by Vaseem Khan
They waited while he removed the victim’s clothes, bagged them, then went over the corpse with a fine-tooth comb. ‘Oh, hello.’ He lifted his head from an examination of Healy’s thigh. ‘Step closer, Inspector.’
He moved back to give her space, pointing at a small area on Healy’s inner right thigh. She moved in, ignoring the stark sight of John Healy’s member resting inside a nest of pubic hair. The harsh overhead light had washed out the body, giving it a larval pallor. She immediately saw what it was that Bhoomi had spotted.
Writing – a column of words, followed by a series of numbers – scrawled on the skin.
‘A tattoo?’
‘I don’t think so,’ replied the pathologist. He hooked a finger at his assistant, who dragged his camera over and took a photograph. While he was doing this, Bhoomi wrote in his notebook, copying down the mysterious epigraph. When he had finished, he went to a bench of instruments, picked up a bottle, poured some of the liquid into a bowl, stuck his gloved finger in the bowl, then returned to the corpse. Rubbing the tip of his finger on the writing, he held it up to Persis. A smudge now showed on the white glove. ‘Not a tattoo. Plain old ink. He’s written this on himself. Fairly recently too.’
‘How do you know that?’ asked Birla.
‘Because it would have washed away the last time he took a shower. So, unless he enjoyed smelling like an open sewer, I’d say he scribbled this on himself just prior to his death.’
‘Why?’
Bhoomi gave a lopsided smile. ‘That’s where my job ends and yours begins.’
They waited as he completed his external examination, then moved on to the incision, cutting into the body while humming a tune. Persis thought the man was approaching his work with excessive relish.
‘You might be interested to know, Inspector,’ said Bhoomi, as he lifted out the heart and carried it to a weighing scale, ‘that, later this evening, I will be escorting a young lady to a Prithvi Theatre performance of Hamlet. Well, to be accurate, I’ll be escorting her whole family, all fourteen of them. A woman of breeding must be properly chaperoned, yes?’
She supposed that he was making conversation, but wished that he would shut up.
When he’d finished, he washed off his hands, then padded over to deliver his report.
Her eyes lingered for a moment on Healy’s corpse. The more she discovered about him, the greater an enigma he became. An intelligent man, of that there was no doubt.
And he’d applied that intelligence to creating a puzzle that had followed him into death.
She realised that Bhoomi was smiling up at her. He was shorter than her, a small, scruffy man. ‘No defensive wounds,’ he began. ‘No external injuries that I can find, at all. If this man was murdered, then it wasn’t through the use of force.’
‘I didn’t say that he’d been murdered.’
‘No, you didn’t.’ He pushed his spectacles back up his nose. ‘I won’t know for sure until we complete the toxicology test, but I suspect, based on the empty bottle of Tuinal you found at the scene, that he killed himself. Suicide by sedative.’
It fitted the facts. She recalled Healy’s riddle leading them to Wittet’s tomb, the crypt’s door locked from the inside with a makeshift wooden bolt.
Together we await in fey embrace.
She knew that ‘fey’ meant strange, otherworldly. She’d since discovered from Neve Forrester that in Old English ‘fey’ held another meaning: ‘fated to die’.
How long had John Healy felt that way? She recalled his father’s words, that Healy had returned from the war a different man.
What had they done to him in that prison?
As to precisely why Healy had killed himself now? That was yet another riddle.
And talking of riddles . . . She asked for Bhoomi’s notebook, then copied out the words and numbers that Healy had written on to his thigh.
AFFECTIONATE
HONOURED
FRIEND
EMBRACES
PRAISED
PERSECUTED
SERVANT
1.3/1.7
1.2/5.8
2.11/52.64.71.72.92.97.102.146.157.158.221
3.14/2.3.63.64
1.7/6.137.139.159.164.168.173.174
26.14/17.30.62
1.21/15.21.24.53
There was no certainty that these held any meaning for her quest, but she was convinced that Healy had led them to his corpse for a reason. Her earlier hypothesis – that he had stolen the Dante manuscript, then hidden it, and was now leading them to it – grew stronger in her mind. This couldn’t be the end of the trail.
She continued to puzzle over the strange inscription.
What could it possibly mean? Affectionate honoured friend embraces praised persecuted servant. Who was the affectionate friend? Who was the persecuted servant? Was Healy referring to real people? If so, who might they be?
Possibly, he was leading her to someone who might be able to decipher the numerical code written beneath the words.
Disappointment and frustration duelled inside her. There simply wasn’t enough information to make any immediate headway.
Back outside, a movement at the corner of her vision turned her head as she was climbing into the jeep.
There, swinging around the corner of the road, was the same Studebaker she’d seen parked outside Malabar House days earlier. And the face in the driver’s side window . . .
Her immediate reaction was to pursue, but her hands remained glued to the steering wheel, her limbs unresponsive, her heart thudding in her ears. She realised Birla was talking; his voice came from a long way away.
She calmed herself.
She was seeing things where there was nothing to see – brought on by last night’s introspection, no doubt.
Dwelling on the past was never a good idea.
She shook the memories from her mind, and switched on the engine.
She had work to do.
At Malabar House, she found an irate George Fernandes pacing the basement office. The man seemed set to explode, his face volcanic. He looked at her as she imagined a wounded tiger might look at a young nawab out on the hunt. ‘You went to Le Château des Rêves last night.’ It was a statement, not a question. ‘Why didn’t you tell me what happened? About Kramer’s house.’
‘I outrank you. I don’t need to tell you anything.’
‘It’s my case!’
‘You had your chance.’
‘I told you I was going to have another crack at it.’
‘Why? So you could embarrass yourself again?’
His face expanded like a bullfrog’s. He stepped towards her, hands clenching and unclenching by his sides. Reflexively, her own hand drifted towards the holster at her side.
‘In my office. Now. The pair of you.’
She dragged her gaze from Fernandes to find Roshan Seth framed in the doorway to his office.
Once inside, he looked at them both coldly from behind his desk. ‘If you’re going to piss on each other’s legs like pie dogs, at least have the decency to do it in the street.’
Persis’s nostrils flared. She’d rarely seen Seth so annoyed.
She watched as he reached into a drawer and slipped out a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label, and waved it at them. She shook her head stiffly, as did Fernandes.
‘Suit yourselves.’ He poured a decent measure, picked up the glass, drained it, then set it down again. ‘And you wonder why I keep this bottle here . . . I’ve just got off the line with Shukla. Apparently, the Home Minister almost choked on his toast this morning when he saw the Indian Chronicle.’
He rummaged under a pile of red-bound folders and set the newspaper before them.
PRICELESS ITALIAN TREASURE LOOTED FROM BOMBAY’S ASIATIC SOCIETY: CENTRE CLUELESS
‘Needless to say, he’s now taking a personal interest in the matter. Which means a personal interest in this unit. The last thing I need is my two best officers squabbling like children. Would someone care to ex
plain what was going on out there?’
Neither of them spoke.
‘Alright. I’ll assume it’s to do with the woman you found on the tracks. Where are we up to on the case? And if I don’t get a straight answer, I’ll kick both cases over to Patnagar’s unit and you can sit around here waiting for the next lost cat mystery to wander in.’
It was an empty threat.
Persis knew Seth would never hand any case over to Ravi Patnagar, head of the state CID. He and Patnagar were bitter rivals; Seth’s fall from grace, his demotion to Malabar House, had only deepened their enmity. Patnagar was also the man who’d convinced Fernandes to work against her on the Herriot investigation.
She quickly briefed Seth on her visit to Le Château des Rêves, the identification of the victim as Francine Kramer, and the subsequent visit to Kramer’s home, setting out her belief that Kramer had been murdered there, before being taken to the railway tracks. She also mentioned the man that the neighbour had seen – Mr Grey – a potential suspect.
‘So let me get this straight,’ said Seth. ‘Fernandes laid the groundwork for everything you discovered last night by leading you to Le Château des Rêves? And you then went in and did the rest? Sounds like teamwork to me.’
Persis coloured. Beside her, she heard Fernandes stiffen.
‘Contrary to popular opinion, police work isn’t a zero-sum game. If you don’t learn how to play nicely, neither of you will win.’ He evaluated them from over the top of his glass. ‘What’s next?’
Persis spoke first. She’d been thinking about the problem ever since visiting Kramer’s home. ‘Two things: firstly, based on the wounds to her body, the pathologist suggested Kramer might have suffered mental and emotional trauma. She may have sought professional help.’
‘Excellent,’ said Seth. ‘Fernandes, why don’t you follow up on that? And once you have a lead, might I suggest you involve Persis? She’s a woman. She’s more likely to understand what went on inside the head of your victim. Do you agree?’
Fernandes stared at him, and then his head creaked forward.
‘And you, Persis, will give him the leeway to do this. Because you are taking him under your wing, as the senior officer. And because you have other things to focus on. Do you agree?’
Persis stared straight ahead.
‘Persis?’
Nothing.
‘Inspector Wadia?’ Seth allowed a note of harshness to creep into his voice.
Her chin dipped an infinitesimal fraction of an inch.
‘Excellent. And the second thing?’
‘The Foreigners Registration Office. Francine was here long-term – since at least 1944, according to her neighbour. She would have been required to report to her local registration officer.’
Seth looked at Fernandes. ‘You can follow that up too.’
Persis opened her mouth to protest but he cut her off. ‘I need you focused on the Healy case. That’s not a request.’
He dismissed Fernandes, then slumped back with a sigh. ‘There are days I feel as if I’m running a nursery. Now, where are we up to with the Healy investigation? Please tell me the autopsy threw up something.’
She briefed him on the post-mortem, then pulled out her notebook and showed him the series of words and numbers that had been written on Healy’s thigh.
‘Strange place to scribble anything,’ muttered Seth. ‘I mean, normal people doodle on their hands, or a wrist, or, heaven forbid, a piece of paper. Any idea what it means?’
‘I think it’s another clue.’
‘You’re still convinced he’s leading us to the manuscript?’
‘Nothing else makes sense.’
‘You mean this makes sense to you? A renowned academic steals a priceless treasure, leaves behind riddles, and then tops himself?’ Seth’s expression was one of disgust. ‘He’s got us chasing our own tails while he laughs at us from whichever hell they’ve reserved for mad Englishmen.’
She said nothing. Her instincts told her that Healy hadn’t lost his mind.
‘What next?’
She laid out her plan. She needed to find out more about Healy. Who was he? His father had claimed that his time in a prisoner of war camp in Italy had changed him. Might some motivation for his current actions be found in that experience? Perhaps stealing The Divine Comedy was his way of gaining a measure of revenge against the Italians for the torture he’d endured?
‘I also need to speak to Erin Lockhart and Franco Belzoni again,’ she added. ‘Both were less than truthful about their interactions with Healy.’
Seth tapped his fingers on the desk, examining the plan from all angles. ‘Good,’ he said, finally. ‘In the meantime, I’m going to prepare a press statement. I’ve already fielded a dozen calls this morning. Be prepared for all hell to break loose. Now . . . did you make an appointment to meet those two women from the college? They’ve been hounding me.’
‘Is that still a priority?’
‘It is if I want to retain what little sanity I have left. Find an hour for them, Inspector. That’s an order.’
Back at her desk, she took out her notebook and focused on the inscription Healy had left behind on his thigh. Could this be related to the lines he’d written down and stuck into an envelope, the opening lines from Inferno? She couldn’t see how.
A match flared inside her skull.
As a girl, she’d played word games with her father. He’d introduced her to codes and ciphers. They’d fascinated her, especially when she began reading Sherlock Holmes and discovered that Arthur Conan Doyle had employed them extensively. And she already knew that Healy was a fan of riddles . . .
She picked up the phone and dialled her father.
‘Wadia’s Book Emporium. What do you want?’ Her father’s curt greeting had no doubt scared away many customers over the years.
‘Papa, it’s me.’
‘Persis? Is something wrong?’
‘No. Why would anything be wrong?’
‘Because you don’t usually call me in the middle of the day, that’s why.’
She heard a racket in the background. ‘What’s going on in the shop?’
‘That? I’ve got a bunch of idiots from the CPI here scouring the shelves for communist poetry.’
The Communist Party of India had fallen from grace the previous year. Stemming out of the socialist movement that had recently set itself against Nehru’s ruling Congress Party, the CPI had organised a failed national railway strike the previous spring, followed by several calamitous acts of terrorism. The result: the party had been banned in several states, and now skulked about on the political margins, ridiculed, ignored, and occasionally shot at by government forces. Her father had never liked them.
‘Papa, do you have any books about codes and ciphers in the shop?’
‘Yes. Why?’
She told him, reading out Healy’s mysterious inscription.
‘I have no idea what the words mean but read me out those numbers again.’
She did as asked, waiting patiently as he scribbled the sequence down. ‘These look like they might be a book cipher,’ he said.
‘Remind me what that is?’
‘A code that uses a particular book or piece of text as its key. The correspondents must possess the exact same book or it’s practically impossible to decipher.’ He paused. ‘Do you know which book Healy used as his codebook?’
She considered this. The obvious thought was that Healy had used The Divine Comedy manuscript. But that would have been pointless – in its absence, it would be impossible for her to apply the cipher. ‘No,’ she said, then, ‘Are you certain this couldn’t be any other type of code?’
‘Of course I’m not certain,’ he barked. ‘I’m not a professional codebreaker.’ He pulled the receiver from his ear so he could shout at one of his customers. ‘But I’ll wager money I’m on the right track. You’ll have to find the book that Healy used. Otherwise, you’ll get nowhere.’
‘Fine. Can you sen
d me over any books you have on codes and ciphers?’
‘I’ll send Krishna. Who shall I charge them to?’
‘What?’
‘The books. Who’s paying for them?’
‘Papa, are you telling me you’re going to charge me?’
‘Persis, correct me if I’m wrong, but are you not presently engaged in a major investigation for the Indian Police Service? That investigation now requires resources from my bookshop. Am I to provide these out of the goodness of my heart? Or because you happen to be my daughter? What will the IPS ask of me next? Would you like a kidney, perhaps?’
She stifled the urge to laugh. ‘Fine. Send me the bill.’
Moments after she put down the phone, it rang.
‘Persis, is that you?’
She was momentarily taken aback. ‘Jaya?’
‘Yes. It’s your friend Jaya. Not that anyone would know it from the way you ignore my calls.’
‘I’m sorry, Jaya. I’ve just been so . . .’
‘Busy? If only that were an acceptable excuse. I’m having a small party at my house at lunchtime today. It’s Arun’s fifth birthday. Just a few friends. I expect you to be there.’
‘Today? Jaya, it’s—’
‘Too short notice? I’ve been calling for the past week. I’m sorry, Persis, you may have relinquished your responsibilities as a friend, but I haven’t. I expect you at one. Don’t be late. And bring a present.’
The dial tone sounded in her ear. She returned the receiver gently to its cradle.
Jaya. A wave of guilt washed through her. Jaya was one of the few friends she’d made at school, one of those that had doggedly pursued their friendship, in spite of Persis’s own haphazard commitment. It was true that she’d been avoiding Jaya’s calls – for no other reason than that she truly had been exceptionally busy, first with the Herriot investigation, and then its aftermath. But explanations of that sort sounded trite, so she’d decided not to bother explaining at all.
Perhaps that had been a mistake. No wonder Jaya had sounded unusually curt.