Lady Marmalade Cozy Murder Mysteries: Box Set (Books 1 - 3)

by Jason Blacker

  Davison looked up at her and nodded. He took in a deep breath through his nostrils and exhaled the same way. He ground his teeth some more and thought better of saying anything further and getting himself into more trouble.

  Frances walked into the interview room and took what had been up until then, Davison's chair. Davison stood outside the interview room for a while and tried to compose himself.

  "I hope you'll forgive the inspector," she said, smiling at Bijay, "he's been under a lot of stress, and we're dealing with a terrible loss at the moment."

  Panchal didn't say anything for a moment.

  "He didn't have to hit me," he said, whining.

  France nodded.

  "Quite right, and I can assure you, Mr. Panchal, that so long as I am here, there will be no further violence tolerated."

  She looked over at Pearce and he nodded with great vigor.

  "I am Lady Marmalade, and this is Sergeant Pearce. You can call me Frances."

  Panchal smiled a very thin and tenuous smile and nodded at her.

  "Thank you, I am Bijay Panchal and you can call me Bijay."

  "Did they tell you why the brought you in, Bijay?"

  Bijay shook his head.

  "They said they wanted to ask me questions, but when I got in here they put me in these chains, and then he started asking me these questions just now."

  Bijay looked up at Davison as he entered the room and then went and stood by Alfred, his hands across his chest.

  "Well, I am here as a friend of Scotland Yard and of Mr. Gandhi's. I am certain that you are well aware that Mr. Gandhi is here in England at the moment."

  Frances stopped and waited for Bijay. He nodded his head.

  "And, as much as you might feel like you should lie to the police, it isn't going to be helpful. I am certain that when you think about it, you know why you are here, don't you, Bijay?"

  Frances looked at Bijay and he looked down at his lap and fiddled with his fingers. He nodded just barely.

  "So why do you think you are here, Bijay?" asked Frances in a very warm and grandmotherly tone.

  He kept looking down at his fingers, fiddling with them as if they were something new he had just found. Davison was glaring at him from the wall, with his hands crossed in front of him and his face all upside down in a big frown. But he was quiet. He wanted his job and he was close enough to pension that he'd play very nice right now.

  "Must be about something that happened at Mr. Gandhi's event," said Bijay, just sneaking a glance at Frances before looking back down in his lap.

  "Yes, you're very perceptive, Bijay. Tell me what happened at Mr. Gandhi's lecture that might get the police involved?"

  Frances was trying to lead him slowly to a waterhole, like you might do with a timid horse. Though Bijay didn't strike her as being timid as having to try regain his trust after Davison had torn one strip off him from one side and then the other.

  "Someone was shot."

  It was barely a whisper.

  "Do you know who was shot, Bijay?"

  Bijay shook his head.

  "Well, it was one of Mr. Gandhi’s colleagues. A man by the name of Ravi Meda. Do you know Mr. Meda?"

  Bijay looked up at her and shook his head again.

  "Not well. My father knew him."

  "That's good, Bijay," said Frances. "The more honest you can be with us, the sooner you can get out of here. If you had nothing to do with it."

  He looked at her through sad eyes.

  "I swear, I had nothing to do with it. I didn't shoot Mr. Meda, I hardly even knew him."

  Bijay was leaning in against the table, trying his best to show how sincere he was.

  "Well, perhaps you can tell me what happened then," said Frances.

  "Me and a friend were standing around Mr. Gandhi when I heard this shot. Two shots, and we just ran out of there. I didn't wait to see what happened. I just ran away."

  "Who is your friend?"

  Bijay glanced down, and then back up at Frances.

  "Amir Pai. The police brought him in with me today."

  "Now you and Amir have both lost fathers, correct?"

  Bijay nodded.

  "Our fathers were beaten by the British at Dharasana. It was a peaceful march, my father was not a violent man. He never even laid a finger on me."

  Bijay looked at Frances and his eyes were wet. A tear rolled down his one cheek.

  "I'm very sorry for your loss, and Amir's," she said, with kindness and genuine compassion.

  "My father just wanted a free India. He didn't hate the British, he just wanted us to be able to govern ourselves."

  Bijay looked away.

  "I can understand that," said Frances. "As hard as it may be to believe you have a lot of sympathetic ears here in England too."

  He looked at her furtively and then dabbed his eye into his shoulder and then the other eye into the other shoulder.

  "Help me understand, Bijay, why you were there to see Mr. Gandhi. I can imagine that you must have a lot of anger towards the British and Mr. Gandhi especially."

  Bijay shook his head, and looked at Frances.

  "Amir and me met through one of Mr. Gandhi's friends. He thought it would be helpful for us to perhaps become friends as we had both lost fathers. And we did, for the past year or more, we've been very close. Mr. Gandhi came to visit us shortly after we had been introduced to each other. He had come to visit both families. I couldn't stand the sight of him. I spat at him and I cursed him and said some very angry things to him. Same with Amir."

  "And you wanted him to pay for your pain," said Frances.

  "Yes, at the beginning. I wanted him to hurt like I was hurting. But being angry at him, and saying what I said to him, it didn't make the pain go away. It made it worse. And recently I had received a letter from Mr. Gandhi, so did Amir, and in it he apologized for what happened and how he had no idea something like that was going to happen. How he would have taken my father's place if he had known. At the end of the letter he said he hoped that one day I'd be able to forgive him. That my father had forgiven the British…"

  Bijay choked on his words and tears fell from his eyes. He swallowed hard, trying hard to stifle the tears.

  "How did he know your father had forgiven the British for what they had done?" asked Frances.

  Bijay coughed and dabbed his eyes on his shoulders again.

  "Mr. Gandhi said that the doctor who was present and who had treated the wounds of the protestors had heard my father say that he forgave them. He told the doctor to tell his family to forgive them too. So I came here to tell Mr. Gandhi that I had forgiven him. That both Amir and I had forgiven him, and how much better it had made us feel."

  "You had come all this way just to tell him that you forgave him?" asked an incredulous Pearce.

  Bijay nodded.

  "It cost a lot of money, but we had both worked hard this past year to save up. We have the full support of our community and families. Everyone was behind us. We even had a few extra pounds we were going to donate."

  Frances looked at him and felt his authenticity. Though he had a good motive, he had somehow managed to overcome the pain without resorting to revenge. A rare, but beautiful bird that helped the spirit soar above man's petty dealings.

  "If you came in the spirit of forgiveness, why didn't you tell the police you were there? Surely you must have known that the police would be looking for witnesses?" asked Frances.

  Bijay looked up at her and smile a thin wisp of smile from his thin lips.

  "The British police had just a year ago beaten my father for nothing more than peacefully marching. I have come to forgive Mr. Gandhi and them, but I have not yet forgotten."

  Bijay kept his gaze steady with Frances' and then looked at Pearce.

  "I hope though, now that you're here, that you will help us try and determine who it was who killed Mr. Meda?" asked Frances.

  Bijay nodded.

  "Can you tell us about anything that seemed str
ange about the group you were with while you waited to speak with Mr. Gandhi?"

  Bijay looked off to the side of the room for a moment and then turned back to look at Frances.

  "Everyone seemed quite well behaved as we waited for our turn, even though this one African kept talking on and on with Mr. Gandhi about how the Africans should be considered equal partners with the whites and Indians of South Africa. Mr. Gandhi agreed, and said he had regretted his earlier stance when he was just starting his civil rights movement in South Africa. Eventually it seemed that the Africans were happy with Mr. Gandhi's apology and stance, when this Englishman started shouting nasty things about Mr. Gandhi and Indians in general. That's when the shots went off."

  Pearce popped his monocle back in, wet his fingers and twirled his mustache. Then he flipped back and forth in his notebook a bit.

  "Did this Englishmen have a different accent to most others you noticed in the group?" asked Pearce.

  Bijay looked over at Pearce and nodded.

  "He had a different accent to yours, but I can't say. I didn't really pay attention to it."

  "Did he talk like this when he spoke," said Pearce, doing his best Irish accent, "or did he talk more like this when he spoke," putting on a Scottish accent.

  Bijay smiled at him.

  "More like the first one," he said.

  Pearce looked over at Frances and pointed his finger at a name in the notebook. He looked behind him then and raised his notebook with his finger still stuck under the name and showed it to Davison. Davison leaned in and nodded his head. His arms still folded in front of him.

  "Was that helpful?" asked Bijay.

  Frances nodded and smile at him.

  "It was, it has certainly given us something else to consider," said Frances.

  "This Irishman," said Pearce, "that was the accent you picked. Was he carrying a gun or anything like that, that you might have noticed?"

  Bijay shook his head.

  "No, there were only walking sticks that some of the men were carrying. He was carrying one too, but I didn't pay much attention to it. I only turned around and noticed him when I heard the shots. By that time everyone had started to scatter. There were arms and sticks all over the place."

  Pearce nodded. Frances turned around in her chair and looked at Davison.

  "Inspector," she said, "did you find any weapons on Mr. Panchal or at the men's hostel where you found him."

  Davison looked at Frances and shook his head. It seemed as if his arms were permanently stuck in a straight jacket that his mind had created.

  "We did not find any weapons in the hostel or in Mr. Panchal's room. That is not to say he couldn't have gotten rid of it before we came for him."

  Frances smiled at the Inspector and nodded at him.

  "I assume then, that there were no weapons found on his friend Mr. Pai either?"

  Davison shook his head again.

  "I'm just thinking then, out loud," said Frances, "that perhaps after we've interviewed Mr. Pai, and if it turns out that he had nothing to do with this murder either, perhaps you might find it wise to let them go, holding onto their passports of course."

  Davison looked at her for a long while without speaking.

  "Perhaps," was all he said.

  Frances turned around then and looked back at Bijay.

  "Well, Bijay, that wasn't too bad was it?"

  Bijay nodded.

  "You've been most helpful. If your friend Mr. Pai corroborates your story then I imagine you'll not have much more to do with the police."

  "So I can go now?"

  "Not yet, but if the inspector is feeling generous, you might yet get home in time for dinner."

  Pearce finished jotting down some notes as Frances stood up, she turned to face Davison again.

  "If you'd be so kind as to show me to Mr. Pai. I don't have any more questions of Mr. Panchal, unless of course you do?"

  Davison looked at her for a moment and then wearily shook his head.

  "Mr. Pai is in the next room," he said.

  Davison led the group out of Mr. Panchal's interrogation room and into the next one which held his friend Mr. Pai.

  SIXTEEN

  Chapter 16

  IT was just after three in the afternoon when everyone settled into the interrogation room that held Amir Pai. They had taken a quick break for refreshments and use of the bathroom.

  Pearce and Davison had settled into the chairs opposite Amir, a table identical to the one that was in Bijay's interrogation room stood stolidly between Amir and Pearce and Davison.

  Amir was dissimilar to Bijay in many ways. Where Bijay was tall, Amir was short. Frances thought he might be as short as Gandhi, but she couldn't tell for sure. Though unlike both Gandhi and Bijay, Amir was thick set with a round, fat belly and round face. If his head had been shaved, he could quite easily pass for a statue of the smiling Buddha. He wasn't smiling though, in fact he looked quite upset.

  "Why have you put me in here. I have done nothing, as Allah is in my witness, I have done nothing," he said.

  "You are Muslim?" asked Davison, trying to keep his tone flat and even.

  Amir nodded.

  "How does a Muslim like you and a Hindu like Bijay meet?"

  "We met over shared loss. Our fathers were murdered by British swine," said Amir, his tone getting angry.

  Davison sat with his forearms on the table in front of him. They looked like logs with hair like black moss covering them. His hands were flat and open, palms down on the table, and he tapped his fingers.

  "Keep your tone up like that, and I'll be sure to keep you here all week," said Davison.

  Amir looked away, and then back at Davison.

  "Why did you bring me here?" he asked, his tone gentler this time, the anger gone.

  "I think you know why we brought you here," said Davison, "it's about Monday evening."

  Amir looked away and fiddled with his fingers. He bit his lips and twisted his lips about as if they were itchy and his teeth bringing relief.

  "So you do know?" asked Davison.

  Pearce had his notebook out and his pencil ready. He was taking notes intermittently. Frances and Alfred stood behind Davison and Pearce, against the wall. Alfred had his hands clasped behind his back. Frances had hers in front of her and they clutched her handbag. Amir nodded without looking up at anyone.

  "Were you trying to shoot Gandhi or Meda?" asked Davison.

  Amir looked up then with wide eyes. He shook his head vigorously.

  "No, no, you don't understand, we didn't go to shoot anyone."

  He looked at Davison and then at Pearce with sad, pleading eyes.

  "The way I see it," continued Davison, ignoring Amir's last remark, "is that you're angry at the police and you're angry at Gandhi. And why are you angry? You're angry because you've lost your father, and I can understand that. But considering that there were no police at Gandhi's lecture on Monday night, I'm assuming you were there to take out your anger on Gandhi. Is that right?"

  Davison looked at Amir with hard eyes, his face a stone mask of uncaring police justice. Amir started shaking his head like a dog trying to wring the water from itself.

  "No, no, no. No, no, no. We didn't go to hurt Mr. Gandhi…"

  "Then you must have gone to kill Meda. Why did you want to hurt Meda?"

  More shaking of his head. Frances was starting to get dizzy just watching Amir shake his head.

  "No, no, no. Not Mr. Meda, no, no, no."

  "Don't lie to me Mr. Pai. Don't lie to the police. Mr. Panchal has already said you were upset at Meda because he set up the Dharasana march. Mr. Panchal has already implicated you in the matter."

  Amir was beside himself. He tried to clutch at his face with his hands, but they were handcuffed at his waist just like Bijay's were. He started crying and he looked up at the ceiling.

  "Merciful Allah, please have mercy," he said, then he looked back down at Davison and squeezed his eyes shut to rid them of the resid
ual tears. "I swear to you I didn't shoot anybody. I didn't come to hurt anyone. If Bijay said that, it is untrue. I don't know why he would say that."

  Davison looked at him.

  "I can help you," he said, "but only if you tell me exactly what happened. If you continue to lie to me then I will make sure that the full weight of the law is brought down upon you. And you know what we do with murderers here in England?"

  Davison kept a steady, hard gaze on Amir. Amir shook his head softly and slowly this time, afraid of the answer.

  "We hang them from the gallows for everyone to see."

  Amir started practically shaking. He looked terrified and his head shook from side to side as he kept repeating, "no, no, no," over and over again. Frances wasn't going to stand for much more of this treatment. Although no longer being physically abusive, she was disturbed by Davison's continued harassment of the suspect, Amir. In addition, gibbeting hadn't been practiced in England for almost a hundred years.

  "So Mr. Pai, just tell me the truth and I'll be able to help you," said Davison.

  "Yes, yes, yes, I will tell the truth. I swear to you, I will tell you the truth."

  Davison looked at Amir dispassionately and Pearce got ready to write in his notebook.

  "Bijay and me went to hear Mr. Gandhi speak because we wanted to talk to him afterwards. We wanted to accept his apology and offer him our forgiveness which he had asked for. You see, both Bijay and I had been very unkind to him when he had first come to visit us. He had a friend of his bring Bijay's family and my family together in shared mourning, and when he had come to visit we had not been ready for him and we had said some regrettable things."

  Amir was looking keenly at Davison and then at Pearce as Pearce wrote down what he was saying in his notebook.

  "A few months later, Mr. Gandhi wrote a letter to Bijay and me. I know Bijay got one because he shared it with me, and I shared mine with him. Mr. Gandhi said he took responsibility for my father's death and said that if he had known he would have gladly taken his place. He asked only that one day we might be able to forgive him."