3 and a Half Murders: An Inspector Saralkar Mystery

by Salil Desai

  “Why another doctor? Why can’t you treat me?” Saralkar asked, quite rattled now.

  “Well I’m just a GP, Saralkar. It’s the era of specialists! So you need to see one,” Dr. Kanade said cheerfully, and then winked. “Besides, patients like you make my blood pressure go up, so it’s better I pass you on to someone else.” He bared his teeth and gave a toothy grin.

  Saralkar responded with a cold look, as if the doctor was personally responsible for his condition. He paid Dr. Kanade then asked grudgingly, “Do the tests have to be done urgently?”

  The doctor had got over his fatuousness by now. “The sooner the better, although there’s no urgency. But why delay? Look, there’s nothing to worry, high BP is quite common these days and the medication quite standard and reliable.”

  Saralkar nodded and stepped out of the clinic. The doctor’s reassurance had done nothing to make him feel better. His mobile rang just as he was about to start his bike. It was Motkar.

  “Yes, Motkar.”

  “Sir, Abhay Dalvi’s information was correct. Sanjay Doshi had opened an account in the Sanpada branch of Suburban Bank and also has a locker in his name. The key we found in the Doshi flat is of that locker only,” Motkar said.

  “Have the bank authorities permitted you to open the locker?”

  “Yes, sir. We opened it. Your instinct turned out to be right.”

  “What did you find?” Saralkar asked impatiently.

  “Sir, the locker contained fifty lakhs in cash!”

  “Fifty lakhs?” Saralkar almost whistled. “Go on, what else?”

  “Sir, we also found several legal documents, some in Kannada, and other papers including two passports—one in the name of Sanjay Doshi issued last year and another one in the name of Krishna Bhupathi from Bangalore, issued in 2002. Looks like Sanjay Doshi and Krishna Bhupathi are the same person. There are also other documents pertaining to deals in Goa and Hubli and other places.”

  “Good job, Motkar! That’s quite a haul. Get it all here as quickly as you can. I think all of it will help us get to the bottom of this case.”

  “We hope to leave in an hour or so, sir, after the formalities are completed.”

  “Good. Do you have a locker in some bank, Motkar?” Saralkar asked.

  “No, sir,” Motkar said, taken aback by his boss’s query.

  “Never mind, Motkar, only dishonest cops keep lockers. The honest ones are only familiar with lock-ups.”

  “Why are you making such a fuss about it?” Jyoti demanded as she gave final touches to the folds of her saree in front of the mirror. “It’s only a simple blood test followed by an ECG and a sonography. Won’t take more than two hours.”

  She threw a disapproving glance at him. Saralkar didn’t bother looking up at her as he tied his shoelaces. “It’s you who’s making the fuss,” he retorted. “I said I’d get it done.”

  “When?”

  “When I finish solving this case.”

  “How long’s that going to be?”

  “I don’t know yet. A week or two,” Saralkar said as he got up and glanced at his watch.

  “By which time another case will land on your table,” Jyoti said, a vexed expression on her face.

  “If you are going to nag me about this all the way, you better go by auto,” Saralkar warned.

  He’d agreed to drop her off to work, something he rarely did.

  Jyoti made a face and said nothing more till they were on the way on his motorcycle. Just as Saralkar had begun to feel he’d stopped her in her tracks, she spoke, “Are you scared?”

  “Tchah!” he grunted much too indignantly. “Scared of what?”

  “Undergoing the medical tests because of the BP diagnosis?” Jyoti said. “That it might show the real status of your health.”

  Saralkar couldn’t think of anything to say for a moment. Jyoti had an uncanny knack of putting a finger on the source of his discomfort. “Oh, come on!” he finally managed. “It’s not as if I may have a terminal illness, you know.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Will you stop talking about my health and those god damn tests, Jyoti?” he finally said, coming to a halt by the side of the road and turning around. “Or else you take an auto from here.”

  “Okay . . . but I was just—”

  “Not a word!” Saralkar said, firmly refusing to resume the ride till she fell silent.

  Normally feisty, Jyoti would have got down and flagged an auto on any other occasion, but she stayed put this time. They continued the ride in uneasy silence and five minutes later, Saralkar dropped his wife off outside the school she worked in.

  “Deliberate ignorance isn’t bliss when it comes to health. It’s foolishness,” Jyoti said and walked away, before Saralkar even had a chance to react.

  Saralkar glared after her, hoping she would turn around and catch his glance. She didn’t and soon disappeared from sight inside the school.

  Her words rankled as he drove towards his office. Of course he needed to get the check-up done but that didn’t mean he had to submit to it enthusiastically and immediately. He had a case to solve and he could do without the distraction of a pathologist sticking a needle inside him to draw blood.

  Motkar greeted him with a smile, and if he had had a tail, Saralkar was sure it would’ve wagged a great deal; such was his assistant’s excited demeanour.

  “Sanjay Doshi’s real name was Krishna Bhupathi, sir. He’s an absconding criminal from Bangalore. Just got his identity confirmation off the National Crime Records Bureau database, sir.”

  “What are the charges?”

  “Bangalore Police lodged several cases against him in 2007 and then 2008, sir. Cheating, fraud, forgery. And there also seems to be a murder case. More details are awaited.”

  Saralkar nodded and surveyed the contents of the bank locker, which Motkar had arranged on a side table. There was a bunch of legal agreements—in Kannada and English. Beside it were two passports and two wads of notes—samples from the fifty-lakh haul. Obviously Motkar had processed all the material evidence as per standard procedure, including the cash. He was extremely efficient and meticulous.

  Saralkar reached for the passports and opened them one after the other. The lifeless man who had been found hanging stared back at him from both. The recently issued passport was in the name of Sanjay Doshi with a Mumbai address. The older passport, still valid, was in the name of Krishna Bhupathi with a Bangalore address.

  There was no doubt it was the same man, but whereas Krishna Bhupathi was clean shaven and sported a full pate of hair, Sanjay Doshi had a rapidly receding hairline, almost grey, compensated for by a moustache and beard. The eyes and the look in them had changed. While Krishna Bhupathi appeared confident, even slightly cocky, and almost respectable, Sanjay Doshi looked furtive, weary, and cornered. Sanjay Doshi also seemed to have gained an injury scar, near his rightside burn.

  “Both these passports look genuine. Check whether police verification was done in Mumbai or if it was managed.”

  “Yes, sir. I am also getting the wads of notes analysed. The tags are intact so we might be able to trace any bundles which originated from Bangalore,” Motkar replied.

  “Worth a try but it’s a long shot. Unless of course you are saying that Sanjay Doshi retained some bundles with which he originally absconded from Bangalore all those years ago and that this is money earned from the crimes he committed in the city,” Saralkar said.

  Motkar nodded. “Sir, as I see it, this locker has no joint signatory so I think Anushka Doshi was unaware of it. There is no record of her having visited the branch. Sanjay Doshi, on the other hand, visited twice or thrice, and the staff of the branch is more or less sure he was alone on all those occasions. I have asked them for CCTV footage for the dates of entries made by Doshi in the locker register. But they generally don’t retain footage more than three months old, so it’s just possible we might get footage of his last visit but not earlier ones. If Doshi was maintaining this lock
er and keeping money in it without his wife’s knowledge, then it is probably money he earned and already possessed. Therefore it’s possible some of this money could belong to his original lot.”

  Saralkar threw an approving look at him. “Okay. Your reasoning can’t be faulted even if it’s based on too many assumptions,” he remarked. “I think there’s also one more assumption we can safely make.”

  “What’s that, sir?

  “Well, the fact that he had kept his passports along with the money in the locker, which his wife probably didn’t know about, means it’s possible he was planning to flee abroad, leaving her behind. What do you say?”

  “Yes, sir, that thought had crossed my mind too,” Motkar agreed.

  “Which also brings us back to the original question—why would Sanjay Doshi kill his wife and himself if he had made standby arrangements to flee, even the country, on his own? Why not just abandon her and go missing either in India or abroad?”

  “But the act of killing his wife could have been activated by pure jealousy and fury, sir, for being betrayed by both wife, Anushka, and partner, Sodhi, who also had the properties in his name. It could have been a ‘heat of the moment’ thing, sir. And then when Sanjay realized he was now a murderer, he killed himself knowing he would be caught and also made accountable for his previous crimes,” Motkar argued.

  Saralkar snorted. “Isn’t that all the more reason for him to try and run away than hang himself? Secondly, if indeed he killed himself for reasons you said, then why claim in his suicide note that creditors were hounding him? Especially when he had so much money salted away in the locker. And if it was a crime passionel, a murder that was not premeditated, how come Doshi had made arrangements to get the acid beforehand?”

  PSI Motkar found himself unable to counter his boss’s line of reasoning. “So what should be our next step, sir?”

  Saralkar rubbed his chin. It was an affectation Motkar had recently noticed him resorting to sometimes, as if measuring the extent to which his chin had graduated to a double chin.

  “The answer is obvious, Motkar. We have to find Shaunak Sodhi and for that we need to travel back in time and to Bangalore, the scene of Krishna Bhupathi’s original crimes.”

  “I have already contacted Bangalore Police, sir. We should be getting the information in a few days.”

  “If it’s a 2008 case, Motkar, we can hardly expect the Bangalore Police to move quickly on it. Nor is second-hand information going to be enough. We’ll have to conduct our own investigation based on the leads supplied by Bangalore. And the quickest way to do that is to travel to Bangalore and meet the investigating officers who were on the case,” Saralkar asserted.

  “But, sir . . .” PSI Motkar said and shrugged, as if not in agreement with his boss but unable to say so.

  Saralkar looked at him quizzically. “You seem somewhat reluctant at the idea of travelling to Bangalore, Motkar. Do you also have some hidden secrets in the city?”

  “No, sir . . . of course not,” Motkar replied awkwardly. “I just thought maybe we should wait for some specific details before going all the way to Bangalore.”

  Saralkar’s eyes narrowed, his expression puzzled. Then realisation seemed to dawn and consternation spread across his face. “Has this reluctance got something to do with that damn play you are acting in?”

  Motkar immediately became defensive. “It’s not like that, sir. It’s just that the show is only seven days away.”

  “What’s wrong with your priorities, Motkar?” Saralkar scowled. “You are a policeman, not a bloody actor to give precedence to this blasted play!”

  “Of course not, sir,” PSI Motkar said, flushing red. “I . . . I know I made a mistake by accepting the role, but I can’t get out of it now. So I was wondering whether we can send someone else to Bangalore, like PSI Salunkhe went to Gorakhpur last time for the Sonia Raikkonen case. Maybe PSI Sarode of Kothrud police station can go in my place . . .?”

  Saralkar gave him a piercing look. “PSI Sarode!” He shook his head in contempt. There were things he would have liked to say to Motkar, give him a proper dressing down. But a thought struck him. Wouldn’t going to Bangalore himself be the perfect way to get Jyoti off his back about the medical tests? He made his decision instantly.

  “No point sending Sarode. I’d much rather go to Bangalore myself.”

  Motkar gawked at him with disbelief. He had been half expecting either to be browbeaten into going to Bangalore or his boss eventually agreeing to send Sarode. But not for a moment had he thought Saralkar would consider the option of going to Bangalore, knowing how much the senior inspector hated travelling. It probably showed just how important Saralkar thought the trip was.

  Motkar considered thanking his boss, but knew instinctively it was better to keep his mouth shut, lest it triggered a re-think. He realized Saralkar was regarding him again and figured immediately that a sharp rap on the knuckles was on the way. He was right. It was not long in coming.

  “Hope you’ll not be too engrossed with your theatrical distractions to follow up on all the leads here in Pune, Motkar sahib, while I’m pounding the streets of Bangalore!”

  It made Motkar cringe like never before.

  Many moons ago Saralkar had visited Bangalore as a young police officer to nab a crook. At that time it had struck him as a slightly bigger version of Pune—pleasant, leisurely paced, blending the charming atmosphere of a small town with big city comforts and attractions. Where it particularly scored over Pune was that Bangalore also enjoyed the perks of being the capital city of Karnataka state.

  What greeted him now was a chaotic, bustling megacity that had surrendered its innocence and traded its charm for the rapacity of commerce. Much like Pune. No wonder crime had gone up proportionately, and homicide too. In fact Bangalore now had the dubious distinction of ranking second after New Delhi in the number of serious crimes including murders, well ahead of Pune, which ranked sixth.

  Saralkar remembered reading about some recent significant cases in the city—an IT professional whose body was found completely swathed in duct tape, a case which eventually turned out to be a bizarre method of suicide; a corporate executive who killed his wife then pretended to have been out jogging with a friend when he got her distress call; and a retired, decorated Indian Air Force officer who was mysteriously slaughtered in his high-end villa in a high security gated community, while his wife slept in the next room, totally oblivious to his fate.

  Human nature on a hair trigger that could be squeezed any time—by the city’s overpowering obsession with achieving instant gratification or the cold fury of punishing non-gratification. No different from Pune, except in the statistical degree to which the cult of hedonism led to bloodshed!

  The Bangalore Homicide Squad HQ was not very different from his own lair in Pune. Cleaner perhaps, slightly brighter, yes, but unmistakably daunting for every outsider, as police premises usually are, with the ominous suggestion of being ready to swallow anyone who dared venture in.

  Saralkar had had a quick protocol meeting with the squad chief, who had assured him full cooperation, and then been directed to a dour faced officer, Inspector Pai, who was apparently in charge of all cold cases that had remained unsolved for over five years. Inspector Pai had in turn taken him to his own desk and disappeared to get the case papers, leaving Saralkar to sweat copiously in the sweltering heat. Saralkar had tried the fan but it threatened to blow off the papers spread across Inspector Pai’s desk and therefore had to be switched off.

  Fifteen minutes passed, then twenty, and with every passing second Saralkar’s irritation grew. This was a job for PSI Motkar. It was his subordinate who should have been wasting his time and perspiring buckets this way, not he. What was that Inspector Pai doing anyway, taking so long? Wasn’t he supposed to have kept the case file ready since Saralkar had already sent a detailed request before leaving Pune?

  The worst part was that he couldn’t even snap at the Bangalore police officer t
o hurry up. He had no power over him. Saralkar cursed under his breath and continued sweating.

  Pai appeared exactly thirty minutes after he had left, as if he had timed his exit and entry. “Sorry, sir,” he mumbled without looking at Saralkar, as if he didn’t think his guest really deserved an apology. He placed two box files on the table in front of Saralkar and settled into his own chair with no further comment, with the air of one whose work has been done.

  Saralkar held back the urge to thump the table. “Before I begin going through the files,” he said in an icily polite voice, “can you please give me a brief summary and background of the cases against Krishna Bhupathi?”

  Inspector Pai’s dour features registered surprise. He shrugged very slightly and shook his head slowly. “Sorry, sir. I have not studied the files so far because it is a 2008 case. I’m still reviewing the unsolved cases of 2005.”

  Saralkar could have skinned the man alive. But he had to make do with just a click of exasperation. “Can’t I meet the investigating officers of the case?”

  Inspector Pai sighed and consulted the file. “Sir, the investigating officers were Inspector Hegde and his assistant ASI Murgud . . .” He broke off, picked up his phone, and dialled another extension.

  A brief conversation in Kannada ensued with whoever was at the other end of the line. Pai kept the phone and turned to Saralkar. “Sorry, sir, ASI Murgud is transferred to Belgaum and Inspector Hegde is on leave for his daughter’s wedding.”

  Saralkar was close to bursting with expletives. “Okay, is there some meeting room or a spare cubicle where I can sit, put on a fan, and go through these files?” he asked Pai, as civilly as he could manage, wondering whether he would get another answer that began with ‘Sorry, sir’.