by Vaseem Khan
She rose to her feet, and Chopra rose with her.
“It’s funny, isn’t it? How some men just inspire hate? I’ve known Burbank for years but, other than the superficialities, I never really understood him. Why he was the way he was. Why he went out of his way to make people loathe him. I suppose that’s just the nature of the beast, right? Some people are just… wrong.” She smiled again. “At least it makes your job easier. Plenty of people out there who Burbank practically hung up a sign for. Come and get me. I’m here.”
Chopra nodded.
Lisa Taylor was correct in that regard. Whatever Hollis Burbank’s many faults, fear wasn’t one of them. He was a hated man, he must have known that, but it didn’t stop him from baiting those who loathed him.
Taylor checked her watch. “I have to leave. It has been… surreal.” Before he could stop her, she leaned over and pecked him quickly on the cheek. “I hate goodbyes, so I won’t bother saying one.”
He watched her bounce out of the suite, feeling as if somehow the lights in the room had dimmed.
An hour later Chopra was sitting in the Colaba police station opposite Rohan Tripathi.
He had presented his findings and together they had gone over every detail, searching for that vital missing link.
“Well, you’re right in that you don’t have enough for an arrest.” Tripathi sighed. “Not one that would stick, at any rate. Though I’d like to haul some of these characters into the station and see how they hold up under my questioning.” He sighed again. “I’ve stalled Gunaji for as long as I could. Unless you come up with something tangible, or extract a confession in the next couple of hours, we’re going to have to go with suicide.” He gave a sad shake of the head. “Rich people. You’d think they’d be well out of it. Too far above the rest of us to ever get caught up in this sort of thing. I mean, you’ve dug up everything from a jealous husband to a thirty-year-old blood feud. What happened to simply bumping off a rich man for his money?”
Chopra began to nod, then went very still in his seat.
Tripathi’s last words echoed in his mind.
What happened to simply bumping off a rich man for his money?
He suddenly realised that in the linear progression of his investigation there was one thing he had failed to consider. That none of the motives he had examined included the oldest motive of all.
Simple human avarice.
Had he made a critical oversight…?
He began to go over everything from the beginning. He examined his notes anew, as Tripathi looked on in bemusement. Was there something here, some tiny shred of evidence that he had missed because he had been looking at the murder only from a specific angle, namely, personal hatred of Burbank?
He lined up his thoughts and meticulously reconstructed the American’s final evening.
Burbank had come to India to buy the Rebello, but also to shore up his Indian business venture, Shakti Holdings Ltd. He was a man with a dark past, and yet whatever guilt he may have felt over that past had failed to change his basic character. He was as terrible a human being now as he had been then.
The difference was that he had become exceedingly wealthy.
And a rich man had no need to cultivate enemies. They were part and parcel of being rich.
Burbank had triumphed at the auction. He had had the Rebello moved to his room. He had then attended the after-party, before retiring to his suite late in the evening. He had celebrated by ordering a lavish dinner and relaxed by indulging in his hobby, painting. He had donned a bathrobe—and what was it about that robe that kept nagging at Chopra, a revelation quivering just out of reach?
And then, calmly, he had consumed Valium with his Scotch, and put a knife in his chest?
No. It made no sense.
There was no longer any doubt in Chopra’s mind that it was murder.
But who? And why?
He went through his notes again, painstakingly checking each fact.
He came across the itemised list of everything that had been found at the crime scene. His eyes moved down the list…
“Staples,” he breathed.
An idea swam close, then flicked its tail and swam away again.
“What?” Tripathi looked at his old friend as if he’d lost his mind.
“Your initial report says that staples were found scattered behind Burbank’s mattress, between the mattress and the headboard.”
Tripathi frowned. “Yes. So what? A man is dead and you’re worried about staples?”
“I want to see them.”
Tripathi stared at his old friend, then, shaking his head, picked up the phone.
Minutes later a constable entered and handed Chopra a plastic bag containing five very large, twisted brass staples.
“Staples,” said Tripathi, unimpressed. “Now what?”
But Chopra’s mind was reeling back to the first time he had entered Shiva Swarup’s studio, two days earlier, when he had seen workmen unpinning a canvas from its frame…
The truth wheeled about him like a giant bird, cawing at him, flapping its wings.
And suddenly he had it.
The revelation. The moment when the mists cleared, and he could see to the other side. This was the moment he lived for. He had always believed that a detective was a traveller, a man who floated between realities. The superficial reality of what appeared to be, and the actuality of what had been. Somewhere, between those poles, lay the truth, and to get to it took more than reason or intuition. It took experience, of knowing when to trust that little “click,” of knowing when everything had fallen perfectly into place.
He took out his phone, searched his notes and made a call.
“Yes,” came the voice on the other end.
“Adam Padamsee?” said Chopra. “I need to see you. Right away.”
“Do you really think this will work?” Big Mother looked dubiously at Poppy.
“I don’t know,” replied Poppy. “But it’s worth a try, isn’t it? Besides, I’ve seen him do this sort of thing before. Did you know that elephants have a better sense of smell than dogs? It’s because of their trunks, you see.”
Big Mother sniffed, and muttered something incomprehensible under her breath.
They were all back in the bridal suite, Poppy clutching the clothes Anjali had discarded in the bathroom when she had vanished. “Come on, boy,” she said, wafting them at Ganesha.
The little elephant seemed to instinctively understand what was required of him. He trotted forward and buried his trunk in the clothing.
Moments later, he turned smartly on his toes and headed for the door, scooting out with a surprising turn of speed.
They rushed after him as he trotted down the carpeted corridor, the wind in his stern.
A door swung back, and a white man with a towel around his neck stepped out for his supper trolley. As the elephant bounded past, he gaped, and the toothbrush fell to the floor. “I knew I shouldn’t have had that curry for lunch,” he muttered.
At the end of the corridor Ganesha turned into the lift lobby. He shuttled back and forth in front of the elevators as Irfan pressed the button.
When the lift pinged, and the doors slid open, he bundled inside.
“Jesus H. Christ!” bellowed an American voice. “Is that an elephant?”
“Well, whaddya think it is, dummy? A giant grey marshmallow?”
Poppy stared at the two elderly tourists, a wide-shouldered man in long socks and Bermuda shorts and a red-haired woman in a French beret. “Ain’t he just the cutest?” the woman gushed, gazing affectionately at Ganesha.
“He is clever also,” said Irfan, whose English was coming on in leaps and bounds. “He is helping us find a missing bride.”
“Is that so?” said the woman, her interest piqued.
The lift reached the ground floor, opened, and Ganesha hurtled out. Poppy, Huma Dixit and Irfan raced after the little elephant, with Big Mother cruising behind in her motorised wheelchair.
&n
bsp; The two Americans looked at one another. “Follow that elephant!” bellowed the woman, and charged after them.
In the illustrious hundred-year history of the Grand Raj Palace, the “grand old dame of the city” had witnessed many weird and wonderful goings-on. Yet possibly none so surreal as the sight of a baby elephant charging around with a steadily growing band of tourists from around the world in hot pursuit.
A troop of Japanese businessmen joined the fray in the Mughal garden, snapping pictures with a dozen cameras as they ran after the elephant like a single, many-legged beast. In the Nehru Room, a class of uniformed schoolchildren, on a visit to the hotel to view the art exhibition, hurled themselves into the chase, their plump teacher shouting at them to stop, pulling at the hem of her sari as she stumbled after them. A sunburned Australian wearing a turban and a dhoti grinned at his Indian friend as the elephant scooted past. “Well, Ashok, I’ve seen kangaroos, wallabies, possums, duck-billed platypuses and more koalas than you can shake a stick at. But I can honestly say I’ve never seen an elephant charging through a hotel before.”
A trio of Frenchmen, gaping at the incredible sight, turned to one another. “C’est fou!” said one, swirling a finger beside his temple in the universal sign of insanity.
“Non,” said another. “C’est magnifique!”
The third held up a wise index finger. “C’est Inde!”
In the pool area, Rocky, the Wonder Langur, re-filming the movie’s poolside sequence, leapt onto Ganesha’s back as he bundled by, riding him as if he were in one of his own action movies. This set the entire film crew onto the little elephant’s tail, the director hollering in apoplexy at the fact that his shoot had been ruined for a second time.
Eventually, Ganesha ended up back at the lifts.
“He’s just running around in circles,” harrumphed Big Mother.
“Have patience,” advised Poppy.
They piled into the lift, startling a very tall man in a black-and-white striped football T-shirt. “Wa-hay, pet, what’s all this malarkey then?”
Big Mother squinted suspiciously at the man, wondering what language he was speaking.
Behind them, the crowd attempted to pile into the lift, quickly realising the futility of their actions. “We’ll take the stairs!” someone bellowed.
“But we don’t know which floor he’s going to!”
“We’ll try them all!” said the first voice.
The crowd stampeded away.
On the ninth floor, Ganesha trotted out and headed back along the corridor, towards Anjali’s suite.
“You see,” said Big Mother. “I told you he was just going in circles.”
Poppy bit her lip. Had she had been wrong, after all…?
Ganesha bundled past the bridal suite, his feet leaving deep impressions in the corridor’s thick carpet. He didn’t slow down until he reached the very end of the corridor, and the Jahangir Suite.
He snuffled at the bottom of the door with his trunk.
Poppy, Irfan, Huma and Big Mother caught up.
Poppy knelt down. “Here, boy?” she asked.
Ganesha continued to root along the bottom of the door.
A loud commotion heralded the arrival of the chasing crowd of tourists. Within moments they had jammed the entire length of the corridor.
“What’s going on? Have they caught the elephant yet?”
“They’re not trying to catch the elephant! The elephant’s looking for someone.”
“The elephant is looking for someone?”
“Yes. You know, like Lassie.”
“Who’s Lassie?”
“That dog. You remember. She used to go around looking for people. When they got themselves stuck down a mineshaft or something.”
“Bloody stupid thing to do, getting stuck down a mine.”
“The point being that this elephant is using its, you know, arcane animal senses to track someone too.”
“Who’s it looking for, exactly?”
“I heard it was Tom Cruise.”
“Tom Cruise is here?”
“It’s not Tom Cruise, you idiot. It’s looking for a lost Indian princess.”
“Hello, have we stopped yet? My heart’s about to burst. I shouldn’t be racing around at my age, you know.”
“Why were you running then?”
“I don’t know. Everyone else was running so I ran too. I thought it was part of the entertainment. I didn’t want to miss out, not after what I’ve paid.”
“Make way, make way! Fathers of the bride and groom coming through!”
A chorus of “oofs” and “ow, that was my foots” marked the passage of the two men as they made their way to the door.
Prakashrao Tejwa, round face sheened in sweat, looked at Poppy. “I was told that you have found my daughter.” His voice was full of hope.
“We shall see,” said Poppy.
She turned and knocked loudly on the door, a hush falling behind her.
Seconds passed and then, just as she was about to knock again, came the sound of a lock being turned.
She heard Big Mother mutter behind her, sotto voce, “This is going to be very embarrassing,” and then the door swung open, to reveal…
THE MURDERER IS REVEALED
“What are we doing here, Chopra? I’ve got a plane to catch.”
Avinash Agnihotri snapped out a left hook and impatiently checked his watch.
They were gathered in the business suite, Agnihotri, the Padamsees, the general manager Dashputra—and Shiva Swarup, slumped spinelessly on the sofa below the portrait of Peroz Khumbatta.
In the corner stood Rohan Tripathi, in uniform, barely suppressed irritation flickering over his features. Chopra knew that the policeman did not approve of this gathering, considering it an entirely unnecessary exercise. “This isn’t a TV show, Chopra,” he had said. “Why don’t you just tell me who did it?”
“Patience,” Chopra had advised his old friend.
Now he checked his own watch, an ancient relic given to him by his long-departed father, a stuttering reminder of the affection they had shared. It was almost time…
The doors to the suite opened and Lisa Taylor breezed in, closely followed by Ronald Loomis, Hollis Burbank’s PA.
“Didn’t think I’d be seeing you again so soon,” said Taylor, by way of greeting.
“I’m flying out with Burbank’s body in a couple of hours,” said Loomis. “What’s going on?”
“Thank you both for coming,” said Chopra. “I felt you deserved to be here for this.”
Taylor’s smile turned quizzical as she took in the others in the room. “Well, isn’t this an all-star cast?”
Chopra turned to the room. “Four days ago, the man known as Hollis Burbank was found dead in his suite. Contrary to the police’s initial belief, Burbank did not commit suicide. He was murdered, a knife plunged into his chest. It is my intention to now unmask his killer.”
A wave of nervous fidgeting greeted this announcement, but no one chose to respond.
“From the beginning this has been a difficult investigation,” continued Chopra. “Hollis Burbank was a man with many enemies, a man who went out of his way to make those enemies. Each of you here had a reason to wish him harm.
“Avinash Agnihotri.” Chopra turned to the sour-faced businessman. “Burbank was undermining your business, had cost you millions of dollars with his underhanded tactics. You were taking him to court. To add insult to injury, he outbid you for the Rebello painting. You confronted him on the evening of his death, threatened him.” Agnihotri bristled, but said nothing.
Chopra turned next to the Padamsees. “Layla Padamsee. You and your husband are in dire financial difficulties. Burbank made you an obscene offer, an offer that tempted your husband. You went to his room that evening, confused and angry. While you were there, by your own admission, Burbank assaulted you. Did you kill him in self-defence?… Adam Padamsee. You followed your wife to Burbank’s room, driven by shame and rage
. You wanted Burbank’s money, but you knew that in suggesting to your wife that she accept his outrageous offer you had committed a grievous error, one that threatened your marriage. You had been drinking. Did you murder Burbank in a rush of blood? Did you and your wife stage the crime scene afterwards, once you realised what you had done?”
Chopra glanced up at the portrait of Peroz Khumbatta, looking down on them with his steadfast iron gaze. “Hollis Burbank was a man who inspired hatred. In some respects, he actively courted that hatred. Yet, paradoxically, he was also a very private man, one whose past was a closed book. Why? Why did Burbank go to such lengths to shroud his past in mystery?
“It was because Hollis Burbank was not Hollis Burbank. He was Roger Penzance, and thirty years ago Penzance was here in India, working for a company called Fermi Engineering.” A ripple of surprise greeted this revelation. “Penzance was directly responsible for a chemical leak at the Fermi plant outside Pune, an accident that led to the deaths of two hundred men, women and children. Among the dead were a middle-aged couple by the name of Santosh and Laxmi Dashputra.” Chopra turned to the Grand Raj Palace’s general manager, whose dark face swam with fear and self-loathing. “Your mother and father.
“After the accident Penzance fled India. Afraid that the authorities would one day catch up with him, he changed his identity and became Hollis Burbank. Behind him the state government buried all details of the accident.” Chopra’s eyes locked on Dashputra’s grim face. “But you have lived with the consequences of that night, and when you saw the man you knew as Roger Penzance in your hotel, you felt the past come crashing down on you. You admitted to me that you went to Burbank’s room that night. You claim that he was already dead, and that all you did was to daub the words ‘I am sorry’ on his wall. Are we to believe you?”
Finally, Chopra turned to the anaemic figure of Shiva Swarup.