by Vaseem Khan
Together they went over the tangle of connections; but the pieces would not fit.
Finally, Chopra gave in to the realisation that there was little headway they could make at present. They were grasping in the dark; they needed more information about Karma Holdings.
He asked Rangwalla if he had had any luck with his investigations into William Buckley’s past.
‘I spoke to a number of his former employers. None of them were aware that he had a criminal past. By all accounts he was a model employee.’
‘What sort of work did he do?’
‘All sorts. The last couple of roles were PA and general admin. Before that he worked as a tutor.’
‘Tutor? What did he teach?’
Rangwalla leafed through his notebook. ‘Ah. Here it is . . . He taught Latin.’
As Chopra pulled the van into his compound, he was astounded to find himself confronted by a giant turd. ‘Mr Poo?’ he said, his voice a disbelieving rasp.
Mr Poo saluted, then lifted the hatch to unveil a mousy set of all too familiar features. ‘It is me, sir. Bahadur.’
Chopra goggled at the building’s security guard. ‘What are you doing in that get-up?’
‘Poppy Madam requested me to put on this costume. I am to tell everyone who enters the compound to please use the lavatory when vacating their bowels and not the street.’ Bahadur pulled back his narrow shoulders. ‘It is for the good of India.’
When Chopra reached his flat, he found his wife shuffling mounds of campaign leaflets around the dining table, each one stamped with the UNICEF logo.
Irritation flared through him, and then just as quickly vanished, to be replaced by a sudden upwelling of pride. He contrasted the likes of Cyrus Zorabian, a man who had purported to help the disadvantaged yet had only sought to help himself, and his wife, who toiled selflessly for the greater good. Nevertheless . . . ‘You are deliberately provoking Mrs Subramanium,’ he said mildly.
‘Charity begins at home,’ countered Poppy. ‘Besides, Bahadur needs the extra income, and we are in need of a new mascot.’
‘But there’s a giant turd greeting everyone who enters the building!’
‘Exactly. It is a talking point. That is how the message will be spread far and wide.’
Chopra recognised the futility of argument.
He put a hand on Poppy’s shoulder, drew her into him, and said, ‘You are an amazing woman.’
Her face brightened with warmth and surprise.
He went off to check on the vulture, discovering to his own surprise that she was looking distinctly perky, shuffling villainously back and forth on the shelf she had made her own within his office. He poked his head out of the door. ‘Did you feed her?’
‘Yes,’ said Poppy, without looking up. ‘Mother brought a bucket of raw entrails from the restaurant. She has actually been less trouble than I had imagined – the vulture, not my mother. It’s really no different to looking after a parrot.’
Except that parrots don’t usually peck out their owners’ livers after they die, thought Chopra.
An hour later, having showered, changed and wolfed a hurried dinner, Chopra closeted himself in his office, took out his notebook, and began to jot down his thoughts on a clean sheet of paper.
The case was in danger of tying itself into knots.
What had begun as a straightforward investigation into the death of Cyrus Zorabian had now splintered into multiple criss-crossing lines of enquiry.
Quickly, he clarified the situation as he now saw it:
CZ killed in Doongerwadi, body dumped in a Tower of Silence.
CZ on verge of bankruptcy.
CZ involved in raising funds for new Vashi slum redevelopment project. Project being managed by Karma Holdings; BMC permissions handled by Geeta Lokhani. Was CZ using the project to embezzle funds to shore up his failing business? Did Lokhani know?
Suspects
CZ estranged from son. Darius Zorabian married against CZ wishes. Darius angry with CZ for disinheriting him. Darius has no alibi.
CZ and Boman Jeejibhoy fell out over Darius spurning Boman’s daughter. Boman, enraged, threatens CZ. Boman has no alibi.
CZ angers Anosh Ginwala, head corpse-bearer at Doongerwadi. Ginwala loses family, blames CZ. Ginwala has motive, means, but not opportunity.
CZ PA William Buckley is a former criminal, convicted of violent assault. Did he have grudge against CZ? If so, why?
Parallel investigations
CZ received Latin letters before his death, accusing him of ??? What exactly? Bankrupting his business? Being a bad Parsee? (Note: Boman, Buckley and Darius all know Latin.)
CZ kept news article about two burned bodies. One body identified as Arushi Kadam – worked for Karma Holdings. Who was the other victim? Why were they killed? Why did CZ care?
Hasan Gafoor’s building burns down in Marol. Multiple victims. Arson suspected. Was Gafoor being strongarmed out of his land? Were the BMC involved? Site eventually sold to Karma Holdings. Geeta Lokhani signed off all BMC paperwork. What is Lokhani’s link to Karma Holdings?
Chopra sat back and stared at his notes.
Behind him he heard the vulture’s talons scraping along the shelf.
There was little doubt that Cyrus Zorabian, far from being the picture-perfect Parsee with a heart of gold, was instead a man who had harboured dark secrets, a man with a penchant for making bad decisions. The net result was that there were now a number of suspects with motives valid enough to have driven them to murder. Running through and around this was his potential involvement with former BMC official and prospective politician Geeta Lokhani in a major property development scam, possibly in collusion with the property company Karma Holdings.
Chopra tapped his pen on the desk, his thoughts swirling.
Karma Holdings.
Like a bad penny the name kept cropping up everywhere he turned.
He glanced around at his vulture companion. ‘Three times is a conspiracy,’ he muttered.
The bird hunched her shoulders and gave him a beady glare.
Chopra’s instincts rarely needed a second invitation. In essence, his next course of action had been dictated to him.
There was little doubt that Karma Holdings would be his next port of call.
But before that there was one other thread that he needed to chase down.
Cyrus Zorabian’s less than straightforward personal assistant William Buckley.
Shedding an identity
Unusually for Chopra, he overslept the following morning.
The previous day, with its circuitous loops around the city, had taken more out of him than he had realised.
By the time he lurched blearily from his bedroom Poppy and his mother-in-law had both left for the day, Poornima for the restaurant, Poppy for the St Xavier School for Boys. Harried by the nebulous feeling of guilt that always overcame him on such occasions, he quickly showered, shaved, dressed, checked the oven for the breakfast he hoped Poppy had left for him, found, somewhat to his disappointment, that there was none, gulped down a bowl of cereal instead, then checked on the vulture.
The bird raised her head from between her shoulders, and gave a low, guttural hiss.
‘Good morning to you too.’
Satisfied that the creature was as comfortable as he could make her, he left the apartment.
Thirty minutes later he had picked up Ganesha from the restaurant and was on his way to meet Buckley.
Buckley had agreed to see him at a coffee shop just yards from Cyrus Zorabian’s office.
The coffee shop, one of hundreds that had mushroomed around the city in the past few years, was unique in that it had a distinctly English feel to it. Indeed, the sign above the doors said Ye Olde English Coffee Shoppe. Chopra suspected that the name’s not-so-subtle humour would be lost on most of his compatriots.
Inside, he spotted Buckley hunched at a table in the corner. He was prevented from making a beeline for him by Ganesha tugging on his arm. The el
ephant pulled him to the counter, where the display of cakes, pastries and various other delicacies had caught his eye. His trunk twitched at the warm gust of delicious aromas.
The young barista behind the counter – who looked about as English as Chopra’s moustache – stared at them. ‘Um, is that an elephant, sir?’
Chopra refrained from asking what the young man thought it might be if not an elephant.
‘It is just that pets are not allowed on the premises. For hygiene reasons.’
‘That is good news,’ said Chopra sternly. ‘Because he is not a pet.’
He ordered a coffee and a tray of confectionaries for his ward.
The barista picked up a pen. ‘What is your name, sir?’
Chopra frowned. ‘Why do you need to know my name?’
‘It is so that I can write it on this coffee cup.’
‘Why do you need to write my name on my cup?’
‘Um. So that we can easily identify your order.’
Chopra looked around at the almost empty shop. ‘I am standing in front of you. Simply make my coffee and hand it to me.’
The barista gave a desperate grin. ‘But it is store policy, sir.’
Chopra stared at the man. Once again, the inscrutable mores of the modern world left him bewildered. ‘Very well. My name is Palaghat Kolungode Vishwanatha Narayanaswamy Singanalluru Puttaswamayya Mutthuraju. I am from the south,’ he added. ‘Make sure you spell it correctly.’
As Chopra set his coffee down, Buckley looked up from the English newspaper that he had been immersed in: the Guardian. The pale Brit was dressed immaculately in a crisp blue shirt and tie and his usual peppery crew cut. His eyes fell momentarily to Ganesha.
The little elephant was practically dancing on his toes as he waited for the barista to set down his tray of delicacies on the floor.
Moments later, his face was smeared with cream as he inexpertly shovelled a mille-feuille into his mouth with his trunk.
Buckley was drinking tea from a porcelain cup. His ornate watch, which Chopra had noticed when he first met the man, lay face down beside the cup.
Something about the watch tugged at Chopra, a speck of grit blown into the corner of his eye. But he had no time to waste on trivialities.
He looked back up, and faced the PA squarely.
‘This place has been a haven for years,’ said Buckley, apropos of nothing. ‘A small slice of home.’
Chopra said, ‘Did Cyrus know that you have a criminal record? That your real name is not William Buckley but Adam Beresford?’
Buckley froze.
A car hooted outside the shop. A man shouted loudly. A herd of goats bleated past.
Buckley pulled off his spectacles, wiped them very deliberately with a handkerchief. ‘I haven’t heard that name in a long time.’
‘You went to great lengths to conceal your past. You skipped parole; you fled the UK; you invented a fraudulent new identity.’
Buckley’s eyes flashed. ‘When I changed my name, I shed my past, Chopra. I left behind the life fate had set out for me.’
‘Changing your name was not necessary to accomplish that.’
‘How would you know? For someone like me, trying to make a new life without changing my identity would have been like leaping out of a sinking boat with an iron ball around my ankle.’
‘I have known many criminals who aspire to change. Rarely do they find a way out from the labyrinth of their own natures.’
‘How very Zen of you. But you know nothing about me. Adam Beresford died the day I left prison. I made a choice, and I never looked back.’
‘Why not complete your parole? Do it the right way?’
Buckley stirred his coffee, then set down the spoon. ‘I had no choice. If you’ve seen my record you know that I was convicted of violent assault. The man I assaulted was a senior member of the criminal outfit I worked for. We got into it because I refused to do a job for him, a burglary. I had decided, you see, that I had had enough. I wanted out of the life. But, of course, it’s easier to step into quicksand than to pull yourself out. I was too good at what I did. He wouldn’t let me go. We fought, I defended myself, and my reward was to spend the next five years in a six by ten cell.’ Bitterness laced the Englishman’s words. ‘He tried to have me killed in prison, three times. I have the scars to prove it. When I got out on parole, I knew that it would be only a matter of time before he finished the job. And so I fled. Got myself a new passport, a new identity – I still had useful contacts willing to help me. I landed in South America, and I’ve never looked back.’ He picked up his watch and snapped it on to his wrist.
The action set gears moving at the back of Chopra’s brain. What was it about the watch that was bothering him . . .?
‘Anyway, what has any of this to do with Mr Zorabian’s death?’
‘In one of your earlier roles – before you came to India – you taught Latin.’
Buckley’s face registered surprise. ‘What of it? I’ve had a lot of jobs. I’ve taught a number of languages.’
‘Where did you learn Latin?’
‘In prison. There was a course. Most of my fellow inmates were learning woodcraft, or how to fix engines. I wanted to do something that kept me away from them. It just so happened that I turned out to have a knack for languages. It was one of the reasons Mr Zorabian hired me.’
Chopra fished out the Latin letters, smoothed them on to the table. ‘Did you send these to Cyrus?’
Buckley examined the letters. ‘Where did you find these?’
‘Inside a bank locker that he maintained. I believe he was being sent these in the months before his death.’
‘You think his killer was communicating with him?’
‘Possibly. The tone appears to be one of general disapproval.’
Buckley took a second look at the letters. ‘I did not send these,’ he said finally.
‘Are you certain?’
‘Why don’t you put your cards on the table, Chopra? Are you suggesting that I had something to do with Cyrus’s death?’
‘Did you?’
‘I had no reason to kill the man. He was my boss. I considered him a mentor, and a friend.’
‘But did he think of you in the same way? What if he had discovered your criminal past? And that you had kept it a secret from him? A man like Cyrus might consider that a betrayal. Perhaps he decided to dismiss you. Perhaps you reacted badly to being confronted with the fact of your duplicity.’
‘And perhaps you were a fantasist in an earlier life,’ Buckley responded heatedly. ‘Even if Cyrus had found out, he would have discussed it with me. In the past nine years, I have given him no cause to mistrust me.’
‘Since our first meeting I have discovered that Cyrus was a more volatile character than I had been led to believe.’ Chopra shifted in his seat. ‘You were Cyrus’s PA. Why didn’t you know about the state of his finances?’
‘As I told you before, he kept financial matters between himself and his chief accountant. We were close, but, in many things, he was a secretive man.’
Chopra considered Buckley’s words. The Englishman seemed earnest. But he was also a convicted felon, a man who had breached his parole, a man who had lived under a false identity for years. ‘Where were you on the night Cyrus died?’
Buckley replied a little too quickly. ‘I was at home.’
‘Alone?’
‘Yes. I live alone.’
‘You do not have a, ah, partner?’
‘No. I mean, I’ve dated on and off, but at present I’m single.’ Buckley grimaced. ‘I’m afraid I can’t furnish you with a convenient alibi, Chopra. But then I don’t need one. I had nothing to do with Cyrus’s murder. Why would I want to kill him, for God’s sake?’
That was the question to which Chopra had no real answer. What motive would Buckley have had? Even if Cyrus had discovered his criminal past surely that wouldn’t have been cause enough to commit murder.
Buckley straightened his shoulder
s. ‘What happens now? Will you turn me in?’
‘Turn you in?’
‘I skipped parole. Technically, I’m on the run. There’s probably still an arrest warrant out for me, buried in some dusty police file somewhere.’
Chopra hesitated. Had he still been a police officer, he would have felt compelled to arrest Buckley, and hand him over to the proper authorities. Yet set against this was the fact that the Englishman had worked hard to carve out a new life. Twenty years was a long time to be on the run without slipping up. Perhaps he really was exactly what he claimed to be: a reformed criminal.
He stood up. ‘I advise you not to leave the city.’
‘I have no plans to go anywhere,’ said Buckley. Something flickered through his eyes. ‘I have a request. Don’t tell Perizaad about my past. I don’t think she would take kindly to the idea that a former convict had been by her father’s side for almost a decade.’
‘I make no promises,’ replied Chopra. ‘I suspect there is more here than you are telling me. But I do not have the authority to arrest you, and I do not want to hand you over to Rao at the CBI. His methods of extracting information are not to my liking.’ He looked down at Ganesha, who had polished off his plate of pastries. The elephant’s cream-smeared face looked as if he had inexpertly attempted to apply a clown’s make-up. ‘Did anyone tell you that you are becoming a glutton?’ he muttered as he led his young ward back out into the street.
Ganesha happily stuck the end of his trunk into his mouth and sucked up the last of the cream.
A meeting with Karma Holdings
The plaque in the lobby listed a dozen companies ranged over the nine floors of the gleaming new tower in Juhu.
Karma Holdings Private Limited had its offices on the eighth floor.
As Chopra made his way up in the lift, he considered the forthcoming encounter.
The initial police investigation into Cyrus Zorabian’s murder had concluded that his killing had been a crime of opportunity, a random encounter. But Chopra’s own efforts had revealed multiple motives that might be tied to a possible crime of passion. Darius Zorabian, Boman Jeejibhoy, Anosh Ginwala, all had reason enough to wish Cyrus dead. And then there was William Buckley. Though his instincts were telling him that the Englishman was not the man he was looking for, he was not yet willing to erase him from his list of suspects.