Daddy's Girl

by Swati Chaturvedi

  Mrs Nalwa looked with devout approval at her husband and sighed gustily at the solecisms Singh was committing against good taste and them.

  On the other hand, Mr Nalwa, for the first time, showed visible discomfiture and smiled a smile, which did not reach or reflect in his frozen eyes.

  Singh refused to be charmed back into imagined middle-class complicity and etiquette, and forged ahead, ‘Your wife said she had memory blackouts since the murder—such as about you playing tennis. Is she being treated for it by a physician? Yes or no?’

  Caught, Mr Nalwa fidgeted with his hair and said with a thoughtful air, ‘She has had some mildly depressive episodes. A doctor, who is a friend, is treating her. I really wouldn’t be qualified to tell you more.’

  ‘No problem, I will need to speak to that doctor. Give me his name and number,’ said Singh, ramming home his advantage.

  Mr Nalwa thought frantically for a second and then came up with, ‘It’s Dr Vinod Sharma. But do you really have to drag him into this, after all that my wife has suffered? Shouldn’t her mental health troubles be confidential? I am her husband and I can tell you she has blackouts.’

  Sure, and I would believe anything you say, thought Singh. In a bleak voice, he said, ‘Mr Nalwa, nothing is confidential in a murder investigation. I want to ask both of you—do you really want your daughter’s murder solved? Because, sure as hell, you are both not cooperating with me.’

  Singh persisted even more softly but aiming with deadly precision into the heart of the twin murders, said, ‘Mr Nalwa, you clearly learnt engineering for two years, which you chose to conceal from the police. Do you also own a Mauser pistol, which was used to kill your daughter and Babloo? A pistol you have also kept hidden from us?’

  Before Mr Nalwa could be goaded into a reply, Mrs Nalwa burst out, ‘What nonsense! All you want to do is judge and implicate us! Who gave you the right?’

  Singh smiled dourly and said, ‘The law, madam. Calm down, we are going to be here for a long time.’

  Mrs Nalwa screamed, ‘I want to leave, I am not feeling well. You can’t force me to stay.’

  ‘Unfortunately, I can. Now if you would like, I can arrest both of you,’ said Singh assertively.

  A jolt of pure electricity passed between the couple, who looked at each other with mounting panic. Looking at them Singh thought, If I could read their minds right now, I would know everything.

  Drawing himself bolt upright, Mr Nalwa said, ‘There will be no need for that, I assure you. My wife is upset but she will do her best to answer your questions. Singh sahib, we are cooperating with you a 100 per cent. Can I just give her a small pill so that she feels better?’

  Feeling wrong-footed again, Singh said, ‘Sure. Do you want some tea or coffee?’

  ‘Just water,’ said Mr Nalwa as Mrs Nalwa sat upright, a sour expression on her face as if a bad smell was contaminating the very air she was forced to breath. Pressing the buzzer, Singh told his PA to buy a bottle of mineral bottle from the canteen, while looking defiantly at the couple.

  He turned to Mr Nalwa again. ‘You have a good swing, don’t you? When you play tennis—your new sport, played by uber-rich people like you?’

  Mr Nalwa handed over a small pill to his wife, who gagged and made a face while swallowing it. The whole business gave him time to think and he looked at Singh composedly and said, ‘I do, but my practice is booming. I hardly get any time to play.’

  Singh pulled out a file and said, ‘Are you sure? I have evidence of you playing regularly at the Noida and DLF Tennis Courts twice every weekend. I have witness statements of the other players who made up your four.’

  Still composed, Mr Nalwa answered smoothly, ‘Yes, but that was before this tragedy. And did you really need to go and question my tennis buddies? You are affecting my social standing now. People do not like to be involved with the police.’ There was pointed distaste in his tone.

  ‘Really, Mr Nalwa. I wouldn’t need to involve your friends with the police if you stopped lying to me,’ said Singh, with a hint of a smile. A tense silence enveloped the badly lit, cramped office with the tubelight giving all their faces an ugly, yellow tinge.

  Mrs Nalwa was the first to break Fidgeting with her pallu, with tears making her eyes shine, she asked in a trembling voice, ‘Do you think we killed our daughter?’’

  ‘And Babloo,’ added Singh firmly, with an air of finality in his tone.

  Fingering his long hair, Mr Nalwa said conversationally, ‘You can think what you like. I am tired of trying to convince you. But let’s see what you can actually prove in court.’

  Looking at him squarely in the eye, Singh said formally, ‘Mr Nalwa, I am placing you under arrest for the murder of Ambika Nalwa and Babloo Chatwal.’

  Mr Nalwa sat completely still while Mrs Nalwa jumped up with a shriek and ran to his chair, shielding him with her body while screaming, ‘You can’t do that. What will I do? Arrest me too. I can’t live without him. Who is paying you to do this?’ Tears ran down her face unrestrained, streaking through her make-up, making her look like a sad, deranged clown. Then she tried to pull Mr Nalwa to his feet and said stubbornly, ‘Let’s go. Let them try and stop us.’

  Singh sat watching the scene unmoved but was reluctantly forced to admire Mr Nalwa’s steely self-control.

  Mr Nalwa pushed his wife off and squaring his shoulders said, ‘It’s nothing. They are making a mistake and he will pay for it. You don’t worry.’ And then, looking at Singh, as if his wife’s hysterics were a temporary interruption of a convivial conversation, he said pleasantly, ‘I anticipated this, Singh. I thought you would do something like this; perhaps, for the media attention. So I have got anticipatory bail. My lawyer has the documents. Now am I free to go or are you going to persist with your insane line of questioning?’

  Smiling back at him, Singh said, ‘I know that, Mr Nalwa. But if you are innocent, then why did you fear arrest?’

  For the first time, Mr Nalwa’s expression changed from bored incredulity to rage, ‘I am not scared of anything, but I know, like all Indians do from birth, that the police are irrational, crooked bastards. So are we free to go now?’

  ‘You are free to go, but as your lawyers would have told you, your bail conditions need both of you to cooperate absolutely with the police. Do you think you are doing that?’ asked Singh with icy courtesy, his eyes stony with contempt.

  Mr Nalwa was speechless.

  Singh added, more pleasantly now, ‘And, like all of us Indians know from birth, you would also know that jail is not really a nice place. By my reckoning Tihar would have the proud distinction of being the worst jail in all of Asia. The overcrowding is so bad that chicken coops shine in comparison. I want to be appointed DG so that I can help those poor bastards suffering inside.’

  Mrs Nalwa stood up and shrieked, ‘Are you threatening us?’

  Singh smiled at her widely and said, ‘No, Mrs Nalwa. I make it a point to never threaten professionals, especially lawyers. They always fuck themselves in the end. I am just giving you the real picture of Tihar, that a genteel, rich, sheltered lady such as yourself would be unlikely to know.’

  Driblets of saliva ran down the side of her mouth as she shook with rage.

  Mr Nalwa stood up, took her arm, and said, ‘Enough of this!’ Then he looked at his wife and said, ‘I told you to relax.’ He handed over his perfectly ironed monogrammed handkerchief and motioned for her to wipe her face.

  Turning brusquely to Singh, he said, ‘This better be all. I have had enough. Can we go?’ It was more a command than a request and it raised Singh’s hackles. He had been on the point of telling them that they could leave but motioned them to sit down instead.

  ‘I will decide when we are finished, Vakil sahib. This is the police headquarters not the Rashtrapati Bhavan and you are both accused of a capital crime. Now sit down and answer my questions. And stop being so economical with the truth. Tell the lovely lady, your wife, to stop the drama.’

 
Mr Nalwa’s fists clenched at his sides and he glared at Singh as a tense silence built up, without either of them conceding an inch. Suddenly Mrs Nalwa pulled at her husband’s hand and almost pushed him down on the badly upholstered seat with holes, which were designed to give the occupants a backache.

  Mr Nalwa sat there without saying a word and the couple glared at Singh.

  Singh, rubbing his paunch ruminatively, asked Mr Nalwa, ‘I have been wondering since the day this case was assigned to me, what gave you this cockiness? Did you think that being a lawyer would protect you or was it the fact that that like most people of your class, you had a gun as a secret weapon, a toy? You know, I have had sleepless nights searching for these answers.’

  For once, there was no answer from Arjun Nawla, who always had all the answers in court and in his life.

  17

  Leaning back comfortably in his chair, which Singh considered a minor miracle—how could any human being find any comfort in those chairs?—Mr Nalwa surveyed Singh and said, ‘So this is the torture that we hear about police inflicting on innocents. Do I have to remind you I am a respectable taxpayer?’

  Singh shot back, ‘Are you going to remind me that you pay my salary next? Huh! Those rules, the one you and people well-connected like you play by, do not apply when you are a suspect for a crime. That, too, one so heinous.’

  The Nalwas stared at him.

  Singh said conversationally, ‘Let’s do this again and this time let us try the truth, shall we? Why don’t you tell me why you killed your daughter? Did you find her in bed with her cousin?’

  The walls of the claustrophobic office seemed to draw in oppressively closer as the couple, who had been sitting back on their chairs, suddenly seemed to hunch over protectively. Mrs Nalwa blindly sought Mr Nalwa’s hand and clamped it hard. Mr Nalwa felt as if the world had receded and then come back, crashing over him. As he took in Singh’s words, he tried to gather the resolve to deny it. He sat up again and said, ‘You are talking nonsense to cover up your own incompetence. Why would I kill my only child?’

  Singh, who had reluctantly noted the ebbs and flows in Mr Nalwa’s resolve, said, ‘You know, somewhere in my being, I feel sympathy for you. I don’t want to but it creeps up on me. If you killed her for a warped sense of honour, then how do you tarnish her by now admitting to the reason?’

  Singh saw a flash of bafflement and anger in Nalwa’s eyes before they became cold again. But he had seen it and knew with his cop’s sixth sense that he had the answer.

  ‘What!!’ Singh’s ear drums nearly burst because of Mrs Nalwa’s shriek. Singh looked at her in shock. She screamed, ‘First you accuse us of murdering our kid, our precious, only child, and then you come up with these outdated ideas of honour? Are you crazy? What’s honour? I have never heard such nonsense in my life!’ She said it with such hatred that Singh was genuinely taken aback.

  She continued, ‘Really? This is your investigation? If my kid was having sex, I would have wanted her to use protection. All kids, including yours, are having sex, officer! You really did not know this? Do you even know your own children?’

  Singh just wanted her to shut up. Her jibe had hit home. He did not want to think about his daughter in any kind of juxtaposition to Ambika.

  Ignoring her, he turned to Mr Nalwa, ‘So if your daughter was having sex with the man who you considered mentally challenged and no better than a servant, your only concern would have been that she use contraception? Really, Mr Nalwa? Your only concern?’

  Freeing his hand, which was still being grasped by his wife, Mr Nalwa said, ‘Did you hear me say that? My wife is an adult. She speaks for herself. I don’t want to discuss Ambika’s sex life with you, but I would have cared about it much more than just about whether she was using protection, I can assure you, Mr Singh.’

  Singh felt the entire investigation had unravelled before him. He looked at the Nalwas with utter disgust and all he could think about was how he wanted them out of his office. It’s a dirty office, I know, but they make it even filthier.

  Changing the track, he said, ‘We will talk about the motive later. I have evidence that you have had a long-standing mistress, a socialite, whose presence caused huge distress to your wife and daughter.’

  Singh was looking down at his file, which had a detailed list of these encounters and yet he felt a kind of panic. He did not want to hear more than they needed to say to justify their actions.

  He was saved as Mrs Nalwa withdrew into stony silence, stealing hungry, devout glances at her husband, while Mr Nalwa looked at him with a blank face and said, ‘You will need to give me more details. I do not understand what you mean. Is consensual sex a crime? That, too, between consenting adults?’

  Wearily, Singh said, ‘I thought we had agreed there would no more lawyer-like stonewalling. No, sex between consenting adults is not a crime, unless there is a monetary transaction involved. In which case, as I am sure you are well aware, it’s prostitution. But I was trying to find out the effects of your sexual adventures on your young and impressionable daughter. How did Ambika react to your sexual escapades?’

  ‘She did not know!’ said Mrs Nalwa hotly.

  Mr Nalwa immediately backed her up. ‘What my wife means is that we do not do anything that adults don’t do. Ambika did not know about something that exists in the imagination of the Delhi police and the sick media.’

  ‘Why don’t you let Mrs Nalwa explain, as you just instructed me in the tradition of all legal norms that she is a responsible adult and she speaks for herself?’

  Mrs Nalwa was not the least bit embarrassed and said, ‘My husband is right. That’s what I meant. I am exhausted. You have kept us here for nine hours. I want to go home.’ The last words were said with an imperious overtone that would brook any opposition.

  Mr Nalwa was immediately all attention and said, ‘Oh, darling, you had the medicine on an empty stomach. The acidity must be killing you!’ He glared at Singh.

  Irritated and utterly exhausted by their sick games, Singh stared across the table at them and said, ‘You know, I have met serial rapists who were less diseased and perverted than you two. Very well, you can go. But be here at 7 a.m. tomorrow or I will move the court to cancel your anticipatory bail. And I am sure you have the papers on you. Give them to my PA when you leave.’

  Mrs Nalwa moaned to her husband without looking at Singh, ‘What did he say? We have to come back here to this dirty office again?’

  Mr Nalwa did not reply but met Singh’s eyes and said challengingly, ‘I have clients, court and briefings with junior counsel. Can’t we come after that?’

  Singh was finally at ease, ‘Mr Nalwa, sir, let me explain it to you again. My investigation is not based on your convenience and your schedule. Murder investigation puts curbs on us. Cancel everything and be here at 7 a.m. or you will be in police custody at 8 a.m. for failure to cooperate.’

  Pressing down hard on his buzzer, as his startled PA rushed in, Singh snapped, ‘Inko summon notice doh. Kal subeh 7 baje ka,’ he said. And he also asked him to check on the bail papers.

  Leaning back, he smiled and said, ‘Now get out of my sight. But remember, I have all the time in the world and my record is that I do not give in till I get a confession. See you tomorrow morning. Good night and sleep well.’

  The outraged couple were ushered out by the querulous PA, who could see that his boss was in a foul mood, which would play havoc with his own life. And 7 a.m. meant Singh would get to office from Lodi Gardens in barely ten minutes, while he would have to leave Ghaziabad at 5 a.m. Cursing the Nalwas, he asked them for the bail papers.

  Singh felt as if his office had been cleansed. He suddenly realized how hungry he was and then, leaning back, he reflectively reached out for his phone and called Meera. Realizing what he had done, he disconnected the call, pulled out a shabby phone, and dialled her number.

  She took a long time answering and said a wary hello. Singh laughed and said, ‘Your best source here an
d you don’t even recognize his voice!’

  ‘Singh sahib!’ Meera sang out. ‘It’s you! I am so happy you called. Um . . . all well? What’s up?’ She was suddenly guarded.

  Singh smiled and nodded his head, but realized she was not there to see the gesture. I am light-headed with hunger, he thought and said quietly into the phone, ‘Yeah, all okay. I was very hungry, so I suddenly thought of the hungriest reporter I know.’

  ‘Then you should know I am very greedy too,’ replied Meera.

  Suddenly, they both did not know what to say. Singh ended the awkward silence by saying, ‘Do you want to pick up some sandwiches and meet me in Lodi Gardens? I would ask you to come home but that IB crap is still on.’

  Meera replied, ‘No, no, it’s cool. I don’t care where I meet my favourite source. What sandwich filling would you like?’

  ‘Anything, yaar. At this point, I could even eat the CP or Mrs Nalwa.’

  Chortling with delight, Meera said, ‘Sure, but that won’t be good for your figure. See you.’

  Singh laughed and sat back in his chair. The evening was going to be worth all the pain, he thought.

  Outside the police station, TV channels and a feral pack of reporters were waiting to take bytes and do live takes with the Nalwas. Running the gauntlet, pursued by the pack screaming questions in both Hindi and English, Arjun Nalwa felt blinded by a red-hot fury so palpable, he could taste it. He wanted to break their cameras and smash their faces. Cuckoo Nalwa, who was hanging on to his arm to just stand upright, suddenly let out a cry of pain. Someone had trodden on her foot.

  The rank air filled with BO and noise made him want to retch. Keeping quiet, he barely held on to his composure till he saw their frightened-looking driver waiting near their special edition black S class Mercedes. Getting into the car, he instructed his driver through gritted teeth, ‘Drive carefully. Don’t hurt those pests.’