by Tarquin Hall
“Anyone can verify?”
Kasliwal looked torn by the suggestion. “Puri-ji, that could be awkward,” he said hesitantly.
The detective referred to the list compiled by Mrs. Kasliwal of everyone who was supposed to have been in the house at the time of Mary’s disappearance.
“What about your driver, Munnalal? He was with you?”
“He dropped me at the address, yes.”
“I’d like to talk with him.”
“I’m afraid one month back, he got drunk and abusive, so I fired him.”
“You know his address?”
“No, but he’s round about. I pass him in one of those new Land Cruisers from time to time. Must be working for another family. I doubt it will be difficult to track him down.”
The detective checked his watch. It was already four o’clock.
“By God, where does the time go? I’d better get a move on, actually,” he said.
Kasliwal saw him to do the door.
As they shook hands, Puri asked, “Sir, is your wife aware?”
“Of what? Munnalal’s address? Possibly I can ask her.”
“I was referring to your like of spicy food.”
Kasliwal raised a knowing eyebrow and replied, “I never bring home takeout.”
After he left the High Court, Puri asked Handbrake to take him to a hole-in-the-wall cash dispenser, where he took out a wad of new hundred-rupee notes.
Their next stop was Jaipur’s Central Records Office, where the detective wanted to check if any unidentified bodies had been discovered in Jaipur around the time of Mary’s disappearance.
The building matched the blueprint for most Indian government structures of the post-1947 socialist era: a big, uninspiring block of crumbling, low-quality concrete with rows of air-conditioning units covered in pigeon excrement jutting from the windows.
At the entrance stood a walk-through metal detector that looked like a high school science project. Made out of chipboard and hooked up to an old car battery, it beeped every ten seconds irrespective of whether anyone passed through it.
The foyer beyond was dark with a half-dead potted plant on either side of the lift and several panels hanging precariously from the false ceiling. Two busybody male receptionists sat at a wooden desk cluttered with rotary-dial telephones and visitors’ logbooks. A sign on the wall behind them read:
FOLLOWING VIPS ONLY MAY ENTER
WITHOUT SECURITY CHECK:
PRESIDENT OF REPUBLIC OF INDIA
PRIME MINISTER OF REPUBLIC OF INDIA
CHIEF MINISTERS
MEMBERS OF LOK SABHA
MEMBERS OF RAJYA SABHA
FOREIGN HEAD OF STATE
FORMER FOREIGN HEAD OF STATE FOREIGN AMBASSADOR (ORDINARY DIPLOMATS
NOT EXEMPT NOR AIDES)
DALAI LAMA (RETINUE NOT EXEMPT)
DISTRICT COMMISSIONER
STRICTLY NO SPITTING
Puri did not have an appointment and, since he could not lay claim to being any of the above, had to part with a few minutes of his time and three of his new hundred-rupee notes.
Thus armed with the requisite entry chit, all properly signed and rubber-stamped, the detective made his way up the stairs (the lift was undergoing construction), passing walls streaked with red paan spit and fire buckets full of sand and cigarette and bidi butts.
On the fourth floor, little men with oiled hair wearing the semiofficial uniform of the Indian bureaucratic peon—grey polyester pant suits with permanent creases, and black shoes—made their way up and down the corridor. Coming face-to-face with the sheer size of the Indian bureaucracy never failed to amaze Puri. The system still employed hundreds of thousands of people and, despite the recent rise of the private sector, it remained the career of choice for the vast majority of the educated population.
Puri doubted this would change any time soon. India’s love of red tape could be traced back centuries before the British. The Maurya Empire, India’s first centralized power, which was founded around 2300 BC and stretched across most of the north of the subcontinent, had had a thriving bureaucracy. It had been a uniting force, implementing the rule of law and bringing stability. But now, the endemic corruption in India’s administration was severely hampering the country’s development.
Room 428 was near the far end of the corridor. As he strode purposefully inside, Puri took his fake Delhi police officer badge from his wallet, adopting the role of Special Commissioner Krishan Murti, Delhi Crime Branch. At the counter where all requests for records had to be made, he told the clerk that he wanted to see the file for unclaimed bodies found in Jaipur in August.
“Make it fast,” he said.
“Sir, request must be made. Procedure is there. Two days minimum,” replied the clerk.
At that moment, Puri’s phone rang. He had preprogrammed the alarm to go off thirty seconds after he’d entered the office. He pretended to answer it.
“Murti this side,” he said, pausing as if to listen to a voice on the other end of the line. He allowed his eyes to widen. “Bloody bastard!” he bellowed. “What is this delay? Where are my results?”
The clerk behind the counter watched him with growing unease.
“Don’t give me damn excuses, maaderchod! I want results and I want them yesterday! Top priority! I’m answering directly to the home minister himself. The man doesn’t take no for an answer and neither do I! If I don’t see action within one hour, you’ll be doing traffic duty in Patna!”
Puri hung up the phone, muttered “Bloody bastard” and turned on the clerk.
“What were you saying? Something about two days minimum, huh?”
“Yes, sir.” The clerk quivered.
“What bullshit! Get me the incharge. Right away. No delay!” bawled the detective, thoroughly enjoying himself. Oh, how he loved watching bureaucratic types squirm!
Puri was ushered into a partitioned cubicle, the domain of C. P. Verma, whose seniority was denoted by the fact that he wore a jacket and tie.
“I want the record for unidentified bodies discovered in August,” Puri told the bureaucrat, who had stood up. “It’s of national importance. Top priority.”
C. P. Verma, who had overheard the exchange between the desk clerk and Puri, hadn’t risen through the ranks without learning how to respond to authority and recognizing when to jump.
“Of course, sir! Right away, sir!” He called for his secretary, who swiftly presented himself in front of his boss’s desk. C. P. Verma ordered the man to bring him the file, his tone no less abrupt than Puri’s. “Jaldi karo! Do it fast!” he added for good measure, his face contorted with displeasure.
The secretary scampered off to dispense orders of his own to the subordinates ranked below him. The incharge’s expression melted into an unctuous smile.
“Sir, you’ll take tea?”
The detective brushed away his offer with a motion of his hand, busying himself with his phone.
“Just get me the file,” he said flatly, pretending to make another phone call, this time to his assistant, whom he accused of mismatching a set of fingerprints.
Less than five minutes later, the secretary returned with the file. Puri snatched it out of his hands and began searching through the pages. Nine unidentified bodies had been discovered in Jaipur in August alone. Of these, two were children, both suffocated and dumped in a ditch; four were hit-and-run victims found dead on the sides of various roads; one was an old man who fell down a manhole and drowned (he was not discovered for a month); another was a teenager whose headless torso turned up one morning on the railway tracks.
The ninth was a young woman.
Her naked body had been found on the side of the Ajmer Road on August 22.
According to the coroner’s report, she had been raped and brutally murdered and her hands had been hacked off.
A grainy, out-of-focus photograph showed extensive bruising around her face.
“Why only one photograph?” Puri asked C. P. Verma.
“Sir, budget restrictions.” It was evidently a phrase he was used to parroting.
“What happened to this woman’s body?”
“Sir, it was held in Sawai Mansingh Hospital for the requisite twenty-four hours, and after no claim was made upon it, cremation was done.”
“Give me a photocopy of this report and the photo, also.”
“Sir, I’ll need authorization.” He ventured a smile.
“Authorization is there!” shouted Puri, showing him his badge. “Don’t do obstruction!”
Within a matter of minutes, the photocopies were in Puri’s hands.
C. P. Verma saw the detective to the door personally.
“Sir, anything else from me?” he asked.
“Nothing,” snapped Puri as he left.
“Thank you, sir. Most welcome, sir,” C. P. Verma found himself saying to the detective’s back.
The incharge then returned to his cubicle, pleased with himself for having assisted such a highly ranked detective. He was even more senior than the other investigating officer Rajendra Singh Shekhawat, who had asked to see the same file the day before.
Eight
Ajay Kasliwal couldn’t tell whether the girl in the coroner’s photograph was Mary.
“So much of bruising is there,” said the lawyer, grimacing at the image when Puri showed it to him in the evening.
Mrs. Kasliwal studied it for a few seconds and then said in a tone that might have been born of caution or confusion, “These people look so much alike.”
“You can make out any distinguishing marks?” the detective pressed her.
“How should I know?” she answered brusquely.
Puri decided to show the photograph to the servants and asked that they be brought into the sitting room one by one.
Bablu, the cook, came first. A fat, greasy-faced Punjabi with bloated fingers, he gave the photocopy a cursory glance, said, yes, it could be Mary and then returned to his kitchen. Jaya, the shy girl who’d answered the front door for the detective in the morning, was next. She held the piece of paper with trembling hands, looked at the image, squealed and closed her eyes. Puri asked her if she recognized the girl, but she just stared back at him with wide, frightened eyes.
“Answer him,” Mrs. Kasliwal instructed.
“Yes, madam…I…I…,” Jaya said, her eyes darting between the Kasliwals and Puri.
“Don’t be afraid,” urged Puri gently. “Just tell me what you think.”
“I don’t…couldn’t…say, sir,” she said after further coaxing. “It…well, it could be…Mary, but then…”
Puri took back the picture and Jaya was dismissed.
Kamat, cook’s assistant, was equally nervous and no clearer on whether the woman in the photograph was his former co-worker. But he seemed remarkably unmoved by the shocking nature of the image and, with a shrug, handed it back to the detective.
That left the mali.
Mrs. Kasliwal would not allow him to enter the house, so he had to be brought to the kitchen door, which opened into the back garden.
The gardener was evidently stoned and stood there with a silly grin and dopey eyes, swaying from side to side in time with a tune he was humming to himself.
Puri handed him the photograph and he stared at it for thirty seconds with his head moving back and forth like a rooster’s.
“Do you recognize her?” he asked.
“Maybe, maybe not,” replied the mali. “My eyesight is not what it used to be.”
All this went to confirm why Puri rarely bothered asking servants—or most people, for that matter—direct questions. Getting at the truth, unearthing all the little secrets that people buried deep down, required a subtler approach.
Which was why, later that evening, the detective made a few phone calls to Delhi, putting into motion the next stage of his investigation.
The detective spent the night in one of the guest rooms in his client's house Raj Kasliwal Bhavan and, after breakfast, announced his intention to return to Delhi.
Ajay Kasliwal looked taken aback by this news. “But, Puri-ji, you just got here,” he said.
“Don’t have tension, sir,” the detective assured him. “Vish Puri never fails.”
Soon, he and Handbrake were on the highway to Delhi, traveling at a legal and responsible speed that was not of the driver’s choosing and certainly not to his liking.
By now, Handbrake was burning with curiosity about the detective’s latest case. The servants at the house had been talking about little else and the driver had been privy to their theories. Subzi-wallah had told him that the lawyer Sahib had many lady friends and he had got Mary pregnant and had sent her away with a payoff. The cook had whispered that the mali, whom he hated, had raped the maidservant, killed her and buried the body under the spinach. And the Muslim who sold carrot halva on the pavement had been adamant that the girl had fallen in love with a fellow Muslim, converted to Islam and, consequently, been abducted by her family and murdered.
Puri smiled when Handbrake related all this to him.
“Did they ask about me?”
“All of them, Boss.”
“And what did you tell them?”
The driver looked suddenly unsure of himself. “I told them that…you are…that you are an…idiot, Boss.”
Puri looked pleased. “You told everyone?”
“Yes, just like you asked me to. I said that you forget everything from one day to the next because you are a drunkard and you spend all your mornings sleeping.”
“Excellent! Very good work!” said Puri.
Handbrake grinned, grateful for the compliment. But he was still confused by Puri’s motive. It showed clearly in his expression.
“Vish Puri’s third rule of detective work is to always make all suspects believe you are a fool,” explained the detective. “That way they are caught unawares.”
“What is the second rule, Boss?”
“Pay no attention to gossip.”
“What is the first?”
“That I will tell you when you are ready.”
With that, Puri lay back against the seat and went to sleep. He did not wake until they reached the halfway point and Handbrake pulled into the Doo Doo Rest Raunt and Rest Stop car park.
The detective went into the air-conditioned dining room, where he sat at a clean table and enjoyed a cup of chai served in a china cup by a waiter.
Handbrake, meanwhile, went to the open-air dhaba, where he sat among the flies and the truck and bus drivers, and the same tea was served in clay cups.
Puri had good reason for returning to Delhi: he had received a summons. Not the sort of summons issued by the courts (although he had been handed more than his fair share); this was from a potential client, a man whom the detective could not ignore or put off, a childhood hero no less.
Brigadier Bagga Kapoor, retired, was a decorated veteran of the 1965 Pakistan war. He had commanded a tank battalion during the legendary advance over the Ichhogil Canal, which marked the western border with India. In September of that year, he and his men destroyed eighteen enemy tanks, coming within range of Lahore International Airport. When his own tank was hit by enemy fire and two of his men were killed, Brigadier Kapoor pulled his unconscious gunner from the burning vehicle and carried him to safety. For this action, he was awarded the Ati Vishisht Seva Medal.
Puri had never had the pleasure of meeting the legendary Brigadier, although he’d heard him lecture at the Indian Military Academy in Dehradun in 1975. Naturally, he was thrilled at the opportunity to be of service to the great man. But when Brigadier Kapoor had telephoned Most Private Investigators the day before and spoken to Elizabeth Rani, he had not specified the nature of the case. He’d simply left instructions for Puri to meet him in Lodhi Gardens at four in the afternoon.
“I tried telling him that you are out-of-station, but he insisted,” Elizabeth Rani told Puri on the phone while he was still in Jaipur. “He also asked that you must go alone.�
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The detective stopped off at home in time for lunch to discover that Mummy had been trying to find witnesses to the shooting in the neighborhood. According to Rumpi, she had spent all of yesterday and most of this morning knocking on doors.
“By God!” exclaimed Puri angrily. “I told her not to get involved! Why she always insists on doing such interference I ask you?”
“She’s just trying to help,” said Rumpi as she and Malika prepared rajma chawal for lunch. “Shouldn’t you be out there doing the same—asking people what they saw?”
“My dear, I’m totally capable of running my investigations. Already I’ve got my own people doing the needful.”
This was true: Tubelight and one of his boys had been making discreet inquiries in the neighborhood since yesterday; so far, though, they had come up with nothing.
“Mummy will only make a mess of things and put people on guard. It could be dangerous, also. Detective work is not child’s play. Now, please, when Mummy returns from doing her chitchat, tell her I want a word tonight. She’s to stop this nonsense.”
After lunch Puri drove to his office, caught up with the latest developments in the other cases on his books, which included some run-of-the-mill matrimonial investigations, and then drove the short distance to Lodhi Gardens.
The car park at the Prithviraj Road entrance was full of Hindustan Ambassadors with official license plates and red emergency lights on their roofs—just some of the thousands of courtesy cars assigned to India’s senior babus, judges and politicians for conducting the business of the state. These days that included taking wives and their lapdogs for their afternoon walks, or so the ruling bureaucratic elite had come to believe.
Puri crossed the Athpula Bridge and followed the path through the gardens. He passed lawns where families sat enjoying picnics, groups of young men played cricket with tennis balls and toy sellers hawked balloons and kazoos. Cheeky chipmunks darted between the boughs of trees, and long-tailed green parakeets with red beaks perched in branches overhead, shrieking noisily. The detective passed an old man practicing his yoga exercises, breathing alarmingly heavily through his nostrils; and a bench half hidden between the bushes where two young sweethearts sat stealing furtive kisses.