Tarquin Hall

by The Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken

  Hardeep Singh sighed as if getting to the front door and being prevented from going any further was something he was used to. He opened it a little wider and invited Mummy inside.

  “I’ll tell Leela to make tea,” he said.

  • • •

  The living room was furnished with a couple of dowdy couches and armchairs, and a dining table finished in fake-wood laminate. An almirah the green of tarnished brass contained a shrine stocked with images of the Sikh gurus. There were a few other personal belongings: a plaster ornament of a family of robin redbreasts perched on a snow-covered branch; a large teddy bear still wrapped in plastic and prominently displayed on a sideboard like a rare family heirloom. Bundles of old newspapers were piled up in one corner, ready to be sold at three rupees a kilo to the kabari wallah.

  The Singhs were wealthy, Mummy reflected as her host went in search of his wife, the property alone being worth many crores. Thus their frugal existence was one of conditioning and habit. Every rupee that could be saved was put away, the number of lightbulbs in the living room restricted to a total of one. The result was a murky twilight in which Mummy found herself struggling to make out the details of the family portraits hanging on the wall. The elderly man in the largest portrait was Manjit Singh, she decided. Judging by his style of clothes and the quality of the printing, he’d posed for the shot in a studio at some point in the early 1980s. Other pictures showed his offspring in more recent times—weddings, birthdays, the odd picnic. But of Mrs. Manjit Singh and Kiran Singh and her two sisters, there was no sign.

  “That is my father, of course,” said Hardeep Singh when he returned to the living room and found Mummy still staring up at the wall.

  “You came to Delhi in ’47?” she asked, coming and seating herself on one of the couches.

  “We arrived on a bullock cart, having lost everything,” said Hardeep. “But my father knew printing. His father had owned a business in Rawalpindi. So he borrowed money and opened a press in Chandni Chowk. We printed newspapers, pamphlets, stationery. Then he got into boxes. He supplied all the sweet shops and packing houses. Things were very good for us in those days.”

  “The business is still going?” asked Mummy.

  “After my father retired, I took over. Then we started to face more and more competition. All the technology changed. It is all computerized today. Our shop is still there, but everything is lying idle.”

  The story was not unfamiliar. Men like Manjit Singh struggled all their lives to improve the lot of their families, but their sons didn’t prove as hardworking or resourceful. Mummy attributed this phenomenon to a flaw in the Punjabi family system. Sons were too pampered, in her opinion, and this made them lazy. If they inherited property from which they could derive a comfortable income, they simply sat around and did nothing. But of course their wives enjoyed no such privilege. It was their lot to keep the household ticking along. The sweeper–cum–toilet cleaner and dish-washing walli required supervision; vegetables had to be purchased, meals prepared, children raised.

  The preparation of chai was their remit, too, and soon Mrs. Hardeep Singh appeared from the kitchen bearing a tray of steaming cups. A kindly-looking woman with a gentle smile, she greeted Mummy politely before serving her. The two women then sat and talked for a while, exchanging social niceties and establishing their family credentials. They might have spent a pleasant hour or two in each other’s company, but Hardeep Singh was growing impatient.

  “Now tell me, madam,” he said, interrupting his wife midsentence. “What’s your interest in my father?”

  “I’m trying to clear up a mystery—one that goes back to 1947,” explained Mummy.

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, you see in those days I was a volunteer for the Indian Recovery and Relief Operation.”

  Mummy watched his reaction to see if her words had engendered any concern or suspicion. There was every possibility that he and his sister were in touch—that they had reconnected despite Kiran Singh’s having adopted a new identity. But Hardeep Singh only frowned and asked, “This was a government agency of some sort?”

  “We were charged with rescuing Hindu and Sikh women from Pakistan,” she explained.

  Hardeep Singh appeared to absorb this information and lapsed into silence over his tea. When he spoke again a moment or two later, it was on a different subject altogether. “Delhi in those days was a very different place,” he said. “You know, when we first came here there were only a few houses. There were some Madrasis around.” By “Madrasi” he meant South Indians: Tamils, Keralites, Kannadigas. “We found their food very different. They ate dosas and idlis . . .”

  Mummy listened patiently for a minute or two, used to the ramblings of Indian men, whose conversation often deviated with no warning—another consequence of male privilege. But then she spoke across him. Her tone was brutal. It was the only way.

  “Now, I want to ask if you recognize this girl,” she said, handing him the photograph of Kiran Singh that Aslam had given Chubby.

  It took a moment for Hardeep Singh to get his mind back to the present. “Ah, yes, very good,” he said. “But I can’t see anything up close without my glasses.”

  His wife suggested he might like to retrieve them from the breast pocket of his shirt. He did so, slipping them on, and then looked down at the photograph with marked indifference. The reaction, however, was instant. He squinted, furrowed his brow and stared intently at his guest.

  “This is my youngest sister, Kiran,” he said. “And that’s our neighbor’s car. This was taken in Mandra. Where did you get this?”

  “From a former associate in Pakistan,” answered Mummy. “The two of us found your sister in March 1948 in the village of Bajal and tried to help—”

  “March 1948?” he interrupted. “No, you’re mistaken. Kiran died in August of the previous year.”

  “You’re sure?”

  He gave a truculent nod. “Yes, of course.”

  “Were you there?” she asked.

  Hardeep Singh didn’t answer. His eyes met Mummy’s and held them for a moment. She detected shame and guilt.

  “I met the girl in that picture in March 1948,” she said, persevering. “And I wasn’t the only person to meet her. I received that photograph from a Pakistani military officer who was there with me that day. We brought Kiran to a camp. But she didn’t want to stay and that night she ran away.”

  “Impossible,” he insisted. “You’ve got her mixed up with someone else.”

  Hardeep Singh lapsed into silence again, staring intently at the photograph. Mummy felt a hand on her arm.

  “Forgive me, but I can’t see there’s anything to be gained from raking up this past history,” said Mrs. Singh. “It all happened so long ago. What purpose is to be served by bringing up these painful memories?”

  “Normally, I would agree,” replied Mummy. “My family suffered losses as well. Those memories still cause me great pain. However, this is different. You see, I believe Kiran is alive. She’s living here in Delhi.”

  Hardeep Singh’s eyes flashed with anger. “That’s enough,” he snapped. “You’ve no business coming here and saying such things, madam. Now I want you to leave and don’t come back.”

  He was pointing toward the door. Mummy didn’t budge. “All I ask is that you look at these,” she said. “I believe one of them is your sister Kiran.”

  She held out two pictures, both cut from the social pages of Indian magazines. The first was of Megha Dogra, the second Jasmeet Bhatia.

  “Please take a look, sir,” Mummy implored him. “I need to know for sure myself.”

  But Hardeep Singh was resolute in his decision. “I told you to leave, madam,” he said, finger still extended toward the door.

  Mummy could see it would do no good to argue with him. She began to gather up her things and apologized for having bothered them. And then Mrs. Singh spoke up, addressing her husband in a soothing tone: “At least look at them,” she said. “Otherwise,
you’ll never know. What if Kiran is alive? How can you live without knowing?”

  She took the pictures from Mummy and brought them over to him. “Come now, what’s the harm?” she asked. “You’ve nothing to lose.”

  Hardeep Singh gave a petulant shake of his head. “I don’t want to know—even if it’s true, I don’t want to know,” he said.

  “Of course you do. Now come. This lady is only trying to help,” she said and laid the photographs in his lap.

  He ignored them for a long while and then turned his eyes down.

  The first picture drew a blank. But the sight of the second caused his lower lip to start trembling.

  “That’s her,” he said in a diminished tone. “Even after all these years . . .” He looked up again. His face showed dismay. “But it’s impossible,” he continued. “I . . . I heard the shots. Counted them. One, two, three . . .”

  The picture dropped to the floor as he buried his face in his hands and began to sob. Mrs. Singh put an arm around his shoulders.

  “Mother begged him to do it, not to let her and my sisters fall into their hands,” he murmured through his tears. “The mob was getting closer. We could hear them—like animals. Father knew what had to be done. He took them inside the house . . . My brother and I waited outside . . . I was only fourteen.”

  Kiran Singh, her sisters and her mother had all been killed that night. But not at the hands of the Muslims.

  Manjit Singh had made sure his womenfolk weren’t seized by the mob.

  Kiran, though, had survived. The bullet, her bullet, had missed its target and she had played dead.

  No wonder she hadn’t wanted to be reunited with her family, reflected Mummy, the tragedy of it all sweeping over her. It would have meant certain death.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said in a faint voice.

  Hardeep Singh didn’t hear her. Nor did he seem to notice her collect up her things and steal from the room.

  Mummy would have to return another day; it was her duty to do so as an officer of the Indian Recovery and Relief Operation.

  Quietly, she closed the door behind her and stepped out into the evening air. She made her way to the front gate in a daze, her heart aching with grief.

  It was only after she’d reached the car that it dawned on her that she now knew the identity of Faheem Khan’s killer. Yet somehow Mummy derived little satisfaction from her discovery.

  Twenty-six

  At eight o’clock, as the rest of the Most Private Investigators team set off from Khan Market to target the Indian batsman suspected of match fixing, Flush checked into room 704 of the Maharajah Hotel.

  It was as close to paradise as he’d ever come. The bed was enormous and very bouncy. There was a little fridge stocked with Angrezi liquor and imported chocolate bars. The TV was forty inches wide. And chicken nuggets were available from room service (which, incidentally, worked round the clock).

  Not that he was there to partake of any of these luxuries, of course. Boss had been firm on this point. “It is not a party,” he said.

  Flush’s assignment was to get a camera inside Kamran Khan’s suite and the only way to do so was to send in Gordon. Hence the need for an adjacent room on the seventh floor.

  “Sir, would be needing your bed turned down?” asked the bellboy who’d carried up Flush’s cases—four heavy pieces in all, containing monitors, a couple of laptops, his (illegal) direct-to-satellite communications system and the latest edition of Chip magazine, which featured a cover story on the “power of DLNA.”

  “‘Turned down’ means?” asked Flush.

  “The top sheet pulled back—so, um, well, you can get into bed.”

  The operative frowned. He might have grown up in a village, but he’d lived in the city since he was fifteen.

  “No need,” he said. “I know how.”

  Flush handed the bellboy a woefully inadequate tip, saw him to the door and then started to unpack. Once he had his direct-to-satellite system up and running and the jamming protocol operational, he checked that the scanning software he was using to monitor Khan’s and Vikas Patil’s mobile phone signals was still active. Mrs. Chadha in the communications rooms in the office was monitoring both lines and Tubelight was keeping abreast of the cricketers’ e-mails on his smartphone.

  Lastly, Flush opened the case that contained Gordon and gave him an affectionate pet. He was three inches long, remotely controlled (range: fifty feet) and equipped with night vision, a pinhole camera and a transmitter housed in his tail. The most ingenious thing about Gordon, however, was the suction system Flush had designed for his little feet. This allowed him to crawl up walls and ceilings and hang around—literally—pretending to be hunting insects. The fact that he was green with beady black eyes and a realistic little tongue meant that no one took much notice of him. Just like a real gecko.

  “Happy hunting,” Flush told him as he placed his creation in the air-conditioning vent. He returned to the desk, booted the remote-control software and plugged in his joystick. Gordon the Gecko came to life and a green night-vision image of the inside of the air-conditioning duct appeared on his screen. Flush eased the joystick forward and his animatronic creation began to move. There were some thirty feet of duct to cover, the length of four rooms in all. Flush estimated it would take him three hours to reach his destination, assuming he didn’t encounter any obstacles along the way. Then would come the most challenging part of the operation: maneuvering Gordon down through the air-conditioning outlet and into position on the ceiling.

  • • •

  Handbrake, who’d spent the day visiting most of Delhi’s five-star hotels without coming across any newly appointed moustachioed doormen, drove Boss out of Khan Market at eight thirty.

  The silver sedan followed them down Lodhi Road toward the gardens and it was here that Puri suddenly ordered his driver to stop.

  “You forgot something, Boss?”

  “Not at all. I want a word with our friends back there. Better you keep this.” The detective wrapped his pistol in a handkerchief and handed it to the driver. “Might be required later. I’m counting on you to follow behind.”

  Puri exited the car and walked back down the road. When he came to the silver sedan, he knocked on the passenger window. It went down an inch and a pair of mirrored sunglasses surmounted by a thick pair of eyebrows appeared in the gap.

  “Tell him I believe we can do business. Five minutes is required, only.”

  Puri had known for a couple of days now that these were Sandeep Talwar’s men. They were there as a form of intimidation, a reminder that he shouldn’t go poking around in Sahib’s business.

  The window closed again and the detective waited on the pavement, guessing that Talwar’s goons were phoning for instructions. Presently, the back door swung open and he climbed onto the empty seat.

  Neither of the two men up front uttered a single word as they drove north. Their abstention from speech coupled with their immutable expressions were rendered all the more forbidding by the surreal quality of streetlight that penetrated the car’s tinted glass windows. The city’s familiar landscape, too, looked distinctly spooky, the pedestrians on the pavements like zombies marching through a Transylvanian mist.

  Puri was expecting to be escorted to the Hotel Lakshmi again or perhaps Talwar’s residence, but soon the sedan reached the deserted streets of Old Delhi. They turned onto Asaf Ali Road, where rats scurried through litter and blanketed figures lay on parked wooden carts. Puri caught glimpses of unloved havelis smothered in cobwebs of phone lines and power cables, and packs of battling street dogs.

  And then, like a mirage, it appeared in a blaze of light: an art deco building lit up like a giant gumball machine. THE DELITE announced a neon sign above the grand entrance, and above this was a film poster for a remake of a remake.

  The sedan pulled up in front of the entrance, one of the goons leaned back and opened the door, and Puri took his cue. He made his way up the steps, remembering all the
times he’d come here as a boy to watch some of his favorite films—Waqt, Aradhana and the unforgettable curry western Sholay. The hall had been packed in those days for every show, but after TV and VCRs came along, the Delite, like so many of India’s single-screen theaters, had fallen on hard times, condemned to Bollywood B movies for rickshaw wallahs—mostly semipornographic flicks about sexually perverted Indian werewolves.

  Puri hadn’t been back since the theater had undergone a complete renovation and started screening mainstream Bollywood again. Beyond the glistening doors, he marveled at the transformation—it was all Italian marble, teak wall paneling, polished brass handrails and art deco lights. The food counter looked like something out of a classic American diner, with an old-fashioned popcorn maker and soda machine manned by staff in vintage uniforms.

  He found the ticket booth unmanned, a SOLD OUT sign hanging in the window. The usher in the foyer was expecting him, however, and led Puri to the auditorium.

  It was deserted save for one occupied seat—a single figure sat near the front.

  Puri made his way down the aisle and sat down next to him. Sandeep Talwar made it clear he did not want to be interrupted by keeping his eyes glued to the screen, his hand feeding his mouth with popcorn. The movie was not the one advertised on the program outside; Sahib had apparently demanded an oldie, the old Dev Anand classic Guide. It was a favorite of the detective’s too and he could not help but relax into his chair, enraptured by Waheeda Rehman’s beauty and the accompanying lyrics. “Day recedes, oh, night remains / You won’t come, but your memory haunts me!”

  By the intermission, when the lights suddenly came on, Puri had become lost in the tragedy of the story.

  “One of my favorites,” said Sandeep Talwar, finally acknowledging him. “You know, it was in this very theater that I watched it for the first time: 1965. God only knows how many times I’ve seen it since. Probably a world record. I should get my name in Limca.”

  The usher appeared carrying a tray. On offer were some of the theater’s famous maha samosas.