by Vaseem Khan
SURESH SOLANKI
Senior Executive
Ram Leela International Export Company,
Near Kohinoor Continental, Andheri Kurla Rd,
J.B. Nagar, Andheri East, Mumbai, 400059
This had to be the office where Santosh had worked. Chopra put the card into his pocket. Then, on second thoughts, he slipped the entire bundle of visiting cards into his pocket. He suspected there would be other useful information to be gleaned from them.
Next he leafed through the diary. There was very little in it; Santosh had not used it to record his private thoughts, merely as a planner, noting the dates of meetings and other important events. These were written in a cramped scrawl, which Chopra found hard to decipher. Santosh also had a habit of writing in abbreviations. In the past month there was an increasing number of references to ‘SNBO’. The most intriguing entry said: ‘SNBO–how to expose them?’
What could SNBO be? Who was this ‘them’, and what was Santosh trying to expose?
The last entry was made on the day that Santosh had died. It was the only entry that day. ‘Meet S. at Moti’s, 9 p.m.’
Chopra wondered if Moti’s was the residence of a friend, or perhaps a regular haunt such as a bar or a liquor shop. Perhaps that was where the boy went to drink with his friends. Perhaps that was where he had met the friend (this ‘S.’, perhaps) he had been drinking with that evening.
This was a vital clue, Chopra felt.
If he could find Moti’s, he might be able to find someone who had seen Santosh with his friend; and from there he might identify the friend.
He returned to the living area, where Pramod Achrekar was still comforting his wife. ‘There is something else,’ he said. ‘Do you know if Santosh had a girlfriend?’
Mrs Achrekar raised her head sharply. ‘Santosh was a good boy,’ she croaked, her voice sunken by grief. ‘He would have married the girl I chose for him.’ This thought brought fresh tears to her eyes, and she sank her face into her hands once again. Achrekar squeezed her shoulder and stood up to accompany Chopra out of the little house.
Outside Chopra felt the full force of the sun; but he knew that at this moment not a single ray of light would penetrate inside the Achrekars’ home.
‘Santosh was a handsome boy,’ said Achrekar, taking off his spectacles and wiping them with the edge of his kurta. ‘I would hear him joking sometimes on his mobile phone about all his girlfriends. More girlfriends than Salman Khan, he used to say.’ He shook his head as a smile spread across his face. ‘Youngsters never think we old people could possibly understand what they are talking about, so they don’t bother to keep their voices down. Because of this I don’t believe that my son had a serious girlfriend at this time. He was very committed to making something of himself. He wanted to stand on his own two feet before he began thinking about a wife, a family.’
‘Did he have many friends? I might need to talk to those closest to him.’
‘He used to have a large circle. But over the past six months he has been completely occupied with his work. Many of them have stopped coming to see him.’
Chopra wondered if this had perhaps been a source of tension. Could a friend have taken offence at being ignored? He had seen murder committed for lesser reasons than that.
‘Does “SNBO” mean anything to you? Or “Moti’s”?’
Achrekar shook his head.
‘Did Santosh own a motorbike?’
‘No. He had passed his driving test, and he was saving up to buy one. But he never got the chance.’ Achrekar looked directly at him. ‘There is one more thing I wish to tell you about my son,’ he said. ‘Santosh had a very strong sense of integrity and fairness. He believed wholeheartedly in the new India as a land of opportunity for everyone, not just the rich. He believed we could make this country truly great if we got rid of all the crime, corruption and complacency; if each individual took responsibility for shaping the future.’
Chopra gathered his thoughts before speaking. ‘Sir, I want to assure you that your son’s death is not insignificant, not to me. Whatever it takes, I will find his killers.’
Chopra left the grief-stricken father on the porch of his home, staring into the distance along the now vanished road that had once marked the glistening future of his murdered son.
THE RAM LEELA INTERNATIONAL EXPORT COMPANY
It had already been a very productive day, but Chopra was not finished yet. He was energised by that old feeling, the feeling of getting to grips with a case. It was the feeling he always got when the initial impenetrability of a crime began to unravel and things started to become clear. His was a logical mind, uncluttered by irrelevant distractions. In this clean, rational environment he would often lay out the pieces of an investigation, and gradually begin fitting them together as if they were pieces of a jigsaw. He had an unerring sense for where the gaps in the jigsaw lay, and where particular sections fitted together to reveal an insight.
So excited was he by his progress on the Achrekar case that he decided not to return home for lunch. He knew Poppy would be annoyed–she had said she was going to prepare a special chicken makhani curry for him, together with her much-feted boondi raita. But food would have to wait.
The rick dropped Chopra off right outside the building in which the Ram Leela International Export Company maintained their offices.
It was a good-looking building, he saw, faced by imported white marble; the rent here would not be cheap.
In the lobby there was more marble and a pair of bored TOPS security guards. The Ram Leela International Export Company leased the upper four floors of the ten-storey building.
Chopra took the lift upstairs to the company’s reception on the tenth floor. Behind a black granite counter, a pretty young woman with long painted fingernails and a surfeit of lipstick tapped away on a computer. She looked up, spotted him and smiled. ‘Sir, may I help you?’
‘Yes,’ said Chopra. ‘My name is Inspector Chopra and I wish to see Mr Arun Jaitley.’
‘Oh,’ said the girl, an expression of puzzlement passing across her face. ‘Sir, do you have an appointment to meet Jaitley Sir?’
‘No,’ said Chopra. ‘But I wish to see him all the same.’
‘But Jaitley Sir is not here, sir.’
‘Where can I find him?’
‘Sir, Jaitley Sir has gone abroad.’
‘Abroad? Where?’
The girl hesitated. ‘Sir, we are not allowed to give details of Jaitley Sir’s movements.’
‘It is all right,’ he said. ‘I am a police officer.’
The girl chewed her lip. Chopra could see that he was putting her in a very uncomfortable position. ‘I tell you what,’ he said gently, ‘why don’t you get whoever is in charge in Mr Jaitley’s absence.’
The girl brightened. ‘Sir, this must be Kulkarni Sir.’
‘Please tell him that Inspector Chopra wishes to meet with him.’
‘Oh.’ The girl looked despondent again. ‘But sir, even Kulkarni Sir is not here.’
Chopra frowned. ‘And where is he? Or are his whereabouts also a national secret?’ He could not prevent the note of sarcasm creeping into his voice.
The girl giggled. ‘No, sir. Kulkarni Sir is in Chennai on business. He will be back next week.’
‘I see,’ he said. ‘Well then, is there any way I can talk to Jaitley or Kulkarni on the telephone?’
‘No sir,’ said the girl firmly. ‘We have strict instructions never to give out mobile numbers of Jaitley Sir or Kulkarni Sir.’
Chopra was about to give the girl a piece of his mind, but then decided that would not be the wisest course of action. After all, he wasn’t actually a police officer any more, and if he over-exercised his dubious authority, he could put himself in line for serious consequences later on, particularly if Inspector Suryavansh got wind of things. ‘Look,’ he said through gritted teeth, ‘I am investigating the death of Santosh Achrekar. I was told that he worked here. Did you know him?’
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br /> The girl’s face immediately crumpled into an expression of tearful sorrow. He was beginning to think she would have made a fine dramatic actress. ‘Sir, yes, of course! Santosh was a very nice boy. So kind and handsome. He always brought me treats. You know, like chocolate éclairs and Marie biscuits. I was too shocked when I heard he had died in an accident, really too shocked.’
‘Is there someone here that Santosh worked particularly closely with? Maybe this person?’ Chopra held out the visiting card he had found at Santosh’s home.
The girl broke into another smile, her sorrow evaporating as swiftly as it had arrived. ‘Oh yes, sir. Solanki Sir worked very closely with Santosh.’
‘Don’t tell me,’ said Chopra. ‘Solanki Sir is out of town.’
The girl looked puzzled. ‘No, sir,’ she said, oblivious to his irony, ‘why would you think this? Solanki Sir is in his office. I shall let him know you are here.’
Suresh Solanki entered the meeting room in which Inspector Chopra had been parked by the flighty receptionist. He was a tall, thin man with a sallow face, and deep circles etched around his eyes, as if he had not slept well for a very long time. He was dressed in a crisp white shirt and tie, and shiny black shoes. Chopra judged him to be in his mid-thirties.
Solanki did not greet him with a handshake. Instead, he regarded him with an expression of deep displeasure and mistrust. ‘Seema tells me you are a police officer. You have some questions about Santosh?’
‘Yes,’ said Chopra.
‘Then I must first tell you that Santosh was not any longer employed by our organisation at the time of his death.’
‘Well,’ said Chopra, ‘this is the first I am hearing of this. I have recently met with his family. If he had left his job, I am sure they would have known about it.’
‘Perhaps he didn’t tell them. Perhaps he was too embarrassed.’
‘What would he be embarrassed about?’
‘Well, the fact that he was sacked from his position.’
‘I see,’ said Chopra. ‘And why was he sacked?’
‘He was not very good at his work.’
‘His father seemed to believe that he had been singled out for special praise by Mr Jaitley, the owner of this business. Why would he say this?’
Solanki shrugged. ‘How would I know? Fathers are proud of their sons even when they have nothing to be proud of.’
Chopra bristled but kept quiet. He had taken an instant disliking to this man. Solanki was arrogant and abrasive. There was also something furtive about his manner. ‘Tell me, what did Santosh do here, and what was your relationship with him?’
‘Santosh was an administrative assistant. He worked for me, doing data entry work; you know, entering accounting records into our computer system. He also went out to our network of suppliers, following up on the processing of purchase orders.’
‘What exactly is it that you export?’
‘Garments, mainly. We buy from little suppliers all around the country and export to the Middle East and near Asian countries like Malaysia. We even export to Kenya and South Africa.’
‘You must do a lot of business to be able to export to so many countries.’
‘We are a very large organisation. This is just our head office. We have other offices in Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai and Kolkata.’ This was said with unabashed pride.
Chopra considered this information. ‘Did you notice anything unusual about Santosh’s behaviour recently?’ he asked.
Solanki blinked. There was a slight hesitation before he replied. ‘Only that he was drinking a lot. That was one of the reasons we sacked him. We don’t like our employees to turn up late for work and drunk.’
‘This does not sound like the Santosh that his parents described to me.’ Chopra looked directly at Solanki’s hooded eyes; Solanki tried to hold his gaze but quickly looked away.
Chopra took out his notebook and pretended to peruse it intently. ‘Tell me,’ he said eventually, ‘do you know what “SNBO” means?’
Solanki’s face was impassive. ‘No,’ he said.
‘What about “Moti’s”?’
‘No.’
He could not tell if Solanki was lying. He remembered the entry in Santosh’s diary: ‘Meet S. at Moti’s, 9 p.m.’ Could Solanki be ‘S.’? He looked carefully at Solanki’s face, but could not see any scratch marks. His scrutiny was obviously making the tall man uncomfortable–Solanki looked down at his watch to cover his discomfort.
Chopra was certain he was not telling him everything that he knew. ‘Just out of interest, where were you four nights ago?’
‘I was at home with my family,’ said Solanki, a little too quickly.
‘Do you own a motorbike?’
‘What has that got to do with anything?’
Chopra did not reply.
‘Yes, I own a motorbike,’ said Solanki angrily. ‘Along with a few million other people in the city.’
He looked down at his notebook again. ‘I suppose you have some paperwork to document Santosh’s dismissal?’ he said finally.
‘When we are legally required to produce such paperwork, it will be available,’ said Solanki curtly.
Chopra knew that he would get nothing more out of this man.
He left the building with more questions than answers. His earlier optimism had vanished, and he was confronted with the possibility that perhaps he had bitten off more than he could chew. He did not have the resources or the mandate to follow up on the various lines of enquiry that he had uncovered. There was nothing he could do to squeeze more information out of Suresh Solanki.
There was really nothing more he could do at all.
INSPECTOR CHOPRA VISITS A VET
The next morning Inspector Chopra turned his attention back to the problem of Ganesha. The appointment that he had made with Dr Lala was at eleven o’clock, but the doctor did not make house calls. Realising that the veterinary clinic was only a short walk away, on a plot halfway between Sahar and M.V. Road, he decided that he would simply take his ailing charge with him. The walk might even do the little elephant some good.
When Chopra reached the guard hut he found his mother-in-law Poornima Devi and two other grey-haired ladies from the building surrounding the elephant. One of them was Mrs Subramanium.
‘What is going on here?’
Mrs Subramanium turned and addressed Chopra with an arch of her eyebrows. ‘It has come to my attention that your elephant has been polluting the complex, Chopra.’
‘Polluting?’
‘He has been doing his business all over the place, it seems.’
‘Who told you that?’ said Chopra, glaring at Poornima Devi.
The one-eyed harridan merely glared back. ‘I told her. I slipped on the creature’s mess this morning,’ she said.
‘Is this true, Bahadur?’ said Chopra.
The guard grinned uneasily. He was caught between opposing forces, and knew, instinctively, that the best thing he could do was to keep his mouth shut.
‘Of course it is true,’ said Poornima. She raised a sandal from under her white widow’s sari. ‘What do you think that is? Chocolate?’
‘Perhaps you should look where you are going.’
The old woman looked incensed. ‘Perhaps your elephant should not be leaving gifts for us all over the compound.’
‘He has hardly eaten. I do not think his bowels have been as active as you seem to think.’
‘Then who is responsible for this?’ She shook her sandal at him again. ‘Do you think Bahadur did this?’
Chopra decided that arguing with his mother-in-law was futile. ‘Very well. I will take care of it.’
He watched the women walk away, trailing a chorus of grumbling.
As they vanished into the stairwell Bahadur emerged from his bunker of silence. ‘I am sorry, sahib.’
‘What are you sorry about?’ said Chopra. He knelt down beside Ganesha. ‘Ignore those old crones, boy,’ he muttered. ‘They have nothing better to do. No
w… we are going on a trip. Come on.’
It took quite a bit of coaxing to get Ganesha to his feet, and in the end both Chopra and Bahadur had to tug on the chain around the little elephant’s neck.
It was no easy task. A baby elephant, even one as frail as Ganesha, weighed in excess of two hundred kilos. However, once he was on his feet, the elephant seemed resigned to his fate. He followed Chopra without protest, plodding along behind him with downcast eyes, trunk dangling listlessly, looking for all the world like a convicted prisoner being escorted to begin his sentence.
The walk proved to be quite eventful. It had been many years since Chopra had had to patrol the beat, but he still maintained a network of contacts throughout the area. This was the real secret of good police work, he knew. He had been lucky in having an able deputy like Rangwalla who, having grown up on the streets himself, understood instinctively the value of an army of watching eyes and listening ears that could be called upon when needed. Of course, it was a two-way arrangement.
It was an unwritten rule of the city that no one did anything for anyone else in Mumbai without asking for something in return. It was not a rule that Chopra was always comfortable with, but he was a practical man. In order to achieve the greatest good, he was willing to occasionally pay informants for information, or allow some minor indiscretion to pass unnoticed. But there was a line he would not cross. And that was what set him apart from many of his colleagues.
A recent Central Bureau of Investigation report had once again confirmed that the Mumbai police force was only marginally less corrupt than the Inland Revenue Service. The report had caused quite a stir and more than a little embarrassment for Chopra’s seniors. But it was a matter of fact. Instead of being embarrassed, his seniors should be enraged, he felt. Instead, they had done what they always did and accused the whistleblowers of a conspiracy.