The Colaba Conspiracy

by Surender Mohan Pathak

  ‘You alone were the instrument, Shah sahib,’ Navlani said, ‘nothing would have worked without you.’

  ‘It was all your charisma,’ Jhalani said, ‘that made it possible.’

  ‘Thank you, thank you,’ Shah said, beaming, ‘madam is bereaved, but still I can’t stop myself from congratulating her. Congratulations, Madam Moneybags.’

  Sushmita smiled shyly.

  ‘The family, which was hell-bent on depriving you of the status of a wife, is now ready to strike any compromise to avoid a prison sentence. They are even ready to fall at your feet.’

  ‘Served them right!’ Navlani said. ‘Those haughty snobs must have realized now that might is not always right.’

  ‘Great! Our pd is getting poetic now.’

  Everybody laughed.

  Sushmita and Jeet Singh also laughed. Sushmita laughed hesitatingly, Jeet Singh under the social pressure.

  By then, Jeet Singh had paid the rest of the lawyer’s fee via Navlani.

  ‘Sir,’ Sushmita said, ‘now I will pay your fee real soon.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Shah replied, ‘assume that I have been paid.’

  ‘You have been paid already?’

  ‘I also said assume.’

  ‘Oh! But …’

  ‘No but. Don’t mention the word fee again. My dear, don’t break your pretty head over petty matters.’

  ‘Petty matter! Ten lakh rupees fee, a petty matter!’

  ‘I said “in cash or in kind”, too. Fee is a matter between the client and the lawyer, a private matter at that. We will settle it privately.’

  ‘You talk in riddles, sir.’

  ‘Yes, I do that once in a while.’

  Sushmita became quiet.

  ‘So,’ Jhalani said, ‘the sudden, unexpected appearance of the deceased’s store manager Devki Nandan Tiwari turned the tables on the prosecution?’

  ‘My dear,’ Shah said, ‘the prosecution’s case was already demolished when I succeeded in exposing the perjury of Mira Kishnani. But Tiwari’s sudden appearance acted as the last straw that broke the camel’s back.’

  ‘How come he appeared in the court?’

  ‘He said that he was restless since the time he was ordered to leave Mumbai. Inspector Devtale had threatened him that he would face dire consequences if he did not leave Mumbai immediately. He dreaded of the consequences of not complying with the orders, so he resigned from his job, vacated his rented quarter in Sewri, but still did not leave Mumbai. He says he started living in hiding but he continued trying to keep track of every development in the case. He was an educated, intelligent person and he knew well that everything depended on the fact whether his employer, late Pursumal Changulani had married Sushmita or not. He was a witness to the marriage and was loyal to his employer, but he was still not willing to invite his doom by recklessly shooting his mouth any time, anywhere. He was waiting for an opportune moment and he got it when the case was brought for hearing today in the trial court. He was present in the court from the beginning, and was determined to get his statement recorded as a witness of the marriage. He deposed in the court and endorsed the marriage. Once the judge was convinced that the marriage had taken place, the rest of the charges themselves started appearing fake and framed to pressurize Sushmita to submission. The moment it was proved that she was indeed Sethji’s wife, the live-in companion allegation lost the ground, and the same thing happened with the charge of stealing money and valuables from the house. The judge reprimanded all the members of the Changulani family and ordered the police to register a case of perjury, and conspiring to build a fake case against all of them. He also directed the police commissioner of Mumbai to immediately suspend the corrupt sho of Colaba police station, and initiate not only departmental, but also legal action against him.’

  ‘For your information, folks,’ Jhalani said, ‘the police have to go through a severe loss of face, their image has been badly tarnished, that one of their inspectors built a case of murder against innocent people and, the police PRO says, he went to an extreme when he got a reward of twenty thousand rupees declared against Jeet Singh for being one of the suspects.’ He turned to Jeet Singh, ‘Don’t you worry, now. You don’t have a case against you …’

  Jeet Singh nodded gratefully.

  ‘… and this is right from the horse’s mouth.’

  ‘Sir!’

  ‘The Joint Commissioner himself has issued a press note in this respect.’

  ‘Oh! But, sahib, there’s still a curtain on the murder!’

  ‘No, it’s not so now,’ Shah replied. ‘That curtain has now been lifted. When all the curtains have blown, how could that one curtain remain in place?’

  ‘Who was the killer?’

  ‘My dear,’ Shah asked Jhalani, ‘you want to do it or shall I do it?’

  ‘You go ahead, sir,’ Jhalani said, ‘this is your show, and you are the master of it. You are the right person to tell it.’

  ‘Arthur Finch! The enforcer of that London casino to which the younger son of the deceased owed six hundred thousand dollars—five crore rupees. It was a good coincidence that I highlighted in court the necessity of his arrest and it was a better coincidence that the police in this matter did not show the laxity for which they are notoriously known. He had nearly fled the country when the police arrested him from Sahar airport. He had checked in, collected the boarding pass, and even went and settled on his seat in the British Airways flight when the police caught hold of him.’

  ‘Did he own up to his crime?’ Navlani asked.

  ‘There was no reason not to as Ashok Changulani himself was an important and impeccable witness against him.’

  ‘Witness of the murder?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘Finch himself confessed before Ashok that he killed his father, handed the car over to local carjackers and devoured that day’s sale of the store that the deceased was carrying with him. He had converted the amount into British pounds—some twenty-seven thousand pounds—and that amount was recovered from his person at the time of his arrest.’

  ‘Why did he commit the murder?’

  ‘Because killing, torturing, maiming is his line of business. Forcing the subject is his line of business. That is why he was called an enforcer. He had clear instructions from the casino bosses to either collect or eliminate. When he reached Mumbai, Finch came to know that Ashok was the son of a multimillionaire father and was also his heir, so he found it more fruitful to murder the father instead of the son. His orders were such that he had to commit one murder. If he killed Ashok, the chances of recovery would have been doomed with him. On the contrary, if he killed the father, the son would have become rich by way of inheritance and would have easily paid his debts. So, he took the second option, and didn’t even hide it from Ashok because, now, all he had to do was to wait for Ashok to come into big money and repay the casino’s debts.’

  ‘But,’ Sushmita said, ‘the murder is said to be committed with a piece of the expensive, exclusive cutlery set of the house! The murder weapon was one of the carving knives of that set! How did Finch get hold of it?’

  ‘He did not,’ Shah said. ‘It was a mere coincidence that the knife Finch used as a murder weapon, that is the weapon he could get hold of for that job, was identical to the carving knife from the fancy cutlery set of the Changulani household, so much so that it looked exactly as a part of that cutlery set. So, when the police sleuths came to know that a carving knife was missing from the cutlery set of the household, they just assumed that the murder weapon was that carving knife.’

  ‘Nevertheless a carving knife had disappeared from the cutlery set! Why was it so if that was not the murder weapon?’

  ‘Because it was made to disappear. It was made to disappear with a specific purpose in mind. It was made to disappear when via media the type of murder weapon got well-known to everybody.’

  ‘You mean to say,’ Jhalani said, ‘that the knife of the cutlery
set was made to disappear after the murder?’

  ‘Exactly! Then only one would have come to know which piece of that sixty pieces of cutlery needed to go missing.’

  ‘Who did it?’

  ‘Isn’t it obvious? It is quite apparent that Ashok did it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To complicate the case. He thought—thought unjustly but thought nevertheless—that the one who was to die was dead, now if he could shift the blame to someone else—on Sushmita—then surely there was no harm done in acting upon it.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘Has Ashok,’ Navlani asked, ‘conceded that it was he who made the carving knife disappear?’

  ‘Yes, he has.’

  ‘Then he will suffer badly—worse than the other conspirators.’

  ‘Why so? He is the owner of the house, where’s the problem if he misplaced an article of the house?’

  ‘Why did he not speak that the carving knife of the house was not the murder weapon?’

  ‘Because he wasn’t asked to speak.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘You are forgetting the character of the police. When earlier they were with men with money—as they always are with the mighty—then why would they behave differently now? When the cops can suggest how to frame Sushmita, can’t they also suggest how to save Ashok, the other family members?’

  ‘You are right, sir.’

  ‘Any other doubts that need to be cleared?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Then I propose that this meeting be concluded on a happy note. This meeting may be concluded with a celebration.’

  ‘And how shall we do it?’

  ‘With this,’ Shah said, while pulling out a bottle from his desk’s drawer. ‘This is a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue Label that is confined in this drawer since long waiting for an opportune moment. I think that opportune moment has arrived today. Today we’ll release it from its confinement. Those in favour of the celebration, may kindly raise hands.’

  The pd and the reporter immediately raised their hands.

  Jeet Singh raised his hand with great hesitation—after all it was a gathering of affluent people.

  Sushmita, a picture of bashfulness, kept sitting silently staring at the floor.

  ‘My dear,’ Shah addressed her, ‘please look at me.’

  She looked up with effort.

  ‘Shall I take it that you’re not happy with the happiness of Gunjan Shah? You don’t deem it as a cause of celebration that Gunjan Shah has recorded his victory in a major court case? That I have saved a damsel in distress?’

  She remained silent.

  ‘Please answer me.’

  She did—by raising her hand.

  Jeet Singh was in his Vithalwadi flat. He had just finished his morning chores when there was a knock on the door.

  He opened the door.

  Sushmita was standing before him.

  ‘You!’ he said with awe. ‘Here?’

  ‘Yes, finally,’ she said, while stepping in.

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Your friend Gailo told me.’

  ‘How did you find his address?’

  ‘He is a taxi driver, I enquired about him from some other taxi drivers, and I found one who knew him. He took me to the taxi stand at Alexandra Cinema and Gailo was there. He gave me this address.’

  ‘He shouldn’t have done it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You shouldn’t have come here.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘You now have a reputation, a stature, a social standing …’

  ‘I had all that before, too.’

  ‘Yes, you had. That’s why I said that it is not good for your reputation to fraternize with lowlife taporis.’

  ‘How about letting me decide what’s good for me and what’s not good for me?’

  Jeet Singh kept quiet.

  ‘May I sit?’

  ‘Oh, sorry!’

  He offered her a chair.

  ‘Sit down yourself.’

  He took another chair and sat before her.

  ‘I looked for you,’ she said, ‘because you never returned to Chinchpokli. Aren’t you happy that I came to meet you?’

  ‘I am. I am very happy. I am elevated, so honoured as if a goddess has visited me.’

  ‘Won’t you ask why I have come here?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Because I dare not hear your answer. Hearing your answer can be hazardous for me.’

  ‘And you know this without listening to my answer?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You could be wrong.’

  ‘Maybe, but if I’m right … there’ll be a problem.’

  ‘For whom?’

  ‘For me.’

  ‘You have learned to talk fancy.’

  ‘Not fancy, meaningful.’

  ‘What do you want to say?’

  ‘If it is a big thing to be the wife of an affluent person, it is no less to be the widow of such a person. That status of yours is now confirmed. If the family members get sentenced by the court, they will lose their right to be the beneficiary, as law does not permit anybody to benefit from his own crime. Now you are sure to be an heir to one-fourth of the property, then you will become the sole beneficiary. And your sister’s children would continue studying in that school at Lonawala for their aunt is now an heiress, no?’

  She did not reply.

  ‘Earlier, you were not willing to let the children of your sister grow up in the shadow of a criminal, a tapori, how’d you now agree to let it happen? So, it’s for you, for your own good that I must keep away from you.’

  Speechlessly, she looked at him.

  ‘I was not worth you earlier also, but now I am not so at all.’

  She raised her eyebrows.

  ‘Since the day my desire for you hit me like a thunderbolt, I have participated in five robberies, and have committed thirteen murders. My nature has become such that I kill without thinking, I shoot anybody for the heck of it. My mind is captivated by the madness that I must break that very toy that I like the most. I have no future, if I am ever caught, and just one murder is proven against me, I’ll be hanged. I don’t want that you are forced to become a widow twice; so …’

  He discontinued his speech.

  A heavy silence hung between them for some time.

  ‘Otherwise, too,’ it was Jeet Singh who broke the silence finally, ‘courtesy your good self, the machinery that makes a man make love to a woman is condemned in my case.’

  ‘This is nonsense!’ she suddenly flared up. ‘Sheer nonsense!’

  ‘Why so?’

  ‘Why did you pay Shah’s fee for me if you had these things in mind?’

  ‘Who says I paid?’

  ‘Nobody says. You say that you didn’t! Say you didn’t pay him ten lakh rupees in two instalments! Will you be able to say it?’

  ‘That’s a separate issue.’

  ‘You said you had only eighty thousand rupees with you! From where did you get so much money?’

  ‘The whole country is working for me. I take from anybody.’

  ‘And they give you?’

  ‘Yes, only they don’t realize it. But that too is separate issue.’

  ‘No, it’s not a separate issue.’

  ‘I am a whimsical man. I do so many things for no rhyme or reason. I’m a habitual do-gooder. I have this mad desire of earning people’s blessings.’

  ‘Bullshit! The fact—that you want to conceal—is that you still love me as much as you always did.’

  ‘That’s my personal affair.’

  ‘Love happens between two persons. How can it be a personal affair of one of them?’

  ‘If it is an affair of two persons, or was an affair of two persons, then how come no flower of desire blossomed on any of its branches? How come two hearts did not beat so that the sound appeared to be coming from one heart? The strings of love are delicate, but once united, they break with great dif
ficulty. But you never let them get united. You didn’t shirk from betrayal. You got married. You crushed the heart of a poor man under your shoe and moved ahead. The matter was over. At least from your side it was over. What was there to Jeet Singh? He was alive, good! He was not alive, also good! That big boss above, who made the universe, even he could not straighten my distorted life.’

  ‘Your laments are misplaced. It is still not so late. I have not come here without any purpose. I have a purpose. Try to realize that.’

  ‘What shall I realize? That you want to take the place of God Almighty? That you want to salvage my ruined life? Wait yet if such is the case. Because my heart is not completely broken yet. A woman who broke her promise worked hard but she did not succeed. Now, wait for some more time and then return.’

  ‘Oh my God! Why are you so determined not to change your track?’

  ‘There is no such thing. I have changed my track. There was a time when I had the determination to pay your price, even the most unreasonable price which you had the right to fix …’

  ‘I am a decent woman. How could I …?’

  ‘I hate decency. All decent women of the world are my enemies. If there is any bit of humanity left, it is there in fallen women. But you are not so. You are decent, noble, righteous, moral, a goddess reincarnate.’

  She started crying silently.

  ‘Anyway I was saying that there was a time I had the determination to pay your price and lay my claim upon you. I wanted to pave the road from Chinchpokli to Colaba with gold. But those things have become meaningless now. Now you are a rich widow, and are already gilded with gold. Jeeta couldn’t make you rich in his life, but Pursumal did it by dying. Now there is no point for me to keep following that track. You don’t need any contribution of mine. I regret that I cannot buy you now.’

  ‘You can get me for free.’

  ‘I may have a thousand vices, but I’m not a free-loader.’

  ‘What now then?’

  ‘Now it is the fate of two travellers on two different paths. You go your way, and let me go my way.’

  ‘Is this your last decision?’

  ‘This is my only decision. Goodbye, Mrs Sushmita Changulani, and thanks for your visit. Please let this unworthy know if ever there’s any service for me. My humble abode will again be at Chinchpokli as you won’t be there anymore.’