The Perplexing Theft of the Jewel in the Crown

by Vaseem Khan

  Rangwalla was sitting on a stool outside it, holding a pigeon across his knees. A number of other pigeons milled around him, pecking at breadcrumbs on the floor.

  As Chopra approached, Rangwalla looked around. His eyes widened, and then embarrassment came into his face and he turned away.

  Chopra was shocked.

  In the space of a few short weeks his former sub-inspector seemed to have lost weight, his face a haunted shadow of the one Chopra had known for almost twenty years. Rangwalla’s close-cropped beard was unkempt and straggled below his chin. His dark, pockmarked cheeks seemed even more haggard than usual. He wore a string vest and below that a pair of ragged shorts and worn sandals. His dark hair was uncombed beneath a yellowing skullcap.

  As Chopra watched, Rangwalla pinned the pigeon to his knee. He then proceeded to tie a small canister to the bird’s leg.

  ‘What are you doing?’ said Chopra.

  ‘My cousin has a garment business in Pune. We both raised racing pigeons together when we were young. Now we use them to play chess. I send him a move and then he sends me one back.’

  ‘Who is winning?’

  ‘I have stopped playing. I am sending him a request for a job. Perhaps he needs someone to make deliveries. I can drive very well.’

  Chopra took a deep breath. ‘Why didn’t you tell me, Rangwalla?’

  Rangwalla shrugged, his back still to Chopra. ‘It is not your problem.’

  Chopra moved so that he could crouch down and look Rangwalla in the eye. ‘We worked together for twenty years. You could have come to me. I thought we were friends.’

  Rangwalla finally met Chopra’s eyes. He realised that his words had struck his former sub-inspector deeply. ‘It just didn’t seem right. You were my boss…’

  ‘And now I am simply an ordinary citizen.’ Chopra stood. ‘Your daughter has grown into a fine young woman. You have a son, too, don’t you?’

  ‘Abbas.’

  ‘How old is he now?’

  ‘Six.’

  ‘Tell me, Rangwalla, what does he think of his father, sitting up here in his dovecote?’

  ‘I do not know. But it is not much of a father who cannot provide for his family.’

  ‘Stand up.’

  Rangwalla looked up.

  ‘Stand up, Sub-Inspector. That is an order.’

  Rangwalla set down the pigeon and then got to his feet.

  Chopra placed a hand on his bare shoulder. ‘You are the finest police officer that I know. You cannot be any less of a father. Your children are proud of you. I am proud of you.’

  Diamonds glistened in the corners of Rangwalla’s eyes.

  ‘I am in need of a man, Sub-Inspector. A very particular kind of man. You see, I have more cases than I can possibly handle at the agency. I require an associate private detective. Someone who is quick-witted, tenacious and resourceful. Someone who knows the ins and outs of the city. Someone who understands how an investigation must be conducted. Preferably someone who has had police experience. Can you think of such a person, Rangwalla?’

  A lump bobbed up and down in Rangwalla’s throat. ‘How much would such a person expect to receive as his monthly salary?’ he asked hoarsely.

  ‘Oh, I was thinking a sum of nine thousand rupees per month would be sufficient. Plus expenses, of course. And there would be a signing-on bonus. Five thousand rupees.’

  Rangwalla blinked back tears. ‘I think I may know just the man.’

  Chopra clapped his junior colleague on the shoulder. ‘In that case, kindly send him to me at once. I will be waiting downstairs in my van. And tell him to dress appropriately. Associate private detectives do not carry out their work in string vests and shorts.’

  As Chopra walked back down the stairs he reflected on how quickly a man’s self-respect could be taken from him. So much of what a man was was tied up in what he did. He recalled the dark days earlier in the year when he himself had been forced to make the transition from police inspector to ordinary citizen. He fully understood Rangwalla’s sense of helplessness.

  At the same time he knew that the police service’s loss was his gain. He could not have found a better man to help him at the agency. Rangwalla had the street smarts and dubious connections that Chopra himself could never hope to attain. Rangwalla was a man bred for police work, particularly the kind that required one to get one’s hands dirty. Chopra had no doubt that under different circumstances, his former lieutenant would have made an excellent criminal.

  Rangwalla was truly a rare breed of pigeon and Chopra was delighted he could help out his old colleague whilst helping himself too.

  Inside the van Ganesha greeted him with a swift trumpet of recrimination.

  He raised his trunk and patted his jutting lower lip. This was a sign that Ganesha was hungry. Chopra realised his own stomach was rumbling. It was well past lunchtime. Ganesha, he knew, preferred to conduct investigations on a full stomach.

  Once Rangwalla had joined them, they stopped at a Punjabi dhaba.

  The smell of butter chicken and tandoori roti always filled Chopra with nostalgia for his historic homeland in the state of Punjab, in spite of the fact that he had never been there. His ancestors had moved down to Maharashtra a few short generations ago and he himself had been born in the village of Jarul in the state’s Aurangabad district. He was now as Marathi as the next Maharashtrian – indeed, Poppy came from a noted Marathi clan.

  As they ate, Chopra asked Rangwalla how he had ended up being sacked from the service.

  ‘ACP Rao,’ Rangwalla elucidated. ‘After the trafficking ring investigation, he blamed you for the CBI picking him up. As you know he used his connections to get his neck out of the noose and transfer into the CBI himself. Because you had already left the force he couldn’t do anything to you. But he found out that I had helped you. And so he came after me instead. He accused me of beating a suspect to such an extent that the man ended up in hospital.’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘No.’

  Chopra continued to stare at Rangwalla, who had the decency to blush.

  ‘I mean I may have beaten him a little, but no more than usual. Certainly not enough to put him in hospital. The man had beaten his own wife into a coma. He was drunk and resisted arrest. When I threw him in the cells he was absolutely fine. But after Rao interviewed him, the man claimed I had all but killed him. A day later a fake medical report turned up. And that was that.’

  ‘Well, old friend, it seems that Rao continues to be a thorn in both our sides.’

  Quickly Chopra brought Rangwalla up to speed on his investigation into the theft of the Crown of Queen Elizabeth and the predicament of Shekhar Garewal.

  Rangwalla confessed that even in his present depressed state the case had captured his attention. It had been all over the news. The Indian government had, that very morning, announced an enormous reward for information leading to the return of the diamond. Within a few short hours hundreds of innocent people had been implicated in the crime and dozens of Koh-i-Noor diamonds had been delivered to the authorities. So far each and every one had turned out to be a fake.

  Rangwalla snorted cynically. ‘It’s as if they don’t know their fellow countrymen at all.’

  ‘This case is a tricky one,’ said Chopra, as he slopped up the last of his butter chicken. ‘These thieves were exceptionally clever. They planned everything well in advance. They had access to all the right equipment. They were well financed and thoroughly professional.’

  ‘Are you thinking what I am thinking, sir?’ said Rangwalla.

  ‘Rangwalla, even God does not know what goes on in that head of yours. But if you are thinking that this could only be the work of one of the big organised gangs, then yes, I am thinking what you are thinking.’

  ‘Who are your likeliest suspects?’

  ‘Take your pick,’ said Chopra. ‘The Rohan gang; Das’s outfit; the Chauhan mob. The Koh-i-Noor is a piece of cheese the size of the moon for such rats.’ Chopra shook his
head. ‘I hate to admit it, but this was a slick piece of work. And they have covered their tracks well.’

  ‘They always make a mistake somewhere, sir,’ said Rangwalla encouragingly.

  ‘Yes. But if I am to save Garewal, we will have to somehow discover that mistake on our own, in double-quick time, whilst avoiding the attentions of our friend Rao. He is determined to pin this on Garewal.’

  It was Rangwalla’s turn to shake his head. ‘How do men like Rao live with themselves? Where do they leave their consciences each morning? Sometimes it makes me think there is no hope for this country of ours.’

  Chopra frowned. ‘“You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”’

  Rangwalla stared at him. ‘I suppose Gandhiji said that.’

  Chopra coloured. His obsession with the great statesman was well known to his subordinates. Not everyone, he knew, appreciated Gandhi’s homespun wisdom.

  His phone suddenly exploded in his pocket, sending out the rousing chorus of the national song, ‘Vande Mataram’. It was a message from Poppy. Do not forget to go to the school. The appointment with Principal Lobo is at 4 p.m. P.S. Did you take your pills?

  Chopra cursed. The appointment! He had completely forgotten. He looked at his watch. It was a quarter to four. He was going to be late.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, standing up with such haste that his napkin fluttered to the floor.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘To the St Xavier Catholic School for Boys.’

  THE MISSING HEAD

  The St Xavier Catholic School for Boys, located in the posh suburb of Juhu, had only recently celebrated its centenary and in so doing consecrated a glorious legacy of pedagogical and charitable endeavour in India’s most factious city. Chopra had recently become acquainted with the renowned institution’s colourful history, which came back to him now as he walked through its wrought iron gates.

  Exactly one hundred years ago the Bishop of Bombay had invited a band of Portuguese missionaries to the subcontinent in the hope of making headway in the divine mission of converting the heathen. Astounded by the universal poverty and suffering that confronted them, the zealous Catholics had set about building an orphanage, which had later been converted into a school. The hope was that the school might be employed to bring the Word to the masses when they were at a more malleable age, that is, an age at which they would not take umbrage at being told that their seven-thousand-year-old faith was pagan nonsense and they would burn in eternal hellfire should they not immediately see the error of their ways.

  The school had swiftly become a Mumbai institution.

  Now it was one of the city’s most sought-after educational establishments, with parents willing to pay extortionate sums to enrol their future Tatas and Ambanis on its hallowed roster. The school continued to stay true to its roots, attempting to inculcate in each of its wards a sense of civic responsibility and charitable endeavour. One did not have to be a Christian to attend the school, but one was expected to imbibe the Christian virtues of decency, honesty and goodwill to one’s fellow man.

  Chopra hoped that his wife was taking notes.

  When Poppy had first told him that she had taken up the post of Drama and Dance teacher at St Xavier, he had thought she was making a joke.

  But Poppy had been deadly serious.

  After twenty-four years she had finally decided to join the rat race, as she had put it.

  Chopra knew that Poppy had struggled for years with the fact of their childlessness. It saddened him too, though he had taken care to mask his disappointment lest Poppy mistake it for recrimination. He knew too that Poppy had never understood his steadfast refusal to adopt. He was not sure if he understood it himself. But each time he thought about taking on a child that was not his own he had somehow balked. Not because he believed that he could not love a child he had not fathered himself, but because of a strange sense that the child might not believe in him. In his authenticity as a parent.

  After all, what qualifications did he have to be a father? For thirty years he had known only how to be a policeman. How to work long hours for little pay; how to deal with rapists and murderers; with cheats and thugs; with thieves and scam-artists. In what way did these endeavours qualify him to raise a young life?

  But often, in the quiet of an evening, he would reflect that perhaps he had been selfish, and that his wife had paid for his selfishness.

  Poppy loved children and they loved her. This was one reason why he had not protested when she had told him about her new job.

  Chopra considered himself a traditionalist, but not old-fashioned. He had no objection to Poppy working, but he worried for her. He did not think that his wife quite understood what she was letting herself in for.

  When he later discovered that Poppy had had an ulterior motive in pursuing this sudden career change it had come as no surprise. Over the years he had become accustomed to her personal crusades, which, like solar flares, burst forth with predictable regularity, usually incinerating everything in their path, but just as quickly running their course.

  Poppy had learned that in the one hundred years of its history the St Xavier Catholic School for Boys had never hired a woman. This single explosive fact had seemed to her to encapsulate the entrenched attitudes that conspired to hold back the Modern Indian Woman. She had decided there and then that this scandalous state of affairs could not remain unchallenged.

  And so began her campaign of guerrilla warfare.

  She had hounded the school’s Board of Trustees for months, relentlessly haranguing them with threatening letters whilst simultaneously firing off countless articles to the local newspapers, one of which had been published under the incendiary headline ‘FÊTED SCHOOL INVITES WOMEN TO SWAB ITS FLOORS BUT NOT TO INSTRUCT ITS PUPILS’. Worst of all, she had organised a petition.

  The St Xavier trustees, a roll call of octogenarians accustomed to dozing through the annual board meeting in readiness for the eight-course banquet that marked the end of another successful year, had felt as if an invading army had arrived at the gates.

  Finally, hollow-eyed with terror at the prospect of yet another visit from Poppy, they had hoisted the white flag of surrender. A resolution had been passed unanimously agreeing that it would be an excellent idea to hire a woman and why the devil hadn’t anyone thought of it before?

  Poppy had then proposed that she be considered for the position.

  The trustees had exchanged looks and then fallen over each other in their haste to be the first to congratulate her.

  Poppy had suggested that perhaps they should interview her first, just to ensure that she was the most deserving candidate. The trustees, a sheen of perspiration on their wrinkled brows, had assured her that no interview was necessary. They were more than impressed with her non-existent credentials… and by the way, what exactly would she be teaching? At this point Poppy had smiled sweetly. ‘I have one or two ideas,’ she had announced.

  And so, after one hundred years of not realising that it needed them, St Xavier had begun to teach its cadets the essential skills of acting and Bharatanatyam dance.

  And, as far as Chopra had heard, his wife had been a big hit.

  He felt a sense of trepidation gathering inside his stomach as he approached the frosted glass door of the principal’s office. It reminded him of his own schooling in the single-roomed village school in Jarul presided over by his father, Premkumar Chopra, who everyone affectionately called Masterji.

  Back then Chopra had not been a keen student. He was easily distracted. It did not help that the tin-roofed schoolroom was hot as hell, that flies buzzed continuously about his head, that chickens wandered in to peck at his toes, and that the occasional bullock coming back from the river would poke its head through the open window to see what all the fuss was about.

  A dark-skinned man in spectacles and a flowing white cassock was waiting for them outside the o
ffice. He introduced himself as Brother Noel Machado, assistant to the principal.

  ‘I am so glad you have come,’ Machado said. ‘He has been beside himself. I shudder to think what he will do if you cannot help us.’

  ‘We will do our best,’ promised Chopra, though he still had no idea why Poppy had asked him here. She had been suspiciously close-mouthed on the subject.

  They entered the office to find a tall, vulpine, elderly man also in a white cassock pacing the flagstoned floor behind a battered wooden desk. Hard grey eyes looked out from below great winged eyebrows. A beaked nose curved down towards a hard-set mouth that moved in wordless anger above a jowly chin.

  Brother Augustus Lobo, principal of St Xavier, was something of a Mumbai legend.

  The principal was approaching his ninetieth year but looked no older than a man in his late sixties. Lobo had once declared that he owed his enduring youth to the fact that he had, for the past fifty years, taken a daily dose of his ‘own water’, following in the footsteps of his hero, former Prime Minister of India Morarji Desai, who had advocated ‘urine therapy’ as the perfect solution for the millions of Indians who could not afford medical treatment for the panoply of ills that plagued them.

  Lobo stopped pacing and swivelled to face his visitors with a glare that had turned many a future captain of Indian industry to jelly. Chopra heard Rangwalla shuffle behind him. Rangwalla’s schooling, he knew, had been rudimentary. He had no doubt the former sub-inspector was reliving the many beatings he had earned as a boy, beatings that were now personified in the minatory form of Augustus Lobo.

  ‘Hooliganism, Chopra! Damned hooliganism!’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘I blame this modern culture of yours,’ growled the principal. ‘Disrespect is the fashion, nowadays. Loutishness is in, sir. A nation of degenerates, that is where we are headed… And what can we do about it? Those spineless goons in New Delhi have tied our hands. Do you know that I am no longer allowed to beat these young goondas? Do you think Father Rodrigues spared the rod when I was a boy? Why, Gandhi himself was roundly beaten as a young man, and a power of good it did him. And St Xavier positively welcomed a good thrashing from those villainous Portuguese soldiers who had turned from the faith down in Goa.’