The Case of the Missing Servant avpm-1

by Tarquin Hall

  Puri made a quick stop en route to Mahinder Gupta's apartment to pick up Mrs. Duggal, his escort for the evening.

  She was waiting for him in the reception of a five-star hotel. When she saw the Mercedes pull up, she came out to meet it. A moment later she was arranging herself on the comfortable leather seat next to the detective and admiring the swish interior.

  "So I take it we'll be sticking to our usual routine," she said to Puri after they had exchanged pleasantries.

  "You know the old saying: 'Why fix what isn't broken?'" answered Puri.

  Mrs. Duggal, a petite auntie who wore her sporty silver hair pulled back, smiled her innocent smile.

  "I must say, I do so enjoy our little forays, Mr. Puri," she said in her quiet, lilting voice. "Retirement is quite all right. It's wonderful seeing the grandkids growing up. Did I tell you Praveen won a silver medal in breaststroke on Friday? I can't tell you how proud we all are. I wouldn't have missed being there for the world. But sometimes I do find myself pining for the old days. I miss that sense of adventure."

  No one meeting Mrs. Duggal or passing her in Panchsheel Park where she took her morning walk with her neighbor, Mrs. Kanak, would have imagined that she had worked for RAW, India's secret service. During the 1980s and '90s, Mrs. Duggal and her husband, a career diplomat, had been stationed in some of India's most high-profile foreign high commissions and embassies. Ostensibly, she had worked as a secretary, taking dictation, typing and answering the telephone. But secretly her mission had been to keep tabs on her compatriots-diplomats, bureaucrats, administrative staff and, most important, her fellow spies.

  To this day, not even her husband or children knew of Mrs. Duggal's so-called double role and the fact that she was a decorated national heroine.

  While based in Dubai, she had identified the traitor Ashwini Patel and prevented him from betraying the identity of the highly placed Indian mole working inside Pakistan's secret service, ISI. During her four-year stint in Washington, Mrs. Duggal had discovered that the Military attache was having an affair with a Chinese spy and had seen to it that the hussy sent phony naval plans to her superiors in Beijing. And in Moscow she had collected evidence of the High Commissioner's involvement in the Iraq Oil for Food scandal.

  For the past four years, though, Mrs. Duggal had been enjoying her well-earned retirement back in Delhi. She passed her days playing bridge, spoiling her grandchildren with home-made ladoos and spending long weekends with her husband, now also retired, by the Ganges in Haridwar.

  Occasionally she also did freelance jobs for Puri, whom she had worked with some fifteen years back when she had needed discreet investigation into the Moscow embassy's chef.

  Her usual part was that of the detective's wife, for which Mrs. Duggal needed no disguise. She was dressed in the understated style that had worked so well for her during her undercover days: a simple but fetching beige silk sari with gold zari design, a black blouse, a pair of sensible heels and a modest selection of kundan jewelery.

  "You're very sober, Mrs. Duggal," commented the detective as the car pulled onto the main road to NOIDA.

  "I'm glad you approve," she replied. "You know I'm not one for gaudy colors."

  Puri gave her a couple of Flush's ingenious sticky bugs, one of which looked like a wasp, the other a fly, and explained where he wanted them placed.

  Mrs. Duggal popped them into her handbag, where she also kept her lock-picking tools: a couple of hair grips and a metal nail file.

  "Should be child's play for two old professionals such as ourselves," said Puri.

  "Just as long as I'm home by eleven-thirty, Mr. Puri. My husband will be expecting me. Any later, and he'll start thinking I've got a boyfriend."

  The two chuckled as the Mercedes sped along the new three-lane toll road.

  Half an hour later, they were standing in the elevator heading up to the twenty-second floor of Celestial Tower.

  A long, carpeted corridor with wood-paneled walls and air-conditioning vents purring overhead led to the executive penthouse.

  Puri rang the bell and the door was promptly opened by a servant, who ushered them into a spacious, dazzling white apartment. He was relieved to find it crowded with members of the Gupta and Kapoor families and their closest friends. Among such a large gathering (the party was at least seventy strong), no one would notice a couple of old gate-crashers, let alone challenge them. Indeed, as the detective and his escort stepped through the door, looking for all the world like a respectable auntie and uncle, they were greeted warmly by Mahinder Gupta's parents. It did no harm that Mrs. Duggal wobbled from side to side with "arthritic" hips and grimaced each time she put her right foot forward.

  "Monty Ahluwalia and my good wife," Puri said in halting English with a deep, provincial drawl as he shook Mr. Gupta by the hand.

  "Such a beautiful apartment," commented Mrs. Duggal to Mrs. Gupta. "You must be very proud."

  The four of them engaged in small talk for a few minutes. It wasn't long before the Guptas revealed the apartment's whopping price tag: five crore.

  "Of course, it's absolutely rocketed up since then," Mr. Gupta told Mr. and Mrs. Monty Ahluwalia. "Our son spent fifteen lakhs on the bathroom alone."

  "Seventeen lakhs actually, darling," cooed Mrs. Gupta, going on to describe the Italian Jacuzzi bathtub. "The toilet's also amazing. You know, it flushes automatically, has a heated seat, a sprinkler system and a bottom blow-dryer! You really must try it."

  As Mr. and Mrs. Monty Ahluwalia began circulating among the other guests (and trying the Japanese hors d'oeuvres, which the detective did not rate, grumbling to a fellow Punjabi that he was a "butter chicken man through and through"), Puri began to understand why Brigadier Kapoor was so against his granddaughter's marriage.

  The Kapoors belonged to the refined, elite classes of south Delhi: military officers, engineers, the odd surgeon and one Supreme Court judge. Puri could picture them at cultural evenings at Stein Auditorium or the IIC, wine tastings at the Gymkhana Club and art exhibitions at the Habitat Center.

  Indeed, as the detective and Mrs. Duggal mingled, they overheard some of them discussing a retrospective of the Indo-Hungarian artist Amrita Sher-Gil, which had been showing at the National Gallery of Modern Art. Elsewhere, an uncle in a blazer, striped cotton shirt with French cuffs and loafers was telling another uncle, who was dressed almost identically and had a matching greying moustache, about the cruise he and his wife had recently taken around the Great Lakes. And at the far end of the room, Brigadier Kapoor himself, dressed in a three-piece suit and standing with his silver-haired wife at his side, was telling another elderly auntie in a mauve sari about a charity dinner that he and Mrs. Kapoor had attended at Rashtrapati Bhavan.

  The Gupta clan, by contrast, was drawn from the Punjabi merchant castes. All the younger men seemed to have salaried positions with IT multinationals and worked twelve-hour, six-day weeks. They wore off-the-rack suits and gold watches, had gelled hair and talked mostly about the markets, Bollywood and cricket. They smoked, drank and laughed raucously, occasionally giving one another matey slaps on the back. Their wives showed a fondness for chunky sequined heels, garish eye shadow and either sequined cocktail dresses or Day-Glo saris worn with strapless, halter-style blouses. Four of them were clustered in the kitchen admiring the stainless steel extractor fan.

  "Wow!" one exclaimed. "So shiny, yaar."

  Puri and Mrs. Duggal chatted for a while with Gupta's fiancee, Tisca Kapoor, who seemed like a sensible, articulate woman, if hugely overweight and clearly nervous about how the two families were getting along. As they talked, the detective dropped his napkin on the ground and attached a bug to the underside of one of the faux alligator-skin side tables.

  He and his partner in crime then split up. The detective crossed the room to the gas fireplace, where he attached another device to the back of one of the photo frames, and then went in search of a Scotch on the balcony.

  Meanwhile Mrs. Duggal hobbled over to th
e kitchen (where a few of the older Gupta aunties were discussing the attributes of the front-loading washing machine, which, they all agreed, was worth the money) and attached the magnetic fly under the lip of the extractor fan.

  She then made her way to Mahinder Gupta's bedroom. Having attached the wasp to the bottom of the metal bed frame, she stepped into the bathroom and locked the door behind her.

  In one corner stood the Jacuzzi bathtub and in another the toilet.

  Mrs. Duggal washed her hands in the sink and, as she did so, noticed a metal medicine cabinet on the wall.

  It was locked.

  Curious, she took out a hair grip and metal nail file and, in a few seconds, popped the cabinet open.

  On the shelves inside, she found an unmarked bottle filled with pale yellow liquid and two syringes. She took the bottle and put it into her glasses case in her handbag.

  Just then she heard Mrs. Gupta's voice in the bedroom. "Come this way, it's through here."

  The handle on the door turned and there was a knock.

  "One moment," called out Mrs. Duggal.

  She locked the medicine cabinet, sat down on the toilet and quickly stood up again. Sure enough, it flushed automatically.

  Mrs. Duggal opened the door to find Mrs. Gupta and three other women who had come to inspect the bathroom waiting on the other side.

  "You're quite right, the toilet really is a wonder," she gushed. "So much easier on the hips."

  Twenty

  At about 10:30 that evening, just as Puri reached home after dropping off Mrs. Duggal, the front door of Munnalal's house in Jaipur suddenly swung open with a thud.

  A beggar with a horribly deformed hand who was crouching against a wall ten feet away watched as Munnalal stepped outside. In one hand he was carrying his mobile phone, his thumb working the keypad. From his pocket protruded the wooden butt of a revolver.

  Munnalal's wife appeared in the open doorway with an anguished, searching expression.

  "Your food is ready!" she screeched to his back as he set off down the lane. "Where are you going? It's late!"

  "None of your business, whore!" he bawled over his shoulder. "Go back inside or I'll give you a thrashing!"

  The beggar, seeing Munnalal striding toward him, made the mistake of holding out his deformed hand, which looked like a melted candle, and pleaded for alms-"Sahib, roti khana hai."

  In return he received a hail of abuse.

  "Bhaanchhod!" Munnalal called him as a passing shot, kicking his begging bowl and the few pitiful coins that it contained into the open drain.

  The unfortunate man howled, scrambling on all fours after the receptacle, which had landed upside down in fetid slime.

  "Hai!" he moaned after retrieving it and retaking his position against the wall where he had been sitting all evening.

  A couple of passing locals, who had seen how cruelly Munnalal had behaved, took pity on the beggar and dropped a few rupees at his feet.

  "May Shani Maharaj bless you!" he cried after them, picking up the coins and touching them to his forehead and lips.

  The beggar watched his benefactors continue on their way, passing Munnalal's front door, which, by now, had been slammed shut. Then he stood up, collected his pitiful possessions and, when he was sure no one was watching, twisted off his deformed hand. He shoved it under his soiled lungi and set off down the lane.

  "Bastard Number One's on the move, heading in your direction," said Tubelight's man Zia into the transmitter concealed in the top of his cleft walking stick.

  "Roger that," came back a voice in the clunky plastic receiver in his ear.

  The voice belonged to Shashi, his partner, who had watched too many American cop shows and insisted on using the lingo.

  "Who is this Roger?" hissed Zia into his communicator.

  "Your papa, yaar," quipped Shashi.

  "Shut up, OK!"

  "Ten-four," replied his colleague.

  Munnalal hurried down the lane, stopping briefly at the cigarette stand, where he bought a sweet paan. Greedily he stuffed it into his mouth and tossed a grubby note onto the vendor's counter.

  Soon, he reached the busy main road, where he stepped beyond the broken, piss-stained pavement at the edge of traffic. Amid a haze of dust and diesel fumes, with horn-blaring Bedford trucks hurtling past, Munnalal went about trying to hail an autorickshaw.

  Zia decided to watch him from the entrance to the lane, staying in the shadows and telling Shashi, who was parked nearby, to keep his engine running.

  Much to their shared-and in Munnalal's case, obvious-frustration, all the autos that drove past were occupied. Some carried as many as eight people with six on the backseats and another couple clinging to the sides like windsurfers.

  Five minutes passed. A blue Bajaj Avenger motorcycle driven by a man wearing a helmet with a tinted visor pulled up on the other side of the road.

  At first, Zia paid the driver cursory attention. But after Munnalal succeeded in hailing an auto and drove away in the direction of the old city, the Avenger made a quick U-turn and set off after him.

  Zia and Shashi were not far behind on an old Vespa.

  "Someone else is following Bastard Number One," said Zia.

  "Roger that. Did you get a pozit-iv eye dee?"

  "Huh?"

  "Po-zit-iv eye dee! Means did you recognize him?"

  "How could I recognize him, you fool? He's got a helmet on and his numberplate is covered in mud."

  "Ten-four. Do you think he's a perp?"

  "Speak Hindi, will you!"

  "A perp means a goonda type."

  "I don't know!"

  "Think we should get between them?"

  "No, but don't fall behind."

  "Copy that."

  Munnalal's auto buzzed and spluttered its way down M.I. Road, past Minerva cinema. Occasionally, he spat great gobs of paan juice out the side of the vehicle, painting the road's surface with intermittent red streaks.

  Ten minutes later, the auto turned down the lane that ran behind Raj Kasliwal Bhavan. Finally it came to halt outside the deserted bungalow with the overgrown garden.

  Munnalal got out and paid the driver, who promptly drove off in search of another fare. He looked up and down the street to make sure no one was following him and then slipped through the leaning iron gate. A second later he was lost amid the long grass and shadows.

  The motorcyclist, having dismounted and watched Munnalal's movements from behind the corner, took off his helmet and, leaving it on his bike, continued his pursuit on foot.

  Zia and Shashi, who had pulled up a safe distance behind him, rounded the corner in time to see the motorcyclist pass through the gate and enter the garden.

  "No way I'm going in there," whispered Shashi as they crossed the lane. "I heard an owl!"

  "They're harmless, yaar. All they do is sit in trees and go hoo hoo."

  "OK, hero, you go in there and I'll wait here and cover you."

  "What is this 'cover me' business? Bloody half-wit. Think you're Dirty Hari?"

  "It's Dirty Harry ," corrected Shashi.

  "Whatever, yaar. You stay here. Relax. Maybe take a nap."

  Cautiously, Zia headed into the garden. Shashi watched him go and, finding himself alone, had a change of heart.

  "I thought I'd better watch your back," he whispered when he caught up with his partner.

  Together, the two of them crept forward through the long grass and weeds. The owl started hooting again, causing Shashi to grip Zia's arm. And then suddenly a figure ran straight into them, knocked them both to the ground and sprinted off in the direction of the lane. Zia and Shashi were dazed and it took them a few seconds to pick themselves off the ground.

  "Go after him! I'll check ahead!" ordered Zia.

  "Ten-four!"

  Shashi gave chase, but he was too slow. As he reached the lane, the motorcycle kicked into start and, with a roar of the engine, made a 180-degree turn and sped away.

  Shashi watched the Bajaj
Avenger disappear from sight, knowing that his cousin's Vespa was no match for it, and went to find his partner.

  They met outside the gate.

  "He got away!" said Shashi in a loud voice.

  "Keep your voice down, you fool!"

  "Don't call me a fool!"

  "OK, half-wit! What happened?"

  "He took off. What about Bastard Number One?"

  "He's dead."

  "What? Are you sure?"

  "Yes, I'm sure!" snapped Zia. "He's lying behind that abandoned house with a knife sticking out of his throat."

  Shashi's eyes widened.

  "What happened?"

  "Well, it wasn't suicide!"

  Shashi held his hands over his face and kicked at the ground. A pall of dust rose around him.

  "That's just our luck!" He cursed. "Bloody fat bastard goes and gets himself terminated while we're on duty. Boss and Tubelight are going to kill us!"

  "I know! It's all your fault. You should have rubbed the mud off the numberplate and written it down when you had a chance," said Zia.

  "What do you mean I should have? What about you?"

  "It was your turn to do the thinking."

  Shashi paced back and forth a couple of times. Then a thought occurred to him.

  "What about his mobile phone? Did you get it?"

  "It wasn't there."

  "Sure?"

  "I checked all his pockets!"

  "Wallet?"

  "Gone as well?"

  There was a pause.

  "What do we do now? Call the cops?"

  "No, you idiot, we get out of here before someone sees us."

  "Right…I mean Roger that," said Shashi.

  "Bloody fools!" was Puri's reaction to news of Munnalal's murder and the events leading up to it.

  It was Tubelight who broke it to him at two in the morning.

  "Do the cops know?" asked the detective as he tried to shake off the deep, restful sleep he had been enjoying.

  "Doubtful. The body is probably lying unnoticed, it being nighttime, Boss. Should I make an anonymous call? Tip off the cops?"