by Tarquin Hall
Brigadier Kapoor was already waiting for Puri on the steps of the Sheesh Gumbad mausoleum, checking his watch impatiently and looking none too pleased that the detective was three minutes late. The war hero was a year short of eighty and his big military moustache, sideburns and correspondingly bushy eyebrows had turned white. Nonetheless, he was still remarkably fit. In American sneakers, socks drawn up to his knees, khaki shorts and a woolly ski hat, he was dressed for exercise.
“Puri, I’ve heard good things about you,” said Brigadier Kapoor, who had attended Dehradun and Sandhurst and spoke with an accent that reminded Puri of bygone days.
“It’s a great honor, sir,” replied the detective with a salute, then a handshake.
“I do brisk walking for forty-five minutes every day at four o’clock without fail,” said Brigadier Kapoor, who carried a military baton with an ivory handle tucked between his chest and the upper part of his left arm. “We’ll talk along the way.”
Puri was hardly dressed for brisk walking; as usual, he was wearing a safari suit and Sandown cap. But without further ado, the older man set off along on the jogging circuit at three times the pace of the detective’s usual gait.
“I need you for something, Puri,” said Brigadier Kapoor, sounding as if he might ask him to parachute behind enemy lines. “I don’t have to tell you it’s for your eyes only.”
“Understood, sir.”
“It’s my granddaughter, Tisca.” They passed some copses of giant bamboo, which arched forty feet above them. “She’s to be married in two months. There’s a big wedding planned here in Delhi. I was introduced to the boy two days ago. Mahinder Gupta’s his name. He won’t do. He won’t do at all!”
The detective groaned inwardly. He had hoped that Brigadier Kapoor was going to offer him more challenging work than another matrimonial. But he still managed to sound interested. “I understand, sir.”
“I blame my son, Puri,” continued Brigadier Kapoor as they approached the footbridge that led to Mohammed Shah’s tomb. “He’s never been a good judge of character. His wife’s even worse. Hopeless woman.”
By now, Puri had broken into a sweat and had to wipe his brow with his handkerchief.
“What sort of family the boy is from?” asked Puri.
“They do commerce; they’re Guptas. Bania caste.”
“So this boy’s occupied in the family business, is it?”
“He’s working at some place called BPO. You’ve heard of it?”
“BPO stands for Business Process Outsourcing. Such companies operate call centers and all.”
“I see,” said Brigadier Kapoor with a frown that suggested Puri’s explanation did not make things any clearer to him.
“There’s anything specific you have against this boy?” asked the detective.
“He’s not a man, Puri. He hasn’t served his country.”
The detective was developing a stitch in his left side. The direction of their conversation was also making him feel uncomfortable. Matrimonial investigations had become his bread and butter (he often dealt with several a week), but usually his clients came to him seeking reassurance about a prospective bride or groom. Brigadier Kapoor, by contrast, had it in for the boy and wanted to scupper the wedding.
Unfortunately, turning the case away was out of the question. The detective could not say no to a man of such stature; to do so would damage his own reputation.
“What else can you tell me, sir?” panted Puri, growing ever shorter of breath.
“The boy has spent a good deal of time in Dubai. God knows what he could have got up to there. The place is a hotbed of Jihadists, Pak spies, dons—every kind of shady character.”
“He’s here in Delhi these days, sir?”
“I believe so. Plays a lot of golf. Shoots four under par—or so they say.”
Much to Puri’s relief, they got stuck behind three overweight society women in Chanel sunglasses, sun visors and unflattering leggings, and had to slow down.
Brigadier Kapoor soon lost patience and barked at the women to give way. With a collective tut, they moved to one side of the path and he marched past them, muttering to himself.
“Sir, tell me,” said Puri, struggling to catch up again. “Your granddaughter’s what age exactly?”
“Thirty-four or thereabouts.” His tone betrayed not a hint of embarrassment, but she was ancient to be getting married.
“And the boy’s age, sir?”
“Three years her junior.”
“Sir, it’s the first time Tisca’s getting engaged?”
“That’s not the point, Puri,” said Brigadier Kapoor sharply. “I want to know about this Gupta boy.”
The two men passed Sikander Lodhi’s tomb and reached the car park, where Rumpi’s rajma chawal was threatening to make another appearance.
“Sir, with your permission, I’ll take my leaves,” said Puri somewhat sheepishly.
Brigadier Kapoor looked unimpressed. “As you like, Puri,” he said. “I’ll have my file on Mahinder Gupta sent over to your office tomorrow morning. Report back to me within a week. Get me all the dirt on him. I’ll take care of the rest.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And get yourself in shape, man,” chided Brigadier Kapoor, wagging his baton. “At your age I used to run five miles every day before breakfast.”
“Yes, sir.”
Before the detective could mention his fee and explain his usual policy of a down payment for expenses, his new client marched off with his arms pumping like pistons, as if he was charging an enemy position.
Puri waited until he was out of sight and then sat down on a wall to catch his breath and wipe his brow.
“By God, thirty-four,” he said to himself, shaking his head from side to side disapprovingly. “Well past her sell-by date. Off the shelf, in fact.”
At home that evening, Mummy was waiting for Puri in the sitting room.
“Chubby, I’ve something most important to tell you. One big development is there,” she said.
“Mummy-ji, if it’s about the shooting, please save your breath,” he said, as he went through the motion of bending down to touch her feet but only reaching the halfway point.
“Chubby, you must listen, na. It’s most important. One servant boy—”
“Sorry, Mummy-ji, but I won’t listen,” interrupted the detective. “I told you before, you’re not to do investigation. It’s not a mummy’s role, actually. You’ll only make things more complicated. Now please, I respectfully request you not to go sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”
“But, Chubby, I—”
“No, Mummy-ji, that is final, no discussion. Now, I’m going to wash and take rest.”
Puri went upstairs, leaving Mummy on her own in the sitting room to think things over.
Chubby had inherited his father’s pride and stubbornness, she reflected. Om Chander Puri, too, had always been adamant that she should stay out of his investigations. Only on a few occasions, when he’d been completely stumped by a case, had he deigned to discuss the details with her. Although, each time, she’d been able to help him unravel the clues, he’d never been able to bring himself to openly acknowledge her assistance. Similarly, when Mummy had had one of her dreams, Om Chander Puri had rarely taken heed of them.
As a wife, Mummy had always felt compelled to obey her husband. But as a mother, she did not feel constrained to ignore her natural instincts—especially now that her son was in grave danger.
Graver than he knew.
That morning, Mummy had met a young servant boy called Kishan, who worked in house number 23, a few doors down. When she’d asked him if he’d seen anything suspicious on the day of the shooting, he’d looked panicked and blurted out, “I was nowhere near the back of the house!”
“What happened at the back of the house?”
“Nothing!”
“How do you know if you weren’t there?”
Eventually, after being plied with a couple of Big Fe
ast ice creams having been assured of Mummy’s trustworthiness, Kishan admitted that he had been behind the Puris’ home at the time of the shooting.
“What were you doing there?” Mummy had asked.
“Um, well, Auntie I…” he’d replied, looking embarrassed.
“Let us say you went to the market to buy milk and took the long way back,” Mummy had suggested helpfully.
“Yes, exactly. I’d forgotten.”
“What did you see?”
“I was behind a wall waiting for…um, well…”
“You had to do toilet?”
“Yes, that’s right and, well, I heard the shots. They sounded like firecrackers. Then two minutes later, I saw a man hurrying out of that building site.”
Kishan had caught only a fleeting glimpse of the man’s face. But there had been something distinct about him.
“He was wearing red boots.”
Upon hearing this, Mummy had instructed Kishan not to mention what he’d seen to another soul. It was the kind of information that could get someone killed.
Chubby of all people would understand the significance of the red boots if only he would listen to her. But for now she would have to carry on with the investigation on her own.
“I’ll show him mummies are not good for nothing,” she told herself.
Nine
Few men failed to notice the young peasant woman walking down Ramgarh Road three mornings after Puri left Jaipur. Her bright cotton sari might have been of the cheapest quality and tied jauntily in the style of a laborer, but it did justice to the firm, shapely body beneath. The demure manner in which she wore her dupatta over her head—the edge gripped between her teeth and one tantalizing, kohlrimmed eye staring out from her dark features—only added to her allure.
The more lecherous of the men she passed called out lustily.
“I will be the plow and you my field!” bawled a fat-gutted tonga-wallah from the front of his horse-drawn cart.
Farther on, two laborers painting white lines on the concrete divider in the middle of the road stopped their work to stare and make lewd sucking noises. “Come and be my saddle! You will find me a perfect fit!” cried one.
The Muslim cobbler who sat on the corner surrounded by heels and soles, gooey pots of gum and a collection of hammers and needles was more discreet. But he could not take his eyes off her ample bosom or the flash of alluring midriff beneath her blouse. Thoughts passed through his head that, as a married man blessed with three healthy sons, he knew he would have to ask Allah to forgive.
Despite her coy embarrassment, the young woman understood the licentious and perfidious nature of men only too well. She ignored their comments and stares, continuing along the uneven pavement with her small bag toward the entrance to Raj Kasliwal Bhavan. There, just beyond the gate, she spotted a mali crouched on the edge of one of the flower beds, a scythe lying idle by his side. His clothes were old and tatty and he went barefoot. But his pure white hair was a biblical affair. It began like the crest of a wave, sweeping back from his forehead and cascading down around his ears in a waterfall of licks and curls, before finally breaking into a wild, plunge pool of a beard.
The mali was staring into space with a dreamy, far-off expression, which at first the young woman assumed was a manifestation of old age. Drawing nearer and smelling distinctive sweet smoke trailing up from the hand-rolled cigarette, she realized that his placid state was self-induced.
“Namashkar, baba,” she greeted him from a few feet away.
The old man stirred from his reverie and, as his drowsy eyes focused on the vision in front of him, his mouth broadened into a wide, contented grin.
“Ah, you have come, my child,” he said, drawing his beard through one hand. “Good. I have been waiting.”
“We know each other, baba?” asked the woman with a bemused frown, her voice deeper than her youthful looks suggested.
“No, but I have seen you in my dreams!”
“I’m sure you have!” she mocked.
“Why not come and sit with me?” he suggested.
“Baba! If I wanted a corpse I would go to the graveyard!”
Her pluckiness caused the mali to laugh. “Spend a little time with me, my child, and I will show you that I am no corpse!”
“I have no time, baba. I must find work. Is there any available here?”
He patted his thighs. “There is work for you here!”
“Enough, baba. I am no grave robber! I was told Memsahib is hiring.”
“Memsahib is always hiring. She demands hard hours and pays little. No one stays for long.”
“But you are here.”
“Yes, I am content. I have a roof over my head and I can grow everything I need. What I don’t smoke, I sell. But for you there is no charge. Make me feel young again and I will give you as much as you like for free.”
“Later, baba!” she said impatiently. “I have mouths to feed.”
“What kind of work can you do?” he asked, sounding doubtful.
“Baba! Are you the sahib of the house? Are you the one to ask the questions? I’ll have you know that I can do many things. I can clean, do laundry and cook. I even know ironing.”
The mali took another drag of his joint and gently exhaled, the smoke dribbling from his nose and trailing up his face.
“Yes, I can see that you have been many things,” he said.
His words caused the woman to chuckle, but the true reason was lost on the mali.
“A lady in the market told me Memsahib is looking for a maidservant,” she said.
“The last disappeared a few months ago.”
“What happened to her?”
“She was murdered.”
“How do you know?”
“I know.”
“Who did it?”
“It could have been one of many men.”
“She had lovers?”
The mali laughed again. “That one was known as the ‘Little Pony,’” he continued. “There can’t have been a man in Rajasthan who hadn’t ridden her! I took my turn! So did the driver, the subzi-wallah, Sahib—”
“Sahib?” interrupted the woman with alarm.
“You sound surprised?”
“I’ve heard it said he’s a good man,” she added quickly.
“People are not all that they seem. Whenever Memsahib was away, Sahib would knock on the Little Pony’s door. He made a feast of her on many nights! You could hear them from miles away. But it wasn’t the sahib who killed her.”
“How do you know?”
“He was not here when she disappeared.”
“Then who is the murderer, baba?”
The mali shrugged and drew the last from his joint, dropping the still-smoking end into the flower bed. The woman turned away from him and looked up at the house.
“Where should I ask for work?” she asked.
“At the back. Go to the kitchen door.”
She started up the drive.
“Wait! You didn’t tell me your name,” called the mali, admiring the way her silver anklets jangled around her slim, brown ankles.
“Seema!” she shouted over her shoulder without stopping.
“I will be dreaming of you, Seema!”
“I’m sure you will, baba!”
Seema made her way up the sun-dappled driveway and along the right side of the whitewashed villa. A redbrick pathway led through flower beds planted with marigolds and verbena. Beyond, where the path led behind the house, finches gathered around a stale roti, chirping as if catching up on local news.
She reached the door of the kitchen and pulled out the letter of recommendation she had been carrying tucked into her waist. It was from a senior bureaucrat and his wife in Delhi, Mr. and Mrs. Kohli, and stated in English that Seema had worked for them for three years. They had found her “to be an employee of the highest reliability, honesty, loyalty and integrity, also.” The letter bore Mrs. Kohli’s phone number. Prospective employers were welcome to cal
l her and ask for further details.
Seema’s knock was answered by the cook’s assistant, Kamat, who, judging by the wisp of hair on his upper lip, was not a day over fifteen. He was carrying a knife with which he’d been chopping ginger. Kamat in turn called the cook, Bablu, whose thick, wide nose flared when he frowned.
“Where are you from?” he asked, drying his hands on a cloth and eyeing her suspiciously.
Seema was careful to strike just the right tone when she answered—not too shy, but not overly confident either. She said, “Sir, my village is in Himachal.”
Seema knew that everyone preferred servants from the hills; they were considered more reliable and trustworthy than those from the plains of the Hindi belt. Furthermore, hill people were not traditionally rag pickers, so they were allowed to handle food.
“What can you do?” asked Bablu.
Seema listed her skills and some of her work experience.
“Wait there,” said the cook, snatching the letter out of her hand and shutting the door in her face.
Seema anticipated a long wait and it was nearly thirty minutes before the door opened again. This time it was Madam who appeared. Her hair was piled up on her head and covered in a thick, green mud; she was having it dyed with henna.
“You are married?” Mrs. Kasliwal asked Seema, looking her up and down.
“No, madam.”
“Why not?”
“My father doesn’t have the dowry.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-six.”
Madam handed Seema’s letter back to her.
“I made a call to Delhi,” said Mrs. Kasliwal, without elaborating on her conversation with Mrs. Kohli. “I need one laundry-cum-cleaner maidservant. Can you start right away?”
Seema nodded.
“The pay is three hundred per month with meals. You must be live-in.”
The amount was below the market rate, especially for a live-in position, which meant a seven-day week.
“Madam, that is low,” stated Seema, eyeing the woman’s diamond wedding ring and her matching earrings, which were worth several lakh rupees. “I want five hundred.”