Murder at the Happy Home for the Aged

by Bulbul Sharma

  The room was in darkness and a strong smell of turpentine floated out as soon as they opened the door and stepped in. There were crushed tubes of oil paint scattered on the table, and dirty rags stained with colour hung from the window, blocking the light. Yuri was lying crookedly on the bed, his blue eyes fixed on the ceiling. He was very still.

  ‘Is he dead?’ Rosie whispered to Prema.

  ‘Looks pretty dead to me but you can’t tell with Yuri. He is so pale. When we brown people die you can tell at once but one can never be sure with these foreigners,’ said Prema, putting her hand out to pull Yuri’s toes.

  He did not move. A mynah came and perched on the window and began tapping its beak on the glass.

  ‘Look, the vulture has arrived, so he must be dead,’ said Prema. ‘Now this amla juice will be wasted.’

  ‘That is not a vulture. It is Yuri’s pet mynah. He feeds the bird every day. Must have come for its food, poor thing. Look, there are the seeds he gives it,’ said Cyrilo, picking up a jar from the table. He took out a handful, opened the window and scattered them on the ground. The mynah flew down at once to peck at them and soon two other birds joined in and began squabbling, calling out in harsh notes.

  Yuri turned his head towards the window.

  ‘Oh! Good. He is alive.’ Prema pulled his toe again. ‘Have some amla juice, Yuri. Good for your liver which you have damaged with your excessive drinking,’ she said, putting the bottle down on the table by his bed.

  ‘Leave him alone, Prema,’ said Cyrilo.

  Then, as they watched, Yuri moved his hand and began twisting the bed sheet with his fingers, groaning loudly.

  ‘Are you in pain?’ asked Cyrilo, putting his hand on Yuri’s forehead.

  ‘Look, he’s pointing to the window again,’ said Rosie, moving her wheelchair closer to the bed. Yuri had lifted his hand and was moving it up and down agitatedly.

  ‘He’s saying hello to those wretched mynahs. Well, now we know he’s definitely not dead,’ said Prema.

  Deven put his head very close to Yuri’s face and said, ‘Can you hear me, Yuri? Blink your eyes if you can understand what I am saying.’

  As they all waited, holding their breath, Yuri’s eyes stayed still and suddenly blinked.

  ‘Oh, my friend. Good. You can hear me. Do not worry. You will recover soon. Blink once if you are not in pain,’ said Deven.

  Yuri blinked once, his hands twitching as he pointed to the window again.

  ‘What is it? You want the window shut? Lift your hand for no and blink for yes,’ said Deven.

  Yuri lifted his hand.

  ‘Is the light from the window hurting your eyes?’ asked Rosie.

  Yuri raised his hand once more and his blue eyes filled with tears.

  ‘Did you see anyone at the window?’ asked Rosie. She knew that one could sit at the window all day waiting for someone to pass by. That was what she did all day. It was good to see another human face even if it was a stranger’s. Sometimes if she was lucky people even stopped and talked to her.

  Yuri blinked rapidly.

  ‘Yes. He is saying yes. I think he saw someone at the window. Yuri, did someone come in here? Did someone come into your room?’ asked Cyrilo.

  Yuri blinked again and slowly tried to move his hand towards his neck. The sheet fell away and they saw that Yuri’s neck was lined with red marks.

  ‘My god. Yuri, did someone hurt you? Look, his neck is bruised. We only thought his arm was injured by the fall. Why did the doctor not check this? It looks quite bad,’ said Cyrilo.

  Yuri blinked once and shut his eyes as tears rolled down his cheeks. He slowly raised one arm and then closed his eyes. They heard him breathing heavily and after a while they all quietly went out of the room. ‘What was he trying to tell us? Could someone have attacked him when he was alone in the house?’ asked Deven. No one had an answer.

  * * *

  Rana Hooda walked towards the window and opened it. He took a deep breath and looked out. The dark and threatening monsoon clouds marched across the sky but the sea seemed calm. The waves were gentle. Rana thought about checking the monsoon’s travel path on the laptop but he couldn’t muster up the enthusiasm to do it. He couldn’t focus on anything except Olga’s whereabouts. How could she have disappeared like this, leaving the apartment in such a mess? He suddenly wondered if his car was still there. It was actually Rani’s car, a sixtieth birthday present to herself. Rana picked up his phone, checked once more for any missed calls and opened the door. The car was missing. Olga must have taken it. As Rana stared at the empty spot in the driveway he suddenly felt a stab of fear tear into him. He imagined Olga dancing on the beach, dressed in that skimpy red dress she loved wearing. Her hair was flying in the wind and her mouth was painted red. This was the woman he wanted to spend his life with. The woman he was going to leave his wife and home for.

  He was going to lose everything, and he knew he was going to lose Olga too. Maybe she had gone already. Taken his car and god knows what else. For the first time since he had set eyes on Olga, Rana allowed himself to look at the truth. She only wanted his money. She desperately wanted his house in London. She wanted to use him in every way possible but she did not realize that he had nothing to give her. Without Rani he had nothing at all. Rani held the purse strings very firmly in her bejewelled, scrawny hands.

  Rana thought of those hands, the nails painted a horrible shade of crimson red, the five diamonds rings flashing like demon’s eyes every time she moved her hands. She had hit him once in a rage and a diamond had cut his cheek open. She wore a huge glittering stone on each finger because her guru had told her it would bring peace and harmony to her life. Rana wished the man had given her some kind of magic stone to cure her foul temper. It was getting worse every day and the slightest thing would make her insane with anger. She would scream and howl like a mad woman, tearing her hair and throwing things at him. Rana shut his eyes and pictured her. She thought it made her look beautiful, all this make-up and cosmetic surgery which had cost a fortune, but she looked like a clown—an evil, malicious clown with swollen lips and puffy eyes. He wished she were dead.

  Rana suddenly began to shiver. His hands were sweaty and damp, yet he was feeling so cold. He tried to remember what he had drunk the previous night. He needed air. The smell of incense and dead flowers was suffocating him. A sharp pain flashed behind his eyes as he stumbled into the blazing sunshine.

  * * *

  ‘Keep your head down,’ Alfie whispered to Maria as they crouched behind the shrubs outside the gate. Maria, Bobby and Alfie had been waiting for hours for someone to come out of the villa. Maria’s neck was hurting and she wanted to leave, when Alfie suddenly jabbed her arm and said, ‘There is your man.’

  Maria was not sure what to do and stood uncertainly behind the wall, twisting her handkerchief. The previous day Leela had found a piece of paper under the almirah near Yuri’s bed. It was a dry-cleaning bill and this was the address written on it. Someone from this house had come to the Happy Home that day. This person could have attacked Yuri, but when they told the inspector he refused to believe it.

  ‘Old age causes a lot of confusion. The brain cells are slowly dying one by one. It is like the lights going off in your house. My mother is so active yet she forgot to wash my vest the other day. She also forgets to add ghee in the dal these days,’ he had said, looking mournful.

  The doctor who had come to see Yuri also insisted he was confused because he could be in the early stages of senile dementia.

  ‘But, doctor, Yuri was fine last week when we left him at home and went to the spice farm. I heard him singing when he was shaving. How can you get dementia in one day?’ Deven had asked.

  ‘It is all in god’s hands. He is watching us all and sending his bolts of lightning to torment us. We are helpless. Old age comes to everyone. Senile dementia, gout, tooth decay and baldness come to all of us,’ the doctor had said, raising his hands to the sky.

  ‘At his
age people have a tendency to fall and injure themselves. It could be some other age-related problem.’ He had then taken Rs 500 and left.

  But they knew someone had attacked Yuri and the bill Leela had found under the almirah belonged to that person. It was definitely a stranger’s since no one in the Happy Home ever got their clothes dry-cleaned.

  The address on the bill had led them to this area at the other end of Trionim. This villa with a huge garden and impressive iron gate had the same address Bobby had shown them: 45 Greenside Villa.

  This was the villa where the dead woman had once lived.

  Everything they had learnt so far led them to this place, to this grand, red-roofed villa in an expensive part of Trionim that none of them were familiar with even though it was not very far from the Happy Home. Why was Inspector Chand not questioning the man who lived here? If they had found a connection surely he too must have figured it out by now. They were not sure where exactly it was going to take them but they had to follow this trail and find out. ‘This Inspector Chand is really not interested in solving the case. He told Maria that the woman had come from Mumbai, not Delhi. Apparently he found a Mumbai address in her jacket pocket,’ said Cyrilo. Deven shook his head. ‘I think that was placed there to mislead the police. We will find out.’

  Deven and Cyrilo wanted to jump into the van and rush to the villa as soon as they were shown the dry-cleaning bill but Maria had told them not to. ‘We might get chased by the guard. I don’t want you two to get hurt,’ she had said and quickly rushed out and got into Bobby’s car before Deven could say anything.

  He shook his head angrily and watched as Bobby’s car drove out of the Happy Home gate.

  ‘What does she mean? We have been doing so much work on this case already. We found that slip with the address. Well, Leela found it. That fat inspector has done nothing at all except trying to arrest Yuri. Why does he not question this Russian girl? Maria should have taken us with her. This is not fair,’ Deven told Cyrilo in his room as they sat drinking tea. For a few moments they sat silently brooding and then they suddenly looked at each other. They knew at once that both of them had the same idea.

  ‘Come on. Let’s follow them,’ said Cyrilo. They left quietly and got into their van. Cyrilo took the shortcut through the narrow, muddy lanes between the rice fields and soon they were on the main road. There was not much traffic but they could not see Bobby’s car. ‘We should catch up with them. This Bobby drives so slowly,’ said Cyrilo, changing gears roughly. The little van groaned in protest and stalled, almost bumping into two girls riding past on a scooter. ‘Grandpa, drive carefully,’ one of them shouted.

  ‘Who is she calling grandpa? Must be you, Deven. You should start dyeing your hair,’ said Cyrilo, laughing.

  ‘Shut up. Just concentrate on driving or we’ll lose them. Do you remember the address on the bill?’ asked Deven.

  ‘It is one of those new villas near the Chapora river. I pass them every morning on my way to the fish market. We can stop on our way back and pick up some prawns,’ said Cyrilo.

  ‘Listen, we are trying to catch a murderer but you always turn all our attempts into a jaunt. Forget about the fish and try to remember the number of the villa,’ said Deven.

  ‘No harm in picking up some fish since we will be passing by the bridge. The boats come in exactly at this time and the prawns are really fresh. The murderer is not running away but prawns get stale so fast.’ Cyrilo overtook a bus from the left, honking loudly. The driver leaned out and waved.

  ‘Oh. He is from our village. Did I tell you how he drove his bus over my grandmother’s chickens one day but not a single one died?’

  ‘I don’t want to hear about your grandmother’s chickens again. I am fed up with them. Please pay attention to the traffic and let me think. I am trying to connect this address to the other clues,’ said Deven, tapping his fingers impatiently on the car window.

  ‘Pity you did not bring your blackboard along. Helps you think better. When we catch the murderer, you must show him the blackboard and your jottings. He’ll be really impressed.’ Deven did not reply and looked out of the window as they left the main road and turned into a lane. The red-tiled roofs of the villas sparkled in the sunshine and uniformed guards stood at every gate. Cyrilo slowed down and began counting under his breath as they passed each villa. The van groaned and rattled as if it was not happy to be in this unfamiliar part of Trionim.

  ‘Even the dogs look rich here,’ muttered Cyrilo and stopped the van with a jerk under a large banyan tree. They could see 45 Greenside Villa on the opposite side of the road and Bobby’s car was parked in front. But they couldn’t see him or Maria anywhere.

  Maria lifted her head and looked at the man who had just come out of the house. Alfie, who had joined them on the way here, was right behind her, while Bobby hid behind the garden wall. The man was very short and was wearing tight jeans, a bright red T-shirt and dark glasses with blue frames. He looked like a middle-aged man dressed like a teenager. His hair, dyed with blonde streaks, stood out all over his head as if he had just had an electric shock. ‘I will go and talk to him. You stay here,’ she told Bobby.

  ‘No. I don’t want you to go alone. I’m coming with you,’ he said, suddenly sounding so assertive that Maria was surprised. Timid Bobby had turned into a tiger.

  ‘Listen, Bobby. Let me go talk to him. I’ll pretend to be a housekeeper looking for a job. It’s very easy to fool these people from Delhi.’

  ‘I can pretend to be a gardener looking for a job. I can act as well as you. Remember the play we did in school? Shakespeare’s As You Like It,’ he said and smiled.

  ‘Make up your mind, you two, otherwise this fellow will drive off. There is no time for chit-chat about plays and silly things. The guard will come back soon and chase us away.’ Alfie threw his cigarette into the shrubs. ‘If you want I can go and talk to him. I know him quite well. I often do cleaning jobs for him when he has a party. They leave the house in a real mess but he gives good tips. How much they fight, those two. That Russian girl once poured a bottle of whisky over his head.’ Alfie laughed.

  ‘Alfie, you can go home now. Thanks for your help. We will handle this. We need to find out who he is and what is the connection between this house and the Happy Home. We can’t just roll up at his doorstep and ask him these questions. He might get suspicious, so I will pretend to ask for a job and then snoop around,’ said Maria. She was feeling a bit nervous but did not want to show it and was very glad Bobby was with her. Alfie turned around and walked away as Maria opened the gate, her heart thumping with fear. Bobby followed her silently.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  RANA THOUGHT HE heard a car and came out to see if Olga was back. He was now really anxious. The sudden visit from the police inspector earlier that day had given him a shock. Why had this man turned up at his house asking questions? He tried to remember what the inspector had said but his mind was a whirl of confused thoughts. He should really stop taking those yellow pills Olga kept giving him but they made him feel so happy and he desperately needed to feel happy. The inspector had shown him a photograph of a dead woman. Her face was all swollen and black. ‘Do you know her?’ he had asked.

  ‘Why should I? I have never seen her,’ he had said, quickly looking away, but there was a frightening thought at the back of his head. Who was the dead woman? Why was the inspector asking him?

  ‘May I ask you, sir, where is Mrs Rani Hooda, your wife?’ the inspector asked.

  ‘In Mumbai. She is in Mumbai. I just got a message from her.’ The message had come from an unknown number. ‘I have lost my phone and messaging you from the driver’s phone. I am going for a few days to Dubai. Will call later. Love, Rani.’ Rather an odd, curt message but he did not tell the inspector that. He wanted this sweaty policeman to go away before Olga came home. The man was snooping around the room and Rana was afraid he would see the packets of grass lying around. Olga was so careless.

  ‘Do you have a
photograph of Mrs Rani Hooda?’

  Rana shook his head. Olga had removed all Rani’s photographs. Then he remembered the old one on top of the bookshelf. He pointed at it. Rani had just had her new face done and looked so unlike herself that even Rana couldn’t recognize her. The inspector looked at her for a while and wrote something in his notebook. Rana looked at him impatiently and said he had to make an urgent phone call and got up. The pain in his head was killing him and he wanted to go back to sleep.

  As soon as the inspector left, Rana went upstairs and lay down. His hands were shaking and he was dying to take a pill but restrained himself. He needed to clear his head. He must talk to Olga when she came back. Why had Rani sent him that peculiar message? It did not sound like her at all. She never signed off with ‘love’ ever. Why had she suddenly taken off for Dubai?

  Rana shut his eyes and then heard the doorbell again. He got up with a groan and went downstairs, almost tripping over Olga’s shoes. He cursed under his breath as he opened the door, hoping it was not the policeman again. He was not going to look at that photograph. He had shut his eyes when he had thrust the crumpled picture at him; the dead woman’s face was so distorted and ugly.

  Rana shaded his eyes and opened the door. He saw a girl and a young man standing near the gate. The girl was very pretty with long curly hair but was dressed shabbily in an old skirt and white blouse. Maybe she was collecting money for charity. Olga always told the guard to send such people away but he did not mind helping them. The guard was not around and this girl looked so pretty and innocent standing in the sunlight, her hair shining like a glossy mane, that he wanted to help. He took a deep breath of fresh air and felt his pain ease slightly.

  ‘Yes? Do you want something?’

  ‘Good afternoon. I am Maria Souza and this is my friend Bobby Menezes. We are looking for part-time work. We live nearby in Trionim,’ said Maria, her heart beating fast. She had never told a lie like this before. She was quite sure this man would find out that she was fibbing and order them to get out but he stared at her through the dark glasses as if he had not quite understood what she was saying. She was about to repeat herself when he spoke in a croaking, rough voice.