by Tarquin Hall
"Not yet. They'll trample the scene. I'll try to get there as fast as I can."
Puri hung up the phone and switched on the light in the panel behind his bed. Rumpi stirred.
"What is it, Chubby?" she asked sleepily.
"Trouble," he answered. "Where's the driver?"
"I put him in with Sweetu."
"Wake him and then pack my things, will you? I've got to return to Jaipur immediately. The case has taken a turn for the worse. Someone has been murdered."
"Who?" she asked.
"The man who held all the answers."
Puri changed and went into his study. Opening the safe, he took out his .32 IOF and slipped it into his trouser pocket.
By the time he went downstairs, his wife was standing by the front door with his packed overnight case, a few cold rotis wrapped in tinfoil and a flask of hastily made "dip tea."
The detective smiled and gently took her cheek in his right hand. "Meri achhi biwi, my good wife," he said.
She could feel the cold metal of Puri's pistol against her thigh as she gave him a fond hug.
"Take care," she said.
The detective chuckled. "Don't worry about me, my dear. When it comes to danger, I've got a sixth sense."
"Danger doesn't worry me," answered Rumpi. "But those deadly pakoras and chicken frankies you like so much do."
Puri managed to get a couple of hours' sleep and reached the Jaipur city limits at dawn. An apologetic and sleepy Tubelight was waiting for him at Ajmeri Gate. They headed straight to the murder scene. But the police had beaten them to it. Three Jeeps and the coroner's wagon, which looked like an armored milk van, were parked outside the gate of the derelict house. Five impassive constables stood nearby, chatting among themselves.
Puri told Handbrake to stop the car across the road, from where he watched and waited. A few minutes later, a procession emerged from the garden. It was led by a couple of orderlies carrying a stretcher with a blanket draped over Munnalal's body. Two more constables with rifles slung over their shoulders followed. Bringing up the rear was Shekhawat, smoking a cigarette.
"Good morning, Inspector," said Puri as he got out of the Ambassador.
"What are you doing here, sir?" he asked, surprised to see the detective.
"Just I was on my way to see my client for an early morning conference," he answered cheerily.
"At this time?" The inspector looked at his watch. "It's not even six."
"What to say? I like an early start."
Puri gave a nod in the direction of the stretcher, which was being slid into the back of the coroner's wagon.
"Who have you got there?" he asked.
"Male, mid-forties, found with this knife sticking out of his throat."
Shekhawat held up the bloody murder weapon, which he'd put in a plastic bag.
"By God," said Puri, feigning surprise. "Any identification?"
"Nothing. So far he's a naamaalum, unknown. He was carrying this."
Shekhawat held up Munnalal's revolver, also now in a plastic bag.
"May I see the body?" asked Puri.
"Why all the interest, sir?"
"The murder occurred behind my client's house. Might be I know the victim, isn't it."
Shekhawat led the detective over to the coroner's wagon and told the orderlies to pull back the blanket.
Munnalal's face was frozen in an expression of sheer horror. The wound was on the left of the neck and the blood had soaked his shirt.
His lips and chin were also stained with paan juice.
"Do you recognize him, sir?" asked Shekhawat.
The detective made a face that suggested ignorance.
"Unfortunately not, Inspector."
The orderlies replaced the blanket back over Munnalal's face. Puri and Shekhawat turned and walked away.
"Any theories?" asked the detective.
"We got an anonymous tip-off in the middle of the night. Someone called and said he saw two men hurrying out of the garden and driving away on a Vespa. He gave us the numberplate. My guess is these two murdered him for his wallet and phone."
"So a robbery then," suggested the detective.
"Seems that way," answered Shekhawat.
Puri was looking down at the dust on the street where a number of vehicles had left tracks, privately cursing the police for being such bunglers. If only he had reached the scene before them.
"Well, Inspector, I can see that you have everything well in hand," he said. "I'll wish you a good day."
The detective got back into his car.
"Go straight to Raj Kasliwal Bhavan," he told Handbrake tonelessly.
As the Ambassador pulled away, Puri watched the reflection of the inspector in the rearview mirror. Shekhawat in turn watched the back of Puri's vehicle. The curious expression on his face made the detective uneasy.
It was only a question of time before he found out that Munnalal once drove for Kasliwal and his murder was bound to reflect badly on his case. Puri could see tomorrow's newspaper headlines already:
HIGH COURT LAWYER'S FORMER DRIVER
FOUND DEAD. COPS SUSPECT FOUL PLAY.
"Can your boys' vehicle be traced back to them?" asked Puri, with some urgency.
"No way, Boss, but why?"
"Shekhawat has the numberplate."
"How, Boss?" exclaimed Tubelight.
"Most probably the killer himself gave it to him. Your boys have been most careless. Tell them to go back to Delhi right away. I would want to talk to them once this thing is over."
The Ambassador turned right at the end of the road, then right again and pulled into Raj Kasliwal Bhavan.
After coming to a stop, Puri sat for a moment in a gloomy silence.
"What's wrong, Boss?" asked Tubelight.
"I've come to a theory about what all has been going on. If I'm right, it would not end well for anyone."
Tubelight knew not to ask Puri about his theories. There was no point. The detective always kept his cards close to his chest until he was sure he had solved the case. This secrecy was derived partly from prudence and partly from his controlling nature.
"Any luck at the Sunrise Clinic?" he asked Tubelight.
"I chatted with the receptionist. Says no girl matching Mary's description was brought in. I think she's lying. I'm going back at seven to meet the security guard on duty the night Mary was murdered."
"Allegedly murdered," Puri reminded him.
"Right, Boss. What's your plan?"
"Just there's some checking up I need to do here. Take the car and send it back for me. I'll pick you up around eight o'clock."
Puri got out of the vehicle, but turned and said through the open door, "Be alert! Whatever miscreant did in Munnalal knew what he was doing."
"A professional, Boss?"
"No doubt about it at all. A most proficient and cold-blooded killer."
Twenty-One
Puri followed the brick pathway that led along the right-hand side of Raj Kasliwal Bhavan, rounded the corner of the house and paused outside the door to the kitchen. It was closed. All was quiet inside.
The detective surveyed the garden to see if anyone was around. Finding the coast clear, he walked over to the servant quarters and edged along the space between the back of the building and the property's perimeter wall.
Facecream's small window was easily identifiable from the thread that went up the wall and disappeared inside. Puri knocked on the glass three times and made his customary signal: the call of an Indian cuckoo.
A moment later, the window opened and Facecream appeared.
"Sir, you shouldn't have come!" she whispered in Hindi. "It won't be long before everyone is up. Memsahib does her yoga at seven on the lawn!"
"Munnalal was murdered last night in the garden right behind this wall," said Puri.
"Last night, sir? Just here? I didn't hear anything." There was a wounded indignation in her tone.
"Could the killer have come from inside?" asked the det
ective.
"There's no way anyone can come in and out without my knowing, Boss," said Facecream.
Puri brought her up to date with the events of the night before and told her how he had come to examine the knife wound for himself. When he was finished, Facecream said, "Sir, was the motorcycle a blue Bajaj Avenger?"
Puri's eyes lit up with expectation. "Tell me!" he said.
"Sir, Bobby Kasliwal has one. Last night he rode away on it at around eleven-fifteen."
"By God! What time he returned?"
"Past midnight."
Puri let out a long, resigned sigh. "It's what I feared," he said to himself.
"What is, sir?"
He didn't answer, but asked, "Is the motorcycle kept in the garage?"
"Yes, sir."
Puri nodded. "I'll have a look. Anything else you can tell me?"
"Sir, I've been trying to find out what more the servants know about Munnalal. Nobody has a good word to say about him. Jaya claims he constantly harassed her. She says he groped her a number of times. Once, when he was drunk, he tried to force his way into her room."
"Does she know if there was anything going on between Munnalal and Mary?"
"She's not sure, sir. She heard some sounds coming from Mary's room one night. This was soon after she started working here, in late July. But she couldn't say for sure whom Mary was with."
Puri heard a rustling sound coming from the side of the servant quarters and signaled to Facecream to close the window. Casually, he put his hands behind his back and pretended to be looking for something on the ground so that if anyone appeared asking him what he was doing there, he could claim to be searching for clues.
The rustling grew louder.
Presently, a large black crow hopped into view, turning over leaves with its beak.
"False alarm," he gestured to Facecream, who came back to the window and opened it.
"Can you tell me anything else?"
"Sir, I got the cook's assistant, Kamat, drunk. He liked Mary but I doubt there was anything going on between them. I got him to admit he's a virgin."
"Is he aggressive?"
"Yes, but he's not that tough."
"How do you know?"
"He tried it on and I slapped him. He ran off crying."
It was Facecream's opinion that the mali, too, was no threat. "He's smoking charas all day," she said, "and can no longer differentiate between reality and fantasy. He makes up stories about everyone. He seems to hate Kasliwal. Apparently he's been telling everyone that Sahib has been coming to my room at night!"
"By God," murmured Puri. "Anything more?"
"That's all," she answered. "But, sir, have you considered that after you confronted Munnalal, he figured out that it was Jaya who saw him carrying away Mary's body and he was planning to intimidate her or silence her?"
"That would certainly explain why he was carrying a weapon," said Puri. "But there is one other possibility-"
His words were interrupted by the shrill sound of Mrs. Kasliwal's voice. She was calling from the kitchen door.
"Seema? Seema! Chai lao! This instant!"
"Sir, I'd better go," said Facecream reluctantly. "I'm not in her good books. Yesterday I broke a plate and she's docking my salary forty rupees. That doesn't leave me much to take home!"
Puri laughed. "Just a few more days and we'll have you out of here. Let's talk tonight at the usual time."
The detective remained where he was while Facecream hurried off toward the kitchen.
"Haanji, ma'am. Theek hai, ma'am," he heard her saying to Mrs. Kasliwal.
The two women went inside, closing the door behind them, and Puri stole over to the garage, which was on the other side of the garden to the left of the house. He tried the side door, found it open and stepped inside.
Bobby's Bajaj Avenger was parked at the back.
The numberplate was coated in red mud.
Upon further inspection, Puri found a spot of blood on the accelerator grip. There was another on the helmet.
"He's gone to visit his father in jail," Mrs. Kasliwal told Puri when he asked about Bobby's whereabouts.
She was on the front lawn in the dandasana position, squeezing shut one nostril with her index finger and breathing out hard through the other.
"At what time, madam?"
Mrs. Kasliwal snorted a couple more times and then laid her upturned hands on her knees. "He left at six-thirty or thereabouts," she said.
"You're certain, madam?"
"Of course I'm certain, Mr. Puri!" she snapped.
Puri watched as she moved into the Ardha Matsyendrasana, or Half Lord of the Fishes, pose.
"He's carrying a mobile phone, madam?" asked Puri.
Mrs. Kasliwal sat up straight again, exhaling as she did so.
"Certainly he's having one, Mr. Puri. But why the sudden interest in my son?"
"Actually, there's a certain matter I would like to discuss with him."
"Tell me what exactly?"
"Actually, I was hoping he might bring me one or two caps from London next time he's reverting to India. I'm particularly partial to Sandowns. By far the best quality is made by Bates Gentlemen's Hatter of Piccadilly. I hoped Bobby would bring me one or two. Naturally I would make sure he's not out-of-pocket."
She looked at him with a baffled expression.
"Caps, Mr. Puri? Caps are the priority, is it? What about the investigation? What progress is there?"
"Plenty, madam, I can assure you."
"So you keep saying, Mr. Puri! But I see no evidence of it. Thousands are being spent of our money and for what? No progress at all! Frankly speaking, I don't know what it is you're doing all day."
She lowered her chin to her chest.
"Fortunately my lawyer, Mr. Malhotra assures me the police case is shot full of holes. Only the flimsiest of evidence they have. Nothing concrete. He'll be getting Chippy off for sure."
Puri fished out his notebook.
"What is Bobby's mobile number, madam?" he asked, pencil at the ready.
Mrs. Kasliwal rattled off the digits too quickly for the detective, who had to ask her to repeat them three times before he had it written down correctly.
"Very good, madam," he said, putting away his notebook. "I'll be on my way. One thing is there, though. Your former driver, Munnalal. Last night only, he was most brutally murdered."
Mrs. Kasliwal's body visibly tensed for a moment.
"It happened in the property directly abutting your own, madam, at eleven-thirty. You heard anything?"
"Nothing," claimed Mrs. Kasliwal. "I was fast asleep I can assure you. Such a long, tiring day it was. But how can you be sure he was murdered?"
"He was stabbed in the neck, madam."
Mrs. Kasliwal made a face as if she had smelled something unpleasant and shook her head from side to side.
"Such dangerous times we live in, I tell you," she said. "Most probably he got into an altercation with the wrong sort."
"Anything is possible, madam," said Puri. "But seems odd to me he was murdered here-right behind your house."
"Who knows what goes on, Mr. Puri? These people live such different lives to us."
"He wasn't coming to see you, madam?"
"Me, Mr. Puri? What business would he have with me?" Mrs. Kasliwal's words were liquid indignation.
"Could be he was in need of assistance?"
"What kind of assistance exactly?"
"I'm told he was facing financial difficulties."
Mrs. Kasliwal rolled her eyes. "That is hardly news, Mr. Puri! Munnalal was always asking for salary advance. These types are in and out of trouble. So much drinking and gambling is going on."
"Did you ever give him anything extra?"
"Extra?" asked Mrs. Kasliwal, regarding him with mild contempt.
"Like a bonus, say?"
"I gave him his salary. That is all. Buss! Now I've answered enough of your questions, Mr. Puri. There's such a busy day ahead. Mr. Malhotra
will be arriving at nine-thirty to go over the defense. And I'm hosting the monthly meeting of the Blind Society."
"No need to explain, madam," said Puri. "It's about time I pushed off. Till date, I'm without my breakfast."
Puri picked up Tubelight ten minutes later from behind the Sunrise Clinic.
He could hardly control his excitement.
"Boss, the security guard remembers a girl being brought in on August twenty-first night!" he said, clambering into the car. "Says she was covered in blood. But, Boss! She was very much alive!"
"He's certain of it?" asked the detective.
"One hundred-no, three hundred and fifty percent certain!"
"Why so certain?" Puri said skeptically.
"She was dropped off by a man matching Munnalal's description in a Sumo, and the very next night she left!"
"She left? How?"
"Taxi. Came and took her."
"She was with someone?"
"The guard's got confusion on this point," answered Tubelight. By this the operative meant that the guard had clammed up suddenly when asked.
"Could he tell you where the taxi went, at least?"
Tubelight grinned.
"No delay! Tell me!" insisted Puri.
"Train station."
"He's certain?"
"Overheard the taxi-wallah being told where to go."
"Very good!" exclaimed Puri. "Tip-top work!"
"Thanks, Boss," said Tubelight with a grin.
The detective instructed Handbrake to head directly to the station.
"Boss, you don't want to interview the clinic owner? He's Dr. Sunil Chandran."
"Naturally I would want to know why it was Mary was discharged and who all paid the bill," he said. "But I'll visit Dr. Chandran later. For now, let us stick on the trail while it remains hot."
On platform 2, where the Jat Express to Old Delhi was about to depart, hundreds of passengers with suitcases and bundles balanced on their heads were trying, all at once, to push through the narrow doorways of the already crowded second-and third-class carriages.
The weakest, including women with babies and the elderly and infirm, were ejected from the crush like chaff from a threshing machine, while the strongest and most determined battled it out, pushing, shoving and grabbing one another, their voices raised in a collective din.