A Curious Indian Cadaver

by Shamini Flint

  “Is it dangerous here?”

  Tyler grinned, exposing orthodontically perfect teeth. “No, not really. But we manufacture a lot of chemical substances.”

  “What was Ashu’s role?”

  “She worked in our research lab.”

  “So what did you mean – about getting her hands dirty?”

  “I’ll give you an example. I went into the lab once. Someone had spilt coffee. No one bothered to wipe it up because that wasn’t their job – they were waiting for the cleaner. There were track marks up and down the floor. The place looked like a pigsty.”

  “Ashu?”

  “She was late that day. First thing she did was get a bucket and a mop and clean up the mess…”

  “And that’s unusual?”

  “Unheard of.”

  Tyler added unexpectedly, “It’s a real pity that she’s gone and done this. She was a good kid.”

  It was the first human emotion other than anger and disgust the man had shown and Singh warmed to him slightly.

  “Any inkling that this was going to happen?”

  “You’re asking me if I knew Tara Singh’s granddaughter was going to kill herself?”

  Singh grimaced. It was a fair retort.

  “What was her relationship with her co-workers?”

  “How would I know?”

  “She seemed happy?”

  “Yes, actually she did. Whenever I saw her about the place she seemed to be in pretty good spirits.”

  Singh rubbed his eyes tiredly. He’d been in the car for almost two hours to get here and there didn’t seem to be any treasure trove of information to be found. Ashu Kaur had been a cheerful and willing employee – great. Hardly a boost to theories of murder or suicide. Was there a way to get accidentally doused in kerosene?

  “Are there personnel files?” he asked at last.

  “Yes, but we have hundreds of employees.”

  “Just Ashu’s and immediate co-workers will do to begin with.”

  “And mine?” asked Tyler snidely.

  “And yours, yes,” and was rewarded by the American appearing suddenly discomfited.

  The boss shouted for his secretary who turned out to be a plump woman robed in a neat cotton sari who was introduced as Mrs. Bannerjee and agreed, after shooting a look of pure curiosity at the inspector, to access the online files for him.

  ♦

  “Does this death change anything?” Jaswant the Canadian was glum, his elbows on the table and his chin cupped in one hand. He stared at the window panes with the peacock design but it was clear he was not admiring the art.

  “Why should it?” asked Tanvir roughly.

  “I don’t know – she was your sister! Are you all right?”

  “She was my sister. What do you expect me to say?”

  “I heard you identified the body.” Jaswant sounded uncomfortable at the proximity of death which was ironic in the circumstances.

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Look, man – we can wait for another opportunity.”

  The other man turned on him like a feral beast. “Don’t be ridiculous!”

  “We can’t afford any mistakes.”

  Did Jaswant think that he was so weak? “Look, Ashu brought dishonour on the family and that I cannot forgive. She died for me when she did that – not when I identified the body.”

  “What in the guru’s name are you going on about, man?”

  “It doesn’t concern you.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. Anything that could jeopardise this deal is of enormous importance to me.”

  “All you need to know is that the death of my sister will not sway me from our purpose.”

  Tanvir leaned forward and sipped his Diet Coke through a straw, debating whether to say anything else to his friend. Enough of the truth to satisfy him but not sufficient to worry him or scare him off. It was a fine line indeed.

  “Are the police involved?” demanded Jaswant.

  “No, no. Why should they be? She killed herself – end of story.”

  “That’s what they believe?”

  Tanvir nodded firmly, the turban making his gesture emphatic. “Why – have you heard anything different?”

  “I’m new in town – do you think I have any idea what’s going on? It just seems like they’ve made up their minds pretty quickly.”

  “This is India, not Canada,” said Tanvir. “The police are not going to look for trouble.”

  “And your grandfather is satisfied with this explanation?”

  “Yes,” he answered, not meeting the other man’s eyes. It was true that Tara Baba had not asked the police to look any further into the matter, happy to agree with their suicide theory. “I don’t want them stomping all over my granddaughter’s memory with their big boots,” he’d said. But he’d asked that pest of a policeman from Singapore to investigate the death and that had been an unanticipated turn of events.

  Tanvir felt his face flush with anger when he remembered his grandfather’s order that he cooperate with the policeman. Well, he’d stood the fat cop up instead. Unlike his younger brother who responded to every command as if it was a dog whistle. One of these days he would get up the courage to ask his mother whether she’d played his father false in the production of Ranjit. It was hard to find any other explanation for a creature who bore so faint an imprint from the family genetic stamp.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Jaswant, looking at the other man with concern.

  “Nothing,” said Tanvir and he meant it. The fat copper’s attempts to investigate would be derisory at best. He was just looking for a reason to extend his stay at the Taj. Tanvir would bet that policemen’s salaries in Singapore didn’t allow for such luxuries. Tara Baba, a man famous for his keen eye for character, was growing old and losing his judgment. And he, Tanvir Singh, had nothing to worry about from this half-baked investigation. The important thing was that the body had been found. There would be no city-wide manhunt for a missing girl. The urgency of any investigation into the death predicated on the whim of his grandfather would be minimal. The police were not interested – the self-serving bastards recognised a hot potato when they saw one. Tara Baba would soon come around to the view that Ashu had killed herself.

  He rapped the table with his knuckles. “We have nothing to be concerned about and no reason to amend our plans.”

  ♦

  Singh sat in front of a screen glumly, occasionally scrolling down with one grubby finger on a key. He hated computers. He especially hated information presented to him in such an impersonal way. There was no human touch here. Whatever opinions might have been found scribbled in the margins of a hard copy were nowhere to be found online. There were only facts; facts about age, date of birth, family, education and attendance at work but not a single hint as to the character of the individuals who worked in the lab at Bharat Chemicals. Even the digital photos were low resolution and failed to capture any essence of personality. He looked at the one of Ashu Kaur and compared it in his mind’s eye with the picture on the mantelpiece in her apartment. In this photo, there wasn’t that hint of stubbornness in the set of the chin or the rebellious sparkle in the eye. Perhaps he’d imagined it all, he decided glumly, and Ashu Kaur was just a melodramatic youngster who’d killed herself to avoid an undesirable marriage. ACP Patel’s Juliet although Romeo hadn’t put in an appearance yet.

  “Such a terrible thing about young Ashu,” said Mrs. Bannerjee, who had been watching Singh’s growing unhappiness with an empathetic expression and now dabbed her eyes with a fistful of tissue paper to indicate a solidarity of emotion.

  He looked up morosely. “Yes, a terrible thing.”

  “Is it true that she used kerosene?”

  He nodded wearily, wishing that he was not in conversation with this bright-eyed voyeur but reluctant to turn back to the PC.

  “I cannot imagine why she might be doing such a thing,” she continued. “Not even for one single moment.”

 
The emphasis roused the inspector from his stupor.

  He sat up straight and looked at Mrs. Bannerjee, noting the neat black hair parted in the middle and pulled back into a round shiny bun threaded through with small white fragrant flowers.

  “Yes,” he said, feeling his way. “Especially when she was just about to be married.”

  The red lips of Mrs. Bannerjee pursed shut. He had been too direct.

  “And she enjoyed her job, I understand?”

  “Very much,” exclaimed Mrs. Bannerjee. “Always the first one in and last one out. So busy all the time!”

  “I see,” said Singh, who didn’t see at all but was now trying to keep the conversation with this mysterious woman going.

  “So she worked long hours?”

  “Yes, but also did slum work.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Helped out next door – did some first aid and medical things like that.” Her nose wrinkled in disapproval. “Not good for a young girl, I said to her, but Ashu was quite the stubborn one sometimes.”

  “I guess she had a good heart.”

  “Very good heart,” agreed Mrs. Bannerjee. “And so worried about those people, you know?”

  Singh didn’t know – he was still being led by the hand in the dark as far as this woman’s hints and allegations were concerned.

  “Did she seem upset recently?”

  “Well, very angry with the boss earlier this week,” said Mrs. Bannerjee.

  “The boss? You mean Tyler?”

  “Who else would I be meaning excepting John Tyler Junior?”

  “How do you know she was angry?”

  “Lot of shouting in his office. I didn’t listen, of course.”

  “Didn’t you?”

  “Actually, couldn’t hear very much because door is closed.”

  “But you think it had something to do with the slum next door?”

  She nodded so vigorously that a few petals fell off the flowers in her hair. “Just before door is closing, I heard her say something about their health.”

  “Maybe she thought the factory was too close to it,” he suggested, remembering what Tyler had said.

  “Could be. Anyway, Ashu is coming out of the room with face like sky during monsoons. And boss is shouting – you just remember to keep your mouth shut!”

  “Now that is very interesting,” agreed Singh, wondering what could have set the two at loggerheads and why Tyler had not seen fit to mention it. “Which day was that exactly?”

  Mrs. Bannerjee made a show of consulting her desktop calendar and muttering to herself in an undertone.

  At last she said, “Three days ago.”

  “But that…” Singh trailed off. He’d been about to point out that the date coincided with the date of Ashu’s disappearance but he didn’t want to add inches to Mrs. Bannerjee’s gossip column.

  “Wasn’t she supposed to be off work already?”

  There was a chubby shrug and he feared that the sari blouse would give way at the seams. “She didn’t stay long.”

  “Do you know if she told anyone else what was bothering her?”

  “No idea, Sardarji. But if she did it would be to her verrry good friend here.”

  “Her verrry good friend?” asked Singh and then gave himself a mental slap for parroting her accent. It was certainly catching. “Who was that then?”

  “Sameer Khan, of course,” she said with an air of astonishment at his apparent ignorance. And it was true that he was nowhere in the investigative stakes compared to this gift-wrapped creature with her ear to every door and her eye at every keyhole. He was too nice in his methods, decided Singh. He needed to steal a page from this woman’s manual on poking her nose into other persons’ affairs.

  “This Sameer Khan works here?”

  “Also stayed very late sometimes. Lot of work in the lab, I am telling you.”

  Singh’s stubby fingers became almost efficient as he pulled up the records of this Sameer Khan. A black and white photo of a young man stared at him truculently from the screen.

  “Is this young man at work today?”

  “Yes, very upset you understand about the loss of a colleague but still here.”

  In a few moments, the real life version of the photo was also staring at him truculently although this edition had a black eye, a deep cut to his chin and a rainbow of bruises. A fighter, apparently.

  “Sameer Khan?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “What happened to your face?”

  “Slipped in the shower.”

  Singh shrugged off the terse responses and said, “We need to chat.”

  “Why? What do you want?”

  “To talk about Ashu Kaur.”

  “I have nothing to say,” he insisted although the bruising around his eye darkened as his pallor increased.

  “You knew Ashu?” he asked.

  A quick shrug. “She worked here.”

  “Tara Singh asked me to look into the matter of her death. I just need to ask you a few questions.”

  If he’d hoped that Tara Singh’s name would operate its usual magic, he was disappointed.

  “That old fool,” snapped Sameer.

  There was a sudden collective intake of breath from the other young men in white coats around the lab but the irate young man did not notice or, more likely, did not care.

  “Don’t you see that it’s too late?” continued Sameer.

  It was disappointing to be in a profession where he was always too late, realised Singh. In at the death, not before.

  “Too late to save her – not too late to find out what happened.”

  Sameer hesitated and Singh pressed home his advantage. “Don’t you want to know? I do!”

  “Follow me,” said the other man. Singh hurried after, feeling mildly resentful of the long-limbed stride and youth of the man in front. Sameer Khan looked like a doctor from one of those hospital dramas, the one whom all the nurses were in love with and who always saved the critically ill patient at the eleventh hour. Singh was more like that television doctor fellow with the cane and the surly attitude.

  Sameer led the way to a small room that smelt heavily of smoke. Someone, thought Singh wistfully, had been using it as a private place for a cigarette.

  “So, what do you want to know?”

  “You knew Ashu well?”

  “Quite well,” he said non-committally.

  “I heard that you and she liked to work late together…”

  “That spying old woman, Mrs. Bannerjee, I suppose?”

  Singh wasn’t going to rat out his source. He lowered himself into a chair and felt it give slightly under his weight. He paused for a moment to ensure its structural integrity and then pointed to the chair opposite invitingly. “Why don’t you sit down and tell me everything you know,” he suggested in a mild tone, like a kindly governess.

  “How can I trust you? You work for Tara Singh!”

  “Tara Singh asked me to look into Ashu’s death. However, I’m not in his pay” – unless you counted the luxury hotel but Singh decided not to mention that – “and I am not here to protect anyone. Just to find the truth.”

  “Where’re you from?”

  “I’m a policeman from Singapore and a distant relative by marriage to Ashu’s family,” replied Singh.

  “I’ve been there – most boring place in the world, I think,” said Sameer.

  Singh grinned. This was a different opinion from that of the American boss.

  “What are you doing in India anyway?”

  “My wife dragged me here for Ashu’s wedding.”

  At this piece of information, the young man buried his face in his hands. Singh stood up and wandered over to the window to give the fellow a chance to gather himself. To his immense pleasure, there was an old Ambassador, ivory white and in tiptop condition on the main road. The iconic car wasn’t quite extinct in Mumbai yet.

  “Tell me about you and Ashu,” he suggested. He suspec
ted he already knew quite a lot about the couple from the bloodshot eyes and aggressive manner of the chemist.

  He was met with a defiant gaze. “I loved her.”

  So the innuendo of Mrs. Bannerjee, greeted by Singh with some cynicism, was rooted in the truth. But had it been mutual? Was this the reason for the sudden stark choice made by the girl?

  “I believe you,” said Singh. “How did she feel about you?”

  Sameer sat up straighter and looked down his long nose at the inspector. “I believe our feelings were mutual. I wanted to marry her,” he said.

  It might even be true, thought Singh. “And when she was forced to marry the MBA, she killed herself rather than go through with it?”

  A simple answer, after all, and the one that he’d suspected from the moment he’d found out about her disappearance. It was not difficult to see why a young girl might kill herself over the romantic young hero sitting across from him.

  “I can’t believe that,” said Sameer.

  “The family has no doubt it was suicide.” This was a slight exaggeration as Tara Singh had certainly been reluctant to believe such a thing.

  “They would say that, wouldn’t they?”

  Singh had to admire the creature. He was a wonderful Bronte-style hero with his swept-back dark hair, restless eyes and chiselled bones. Not Romeo, Heathcliff.

  “She said that she couldn’t marry me, could never marry me…she seemed resigned to going through with the wedding. There was no reason for her to do this thing.”

  “Whaddaya mean?” asked Singh, unconsciously mimicking the tone of the American boss. “Why couldn’t she marry you?” He wondered whether the fellow was already married.

  “I’m a Moslem,” he answered.

  “So?” asked Singh.

  Parallel lines appeared on Sameer’s forehead. “She said it would break her mother’s – and her grandfather’s – heart if she married someone of another religion, especially a Moslem.” He smiled suddenly. “We’re not that popular in the marriage market for non-Moslems, I’m afraid.”

  “Was she so loyal to her family?”

  “She loved her mother. And she believed that she owed Tara Singh because he rescued the family when the father died.” He looked up. “You heard about that?”