Murder at the Grand Raj Palace

by Vaseem Khan

  He had arrived back at the hotel, parked his van and made his way directly to the general manager’s office. He found the man alone, stealing a moment for himself in another hectic day, a steaming cup of chai set before him, calming music floating in the background.

  That calm was shattered as Chopra set down the file he had taken from Sen’s home, opened it and revealed the photograph that had brought him back to Mumbai in such haste.

  A photograph of a young man called Tanav Dashputra.

  Chopra’s finger rested on the image. “You grew up in Shangarh. Your parents were killed in 1985, in the tragedy. You knew Hollis Burbank, or of him, all those years ago, when he called himself Roger Penzance.”

  Dashputra’s eyes seemed to contract, then expand.

  He exhaled slowly, and set down his tea.

  His hand shook.

  He seemed to consider rising to his feet, but his body refused to cooperate and he stayed motionless in his chair.

  Finally, he spoke. “I should have died that night. With my parents, my friends, my village. But I was away, studying in Pune. I, the shining light of Shangarh! The one youngster to escape the cycle of poverty and hopelessness. When I heard what had happened I rushed back, but it was too late. They had already burned the bodies, burned the village. They told me it was disease, a fatal outbreak. That there was nothing else they could have done.

  “It was weeks later when Sen, our doctor, told me that they were lying to us. Told me her theory. That the official explanation of disease was a fabrication. That my parents—my entire village—had been killed by an accident at the Fermi plant. A chemical leak. And that they had decided to cover the whole thing up. I had no reason not to believe her. And so I went to the plant to demand explanations.

  “I met with Penzance. And I was told, in no uncertain terms, that if I persisted in my attempts to question the official version of events, I would be held accountable. It was beyond his control, he said. Out of his hands. He threatened me. And then he offered me compensation, enough for me to swallow the lie, to go away, to complete my studies and never look back.” Dashgupta’s voice shook with self-loathing. “And so I made a choice. I took the money. I was young, and ambitious. I thought I knew enough about the world to understand that I couldn’t change what had happened. I couldn’t bring those responsible to justice. This was India, and I was nobody. A lone voice in the darkness.

  “So, yes, I took the money, and I went back to Pune. I completed my studies, and I got on with my life. It was the best way I could honour my parents, the sacrifices they had made for me. At least, that’s what I told myself.

  “Later, when I heard about Sen’s death, about how she had been run off the road, I knew that I had made the right decision. That might have been me.” Dashputra’s eyes stared into nothingness. “And yet, do you know what the funny thing is, Chopra? All these long years I have never been able to sleep soundly. They come to me, in my dreams, in my darkest moments, my dead family, my childhood friends. They demand justice. Guilt has eaten away at me, robbed me of peace. I was a coward, and I have died a thousand times for it.”

  Chopra stood in silence.

  He had seen this so many times. Men wishing to unburden themselves. It was like sticking a pin into a balloon; all he had to do was stand back and watch everything rush out. First Ravinder Shastri. Then Gajendra Sen. And now Dashputra. Bound together by guilt.

  “Did you murder Hollis Burbank?”

  Dashgupta swallowed. “I recognised him as soon as he entered the hotel. How could I not? His face had changed, but his eyes… they were the same. Cold, indifferent. I wrestled with my conscience. Should I confront him? What difference would it make now? On the night that he died, I could stand it no longer. I was staying at the hotel anyway, as is my usual practice during particularly busy periods. And the auction was the most important occasion we have had in recent years. I couldn’t sleep. I had to do something. I might never get another chance. And so I went to Burbank’s room.

  “When I got there, I knocked, but he didn’t answer. I let myself in with a master key.” He stopped, his eyes glazed.

  “Go on,” murmured Chopra.

  “He was already dead. Lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling with a knife sticking out of his chest… Do you know what I felt then? At that precise instant? Anger. Rage. At the fact that he had escaped. That he had managed to avoid the confrontation I had planned. I stood there, the fury building and building. It was like a fever in my brain! I couldn’t just leave, not without some acknowledgement from him of what he had done, what Fermi had done.

  “I looked around, and saw a pot of paint and a brush on an easel. I took them—I had just enough sense left to use a handkerchief to handle them, to avoid leaving my fingerprints—went into the bathroom and painted those words on the wall. I AM SORRY. I needed there to be an apology, even if I was the only one who understood it. I cannot explain to you what it means, I cannot explain why I did that, but it is the truth. I didn’t kill him, but there are moments when I wish I had.”

  Chopra considered Dashgupta’s testimony.

  Did he believe the man? All those years of rage, rage at Fermi, at Burbank, at his own cowardice. It was enough to propel a man to violence, even murder.

  “You say you used your keycard to enter Burbank’s room? I went through the computerised records. I don’t recall such an entry.”

  Dashgupta had the decency to look away. “You are right, of course. The police examined the system log for precisely that reason. But before I gave them access, I logged in and deleted that entry. I have a master override.” He blinked. “I know it looks bad, but I swear to you, I did not kill Burbank.”

  As he gazed at Dashgupta’s sweating face, Chopra could only guess as to how much truth there was in the hotel manager’s confession. If he was innocent, it would mean that Chopra was back to square one, with Dashgupta just another in the gallery of suspects.

  He sighed.

  He supposed that when Tripathi had given him the assignment even his old friend hadn’t realised just how convoluted the trail would prove to be.

  And yet if his career had taught him one thing it was this: there was always a way through the maze to the truth that invariably lay at its heart.

  “We need your help,” said Poppy. “You know the hotel better than anyone. You know the staff.”

  Aryan Ganesham, the Grand Raj Palace’s head butler, stood erect, alone in the staffroom, head tilted to one side as if listening to a music that no one else could hear.

  Finally, he spoke. “Why do you wish to find her? Forgive me,” he went on. “I do not wish to seem impertinent. But I have seen a great many things in my time at the Grand Raj. I was here, a young boy shining shoes on the street outside, when India declared her independence and crowds gathered beneath the Gateway, Nehru’s ‘tryst with destiny’ speech blaring from loudspeakers affixed to the hotel’s facade. I was here a year later when Gandhi was shot, and guests poured out of the hotel in grief and shock, an outpouring of sorrow the likes of which I have seen neither before nor since. I was here when Indira Gandhi declared her Emergency, and the hotel was locked down, a fortress in a time of trouble. I was here when the Ayodha riots ignited, and the streets ran red with blood, and people ran into the hotel for sanctuary.” A soft smile played across his lips, like the echo of a distant memory. “The Grand Raj has played host to thousands of weddings over the years I have been here. In that time, I have seen the pain and suffering that is often caused in the name of marriage, in the name of tradition and honour.”

  Big Mother, her cheeks twitching with irritation, wheeled her chair forward. “I love my granddaughter. I merely wish to know that she is safe.”

  “Be that as it may,” said Ganesham. “If she has abandoned her own wedding there must be a reason.”

  “Are you married, sir?” snapped Big Mother.

  This comment seemed to arrest Ganesham.

  Poppy saw the old butler tense. His eyes
became faraway, receding into memory. “Once upon a time there was a woman, young, beautiful, the daughter of a wealthy man. They travelled often to Mumbai, and stayed in a wonderful hotel, the best hotel in the land. This woman was attended, each time she stayed there, by a young staff member who made it his concern to ensure that her every whim was catered to. Though it was not his place, over the years they became friends. And then, one day, she told him that she was due to be married. Her father had arranged everything. It was to happen in that very hotel. The young man nodded to himself. Yes, of course. It was only fitting. A fine wedding for the finest woman he knew. He took personal charge of the occasion—nothing was left to chance.

  “Just hours before the wedding, the woman summoned him to her room.

  “She was dressed in her bridal finery—he had never seen anything so beautiful. This woman, this ethereal creature more precious to him than anything else in the world, told him that she loved him. That, if he were to merely say the word, she would give up everything for him, and they would make a new life, just the two of them, cocooned from the world by their happiness.

  “The young man smiled. And he bowed, and said, ‘Madam must not joke. For I am no one. I live only to serve.’ And then he left, his footsteps taking him quickly away lest she see the pain in his eyes.” Ganesham paused. “That night, the woman was murdered by her husband in the bridal suite of that magnificent hotel. Perhaps because she told him the truth of her feelings, of her love for another. They say she haunts the hotel still.”

  Poppy was stunned.

  What grief the human heart was capable of enduring! The thought of lonely Ganesham, the lost love of his life; it was almost too much to bear.

  The butler smiled. “It is just a fairy tale,” he said, his voice strangely hollow.

  But Poppy knew that it was not.

  The butler turned to Big Mother. “I will help you find your granddaughter,” he continued, briskly now. “So that we can be assured of her safety.”

  “You must search the hotel again,” said Big Mother. “This time go room to room.”

  Ganesham tilted his head to one side. “That we cannot do. The guests must not be alerted to this regrettable situation. Discretion is our watchword at the Grand Raj. Besides, we have fifteen hundred staff here, with at least five hundred in the hotel at any one time, spread over eleven floors, three basements and extensive grounds. This is not a problem that can be solved with brute force.”

  “Then what do you propose we do?” harrumphed Big Mother.

  “There is another way…” said Ganesham.

  WHO IS K.K.?

  Chopra sat in the Grand Raj Palace’s business suite, the satchel of files and the lockbox at his feet, his notebook open on the glass coffee table before him. A majestic portrait of Peroz Khumbatta, in royal phento turban, buttoned-up coat and frilly-cuffed shirt, looked down at him, his great winged eyebrows gathered together in seeming opprobrium.

  Why haven’t you solved this yet? the great patriarch of Indian commerce appeared to be saying.

  Chopra had no answer.

  Hours earlier he thought he had found the solution.

  He had diligently followed the trail deep into the past; had uncovered a motive and, with it, the man he thought must surely be the true architect of Burbank’s death. But now, having spoken with Dashputra, he could not be certain. By rights, he should hand the man over to Tripathi, let the law take its course.

  Yet something was preventing him from doing precisely that, the little voice in his ear that had been his companion for more years than he cared to remember.

  But, if not Dashputra, then who?

  The suspects marched past his eyes, like troops at a military parade: the businessman Avinash Agnihotri, the sculptor Layla Padamsee, her fiery husband Adam Padamsee and, perhaps, even the artist Shiva Swarup. All with motives of one design or another.

  He sighed, recalling the advice he had given to his wife the night before: go back, re-examine everything.

  Well, there was nothing else for it…

  An hour later, he sat back.

  There was nothing in his notes that he had missed, nothing to offer a new thread to pull on. He had reviewed the evidence, reviewed each individual’s testimony. He had re-examined the information to hand, searching for that flash of insight.

  Nothing.

  For some reason, the image of Burbank stretched out on his bed kept intruding into his thoughts. The businessman’s glazed eyes, the splash of blood on his white bathrobe. He felt, once again, that earlier vague unease. There was something attempting to flag down his attention… Exasperated, he let the thought sink back into the murk.

  His gaze fell on the lockbox.

  In his haste to return from the village of Ramgarh he had not yet looked inside. There had been no need. Gajendra Sen had told him that it contained a letter from his sister, testifying to her suspicions about the true nature of the disaster that had wiped out the village of Shangarh. Chopra did not need to read the letter to know that he believed Sen.

  He lifted the lockbox onto the table, fumbled for the key Sen had given him and opened it.

  No scream from beyond the grave.

  Just a brackish mustiness, a dry exhalation.

  Methodically, he went through the contents.

  Firstly, the written statement from Radhika Sen, sealed in an envelope. He opened the envelope, and scanned the letter.

  It was pretty much as Gajendra Sen had said, set down in his sister’s words. A chronicle of corruption that had led to the deaths of so many innocents. As he read the letter a cloud of sadness enveloped Chopra. In the deliberate handwriting, the fevered sentences, he sensed a kindred spirit, a woman for whom the battle for truth and justice meant everything.

  But in India, the truth did not always set you free.

  Sometimes it got you killed.

  He finished the letter, set it to one side, then examined the remaining contents.

  Papers from Fermi Engineering, purchase orders for components, service orders, engineering schematics, all signed by Roger Penzance. The cutbacks and changes that had led to the accident. Smuggled out by Jared Faulkner and given to his lover Radhika Sen. Faulkner must have known that the plant was untenable; he must have felt the pressure of his own complicity in going along with the changes. He had shared those concerns with Sen, his lover, his confidante.

  In the end, it had been for naught.

  The worst had happened, and people had died, including Faulkner himself.

  A cluster of photographs lay in the box, wrapped in an elastic band. Photos of the site, both internal and external. Photos of key personnel, their names marked in black pen by, presumably, Sen—

  Chopra froze.

  At the bottom of the box was a drawing. A charcoal sketch, some ten inches on a side. Three figures, clearly identifiable as Penzance, Faulkner and Sen. An angry black cross had been drawn over Penzance’s figure.

  And, in the corner of the drawing, the initials K.K.

  The incongruity of the find held Chopra rigid for a long time. Something brushed the walls of his chest, causing his pulse to quicken. He reached into his pocket and took out the sketch that had been found hidden inside Hollis Burbank’s suitcase.

  He compared the two.

  There was a clear similarity in the styles. More importantly, the initials were identical.

  Chopra took out his phone and dialled Gajendra Sen. “There is a sketch inside your sister’s lockbox. It shows Hollis Burbank—Roger Penzance, I mean—Jared Faulkner and your sister. It is initialled K.K. Who drew this sketch?”

  “That? That was an artist from Shangarh. Kunal Karmarkar. He came into my sister’s clinic one day with a chest infection. Faulkner was there, visiting her, with Penzance—the man you call Burbank. After she treated him, he confessed he couldn’t pay, not that my sister ever charged those who could not afford her help. He insisted on drawing the sketch. It remained very dear to her. It was one of the few images s
he had of herself and Faulkner.”

  “Tell me about him,” said Chopra. “The artist, I mean.”

  “There’s not much to tell. I didn’t know him well. He grew up in Shangarh, went to study art in Pune for a while. Couldn’t find work there so returned. Set up a small studio with a fellow student right here in our village, in Ramgarh. We were bigger than Shangarh, you see, just beginning to grow, a few tourists coming through from Pune. Add to that local commissions, murals, that sort of thing. It wasn’t a successful operation. They never had any money. And then, of course, he died. In the chemical accident.”

  “Who was the other artist?”

  “Him? That’s the funny thing. Kamarkar’s partner was from my own village, from Ramgarh. He went on to become a famous artist. You’ve probably heard of him. His name is—”

  TRIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNGGGG!

  The alarm pounded through the hotel, jerking Chopra up from his seat.

  Within seconds, a hotel concierge came charging through the door. “It is the fire alarm, gentlemen,” he said breathlessly. “Please make your way in an orderly fashion to the exits.”

  As the alarm continued to sound throughout the hotel, patrons and staff poured out onto the promenade and the Gateway of India concourse. Within moments the beggars, fakirs, pickpockets and eunuchs inhabiting the concourse had descended upon the hapless newcomers, as if live victims had been thrown overboard into shark-infested waters. The Grand Raj Palace’s security guards strived mightily to hold them at bay, swatting at stray hands reaching for the tailored pockets of well-heeled Europeans, or bodily flinging themselves between the unwanted advances of unwashed beggars upon highly strung American dowagers.

  Marshalling the chaos was Aryan Ganesham, the hotel’s head butler. He, alone of those around him, seemed calm and unruffled, a sergeant-major exhorting his troops while under heavy fire.

  Within short order, the guests and staff had all been accounted for, and stood goggle-eyed as the fire service arrived upon the scene.