it.
Chikka stood up. ‘Come, Tiger,’ he said, walking to the door. Tiger shot his master a look of reproach and followed Chikka. He stood by the open door and then stepped out. A dog’s got to do what a dog’s got to do.
Chikka thought he knew how Tiger felt. A Chikka’s got to do what a Chikka has to do.
‘Anna,’ he said from the door, ‘what’s troubling you?’
The corporator’s eyes rose and met his brother’s gaze. ‘Remember the PWD clerk Shivappa who wanted our help to retrieve his house? He’s been talking to Jackie Kumar. If he didn’t work in the planning department, I would have thought, good riddance. But he will know about the city projects as and when the files come up for clearance and I need that information to use, to sell … I don’t need to tell you this. I should have sorted it out, but I had other things on my mind. If Jackie Kumar has him in his book, our entry into that section is closed. I should have remembered that Jackie Kumar has been looking to make things difficult for me ever since we fell out.’
‘What do you want me to do?’ Chikka asked quietly.
‘Take a few of the boys and go to the house. Throw out Chicken Razak’s keep and his belongings. Lock the door and bring the key to me. And call the PWD clerk over this evening. I want him drooling gratitude all over my feet. Next week, we’ll call in our favour.’
The corporator rose from his chair and went to the door. Tiger whined from outside. He let the dog in and patted its head gently.
‘You really love this dog, don’t you?’ Chikka said.
The corporator smiled. ‘With him, I know where I am.’
Chikka frowned. ‘Are you saying you don’t trust me?’
The corporator held his brother at arm’s length and smiled. ‘You, I trust. But it is foolish to trust anyone else. Life is all about learning to barter. You just need to know who needs what to make them do your bidding. Tomorrow, if someone else comes and offers them the same at better terms, they will go to them. My Tiger will too. He will wag his tail and eat their meat. But he will not give anything back. His love and loyalty are mine. I prefer dogs to people.’
Chikka didn’t speak.
‘One other thing. Ramachandra, the slum board officer, needs to be dealt with,’ the corporator said abruptly, his tone hardening.
Chikka stared. ‘Has he been babbling?’ he asked.
‘Not yet. But I don’t trust him. When he came to see me yesterday, his manner had changed. There is a certain cockiness. Almost as if he has a bargaining chip. Almost as if he thinks he can control me…’
Chikka drew closer. ‘Did he say anything to you?’
‘Not really. But when I wanted him to pull out a letter from a file, he made excuses. They are talking of clearing up the slums near the East Station and I wanted to see what the recommendations were. Once, all I had to do was mention the letter and it would have been done…’
Chikka watched his brother go back to his chair. Tiger followed and sat on his haunches. Chikka watched his brother tug the dog’s ears gently. Tiger rubbed his snout against the corporator’s hand, demanding more of the playful attention. The corporator smiled and scratched the dog’s neck.
‘He has a dog,’ the corporator said. ‘A little white bag of fur. A silly, yapping, spoilt creature. They tie a red ribbon around its neck. Apparently, the daughter is devoted to it. Slit its throat.’
‘What?’ Chikka asked.
‘They went to Mysore last night and will be back only late tonight. There is a live-in maid, but the dog is usually out in the front yard.’
‘How do you know all this, Anna?’ Chikka was incredulous.
‘I make it my business to know. Slit the dog’s throat and leave it for him to find. Tell him the dog barked too much. Tell him the dog’s barking reached me this far and hurt my ears. Tell him this is how we deal with dogs that don’t know how to keep their mouths shut. Tell him that…’ The corporator rose. ‘I am going to have my bath,’ he said.
Chikka swallowed. More and more, his brother worried him. More and more, he felt his brother turning into something he didn’t even want to recognize.
They took the Scorpio that evening. Anna insisted. ‘Take that villain vehicle,’ he said with a laugh. ‘Intimidation is the key to what you wish to achieve when you are out on the streets.’
Chikka, King Kong and the three men Anna had trained to be his fists and feet, now that he couldn’t personally make house calls swinging the sand wedge. Each one had his favourite weapon – switchblade, screwdriver, machete, cycle chain. And Chikka had his revolver. Anna insisted that he carry it when he went out with the boys.
The dog was by the gate. Darting this way and that with little high-pitched barks when man, machine, or even a leaf wafted across its line of vision. The door was closed, and no one was in the front yard. Chikka watched as Raghu opened the gate and threw a kebab on the ground.
The dog’s eyes glittered at the sight of meat. As it fell upon the meat, in one swift motion King Kong grabbed the little dog by the scruff of its neck and, with the other, ran the edge of his switchblade across its throat. The dog struggled and then stilled. King Kong dropped the dead dog, took the note from his pocket and tied it to the dog’s paw carefully with the red ribbon from around its neck. It had taken less than three minutes and on that quiet street, hidden by the high compound wall, no one had seen or heard a thing. Not that they cared. Anna would take care of everything.
‘Where to next?’ Raghu asked, as he got into the car.
‘Shivaji Nagar,’ King Kong said.
Chikka didn’t speak. The only reason he was here was because Anna felt the men would start thinking too much of themselves if they were sent alone on a mission. ‘The trick is to make them believe that they cannot function without us.’
Did these men at night ever think about the texture of their day, Chikka wondered. Did it ever come to them that these random acts of cruelty were perpetrated against someone they didn’t even know?
The house was locked. Chikka frowned.
‘Break the lock. Get rid of everything in there and put a new lock in its place. Tell the neighbours that the landlord has sold it to someone else and that Chicken Razak and his catamite have been evicted,’ Chikka said.
The men stepped out together, muttering under their breath. ‘Any street thug can do this,’ Swami said. ‘Why did Anna send us?’
‘Something to do with Jackie Kumar. It’s a message of sorts to him. Don’t mess in my terrain, etc.,’ Raghu explained.
A man walking by stopped. He stared as Anna’s men heaped a few things on the road. A chair. A bed. A TV and a few clothes. Someone brought a can of petrol and sloshed it over the heap. A match was lit and flung onto the things. The heap erupted into a blazing fire in moments. King Kong and Swami stood around, watching the fire crackling, while Raghu poked at the flames with a stick.
The man watched the fire throw up little sparks with a hiss and splutter. Flecks of ash danced through the air and floated away as King Kong inserted a big bright steel lock into the padlock.
And then they all piled into the mean-looking SUV and drove away.
TUESDAY, 16 AUGUST
Gowda was certain others were plotting this diagram. Nevertheless, he had to do it.
‘What are you doing, sir?’ Santosh asked. He saw the graph on the table and Gowda’s meticulous markings on it.
‘The PM report estimated the time of death at about eleven p.m. and the landlord heard the bike at ten. The stomach contents and extent of digestion indicate that the meal was eaten at about nine thirty p.m., which means somewhere in the radius of ten kilometres is where the meal was eaten. Either the victim ate dinner with the assailant or met with the person on his way home. So what we need to do is methodically search this entire area.’ Gowda indicated the radial lines drawn from the scene of crime.
Santosh stared at the diagram and said carefully, ‘Sir, we can reduce this by at least five kilometres on each line. The brakes of his bike are faulty so he can’t have been driving very fast. I checked it on our way back.’
Gowda looked at him and smiled. ‘Well then … There is one major problem though. It’s not technically our area, but I want you to draw up a chart and put all our constables to cover this locality. You realize, don’t you, that we don’t have much time…’
Gowda stretched as far as his arms would go and yawned. He had been up since three in the morning, dwelling over the case. Somewhere in his mind he knew for certain that there was a link between the dead Kothandaraman, the burnt-alive Liaquat, Roopesh fished out of Yellamma Lake and now Kiran. All four had their throats slit with ligatures that had manja on it. Each one’s skull had revealed a depressed fracture. A signature fracture that resembled in its pattern the weapon that had caused it. A heavy weapon with a small striking surface. The outer table had been driven into the diploe and the inner table had fractured irregularly. Suddenly he was struck by a thought.
‘Do you have a calendar, Santosh?’ he asked.
‘I have a card.’ Santosh pulled out a small date card from his wallet.
Gowda peered at it. ‘Do you see something?’ he said.
‘All the murders except the assault on Liaquat took place on Friday.’ Santosh’s voice shook with excitement.
‘Santosh, I want you to find out if there have been other murders in the last six months, on Fridays. We already know there is no history of this MO. But look for slit throats. Maybe the weapon has been changed. And one other thing. All the victims were male. That narrows it down further, don’t you think?’ Gowda spoke as he made notes on the back of the paper.
Santosh took the calendar back and slid it into his wallet. His first murder investigation and it seemed they were already on track.
‘Have you started questioning the eunuchs yet?’ Gowda asked.
‘I have asked Head Constable Gajendra to do it, sir. I’ll check with him,’ Santosh said.
‘You mean it’s not been done. You mean you didn’t do it … I thought I asked you to handle this, Santosh. If I thought Gajendra could have, I wouldn’t have asked you to.’
The sternness in Gowda’s tone chilled Santosh. For a moment there, he had relaxed his guard. Gowda was treating him as an equal. But no, he was back to being the halfwit assistant who had to be told what he could and couldn’t do.
Gowda’s mobile rang, and Santosh used the opportunity to escape before more of Gowda’s wrath descended on his due-for-a-haircut head.
Gowda put down his mobile thoughtfully. This was a new twist. He leaned forward and rang the bell. ‘Ask Santosh to come in,’ he told the constable who had answered his bell.
Santosh hurried back in. Constable Byrappa had warned him that Gowda’s face resembled that of someone who had bit into grit in a mouthful of rice. Santosh couldn’t even imagine what such a face would be like, but he didn’t want to take any chances. Not with Gowda.
‘Sir,’ he said.
Gowda looked thoughtful, almost agonized. Was this how one looked when you bit into grit in a mouthful of rice? Santosh asked himself. He wasn’t certain. Constable Byrappa ought to be writing novels instead of mazhar reports, he decided.
‘One of my informers just called me. Apparently, a group of men were at Liaquat’s house. They threw out his possessions, burnt them, locked up the house and left.’
Santosh leaned forward in excitement. ‘Does he know who they were?’
Gowda nodded. ‘Corporator Ravikumar. Though I can’t understand the connection at all…’
Santosh waited for Gowda to finish his sentence.
‘I think we should pay the corporator a visit,’ Gowda said.
‘I was just going to suggest that,’ Santosh offered, unable to help himself.
‘You mustn’t hesitate. A good police officer would never do that. So, tell me, what’s on your mind?’
And have my head bitten off, Santosh thought bitterly. He was beginning to think that Gowda suffered from a personality disorder.
The compound wall ran almost the length of the entire road, a high wall washed in a sandstone hue. The top of it was embedded with shards of glass over which two lines of barbed wire stretched. Gowda’s jaw clenched when they were kept waiting at the tall black gates.
‘Bloody upstart,’ Gowda growled. ‘Who the fuck does he think he is? The bloody governor?’
The watchman opened the gates reluctantly. PC David glared at him. ‘Can’t you see it is a police vehicle?’ he demanded. ‘Hurry up!’
The man shrugged. ‘Anna has a lot of enemies. It’s my duty to make sure that all and sundry don’t go in.’
In response, PC David pressed the accelerator down and raced through the gates towards the house.
Santosh’s mouth fell open. ‘Sir,’ he whispered, ‘how can a corporator build a house like this? It’s so…’
‘Ghastly,’ Gowda supplied helpfully. ‘Monstro
us? Nauseating?’
‘It’s so big,’ Santosh said. ‘As big as the Mysore Palace!’
‘Not as big, but almost…’ Gowda grinned as the police vehicle pulled up outside the house.
‘Even the gates are like the palace gates. How can a corporator have this kind of money?’ Santosh murmured.
‘Welcome to the world of politics,’ Gowda rumbled. ‘In a survey conducted last year, Karnataka was declared the fourth most corrupt state in the country.’
‘I can see why,’ Santosh said grimly, his eyes falling on the line of cars parked by the side of the house. He thought of his father, one-time corporator in the municipality of Londa. A little, frail man who wore his principles like his hand-spun clothes, with fierce pride; a Gandhian who eschewed personal gain in favour of public welfare. Santosh and his siblings had borne the brunt of those Gandhian tenets. Would he have been here, sitting in a police uniform, if his father had been built on the lines of Corporator Ravikumar? Perhaps not. Who knows what he would have become?
A group of men stood huddled on one side of the house. One of them, an apelike man with arms that curved in towards his body and a wide barrel chest, went in quietly as soon as they saw the police jeep. By the time Gowda and Santosh climbed the steps to the main door, it was flung open by the corporator himself.
‘Please come in,’ the corporator said in his most cordial voice. ‘What brings you here, Borei Gowda? Ah, I forget.’ He struck his palm on his forehead in a theatrical gesture of reproof. ‘You are in uniform … so what can I do for you, Inspector?’
Santosh felt his jaw slip a fraction of an inch. So Gowda and the corporator already knew each other.
The corporator turned his gaze on Santosh. He looked at him, up and down, and dismissed him as inconsequential.