The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra

by Vaseem Khan

  Chopra did not know what else to say. He was completely out of his depth. ‘Look, there is something I must do now,’ he said finally. ‘After that, we will talk.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ shouted Poppy. ‘Back to that hussy?’

  ‘You have no idea what you are saying,’ said Chopra softly. Then he turned and left the apartment.

  Sub-Inspector Rangwalla had had a bad week. The departure of Inspector Chopra and the arrival of his new commanding officer had placed a great strain upon both his time and his patience. And the fact that his new CO was proving to be an odd bird, the very antithesis of Chopra, a man Rangwalla had both admired and learned from, was all the more galling.

  Rangwalla was a man who prided himself on his ability to thrive in any environment. He had worked too long in Mumbai to be fazed by a man like Inspector Suryavansh; and yet there were limits even to his tolerance. The inspector’s drinking had not bothered him; he knew other officers who drank themselves into a stupor each evening but were nevertheless very capable policemen. Neither did the inspector’s intimidating manner bother him–he knew many men who liked to throw their weight around; he could deal with that type of personality. No, the straw that had broken the camel’s back as far as Rangwalla was concerned had occurred that very morning, when, on only his third day at the station, the good inspector had ordered Rangwalla to close the file on the Kotak case.

  The Kotak case was close to Sub-Inspector Rangwalla’s heart.

  Sunil Kotak’s business card stated that he was a property developer. In Rangwalla’s opinion it should have stated that the man was a born crook.

  Over the past year Kotak had managed to gain control, through underhand means, of an apartment complex in Sahar populated almost exclusively by Muslim families. As soon as Kotak felt confident of his position he had issued an eviction notice against the tenants. It seemed that he had made a deal to sell the land to a foreign developer who intended to create a boutique department store on the site. Kotak stood to make millions. The families, poor ones, had little recourse. They had no money to fight a legal case or to relocate to similar accommodation elsewhere… and so they had come to Rangwalla.

  Rangwalla knew a number of the families there on a personal basis. In fact, his first cousin Jamil lived there with his wife, five young children and his elderly parents, Rangwalla’s aunt and uncle.

  For eight months Rangwalla had conducted an investigation into Kotak, with Chopra’s blessing. Slowly but surely he had made progress, gathering evidence that could have put the unscrupulous developer behind bars, thus bringing the whole deal to a grinding halt.

  And then, that morning, Kotak had come in and spent two hours with Suryavansh. He had left with Suryavansh’s arm around his shoulders, the pair of them laughing and joking as if they had been best friends their whole lives.

  An hour later Suryavansh had summoned Rangwalla to his office. Without ceremony he had ordered him to close the Kotak file, and stop bothering the man. Rangwalla’s protests had fallen on deaf ears.

  When the phone rang Rangwalla was still in a foul mood. ‘Who is it?’ he barked. But his mood instantly brightened as he heard Chopra’s familiar voice.

  ‘Rangwalla, I need your help,’ said Chopra. ‘But it is something you will have to keep from Inspector Suryavansh. Will you help me?’

  It did not take Rangwalla long to make up his mind.

  A RAID ON THE WATERFRONT

  When Rangwalla arrived in the blue police truck, Chopra was waiting for him in the courtyard of Poomalai Apartments, Ganesha by his side.

  ‘Lower the tailgate,’ ordered Chopra.

  Rangwalla looked from his old boss to the little elephant and said, ‘Is this why you wanted me to bring the truck, sir?’

  Chopra nodded. ‘You will have to trust me on this, Rangwalla.’

  Rangwalla shrugged. He had respected Chopra’s judgment for twenty years. He was not about to start questioning it now.

  He dropped the truck’s tailgate. Chopra led Ganesha into the back of the truck. Suddenly, a dark shape rose up from the rear seating, startling both man and elephant.

  Chopra regarded the sweating figure of Constable Surat.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked in astonishment.

  ‘Sir, I overheard Rangwalla Sir talking to you, and asked to come along.’

  ‘I told you to come alone,’ frowned Chopra, turning to Rangwalla.

  ‘I know, sir. Sorry, sir. I couldn’t stop him.’

  ‘Please, sir,’ begged Constable Surat, ‘let me come with you! I won’t let you down.’

  ‘I have no doubt of that, Surat. But this could be very dangerous. I do not want you to get hurt.’

  ‘I am not afraid, sir.’

  Chopra considered the plump young man, then shook his head. ‘My instincts tell me to send you back to the station. But I don’t suppose that you would listen to me anyway.’ He turned and climbed out of the truck, then got into the driver’s cab with Rangwalla.

  ‘Where are we going, sir?’

  ‘To Versova,’ said Chopra.

  By the time they reached the fishing village the sun had set. Darkness shrouded the maze of narrow lanes. The residents of the village watched from their porches with interest as the police truck nosed its way towards the beach. Rangwalla parked the truck on the concrete apron overlooking the beach. Chopra got out and looked along the wooden jetty.

  The trawler was still moored in the same spot. Chopra guessed that either they did not yet know that he had survived the attentions of the two departed goons, or they were so arrogant that they simply did not believe that he would be foolish enough to raise the alarm. After all, they had all but killed him once; the next time they would be more thorough.

  He could see no one on the boat’s deck. ‘Did you bring the gun?’ he asked Rangwalla.

  Rangwalla handed him the service revolver. Chopra checked the chamber, then ordered Rangwalla and Surat to follow him. Ganesha, who had been let out of the truck, trotted a few steps along the wooden jetty and then stopped. His trunk crinkled as the odour of drying fish swept over him.

  The three men clambered aboard the trawler. Chopra heard the sound of water lapping gently against the boat’s hull. The door to the wheelhouse swung open and a man sauntered out onto the deck. He stretched his arms into a yawn, then scratched at his groin. From behind him the sound of a Bollywood dance number drifted out into the warm night air. The man turned, and came face to face with Chopra.

  ‘Wh—?’ he began, but Chopra cut him off by hitting him on the head with the butt of his revolver. The man fell back against the side of the boat, then flopped forward onto his stomach. A trickle of blood dribbled from his skull and onto the deck. Chopra bent down and put a finger to the man’s neck. The pulse was strong.

  He stood and went through the door.

  The passage was as he remembered it, with doors leading off it on both right and left. The left door led to the wheelhouse. He signalled to Rangwalla and Surat. Right door. Then, counting to three under his breath, he kicked in the door and charged into the room, Rangwalla and Surat close behind him.

  There were two men in the room, sitting at the small table that Chopra had seen before. A bottle of unlabelled whisky sat on the table, surrounded by playing cards and two neat piles of cigarettes. From the cot in the corner a portable CD player bellowed out music. Everything else seemed exactly as he remembered: the bucket and fishing nets in the corner; the pillar in the room’s centre to which he had been trussed.

  ‘Stand up,’ said Chopra, pointing his gun at the two goons who were staring at him in open-mouthed astonishment. The men exchanged looks, then slowly got to their feet. ‘Surat, take their weapons.’

  Constable Surat lowered his rifle and slung it over his shoulder. He quickly frisked the two men, uncovering two pistols.

  ‘Now,’ said Chopra, ‘I want you to take me to them.’

  One of the goons, a bearded man with a nose that appeared to have b
een crushed at some time in the past, narrowed his eyes. ‘Take you to who?’ he said, his voice a growl.

  Chopra walked forward and put the muzzle of his revolver next to the man’s temple. ‘If I have to tell you again, it will be too late, do you understand?’

  The man stared into Chopra’s eyes. Sweat beaded on his forehead. Then he blinked. ‘OK, OK.’

  He led them out of the room, and through another door at the end of the connecting passage. That door opened onto a spiral staircase leading down into the belly of the trawler. The policemen followed the two thugs down into the darkness.

  On the lower floor they found themselves in a narrow passageway, lit only by a single lantern. The smell of mould wafted from the walls. They clattered along the corridor and stopped outside a door. Chopra could hear the low keening sound coming from inside that he had heard when he had last been on the boat. The room behind the door was directly below the one in which he had been imprisoned.

  ‘Open the door,’ he ordered. The goon lifted a set of keys from a hook by the side of the door. Suddenly, the keys fell from his hand. The goon bent down to retrieve them; his hands fumbled at his ankle… and then he erupted from his crouched position with a snarl, the blade of a knife flashing in his fist. Before Chopra had time to react he had buried the knife into the upper part of Constable Surat’s chest.

  There was a loud bang.

  The goon fell back against the wall. He clutched his belly and slid down onto the floor.

  Chopra turned.

  Smoke curled from the tip of Rangwalla’s revolver. The sub-inspector’s eyes were shrouded in darkness. His arm swung around to cover the second goon, whose eyes were wide with shock.

  Chopra turned to Surat, who was doing his best to stay upright. His hand was gripped around the hilt of the knife. Chopra could see blood leaking out from between the constable’s fingers. ‘Let me have a look,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t worry about me, sir,’ said Surat weakly. ‘I’m all right.’

  Chopra gently prised the constable’s fingers from the knife. It had entered the fleshy area between the front of the shoulder and the upper pectoral muscle.

  ‘You’re a very lucky young man,’ said Chopra, relief washing over him. ‘It could have been much worse.’

  Surat gave him a sickly grin.

  ‘Rangwalla, get the medical kit from the van.’

  ‘Really, sir, it is no bother for me,’ trembled Surat, blinking the sweat from his eyes. He was swaying on his feet.

  Chopra helped Surat to sit, taking care to cover the second thug with his revolver as he did so.

  They waited while Rangwalla fetched the kit.

  Minutes passed as the sub-inspector doused the wound with antiseptic, then applied a patch. ‘It’s not critical,’ he said. ‘You’ll live, Surat.’ He tapped the constable on the shoulder, a reassuring gesture.

  Chopra bent down to the thug who had been shot. The man’s eyes had closed and his hands lay lifelessly in his lap. His head lolled forward onto his chest. Blood had pooled between his thighs. He looked like a drunk taking a rest in an alleyway. Chopra placed two fingers at the man’s neck, waited. Then he stood up, and turned to the other goon.

  ‘Now, open the door.’

  The goon bent down, picked up the keys and, with shaking hands, opened the door.

  Chopra went in.

  It was a good-sized space, lit by an oil lantern that threw shadows over everything. In the room, sitting on the floor with their backs against the walls, were eight adolescent boys. They were shackled together. Manacles ran from their ankles to iron loops embedded in the floor. The low keening sound was coming from the boys; a chorus of despair expressed without words. As Chopra stepped forward into the room, some of them lifted their heads and looked up at him. He could see the confusion, the deep misery, etched on their faces. And something else, too. Hopelessness. Resignation. They did not expect anyone to come for them. They did not believe in miracles.

  ‘What is this?’ said Rangwalla, looking around the room with narrowed eyes.

  ‘This?’ said Chopra. ‘This is evidence of the evil men are capable of.’

  He looked at the goon. ‘Where are the keys to their chains?’

  The man held up the ring of keys with which he had opened the door.

  ‘Unchain them.’

  One by one the boys were released from their manacles. They rubbed their ankles and wrists, but did not rise from the floor. Chopra turned to Rangwalla. ‘I want you to call Inspector Chedda at the Versova station. Explain what you have discovered. Tell him to send a team here. He will know what to do.’

  ‘Sir,’ said Rangwalla, ‘what if Chedda is…?’

  ‘I know,’ said Chopra. ‘But it is a chance we have to take. If Nayak has bought himself protection, then it will be more difficult. But this is not something that can be hidden. Not any more.’

  He turned back to the goon. ‘Now… where is Nayak?’

  CHOPRA CONFRONTS KALA NAYAK

  The truck rumbled through the night-time city, past the trendy bars and the dhabas; past the sleeping beggars and the urchins; past the handcart-wallahs supine on their carts; past the ladies bars disgorging their woozy and satisfied clientele; past the call centres operating on foreign time; past the cows lying down by the side of the road; past the glitter-eyed pye-dogs prowling the empty streets, masters once again, if only for a few short hours, of their ancient dominion.

  Occasionally Chopra would glance in the rear-view mirror. In the back of the truck, Ganesha stood quietly, wreathed in shadow. Now and again, a passing streetlamp would throw a burst of light over the little elephant’s eyes and he would blink and his trunk would twitch.

  Thirty minutes later Chopra arrived at the bungalow of Arun Jaitley, aka Kala Nayak. The rain had begun to fall. It clattered on the metal lid of the boot, and splattered the windscreen with big, heavy droplets. Rain swirled in the beams from the headlights.

  For a full two minutes he sat in the truck, just watching the rain and the swishing wipers. A dog raced down the road, stopped in the headlights, shook out its sodden fur, then ran on. In the open gutters rats squealed, borne along by the sudden torrent.

  Chopra thought about everything that had happened. He realised that when he had retired, something essential to his survival had been taken from him. It was something more than his identity as a policeman. It was the exhilaration of piecing together a puzzle; it was the quiet feeling of satisfaction from knowing that justice had been served and that he had been a small instrument in the serving of that justice. He knew now that whether he wore a uniform or not he would always be driven to pursue justice, a notion that he cherished like a precious flame within him.

  He got out of the truck. He walked to the rear and lowered the tailgate. Ganesha trotted down the ramp and into the rain. The little elephant’s ears flapped as raindrops bounced off his hide.

  Chopra walked to the gate of Nayak’s mansion. He peered through the curlicued ironwork and saw that beneath the awning of the guard hut the security guard was sitting with a white-liveried chauffeur in a peaked cap. Both men were smoking cigarettes and peering out at the rain. A glass of tea steamed in the chauffeur’s hand.

  ‘Open the gate,’ ordered Chopra.

  Rain drummed off the awning, rat-a-tat-tat, rat-a-tat-tat. The guard rose from his stool and squinted at Chopra through the bars of the gate. He did not seem to recognise him from the previous day. ‘What do you want, sahib?’

  ‘Official police business,’ said Chopra gruffly. ‘I have come for Nayak.’

  Instantly, the guard’s face took on a frightened, owlish aspect. He gave a quick telltale look to the driver, who had lowered his glass of tea. ‘Sahib, there is no Nayak here. This is the bungalow of Arun Jaitley Sahib.’

  ‘Open the gate,’ said Chopra.

  The driver looked along the road to where the police truck waited, its beams like two spikes in the darkness.

  ‘I am sorry, sahib. But you ha
ve the wrong place.’

  Chopra regarded the man’s face. He could read the fear. The guard was caught between incurring the wrath of his brutal master and the possibly even more brutal wrath of the police.

  Chopra turned and walked away into the darkness. The guard watched him melt into the rain, then returned to his seat under the awning. He picked up his cigarette with shaky fingers. He turned to the driver, to ask his opinion…

  And then, out of the swirling rain, came a dark, lumbering shape. With a brief trumpet Ganesha steamed into the gates, knocking them from their hinges. The left half of the gate clanged onto the gravel of the driveway, while the right section spun away and struck the guard, who fell to the ground in a dazed heap.

  The chauffeur had sprung up from his seat. For a moment he stood there, his mouth flapping open, the glass of tea still in his hand. Then he threw the glass at Ganesha. Turning tail, he ran into the rain, towards the side of the bungalow, the little elephant in hot pursuit.

  Chopra walked along the driveway, his feet crunching on gravel. His clothes were soaked; he blinked as water dripped from his hair onto his eyelashes.

  The house was set back some way from the gate, behind an ornate cement fountain. The rain had swelled the water in the fountain’s basin and it gurgled loudly as it threatened to overflow. Behind the fountain, a number of expensive cars were parked, including the white Mercedes.

  Chopra looked up at the house. The façade of the mansion was lined with expensive granite tiles. The large sash windows were rectangles of yellow in the darkened exterior. But he could see nothing moving behind them.

  He ascended the marbled steps that led onto the bungalow’s front porch. Above him the rain drummed loudly on the porch roof. The front door was open. A servant was framed in the doorway, standing there watching the rain. Chopra raised his weapon. ‘Go. Now.’ The serving woman stared at him goggle-eyed, then hitched up her sari and splashed off down the drive.