Murder at the Grand Raj Palace

by Vaseem Khan

  “But if she were to return, having decided that, in spite of the consequences, she would rather not go through with the wedding?”

  Big Mother regarded Poppy with a measured look. “That moment has not yet arisen. I will worry about it when it does.”

  ANOTHER LOOK AT THE PAINTING

  Darkness had fallen by the time Chopra reached the hotel.

  A sudden fatigue gripped him as he entered the lobby. The day’s revelations swirled around his mind, like mice on a wheel. He felt a tension inside himself, a confusion that he was unused to. The complexities of the investigation, the pressure to find quick answers, were beginning to take their toll. He rubbed his face with his hands, trying to resurrect his sense of mission, knowing, at the back of his mind, that what he really needed was a brisk shower and a meal.

  A few hours of sleep would not go amiss either.

  And yet, somehow, he found himself punching the elevator button for the Grand Raj’s topmost floor.

  Moments later he was walking past the guards stationed outside the Khumbatta suite, and into the room in which Hollis Burbank had met his fate.

  Why had he come here?

  It was an old habit, seeking inspiration from the crime scenes he had attended during his years on the force. Of course, usually he was certain that a crime had been committed. In the present instance things were not so clear cut.

  His instincts told him that Burbank’s death was not by his own hand. Someone had murdered the American. Yet the motive for that murder might lie in the present or in the distant past.

  There was insufficient information for him to make a clear leap of deduction.

  He felt like a high diver, poised on the edge of a cliff, looking down into murky waters, unsure of exactly what lay beneath the waves.

  He found himself standing before the painting above Burbank’s bed, The Scourge of Goa by Zozé Rebello.

  Once again he was struck by the nature of the image, the torment depicted on the faces of the individuals, the sense of outrage and injury coalescing, like a wild storm of human angst, into a grand vision of hell. A crucible of pain and terror trapped within the frame of Rebello’s canvas. He understood, in the abstract way of most people with little knowledge of the domain, that the purpose of art was to move the beholder, but he did not understand art like this. Its only purpose seemed to lie in leaching vitality from the soul, in rendering inert the very things that allowed the human spirit to triumph over the baser desires that lay waiting in the darkness.

  What had possessed Rebello to create such an image?

  “Ah, there you are!”

  Chopra turned, startled out of his contemplation, to find Lisa Taylor framed in the doorway.

  She was dressed in a finely cut designer trouser suit, her hair piled up in a golden ball, diamond earrings glittering in the lobes of her shapely ears. It occurred to him that the Englishwoman looked more attractive in this seemingly simple attire than the glamorous and revealing outfits she often favoured.

  Less, he had always felt, was usually more.

  “What are you doing here?” he coughed out.

  “The lift porter told me you’d come up here,” replied Taylor. “I’m after another progress report. My boss is foaming at the mouth.” She shuttled closer and he caught the heady scent of her expensive perfume. “You look tired. How are you feeling? Your wife said you’re a bit of an invalid these days.”

  Chopra coloured. “I am quite fine, thank you,” he said, his shoulders automatically straightening. “I have never felt better.”

  She stared at him with her cool blue eyes, then smiled. “Well, you look pretty robust to me. She’s a lucky woman. It’s a hard thing finding an honest man these days. I meet a lot of rich, successful men in this industry. The kind who wouldn’t hesitate in drowning their own mothers for a Caravaggio pencil sketch. There’s no honour in the art world, and integrity is a word few have ever heard of.”

  Chopra had no response to this.

  He would never admit it, but Lisa Taylor exuded a sense of feminine charm that appealed to him. This, in itself, left him simmering with a sense of low-flying guilt, though he knew that it was unwarranted.

  “So, what news?”

  Relieved to focus on something else, he brought Taylor up to speed on his recent efforts.

  “I knew it!” she said, when he had finished. “I knew there was something about Burbank. He was always cagey about his past, and now I know why. Do you really think his death could be tied up with something that happened all those years ago?”

  Chopra shrugged. “It is too early to say.”

  “Did I mention the clock is ticking?” said Taylor, pointedly. “My boss, Gilbert and Locke’s managing director, is flying in from London. This whole thing is causing heartburn in the firm’s senior echelons.”

  “But Burbank’s death has nothing do to with your auction.”

  “It doesn’t matter. We’re tainted by association. Remember what I told you: everything in this business is smoke and mirrors. One of our wealthiest clients dies after making a major purchase at an auction we organised? The press coverage, once the full details of Burbank’s death are released, will be brutal. And Gilbert and Locke’s name will be front and centre. You have no idea of the palpitations that is giving the stuffed shirts back home. They want the facts, Chopra. Then they can work out how best to spin them to their advantage.” Taylor checked her watch. “I’m going to have some dinner. Would you care to join me?”

  Chopra hesitated. “I should get back to my room.”

  “Do you always do what you should? Sometimes it can be fun to break the rules.”

  Chopra glanced sharply at Taylor. The hint of amusement in her eyes only increased his discomfort. “I, ah, have some notes to make.” Why had he said that? He sounded like a seventeen-year-old boy again, back in cadet school, tongue-tied in front of the statuesque Sergeant Fonseca, the female trainer in charge of imparting to her wards the minutiae of the Indian Police Service rulebook. A vision in khaki, and the focus of many a pubescent dream. The sound of Fonseca detailing subsection 2.1 (a), Rule 8 (i) on the requirements of cadet officers to engage daily in “brisk and invigorating physical exercise” still gave him shivers.

  Taylor allowed him to dangle on the hook for a moment, then smiled. “As you wish.” She turned, then paused at the door. “By the way, did anything come of that sketch? The one you found on Burbank?”

  “I have discovered nothing further.”

  “So no idea who this K.K. is? I confess, it’s got me intrigued.”

  “If I find out I will be sure to let you know.”

  “You’re a good man, Chopra. It’s a shame we didn’t meet under different circumstances…”

  With that she sailed from the room, leaving Chopra feeling more at sea than before he had entered the suite.

  He took one last look at the Rebello. “What in the world were you trying to say?” he murmured, before turning to leave the room.

  Back inside their suite Chopra was mystified to discover that he was alone.

  He wondered briefly if Poppy and Irfan had gone down for dinner, but then saw a small card propped up against a vase of fresh flowers on the coffee table.

  He picked up the card and scanned it.

  It said, simply: I am on the roof. P.

  Quelling his alarm at the image of his wife up on the roof of the grand old hotel, Chopra made his way out of the suite and towards the stairs.

  He walked out onto the Grand Raj’s roof terrace into a bubble of evening heat, leavened only slightly by a warm breeze rising from the sea. The space was lit by glow-lamps, each surrounded by a roiling cloud of mosquitoes, intermittently zapped into oblivion by electric ultraviolet insect killers.

  A pianist in a tux played a grand piano in the corner, while couples milled around a fountain garden laid out over the terrace. At various points on the edge of the space, brass telescopes had been set up to allow guests to enjoy the 360-degree views. />
  Chopra spotted Poppy by one of the telescopes and made his way over. A nervousness he was unaccustomed to fluttered through his stomach.

  “Poppy, what are you doing up here?” he asked as he reached his wife.

  Poppy stepped away from the telescope and bade him look.

  Mystified, Chopra put his eye to the instrument.

  The image took a second to focus, and then he saw himself staring at the entrance to the nearby Regal Cinema. The Regal was one of the city’s oldest cinemas, built in the thirties, an art deco masterpiece that had changed little in the eighty years since it had first opened its doors.

  “Do you remember, when I first came to the city, on our first anniversary you took me to the Regal to see Geethanjali? It was a special midnight showing. They served rose ice cream in the intermission.”

  Chopra did remember.

  It had been a special evening, one that had stayed with him long afterwards.

  “It is those memories—memories of you and me, together, in good times and bad—that have made my life rich beyond measure. I have adjusted to every disappointment because I knew you were there by my side. Today we are no longer that newly married couple. But my feelings for you are stronger than they were then. Because now I know who you are. And that is a man I love, trust, respect, and admire.”

  “Poppy—”

  “Let me finish. I am not saying these things to upset you, or to berate you. I accept that you must do what you must do. Your work is a part of you, and I would never take that away because I know it would change you into someone I would no longer recognise. I am saying these things simply for myself.”

  Chopra sensed the melancholy in his wife’s voice. He found himself struggling to find the words to reply.

  “Poppy, the investigation is not as important as our marriage.”

  “No,” said Poppy, but without enthusiasm.

  “Is it about Lisa Taylor? She is my client. That is all.”

  “Yes.”

  “Nothing more.” Chopra felt himself kicking around in a bog of emotional quicksand. In spite of his wife’s words, he sensed her simmering anger.

  “I mean, really,” he added desperately. “She is just a client.”

  “Yes,” repeated Poppy, woodenly.

  His phone rang. He let it ring until his wife said: “Answer it. It may be important.”

  “Not as important as you,” said Chopra, but it sounded feeble, even to his own ears.

  Poppy gave a small smile, and turned back to the telescope.

  Chopra answered the phone.

  It was the hotel’s deputy assistant general manager. “Sir, we have a problem with your elephant. There has been an incident.”

  FIRE IN THE HOLE

  Irfan and Ganesha lurked by the edge of the double doors leading out towards the Grand Raj Palace’s swimming pool, Ganesha partially concealed behind a marble statue of Emperor Akbar astride a war elephant, brandishing a sword. Irfan peered around the doors, scanning the poolside where the film crew had set up a shoot. A sign by the door prohibited use of the pool for the coming hours.

  Nevertheless, many guests had gathered to watch.

  After all, this too was an authentic slice of life in Mumbai, the home of Bollywood.

  Irfan’s eyes narrowed as he spotted Rocky. A make-up artist was brushing the fur around his face, fluffing it up into movie-star handsomeness. The assistant’s hand slipped, and he tugged accidentally on the little monkey’s hair.

  Rocky shrieked and clubbed the poor man across the ear with a leathery paw.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  Irfan watched as a heavyset man wielding a bullhorn bore down on the make-up artist. The man wore a safari jacket with the word DIRECTOR stencilled on the back. He put the bullhorn to his lips and roared into the hapless make-up artist’s other ear: “How many times have I told you not to upset him before a shoot!”

  “I’m so sorry, sir!” mumbled the make-up artist, holding his hands to his deafened ears.

  “Get out of my sight!” yelled the director.

  He watched his beleaguered underling scurry away, then bellowed. “Right! We go in five minutes!”

  Exactly five minutes later the director was sitting behind the principal camera, the lighting rigs ablaze, the actors in position.

  Having asked one of the crew, Irfan knew that this was one of the film’s most critical scenes.

  The movie’s villain, a foreign spy, had stolen important documents from the government. He was now meeting with his handler in the Grand Raj Palace. Unbeknownst to him, Rocky’s owner, a suave secret agent, had been deployed by the Indian security services to recover the documents. But the hero had been put out of commission, and it was now up to Rocky to save the day.

  Again.

  This was Rocky in the role of a primate James Bond, the third in a very successful franchise. In this pivotal scene, the villain, being chased by undercover agents, was due to burst into the swimming pool area—where a barbecue was taking place—and race for the doors on the far side. However, halfway through his mad dash, Rocky was to leap on him from behind, clap his paws over his eyes and send him hurtling into the pool.

  Another evil plot foiled courtesy of the subcontinent’s most dynamic monkey movie star.

  Irfan had other plans.

  He hefted the wooden catapult in his hands. He was a master with the weapon, and could hit the eye of a pigeon from ten yards. “I’ll teach you to bully my friend,” he muttered, as he fitted a small rubber ball into the leather pouch.

  On the set a hush had descended… and then a voice called out “Action!”

  The actors playing hotel guests milled around the pool, their voices rising in conversation, as the director’s rig moved slowly along a dolly track. Suddenly, the main doors to the pool deck burst open, and a tall, broad-shouldered man in a black tux clattered into the space. He stood, breathing heavily, clutching a leather attaché case, and looked around wildly. Loud voices rang out from behind him.

  Cursing, he charged forward, pushing a well-dressed man and woman out of his way and into the pool. The woman shrieked, and now screams echoed from around the pool as the man plunged his way through the crowd.

  And then, a flash of fur… and now Rocky was on the fleeing villain’s back.

  Irfan raised his slingshot and unleashed his projectile.

  A satisfying twang accompanied the rubber ball as it speared across the pool and struck Rocky on the back of the head. The monkey yelped and fell off the actor’s shoulders, directly onto the flaming coals of the barbecue.

  Instantly, the langur leapt up, shrieking at the top of his lungs.

  “Oh my God!” someone shouted. “He’s on fire!”

  Irfan blanched.

  It was true—Rocky was on fire!

  He could only watch in horror as the little monkey bounced around by the side of the pool, slapping away at his burning waistcoat.

  A blur of grey shot past Irfan.

  Seconds later, Ganesha reached the hapless monkey, wrapped his trunk around his flailing tail and bundled into the pool.

  Elephant and monkey vanished beneath the blue surface.

  More screams echoed in the night.

  And then Ganesha’s trunk appeared above the water, dragging the monkey to the surface.

  One of the actors leapt in and fished Rocky out of the pool, setting him down on the tiles. A crowd instantly gathered around the stricken langur.

  Ganesha, meanwhile, remained in the pool, only his trunk protruding above the water.

  Irfan dived in, and swam out to the little elephant. He ducked his head and held his face next to Ganesha’s, a foot below the water. Ganesha’s eye rolled up at him, but the elephant’s efforts were engaged in holding his trunk up like a snorkel.

  Irfan surfaced, and looked around desperately. He needed help. Ganesha couldn’t keep his trunk up for ever.

  “Help!” he shouted. “We need to get Ganesha out of the pool!
”

  “That elephant is going to drown!” shouted a female voice. “Someone do something!”

  Ten minutes later, the fire service arrived.

  And shortly after that, Poppy and Chopra reached the pool in a breathless rush.

  Chopra listened patiently to the deputy assistant general manager, Pillai, as he explained how the hotel had had to call out the fire service to rescue Ganesha from the pool, winching him out using a crane on the back of a fire truck.

  A loud round of applause had accompanied Ganesha’s emergence from the water.

  “Your elephant risked his life to save Rocky’s,” said Pillai. “It was the most courageous thing I have ever seen!”

  “He is a brave boy,” said Poppy, giving Ganesha a hug. The little elephant gave a soft bugle. All things considered, he seemed none the worse for wear.

  “However,” said Pillai, his tone turning stern, “the incident would not have occurred in the first place if it were not for your boy here.” He pointed at Irfan, who was sitting huddled in a bath towel, staring at his feet. “I am afraid that the director of the movie is considering pressing charges. Not only have you ruined his shoot, but your son’s actions almost cost the life of his star. Thankfully, the fire only caught Rocky’s waistcoat, and he has escaped permanent injury. But the mental scars…” Pillai shuddered.

  Chopra turned to Irfan. “Why did you do it?”

  Irfan continued to stare at the ground.

  “Irfan, I have always told you that the only acceptable course of action—in any situation—is the truth. That is what I expect from you now.”

  Irfan looked up, tears in his eyes. “I wanted to stop him from bullying Ganesha,” he blurted. “I never meant to hurt him.”

  Chopra sighed. “Come on,” he said.

  Together, they made their way through the hotel to Rocky’s suite.