The Case of the Missing Servant avpm-1

by Tarquin Hall

  "What do you want?" asked Munnalal when they were alone again.

  Puri placed the cup of water on the ground untouched.

  "What any person wants? To be comfortable."

  Munnalal's lip twisted into a knowing sneer.

  "How comfortable?"

  "That depends. First I want to know what happened at Raj Kasliwal Bhavan that night."

  "What if I refuse to talk?"

  "I don't need to tell you what the police will do to you to get a confession."

  Munnalal grunted knowingly and sat down again. A long silence ensued as he weighed his options.

  "Sir, I never killed that girl," he said, sounding conciliatory. "She tried to kill herself."

  His words were met with an expression of cold skepticism.

  "That's the truth," insisted Munnalal. "I went to her room and found her lying on the floor. There was blood everywhere. She'd cut her wrists."

  "What business did you have going to her room?"

  Munnalal faltered. "I…she…she owed me money. I went to collect it."

  Puri sighed. "Don't lie to me or it will be the worse for you. Now tell me: why did you go to her room?"

  "I already told you, sir!" protested Munnalal. "I went to her room to collect the five hundred rupees she'd borrowed from me. She was lying there covered in blood. She'd used a kitchen knife. But she was still alive. So I tied her wrists with cloth to stop the bleeding, carried her to the Sumo and drove to the clinic."

  "Then what?"

  "The nurse took her in. That was the last I saw of Mary."

  "What was the name of the clinic?"

  "Sunrise."

  Puri took out his notebook and wrote down the name.

  "Then what did you do?" he asked.

  "I returned to the hotel to pick up Sahib."

  There was a pause.

  "You had blood on your clothes?"

  "A little but I washed it off."

  "And the knife? How can you explain it ending up in the garden behind the house?"

  Munnalal shrugged.

  "Someone else must have thrown it there."

  "You never touched it?"

  "When I first entered the room, I picked it up. But I didn't return to the room after that."

  "Did you inform anyone the next morning?"

  "No."

  "Why not?"

  Munnalal looked cornered. He took another long, hard drag on his cigarette and said, unconvincingly, "It could have meant trouble for me."

  Puri pushed his sunglasses back up the bridge of his nose.

  "Let me tell you what I think really happened," he said. "You went to that room to have your way with Mary. Probably it wasn't the first time. She turned a knife on you. There was a scuffle and you stabbed her. Maybe she died then and there. Or, like you say, she was still alive. Either way, you carried her to the Sumo and drove away. Later, you came back to the house and cleaned up the blood, got rid of her things and threw away her knife. Probably you also went into the house and took a silver frame to make it look like she'd stolen it and run away."

  "I told you, I didn't murder her and I never stole anything either," objected Munnalal. "Go to the Sunrise Clinic and they'll tell you she was brought in alive."

  Puri stood up.

  "I'll do that," he said. "But there is still the matter of the knife and the witness who saw you remove the body."

  "Sir, I'm sure we can come to some arrangement," Munnalal said. "I'm a reasonable man."

  "When you're ready to tell me the whole truth, then we'll find out how reasonable you can be," said the detective. He handed Munnalal his card. "You've got until tomorrow morning. If I don't hear from you before then, I'll tell Inspector Shekhawat everything I know."

  Nineteen

  Puri and Tubelight sat together on the backseat of the Ambassador as Handbrake drove to Jaipur airport.

  "How many of your boys have you got watching Munnalal?" asked the detective.

  "Zia and Shashi are on the job, Boss."

  "They're experienced enough? I don't want anything going wrong."

  "They're good boys," said Tubelight. "Want me to check on this Sunrise Clinic?"

  "Make it your top priority. I want to know if that bloody Charlie took the female there. Ask the doctors and all. They must be knowing. Could be they'll tell us what became of her."

  "Think she tried suicide, Boss?"

  "Munnalal is so used to telling lies he wouldn't be knowing the truth if it landed in his channa. But why he would concoct a cock-and-bull story about a clinic?"

  "You think he killed her?"

  Puri shrugged. "We're still only having some of the facts. So many open-ended questions remain. There's been no satisfactory verification of the body. I'm certain the police are barking up the wrong tree. Let us be sure not to do any barking of our own."

  Puri's mobile rang and, after scrutinizing the number on the screen, he answered it.

  By the time he hung up, Tubelight had formulated his own theory about what had happened at Raj Kasliwal Bhavan on the night of August 21.

  "Munnalal rapes the girl," he said. "Gets trashed and abuses her. She pulls a knife and there's a tussle. Mary gets stabbed and expires. Then he carries the body to the vehicle and dumps it on Ajmer Road."

  He looked triumphant, but Puri sighed.

  "Baldev," he said, using Tubelight's real name, "why you're always insisting on doing speculation?" Puri's tone was not patronizing. Tubelight was, after all, one of the best operatives he had ever worked with, even if he was prone to jumping to conclusions.

  "A pen cannot work if it is not open. Same with the human mind. Let us stick to what facts there are. According to police estimates, the body was dumped on twenty-second night. So if Munnalal did the killing, seems odd he would hang on to the body for twenty-four hours."

  "He had to move it, Boss."

  "He's a fool, but not so much of a fool. Either Mary and the dead girl are not one and the same, or something else transpired after Munnalal removed Mary from her room."

  Puri took off his sunglasses and rubbed his sore eyes.

  "Ask yourself this: why a common driver should be opting to take the female to the private clinic who'll be charging a hell of a lot when the state hospital is near to hand? Number two, what's he doing hanging around the house so late in the first instance? Not doing the dusting, that is for sure. Should be Jaya and other servants have the answers. Let us hope Facecream finds out. Three, if Munnalal didn't return to the scene, who cleaned away the blood and all?"

  Tubelight nodded, impressed. "I hadn't thought of that," he said.

  "Deduction is my specialty, actually. But deduction cannot be done with thin air. That is where you come in. After the Sunrise Clinic, find out where this bugger got so much money. Must be he's doing blackmail. Question is, to whom he's giving the squeeze?"

  Puri checked his watch as Handbrake pulled up outside the airport terminal. The last flight was due to depart for Delhi in thirty minutes. That was just enough time to buy a ticket and get through security.

  "You're coming back tomorrow, Boss?" asked Tubelight as Puri got out.

  "Handbrake's to proceed from here directly to Gurgaon. Tomorrow morning we'll revert at first light. Should be we'll reach by eleven, eleven-thirty."

  "You've got airsickness pills, Boss?"

  Puri gave him a resigned look.

  "Bloody lot of good they did me last time," he said.

  Puri didn't get airsick. It was a myth he perpetrated to disguise the real reason he avoided planes: being up in the air terrified him.

  Over the years, he had tried all manner of treatments to cure his phobia, but so far nothing had worked. Not the Ayurvedic powders. Not the hypnosis. And certainly not the Conquer Your Worst Fears workshop run by that charlatan "Lifestyle Guru" Dr. Brahmachari, who'd taken him up in a hot air balloon and only succeeded in giving him nightmares for weeks.

  To make matters worse, Mummy was forever reminding him about the
prophecy made at his birth.

  According to the family astrologer (a complete bloody goonda if Puri had ever met one), the detective was destined to die in an air crash.

  "Don't do flying," Mummy had been telling him for as long as he could remember. "Most definitely it will be your doom."

  Puri considered himself a spiritual man, but in keeping with his father's belief system, he was not superstitious. To his mind, astrology was so much mumbo jumbo and had an adverse effect on people's thinking.

  Rumpi did not altogether agree with him, of course. She couldn't help herself. But the detective had always told his three daughters that no good had ever come from soothsaying.

  "Imagine some seer predicts you will marry a rich babu," he'd told them one day when they were all teenagers. "It will create a bias and get your thinking into an almighty jumble. You and your mother will pass over boys with greater qualities who are more compatible. Ultimately, you will not find contentment."

  "But I want to marry a prince, Papa!" Radhika, the youngest, who'd been twelve at the time, had told him.

  "Perhaps one day, chowti baby," the detective had told her, "But only the God knows. Trust to your fate and don't do second-guessing."

  Of course, it is always easier to preach such credos than to live by them. Indeed, whenever Puri laid eyes on an airplane, he heard that voice in his head asking, "What if?"

  This was why, despite the three hundred deaths every day on India's roads, he still felt safer traveling by car. It was also why, given the option of a three-hour flight or a 36-hour journey on a Rajdhani train, he opted for Indian railways whenever he could.

  But today Puri had no choice. The only way he was going to make it to Mahinder Gupta's party was by flying to Delhi.

  And so it was an uncharacteristically nervous and skittish Vish Puri who made his way through security, having bought himself a business-class ticket (if he was going to meet his doom he might as well do it with extra legroom).

  What his fellow passengers and the pretty young air hostess made of him can only be imagined.

  Upon entering the cabin, Puri, who was by now feeling strangely disoriented, sat down in someone else's empty seat. When its rightful occupant arrived, the detective refused to budge and only did so when the air hostess intervened.

  Next, Puri had to be asked to move his suitcase out of the aisle and place it in the overhead locker. When he complied, the case sprang open and his Sexy Men aftershave and a pair of VIP Frenchie chuddies fell into the aisle.

  By now, Puri's hands were trembling so much, his seatbelt had to be buckled for him. During takeoff, he sat as rigid as a condemned man in an electric chair. His hands gripped the armrests, his fingernails sank deep into the soft plastic and he found himself muttering a mantra over and over.

  "Om bhur bhawa swaha tat savitur varay neeyam…"

  Once the plane was in the air, he began sweating profusely and built up a considerable amount of gas in his stomach. This he vented periodically-to the intense displeasure of the Australian lady tourist sitting on his right: "Jesus! Do you mind?"

  When Puri tried to calm his nerves with the remains of a quarter-bottle of Royal Challenge he'd brought on board, the air hostess informed him that it was illegal to consume alcohol on domestic flights and he had to put it away.

  During the landing, Puri held his breath and closed his eyes.

  The moment the aircraft left the runway, he unclipped his seat belt and staggered to his feet. Once again, he found the air hostess by his side, this time ordering him to sit down until the plane had come to a complete halt and the overhead seat-belt light was switched off.

  Puri complied. But the moment he saw the gangway through the window, he was again up out of his seat and, suitcase in hand, pushing his way to the exit.

  "We look forward to seeing you again soon," said the air hostess cheerily as he left the plane ahead of all the other passengers.

  "Not if I can help it," mumbled the detective.

  Puri had hired a brand-new S Class Mercedes to pick him up at the airport. The driver, who wore a white uniform buttoned up to his neck and a yacht captain's cap embellished with gold-leaf emblems, was standing outside the arrivals gate holding up a whiteboard with the alias the detective had adopted for the evening written upon it: "Monty Ahluwalia."

  Mr. Somnath Chatterjee was also waiting for him in the car park.

  Mr. Chatterjee, of indeterminable age, had a severe hunch born of a lifetime bent over a sewing machine. His clothes were always too large for him-the sleeves of his shirts came down to his knuckles; his trouser legs were always rolled up around his skinny ankles, giving the impression that he had somehow shrunk inside them.

  But anyone who had known him long enough, like Puri, could testify to the fact that Mr. Chatterjee had always been extremely skinny. His inattention to the proportions of his own apparel was in no way a reflection upon his skills as a tailor. Indeed, he ran Delhi's most successful costume house.

  Mr. Chatterjee was, in fact, the scion of a noble line of Bengali tailors who had once fitted the Nawabs of West Bengal. Under the rule of the British East India Company, the family had set up shop in Calcutta and adapted to its European tastes, providing uniforms for the (not-so) Honorable Company's troops, and supplying the British theaters with costumes. It was a source of much interest to Puri that Mr. Chatterjee's great-grandfather had even provided disguises for Colonel Montgomery of the Survey of India-the real-life inspiration for Colonel Creighton in Kim, Rudyard Kipling's tale of intrigue and espionage during the Great Game with Russia.

  Chatterjee & Sons had moved to Delhi in 1931, following in the footsteps of their British patrons. For the past twenty years, Mr. Chatterjee had been providing Puri with his disguises.

  Normally, he went for his fittings at Mr. Chatterjee's premises, which were hidden down a long alleyway off Chandni Chowk in Shahjahanabad, or Old Delhi, as it was now called.

  The premises were filled to the rafters with hundreds of costumes and paraphernalia. Hindu deities were stored on the ground floor; Hanuman monkey suits, strap-on Durga arms and Ganapati elephant trunks hung in rows. Uniforms from numerous epochs were to be found one flight up: the military regalia of Macedonian foot soldiers, Maratha warriors, Tamil Tigers, Vedic Kshatriyas and Grenadier Guards. The third floor was home to traditional garb of hundreds of different Indian communities: from Assamese to Zoroastrian. There was a special room set aside for headgear of all sorts, including the woven bamboo ceremonial hats worn by Naga tribesmen, the white mande thunis of the Coorg and British pith helmets. And the fourth floor was the place to go to find all the props, including mendicant and beggar accoutrement: swallowable swords, snake charmers' baskets (complete with windup mechanical cobras), and attachable deformed limbs.

  Crucially for Puri, Mr. Chatterjee also provided a variety of Indian noses, wigs-his Indira Gandhi one was especially realistic-beards and moustaches. These he kept in the cool of the basement, where dozens of wooden boxes were itemized: "Sikh Whisker," Rajasthani Handlebar," "Bengali Babu."

  What Mr. Chatterjee didn't have in stock he could have made. Twenty-seven tailors worked in a room on the top floor, sitting cross-legged in front of their sewing machines surrounded by swathes of silk, cotton and chiffon.

  On a few occasions in the past, when Puri had come to Mr. Chatterjee and requested something out of the ordinary at short notice, these men had worked late into the night to accommodate him-like the time he had needed an Iraqi dishdasha to attend a polo match.

  Tonight, however, Puri required nothing as exotic. He had asked Mr. Chatterjee to supply him with a standard Sikh disguise.

  Puri clambered into the back of the tailor's worn-out van, where assistants with stage glue and a makeup kit gave him a quick makeover. Ten minutes later, he emerged wearing a large red turban, fake moustache and beard, a pair of slip-on black shoes and unflattering brown glasses with thick lenses. Puri slipped on several gold rings and put a ceremonial kirpan around his
neck.

  Mr. Chatterjee inspected him from head to toe, craning his neck upward like a tortoise peeping out of his shell, and made an approving gesture with his head.

  "Most realistic, sir!" said the old man in Hindi, his voice wheezy and high-pitched. "No one will ever recognize you! You would have made a great actor!"

  Puri puffed his chest with pride.

  "Thank you, Mr. Chatterjee," he replied. "Actually, as a young man, I did a good deal of amateur theater. In the ninth grade I won the Actor of the Year award for my portrayal of Hamlet. Often, I considered joining the stage. But duty called."

  "What is the case this time?" whispered Mr. Chatterjee, who always got a thrill from aiding the detective. "Has someone been murdered?" he asked conspiratorially, his eyes lighting up with enthusiasm. "Are you after that bank robber-the one in the paper who stole fifty crore?"

  The detective did not have the heart to tell him that he was involved in a straightforward matrimonial investigation.

  "I'm afraid it's top secret," Puri whispered in English.

  "Aaah, taap secret! Taap secret!" repeated the old man, giving a delighted giggle as he accompanied the detective to his car.

  "I trust my secret is safe with you, Chatterjee-sahib?" asked Puri, laying a fond hand on one of the old man's hunched shoulders.

  "I would rather die than tell them anything, sir!" he cried with watering eyes. "Let them pull out my fingernails! Let them blind me! Let them cut off my-"

  Puri gave him a reassuring pat.

  "I'm sure it won't come to that," he interrupted. "Now, you'd better go. It's best if we're not seen together. I'll come to your office in a few days once the case is resolved and settle my account."

  "Yes, thank you sir, be careful sir," said Mr. Chatterjee, returning to his van.

  Puri watched him climb inside and pull away, certain that, on his way back to Chandni Chowk, the old tailor would check in his rearview mirror to make sure he wasn't being followed and, no doubt, call him later in the evening to assure him that the coast had been clear.