by Monabi Mitra
‘In case it got damaged by the fireworks.’
‘Lies, lies and more lies. Why don’t you just confess and finish off with it?’
‘Why should I confess to something I didn’t do for the convenience of the Crime Branch?’
‘Because this paan-and-cigarette-and-sweetmeat story between eight and nine is all stuff and nonsense as we both know. There is something furtive about your movements at the time that a murder was being committed. We don’t like the sound of that.’
The smell of fear from Chand Mukherjee was now overpowering all other smells in the room. Sheena Sen looked outside and pursed her pretty mouth in annoyance. A police station full of people and none to deal with a filthy, naked madman who still stood directing imaginary traffic!
‘We went out for a talk. Monica and I.’
‘Where?’
‘To . . . the ground-floor apartment. It belongs to a man called Ram Sen, he’ll vouch for us. We hadn’t met for a while and needed to . . . get together.’
Sheena Sen raised her eyebrows in mock horror. ‘My God! A quickie in a house full of guests! Puja guests!’
Chand Mukherjee hung his head. ‘We were having a chat . . .’
‘How do I know you’re not lying? Was Ram Sen there all the while you were together?’
‘Off and on.’ Chand Mukherjee sounded like a broken man. ‘Is all this going to be in the newspapers tomorrow?’
‘It might,’ said Sheena Sen heartlessly. ‘Depending on what Ram Sen says and how you cooperate with us. Do you know of anyone who might have killed Piloo Adhikary?’
For the first time Chand Mukherjee seemed to have recovered his composure. He looked up and said happily, ‘Yes. My wife!’
12
‘The lack of proper parental and moral guidance seemed to outweigh all other causes for departure from the paths of moral rectitude.’
A crimson-coloured Tata Sumo with police stickers plastered on the front, the sides and the back drew up , outside a decrepit bungalow. Ghosh, who had expected, he knew not why, a Universal Studios kind of atmosphere, felt somewhat discouraged. The bungalow looked about a hundred years old and ready to fall to pieces any moment. Beyond an untidy patch of weedy grass flowed a muddy Ganga, while far away on the other side stood the smoke stacks of near-defunct jute mills.
The dirty patch of grass in front of the bungalow was peopled by an assortment of peevish and scruffy-looking men carrying microphones and other technical equipment. Ghosh threaded his way through wires and what looked like huge solar panels that created a magic ring around an enchanted circle. Someone was playing loud music and a man and a woman were dancing in complex steps within the magic ring, whilst a cameraman on a trolley filmed it all in an energetic manner. Another man was shouting out instructions on a microphone that sounded positively insane to Ghosh: ‘Walk slowly, move your hips, put on some kind of an expression!’
Ghosh, waiting for a break in the hectic dancing, wondered what they said in a sex scene. ‘Roll over on top of her, move your hand slowly down the throat to the breast, not so fast, you’ve hit the nipple already, cut it!’ He found the whole scene ridiculous and marvelled at the men and women who thronged cinema halls for stuff assembled in this sordid fashion. How Bikram can fall for a woman who does this for a living, I can’t imagine, he thought fleetingly.
A man shambled up to him and stared rudely. ‘Who are you?’
‘That’s none of your business,’ Ghosh bristled with anger. ‘Ask Malavika-whatever-her-name to come and meet me, I have something to say to her.’
‘Buzz off, grandfather,’ shouted the man insolently. ‘There’s nothing for you here.’
‘Do you see my car there?’ said Ghosh tartly. ‘Take a good look at that and get that girl out here for me!’
The man looked, scowled and loped off to the magic circle. The grating music had stopped. As he spoke, a few heads turned round to look at Ghosh and then his car. Then the man with the microphone walked up to Ghosh.
‘I’m the director, Heera. I believe you’re looking for Mala. She has to get ready for the next shot and we have a lot to do today. Couldn’t you wait till lunchtime?’
Heera was wearing silver hoops in both his ears and had a cruel-looking gash on his left eyebrow. He was wearing a T-shirt with FCUK printed on it in bold black. On his head was perched a straw hat. He looked like a goon called One-eyed Happy whom Ghosh had once punched five times in the face as he tried to karate-chop his way out, and Ghosh wondered at the ways of the world where film-maker and goon led identically wayward lives.
‘If you think your work is important, what do you think I do for a living?’ snarled Ghosh. ‘This is the second time I’m trying to meet her and every time she’s busy, busy. Who does she think she is? Meena Kumari?’
‘Relax, uncle,’ said Heera soothingly. ‘You’re no Pradip Kumar either. Sit down, have a cup of tea.’
He clapped his hands like a magician and chairs materialized out of nowhere. A tea boy poured evil-smelling tea into a thin plastic cup and held it out to Ghosh. ‘Will he be in the next shot?’ he asked the director excitedly. Ghosh felt faintly apoplectic.
A girl wearing a low-cut, clinging, intimate dress flounced towards them. Her hair hung over her shoulder in bright curls and her face was garishly made up.
‘Here’s Mala,’ said Heera unceremoniously and prepared to leave.
‘Wait a second,’ said Ghosh. ‘I need you too. Monica Sarkar mentioned your name also. What were you doing on the night of the 20th of October? That’s Diwali night.’
Mala and Heera exchanged significant glances.
‘Are you from the thana?’ asked Heera boldly.
‘From Crime Branch,’ answered Ghosh coldly.
The significant glances were exchanged again.
‘Look,’ said Heera, ‘we know nothing about Piloo. We had severed ties with him some time ago. He financed our first two movies, The Last Hour and Sixer, but after that there was trouble. We backed out and the production house wound up. You can’t pin anything on us.’
‘What was the trouble about?’ asked Ghosh.
‘Money, what else? Do you know how much an average low- budget movie needs? About sixty lakh rupees.’ Heera swept his hand towards the men milling around in the dirty garden, sipping tea and smoking and fiddling with wires. ‘Do you see the guys there? Assistant director, production manager, assistant camera man, production boy, make-up hands, sound, boom, trolley, cranes, light! That bastard thought he could shell out twelve lakhs and run the show. At every step I had to grovel and snivel for funds, till I finally gave it up. By the way, have you seen any of my movies? I suppose you haven’t. You really should. They are different. There’s a subtle message in each of them and the message is communicated through symbols taken from ordinary life. In The Last Hour, for example, the gloom is communicated through metaphors using vegetables from the kitchen. It’s an experience, I assure you.’
Heera stopped, fumbled in his pocket, brought out a pack of cigarettes, selected two, lit them up together and proceeded to smoke both at the same time. Ghosh caught a flash of the packet and the brand name. It used to be a favourite of his, brought in by men from Dubai and Bangkok and given to the policemen at the airport who in turn shared them with him.
Heera, who misinterpreted Ghosh’s silence for rapt attention, was about to continue with further details of his directorial ventures when Ghosh, almost beside himself with desire for a cigarette, turned hurriedly to Mala. ‘You slept with him?’ he asked unceremoniously.
‘All actresses sleep with their producers,’ she said shortly. ‘But I hadn’t for the last six months or so.’
‘Yet you all met up recently. Monica Sarkar says so.’
‘Monicadi will say anything to pass the buck to others. We weren’t on talking terms since last November.’ Mala flicked her fingers at Heera who handed her a cigarette. She took a drag on it and let out the smoke lazily. ‘She is, was and will always be a bitch.’
Wrea
ths of cigarette smoke curled towards Ghosh, who felt he would now faint from the craving. He had given up smoking five years ago after a bout of pneumonia and had actually forgotten about his sacrifice till the trouble with Asha started. An angry Mrs Ghosh and the cold October nights had driven him to the lonely pleasure of Scotch on the veranda—two or three pegs late at night—with the inevitable craving for an accompanying cigarette. Keeping his eyes on the smoke he continued as calmly as he could, ‘Can you remember Piloo mention any enemies?’
‘Plenty,’ drawled Mala. ‘He had wronged a lot of people in his life.’
‘Like whom?’ Ghosh felt a flicker of excitement and dragged his eyes away from the cigarette.
‘About half a dozen hookers, a dozen people who owed him money and all the creditors he had cheated at Laser over crockery supply.’
The girl blew out some more smoke languidly and regarded Ghosh with interest. ‘It’ll be fun, watching you track them all down.’
‘You went to his house, I take it. Did you ever meet anyone there with whom Piloo did not get along?’
‘There were always dubious people at his house,’ Heera intervened. ‘Political-party sidekicks, guys from the local football club, mothers who wanted their daughters to be cast in his movies, sleek-looking call girls, all had ready access to his place. We were minnows in a sea of sharks.’
A fresh burst of music arose from the house and Heera looked impatiently at Ghosh.
Ghosh pretended he had heard nothing and went on smoothly with the questioning. ‘Are his parents alive? Can you name any other close relations?’ His eyes alternated between the cigarette which Heera was still smoking and the ash which Mala was tapping out from hers.
Mala smiled. ‘You don’t discuss such things in bed, uncle. He called me in just for that. There was never much conversation after.’
‘But he . . . did he ever mention a wife? Apart from his present one. And children?’
‘I believe he had one, but she was from some godforsaken village miles away from Calcutta. He left her when he came to the city about thirty years back.’
‘Did he ever mention whether they were dead or alive?’
‘He didn’t know where she was. That’s what he told me. That’s all I know.’
Mala finished her cigarette and looked annoyed. ‘In any case, these are questions which Monica should answer, not I. She made herself out as the official wife. Hasn’t she told you anything?’
‘Does she know anything?’ Ghosh sparred.
‘She kept a tight hold on the money, so she must.’ It was Heera again. ‘Piloo even made her part of the production team. She’s got tons salted away, I tell you.’
Mala continued. ‘Take her to your headquarters and give her the real police treatment. Then the bird will sing. And now, if you’ll excuse us, we really have to go.’
Mala turned her back on them and sashayed back to the camera.
Heera got up and patted Ghosh on the shoulder. ‘Here’s some gentlemanly advice, sir. First, when you’re dying for something, like a cigarette, have it!’
Ghosh blinked, disgusted with himself. Had his desire really been as obvious as that?
‘Second, don’t waste your time on us. We are inconsequential, in spite of our movie glamour and fast lifestyle. Piloo spoke often but never talked, if you know what I mean. He was always so enigmatic that I’m convinced the answer must lie in Piloo Adhikary’s past. This movie business was just a front to spend his ill-gotten wealth and bed some girls. If you want to move forward in your investigation, look backwards. And take Monica Sarkar with you.’
* * *
Asha Ghosh, daughter of Inspector Moloyendu Ghosh, slid the strip of Diazepam out of her school bag and stood looking at it for a moment. She had travelled after school all the way to her grandmother’s house near the airport to pinch it from the pile of medicines that were kept in a cookie jar by her bedside. To steal this had been reason number one, to say goodbye to her beloved grandmother had been motive number two. The pink tablets would help her forget him and teach her snooping, suspicious mother a lesson or two. First she had endured the taunts of her school friends for not having a boyfriend and then, having finally managed one, she had borne the pain of having him taken away. There was nothing left in her life, except her overbearing mother, so she might as well end it.
Mrs Ghosh was having an argument with the maid over leave rules when she caught sight of Asha stealing out of her room into the kitchen.
‘You’re still in your uniform? Will you never learn?’
‘No!’ Asha shouted and dashed back into her room with a bottle of water. There was just enough time to bang the door shut on her mother’s face and collapse on the bed in sobs. Asha cried for five minutes before setting about her task with a firm hand. The letter was written and taped to the cupboard. Asha slipped out a photograph of the science tutor from under the bolster and kissed it passionately for a few moments before popping out the tablets from the file. She had forgotten to get a glass, and so she had to take swigs from the bottle after each pill.
Mrs Ghosh’s neighbour had been watching the proceedings with great interest from her balcony a few feet away. The flat was old-fashioned and badly built, so that two balconies and bedrooms were visible to each other from opposite ends. In her excitement Asha had forgotten to draw the curtains, so while she had been kissing the picture, the neighbour had summoned her maid for a laugh. Now that Asha was swallowing pills, she picked up the cordless receiver and dialled the Ghoshes’ landline number.
‘Your daughter is committing suicide.’
‘Who is this?’
‘Rekha, from across. I can see her from my veranda. She’s drinking from a glass bottle and picking out tablets from her study table in front. Come and see her if you don’t believe me.’
With a bellow Mrs Ghosh flung the receiver aside and threw her weight on Asha’s door. Rekha, the neighbour, then dialled her husband’s number.
Ghosh was snoring in the rear seat of the crimson Tata Sumo when his neighbour, the officer-in-charge of the bomb disposal squad, telephoned him.
‘Ghosh? Alam here.’
‘Kalam? President Kalam?’ Ghosh, who had been dreaming of receiving the President’s medal for bravery, struggled to return to the real world of unsolved cases and media ridicule.
‘No, it’s me, Alam, OC Bomb. Are you all right? Can you hear me? Look, there’s been a mishap at your house. It’s your daughter. She tried to swallow tablets. Thankfully things are all right, my wife saw her from the veranda and alerted the others and they managed to break the door down. We took her to a private nursing home rather than the Medical College. It’s the Daffodil, near Manicktala. Don’t cry man, we’re all with you, they’re pumping out her stomach . . . No danger . . . just that your wife . . . Rekha feels you should be there as soon as possible . . .’
Veteran of many grisly deaths and family horror stories without ever dreaming that he too could be on the way to producing one, Ghosh was sobbing as he directed his car to the Daffodil. When Bikram’s mobile phone announced ‘Ghosh’ in a series of swirling bands and trembling vibrations as he sat in a meeting with Virendra Singh and Prem Gupta over Mrs D. Khusroo’s complaint, all he could hear at first was an incoherent hiccupping and the bubbling of tears.
‘What is it? I can’t understand a word you’re saying,’ hissed Bikram.
Ghosh explained as best he could.
With a quiet ‘I’ll be there’, Bikram rang off and addressed Virendra Singh and Prem Gupta at the same time and in such a way as if he were appealing to each individually. ‘May I be excused? There’s been an emergency with . . . um . . . an officer’s family. He needs my help.’
‘Of course!’ said Prem Gupta courteously. ‘Is it something serious?’
‘His daughter’s in the hospital,’ began Bikram at the same time as Virendra Singh asked, ‘Which officer?’
‘Ghosh.’
‘Oh.’ Virendra Singh looked bored as he
began to shuffle papers on the desk, thus missing the look which Bikram cast him—the ominous look which criminals and suspects who thronged Crime Branch knew well as boding no good. Prem Gupta looked at Bikram in an embarrassed way, opened his mouth to say something and shut it quietly. Then, without the ceremony of saluting, Bikram left.
Asha Ghosh lay in a shrunken mess on the iron cot of the Daffodil nursing home. Wires snaked out of her nose, arms, chest and feet. Ghosh stood at the foot of the bed while Mrs Ghosh sniffed into a handkerchief and held someone’s hand in a corner. There was a curious tension in the room between husband and wife which was heightened by Bikram’s arrival. Mrs Ghosh flew to him and cried for mercy with folded hands as Ghosh said sharply, ‘Leave him!’ Mrs Ghosh burst into tears and the nurse asked them all to be quiet or leave the room. In this electric atmosphere, a man sitting at the edge of the bed said, ‘I’ve never prepared a patient for an ECG amidst such disturbance in my whole career.’
Bikram led the way outside. It was difficult to decide what to do with the Ghoshes. A homely-looking woman who introduced herself as Rekha and looked vaguely familiar took Mrs Ghosh away but Ghosh still looked stupefied.
‘It’s been a real shock to him, but not to us,’ whispered Alam. ‘You have no idea what’s been happening in their house ever since this tutor thing broke out. The mother has always been full of herself and her complaints, so it’s no wonder that the girl did what she did. Take Asha to Vellore and get her head checked, says the mother. Get the mother’s head checked first, I say.’
Bikram asked to see the attending doctor and had a few words with him. Then he said something more to Alam, who nodded. Leaving the others outside, Bikram went inside the patient’s room and spent ten minutes with Asha. At this, even Ghosh, who appeared to have sunk into some deep private gloom of his own, bestirred himself. Finally Bikram and Ghosh had a brief conversation near the cramped lift.
‘Go in and see her. She bears no further antagonism towards you or your wife. She will never do anything as silly as that again.’