'Nonsense. Somewhere like that does not change. They have been there for hundreds of years.'
'Since seventeen-eighty something. ACP Bhowmick was telling that.'
'There. You see. A man like him. A true bhadrolok. He would not say what is not true.'
'Oh, but he did. Let me tell just exactly what he was doing.'
Protima took more than a little convincing. But in the end, by simply putting each fact and inference quietly before her, he persuaded her that the wallet with the document which he had bribed birthmarked Shibu to give him had been stolen because it had in it that document.
She sat in silence for some long moments.
'So what to do?' she said at last. 'Something must be done. I will not lose my house.'
'I have been thinking.'
'Yes? What it is?'
Suddenly she was all eagerness. Trusting him. Trusting, he thought, Inspector Ghote, Bombay CID. As she had done, unthinkingly, for so many years. Until she had come to Calcutta.
‘Do you remember Mr Bhattacharya talking about one suggestion some friend of his was making at what he was calling an adda?'
'But he was suggesting you should tell to Assistant Commissioner Bhowmick what you had so far found out. Are you going to Bhattacharya Babu now to tell what bad advice he has given?'
‘No, no. All that adda-padda was so much uselessness. I am not going back to him.'
He regretted at once that he had jumped at that chance of putting down Bengali ways. But it seemed that Protima, seeing perhaps how much truth there was in what he had said, was ready for once to pass over the slur.
'So what it is you are planning to do?'
‘It is this itself. They were talking at that adda, Mr Bhattacharya said, about Calcutta's newspapers. He was telling, wasn't it, that an editor there was giving some good advice. To go to a certain paper, the one you were saying would knock into very much a cocked hat even the Blitz!
‘Yes, The Sentinel!'
‘Well, first thing tomorrow I am going to go to The Sentinel. Yes, I no longer have the firm evidences that A. K. Dutt-Dastar's document was providing. But a paper like The Sentinel will not be requiring firm evi-
dences. A smell only of corruption may be enough for them.'
‘Yes, yes. Good. Good. Go as soon as you are able.'
The offices of The Sentinel turned out to be squeezed into a narrow old house behind the Writers’ Building.
However, the Bihari cycle-rickshawalla who had threaded his way through tram-clanging BBD Bagh to bring Ghote to the area had contrived, despite speaking Hindi rather than Bengali, to put him down at the wrong place. With many assurances of Isjagah, isjagah, here, here, he had then promptly vanished into the dust-choked tangle of traffic.
Clutching the file Shibu had sold him, deprived though it was of its key document, and searching among the bustling streets of this commercial hub of Calcutta - pavements crammed and crowded with hawkers and vendors, selling office supplies, images of the gods, cigarettes, pornographic books - he came at last upon something Protima had told him about, the Memorial to the Dead Telephone. What little experience he had had of Calcutta's phones had proved that nowadays they were just as efficient as Bombay's. But here solemnly recorded were the errors and complications of the recent past. An upright stone slab on a plinth dated 1984 held a picture of an old-style dial phone in shiny black and underneath
Oh! Child of Communication
You were born to bridge the gap.
But corruption has caused a mishap.
Inefficiency and procrastination Caused the telephone lines to go - 'SNAP'
Well, he thought, Calcutta wit hundred per cent, if not as good Calcutta poetry. And trust a Bengali to use one long word, procrastination, where one short one would do.
Then, moving on a little, he saw beside a battered old doorway a small brass plaque with on it just two words, The Sentinel.
All right, go in.
Five minutes later he was sitting at an old, scarred and ink-blotched table, which incongruously held two shining VDUs and three differently coloured telephones, a far cry from inefficiency and procrastination. Above, a fan dating from another age slowly creaked its way round and round. A sharply black rim of concentrated dust edged its pale blades.
Facing him was the paper's assistant editor, Khokon Roy. Young - thirty or so, Ghote guessed - dressed rather smartly in a boldly striped black-and-white shirt, open at the neck. And he was smiling.
He had smiled when Ghote had been shown into his room - bare, stained walls - and at intervals as Ghote told his story he broke into more smiles, cheerful, quick, come-and-go.
‘Right, Inspector,' he said at last. ‘But do you mind me calling you Inspector? You are not one of those police officers who are ashamed of what they do? I know you are not one of those who are ashamed because they ought to be. From what you've been saying I put you down as no bribe taker. And not much of a bribe giver either, actually, to judge from your handling of that peon from A. K. Dutt-Dastar's chamber. And there's a nasty bit of work, that Dutt-Dastar, I know more than a few things to his detriment. But, really, Inspector, you shouldn't give a bribe of whatever sum's first asked. All very well to oil the wheels, but use oil that's too thick and you clog up the works. Oh, forgive me. I've been rattling on and on and haven't given you a chance even to object to being called Inspector.'
'No,' Ghote said, reflecting that here was another Bengali who rattled on and on, though one with the grace to admit it. 'No, I am not at all objecting to being called as Inspector.'
He felt, in fact, a puffing-up of pride at having been once more awarded his proper title. It meant that this clever young man - and he had no doubt that Khokon Roy was clever - had judged that what he had said was indication enough that there was a major corruption affair in his sights. So in a way he himself was on a case again. As he ought to be.
The crusading journalist at once confirmed his feeling.
'Yes, Inspector, I have no doubts about it. The fragments of evidence you have produced, pieced together, seem absolutely to support just one explanation. Corruption.' A quick, flashing smile. 'You know the old joke? A corrupt deal is exposed: a Russian commits suicide, a Chinese is executed and an Indian. .. becomes a Member of Parliament!
Ghote laughed. Not so much because the joke was funny, but because of the bouncing enthusiasm with which Khokon Roy had told it.
'And you are thinking this is matter that definitely goes up to MP level? ACP Bhowmick was saying as much.'
Another flash-of-light smile.
'Well, he would, wouldn't he? True, he's not someone I've heard anything iffy about. But, as you say, he must be in the pocket of some high-up somewhere to have arranged for you to be robbed of that document. After all, how does he come to have that nice posting of his? Sitting in comfort, fat salary, and having to do no more than ponder Calcutta's traffic problems. And those won't be shifted by any amount of ponder, believe you me.'
Thinking of the traffic chaos he had just witnessed in BBD Bagh, somehow worse than that in Bombay, more excitable, more cheerful, more angry, Ghote felt a jab of righteous anger. The people who had to dodge the lumbering, clanking two-car trams. The people coughing and spluttering as they ducked through the buses' outpourings of filthy grey exhaust, with the yellow-topped taxis weaving and jostling with no thought of rules or regulations. Something should be being done about it all. The utmost possible should be being done. And it was not. Because of bribery, corruption also. The traffic cops taking chai-pani for ignoring regulations. Senior officers sitting idle because they had won their postings by becoming the tools of corrupt high-ups.
'So what can The Sentinel do?' he asked Khokon Roy.
'No guarantees,' the young journalist cheerfully replied. 'You have to understand this. The Sentinel investigates perhaps two-three hundred corruption allegations per annum, some well backed-up, others of course merely fanciful, or spiteful. And how many of them result in action? Well, a few do.
A few is the best we can rise to. But that's worth doing. It's what we exist for. What I exist for, to tell you the truth.'
Another brilliant smile. But a smile deprecating that declaration rather than mocking the process.
‘Very well, no guarantees. I am able to understand that. But some action, yes?'
'Oh yes. Action. You see, I think there must be some urgency about this whole scam. There's been a good deal of agitation recently, you know, about saving the wetlands. Or, to be rather more cynical, about saving those eutrophic lakes that supply us Bengalis with so much of our beloved fish. And if that agitation produces results, then this plan to build a whole new colony in the wetlands will fall through. So whoever is behind it must be in a hurry. In a hurry to have the plan approved, and in a hurry also to get hold of your wife's house so as to build a road through it. Well, therefore we also should be in a hurry.'
Another quick, eyes-alight smile.
'Yes, it is action now. Action for me, and I rather think action for you too, Inspector. I'm delighted, to tell you the truth, to have a trustworthy police officer to work with. I well understand, of course, that you are out of your territory here in Calcutta. Reduced to being, if you like, just the common man. But there are things, it occurs to me, to which you can bring your detective skills. Apart from that, I need the sort of advice you can probably give me. There have been stories in the past that I might have brought to front page status, and I've had to watch them being forgotten because I just didn't know enough about the criminal world.'
‘But, please,' Ghote exclaimed, breaking in on yet another bout of Bengali word-spinning, 'what it is I can do?'
Khokon Roy gave a broad grin.
‘Ah ha, the Bombay spirit. Cut out our Bengali crap, get down to business. Right. So this is what I have in mind. What that document of yours called, if you've remembered it rightly, the Eventual Assignee. He's the fellow we've got to ferret out. To ferret out and blasted well name in the pages of The Sentinel. On the front page. Over the whole of the front page. And in our boldest type.'
‘But how? And, most of all, how can I do this ferreting?'
‘Oh, Bombay. Bombay, Bombay. Absolute Bombay-style. Right to the nub. No chatter, no patter. No. But you want your answer. And here it is. You can simply go to our friend tricky old Dutt-Dastar and tell him a black lie. You know, lie-telling is a great old Calcutta tradition. And I'm delighted to induct you into it. There's a rhyme we used to have Jai, juochuri, mithye katha, Ei tin niye Kolikata. Your Bengali up to that?'
'I am not altogether sure.'
‘Well, let me translate. Into good English. Or bad English. Well, never mind which. Here we go: Forgery, swindling, telling lies, the three that add up to Calcutta!
‘Yes, but please,' he was beginning to find words-tumbling Khokon Roy a little trying. ‘Please, what lie am I to tell?'
The young journalist burst into laughter.
‘My fault, my fault. No. Let me spit it out straight away. The lie you are to tell, Inspector, is that your wife is now willing to sell her house.'
‘To sell— But she— Ah, no, I see it. If I am telling A. K. Dutt-Dastar that lie, I can perhaps get him to say who she is to sell to. The Eventual Assignee. But, no. No, that man is knowing now that I have got this.'
He slapped the buff file with the green-ink words Mrs Protima Ghote - Bombay scrawled across it.
Khokon Roy looked at it.
‘You're right, of course,' he said. ‘I'm afraid I was rushing into things altogether too fast. A fault of mine. A bad fault.' He brightened abruptly. ‘A Bengali failing, I have to say. We're too enthusiastic, and that's a fact. I dare say, if we were not, Calcutta would still be the capital of India, as it ought to be. The British would never have gone and built that appalling New Delhi just to get away from us if we had not given them such a hard time.'
‘But it is A. K. Dutt-Dastar and whosoever is behind him we are wishing now to give one hard time to.'
Khokon Roy grinned sheepishly.
‘Quite right to pull me up again, Inspector. I see you've had rather too much of Calcutta boasting in your time here. Right, the question now is: how can we possibly extract from Dutt-Dastar the name of— Wait. Wait. No. Yes. Yes, I've got it.'
He stopped. And grinned.
‘Look, let me put it this way,' he said. ‘I think I may see how to get out of our dilemma. And, if we don't rush into it, we may yet pull it off. So, listen and give me the benefit of your Bombay hard-headedness.'
Ghote felt the responsibility.
'Very good,' he said. 'Tfell me what-all you are thinking.'
'Just this. Say you go to Dutt-Dastar, but instead of simply telling him your wife has suddenly changed her mind and wants to sell the house after all, something which - you're right - he'll never believe for a moment, say to him instead that you have been well frightened by that attack on you in the Botanical Gardens. You can add that your wife is yet more frightened. That's something he'll almost certainly believe, if you can say it with enough conviction. And I have no doubt that a Bombay detective can summon up a certain amount of deception without too much trouble. Well, I dare say a Calcutta detective would be— '
'Mr Roy, kindly tell what exactly is your plan.'
'Oh, my dear fellow, you do well to check me. Impetuous Bengali that I— No. No, I'll get on with it. I really will. It's just this, old chap. What if you go to Dutt-Dastar, say your wife is scared, and yourself too if you can bring yourself to it, and that you're both willing to call it a day? Say that you're willing to sell the house and its compound, and that you'll go back to Bombay and count yourselves lucky?'
Well, Ghote thought, if we were to go back to Bombay I would count myself lucky, yes. But. .. But I do not all the same like to be beaten. So it is one damn good thing that this is just only a clever move and not simple truth.
‘Yes,' he said. 'Yes, I am thinking that, if I am able to make A. K. Dutt-Dastar think my wife is very much frightened, it may be enough.'
'And will tell you then who he means to be the buyer of that house.'
Khokon Roy looked as if the triumph had already been achieved.
'If,' said Ghote.
'Well, all right, if we are lucky. But, yes, if you can really trick Dutt-Dastar into producing a name we'll be on our way. At least by a good margin. You may not actually hear who this Eventual Assignee is. People like Dutt-Dastar are a good deal more devious than that. He'll quite possibly have a nominee ready to hand. But if you can just get one name out of him, we could run the story with that and see if it brings a few rats out of their holes.'
And, with sharp in his mind the image of snouts poking out of the tunnels of the Rat Colony, Ghote left with his new ally the buff file, sole tangible evidence of A. K. Dutt-Dastar's deviousness, and set out back to the Fairlawn.
Chapter Thirteen
Ghote did not tell his wife that he was going to see A. K. Dutt-Dastar once more. Before leaving The Sentinel he had made use of Calcutta's nowadays efficient telephone system. But, he had wondered as he punched out the number, was that child of communication even now altogether free of the corruption that caused a mishap? What chance was there that it could be? In Bombay or Delhi, it was well known, if you wanted a new connection or in an office an extra line you very seldom got it without paying out money to some officer, and yet more to the linesman when he came. But his quick call from one of Khokon Roy's coloured phones had got him an appointment with the lawyer for that afternoon.
Eating the curry lunch the Fairlawn invariably served - no question of fish heads, he thought, some good coming out of this British atmosphere - he told Protima how his visit to The Sentinel had gone. Until the moment it came to saying that, as a result of it, he was about to join battle once more with wily A. K. Dutt-Dastar. Then he suddenly baulked.
He did not immediately realize what it was that had motivated him. But, once he had told Protima his lie, or had told it by omission - Am I falling into one of those three jai, juochuri
, mithye katha that add up to Calcutta? - he knew why he had allowed it to come into existence. When he went to A. K. Dutt-Dastar he wanted to be a Bombay detective.
It might, he thought, be the last time he was to be one. If the coming interview eventually led to The Sentinel exposing whatever huge scam was taking place, Protima would keep her house. And make her husband into a half-Bengali. But to have his Bengali wife there as he attempted to deceive A. K. Dutt-Dastar would, he felt sure, blunt his edge. He would find himself indulging in long-winded Bengali excuses. And would fail to get out of the fellow the name of the prospective purchaser. Who might, just possibly, even prove to be the mysterious Eventual Assignee.
So, when he had seen that Protima was content that the business was in the hands of The Sentinel, he simply asked her if she had any plans for the afternoon. Yes, she said. She was going to Rash Behari Avenue to see if she could track down the house where she had lived as a girl ‘among all the many, many shops for underwears. Rash Behari Avenue, you know, used to be famous for having the largest number of underwears shops in the whole world. And music shops also. More than you could count. But, of course, Calcutta is the most musical city in India. Everyone in the city can sing Tagore's songs. Rabindrageet, we call them in Bengali.'
She fell silent for a moment.
‘Somehow in Bombay I never used to sing.' she said.
Surely she sang sometimes in the flat in Bombay, he thought? Surely she had. Hadn't she?
But she made no demand for him to go with her on her expedition. Perhaps, he thought, she is wanting, if she is able to find the place, to remember on her own the events of her life there.
'It would be very fine if you would get to see inside,' he offered.
And put her into a taxi.
The peon Shibu was no longer at A. K. Dutt-Dastar's chamber to admit him. His place had been taken by an individual almost as shamblingly awkward, if without a disfiguring snake-like birthmark. It was easy enough to draw the right conclusion from bribe-taking Shibu's departure. A. K. Dutt-Dastar must have been told that the file he had had 'mislaid' had got into the hands of this too inquisitive Bombay police officer. And Shibu had paid the penalty. But who was it who had told the lawyer? ACP Bhowmick directly? Or the person ACP Bhowmick had reported the loss of that dangerous document to, and who then had either instructed him to arrange to get it back or had arranged to do so himself?
Bribery, Corruption Also Page 12