by Monabi Mitra
‘She’s all right?’
‘Yes. Shaken but essentially OK. We always feel that such things happen to other people, never to ourselves . . . and when they do, they appear unreal, so we tend to over-dramatize things. Keep her here for a day at most and then take her home.’
‘How did you manage to calm her down?’
‘I’ll tell you one day. Perhaps the day we’ve solved the Piloo Adhikary murder case.’
13
‘Human life seemingly has little value in this country.’
Monica Sarkar was peeling an orange when her secret mobile phone whose existence was known only to a select few rang from inside her second handbag in the cupboard. Retrieving the phone, she looked at the number before answering it, at the same time shutting the door carefully.
A coarse voice was bellowing from the other side. ‘Hullo? Hullo? Monica?’
‘Stop shouting! I take it you’re calling from a booth.’
‘Yes. But I’ll be calling from hell next if you don’t call your friends off me.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know very well what I mean. Just because that film star-like DSP has paid a visit to your house doesn’t mean you should forget your old friends and set him after me. If I go down, I take you down with me, remember.’
‘The police are after you?’
‘What else!’
There was a pause.
‘Are you there?’
The caller sounded anxious, as if used to taking orders from Monica and wondering why she wasn’t ready with a solution this time.
‘Be quiet. I’m thinking.’
Monica, ever the creature of cigarette routine, was hunting for a box of matches. She finally picked one from the basket containing incense and holy water for the gods and lit up serenely.
‘Well? Have you processed your thoughts?’
‘Yes. You must disappear.’
‘How? Where?’
Monica Sarkar laid out the plan.
The caller sounded dubious. ‘Are you sure this will work?’
‘It will.’
‘Anamika Sarkar, Siliguri and . . . you’ve got the necessary papers, I hope. Voter’s identity card, passport, ration card?
‘Obviously. I’m a thorough woman.’
‘I suppose I’ll be in touch with you at this number.’
‘Of course.’
‘What address?’
‘I’ll let you know later on.’
The caller sounded reluctant to ring off.
‘So it’s goodbye, then.’
‘See you.’
‘I hope you’re not turning me in! I’ll be waiting to hear from you.’
‘Yes, yes, of course . . .’
Monica Sarkar rang off and sat stiffly on the bed for a while, staring into the distance. Then she nodded and smiled grimly.
* * *
On the 4th of November there was rain and the azure sky suddenly turned a dull grey. The immediate result was an army of viruses invading Crime Branch. Ghosh, who usually perspired all year round, began to wheeze, Bikram had a sore throat and Ashu Das sneezed ten times at each go. Sheena Sen looked ill and even Prem Gupta had a hacking cough.
Amidst all this fitful sneezing, coughing and sniffling, Ghosh and Sheena Sen arrived at the Kolkata Bank at ten o’clock to open Piloo Adhikary’s locker.
‘But is there any point in it, since the locker wasn’t sealed till ten days after his death?’ asked Sheena Sen twice.
Ghosh looked at her icily. ‘The DSP checked up with the manager and the vault record book. No one’s been there. No one can, because the locker is only in his name.’ Women, he thought, are bad enough, but women policemen are the worst!
The manager smiled brightly at them and looked admiringly at Sheena Sen.
‘We’ll just wait for the deceased man’s wife,’ he said smilingly. ‘And my second-in-command can be the second witness.’
They waited.
Fifteen minutes later Monica Sarkar entered, looking enormous and blowzy in a brick-red salwar kameez and red hair. Sheena Sen looked at her with pity and unconsciously tidied her smartly streaked hair. The manager led the way to the locker and Monica Sarkar followed sullenly behind. Ghosh and the assistant manager followed her and Sheena Sen brought up the rear. The procession looked vaguely like a funeral as it trailed past the cubby holes and entered the locker room.
An elaborate ritual with two sets of keys followed and Ghosh fidgeted uneasily. Whatever they found inside would complicate matters, he reasoned. Leads would have to be followed up, seizure lists updated, but would they be any nearer to solving the crime? He looked at Monica Sarkar and decided she looked definitely uneasy, as if she too was apprehensive of what would be found inside.
The locker door swung open and five sets of eyes looked wonderingly inside.
The manager drew out a carved wooden box. Inside it were a gold ring, a watch and a flimsy gold chain. Apart from that, the compartment was empty.
Sheena Sen stole a look at Monica Sarkar. Her face looked sallow and she was breathing hard. Ghosh looked as if someone had struck him on the head. The bank manager and his assistant looked bewildered.
‘Was he here often?’ Sheena broke the silence.
‘Not very, about once a year.’ The manager stared at the open box and its contents. ‘Who would have thought that this was all he kept here . . .’
‘Do you know of any other bank account or safety locker?’ Ghosh asked Monica Sarkar despairingly.
She had recovered by now and her eyes stared back with a hard glitter.
‘Don’t know,’ she said indifferently.
The procession filed back to the manager’s room to complete the paperwork for the police to take possession of the box.
Ghosh sat apart, frowning and tapping his fingers on the table. Once or twice he cast dark glances at Monica Sarkar, who had thrown herself into an animated conversation with the manager on fixed-deposit schemes and rates of interest.
When all was done and they were at the door, Ghosh stopped Monica Sarkar.
‘These belonged to his first marriage, I suppose,’ he said dryly.
Though he had expected her to snap back defiantly, she didn’t.
‘Yes,’ she said quietly. ‘Piloo showed them to me once, years ago. He laughed as he ran his hands over the thin gold and said he had been so happy then. Happier than the present time, though he could . . .’
She broke off abruptly and bit her lips.
‘Though he could buy a shop full of the stuff now,’ said Ghosh roughly. ‘Well, whatever games you and your partner played, we’ll get to it in the end.’
* * *
Bikram was entertaining Virendra Singh’s visitors when Ghosh arrived. Virendra Singh had torn out of office at twelve because a stockbroker had collapsed in a lawyer’s chambers after a blameless cup of tea and had been brought dead to the hospital. Since both stockbroker and lawyer were part of Virendra Singh’s tennis circle, he felt a deep moral obligation to be active and helpful. Almost the whole of Crime Branch and the local police station were tramping around the hospital; Bikram had been spared attending to the other important persons from Virendra Singh’s golf circle who had to be mollified.
After he had got rid of the last important complainant, Bikram called for Ghosh. The carved box was produced and its contents exhibited.
‘Wait till Virendra saab pounces on this one,’ said Ghosh sulkily. ‘Five lines more on that damned computer of his and more books hurled at us.’
Bikram, who had a thing for timepieces, fingered the watch. ‘HMT,’ he murmured, ‘and steel strap. Seventies’ stuff. Assuming he got married in the mid-seventies, he would be about forty-five or more when he married the second time. If he had fathered a child from his first marriage, the child would be about thirty now. Old enough to return and claim inheritance—be denied and kill.’
‘He didn’t make a will, did he?’ asked Ghosh. ‘Leaving it all to a mysterious heir. So that we can p
rove the second wife got wind of the fact and killed him.’
Bikram was looking absorbedly at the carved box.
‘A box from the past lovingly preserved in his locker. Only that! A man who picked up sick dogs from the street and tended them! This Piloo was a sentimental man.’
His words stirred Ghosh who remembered something.
‘That’s what the director said too. Look backwards if you want to move ahead or something like that.’
Ghosh related everything that had happened at the farmhouse and added, ‘I think he was right. We’re on the wrong track. All those names on Vir Singh’s computers are wide off the mark. There’s someone we haven’t thought of, or met, who’s done it.’
‘A man who produced two movies, had riotous parties at his house, lent money at high rates of interest and couldn’t get enough of women, can’t deal only in crockery,’ said Bikram softly. ‘There must have been other sources of income. Possibly undercover ones. His associates from that world are keeping mighty quiet.’ Bikram remembered Gaur Mohan and a curious light came into his eyes.
‘Have you ever been challenged by a criminal, Ghosh?’
Ghosh had been blowing his nose with trumpet-like sounds.
‘Many times,’ he said unfeelingly. ‘When they get drunk they always ring me up at one in the morning to curse and rant. One thief would burst into tears begging me to be more active, saying he hated to work without opposition.’
Bikram was running his hand softly up and down his throat.
‘Not that kind of riff-raff. The big ones, high up on the ladder, the coal and cement and steel and real-estate people, the ones we can never get at because they have lawyers and policemen and politicians on their payroll. Living in splendid houses and holidaying abroad and making fortunes out of high-profile shady deals.’
‘You’re sounding unnaturally bitter,’ said Ghosh vigorously. ‘Don’t tell me Piloo was one of those!’
‘There’s a possibility,’ said Bikram slowly, ‘that Piloo was known to one of those. He might have tried blackmail, or wanted a larger share. The blame was to fall on Bishu but the dogs got in the way and revolvers were whipped out.’
‘Do you have anyone in mind?’ asked Ghosh with an unnatural bout of insight.
Bikram hesitated for a fraction of a second. ‘Someone called Gaur Lal Mohan. Do you know anything about him?’
There was a longish silence which proved that Ghosh had a fairly good idea of Gaur Mohan and his misdeeds.
‘Disreputable businessman with notorious links,’ he hazarded finally in a solemn voice. ‘I can’t think how a stupid middle-class man like Piloo would be mixed up with him!’
‘How do you know about his notorious links?’
‘It was before your time. He had just started off then and had taken over a piece of wasteland with a tumbledown shed that called itself a mini steel plant. The factory had about two hundred and fifty employees, and two days before Durga puja there was a staff layoff. There was a bit of a skirmish and the shed got burnt down. It was blamed on the workers but we discovered it was deliberate arson on the management’s part to close down the factory. We were about to get serious with the investigation when I was told by a senior police officer to forget about it. Gaur Mohan was very close to all the top people in the administration.’
Ghosh stopped to blow his nose, which looked very red, before sighing. ‘I had a feeling it would get bad but not this much.’ He flushed a little before looking straight at Bikram and saying, ‘This would fit in with the movie angle. This Gaur Mohan has a fetish for starlets.’
If there was any embarrassment in the air it was solely Ghosh’s discomfiture. Bikram was staring ahead and his brows were creased in thought. After some time he said, ‘All crime is a matter of a simple sequence, a chain. The difficulties arise because of suppression of links in the chain. Find the links and you have the sequence.’
Before Ghosh could reply there was a sneeze and a choked wail outside the door. It opened and Ashu Das walked in.
Bikram had not expected Ashu Das so soon. Ghosh and Ashu Das exchanged muted greetings over sniffs and sneezes. Then Ashu Das sat down majestically on his chair and smiled bashfully. ‘I’ve got it. Case solved.’
‘Incredible! That’s the fastest wrap-up in the history of Crime Branch. Seventeen days only,’ said Ghosh lugubriously.
Ashu Das ignored him and continued to address Bikram. ‘He doesn’t know what I’m talking about. Remember the Anita Dutt complaint? You had passed that off to me, to save Ghosh here,’ he continued reproachfully. ‘I dug around and came up with the name of a Murari Koyal, connected, as I remember, with the Piloo death, so I tracked down his address and went to his house. Here is what I got.’
There was a flicker of interest in Bikram’s eyes. ‘Where did you track him down?’
‘He was the mastermind behind the Ganeshaa Investment Company scam. I talked to all the people who had made the investments and someone mentioned Murari Koyal, so I took a look at the official address he had furnished.’ Ashu Das pushed a piece of paper towards Bikram, who read it and handed it over to Ghosh. It was a catalogue in cramped handwriting.
Seized the following articles from house of Murari Koyal, 118/B, Upper Circular Road, Calcutta.
Money receipt dated 26-3-20 . . . of Rs 25,000 to Anita Dutt Agreement on non-judicial stamp paper between Ganeshaa Investment and Anita Dutt to pay profit of Rs 3750 per month in five instalments
Five cheques of number 843882/887/297/365/366 in post date
Bikram was looking pleased.
‘Good work, Ashu! I knew you could do it. Have a cup of tea. Lemon or regular?’
‘Er, there’s just one problem. We couldn’t get Murari himself.’ Ashu Das looked nervous. ‘He hadn’t been home in a week. It’s a flat in a three-storeyed building let out to five other families. The newspapers had piled up on the doormat from the 31st onwards, so we figured no one was at home and broke the lock.’
It was impossible to say whether Bikram was disappointed or not. ‘That’s all right,’ he said in a queer, mild way. ‘Flight is evidence of guilt. What else did you get from the house?’ The tea arrived and they waited for the orderly to leave. ‘I found a diary with regular entries. The names and numbers meant nothing to me at first, but I picked it up on an off chance. Later, when I read through it at leisure, I found that the name Laser came up quite regularly. Here you are.’
This time Ghosh could not contain his excitement and tried to drag his chair over to Bikram’s side. Bikram motioned to him to sit and turned the diary so that both Ghosh and he could read it together.
It was a shabby black affair with a faded LIC logo on the top right-hand corner.
On the first page was a list of what looked like expenses incurred:
Cement loading-1000
Thana monthly-1000
Chanda-500
Darwan-200
Tarapith-2000
Labour-5000
The next two pages had entries relating to Syndicate (4000)
Tapai (1000)
Electric wiring (499)
On the third page were two entries, one mentioning a loading amount of 1000 and the other related to Laser-10,000.
The following pages repeated the entries of the first few, with Laser coming in for five thousand, and again two thousand.
There were also quick calculations of further income and expenses incurred, jotted down and worked out in slanting columns, all in the range of ten to fifteen thousand.
‘Is that all?’ asked Ghosh sourly.
It was. The diary stopped abruptly at March.
‘Great,’ continued Ghosh. ‘The diary of a businessman recording his expenses. Money to be given to the local police station, to the durwan of a government office, to the Kali temple at Tarapith, to a goonda called Tapai, to Laser Dealers for business dealings. There’s nothing here we didn’t know earlier. The man had been mentioned by the wife of the deceased and all we can prove is that he
supplied stuff to Laser Dealers. So did at least a dozen others. How are we to link that to the murder?’
How were they indeed! Even Bikram looked daunted. Ashu Das finished his tea, gave a last enormous sneeze and stood up. ‘That’s your headache, not mine. Have fun!’
* * *
Chotu was serving cigarettes and paan to three police drivers when the slatternly maid from Monica Sarkar’s house appeared. She was out of breath and looked flustered.
‘Chotuda, come here once.’
‘Busy.’
‘It’s important.’ She was biting her nails. ‘I think something’s wrong there . . .’ She inclined her head towards Monica Sarkar’s house and blinked thrice, pointing surreptitiously towards the police drivers.
Chotu jumped down from his perch and piloted her a little away. The maid spoke fast and furiously, all the while looking back over her shoulder to where she had come from. Chotu listened intently. Then, taking her arm, he argued with her for a while before moving purposefully towards the police station with the maid shuffling behind reluctantly.
News travels ponderously in the police world. The duty officer at Broad Street Police Station phoned the officer-in-charge who telephoned Ghosh who telephoned Bikram, so it was half an hour before Bikram heard the news.
‘What do you mean, missing?’ he asked sourly.
‘That’s what the maid says.’
‘How does she know? Was there a note or something?’
‘Apparently she looked in for some work . . .’
‘At nine in the evening?’ Bikram sounded incredulous.
‘That’s what she said. They’ve got her at the thana, but they say they can’t keep her much longer. Insists she’s done her bit and has to go home. I’m still in office, so if you’re busy elsewhere I can take a look.’
‘If you think I’m partying you’re mistaken,’ said Bikram crossly. ‘I’ll be there in five minutes.’
The maid and Chotu were outside the house when Bikram reached the spot. The neighbourhood was still old-fashioned enough to have an inbuilt surveillance-cum-trouble-alarm system and there were faces at windows and shadowy figures in verandas within the first five minutes.