Singh wondered whether Ashu had objected to the manufacture of skin-whitening cream. He regretted not having known this girl in person. But as usual, he’d turned up at the death. And this time it had been unexpected – he hadn’t come in his official capacity, forewarned of death, but as a layperson caught by surprise.
He sighed and a deep line appeared, bisecting his forehead. The careful perusal of the file he’d taken from the slum clinic had merely reaffirmed that some mysterious ailment was laying the dwellers low. He was no closer to discovering what it was or confirming that the source of the scourge was the chemical plant. He needed to speak to Ranjit but that would have to wait until morning. There was nothing for it. He was too keyed up to sleep although the idea of slumber certainly appealed. Singh reached for the remote control, found a news channel, clambered out of bed and padded to the fridge in his bare feet. He pulled the tab on his cold beer with a crooked index finger, enjoying the familiar snap and fizz. He had a deep swig, glanced at the news, turned over on his side and in a few moments had fallen into a deep dreamless sleep.
He was interrupted by a telephone ringing just as the faint light of a new day threw golden beams across the carpet from the not-fully drawn curtains. He saw with some dismay that it was his wife calling. She must have stayed the night at the funeral house. Singh picked up the phone reluctantly – why did she have to call him at dawn? – his eyes on the television which was showing the news. “Hello,” he said into the phone.
“You better come here now.”
“What?” He wasn’t sure whether he’d misheard or merely misunderstood.
“Something has happened.”
She was whispering, her voice dry and cracked, and he had to strain to make out her words.
“What is it? Why are you muttering?” He found himself shouting in compensation for her quiet tone. His eyes were still fixed on the television, reading the ticker tape more from habit than intent. It annoyed him, the stream of words at the bottom, usually without context, which still drew the eye with its almost hypnotic quality.
His wife was saying something but Singh’s attention had been caught by the latest newsflash under ‘Indian News’. He stared at it, hands growing clammy and heart-rate escalating. He realised after a few moments that he still held the phone and Mrs. Singh was twittering in his ear. This time he understood what she was saying. “I’m coming,” he said bleakly. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
He glanced back at the screen. The ticker tape was rolling past again. “The well-known industrialist and philanthropist, Tara Singh, was found dead this morning.”
Fourteen
“What happened?” demanded Singh. He was panting and out of breath. He’d had to fight his way through the throng of reporters downstairs. They had made a beeline for him – on the grounds he was a Sikh, he suspected – and therefore statistically more likely, at least in that building, to be related to Tara Singh. The inspector was jostled and shoved while palming newsmen off like a rugby player until he made it to the elevator. The security guard recognised him, waved him in and formed a one-man human barrier to the massed ranks of reporters.
A policeman at the door of the apartment refused to let him enter the premises. Singh, tugging at his beard in a fit of growing irritability, insisted that he be allowed to speak to his wife. This request was acceded to upon the revelation that he counted Assistant Commissioner Patel amongst his best friends. Singh shuddered. Name dropping – what would he stoop to next?
“He’s dead,” said his wife at the door. She was dry-lipped with shock.
“I know. It was on the news.”
“Already?”
He nodded. The death of Tara Singh was always going to be big news. Especially in the week that his granddaughter had disappeared and been found dead.
“We don’t know anything,” she whispered. “The police are downstairs. In the carpark.” And in response to his querulous expression, “The body was found in the carpark.”
“Where is everyone?” he asked, looking over her shoulder into the empty living room. Death was certainly thinning the ranks of the family but not to this extent. The last time he’d been here the premises had been crowded and brightly lit with a coffin as its focal point. He sighed – what was that expression? – it wouldn’t be long before it was ‘déjà vu all over again.
“I don’t know. In their rooms, I suppose. Police said to wait.”
“Who’s here?”
“My cousin, Ranjit, Aunty Harjeet, I’m not sure who else.”
“What about Tanvir?”
“Must be here too. I haven’t seen him.”
“Poor old Tara Singh,” said the inspector. He felt an overwhelming sense of pity for the wealthy industrialist who had not survived the death of his granddaughter by more than a few days. “I guess the shock was too much for him.”
“What is the surprise of that?” asked his wife. “Maybe if you’d found out what happened to Ashu, he would not have died.”
Was she really going to try and pin Tara’s death on him? To think that he’d actually felt sorry for her just a few moments ago. He should have remembered that Mrs. Singh enjoyed finding new ways to blame him for events outside his control. He spun around on his heel. It was time to desert his wife and find the police. As far as Singh was concerned, Tara’s death didn’t change anything. He still needed to find out what had happened to Ashu even if the man who’d assigned him the job was dead. The inspector stopped mid-thought – he might have to conclude his investigation from somewhere other than his present luxurious abode. Singh mentally tested his enthusiasm for the case and discovered it was still intact. There was no way he was going to walk away until he’d bullied Ranjit into telling what he knew and made another effort to find out what was going on at the factory. The fat man rode a wave of smugness like a champion surfer. He wasn’t half as shallow as his wife suspected.
Singh hurried down to the lobby and then crossed over to the elevator that served the carpark. The reporters were absent and a raised eyebrow at the security guard elicited a thumb pointed towards the main entrance. They’d been evicted apparently. To his annoyance, he saw that the carpark lift was ‘out of service’. A cracked plastic sign indicated the stairs that led to the bowels of the building and Singh began his descent, rubbing the heel of his palm across his chest. If Tara had been required to do this journey in reverse, Singh wasn’t surprised the old fellow had keeled over.
He opened the heavy door at the bottom and was confronted with a hive of activity. Bright lights had been erected, colourful tape randomly cordoned off areas, flashing lights indicated a phalanx of police cars and an ambulance lurked in the corner, back doors flung open to receive the dead. The two attendants leaning against the side of the vehicle looked bored – their role today limited to chauffeurs of the dead rather than first responders to the living.
Singh scanned the carpark. It could have been a policing scene from Singapore except for the preponderance of khaki over navy blue and the unexpectedly hirsute nature of the policemen. The inspector deduced that it was a quiet morning for crime in Mumbai by the large turnout of Indian policemen, handgun-obscuring pot bellies hanging over black belts.
“Inspector Singh, I knew that you would soon be turning up here like a bad apple.”
Did he mean a bad penny, wondered Singh, and did it really matter? Patel radiated the bonhomie of someone greeting an old friend at a cosy bar, several tankards of beer already safely downed.
“What’s going on?” asked the inspector.
“Very shocking news.”
“Tara Singh?”
“Yes, a most important man – leading entrepreneur here in Mumbai. They are saying that president will be attending funeral.”
“I guess we all have to go sometime,” said Singh, wishing firstly that Patel didn’t sound as status-conscious as Mrs. Singh and secondly that he didn’t sound like a country singer.
The Indian led the way to a particularl
y crowded part of the basement carpark and the inspector assumed that he would soon be in a position to renew his acquaintance with Tara Singh. He felt a sharp pang of regret that he’d been unable to provide the old man with some closure by finding out what had happened to Ashu. But at least Tara had avoided knowledge of the inopportune pregnancy.
“But,” said Patel, “no one should have to go in such a way, you know what I’m saying?”
Singh bit off the desire to say ‘hardly ever’ and nodded sagely instead. He said, “I guess Ashu’s death was the final straw.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Patel. “You think deaths are connected?”
“Well, it’s too much of a coincidence otherwise, isn’t it?” He noted that Patel was looking sceptical and felt a frisson of irritation. Surely it was obvious that the trauma of attending his beloved granddaughter’s funeral had been too much for Tara Singh? Did Indian policing methods shun deductive reasoning?
The Indian policeman waved away a few medics and coppers and, with the flourish of a circus ringmaster, invited Singh to have a look. Inspector Singh leaned forward, feeling slightly queasy. He didn’t mind murder victims, he’d seen enough in his career to have developed an emotional immunity to the presence of violent death. It was death from natural causes that put him in mind of his own weak flesh and inevitable mortality.
He needn’t have worried.
Tara Singh had been bludgeoned to death.
The weapon of choice seemed to have been his ivory-handled walking stick which lay next to the body. It was unfortunate that Sikh custom required that mourners be dressed in white because his clothes showed up the bloody stains with nauseating clarity. His face, however, was unmarked.
“I thought he’d had a heart attack,” said Singh.
It was all falling into place. He’d wondered why there was an officious policeman at the door to the flat. He’d assumed that the death of a man of Tara’s stature called for a scattering of a police officers like confetti at a wedding.
“The family don’t know it was murder yet,” explained Patel. “Better for all to remain in complete pitch darkness.”
Singh tried to gather his thoughts that had scattered like chaff on a windy day. “What happened?”
“Don’t have much details. All cars are coming back from cremation. Driver dropped him near carpark elevator and drove off – or that’s what he says.” Singh noticed for the first time that a middle-aged man was sitting with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, occasionally shooting terrified glances in the direction of the huddle around the body.
“That’s the driver?” he asked.
“Yes – but nothing was stolen – wallet, money, watch – and there is very much better times for drivers to be killing employers than when coming back from funerals. Also, he has worked for Tara Singh for twenty years.”
The inspector nodded in agreement. That sort of longevity of service was unlikely to end in hasty violent murder.
“Shortly after that,” continued Patel with a pontificatory air, “someone is attacking Tara Singh and doing this.” He gestured at the body to make his point. “Security guard found body this morning.”
“And he called the police?”
“Yes, a couple of hours ago. And then we informed family of the death.”
“Who did you tell?”
“Tanvir Singh.”
“It’s already on the news,” remarked Singh.
“Indian police not at all good at keeping secrets.”
“The press doesn’t seem to know that it’s murder,” said Singh reassuringly.
The two men fell silent, the bloody exclamation mark to their conversation lying on the floor between them.
“So who do you think did this?” asked Singh, at last.
Patel’s eyes widened with cherubic surprise. “But that’s why we are telling you all the facts, Inspector Singh. Maybe you can tell us who is murderer.”
“Me?”
“You have been investigating whole family!”
“That’s true – but this could be anyone…a business rival?” Even as he said it, he knew it was unlikely. The timing was too much of a coincidence and business rivals very rarely indulged in such uncontrolled violence. A paid hit man, a bullet or a well-aimed stab wound. Not this bloody mess.
“I hope one of the early blows killed him,” said Singh, not bothering to disguise his discomfort at the sight of the old man’s corpse.
“Could be happening that way,” agreed Patel.
“He would have seen his killer…”
“Yes.” Patel reached over and pulled back Tara’s eyelids.
“What in the world are you doing?”
“Sometimes they are saying that image of killer is printed on eyeballs of dead man,” Patel explained, wiping his hands on his trousers.
Singh pressed his palms to his own retinas as if he was destroying evidence. When he looked at Patel again, he found he was the subject of a suspicious stare.
“Killer would have had blood on him?” he asked, to change the subject.
“Maybe – not that much, I think. Most of bleeding under the clothes – blunt instrument trauma. Weapon is walking stick – so killer not so close to body.”
“Finger prints?”
“Wiped.”
Singh sighed. Was there a criminal out there who didn’t know to wipe his prints?
“Anything else?” he asked. Investigators had to be careful never to make assumptions about the behaviour of killers, it was the first rule in the book – well, right after the unwritten one that said investigators shouldn’t pull back eyelids to peer into the deceased’s eyes.
Patel shook his head mournfully.
“So what are you going to do next?”
“The usual – first we are sending body for autopsy, interviewing family, waiting for crime scene results, searching premises of suspects…”
“Looking to see who benefits financially from the death?”
“Yes.”
“And checking into his business relationships?”
A slightly more dubious nod greeted this suggestion. Perhaps Patel didn’t want to step on the toes of the Mumbai elite. Well, he was going to have to overcome his squeamishness. One of the Mumbai elite was lying at their feet, a puddle of his blood reflecting the fluorescent lights.
“Can I sit in on the interviews?”
“With our pleasure, Inspector Singh,” said Patel, most of his shiny square white teeth in evidence. “To have someone of your seniority and experience assisting us would be a privilege.”
The policeman smiled back at his counterpart. One might quibble about the assistant commissioner’s choice of words and investigative methodology but he had a welcoming air that was in marked contrast to the glowering mien of Superintendent Chen. Singh was prepared to put up with a few foibles for a dash of friendly respect.
“So where shall we begin?” He knew very well where he intended to start – and was prepared to insist if the man’s choice let him down.
“Upstairs?” asked Patel.
“Upstairs,” agreed Singh.
♦
They rode up in the elevator in silence, surrounded by house-boys carrying large buckets of water which slopped over the sides and made the floor slippery and unpleasant.
“Water lorry is coming,” explained Patel.
“What?”
“In Mumbai, water supply in pipes is not good. Pipes very old. Lot of leakages, theft, and water table is low.”
“So?”
Patel didn’t seem in any way put out by Singh’s taciturn response as water sloshed over his precious sneakers. “So water truck is coming and households are collecting water in buckets for washing and cooking.”
Singh had noticed a few dusty lorries which announced themselves as water trucks in large colourful lettering down the sides. Slowly, he realised, his mental black and white picture of India was being coloured in with information. He would soon be a genuine exper
t on the country and its inhabitants, unlike his wife with her dodgy Internet sources. They stepped out of the lift and Singh was dismayed to see that he was trailing muddy tracks on the lobby floor.
“Not to worry – soon they will be cleaning it up,” said Patel reassuringly.
Yet another insight. Nothing ever worked in Mumbai but the process of cleaning up the inevitable mess provided jobs for many of the unskilled residents of the city. In a way, he was part of that process now. On the one hand, he was trailing dirty footprints for some poor soul to mop up. On the other hand, he was trying to clear up after two deaths.
“How come you got this case?” he asked Patel.
“Because I was so very involved in first phase,” explained the other man. Singh assumed that by ‘first phase’ he meant the death of Ashu although, as far as he was aware, all Patel had done was rubber-stamp the suicide theory.
“Also, Maharashtra police on high alert because of judgment today so police very, very busy,” continued Patel.
“Judgment?”
“Tide case – Jama Masjid. Verdict is expected today at Mumbai High Court.”
Singh remembered his wife mentioning the case to him. “Are you expecting trouble?” he asked.
A Curious Indian Cadaver Page 19