Chain of Custody

by Anita Nair

  His eyes fell on the rucksack. For a moment, Gowda hesitated. Just for a moment he felt ashamed of what he was about to do; this callous violation of privacy. Then he remembered the boy’s face; that easy, happy-go-lucky expression, that everything-in-the-world-is-so-cool-right-now smile, and he unzipped the rucksack.

  There was a laptop in it; they had bought him one for his birthday; headphones, a hard disk and power cables. In another pouch there was a notepad and a pen. In the secret pocket, he found a pouch that contained a coconut shell bowl, a little round metal tin, like the one his mother had kept her kumkum in, a box of rolling papers and filters. Gowda frowned, wondering what it was for. He opened the little round tin – it was a crusher. Gowda could smell weed. His heart sank. Roshan didn’t just take a drag from a joint once in a while. He was a regular marijuana smoker and this was the paraphernalia he used to justify his habit. To make it seem as if it were just as serious as smoking a pipe.

  Gowda gnawed at his lip. He wasn’t perturbed by the marijuana itself. It probably wasn’t as harmful as tobacco. What worried him was Roshan’s dependence on the substance. How deep was he into it? And would he stop with this or move on to hard drugs?

  Gowda slid his fingers into the secret pocket. In a little resealable bag he found what looked like rice grains. Gowda opened the bag and sniffed. It smelled like vanilla. What on earth was it? It looked like solidified baby goop. He touched it and licked his finger. It tasted of nothing.

  He tapped the bag into his mouth. Three or four grains fell on his tongue and it tasted like everything bitter he had eaten; all at the same time and magnified a million times. He took a hasty swallow of his rum and Coke. The bitterness stayed resolutely on his palate. What on earth was it, Gowda wondered as he put the bag back and packed Roshan’s paraphernalia away. Should he leave it exactly as he had found it? Or should he make it apparent that he had been sniffing around? Should he be cop or father? Gowda sighed loudly. The truth was, he couldn’t stop being either.

  He had thought he wouldn’t ever have to worry about the boy once he got past the age of sticking his fingers into plug points, falling off trees, and accepting dares to take condoms to school. It seemed with every year, the magnitude of worry only increased in both scope and intensity.

  Gowda let the cop in him prevail.

  He walked back to the living room, puzzled about the substance he had tasted. What was it? Some kind of aphrodisiac or an upper?

  He threw himself into his favourite chair. Then he got up and went to the music system to change CDs. He knew what he was going to play. A curious lassitude unfurled in him as Mukesh sang ‘Kabhi kabhi …’

  Gowda felt his eyes smart.

  He scrolled down his text messages and checked his call log. Suddenly he felt a great yearning to speak to Stanley Sagayaraj, his basketball captain from college and now ACP at the CCB – ‘Central Crime Bureau that is, and not City Crime Bureau’, Gowda had heard a vexed Stanley explain to a wet-behind-the-ears reporter from a local rag.

  Gowda grinned.

  Stanley picked up on the third ring.

  ‘How’re you, machan?’ Gowda said. He felt a slight furring of his throat even as he spoke.

  There was silence at the other end and then Stanley said, ‘Everything all right, Inspector Gowda?’

  ‘Can’t I call you just like that?’ Gowda heard the petulance in his tone, but couldn’t help himself. ‘Just wanted to connect, machan. What, you don’t like me calling you that?’

  ‘That was a long time back, Gowda. But you can call me machan as long it’s just you and me.’

  ‘So who else is here now?’ Gowda guffawed.

  ‘I’m at an official dinner. Is there something urgent?’

  ‘Nope,’ Gowda said, stretching out the word. ‘Just wanted to say I miss those days, machan. Remember Pink Floyd? We don’t need no education, we don’t need no thought control,’ Gowda sang.

  ‘Is anyone at home with you?’ Stanley asked gently.

  ‘N…o…p…e,’ Gowda said. He liked this nope. NOPE. ‘Gowda, always on his own, that’s me, Borei Gowda and his attitude … Someone told me you said that – that I am a good guy, a good cop, but I have an attitude problem. But you know what, I don’t mind, machan, you can say anything to me, you can ask me to fuck off … FUCK OFF! And I will take it from you because you are me captain!’

  ‘Gowda, I have to go. Let’s catch up one evening,’ Stanley said.

  ‘Let’s do that. Love you, machan. You were always the best in this heartache city. But remember to leave on time.’ Gowda burst into song again. When he had finished singing the chorus two times over, he realized that the call had been disconnected. Would that bastard hang up on him? N…o…p…e… Gowda thought. He must have moved into a black hole. Stanley was a good cop and a great man.

  An amazing sense of happiness rushed through Gowda. He had to tell Urmila how he felt. When she didn’t pick up, he recorded a long message of love and sexy endearments and what he would like to do to her inch by inch with his tongue, and finished it with his best rendition of ‘I just called to say I love you’. He then sent it to her on WhatsApp.

  Gowda heard someone open the latch. He frowned. Head Constable Gajendra appeared in the doorway.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Gowda smiled.

  Gajendra blinked at the expansive all-encompassing smile, the kind you might expect to see on the faces of babies, godmen and lunatics. What had happened to Gowda, he wondered.

  When ACP Stanley Sagayaraj had called and asked him to check on Gowda, he had thought that Gowda was ill. At least then, he would have known what to do. But what could he do with this beatific Gowda except persuade him to go to bed? And it would be easier to put a porcupine to bed!

  Dr Sanjay Rathore rested his head on the edge of the pool and looked at the stars in the night sky. He knew that overhead was Jupiter, blazing bright, and a little to the west was Sirius, diminished by Jupiter’s magnificence. And that was how it should be, he told himself. Jupiter was a planet and Sirius was a star. Not just in life but among heavenly bodies too, each ought to have its place. And as long as each kept to its designated orbit, there would be neither anarchy nor chaos.

  The community association had rules about how long the swimming pool could be kept open. He broke the rule anyway. If they protested, he would take them to court. They knew his reputation, so nothing more than a tiny protest had been voiced.

  He had returned to an empty house. Both the boys were gone. He had called the security guards at the gate.

  ‘They left around ten this morning,’ one of the guards said.

  ‘Why didn’t you stop them?’ Rathore snarled. ‘What if they have stolen stuff from my residence?’

  ‘We checked their bags. There was nothing in them. Besides, they returned their ID cards to us. So how could we stop them? This isn’t a prison, sir.’ The guard had sounded sullen.

  All the other residents gave the security guards a gift for Diwali. An envelope with Rs 500 in it or a shirt. But the lawyer didn’t. ‘We pay them. Why give them a bonus for doing their job?’ he argued. He sent a box of sweets that they were all expected to share.

  The bastard guard was probably paying him back for that. He slammed the intercom down.

  From the farther end of the pool, he heard a plop. A frog. He shuddered. He loved swimming in the night and apparently, so did the frogs. While he could tolerate a pool with shrieking children, he drew a line at frogs. He hauled himself up. The pool ladder was for kids and women; men didn’t use ladders unless they were decrepit. And that he wasn’t. He dried himself briskly, put a t-shirt on, drank all the water in the water bottle he carried to the pool and walked back to his house.

  He looked at his watch. It was a quarter to nine. He had a conference call at eleven with a colleague in London before they closed for the weekend.

  The villa in the gated community had been a good idea. The one hour it took him to drive from the city put a physical and m
ental distance between work and him. And a man needed respite. Especially someone like him, a true-blue workaholic who was inclined to work through every waking moment.

  The gate lights were on and so was the portico light at Shangri La. His heaven on earth.

  He latched the gate and paused for a moment in the driveway that wound alongside the lawns to the house. The rose bushes were heavy with flower. The champak tree across the road was in bloom. Their fragrance filled the warm night. The hollyhocks his gardener had planted were almost as tall as him and so laden with deep pink flowers that the darkness turned them into burgundy. He stopped to look at his garden of fragrances and shadows. He was filled with a strange emotion. What was it? Happiness or well-being? He didn’t know and didn’t particularly care as long as it felt like every knot in his shoulders had opened out. The new masseuse was good. He made a mental note to book an appointment at the spa for Sunday morning. Get a facial, manicure and pedicure too. Maybe touch up up the grey in his hair as well. He had seen Rekha glance at it.

  Friday evenings were customary three-drinks days. He would pour himself a single malt as he walked to the bathroom and keep it on the cabinet. He would take little sips as he showered and dressed. The second single malt, a more peaty one, was for when he sat in his sunken living room with some music on. He was going through a Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan phase. The man may have eaten himself to death, displaying a complete absence of self-restraint, but he had a voice that caused curlicues in his chest. In recent times, he hadn’t come close to that feeling except when he listened to music with a drink in his hand. The third drink, after dinner, was cognac taken sitting in the balcony off his bedroom. He allowed himself a smoke then.

  His phone beeped. He had called for a team meeting at eleven in the morning. He checked for messages. There were ten work messages and that text he had been hoping for. He smiled. Was he being a callow teenager? He didn’t feel his age and he was as fit as a man of thirty years. He stood on the garden path and texted back: What time are you coming? Can’t wait to see you. ({})

  As he opened his door, he heard the creak of the garden gate. He insisted that the gardener didn’t oil the hinges of the gate. That way he knew when someone entered his property. There was nothing to fear in this neighbourhood. The gated community had 24-hour security and CCTV. He turned. ‘Oh, it’s you!’ he said with a frown. Then his eyes widened in surprise.

  Part 2

  14 MARCH, SATURDAY

  9.30 a.m.

  Gowda felt the beginning of a headache; a low thump in the back of his skull which he knew would soon become a nasty pounding.

  Who was this Dr Sanjay Rathore? And why had someone bashed his head in? Even at first glance he could see this wasn’t a burglary gone wrong. Was it a crime of passion or an act of revenge? Had someone bumped him off because he knew too much? Or because he hadn’t budged enough?

  ‘Are you all right?’ Head Constable Gajendra asked.

  He wondered if the inspector remembered that he had helped him into bed, put the fan on and drawn a sheet over him. What had Gowda been drinking? He had never seen him so amiable or incoherent.

  Suddenly Gowda saw a familiar couple outside the gate. ‘What are Laurel and Hardy doing here?’ He turned to Gajendra.

  ‘They live here.’ Gajendra smiled.

  ‘I would like to speak to them.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘No, at their clubhouse. I want to see what that looks like as well’

  Gowda and Gajendra walked towards the clubhouse. The streets were lined with trees and at every street corner was an old-fashioned street lamp. The houses were gigantic and the gardens mostly manicured. Mamtha would have approved and gushed about ‘neighbours like us’ and the amenities. Urmila’s eyes would have widened and dropped with a hint of disdain. She was too toffee-nosed to approve of gated communities. As for himself, he would have felt under scrutiny all the time.

  ‘Nice layout,’ Gajendra said, pausing to pick a flower.

  ‘Don’t.’ Gowda pointed to the little board that said ‘Don’t pick flowers by order.’

  ‘Whose order?’ Gajendra frowned.

  ‘Laurel and Hardy’s,’ Gowda said with a straight face.

  Gajendra guffawed and converted it to a cough.

  At the clubhouse, a granite-clad building, a reception committee awaited them: Laurel and Hardy and two others. Gowda recognized the man from the group outside the gate. The man who had said he was president. A portly man stood by his side. The prime minister?

  ‘Sit down, Gajendra,’ Gowda said to the head constable, who hovered at his elbow like a curious aunt.

  ‘Dr Sanjay Rathore,’ Gowda said, clearing his throat.

  ‘A gem of a man,’ the president finished. ‘A well-known lawyer, and an asset to our community.’

  ‘Save the eulogy for his funeral,’ Laurel mumbled. ‘He was a first-class bastard.’

  Gowda darted a look at Laurel, who seemed to live in t-shirts with strange captions. This one read: I am Page 3 in Kazakhstan.

  ‘And tight-fisted. He owed us three years’ maintenance, Inspector. And the committee was scared to censure him. He had a reputation for saying, I will see you in court,’ Laurel said, looking at Hardy to corroborate.

  But Hardy was gazing at his fingernails as if they held the secret to the anti-matter theory.

  ‘Vinod …’ The president touched Laurel’s elbow. ‘Calm down. The man is dead; murdered.’

  He turned to Gowda. ‘Inspector, the lawyer refused to join the Green the Neighbourhood movement we started. Since then, Vinod has disliked him. Gentlemen,’ he continued, ‘this is a murder investigation and they are really not interested in the politics of our layout.’

  ‘Oh, but I am,’ Gowda said, tilting his chair back. ‘Each one of you here is a potential suspect unless you have a cast-iron alibi.’

  The men’s faces paled. ‘Suspect!’ Hardy said in almost a whisper. ‘You think I murdered that lawyer?’

  ‘I didn’t say that, Mr …?’ Gowda’s voice was soft.

  ‘Chatterjee. Dibakar Chatterjee,’ Hardy said. ‘Retired from IRS in 2010. I am a retired government servant. A Class I officer,’ he added as an afterthought. Unlike the others, his tone implied.

  Gowda nodded. ‘We are going to examine the CCTV footage and the register. One of my officers will speak to each one of you to ascertain where you were last night. And speak to the live-in help and security guards in the layout. It’s routine in any investigation.’

  It was Laurel who croaked, ‘But they could have come by the north wall …’ and abruptly stopped. He turned to the president. ‘If you had fixed the wall when Dibakar and I asked you to, there would have been no breach of security.’

  Gowda sighed. Where was Santosh? He didn’t think anyone in the gated community had anything to do with the murder. But you left nothing to chance in a murder investigation. Santosh could be trusted to weed out every detail from each one of the residents. PC Byrappa would work on the live-in help and the security guards. He would ferret out every piece of gossip. All he needed was a glint in someone’s eye.

  Gowda glanced at his watch. The forensics team should be here soon. He lit a cigarette. His first for the day. As he inhaled, he felt a familiar sense of ease flood his system. Who was he kidding? He was never going to be able to give up. From twenty a day, he had brought it down to ten. But that was it, he decided as he tapped the ash from his cigarette.

  Santosh stopped his bike and rushed towards Gowda. ‘What’s happened, sir?’

  ‘Gajendra will brief you. I need you to step in, Santosh,’ Gowda said. And then, after a pause, ‘There’s some CCTV footage.’

  Santosh nodded. ‘I have my hard disk. I’ll get it transferred to that. How long back should we go?’

  ‘As far back as is available,’ Gowda said. ‘Will your hard disk be able to hold that much?’

  Santosh grinned. ‘It’s 2 TB.’

  ‘Oh,’ Gowda said, not knowing what he was
saying oh to.

  ‘I’ll bring it to the station house, sir,’ Santosh said, fumbling in his rucksack.

  ‘Remind me again, how old are you, Santosh?’ Gowda asked.

  ‘Twenty-four, sir.’ There was a question in his eye which Gowda chose to ignore.

  Santosh was just four years older than Roshan but he was already an adult unlike his son. Speaking of which, where was the rascal? He hadn’t come home last night. Or had he?

  Gowda felt his headache resume again. When the forensics team returned, he would go home for a nap. He needed a clear head for what lay ahead.

  ‘Anything on the landlord of the building?’ Gowda asked.

  ‘No, sir. The rental agreement is via a lawyer in Pune. I’ve got the number.’

  Gowda nodded.

  4.00 p.m.

  Gowda rode into the Neelgubbi police station. He had gone home when the headache threatened to split his skull. He had left Gajendra with the forensic team and had PC David drive him home.

  All he remembered was taking a swill of water before dropping into his unmade bed. When he woke up three hours later, his mouth was dry but there was that curious stillness in his head that said the headache had ached itself out.

  He stepped out of the room. The door to Roshan’s room was ajar. The rucksack was still there; the bed had been made even if sloppily. Where was he?

  In the kitchen Gowda found a set of covered dishes. Shanthi had come in at some point to cook and clean. How many people had keys to his home?