by Monabi Mitra
A constable tapped him on the shoulder.
‘DIG saab wants to talk to you.’
Bikram strolled over to Virendra Singh who was deep in conversation with a heavy-set man with a smooth face and thick lips.
‘No problem, I’ll look into it,’ finished Virendra Singh. ‘Enjoy the match. My officer will guide you to your box. If you want anything just tell him. Bikram, take Mr Mohan to his seat.’
Their reactions to one another’s name were a study in contrasts. Gaur Mohan smiled and looked jollier as he read Bikram’s name from his uniform tag and said, ‘Ah!’ Bikram cast him a cold look and said with a chill in his voice, ‘May I have your box number?’
Gaur Mohan looked amused. ‘So you’re Bikram Chatterjee. Very good! Listen, don’t worry about what Vir says. You go back to your work.’
They dodged two banners and three boys with the Indian flag painted on their faces.
‘So, did you get my message? The one I sent through your girlfriend, the beautiful and world-famous actress?’ Gaur asked, a mischievous smile playing on his lips.
‘Did I?’ Bikram looked uninterested. ‘If you want a Coke it’s down that way. Goodbye.’
‘See you around!’ said Gaur Mohan cheerfully. ‘We will meet.’
The match ended early, at seven in the evening, because the Australian team had wilted in the muggy October weather and lost all their wickets. Bikram had to stand around near the dressing room waiting for the players to emerge and then whisk them off to the Taj hotel. The gaiety and spirit of triumph had turned the stadium into a carnival where the uniformed policemen looked unsightly with their hard, strained faces and their endless activity, shouting into wireless sets and moving cordons. Virendra Singh was attending to the king and trying to ceremoniously hurry him into his black Audi, which was blocking the players’ huge coach.
Bikram could see ex-cricket players, ministers, senior bureaucrats and other important people laughing and shaking hands near the air-conditioned boxes. He saw Gaur Mohan, dark, plump, jelly-like, rolling out of his box and smiling beatifically around. On seeing him, Gaur Mohan raised his hand in a brief wave but Bikram turned round and set his face resolutely towards the dressing room, willing the Australian players to hurry up.
When he had finally fulfilled his escort duties and watched the players’ coach roll away, he realized it was still early in the evening. What would Shona be doing now? She was in between movies, which meant there was nothing much to do except attend parties and launch boutiques and ensure that she got at least two press or television appearances a week to keep her in public and producer memory.
He called her. ‘Are you doing anything this evening?’
There was an awkward silence. ‘Yes.’
‘Such as?’
‘Some of us are going to a felicitation party.’
‘Felicitation? An aged director or an award-winning writer? Funny, I’ve never seen you read a book!’
‘To felicitate the cricket players, silly.’
‘Oh. Where?’
‘Someone’s house.’
‘Whose?’
There was another awkward silence and Bikram suddenly understood.
‘No . . . not Gaur Lal Mohan’s house . . .’ he drawled tiredly.
‘I can’t help it, Bikram! He usually sets up parties on occasions like these and we are expected to be there. It would be madness not to go. My career might be in a shambles.’
With an effort Bikram kept his temper.
‘Can we meet tomorrow evening, then?’
‘Probably not. I’ll be shooting tomorrow from evening onwards. Two shifts, really, that’s about twelve hours. I won’t be free till late afternoon two days later.’
‘Behave yourself, Shona. You can’t work all night. You’ll ruin your looks!’ he said concerned.
‘If you can go on all-night raids and spoil yours, why can’t I?’
‘That’s serious law-and-order duty.’
‘This is serious too. Come to think of it, your work will be forgotten once you move away from the Crime Branch, or grow older and retire from service. But mine will endure twenty, thirty years from now. People will remember me every time they watch my movies, but who will remember you and Piloo Adhikary?’
For a brief while Bikram was silent, because he could think of nothing to say. She had crushed him wholly with her stinging words. He pulled himself together with some effort. Something about Gaur Mohan and the way in which the man got between them was filling him with trepidation. Bikram had never questioned Shona, but this time anguish gripped him whenever he imagined her going to such invitations. He also remembered their last argument. I must be careful with her, he thought.
‘I thought you had more personality than to go to block invitations.’
‘This one was beautifully done. I couldn’t refuse.’
All at once Bikram began to feel very tired, as if the king’s visit and the cricket match and the investigation of Piloo’s death and his child-like tantrums with Shona were beating down on him.
‘All right,’ he said abruptly and rang off.
* * *
Ten minutes before midnight Bikram’s doorbell rang. The cook had gone off duty ten minutes ago and was now wearing a pair of striped pyjamas. He peered through the peephole, saw who it was and meekly opened the door. He was quite dimmed by her beauty, as well as by the free tickets to soirees that she presented him with, and the baubles she occasionally handed out for his daughter. Beside her was another man wearing an interesting- looking jacket full of pockets.
‘Asleep?’ Shona looked flushed and excited. She was wearing a sweeping salwar kameez with tiny peacocks crafted all over it with real peacock feathers. She looked quite stunning.
The cook nodded his head.
Gesturing the man with the jacket towards the drawing room, Shona walked towards the bedroom. The cook watched her swaying behind and then looked guiltily away.
‘Bad mood?’ she asked over her shoulder. A smell of roses and alcohol wafted across the room with her.
‘Nowadays, always,’ answered the cook.
Bikram was sleeping. Shona looked down at him softly. His face looked tired and there were dark circles around the eyes. She had regretted her harsh words immediately after she had said them on the phone but was too proud to call him back and apologize. She was a secret mixture of guilt and triumph and having put him down and smashed his ego so completely, she had decided to make amends. Looking at him now, she caught her breath at his sleeping form. How handsome he looked! She wondered whether the stress of the Crime Branch or the stress of keeping up with her was working on him.
As if he could feel her presence, he opened his eyes and stared confusedly at her. Then he remembered and frowned.
‘Party over? I suppose it’s nearing dawn then.’
Shona kneeled down on the floor and kissed him. Then she rose and said, ‘I’ve brought a guest.’
‘Someone who’s lost his mobile phone and wants me to investigate?’ The kiss had nourished him back to good humour.
‘Someone who’s seen a man having a hideous altercation with another man who was murdered the other day. Piloo, the producer.’
Bikram leaned back on the pillow with his hands under his head. He liked to see her when she was happy, as she undoubtedly was now. So many parties, so much frivolity, so much aggression and unhappiness in the career she had chosen, and yet the dazzle and loveliness remained.
‘Come on, now. He’s sitting in the outer room. He’s a photographer who worked with the dead producer on his last movie.’
Bikram began to hunt for his slippers as Shona patted and smoothed his hair. ‘Am I presentable?’ he asked after some time.
‘Wonderfully so!’
The photographer had been sitting hunched on the edge of the sofa with his chin cupped in his hands. Shona had swept him out of the party when he had inadvertently mentioned certain things and he was now ruing the fact that he had managed only th
ree drinks.
Shona introduced the topic and the photographer looked wary.
‘Look, it mustn’t be known that I came to see you like this. Things can get very sensitive in our line of business.’
Shona said something that sounded like ‘tsk’.
‘It was on the sets of the movie Sixer. Our director, Mr Heera, had a hell of a quarrel with the producer, Mr Piloo. Piloo wanted to see his accounts and Heera said this was show business, not a grocery shop. Shooting stopped for a day while they were at it. Eventually Malavika, the heroine, had to intervene. They went into a huddle inside the dressing room. After that things became okay, but Piloo was in a bad mood for some time. He would come in regularly to check if all was well. Somehow we managed to complete the shooting on schedule. Most of us technicians vowed never to work with the duo again.’
‘Did Heera ever threaten Piloo?’ Bikram suppressed a yawn.
‘All the time, whenever he could get a chance, said the man was accursed and that he would meet his end in a bad way.’
Shona smiled at the photographer and said he should have been in the police, before leading him out of the front door and lending him her car.
‘You can drop him off wherever he wants to go next, then drive the car home and leave it there,’ she said over the phone to her driver.
Bikram had climbed back into bed.
‘So you see, my world has its uses,’ said Shona. She had pulled her kameez off and was opening and closing cupboards.
‘I bet it has, Officer Chowdhury. What do you want?’
‘My nightdress.’
‘Why?’
‘For the sake of appearances. I mean, one has to start with it! Like in the Bollywood movies.’
‘We’ll do it the Hollywood way then.’
A long while later they slept.
9
‘Countless factors must be taken into consideration in a study of crime and criminals.’
When Bikram entered his office the next morning and seated himself at his desk he found a pink file waiting for him with ‘Broad Street PS case number 324 dated 20.10.20 . . . under section 302 IPC’ written in a uniform hand across the top. Bikram groaned, muttered a curse and flung the file into the waste-paper basket at his feet. There were no marks for guessing who the file had come from and what could be inside. Then he counted up to five slowly, took a few deep breaths, repeated to himself, ‘I shall keep my temper, I shall not lose my cool . . .’ and retrieved the file from the bin.
He began backwards, as police files are read, and gloomily turned over the pages. There was the Broad Street thana’s report on the night of the murder, laying out the facts of the case in terrible English. There was Prem Gupta’s official order assigning him to the case along with Sheena Sen and sub-inspector Moloyendu Ghosh, and Ashu Das of Crime Branch. After that, predictably, the file grew ruder.
No Progress Report has been submitted after control of the case was taken over by DSP Crime. I would like to discuss the case with the investigating team.
Bikram caught the ponderous handwriting of Toofan Kumar marching across the page and ending with an elaborate squiggle. The next entry was a typewritten sheet detailing the preliminary autopsy report to which, a few days later, the ponderous hand returned.
Please see the autopsy surgeon with a copy of the PM report to ascertain the time of death. Mere correspondence is not enough.
The writer had finished acidly. Bikram, in his tiny, spidery handwriting, had replied that the investigating officer had interviewed the deceased man’s wife and other witnesses in the neighbourhood with a view to fixing the last movements of the deceased and that progress was slow but satisfactory. In reply was an absolute thunderstorm from the ponderous hand.
Seen the Progress Report. Written for writing’s sake without any knowledge of the case. I wonder whether the Investigating Officer at all visited the scene of crime.
‘At all visited the scene of crime!’ muttered Bikram under his breath, but he was immediately angry with himself for behaving childishly. To steady himself he drew a beautiful woman with long curly hair and false eyelashes on his official notepad and dialled Sheena Sen’s number. It was switched off and a bright taped voice urged him to leave a voice message.
Sheena Sen was at that moment walking down the road to Curls and Twirls Beauty Parlour after having had her car parked farther up the lane, and was frowning at a security guard who was attempting to follow her. She noted that the parlour was three streets away from Monica Sarkar’s house and that the grim middle-class neighbourhood in which Piloo lived had given way to a more stylish one. Old houses had been torn down and new apartment complexes had sprouted in their place, done up in marble and pink granite. There were clouds in the sky and a nip in the air and pots of early chrysanthemums stood in the plush balconies. She paused outside a building and found a signpost directing her to a car park that led her to the parlour. Good location, she thought.
Inside, it was cool and well laid out with professional-looking leather chairs and clean shelves and an overpowering smell of shampoo and chlorine. Through the transparent glass door which led to the men’s section she could see a man having a haircut, another having a manicure and a third leaning back with his eyes closed with cream glistening on his face and neck, while a tall girl executed swift massage strokes. The girl’s hands flew up and down, now near the temples, down to the cheeks and neck and swiftly to the chest and nipples and back to the forehead again. Aha! Sheena Sen was sure the man was having a hard-on.
‘Yes madam, how can we help you?’
A woman stood at her side and looked her up and down appraisingly. Sheena Sen was wearing jeans and a white top that accentuated her waist and the curves above it.
‘I’m here for the first time. What are your rates?’
Without bothering to reply, the woman climbed up a flight of narrow stairs to the mezzanine with a bored look and Sheena Sen followed her. It was empty upstairs. Three girls sat in a corner chatting amongst themselves and inspecting one another’s nail polish. There were three chairs for haircuts and another with an attached basin for shampooing. Beyond, Sheena Sen could see two curtained recesses. Was that where it all happened? The woman took a rate card out of a back issue of Cosmopolitan magazine and handed it to Sheena Sen. ‘Taxes extra,’ she murmured. Sheena pretended to peruse the rate card while her mind raced. Should she engage one of the girls for a French manicure and risk some gossiping? But she was sure the girl would not talk in front of the others. Better to go in for something in the curtained recesses. Besides, this would be paid for by the Crime Branch and the place looked wholesome. Might as well go for it. ‘I’ll go for the herbal facial. The special one.’
‘Pinky! Where are you? Special herbal facial for a customer here. Take booth one.’
A meek-looking girl with slit eyes appeared from somewhere within the parlour and smiled nervously at Sheena Sen, who frowned. The girl looked about fourteen. Did they have slots for virgins here? And what could be special about a facial? Most suspicious! Sheena Sen allowed herself to be taken away to booth one and presented with what looked like a petticoat. The girl gestured her to change and pull the drawstring just over her breasts, leaving the face and neck exposed for the herbal effects. Sheena Sen looked around her, noting nothing out of the ordinary. Cotton wool, towels, cold wax and a wax heater on a trolley, magazines on the shelves. All the ordinary things you would expect to see in a beauty parlour, which meant that they had at least some genuine customers. Pinky could be heard bumping around outside, setting up the steam equipment, cleanser and face pack on her own trolley.
Sheena Sen slipped out of her clothes and into the drawstring petticoat, and wished Bikram could see her now. As she lay down and Pinky began her manoeuvres, Sheena Sen began to relax. A delicious languor spread over her. Pinky kneaded her face lightly and slid her hands to the back of her neck. The pressure points were massaged gently and Sheena Sen could feel, slowly, the tension being relieved
by a wonderful sleepy feeling. Oh, what joy! Pinky wiped the cleanser off and applied a pack, then spread a gossamer-fine tissue on her face and sprayed rose water on it. Then Pinky moved quietly to her feet and began massaging Sheena’s soles. A warm feeling crept up Sheena Sen’s thighs and she could feel her skin tingling. Facial with a foot massage! That was the special thing about it. I mustn’t go to sleep, said Sheena Sen to herself. I. . . am . . . on . . . duty. . . Bikram . . . sent . . . me . . . in a moment . . . I will . . . be . . . asleep!
She was.
Sheena Sen woke up with a start. The cubicle was empty. She put a hand up to her face. The tissue was still there and the pack felt dry. What was the time? How long had she slept? Where was Pinky? From another cubicle Sheena Sen could hear voices. The air-conditioner was at a low hum and she could hear them clearly. ‘Piloo Adhikary, the one who was murdered. I’m positive it was him.’ One of the girls had a louder voice than the others and this rang out in the muted stillness of the parlour.
Sheena Sen stiffened and held her breath.
‘How do you know?’ The other voice was softer and Sheena Sen had to strain her ears to hear her.
‘She told me. We used to take the metro home together and I had asked her once. We were friendly and she would tell me things she wouldn’t tell you. She was carrying a new bag, which I admired. She laughed and said it was a boyfriend’s gift. What’s his name, I had asked boldly. He’s a film producer, she said, the one who’s done The Last Hour. I went home and checked the papers and it was him.’
‘Do you think Monicadi knew?’
‘I don’t know about that. But perhaps she did and that’s why Mala left. Right after that conversation, I remember. Monicadi must have thrown her out.’
Pinky glided back into the cubicle and dabbed Sheena Sen’s face with a wet sponge and a practised hand. Then she turned the steam machine on and gusts of hot vapour floated over her and hurt her eyes. Sheena Sen strained her ears but Pinky’s movements had alerted the girls.