Midnight at Malabar House (Inspector Wadia series)

by Khan, Vaseem

  The words stung. Was Seth right? What if she was truly so blinkered that she did not see the harm that her actions might cause?

  ‘I think you should take a few days off.’

  She gaped at him. ‘You’re suspending me?’

  ‘No,’ he said wearily. ‘I’m defusing the situation, perhaps even saving your career. You may be stuck at Malabar House with the rest of us for now, Persis, but mark my words: you’re destined for better things. If only you can survive long enough. These people will tolerate a little insubordination, but they will never allow you to embarrass them.’

  These words continued to ring in her ears as she made her way back to her desk. She collected the Partition files locked in her drawer, then walked up to the lobby. The anger had passed and in its wake came a deep melancholy.

  Is this how it would always be? A constant battle to prove her worth in a world dominated by those who thought in a way that was beyond her. Of all the institutions in the new republic, surely it was the police service that must value truth above all things? How was a nation to establish itself if it could not look itself in the mirror?

  Her thoughts were interrupted by Pradeep Birla, heading the other way. His shirt was stained with sweat and he looked harried. He pulled her aside as a trio of corporate executives came barrelling into the building.

  ‘I drove out to Panvel,’ he said. ‘It’s about an hour out of the city. There’s only one boarding school there, the Heart of Mary Catholic School. It has a stellar reputation, and the fees are stiff. Gupta does have a child there, a boy named Praveen. Nice-looking kid.’

  ‘Let me guess. He’s half-Anglo.’

  Birla shook his head. ‘Afraid not. The kid’s as Indian as you or me.’

  She was momentarily taken aback. She had all but convinced herself that Herriot was the father of Gupta’s child.

  ‘Did you speak to him?’

  ‘Yes. Not that I learned much. He seems a bit dull to me. But here’s the good part. I asked to see the kid’s files. You said that Sir James was paying for him to be there.’

  ‘Yes. That’s what his mother told me.’

  ‘Well, I met the registrar. Guess who signed the cheques for his fees?’

  She waited.

  ‘Your friend, Madan Lal.’

  The revelation stunned her.

  ‘The registrar told me that Lal was with her when the boy was enrolled and regularly drives her up to visit. He thought the pair were husband and wife till Lal disabused him of the notion.’

  Had she misjudged the relationship between Lal and Herriot’s housekeeper, a woman who also happened to be the sister of the man who had confessed to Herriot’s killing?

  ‘You said the fees at Heart of Mary were stiff. How stiff?’

  He told her. The figure was exorbitant. It beggared belief that a man like Sir James would have agreed to such an outlay for his housekeeper. Could Lal have paid the fees himself?

  Unlikely. The sum would have taxed an aide’s salary, no matter how well paid.

  ‘I want you to do something,’ she said. ‘Call Herriot’s lawyers. Find out from them who Herriot’s bookkeeper was. I want to talk to him.’

  Chapter 19

  Her father was down in the bookshop with another of their regular clients.

  Pran Manikchand was a retired jurist with a penchant for ordering obscure tomes that proved exceedingly difficult to procure. But procure them Sam Wadia did, for Manikchand always paid, in crisp new banknotes, thinking nothing of throwing a small fortune at an early edition of Ghalib or a book about disused railway saloons in the German Rhineland.

  After he had left, she sat with her father as he counted the day’s takings. Watching him in silence, the books susurrating around her, a sense of desolation settled on her shoulders.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ said Sam eventually, without looking up.

  She considered not telling him, but then, before she knew what was happening, it spilled out of her, a rush of emotion that caught them both unawares. By the time she had finished, she could not stop the tears from flowing. They were not tears of weakness; she was weeping with rage, the whole damned unfairness of it all.

  Sam watched her mutely, until finally he wheeled himself around the counter and fixed her with a stern look. ‘Are you done feeling sorry for yourself?’

  She looked up at him through bleary eyes.

  ‘Seth is right. You are selfish.’

  This was not what she had expected to hear. She stiffened.

  ‘You don’t like that?’ said her father. ‘Well, tough. What did you think would happen? You’ve been champing at the bit ever since they gave you your uniform. You want everyone to know that you’re the brightest, most capable officer in the whole damned service. But did you ever stop and think that they don’t care?’ He allowed this to sink in. Her tears had vanished. ‘They don’t care, Persis. It matters not a jot to them that you might be smarter, more dedicated, more righteous. It only matters that you don’t disturb the status quo.’ He wheeled himself forward, a strange light in his eye. ‘So, tell me, daughter of mine, what do you say to that?’

  Her mouth hardened into a line. ‘I say to hell with them.’

  Over dinner she explained to him the impasse she had arrived at.

  ‘Why are you so convinced that Singh didn’t do it?’

  She shrugged, forking a mouthful of Hyderabadi biryani from her plate. ‘Instinct.’

  ‘Rubbish,’ he said sternly. ‘Instinct is based on experience. You don’t have enough of that to develop instincts.’

  She coloured.

  ‘You want Singh to be innocent,’ continued Sam relentlessly. ‘Because then it will give you the excuse to continue with your investigations.’

  She set down her fork. Her father’s words had thrown salt into the wounds opened by Seth. ‘You’ve always told me to rely on myself. Something inside me is telling me Singh didn’t do this.’

  ‘People lie to themselves all the time.’

  ‘Is that what you do?’ she said softly. The atmosphere shifted uncomfortably. ‘Why will you not tell me what really happened that day?’

  Sam stiffened. His eyes dimmed and he looked down at his plate.

  ‘Don’t I have a right to know? Aren’t I old enough?’

  ‘For some things, you will never be old enough.’

  ‘She wasn’t just your wife. She was my mother.’

  Silence hummed between them.

  ‘It’s strange,’ he said eventually. ‘She’s been gone all these years, yet I still see her everywhere. When we first took over the shop from my father, she said something odd to me: “We’re going to see a lot of dead people.” I had no idea what she meant, but I soon found out.

  ‘Many of the books we bought came from the estates of those who had recently passed. A loved one – a wife, a daughter – would come into the shop and ask us to look at a collection their husband or their father had left behind. Your mother and I would drive out to their home in our Austin. We’d find whole shelves of books about cheeses of the Pyrenees or the rare birds of Guatemala; it never ceases to amaze me the infinite passions that move people. Your mother used to say that a little piece of a person’s soul is left behind in their books.’ His eyes grew blurry. ‘Your mother’s death is the greatest regret of my life. She was a flame that burned brightly and still does, if only in my heart.’

  Later, after her father had gone to bed, she spread her notes out on the dining table. It was almost two. On the radio: Schubert, of whom she had always been fond. Akbar hopped up on to the corner of the table, and fixed her with a mildly interested gaze. Behind him, Bombay hung in the window. Already it was gaining a reputation as a night-time city. People continued to stream into the metropolis, swelling the city’s ranks on a daily basis, drawn here by the dream of a better life.

  Bombay: the new utopia.

  She wondered if any of them knew that the literal translation of the word utopia came from the Greek ou-topos: no p
lace on earth.

  The wall clock chimed softly. Akbar closed his eyes and drifted to sleep on his paws.

  But Persis couldn’t sleep. Her thoughts were being pulled in a dozen different directions.

  She padded to the fridge and poured herself a glass of orange juice. On a whim, she raided her father’s liquor cabinet and added a generous measure of White Horse to it. She looked down at the glass, then poured in a little more.

  She took out her notebook, opened a clean page and began to write.

  Sir James Herriot

  Murdered on New Year’s Eve/early New Year’s Day

  Murder weapon: curved knife. Knife not found on premises.

  Trousers missing. Found in Maan Singh’s home.

  Herriot working on Partition crimes investigation. Highly sensitive.

  Empty safe. What was inside? Partition files? Something else?

  Ashes found in fireplace – did Herriot burn Partition files? Why?

  Visited Pandiala, in Punjab, just before death, possibly pursuing Partition investigation.

  Enigmatic code in jacket. Possible plot reference, plot belonging to a ‘Bakshi’. Relevant?

  Had relations in his office on the night of. Who with?

  Housekeeper says Herriot having affair with Elizabeth Campbell.

  Herriot bankrupt.

  Buying stake in Gulmohar Club. How can he afford if bankrupt?

  Maan Singh

  Confesses to murder. But what motive? Nationalism?

  Sir James’s trousers recovered from his home. Why did he take them?

  If killer, what did he do with knife?

  Why didn’t he confess immediately?

  Madan Lal

  Known Herriot for years.

  Murdered three men at Imphal. Rescued by Herriot.

  Quarrelled with Herriot on night of. About what? Denies quarrel.

  Did not mention serving with Singh and with Duleep Gupta, husband of Herriot’s housekeeper, Mrs Gupta. Why?

  Has been helping Gupta and her son. Good Samaritan or something else?

  Vishal Mistry

  Jeweller.

  Visited Herriot on night of. Why?

  Neither he nor Herriot told anyone of visit. Why?

  Murdered on morning after night of.

  Known for fencing stolen jewellery.

  She paused, collected her thoughts then added two further notes:

  Robert Campbell/Elizabeth Campbell

  Former business partner. Possible rift?

  Campbell fought with daughter at party – did he discover affair with Herriot?

  Was Elizabeth Campbell the woman in Herriot’s office before his death?

  Adi Shankar

  Owner of the Gulmohar Club.

  Herriot established friendship. Wished to buy stake in club.

  Shankar now friends with Campbell, possible business partners.

  With jazz band at time of murder.

  She stopped again, then wrote another line.

  How did the murderer get the knife out of Laburnum House?

  The case had spread, like an infection.

  Then again, perhaps her father was right. Perhaps sometimes the obvious answer was the right one. Perhaps Maan Singh had killed Sir James, and all her speculation was pointless. An attempt to make herself feel important.

  She drained the glass and poured herself another.

  She began to go over her notes again. The case was like a piece of music; notes of a melody hung in the air, but the overall composition eluded her.

  She focused on Herriot, his actions prior to his death. He had gone north to Punjab. She now knew he had ended up in a place called Pandiala, pursuing one of the Partition crimes that he had been tasked to investigate. If so, the jumble of letters and numbers on the note she had found in his jacket, which she believed referred to a plot of land – might that plot not be somewhere in or near Pandiala? If she could find that plot she might understand why Herriot had taken such an interest in it and in the mysterious ‘Bakshi’.

  She walked down to the bookshop, switched on the light. Silence reigned in the shop. A soft squeak might have been a mouse. She padded around a pyramid of books about the French Revolution, and along several aisles, until she was standing before a section of reference books and atlases.

  She reached up and pulled down a copy of Collier’s Giant Atlas of Hindustan and Imperial Gazeteer. Atlases depicting the new India and Pakistan would be few and far between. Possibly there remained a lingering suspicion at the back of the minds of cartographers that the situation might be reversed, the lines redrawn. There were many in India who felt this, some who actively demanded that the Indian government pursue the matter with military force.

  She took the atlas to her father’s counter, laid it down, then opened it. Flipping through the pages she located the section depicting the north-west, her eyes tracking upwards from the Bombay Presidency through the Rajputana Agency and up into the Punjab. In the Collier’s map the Punjab region still stretched all the way from Delhi and the United Provinces in the east to Peshawar and the North-West Frontier Province in the west. In 1947 the province had been cleaved in two, into East Punjab and West Punjab, respectively administered by the newly created Union of India and the Dominion of Pakistan. The name Punjab meant ‘Land of the Five Waters’, a corruption of the original Sanskrit name for the region, Panchnanda, ‘Land of the Five Rivers’, referring to the rivers Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Sutlej and Beas, all tributaries of the great Indus. Punjab had been one of the last regions in India to hold out against the East India Company, finally succumbing in 1849 after the Second Anglo-Sikh War. The Punjabis were known for being fierce warriors – half of the six hundred thousand-odd Indian troops who had participated in the First World War had come from the province.

  Punjab was also the scene of some of the worst communal rioting during the Partition years.

  At the time, Muslims had comprised the majority in the province. With the creation of Pakistan, widespread hostility had seen sectarian killing – largely between Sikh and Muslim – on an unprecedented scale, whole villages massacred, trains travelling between the two countries stopped in their tracks and burned out, thousands perishing in searing agony. The terror had been incited by partisan newspaper reporting and stoked by local rumours of mobs sweeping the countryside. Even now, the state was convulsed by sporadic ethnic violence.

  She located the village of Pandiala. Just twenty miles from Amritsar. A red flag waved in her mind. Amritsar.

  She flicked through her notebook. The address that she had taken from Maan Singh’s ration card was in Amritsar. Was there a connection?

  She went back to the shelves and dug out Werther’s Catalogue of Indian Hotels. Herriot had stayed in Pandiala for a couple of days, presumably in a hotel. It now seemed reasonable that that stay had been in the Golden Temple Hotel.

  Quickly, she located the list of hotels in Punjab. There were forty-three named the Golden Temple Hotel, but only one in Pandiala. The entry consisted of just two lines, an address and a photograph. She scribbled down the address and telephone number on her notepad.

  A soft chime sounded through the shop. She looked up. The wall clock had struck two in the morning. It was a novelty clock, a gift from Aunt Nussie. Every hour on the hour, it would chime, the front doors would open, and a turbaned soldier would emerge to stumble out an awkward salute. The accompanying chorus of God Save the King no longer functioned, only the chime. There was a metaphor in there, somewhere, she felt.

  The realisation crept up on her. There was no blinding epiphany, merely a certainty that appeared to have been waiting for her all along.

  She would have to go to Punjab. She would have to retrace Sir James’s movements. There was no other way. Staying in Bombay under the present circumstances, with nothing to do but wait for Seth’s irritation to subside, was pointless. As far as her seniors were concerned the investigation was over. Her only choice was to accept this or not. But if she accepted
it, if she meekly returned to work in a few days’ time, moved on to the next case, how would it affect the remainder of her career? Could she live with such a decision?

  The answer came from the books, whispering to her as they had always done in such moments. They knew her better than she knew herself.

  She would pursue the investigation as far as she was able. There was a sense of pre-determinism to the decision – truthfully, it could not have gone any other way. With this thought, the knot in her stomach dissolved.

  Yet the prospect of striking out on her own bothered her, more than she cared to admit. If the Herriot case had taught her anything it was that sooner or later one had to acknowledge the necessity of others. But who?

  Framing the question gave her the answer. It had been lurking there, waiting. Perhaps, in a way, the question itself had been thrust up by her subconscious mind, slyly designed for the express purpose of presenting just that answer.

  Blackfinch.

  The Englishman intrigued her. It was pointless pretending otherwise. Yet she was not even sure that she liked him. He was clearly intelligent, with a unique set of skills. But he was also odd. As a younger woman, she had dreamed of sophisticated men, mature, competent and assured. She had thought that such men would recognise her inner strength, her intelligence. She had been wrong.

  Blackfinch fell far short of that early idealism.

  And yet.

  She took out her notebook, flipped through until she found his number. Snatching up the receiver of the shop’s telephone, she plunged onwards before she could change her mind.

  An eternity later, Blackfinch answered. ‘Yes,’ he said blearily.

  She opened her mouth but a sudden panic gripped her tongue.

  ‘Hello?’

  Silence.

  ‘Is anyone there?’

  Silence.

  ‘I can hear you breathing, you know. This is rather unedifying, whoever you are.’