by Monabi Mitra
‘Watching American Idol on television.’
The detail momentarily intrigued him. This woman was as far removed from the world of an American music reality show as Ashu Das himself was from America.
‘Do you live alone?’
‘Yes. My son is in the US and my husband is no more. Gone, this time last year, and all because the ambulance couldn’t force its way through an immersion procession that wound down our street.’
Ashu Das ignored that. ‘Did you know Piloo Adhikary well?’
‘I did not and never want to. With all those dogs and that hideous bitch!’
‘Well, she says that you might have had a hand in this death, because of the dogs.’
Mary Kuttan threw up her hands. ‘I would never associate with people like them. Stray dogs in the house, noisy parties at night and a sham of a beauty parlour to run. We are an old and well- bred family from Kerala, my father was a cardamom merchant and we would never have come down to this locality had not my husband made some terrible investments,’ she responded. A flash of bitterness passed over her wrinkled face.
‘But you have no alibi for the night of the murder. That might put you in a bit of a spot over these accusations of murder.’
‘How much do you know of Monica to accuse me?’ Mary Kuttan tapped the floor with her foot and frowned angrily. ‘Have you been to the beauty parlour she runs? It’s five minutes from here, with two rooms inside that masquerade as massage rooms. Tapas’s wife tells me that her clients are almost exclusively male who have fat girls do facials on them and disappear into an inner room with them after the face polish is over. Take a hint and run down to that parlour instead.’ Mary Kuttan tossed her head angrily, just as the smell of something on the verge of getting burnt drifted in from an inner room.
‘Now please leave, or I’ll never finish my cooking.’
Ashu Das left. He had other houses to investigate.
Tapas Dhar from the house on the east was out at work but his wife, Jhuma, met him instead.
She seemed open to discussing her neighbours in detail. ‘She wasn’t a faithful wife at all, but I suppose you know that, don’t you? One look and you can make that out. What did she tell you?’
‘That she was a good wife.’
‘Well. I’m telling you, she wasn’t. She was his mistress and just pretended to be family. We are the oldest inhabitants of this neighbourhood and I still remember the day they moved in. Only, it wasn’t a “they” but Piloo Adhikary by himself. The previous owner had hanged himself and his son was impatient to sell off the house and return to Delhi. He must have advertised in the papers and hurriedly struck a deal with the first person who responded. Piloo arrived alone, then after about a year, this woman did, claiming to be his wife. Anyone could see they weren’t married. She suddenly started wearing vermilion and a married woman’s bangles about a month after she moved in. And wore extremely low-cut nightdresses and drank whisky with him.’
Jhuma stared at him as Ashu Das took down the details with his Linc microtip pen and wondered if he dare ask for a glass of water.
‘Did the dogs bother you?’
‘Yes, with all their whining and moaning. But not half as much as some of the visitors to their house. Slutty-looking girls in slinky dresses and boys with gelled hair. Can’t believe that once upon a time this area was actually a respectable place to live in.’
Navin Sharma, the second neighbour on the west, seemed vexed at his visit.
‘But saab, I’ve said all I know to the man from the thana who came that day!’
Ashu Das announced he was from Crime Branch, and not the local thana.
‘Yes, I understand as much from the newspapers, but I have nothing to say that might add to what I’ve already said.’
‘You knew him?’
‘A little.’
‘How?’
Navin Sharma fidgeted with the television remote.
‘Just neighbourly camaraderie, hi and hello on the road. Nothing more.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Well, I did borrow some money from him once, though at a very high rate of interest.’
Ashu Das nodded but his interest was aroused. Piloo Adhikary used to lend out money at exorbitant rates, a fact that Broad Street thana had found out on the day after his murder, and made only a passing reference to in the official case file. What could emerge as a first-class motive for murder had been added almost as an afterthought in the last paragraph of the pink file.
Ashu Das already knew that and had been waiting for Navin Sharma’s version of it, while Navin Sharma himself had guessed that keeping anything from the police would only invite suspicion. He laughed in a show of bravado.
‘We all did, come to think of it. Mary Kuttan and Tapas Dhar and I, we all went to him when we were hard up. You can’t hold that against only me.’
‘So he was a moneylender as well as the owner of a small shop in Lake Market besides being the financier of two badly directed movies. Any other source of income you know of?’
‘That’s all we knew. He didn’t mingle socially with us or we with him. He had his own friends who came and went noisily. Like all these filmwallahs with their chokris. Sometimes they stayed over and would come up to the terrace in the morning when I would be doing my yoga exercises.’
For a fleeting moment Ashu Das had a vision of Navin Sharma performing a pranayam and peeping at the chokris through his ‘om’ chants.
‘Do you still owe him any money?’
Navin Sharma looked shocked. ‘Is that what his wife said?’
‘It’s what I’m asking you.’
‘Never would I have kept a single paisa unpaid to that viper!’ he said a little angrily. ‘I returned the money as soon as I could. How can one keep money outstanding to a man who did things with stray dogs and whose wife wasn’t his wife!’
4
‘There is no doubting the fact that on the several police forces of this nation there are to be found men of rare ability who have distinguished themselves by the quality of service they have rendered.’
Bikram Chatterjee finished his duties as a recruiting officer and headed home. He had been desperately unhappy in the last few hours, as the crowd of boys who failed to clear the rigorous physical tests had grown larger and more and more of them had been waved away from the tents. To be an efficient constable, the powers-that-be had ordained that one had to be 169 centimetres tall, weigh 55 kilograms, be able to puff out one’s chest to the noble number of 85 centimetres and cover a distance of 1600 metres in six and a half minutes. Most of the applicants were either scruffy malnourished villagers with poking-out ribs or clumsy fat ones, all with hungry eyes, breakfasting royally on a mouthful of muri and waiting for a miracle to happen. Bikram drove off in a whirl of dust, politely declining the police station’s offer of dinner and trying hard not to look at the failed candidates gathered outside the Police Line Grounds, weeping softly with their head in their hands, or looking dully ahead.
Half an hour after he left the derelict town behind, he stopped at a dhaba and ordered dinner. He was offered an air-conditioned sanctum for the privileged, a tiny room with a clean table, three chairs and a poster of palm trees and emerald seas taped on the wall beside a picture of Lord Shiva. Bikram said no for the second time within an hour, and settled for a string cot under an enormous gnarled peepal tree. The stars shone and the air was clean, smelling of wood fires and early mist and shiuli flowers. The dhaba dog had smelled out bones to crunch and crouched down beside the cot. In the distance fireflies glimmered in the bushes. A plateful of chicken curry and wafer-thin rotis was delivered to him and he began to eat gratefully.
Peace at last. Rest in peace. Bikram remembered the dead man in the Broad Street house and the two dead dogs around him, and, feeling vaguely guilty, chucked a piece of chicken breast at the living mongrel watching him intently from the shadows. If they could establish that valuables had been stolen from the house after the crime it would b
e an easy case, otherwise . . .
He was certain the case would be handed over to Crime Branch. When did a police station ever solve a homicide, buffeted around by VIP duty and law-violation programmes, forgery cases, dowry deaths and molestation complaints?
A man stepped out of the shadows and began to rub his palms together obsequiously. It was the dhaba owner. Beside him stood a young man of twenty or so, grinning wildly and trying to touch Bikram’s feet.
‘Wait. Let saab finish his meal.’ It was the dhaba owner nodding and bowing. Then he introduced the young man at his side. ‘My nephew. He cracked the tests this morning. Thank you, sir, without you it would have been impossible!’
‘Thank your nephew. He passed the tests. I didn’t do a thing. Besides, he’s still got his written examination to clear.’ Bikram finished his roti and began sipping on the tea.
‘But you blessed him. That is enough. It is the blessing that matters. With that, he will pass all his tests, even the most difficult interview.’ The dhaba owner began to rub his hands again. ‘We will always be grateful to you. Three sisters to be married off, and a father with a bad kidney . . . we really needed this job. We will always remember your kindness. A glass of beer, perhaps . . .’
Bikram shook his head. Then he looked at the smiling young man and remembered the constables guarding Piloo Adhikary’s body at Broad Street.
‘Policing is tough work. Can you stand it?’
‘Yes, saab. I can run faster than the wind and can chase criminals, even the most fleet-footed.’
‘I suppose so. Can you pick up dead dogs whose heads have been half severed from their bodies and carry them to the animal dump?’
The boy’s smile faded and a look of confusion came over his face. What kind of a question was that? But he knew it had to be answered, and so, drawing a breath, he said, ‘Yes, but, I mean, that’s the work of a corpse carrier, a dom, isn’t it?’
His uncle nodded in approval.
‘Because you’re a policeman,’ said Bikram. ‘You have to find a solution for everything, including dead dogs. And if you don’t, the world will accuse you of being insensitive.’
* * *
‘You’re a ladies’ man, Bikram,’ said Shona Chowdhury amusedly. ‘Can you see that lady in the middle seat turning back every now and then to look at you out of the corner of her eye? She’s been doing that for the last five minutes. She is obviously smitten by your looks!’ she teased. ‘Of course, it is your magnetic presence that is affecting her two rows away, turning her into jello,’ Shona laughed.
It was the day after Bikram had returned from Murshidabad, and he had telephoned his office to announce an upset stomach before ringing up Shona, his actress girlfriend, and explaining that he had taken the day off. Would she do the same? She did. One of the things which turned Shona’s heart upside down was this quiet, urgent Bikram, the one who would ring up to announce that he needed her and that he had cancelled work. She could imagine his smile when she said yes, and it was strange what the thought of a smile could do to you. They had met and enjoyed an agreeable afternoon. After which Shona had insisted on taking him to the cinema in the evening. The hero of the movie she wanted him to see was a policeman and Bikram, curious about this self-image, had agreed.
Absorbed in his catalogue of missed calls and unanswered messages that had vibrated steadily through the ninety minutes of the movie before the interval, Bikram continued to lavish attention on his mobile phone without looking up. ‘It’s a change in routine. Someone’s staring at me instead of you. In any case, are you jealous?’ he asked lightly.
‘Of a forty-something woman with a bad haircut and what looks like brown beads strung across a heaving bosom? No, not really.’
‘Some fat women can be very attractive.’
‘Not this one.’
‘Describe her.’
‘I can’t see very well in this half light, because my distant vision is not particularly good nowadays and screen divas are not supposed to wear glasses, but I think she’s wearing a maroon salwar suit and carrying a black bag with an enormous plastic flower on it. Also, some sort of dangling earrings that come down almost to her shoulders. As I said, I can’t see very well, but I can bet on three things: her eyes will be deeply lined with eyeliner, her lips painted scarlet and you’d get two blobs of pink rouge on either cheek.’
‘I like the way you say rouge, Shona. It gives your age away. The current generation says blush-on, if I’m not mistaken. And your eyesight is just fine. Even Sheena Sen couldn’t have given me a better description with those glazed eyes of hers.’
‘Poor Sheena Sen! Even policewomen have passions! She’s in love with you, I’m sure. Like this unknown woman here. She’s hesitating about something, wait, she’s made up her mind! A-ha, she’s going to risk it, I had hoped she would! She’s coming here, Bikram. Should I go away to the popcorn counter?’
‘I suppose she’s coming here for your autograph. Besides, I’ve got an evening off and I’m not going to be a policeman now.’
‘But you have no choice. Once a policeman, always a policeman. She’s almost here, by the way.’
The hall went suddenly dark and the screen flashed a ‘No Smoking’ sign before starting a slideshow of miscellaneous low- budget printed advertisements. All around them swam a restless eddy of men, women and children with sweetcorn, popcorn, fizzy colas and other movie-hall edibles. The mysterious lady who had been stealing glances at Bikram tried to struggle through the crowd towards him, but now that the lights were out she tripped, thought better of it and returned to her seat.
‘She’ll be back when the movie is over,’ hissed Shona. Bikram nodded. The screen broke up into a whirl of action and Bikram settled down into cinema mode again.
But when the show ended and the lights came on, and the woman with the bad haircut looked around her expectantly, she could not see them.
Bikram had slipped out through the entrance door at the back, thirty seconds before the movie ended. This was a favour extended by the management only to a select elect of which Bikram and Shona were a part. By the time the woman pushed through the crowd to the empty seats at the back, her target was downstairs.
Shona laughed exultantly as they slipped into their car.
‘That was fun! The scent of adventure, and all from a woman with a plastic rose on her bag. What grand work policing must sometimes be?’
‘Sometimes, yes.’
Their car swung out of the drive and into a crowded street through which Bikram drove full throttle. Shona settled back to watch his sinewy hands caress the steering wheel. He could make even driving a car look sexy, the machine purred in his hands. A rush of desire overwhelmed her and she looked out of the window to steady herself.
‘I wonder what she wanted,’ Shona said thoughtfully.
* * *
That night, as Bikram slept, the rain came hard and tumultuous from the north, and a cold, wet, stinging storm sent a chill into the October night. He could hear it dimly in his sleep and tried to awaken to close the window shutters, but the rain entered his dreams and he felt himself floating down the stairs in a dark house where it was raining outside and someone was shooting at him from behind. He felt fear and pain and awoke with a start. A trickle of sweat ran down his chest and there was a dreadful soreness in his back. He pulled himself out of bed with difficulty, staggered to the window and, as he shut it, felt the cold and wet curtains brush against his hands. He should move to the study-cum-office room and check the windows there, he thought. Instead, he groped his way back towards the bed and fell upon it. The rain lashed against the panes as his teeth chattered and his body felt cold, wooden and useless.
In the morning he knew he was running a fever. He was something of a flu veteran, suffering a bout of it each time the weather changed. But this time he felt his skin prickle and the hair on his arms stand on end as the fever came. He wrapped a light quilt around himself, then the bedcover, then the spare coverlet and finally, h
e asked the cook to fetch him a thick blanket. The cook draped the blanket around Bikram and held an emergency meeting with Mistry in the kitchen. ‘He had it last year around September, so there’s every chance of him having it again this year,’ he began. ‘Shivering like that, too. Malaria ravages the same body thrice, as my mother often said. Maybe you should persuade him to call in the doctor.’
The cook and Mistry approached the bedroom cautiously, the cook standing outside and Mistry just over the threshold.
‘Sir?’
No answer. They could feel, rather than hear, quick breathing. The room smelled clammy with sweat and sickness.
‘Should I call in the doctor?’
‘Yes . . . get him . . .’ Bikram’s voice sounded faint.
Mistry had expected a difficult argument. He went back to the kitchen pleasantly surprised. The cook trotted after him and resumed conference.
‘He must be really ill,’ he said. ‘Did you hear that? A tame “get him”. You’ll have to pay the doctor’s fees for the time being. I know where the wallet is kept, but it wouldn’t do to let saab know that.’ He looked at Mistry and gave a twisted smile.
‘If it is malaria, shouldn’t you tell her?’
Mistry looked troubled, ‘I don’t know.’
‘I think you should.’
‘I suppose you’re right. Don’t know how she can help, though . . . She must be busy with all those movie shootings. Anyway, let’s get the doctor first and think about that later.’
The malaria was confirmed by a quick blood test and the doctor began the doses of quinine.
At first Bikram spent his waking moments in a dim haze, opening his eyes and staring vacantly at the ceiling, feeling his ears buzz and his skin crawl. The fever rose and receded. In between, he telephoned Toofan Kumar and asked for leave. Toofan Kumar agreed gracelessly and hung up without any polite enquiries after his health. The fever had weakened Bikram enough to feel a surge of self-pity and his face grew scarlet. It was ten in the morning and a dove cooed on the window perch as Bikram lay back on the bed, drenched in sweat and exhausted from the effort of putting on a flat even voice for Toofan Kumar.