“Yes, he was killed in the riots after Indira Gandhi was shot.”
“He brought them up, paid for their education, got her this job – but most of all she knew that the old fool really cared about her.”
“And he would have been upset if she’d agreed to marry you?”
“Gimme a break,” barked Sameer, suddenly more Hollywood than Bollywood. “I don’t believe that Indians in Singapore have become so liberal that you’re surprised!”
Inspector Singh spared a reluctant thought for his wife and all the numerous prejudices based on race, class, creed and religion that she carefully stored away to be trotted out at convenient moments. He nodded at the young man. “I see what you mean.”
“Her family are devout Sikhs. Ashu told me that her oldest brother was still upset because some of their gurus were killed by Moslem sultans.”
“But that was hundreds of years ago,” protested Singh, vaguely aware that the last Sikh guru, Guru Gobind Singh, had been killed by Wazir Khan.
“These fanatics are all the same,” said Sameer. “Entitlement complexes and imaginary grievances. You can see why they weren’t ready to welcome a Moslem into the family, anyway!” He touched his bruised cheek with a finger tip and winced. “I’m pretty sure one of them was behind the attack on me.”
“Even so, if Ashu really cared about you…?”
Wasn’t his wife always insisting that young people did exactly what they liked nowadays without any thought of tradition and culture?
“Ashu had an enormous sense of responsibility.”
“But to go the extra mile and actually get engaged to someone else?”
“The marriage was already arranged, you see, when we met.”
Singh nodded. That made sense.
“Ashu always put other people first,” he said with a small sigh. “Like you know the slums outside?”
“Yes. Your American boss isn’t so keen on them.”
“Well, most people think they shouldn’t be this close to a factory – but Ashu used to go in there and help. She had first aid training and she’d treat the kids for cuts and scrapes, rat bites – the usual things.”
Singh tried not to think of a childhood where rat bites were a common ailment.
Sameer was still talking. The inspector sensed it was a huge relief for him to speak of Ashu. Forbidden, secret love could be very taxing on the individual. Or so he’d been led to believe from the various murders he had investigated over the years. He didn’t think he’d ever been in that position, not for a very long time anyway and certainly not in relation to Mrs. Singh. He tried to remember an episode in his life when he’d been in the throes of young love. His memory wasn’t up to it.
“So you see, even if it wasn’t the best thing for her,” explained Sameer earnestly, “she’d do it if she thought it was the right thing.”
“You’re saying that she was prepared to go ahead with this marriage to the MBA even though she wasn’t happy about it?”
“Yes.” His head was bowed as he admitted that Ashu’s affection for him was not sufficient to sway her on a matter of principle. “That’s what she said and I believe she meant it.”
“Then why is she dead?” asked Singh. “What other reason could there possibly be for a young woman like Ashu to commit suicide?”
“You just don’t understand,” he said, “because you didn’t know my Ashu. There is no way she did this thing.”
“What are the alternatives?”
“She was murdered!”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said the policeman although he was feeling uncomfortable. Tara Singh’s doubts, easy to dismiss as the grief of an old man, were now seconded by the other person who knew the girl well.
Sameer leaned forward and steepled long fingers. “Well,” he said, “what if I tell you I know who did it?”
Eight
“It’s my fault, you see,” said Sameer.
“What do you mean?” asked Singh. Had this fellow killed the girl in a fit of jealous rage? Perhaps there had been a suicide pact between them. Would he think better of Sameer or worse that he’d decided not to go through with it? He eyed the battle wounds on the young man. They looked fresh. About two or three days old, by his estimate. Were these injuries sustained while murdering Ashu Kaur? How did one douse a healthy woman in kerosene and set her alight anyway? He wondered if the autopsy would show that she’d been drugged or murdered before the fire.
“I persuaded her to meet me. I thought I might be able to change her mind about marrying that guy.”
“A few days before the wedding?”
“I know – I didn’t really have much hope. I guess I just wanted to see her again.”
“And…?”
“We met at Marine Drive.”
The fat man squinted hard, trying to get the geography of Mumbai laid out in his head. He was sure that he’d been driven down that long curving road with crumbling apartments on one side and the choppy sea on the other, both looking somewhat grey and tired as if sick of the sight of each other after so many long years. Despite this he remembered the taxi driver saying, “Only rich people living here, Sardarji.” He’d wondered at the time why the ‘rich people’ seemed so averse to a lick of paint.
“It was the first time I’d seen her…since she stopped coming to work.”
“Did you change her mind?”
“No.” He grinned suddenly as if a happier memory of Ashu had suddenly taken centre stage. “She was very stubborn. Usually, I couldn’t even persuade her which restaurant to go to for lunch.” His mood darkened. “And I didn’t like her going into the slums, but she insisted.”
“Why didn’t you want her to go there?”
“For her health,” he explained. “She didn’t have the immunities that those people develop over time.”
The inspector wondered whether ‘those people’ really had immunity or just died at a higher rate than the wealthier denizens of the city. He suspected the latter.
“I went there today to explain that she was not coming back,” Sameer continued sombrely. “They were devastated. They relied on her.”
“Did her family know about her moonlighting as a health care professional?”
“Yes, but I don’t think they approved.”
“Go on, so what do you think happened to her?”
“She wasn’t supposed to leave the house for a few days before the wedding ceremony. Some dumb tradition. But she snuck out to see me.”
Singh assumed that the tradition was to prevent young women getting second thoughts about their nuptials by fraternising with old boyfriends. Not so dumb, really.
“We spent some time together – just talking. It was probably for the last time, you see.”
“Did you sense that she was having second thoughts?”
“No, if anything she was more determined to go ahead.” He grimaced. “In fact, she was more concerned about some research she was doing in the slums. She’d gone to see Tyler that morning but hadn’t had much luck with him.”
Singh’s ears pricked up. Was this the root of the altercation that Mrs. Bannerjee had alluded to between the American and the owner’s granddaughter?
“What was it about, this research of hers?”
“She seemed to think that there was a high incidence of illness in the children. Higher than normal, I mean. Adults as well.”
It seemed that, unlike so many others, Ashu had not learnt to walk past the poverty and suffering in the city without a second glance. His wife had explained that it was not that the townsfolk had become callous. They were mostly convinced that the suffering of the poor was karma, the consequence of misconduct in a previous life. Such punishment, if borne stoically, would lead to a much improved situation in the next life. And quite likely, reverse the positions between the haves and the have-nots. Mrs. Singh had looked at her husband meaningfully and added this last with a warning note in her voice.
Singh had a sudden vision of the twinkling ea
rring in the undamaged lobe of the dead girl. He shut his eyes against the memory. Was that karma too? He would have to ask his wife.
“As she was about to leave, to sneak back home – she was really nervous that someone might notice her absence – we heard a car pull up. A man shouted her name. He was very angry.”
“Who was it?”
“I don’t know – a Sikh man in a turban. There might have been someone else in the car – I couldn’t see.”
“What sort of car?”
This drew a blank expression. “I don’t know. Something ordinary – light coloured. I wasn’t really looking.”
“What did Ashu do?”
“She looked upset – but she told me to stay out of it, she would deal with it.”
“Was she upset – or afraid?”
Sameer paused for thought, replaying the scene in his mind’s eye, looking for nuances he’d missed before. At last, he said, “More upset than afraid, I think.”
Singh nodded for him to continue.
“She went to the car and climbed in. They drove off at top speed, like the driver was in a rage.”
“And you let her go?”
Sameer flushed at the accusing tone. “I guessed it was someone from her family, you see. Maybe one of her brothers. I was secretly relieved that our relationship was out in the open. I thought they might provoke her to lose her temper – call off the wedding, something like that.”
“I see.” And he did see – Sameer had hoped that being found out would cause a rift in the family, that Ashu would choose him after all.
“For a short while, I had some hope. I was actually happy. And then the news came that she was dead.”
“What do you think happened?”
“Whoever it was who picked her up – I think he – or they – killed her.”
“And who do you think that was?”
“The impression I got was someone quite young, wearing a turban – I saw the silhouette in the car. Someone she knew.”
“The brothers or the husband-to-be, I suppose,” suggested Singh, almost to himself, and was rewarded with an emphatic nod for his sotto voce musings.
“Yes.”
“But why?”
“You need to ask that?”
“Errr – yes.” Did this fellow not understand the concept of a motive?
“When they saw her with me – discovered from her I was an outsider, a Moslem…”
“What are you driving at?”
“They would have killed her as a matter of honour.”
“A matter of honour?” Singh’s voice was laced with doubt.
“You don’t believe me?”
“It seems a fairly extreme response, surely. Murdered for having an inappropriate boyfriend?”
“You think they’re not capable of violence? Who do you think did this to me?” He gestured aggressively at his face and then winced as the sharp movement hurt him.
“Quite a bad beating,” noted Singh.
“Three against one,” was the brusque explanation.
“And it was Ashu’s family?”
“Hired thugs – but the grandfather or the brothers must have hired them.”
“And you have proof?”
“No – I just know it.”
Singh leaned back in his plastic chair and sighed. If the identity of murderers and other unsavoury characters was determined solely by the opinion of others, regardless of evidence, there would be very few unsolved cases in the police files. In fact, if strong opinions were all that were required to determine guilt or innocence, his wife would make the perfect police officer.
“So your certainty that Ashu was murdered by her family despite the absence of any evidence is based on your certainty that they were behind the assault on you for which you don’t have any evidence either?”
Sameer was undaunted by the sarcasm. “It’s your job to find evidence, Singh. I’ve just made it easy for you by identifying the murderers.”
♦
“Where will you be going now, saar?” asked Kuldeep the driver. The inspector held up a hand, deep in thought. They were at the factory gates. Singh walked over and gestured for one of the men to let him out. He stood outside, noting the cracked pavements, clogged drains and exposed wiring absent-mindedly. The public sphere in India was not a pretty sight and in marked contrast to the pristine conditions within the compound of the chemical factory.
Singh was thirsty; Sameer’s hospitality hadn’t extended to offering him a drink, merely baleful glances. He looked around. There was a man on the sidewalk squeezing juice out of long strips of sugar cane with a hand-operated press. Despite the queue of workers waiting for the thirst-quenching drink, Singh suspected it might be the death of him. The stench from the slum was overpowering from where he stood, causing his eyes to water. It was the odour of uncollected garbage. Singh had a suspicion that the municipality dump trucks didn’t come this way very often. He could see that there were a couple of planks over a big drain leading into the warren of huts. Children skipped over the planks and a few were in the drain itself, legs straddling the sides, fishing as far as he could make out. He made up his mind and stepped gingerly onto the makeshift bridge. It gave slightly under his weight and he looked nervously into the murky water. He was pretty sure he wouldn’t survive an immersion.
“Sardarji,” shouted a young wit, “not many people having a belly like yours are crossing. Soon you will join us down here!”
It was a fair point, conceded Singh. No one on the other side of the drains looked as if they had enough to eat. The women were wiry with protruding blade-like cheekbones and the men seemed composed of stringy ropes of muscle with straggly hair along their upper lips. The inspector was being stared at, not rudely, not even with any particular curiosity, but with the blankness of disorientation. He didn’t belong there and his presence was a rock in the rivers of life flowing around him. Singh already regretted his decision to have a look around the slum. He had followed a hunch, something that he’d learnt to do over the years because it produced unexpected insights. Ashu had helped the residents here and therefore they might have reason to feel grateful to her – and be honest with him as a result. And he certainly needed some insights into this mysterious woman, Ashu Kaur, who had killed herself days before her wedding or, if the Bollywood leading man was accurate, been murdered.
Singh felt the hair on his arms stand up. There was something in Sameer’s theory. He found it difficult to reconcile himself to the idea that Ashu was the sort to commit suicide. She seemed, from all the evidence, to have the strength of character to walk away from a proposed marriage if she was unhappy. Or, indeed, to go through with it and make the best of a bad situation if she felt obliged to fall in with her grandfather’s wishes out of duty and affection.
Sameer’s story of the last-minute assignation would explain why she’d left the house with a few rupees and no extra clothes. She’d intended a brief visit to the office – he needed to ask Tyler about their quarrel – and then a final meeting with the boyfriend. If a killer had intervened, it would explain why she never made it home. But an honour killing? Did that really happen any more?
Or maybe Sameer had killed Ashu rather than see her in the arms of another man. Singh’s eyes shut like heavy theatre curtains during an interval. Surely that was an unrealistically overdramatic explanation? Mind you, Sameer Khan was a wildly poetic figure. Just the sort to kill his girl in a fit of rage. The fat man knew from experience that a thwarted lover was one of nature’s killers. And the man had been carrying the marks of a fight. Singh didn’t see Sameer as a cold-blooded murderer. But if the couple had a quarrel which became violent, he might have accidentally killed her and then tried to cover up the crime by setting the body on fire. It was as good a way as any to obscure bruising and a fat lip.
Singh realised that while he’d been rooted to the spot, trying to think his way around the problem, he had gathered a small coterie of children. They stared at him as if he
was the main exhibit at a zoo. Although they were of all ages, dressed in ill-fitting hand-me-downs and grubby sandals, there was a mesmerising quality to the various pairs of deep brown eyes that held his attention.
“Are you growing roots, old man?” asked a child. He recognised him as the smartmouth from the drain. He looked about nine but was probably closer to eleven. An urchin with a pointy chin, dark skin, gleaming teeth and a bright orange shirt that he wore with pride.
“Do you know your way around here, boy?”
“Yes, of course, Sardarji.” The tone was scornful. Despite the difference in their situations, Singh had a sudden flashback to when he was a child. He too had been master of his territory, knowing the back alleys, the short cuts and the gardens without dogs. This kid with the skinny limbs was a kindred spirit.
“I’m looking for a woman who used to work here.”
“Everyone works here, Sardarji.”
Singh glanced around and saw that this was true. Women were washing clothes in buckets and hanging them out to dry on thin wires running at roof level. Rows of trousers were hanging inside out with their white pockets flapping. A couple of children were sorting through a huge pile of garbage, separating the recyclable materials from the rest with their bare hands.
“This woman helped with the medical needs of the community,” explained Singh and was rewarded with a blank stare which he felt he thoroughly deserved. The boy’s English was passable, surprisingly good really, but Singh had sounded like a brochure for an NGO.
“I mean she was sort of like a doctor.”
“Oh! You mean Doctor Amma?”
The boy’s eyes which had brightened perceptibly at the mention of Ashu now clouded over.
“She is not coming here any more,” he continued and rubbed his eyes with his knuckles like a small child.
“What happened?” asked Singh, wondering what they knew.
“She had an accident. And now she is dead.”
“I heard about that.”
“Then why you are asking questions if you knew she is dead?”
A Curious Indian Cadaver Page 11