by Vaseem Khan
Chopra found Shiva Swarup on the balcony, staring out over the Marine Drive promenade, smoking an acrid roll-up.
He was a small, grey-haired man, with an untidy white beard, square-framed black spectacles and a hooked nose. He wore a plain white kurta above jeans, the kurta spotted with paint stains. Spots of paint also marked the artist’s beard.
Chopra introduced himself, and explained his mission.
Swarup’s face darkened. “It is terrible that Burbank is dead,” he said woodenly. “But I was told that he committed suicide.”
“Did you know him well?”
“I did not know him at all,” said Swarup.
“Ah. I would have thought that, with Burbank being a collector of Indian art, your paths may have crossed.”
“He didn’t collect my art,” said Swarup.
There was something in his tone that pulled Chopra up. “I am informed that he spoke at length to you on the evening of the auction. The conversation appeared to be very intense.”
Swarup blinked rapidly. “I do not recall that.”
“Are you saying you didn’t speak to him?”
The artist hesitated. “I spoke to a great many people that evening. I am, as you may have realised, considered something of a celebrity, though I personally detest the limelight.”
“I am certain you would have remembered speaking to Mr. Burbank,” said Chopra softly.
Something about his tone communicated itself to Swarup, who blinked again, then said: “Now that I think about it, perhaps you are right. We did have a conversation, a very short one. He asked me about The Scourge of Goa, about Rebello.”
“You knew the artist?”
“Briefly. Many years ago. I had just ‘arrived’ on the art scene; he was already an established master. I spent a short period in his studio in Goa.”
“And that is all you spoke with Burbank about?”
“That is all,” said Swarup, his voice becoming firmer.
Chopra reached into his pocket. “I’d like you to take a look at something,” he said, holding out the copy of the sketch discovered inside Hollis Burbank’s suitcase. “Can you tell me anything about this?”
Swarup’s eyes widened as he took in the image of the slumped, half-naked man with the death’s head grin. He coughed, to cover what appeared to be surprise, then said, gruffly, “No.”
Chopra stared at the man. “Are you sure? It seems as if you recognise this work.”
“No,” snapped Swarup. “I do not.”
“Then do you have any idea who might have drawn this? There is no signature. Just the initials. K.K.”
“No idea at all.” Swarup crushed his roll-up on the sill of the balcony. “I am sorry to rush you, but I really must return to my work.”
“Yes, of course,” said Chopra, though he was reluctant to let go of the matter. His antennae were up. He was certain that Swarup was holding something back. “Just one last question: was there anything else that you saw or heard that evening that seemed out of the ordinary to you?”
Swarup shook his head. “No. I have no idea why Burbank took his life. Whatever it was, it must have been terrible.”
AN IMPOSSIBLE DISAPPEARING ACT
“We’d just finished lunch together,” said Huma Dixit, as she led Poppy, Irfan and Ganesha into the bridal suite, Gautum following them. “Then we came back up here. Anjali was supposed to get ready for the dress rehearsal in the garden. She wanted to have a bath first and so I ran the tub for her. She got in for a soak while I sat out in the living area, watching TV. After an hour, I realised we were getting late for the rehearsal so I knocked on the bathroom door. When she didn’t answer I tried to get in, but it was locked. That’s when I called the hotel reception. They had to break the lock. When we got inside there was no sign of her. The water in the tub was cold. The windows were all latched from the inside.” Huma frowned. “She just… vanished.”
Poppy walked into the bathroom.
The theme was Egyptian, with beige marble tiles adorned with hieroglyphs, a Cleopatra bathtub sitting in the centre of the room and a pyramid-shaped structure in the corner, which, she discovered, was a towel bin.
As large as the bathroom was, there was simply no place for Anjali to have hidden.
“Are you certain all the windows were locked?” she asked.
“Yes. And even if they weren’t, we’re on the ninth floor. Last I checked Anjali didn’t have wings.”
“Have you noticed anything strange about the bathroom?”
“The only thing strange about it was that Anjali asked housekeeping to stay away.”
“Why?”
“She didn’t want them in here. Said she wanted one completely private place, an oasis of calm in the madness surrounding this wedding.”
“Didn’t that strike you as odd? Not having the bathroom cleaned?”
Huma shrugged. “It’s her wedding, not mine.”
Poppy considered this. Why would Anjali not have wanted the bathroom cleaned? Privacy didn’t seem a good enough reason. It’s not as if housekeeping would have barged in to clean while she was in the tub. The only logical explanation was that there was something in the bathroom that Anjali didn’t want anyone to see. But Poppy had gone over every inch of the room. There was nothing out of place.
A furore erupted in the living room.
She stepped back outside to find a gaggle of wedding guests and family members crowding into the suite. They were still arguing.
The two patriarchs stepped forward to confront Huma.
“Has she called you?” asked the round one, anxiously.
“No,” said Huma.
“But this is ridiculous!” exclaimed the taller man. “I have guests arriving every hour. If Anjali does not return soon, we will have to call off the wedding. The scandal is unthinkable!”
“We’ll find her,” said Huma.
“I presume you have asked the hotel staff to search the premises?” said Poppy, stepping forward.
The two men focused on her. “Who are you?” asked the taller of the two, looking at her along the impressive length of his nose.
Poppy glanced at Huma. Reluctantly, the girl introduced her. “This is Poppy, a friend of Anjali’s.” She managed to keep the contempt from her voice. “And this is His Highness Raja Shaktisinghrao Deshmukh Patwardhan. Father of the gargoyle. I mean, the groom,” she corrected herself hurriedly. “And this is His Highness Raja Prakashrao Tejwa Patwardhan, Anjali’s father.”
The round man looked at Poppy with sad eyes. “The hotel’s general manager is organising a discreet search of the public areas. But the real question is why would Anjali be hiding? She agreed to this marriage. I did not force her into this.” His voice took on a defensive edge. “She told me she was happy to go through with it.”
“Hah!” muttered Shaktisinghrao. “She is a Tejwa. Her word means nothing.”
“What did you say?” said Prakashrao, wheeling round to the taller man.
“I merely pointed out that it is nothing new for a Tejwa to betray a Deshmukh. No one here has forgotten the Battle of Badwalkar Plain, I am sure.”
“That’s a damn lie that your family has been spreading around for two centuries!” Prakashrao’s round cheeks quivered with fury.
“It’s all there in the history books,” said Shaktisinghrao airily. “You are fortunate indeed that I am so enlightened, accepting your daughter into my family.”
“Accepting!” For a second Poppy thought Prakashrao’s eyes would pop from his face. His thick moustache danced beneath his round nose. “Why, you ungrateful snob! It is I who am doing you the favour. Your son is famous in ten states for his stupidity. He can barely remember to breathe and speak at the same time. You should be kissing my feet that I have deigned to allow my daughter to marry such a clod.”
“I’m going to beat you to a pulp!” roared Shaktisinghrao.
“You and what army, Deshmukh?”
The two men flailed ineffectually at each oth
er, without actually coming to blows.
“Father!” said Gautum, looking on anxiously.
Poppy regarded the pair with astonishment.
She had attended innumerable weddings, and had borne witness to all manner of bad behaviour—rudeness, backbiting, familial intrigue—which was almost par for the course at an Indian wedding.
But this was beyond the pale.
She was about to wade in and give the two men a piece of her mind when a deafening klaxon sounded from the doorway.
The crowd hurriedly parted as an enormous wheelchair trundled into the room. It was motorised, a large, black-framed contraption that had the general look and unstoppability of a tank. It was the sort of vehicle that one might see moving through war zones, having obliterated a small city.
And seated in this steel leviathan was a tiny woman in a white widow’s sari.
With her hawkish face, thin frame and claw-like hands deftly operating the wheelchair’s control pad, she resembled a baby bird, albeit a predatory one. Something about her beady, ill-favoured expression reminded Poppy instantly of her own mother.
The room had fallen silent. The old woman glared at the two patriarchs. “If I catch you two fighting again I’ll take a cane to both of you.”
“Madam—” began Shaktisinghrao.
“Mother—” said Prakashrao nervously.
“Don’t you ‘mother’ me, you big oaf. My granddaughter—the only one of the entire lot of you that is worth a mung bean—is missing, and the only thing you two preening peacocks can think about is yourselves. Scratching at each other like a pair of washerwomen. I am ashamed to call you my son.”
“But he started it!” mumbled Prakashrao, a note of pleading in his voice.
“It’s not my daughter that has gone missing,” protested Shaktisinghrao.
“That is where you are wrong,” said the old woman. “I’ve known you since you were a boy, Shaktisinghrao. You were an oily little squirt then, and so you are now. You open those big ears of yours and listen to me carefully. On the day that you accepted my granddaughter into your family you became her father. You are responsible for her. And if a single hair on her head comes to harm you shall answer to me.”
She glared at both men, then ran her narrowed gaze over the crowd. “Now get out of my sight, the lot of you.”
The guests stampeded for the doorway, eager to place as much distance as possible between themselves and the cantankerous old woman. Gautum escorted his father out.
With the room empty, the woman’s eyes suddenly alighted on Ganesha, who also looked as if he wished to flee. “Why is there an elephant in here?” she said, in mild astonishment.
“He is with me,” said Poppy.
“They let you keep an elephant in the hotel?”
“Why not?” said Poppy defensively. “There are guests with dogs, cats, parrots. I know for a fact there is a woman with a monkey staying here.”
The woman trundled her wheelchair over to Ganesha hovering nervously beside Irfan. She bent forward to peer at him closely. Then her face broke into a broad, gummy smile. “I used to have an elephant when I was young. He was my best friend. My only friend,” she added wistfully. “What’s your name, little one?”
“His name is Ganesha,” supplied Irfan helpfully. “And my name is Irfan. He is my best friend.”
“Let me tell you a secret about elephants,” the woman said. “They are the most loyal creatures on earth. Once they decide to love you they will love you their whole lives. They will never forget. You must never betray an elephant’s trust. Do you understand?”
Irfan nodded solemnly. “Yes.”
“Good. Now, who is this,” she said, turning her chair to face Poppy. “Your mother?”
“Yes,” said Poppy, firmly. “My name is Poppy.”
“And my name is Big Mother. At least that’s what everyone calls me. I am the head of the Tejwa clan. Well, technically, my idiot of a son is, but we all know where the real power behind any throne lies, do we not?”
Poppy’s face split into a smile. “Yes, we do.”
“You know my granddaughter?”
“We met briefly. She struck me as a woman after your own heart. I, ah, spoke to her this morning. She seemed troubled by her upcoming marriage. I may have offered her some advice. It may have led to her vanishing.” Poppy gave the old woman a guilty look. “I want to help, Big Mother. I feel… responsible.”
Big Mother sighed. “The accommodations we women have to make. I never wanted this for Anjali. I have watched her grow from a child into a fiercely intelligent and independent young woman. I wanted her to spread her wings and fly out into the world.”
“Then why is she being forced to marry against her wishes?”
“She is not being forced to marry,” snapped the old woman. “Anjali agreed to the match. She understood that it was necessary.”
“Why was it necessary?” said Poppy. “If you truly valued her freedom to choose why put her in a position where she must choose this?”
Big Mother looked ready to snap again… and then the anger seemed to fizzle out of her. “The truth is a tiger,” she sighed. “You can hold on to it by the tail as tightly as you like, but there is always the danger it will slip loose and devour you. Some years ago Anjali discovered a difficult truth. It is that truth which, in the end, persuaded her to agree to this match.”
“What truth?”
“That the Tejwa household is all but bankrupt.”
Poppy’s face slackened in shock. “But-but you are a royal family! How can you be bankrupt?”
“Very easily. The princely houses of India have been in a long, ruinous decline since the end of the Raj. After Independence, when India became a democracy, our land was seized, our power stripped from us. And then, the ultimate betrayal: the Indian government took away our federal grants, forcing us to feed ourselves. I still remember the day the government official came to tell us. An oily-headed Collector. Do you know what he said? ‘It is not me doing this to you, madam. It is the People.’ Hah! Long live the republic.
“For decades we have lived off past wealth, pride forcing us to put on a pretence of grandeur, while behind the velvet drapes we have sold off the family silver, the fleets of Rolls-Royces, the land that we formerly taxed to those who shouted our names in the street, who bowed and called us ‘Huzzoor!’ Once there were more than five hundred royal households in this country—one by one I have watched them grow silent.” Big Mother’s eyes had taken on the smoky haze of memory. “Five years ago, I visited an old friend, the last remaining princess of Oudh. She was as old as me, but had never married. Her ancestors had ruled over a princely state that took days to ride from edge to edge. Now she sits alone and forgotten, a lonely old woman in an eight-hundred-year-old stone building falling down around her ears, black mould creeping over the walls, darkness encroaching as the electricity flickers on and off. There is a sign outside the gates: Intruders shall be gunned down. But there are no intruders. There is nothing left to steal, except her vanity.” She sighed. “A handful of royal households have survived, by adapting to the new world. Two generations ago, the Deshmukh clan went into business. Now they own diamond mines and an exceptionally profitable jewellery chain. My own son, good-hearted fool that he is, realised too late that the clouds on the horizon would engulf us. His father was the same, a man who buried his head in the sand, deafening his ears to the trumpeting of his own doom.
“Anjali was my last hope. When she discovered the truth about our finances—shortly after she graduated from university—she became determined to rescue us from our fate. While her father sat around playing tabla and singing songs with his wastrel friends, she decided that our only option was to turn our royal palace into a hotel. Other princely states have made a success of such a venture, she told me. Apparently, ordinary people will pay fortunes to experience the ‘lifestyle of the Indian maharajahs and maharanis.’ Hah! If only they could experience the life we live now.” She paused.
“But the hotel will not save us, not before we slip into ruin. At some point Anjali realised this. I offered her an alternative, though I was loath to do it. But the gods had chosen to send salvation to me—who was I to ignore it? Shaktisinghrao, the Raja of Deshmukh, sent word that his son wished for Anjali’s hand in marriage. The boy was quite adamant, apparently.
“I was not surprised. Marriage offers have been flooding in for Anjali since she turned sixteen. She is beautiful and intelligent—though in some circles this latter trait is still considered a liability,” she added acidly. “I have shielded her from them all. I wanted her to fulfil her desire to study, to follow her dreams. But my granddaughter has a practical head on her shoulders. She understood that by marrying into the Deshmukh family our financial woes would be solved. Deshmukh cannot afford to allow us to go bankrupt—how would it look if his daughter-in-law’s household were ruined, forced to stand outside their palace and watch their possessions being sold off to scavengers?”
“But why did he agree to the match in the first place?” Poppy asked. “I mean, if the two households have been enemies for so long?”
“Because he has a weakness for his son. Gautam is his only child. He has never denied him anything. Perhaps if he had applied his cane to his son’s backside a little more we might not be here today.”
“You believe Gautam is the reason Anjali has run away?”
“What else could it be? The boy is no match for her. He has the wit of a stunned donkey. Though I do wonder why Anjali chose to leave now. I mean, she has had months to think about this.”