by Tarquin Hall
The cricketer stared at the detective. 'Where did this happen?'
'He owned a farmhouse in Delhi. By coincidence I was present there also. A good deal of illegal betting was going on. Betting on an ICT match, in fact.'
Khan's face had gone blank. Puri detected fear in his eyes.
'You say you've never met Alam, have no idea who he was, have no idea why your father met with him minutes before he died?' he asked, pressing home his advantage.
The answer was a few seconds in coming. 'No,' he said. 'Like I told you, I've never heard of him.'
At this juncture, the lawyer intervened: 'My client has a pressing engagement . . . If there's nothing else?'
'Just one request is there,' he said.
Puri took a moment to think, addressing Khan. 'I wish to examine your father's personal belongings. Those he took with him to Delhi. That is at all possible?'
The young man was studying the design of the Persian rug, lost in thought. Puri had to repeat his question.
'Yes, yes, no problem,' said Khan, hearing him this time. 'His suitcase is still in the study.'
The detective asked to be taken to the study right away. Khan's assistant escorted him out of the room. Puri could hear the murmur of conversation break out as soon as the door closed behind them.
Faheem Khan's study was upstairs. In front of the window stood a desk messy with papers, notes, numerous pens. Next to this was his luggage.
Inside, Puri found a change of clothes, an extra pair of shoes, a shaving kit . . .
Beneath a pair of trousers, he also discovered a copy of the Koran.
He opened it and turned to page one. The first verse of the first sura was underlined and there were some numbers written in the margin. The detective started to take out his notebook to copy them, when Kamran Khan burst into the room.
'That was my father's most precious possession,' he said, snatching the Koran out of the detective's hands. 'I've been meaning to put it away.'
He placed it in the top drawer of the desk.
'Was there anything else you wanted, sir?' he asked.
'The truth if you please,' answered Puri.
'About what?'
'Your relationship with the bookie Mohib Alam.'
'I told you, I don't know who he is.'
'I think you do, young man. I think, also, that unless you make a full confession so to speak, the identity of your father's murderer will never come to light.'
Khan stared back at the detective.
'That is what you want, is it? Your father's murderer to go free?' continued Puri.
The cricketer answered with a shake of his head.
'Then you've anything more to tell me?'
Khan looked away. Ten, twenty seconds passed. 'I can't,' he said. 'You don't understand. They'll kill me as well.'
Footsteps approached on the marble floor outside. The door opened. It was Baloch.
'You found what you were looking for, Mr Puri?'
'Unfortunately not,' said the detective. 'My journey has been wasted, in fact. Now if it is at all convenient, I would prefer to go directly to my hotel. I have a reservation at the Pearl.'
Looking Kamran Khan in the eye, he added, 'If anyone would want to reach me later, I shall be there only.'
NINETEEN
IT WAS STEAK night at the MarcoPolo restaurant in Rawalpindi's Pearl Continental Hotel and promotional posters of succulent cuts sizzling on flaming grills stared down from the walls.
Puri couldn't help but stare back at them. He'd never seen what slaughtered beef looked like and found the appearance of the juicy red meat appetising. For a minute or two, he actually considered ordering some. But the thought of eating steak here felt . . . well, blasphemous. It also crossed his mind that the Pakistanis might leak his indiscretion to the press. HOLIER THAN THOU DETECTIVE EATS COW was one headline he envisaged.
Besides, he wasn't sure he could live with the guilt. He ordered the chicken karahi instead.
'And one peg whisky, also.'
The waiter frowned down at his pad of paper. The hotel did not serve alcohol, he said apologetically. If the detective wanted a drink he would have to consume it in his room - that is, after first applying for a drinking permit.
'A permit?'
'From the Department of Excise and Taxation. I should bring you an application form, sir?'
'Just bring one salty lassi,' he said with a dismissive wave of his hand.
The fact that he couldn't get a drink made him crave one all the more. 'Absence makes the liver grow stronger,' he told himself, and started to chuckle, almost guffawing the more he repeated the phrase in his head.
He wished he had company, someone with whom to share the joke; a priceless one, after all. He disliked being on his own. At home there was always someone around - family, servants, friends popping in.
He had to admit, however, that he'd been pleasantly surprised by the friendliness and courteousness of those he'd met in Pakistan so far. From the air hostess who'd assured him the plane wasn't going to crash, to the hotel concierge who'd talked about how much he'd enjoyed visiting India last year, Puri had been made to feel welcome.
The reception at Kamran Khan's had been perfectly civil as well, even if the detective felt as though he'd been the one on trial. By God, there were a lot of worried faces in the room. Did they know Faheem Khan and his son were involved with match fixing? Were they all involved themselves? Did any of them want the truth to come out?
Of one thing Puri was now certain: even if Kamran Khan had never met Full Moon in person, he'd undoubtedly heard of him.
The lassi arrived in a tall glass and proved delicious and creamy, with just the right blend of salt and ground cumin. Puri promptly ordered another, all craving for alcohol now banished from his mind, and then tucked into the karahi. It was nothing special - typical hotel food - and Puri found himself wondering if he would get the chance to sample some Lahori cuisine before he left. With any luck he'd be able to stop for lunch on his way back to the border. Nirala Butt's restaurant in Lakshmi Chowk was the place to eat, he'd been reliably informed. The house speciality was kadai gosht, a Mughali dish.
'Some dessert for you, sir?'
The waiter was back.
'That is what is generally called a redundant question,' said Puri to the waiter.
A bowl of kulfi was soon brought and this he followed up with a cup of milky tea.
When he stood to leave, he noticed a bored man in olive green salwar kameez and Peshawari sandals sitting in the lobby and looking completely out of place. His colleague was hanging around outside the main entrance. He was dressed in exactly the same get-up and wore an identical moustache. Perhaps they were government issue?
By the time he returned to his suite on the 'executive floor', it was dark outside. The front of the hotel was lit up and Puri watched the security guards manning the ring of concrete blast-proof slabs positioned in front of the entrance, checking all the cars entering the premises. Undercarriage mirrors, sniffer dogs, X-ray machines: as thorough as security at an international airport.
Puri assumed these precautions were in response to the recent targeting of a five star hotel in Islamabad. A suicide bomber had driven a truck straight into the lobby and detonated 1,400 pounds of explosive. But Pakistan's hotels were, clearly, not the only institutions under threat. To the left of the Pearl Continental lay the old British cantonment, headquarters of the Pakistan army. The entire sector was surrounded by walls, barbed wire, sand emplacements, slabs of concrete, lookout posts jammed with troops. All to protect the Generals from their own Frankenstein monsters. It was madness, sheer madness.
Puri withdrew into the room and lay down on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, wondering if the anonymous individual who had sent the fax from London would contact him - assuming of course that the message hadn't been a ruse.
'Travel to Pakistan this coming Friday. Please take a room at the Pearl Continental in Rawalpindi where I will find you,' th
e message had said.
Well it was Friday and here he was, waiting.
He paced up and down for a while, noticing a set of weighing scales under the sink in the bathroom. With nothing better to do, he decided to weigh himself to see if the diet pills were working - it had been four days since he'd started taking them, after all. He was relieved to find an improvement: a good half a kilo lighter. At this rate he'd lose a kilo in a week.
'Tip top.'
He turned on the TV and began to flick through the channels.
There had been another suicide bombing in Peshawar. A US drone attack in Waziristan. Fresh clashes in Karachi . . .
Something caught Puri's eye. Above the fridge, next to the laundry bag and bottle opener, lay a book. It was a complimentary copy of the Koran, placed there by the hotel. He began to turn the pages, wishing he could remember the numbers he'd seen in Faheem Khan's edition.
At around one o'clock he finally decided to call it a day and changed into his VP monogrammed pajamas. He left the bathroom light on, checked that the door was locked and got into bed. He tossed and turned for half an hour, unable to sleep, spooked by any sound coming from the corridor. Eventually he got up and wedged a chair against the door. He slept fitfully.
The next morning, Puri lingered on in his room, still hoping that the anonymous fax sender might contact him or that Kamran Khan would come to his senses and confess his sins. But he was to be disappointed: by eleven-thirty, there was no word. He decided to leave (borrowing the copy of the Koran, which he would post back to the hotel once he'd shown it to Brigadier Mattu) and asked to be driven back to the border, willing to endure five hours on the road rather than another minute in the air.
A car promptly arrived and soon, free of a police escort, the driver was making good time along the Grand Trunk Road. Sitting on the back seat with the window down a crack, Puri felt relieved not to have to be flying again. He began to relax, watching the landscape through his window - a bleached, sandy terrain quarried by rain and seasonal rivulets with barren, reddish-brown hills floating above the haze. They passed a train of camels led by a group of wandering dervishes; brightly decorated trucks adorned with paintings, glassware and beads; villages with black flags flying over the roofs, indicating that they were home to Shia Muslims.
Beyond the great Jhelum River, the driver pulled into a petrol station and went to say his prayers in the mosque. Puri decided to stretch his legs while he waited. As he stepped out of the car, a Land Cruiser tore into the forecourt and screeched to a halt. A man wearing a ski mask and brandishing a Kalashnikov rifle jumped out. He grabbed the detective by the arm and shoved him into the vehicle.
The last thing Puri saw before a hood was drawn over his head and he was driven away was the helpless station attendant looking on in dismay.
TWENTY
ACHARYA BAKSHI, DIAMOND processing sweatshop owner, ate his home-made lunch at his desk. Judging by the amount of noise he made - molars chomping, lips smacking together, fingers being sucked clean - he relished every morsel. But for Flush, who was sitting with Tubelight and Chanel No. 5 in a nearby hotel room, his noshing made excruciating listening. The sticky induction listening device attached to the outside of Bakshi's office window (Chanel No. 5 had scored a direct hit with his catapult) amplified every sound.
When he finished his meal and let out a loud and protracted belch, the young operative pulled off his headphones and grimaced.
'Gaaaad!' he exclaimed. 'This is worse than having to listen to Ram Yadav having sex.'
He was referring to a 320-pound seventy-three-year-old whose wife had once hired Most Private Investigators to gather proof of his infidelity.
'Nothing beats Boss's snoring,' commented Tubelight.
Flush nodded in agreement. 'True. Sounds like a pregnant water buffalo.'
He put his headphones back on. Hawala broker Mihir Desai, who'd brought Bakshi the blood diamonds, had arrived to pick up his 'parcel'.
Chanel No. 5 listened in on their conversation as well, translating from Gujarati to Hindi for the benefit of the others. The estimated value of the blood diamonds was US $ 223,000, Bakshi told his customer. In lieu of payment for cutting and polishing the stones, he was keeping two of them for himself. These he would sell in Mini Bazaar, Surat's wholesale diamond market, where jewellers from across India came to buy from the city's middlemen and no one asked questions about the origins of their wares.
'I've another shipment coming next week,' said Desai. 'Russian stones.'
They were due to arrive in Kathmandu by air, a route being used more frequently these days since the Nepali customs officials had started 'eating', or taking bribes, and could therefore be relied upon to turn a blind eye to illegal shipments. From there they would be brought in overland.
'Half a million dollars' worth.'
'Always welcome!' exclaimed Bakshi as his customer left.
From the cutting and polishing sweatshop, it was a short distance to the premises of the Angadia courier company that specialised in transporting diamonds: an unremarkable unit on the ground floor of an unremarkable building. A fat man with an oily face sat inside, a cast iron safe to his right.
Chanel No. 5 loitered outside the premises pretending to have a conversation on his mobile phone and witnessed the exchange through the window. First, Desai handed Oily Face the blood diamonds, now contained in a little paper packet wrapped in black tape. A form was then placed on the counter for Desai to sign. The kachchi chitthi, as the form was known, constituted a contract whereby the Angadia courier company agreed to deliver the diamonds to the address stipulated by the sender. It also guaranteed that, in the event of the diamonds being either lost or stolen, the total declared value would be paid to the sender. In return, the sender agreed to pay one per cent of the declared value of the goods for their transportation.
Desai paid the fee and left. Oily Face placed the diamonds in his safe and locked the door.
The hood Puri had been wearing for the past half an hour was removed. He squinted in the bright light, shielding his eyes with one hand. A man's voice said, 'Welcome, Mr Puri. I hope my men didn't frighten you. They can get a bit over-zealous at times. They're only young, after all.'
The detective's sight slowly returned. He found an elderly gentleman standing before him. There was no mistaking his military bearing - the straight posture, chin held up at 15 degrees, shoulders straight with hands held behind his back. Judging by the star and eagle emblem pinned to the lapel of his double-breasted suit, he had served in the Punjab regiment.
'I'm afraid certain precautions were necessary,' he continued. 'It wouldn't help either of our causes if we were found fraternising with one another.'
Puri looked around him. He was in a tastefully appointed sitting room - bookcases, Bokhara carpets, a pair of Jezail muskets with mother-of-pearl inlay mounted on the far wall.
'And what is your position, exactly?' he asked. He added the honorific 'sir' in deference to the man's age, but there was no mistaking his anger at having been abducted.
'At times I dare say you've regarded me as your enemy, Mr Puri. However, today I've the honour of being your host. There's no point in keeping my identity from you. You would discover it before long. My name is Major General Khalid Muhammad Aslam.'
Puri had heard of Aslam. He'd served in East Pakistan and helped supply and train certain Afghan mujahideen factions - the old guard 'Gucci Guerrillas', as they used to be known, former Afghan army officers loyal to the Royal Family. Retired generals like Aslam wielded considerable influence in Pakistan - certainly enough to ensure that a visa was issued at short notice and without the usual fee.
'You've an odd way of treating your guests, sir,' responded the detective. 'Why make it look like I was taken by militants?'
The question provoked a warm, almost familiar smile. 'I see you've inherited your mother's tenacity,' remarked Aslam.
'My mother?' said Puri with a frown. 'What all she has got to do with it?'
'I see!' he declared. 'Well, I seem to have you at a disadvantage, Mr Puri. I can't imagine that's a position you find yourself in very often.'
'I asked you what all my mother has to do with this.'
'That will become clear, I assure you.'
Aslam walked over to the French windows and pulled back the curtains. Sunshine streamed in.
'Would you like to join me in the garden? It's very pleasant at this time of year. My Damascene roses are in full bloom.'
'I want you to understand one thing before we proceed,' said Aslam as they sat on the veranda of his bungalow.