by Vaseem Khan
‘Vanished?’ echoed Chopra.
‘Pfft. Into thin air. Blew his parole, never came back. I guess he decided to relocate. Probably also when he changed his name. Fresh start and all that. I’d like to believe he wanted to turn over a new leaf, didn’t need his old life trailing after him . . . but I don’t.’
‘You are assuming he simply fled to continue a life of crime elsewhere. But if he had indeed wished to start again, unencumbered by his past, then why abscond? Why not complete his parole?’
‘Who knows? Maybe he couldn’t be bothered to wait. Or, like I said, maybe he wanted the fresh start, but not a new life. Probably been up to no good ever since he left the UK.’
‘How did he end up in India?’
‘I have no idea. He left England twenty years ago. He’s had plenty of time to get around.’
‘Did you get in touch with his previous employer? Peter Brewer?’
‘Yes. And what a surly old bastard he turned out to be. I had to practically threaten the information out of him. He told me Buckley had been a model employee. Said he’d just walked into his office one day, following an ad he’d put out, and asked for the job. Brewer couldn’t believe his luck. He was working on a big Indian contract, but didn’t really like it out there. Couldn’t get a grip on the native way of thinking – can’t imagine why. Then along comes Buckley. A fellow Englishman, speaks the lingo, a dab hand at the admin. An absolute godsend.’
‘Buckley speaks Hindi?’
‘Better than speaks it. Reads it, writes it. By all accounts, the man was the perfect PA. No wonder your Zorabian chap kept him on the payroll all those years.’
‘Did Brewer say where Buckley came from? Prior to working for him?’
‘He did, but not until he’d given me an ear-bashing. He’d kept all his old paperwork from his India years, just in case of any tax issues. Dug up Buckley’s original job application. There’re a few previous employers on there. I’ll scan it over to you.’
‘Thank you, my friend. You have been most helpful.’
Rangwalla checked his watch. He’d passed an hour in the BMC office of K.D. Soman, waiting for the man to return with information about the municipal authority’s involvement in the Gafoor case. His stomach gave an ominous rumble. He clamped down on his incipient hunger just as Soman returned with a stack of manila folders and computer printouts.
He sat down, then, licking his thumb and forefinger, began flicking through the paperwork. ‘In the year that Gafoor’s building collapsed, the BMC listed more than six hundred premises as unsafe. We categorise such buildings according to how badly their structural integrity has been compromised – which also reflects how much of a danger they represent to their occupants – labelling them C1, C2, or C3, with C1 being the most dilapidated, and deemed beyond repair.’ He handed a sheaf of papers to Rangwalla. ‘Here is the first structural audit report submitted for Gafoor’s building – this was just over three years ago. As you can see it was graded as a C2. Ten months later, a second structural survey upgraded it to C1.’
‘Gafoor claims that no such surveys took place. He remembers BMC officials coming to the building, but they were not there long enough to carry out an official inspection.’
‘That is not what this report says. It was signed off by our technical committee.’
‘We both know that signatures have a habit of appearing on official documents even when they have no right to be there.’
Soman bucked his head, as if offended at the suggestion. But his anger dissipated as quickly as it had arrived. He sighed. ‘Of course, you are correct. The BMC wields incredible power. And power corrupts. Despite our best efforts, there are still unscrupulous individuals in our civic administration. They work hand in glove with surveyors, structural engineers, property developers and even the police, to turn a blind eye. After all, how often does a building collapse? How often is someone convicted, even if it does? When the odds are stacked in your favour, there will always be those willing to roll the dice.’
‘Well, this building did collapse, and Gafoor was convicted.’
‘Yet you are convinced of his innocence.’
Rangwalla hesitated. It was one of those questions that demanded an examination of one’s own convictions. He realised that he trusted Prem Kohli’s belief in Gafoor’s innocence. What’s more, to his own surprise, he understood that his own conscience had delivered its verdict after visiting the man in prison. ‘I am,’ he said.
Soman dug back into the papers before him. ‘Following his conviction, the plot that the building was on was possessed by the BMC, by order of our technical committee.’
‘How is that even legal?’
‘I assure you it is very much legal, though it is not something that happens often. In the case of this particular property, it was possessed under the law of “eminent domain”. This allows the state or federal government to forcibly acquire private land when the public good is considered pre-eminent. It was this same doctrine that was used during land reform following Independence, when land was taken from the old nawabs, princes and feudal landlords to redistribute as shareholdings to the rural classes.’
‘But Gafoor’s plot is being used to build private apartments,’ said Rangwalla, his brow furrowing in confusion. ‘Surely that cannot be classified as a public service.’
‘You are correct. But if you look here’ – he held out a further set of papers – ‘you will see that the plot was possessed with the stated intention of building a government-funded cancer hospice. However, a short while later, following a new land-use survey, it was deemed that the location was unsuitable for such a facility, and so the usage categorisation reverted back to “private development”. That was when it was sold off at auction.’
Rangwalla sat back and considered the chain of events that had overtaken Hasan Gafoor.
First, he had been approached by unnamed parties to sell his property. When he refused, BMC inspectors had visited, purportedly to survey his building, subsequently declaring it unsafe – at least on paper. When he continued to refuse to sell, the BMC had reclassified his building as so dilapidated that it would have to be condemned. Even this did not convince Gafoor to cave in. Shortly afterwards, a fire – caused by a suspicious gas cylinder explosion – had brought the building down, killing over a dozen people. Gafoor, who had been there that day and witnessed the explosion, believed that the official explanation was a lie. Nevertheless, he had been arrested, tried for negligence, and sentenced to a lengthy jail term. In the meantime, the plot on which his building had once stood had been possessed by the city’s municipal council, on the grounds that it would be used for the ‘public good’.
But this too had proven to be a lie of convenience.
Once the BMC had legal possession of the land, a reversal had quietly been put into effect, and the plot once again made available for private development. It had subsequently been sold off at auction.
What had Chopra said? Follow the money.
‘May I have a copy of these documents?’
Soman hesitated. His eyes wobbled behind his glasses, two fish swimming manically around a bowl. ‘Legally, there is nothing here that can be challenged. There is a full and proper paper trail; everything has been carefully documented.’
‘But we both know that something stinks,’ responded Rangwalla. ‘You seem like an honest man. You could have chosen not to help me. But you did. My guess is that you have seen too much of this sort of thing. You can live with corruption for only so long before it begins to seep into your soul. A friend of mine says there comes a point in every man’s life where he must decide his own legacy. What will yours be, Soman?’
K.D. Soman seemed to consider Rangwalla’s words. It was obvious that his sentiments had struck a chord with the municipal bureaucrat.
Finally, he spoke: ‘ “It is the duty of all leaders of men, whatever their persuasion or party, to safeguard the dignity of India. That dignity cannot be saved if misgovernment and
corruption flourish. Misgovernment and corruption always go hand in hand.” Do you know who said that?’
Rangwalla shook his head.
‘It was Gandhi. He wrote those words in 1947, just after Partition. He knew, even then, that in this new country of ours there would be those who placed themselves first, their nation second, their fellow countrymen last.’ He waved at the paperwork before him. ‘Take it. Take it all. If you can use it to root out those who do not deserve to serve this great city, then I am content.’
‘Thank you,’ said Rangwalla. ‘And your words, Gandhi’s words? I know a man who would appreciate them dearly.’
‘We are custodians, Rangwalla, mere custodians. The only real legacy we can pass on to our children is our integrity. They are the ones we must face one day, when they come of age. What will I say to my son then? What will you say to yours?’ He gestured at the edifice around him. ‘I am not the only honest man here. I am not the only one who cares.’
‘I do not doubt it,’ said Rangwalla.
The crows had gathered in force. They were lined up on the crumbling roof of St Angelo’s Church in Marol, and weighed down the branches of a banyan tree on the edge of the plot. There was a sense of predatory anticipation to them that reminded Chopra of the vultures he had seen in the Towers of Silence. A gaggle of curious langurs had joined the fray, fighting for space on the tree’s lower branches. An elderly, white-cassocked priest watched the audience of crows and monkeys with trepidation.
‘It’s a nice night for digging up bodies,’ remarked Homi Contractor beside him.
Chopra’s response was to scowl. Ever since Homi had called with the news that he had successfully negotiated the paperwork needed for the exhumations, the pathologist had been insufferable, exhibiting what was, to Chopra’s mind, an unseemly exhilaration at the prospect of disturbing the rest of the two unidentified corpses.
Homi clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Cheer up! At least we’re not digging up anyone you know.’ He took out a tub of menthol ointment, smeared some under his nose, then held it out to his colleague. ‘They’re going to smell a little on the ripe side.’
Chopra ignored him and looked back at the graveyard.
The church maintained a section for unidentified burials, the final resting place for a small number of the two thousand-plus unclaimed corpses that turned up in Mumbai each year, on railway lines, in open sewers, in burned-out illegal dwellings, beneath concrete flyovers, on the edges of slums. The vast majority of those corpses ended up at one of the city’s designated crematoriums, as per official state policy. A few – where it was deemed judicious by the pathologist or the police services investigating the death – were consigned to unnamed burials, ostensibly in the interests of justice.
More often than not, that justice failed to materialise.
Chopra knew that the expiry date on such inhumations was usually a decade, at which point the corpses would be dug up, incinerated and their resting places turned over to the next nameless occupant.
Two sweating gravediggers, in shorts and vests, were busily excavating twin graves, marked by simple headstones, labelled, respectively, ‘Unknown Male’ and ‘Unknown Female’, with the date of death neatly engraved below.
A crowd had gathered, as was usual in Mumbai whenever the possibility of unexpected public entertainment reared its head. Housewives, street vendors, bicycle delivery boys, homeless children, retired pensioners, pedestrians and passing rickshaw drivers, leaning out of their vehicles as traffic backed up behind them. In other countries, Chopra had learned, exhumations took place at night to avoid creating a spectacle. In Mumbai it made no difference – night or day, the crowds were the same. Helpful commentary accompanied the efforts of the two gravediggers.
‘Put your back into it!’
‘Swing from the hips, lad, not the shoulder.’
‘They’ve got this all back to front. They’re supposed to be putting them into the ground, not taking them out.’
A guffaw accompanied this last observation.
One of the gravediggers paused to smear a sweaty forearm over his brow. Dust tickled his nostrils and he sneezed mightily into the half-dug grave, causing the Department of Health officer standing beside Homi Contractor to shudder.
‘I’ve sent plenty of men to their graves,’ remarked Inspector Malini Sheriwal by Chopra’s shoulder. ‘This is the first time I’ve had the pleasure of welcoming someone back.’
Chopra did not appreciate the gallows humour.
At the far edge of the plot Constable Qureshi was enjoying a quiet roll-up, blowing smoke away from the direction of his senior officer and into the vicinity of Sub-Inspector Surat who was looking distinctly green around the gills.
‘Never a good thing disturbing the dead,’ mused Qureshi. ‘You never know how they’re going to take it.’
Surat said nothing.
He was, by nature, a credulous man, the result of a strict religious upbringing. The notion of disconsolate spirits floating about the graveyard, possibly holding a grudge against those who had disturbed their rest, was not one he considered conducive to his immediate wellbeing.
As the evening wore on, and darkness descended, Ganesha, sticking close to his guardian, became increasingly agitated. Long before the humans gathered beside him could detect the odour of decomposed remains, Ganesha’s trunk had begun to twitch – elephants possess one of the keenest senses of smell in the animal kingdom. When the gravediggers finally hauled the two cheap wooden caskets to the surface, and crowbarred open the lids, the little elephant’s ears flapped in alarm, and he turned tail and fled for the relative safety of the van.
One of the gravediggers lost his grip on the casket he was manhandling, and it hit the ground, split, and disgorged its grisly contents. Because the other end of the casket was still being held up by the second gravedigger, the cadaver sat up straight and faced its audience with a macabre parody of a smile.
A gasp of shock rose from the audience.
‘Now that’s not something you see every day,’ murmured Qureshi.
Beside him, Sub-Inspector Surat turned away to disgorge his own grisly contents on to the road.
The putrid odour of decaying flesh floated about the plot, curdled by the heat, gradually dampening the chatter. The sense that Chopra had felt, of lives ended too soon, an affront to the natural order of the cosmos, seemed to envelop all those present. The public health officer stepped forward, fitted a mask over his face, then moved in to carry out his inspection, ticking boxes on a clipboard.
When he had finished, he ripped off the sheet, handed it to Homi, and fled.
The corpses were zipped into cadaver bags, then loaded into an ambulance.
Homi turned to the crowd. ‘Show’s over, folks. You have been a wonderful audience. Do come again.’ He looked at Chopra. ‘If you want to see what happens next, meet me at the hospital tomorrow morning at ten.’
Back at the restaurant, Chopra found himself dwelling on the bodies. He had decided to eat a late meal in the courtyard. Poppy and Irfan had joined him; Ganesha had trotted over to poke at Irfan under the table. Chopra had spent some time kicking a ball around with the pair of them, an activity his young ward was usually keen on. It seemed to have helped bring Ganesha out of himself, at any rate. Now, as he observed them, the chirp of crickets floating on the warm night breeze, the closeness of his family seemed a thing never to be taken for granted. Life was fleeting, and full of unexpected turns. The two bodies they had exhumed, presumably, also had families, loved ones. Where were they now? Waiting for news, perhaps resigned to the worst.
‘Whatever it is, it can wait till tomorrow. This chilli lamb won’t.’
He looked up at Poppy, who was watching him with concern. Once again, he felt a sense of pride. It was his good fortune indeed to find a life partner who shared his own ideals, and was willing to fight for them, in small and big ways. ‘I was just thinking about the bodies.’
‘I know,’ said Poppy. ‘But now
is not the time.’
‘Is there a good time to think of lives lost needlessly?’
She realised he was speaking to himself, and did not answer.
He reflected once again on the inequalities that plagued this great city. On one side Poppy was fighting to bring basic rights to the poorest members of society; on the other, he was struggling to unravel the murder of a privileged man who had probably taken advantage of those same people. A man who may have been involved in the death of two unknown victims. And, perhaps, that, more than anything, powered his desire to uncover their identities and their fate. In some way the resolution of one investigation might balance out his participation in the other. There was no rulebook to his chosen profession. Justice was a concept you couldn’t measure or hold in your hands. But you knew it by its absence, and you knew it when you had scaled the mountain and saw the world for what it was.
Bringing back the dead
At precisely ten the next morning Chopra and Inspector Malini Sheriwal entered the autopsy suite at the Sahar Hospital.
The corpses had been divested of their cadaver bags and laid out on the room’s two steel autopsy tables. Homi had pulled on scrubs and was fiddling with his recording equipment.
Chopra and Sheriwal watched him from an anteroom adjoining the suite, peering in through a Plexiglas viewing window as he prepared to get down to work. Homi’s voice filtered nasally through a speaker located beside the window.
Homi had been joined in the suite by an Australian forensic anthropologist, a white man by the name of Decker Coin.
Coin was the first Australian Chopra had met in the flesh, though he had seen plenty onscreen, and a few hurling themselves around the Wankhede Stadium when the Australian cricket team toured India. Coin did not fit the mould of the average Aussie that Chopra had discovered lodged unwittingly inside his head. There was no mop of bleach-blond hair, no rugged chin, no flinty eyes squinting into the horizon. Coin was a small man with an abnormally large and preternaturally bald head. This bowling ball of a pate reminded Chopra of volcanic protrusions; it was a fiery red in colour as if the superheated mind within had literally boiled the hair from Coin’s skull. He wore yellow-framed glasses, a red polka-dot bow tie and braces, as if he had just come from the stock exchange. The only thing Australian about Coin was his strong Tasmanian accent, and the ‘CUDDLY KOALA? THINK AGAIN’ badge pinned to his shirt. Chopra peered closer. Under the badge’s bold header, in smaller script, were the words: Koalas are nasty, aggressive and spread chlamydia.