‘Give me your torch, Swarna!’ commanded Heera. She shone it on the object. ‘What a silly thing you are! How can you think the hanger was a knife, honestly!’
‘Heera, conscience calls. Aren’t you going to ring about the old lady?’ warned Durga.
Eileen was suspicious. ‘What old lady?’
‘Ignore her. She’s just winding us all up again.’ Heera turned urgently to Durga. ‘If I ring now, my plan will be ruined. The thief won’t show up if there’s a police car outside.’
Durga was insistent. ‘You wouldn’t leave your old Aunty Buddi Mai like that, now would you, Heera?’
Swarnakumari quavered. ‘Police car? What are you talking about?’
‘I suppose you’re right. I’ll ring,’ agreed Heera.
She moved towards the telephone, and in the silence there was the sound of the unlocking of the shop door; the bell tinkled. The four women looked at each other in tacit agreement as Heera grabbed the torch and led them to the curtain. They saw a man bending over a box, and Heera moved forward with her torch as the others followed fearfully. The man turned, and Swarnakumari panicked, grabbed a saucepan and hit him on the head. As he tried to escape, there was the sound of something tearing, he tripped over an object in the centre of the room and there was a crash as he hit the floor. Heera switched on the lights.
‘Well done, Swarna! Knocked him out! Your Guru Ma would be proud of you,’ she cried.
Swarnakumari responded shakily, pleased. ‘Really? But I hit one person only. How come two are there now? Heera, Durga, tell me. I hit one person, na? This same person. But why is he lying on top of this old lady?’
Durga explained, ‘Two lovers with a single death wish.’
‘What to do with this girl! Durga, do not tease me. I do not understand anything at all. Tell me first, are there two thieves or only one?’
‘Look, the young man you knocked out is the thief. The old lady is dead. She’s been dead for some time. Why they ended up in a passionate clinch on the floor is a long, long story. But anyway, well done, that was a nifty little blow you gave him,’ said Durga.
‘But …’
‘Seriously, great job, Swarna. And look, you’ve ripped his jeans, too!’
Swarnakumari was bewildered. ‘God and Guru Ma save me, eita ki hochche? What is happening?’
‘Shouldn’t we see who he is? C’mon, help me!’ ordered Heera.
Heera and Eileen heaved him over as Swarnakumari looked on in horror, and Durga peered down at him. ‘Young bloke, seen him before. Wait a minute, there’s no need to call in the police just yet. Do you know who we’ve got here?’
‘W-W-Who?’ asked Swarnakumari.
‘You’ll never guess – it’s Lady Di’s son!’ announced Durga.
‘What?’ Heera yelled.
‘It’s Lady Di’s son,’ repeated Durga.
Swarnakumari asked in hushed tones, ‘Are you sure?’
‘This Hugh Grant wannabe hangs about near the Mill pub at the river after school. He’s in the Sixth Form. I know a student who is a friend of his,’ replied Durga. ‘What? Don’t you believe me? Can’t you see the spitting resemblance to his mother?’
‘But how did he get in? We heard the sound of the key turning, didn’t we?’ asked Heera.
‘His mother’s, of course,’ deduced Eileen.
‘Anyway, terrific initiative, Swarna. You can explain to Lady Di you killed him in self-defence,’ said Durga.
‘What are you saying? Oh God, save me, how was I to know …’
Durga relented. ‘I was only teasing, Swarna. You’ve only knocked him out, that’s all. Serves him right.’
‘He’s breathing,’ said Eileen.
‘Oh, what a big scare I got, and my heart is beating so fast! Durga, you frightened me, but I forgive you. I am wondering, why does a boy from such a good family steal from this charity shop?’
‘Drugs,’ said Durga.
‘Drugs?’ Swarnakumari was speechless. ‘But why? Must be these English boarding schools. Children are lonely without their parents, na. And by the time they are seventeen, eighteen, they have picked up all the bad habits. Smoking, drinking …’
‘Wild sex.’
‘All right – yes, Durga, that also. But you know, I am thinking now I know why Mrs Wellington-Smythe must be worried about this naughty boy. Now I know why she is looking upset all the time.’
‘Perhaps he’s only a harmless modern-day Samuel Coleridge – the poet was a colourful character in his undergraduate days at Jesus College, you know. Ran up a pile of debts, and had to leave.’
Heera thundered, ‘What are you two on about? Don’t you realise what this means, girls? We’ve caught the thief, and he’s her son, of all people. Can you imagine her face when she sees it’s her own little samosa?’ She paused triumphantly. ‘Girls, girls, oh what sweet revenge, what a day this has been!’
‘Could he be wearing something he’s stolen from the shop?’ speculated Eileen.
Heera and Eileen inspected the young man while Swarnakumari paced the floor.
‘Does this striped shirt look familiar to you, Durga?’ asked Heera.
‘Yes, it’s a Paul Smith.’
Swarnakumari fretted, ‘Such a good, aristocratic family, and poor boy, no one to give him proper guidance. If the parents are too busy, or not caring about the problem, at least there should be grandparents like in our Indian families, na, to advise this poor boy.’
‘Do you have any idea how many young Asians do drugs?’ asked Durga.
‘Hanh?’
‘And how many Asian parents deny the problem exists?’
‘Girls, girls, we have caught the thief, and it’s Lady Di’s son. That’s all that matters,’ Heera reminded them.
‘Will he return my reading glasses?’ asked Swarnakumari hopefully.
‘Come here, girls, I’m dialling Lady Di’s number. Now just watch the fun.’ They gathered near the till.
‘Daina?’ Heera said quickly, deliberately mispronouncing her employer’s first name to dispense with protocol. ‘Heera here – you know, you call me Helen – from the shop again. Yes, I’m sorry to disturb you …No, I didn’t know you had important guests for dinner, but you told me to ring you …Yes, I will ring Sue Carter in the evenings from now on. Yes, I have her number …Yes, this is an emergency. You told me to call you about the burglary, and well, I now know who it is, and we have also caught him. He is right here in the shop …Yes, of course I can do that, but I think you should accompany the thief to the police station yourself along with the police.’
Heera was oblivious of the frantic signals from Swarnakumari and Durga as the young man raised himself in a daze and bolted out of the door, leaving it ajar. ‘If you are there, who knows, maybe the Evening News will want a photograph of you.’ She smiled, satisfied. ‘You are coming in twenty minutes? Yes, I’ll wait …Yes, actually we’re all still here. It’s past closing time, you know, it’s nearly six o’clock …Yes, everything is under control, I am waiting in the shop for you …We are waiting, goodbye!’
‘Heera, he’s gone,’ said Swarnakumari.
Heera looked in disbelief at the empty space on the floor. ‘Oh my God! Gone! How could he just get up and run off like that? Swarna, you’re useless. I thought you gave him a nasty blow, but I should’ve guessed, naturally you wouldn’t do it properly. Why didn’t you stop him? Durga, why didn’t you stop him?’
Swarnakumari was relieved. ‘Baba, now what has happened has happened. It was good I didn’t hurt him, na. After all, it is no less than the son of Mrs Wellington-Smythe. Guru Ma says violence …’
Heera raged. ‘Pardon my language, but to hell with your Guru Ma, is she going to help us now? No. So, what are we going to do?’
‘God will give us the strength to find the way,’ said Eileen calmly.
Swarnakumari agreed, ‘Yes, be calm, be calm. While you are thinking about what you are going to say to Mrs Wellington-Smythe, I am just going to wash my hands, hanh.�
��
‘What d’you mean? You’re not going anywhere, Swarna. No handwashing allowed. You stay right here. I’m not doing this alone. Let’s think about what we are going to say to her. We’re in this together, and we’re all going to wait for her to arrive. We were so close – we were this close to catching him.’ Heera stepped on a set of keys. ‘What’s this? Keys to the shop? They must be the ones he took from his mother, and they dropped out of his pocket when he fell. Girls, now we have proof it was him. Arre, watch the fun when Lady Di arrives. She will have a lot of explaining to do.’
‘But do you not think that Mrs Wellington-Smythe might say you stole her keys from her? How can you prove it was her boy?’ asked Swarnakumari.
‘You’re right.’ Heera was crestfallen.
‘For once,’ said Durga.
‘What are we going to do?’ despaired Heera.
Durga prodded, ‘What are we going to do about the old lady?’
Heera and Durga heaved the body back onto the wheelchair. The handbag on the corpse fell open and a mirror and a pair of gloves tumbled to the floor.
‘Swarna, gloves! Do you want them for sorting the bags?’ cried Durga.
As she spoke, a man entered through the open door. ‘Evenin’. Sorry I’m late,’ he said. ‘Traffic on Milton Road’s shocking tonight. Got to collect a wheelchair for the Arthur Rank Hospice.’
Swarnakumari, Heera and Eileen froze, but Durga straightened and moved forward. ‘Oh, there you are. She’s been waiting for you.’ She bent over the old lady solicitously. ‘Haven’t you, angel? Off you go, my dear. Now, take good care of yourself where you’re going. Goodbye!’ She turned to the man. ‘She’s all yours.’
‘Got orders to pick up a wheelchair,’ repeated the man, perplexed.
‘A wheelchair. Yes, with her in it. She’s taking a nap, the old dear. She’s been travelling back and forth such a lot lately, poor thing. Let me help you wheel her out, that’s it. Could you hold the door open for me? Easy does it …Right. Goodbye.’
‘Wait, take her crutches too,’ said Eileen, handing them abruptly to the man.
‘Yes,’ agreed Durga. ‘Wouldn’t want to leave them behind, would we?’
Still perplexed, the man left with the elderly lady in the wheelchair, the crutches placed neatly across her lap.
Swarnakumari spoke slowly. ‘My heart is beating very fast, baba. What is all this happening? I need to sit down. Where did the young man go? Where did the old lady go? Where did this other man go?’
‘Oh no, I forgot to tell the man the brake on the wheelchair isn’t working. That was why some eediot had donated it to us in the first place,’ lamented Heera.
‘And I forgot to get my cardigan back,’ added Durga regretfully.
Heera fumed, ‘Forget the bloody cardigan. Lady Di will be here any minute. Girls, what are we going to do?’
The shop bell tinkled again, and before their worried eyes, the Cambridge Evening News photographer entered. ‘Hiya, Cambridge Evening News again. How are the four lovely ladies? Got a call from your boss. She’s coming down here. Had a lot of excitement lately, haven’t yer? Where’s the bloke you caught?’
Durga moved forward again. ‘It frequently happens that the signifier slips and evades the grasp of the signified in a poststructuralist site of unintentional fallacy. It must be remembered that we live in a society of simulacrum, free of connection to reality. One should therefore desist from further discourse.’
‘Er …’ mumbled the photographer, lost.
‘Hang on, what’s this?’ she exclaimed as she spotted an object lying on the floor, and scooped it into her hands. ‘A wallet. Whose?’
‘Maybe a customer lost it?’ suggested Swarnakumari.
‘There’s only one way to find out,’ advised Eileen.
Durga flicked it open and paused for dramatic effect. ‘We’ve got the proof although we don’t have the pudding.’
‘Talk straight!’ commanded Heera.
‘Is this a hanger I see before me? Nay, behold, ’tis the purse of the noble lord.’
Heera spluttered, ‘You mean …? Oh my God, this is brilliant. Brilliant. It must have fallen, but how? When Swarna ripped his jeans? Oh my God. Yes!’
‘Good “back pocket” job on the trousers, Swarna,’ applauded Durga. ‘Your people in Kolkata would be proud of you.’
Swarnakumari looked pleased. ‘Really? You, and Mallika, you young girls are clever, but I am no less, na. But I still do not understand what is going on. First that young man falls on that poor lady, and then another man takes her away in the wheelchair. Who are these men?’
‘Rivals, both, for her love,’ quipped Durga.
‘What a story I will have to tell Mallika and Your Uncle. He has already been in the shop today, and so much has happened, na. How is he going to believe that so much more happened in one single day? Actually I still do not understand what happened, but anyway … Oh, I am so late! I have to make the dinner.’ Swarnakumari paused. ‘Never mind, they should wait this time, na?’ she added, with a smile in Durga’s direction.
Durga smiled back. She had a sudden thought, speaking decisively to the photographer. ‘Mrs Wellington-Smythe would surely wish to capture this for posterity, since this is the moment we found proof of the thief’s identity and guilt. We’re ready for our photograph.’ She mimicked the photographer’s earlier instructions. ‘We’ll pose here, right under the shop sign IndiaNeed. Brilliant.’
When the phone rang, Heera hesitated. It finally hiccuped into silence as her mobile phone took over.
Durga urged, ‘Heera, come on, in the centre, that’s it. Now, why don’t you three lovely ladies display something that doesn’t belong to the shop? Ah, that’s it, the wallet. Could you hold it up so Mr Photographer can get a good close-up?’
Mesmerised by her authoritative tone, the photographer clicked obediently.
‘Did you get it, love? Now another one of the four of us. C’mon Swarna, heroine of the hour, c’mon Heera, Eileen, we can do better than that. We are the “Cambridge Curry Club”. United we stand, though we may fall or fail. Right – we’re ready.’ They posed, beaming at the camera.
The photographer clicked again to the accompaniment of a thunderous crash upstairs. A shower of golden dust sprayed the group, followed by another and yet another, until they stood choking and gasping, ghostly apparitions – victims of DIY floor lamination.
A large, jagged hole had formed in the ceiling of the charity shop. As they gazed upwards in mute horror, a fresh mound of rubble fell through, knocking the wallet out of Heera’s hand and burying it beneath a pile of bricks and dust. A tousled head appeared directly above, and a Yorkshire-accented voice said cheerily, ‘Eh oop! Sorry about that. Everyone down there all reet?’
The shop was plunged into darkness.
Epilogue
SIX WEEKS LATER, spangled golden Christmas lights winked at the thronging shoppers in the city centre as the Salvation Army band struck up a carol outside Lion’s Yard. Not far away, Mill Road carried its own festive look; bunting, miniature Christmas trees and snowmen decorated the shop windows, but the bookbinder was closed; Wright, the elderly owner, had an inflamed knee. The wistful blonde florist turned contemplative; the boyfriend had not proposed, but there was always next year. The grocers Veejay had artfully placed mulled wine sachets above the coriander and ginger. A brand-new pizza and kebab takeaway called Bytes4U was proving popular with the residents; a special promotion offered a large pizza at £9.99 with free fries and a Coke and a red-and-white candy stick that said Xmas Xtra. Its predecessor, IndiaNeed, could never have offered such inducements, and had humbly surrendered to the takeaway’s gleaming ovens, chrome counters and sunshine teenagers in perky caps and aprons.
Swarnakumari and Mr Chatterjee were away, holidaying in Kolkata over Christmas. Their sudden decision to leave Cambridge could be traced to Mr Banerjee’s brush with fate in early November. He had been walking along Queen Edith’s Way on a Sunday afternoon
in the fading light, admiring flowering winter jasmine in a passing garden when a sharp object was thrust into his back, and a voice commanded him to hand over his money without turning round. Banerjee froze before removing his wallet containing a pound in change and a smiling photograph of Heinz and Madhumita, and turned. The next moment he lay on the ground, writhing, as his attacker fled. A resident sounded the alarm, but Banerjee lay unconscious until the ambulance arrived. The young thug sped away, cursing as he found the meagre coins, flinging the wallet into thick shrubbery at the junction of the road. Unknown to Banerjee, the worn Indian leather wallet and the smiling photograph of Heinz and Madhumita were to nestle for several years among the leaves, along with an abandoned packet of salt and vinegar crisps, unnoticed by the human eye.
It was difficult to ascertain whether it was Banerjee or Mr Chatterjee who was left more shaken by the incident. But for an urgent letter to be written to the City Council complaining about a faulty streetlamp on Newton Square, Mr Chatterjee would have been Banerjee’s companion on Sunday’s fateful walk. Mr Chatterjee lay sleepless as tortured thoughts encircled his pillow; would the assailant have attacked two elderly men on a walk, or only one? Would the thug have targeted him more brutally than Banerjee for not carrying his wallet at all, and would he have been left to bleed, a cracked skull, life ebbing on the Cambridge pavement of a Neighbourhood Watch street?
Madhumita, Banerjee’s daughter, was tearfully apologetic. She would have flown out immediately, but their schedules were ‘real tough’; neither she nor Heinz had leave for the rest of the year. Mr Chatterjee had pursed his lips silently at the thought of the ketchup clown, although Banerjee was more understanding. Heinz was going to buy a new car next summer and the couple had planned a holiday to Europe, he explained. Banerjee was simply too blind to see how foolish it was to rely on offspring to sweeten old age, thought Mr Chatterjee with sudden insight. Children were like the books he borrowed from the Rock Road Library: to be kept only for a limited period. He nevertheless viewed Mallika’s application to Stanford on the recommendation of her supervisors with anxiety; in geographical location, it was dangerously close to San Ramon.
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