More Bodies Will Fall

by Ankush Saikia

  ‘We made our roti–sabzi, watched TV for a while, then went to sleep.’

  ‘You didn’t leave your room at all?’

  ‘I went to check the gate before we slept, and smoked a beedi. I always do that.’

  ‘Was the light outside the second-floor door on or off then?’

  Suresh looked at Mrs Sodhi before answering, ‘I didn’t notice. I was tired that day.’

  Arjun went on to ask him what sort of a girl Amenla had been, and whether she had many friends and stayed out late. Suresh’s answers were similar to those of Mrs Sodhi’s.

  ‘I think that’s about it, isn’t it, Mr Arora?’ Mrs Sodhi said from behind him.

  She led him back through the kitchen and into the sitting room, where Mr Sodhi was reading a newspaper. Arjun picked up the shoebox, and Mr Sodhi stood up as his wife opened the front door.

  ‘Let us know if you have any more questions,’ Mr Sodhi said.

  Arjun nodded. ‘One last thing. When will your son next be back from Singapore?’

  Mr Sodhi looked at his wife who said, ‘Later this week.’

  ‘I might want to talk to him,’ Arjun said.

  ‘Okay,’ she said, and pursed her lips together.

  She walked him to the gate, and as she opened it for him he asked, ‘Mrs Sodhi, why didn’t you inform your son first? He was on the first floor, wasn’t he?’

  ‘It was early in the morning and they had slept late. I didn’t want to disturb him.’ When Arjun didn’t say anything, she went on, ‘I thought she might still be alive. And Suresh was already up.’

  ‘Did your son enter the room as well?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose he must have. We didn’t let the children go up though.’

  Arjun nodded.

  ‘I think we’ve been very helpful, Mr Arora, haven’t we?’

  ‘Yes. Thank you.’

  ‘Like I said, Amenla was a very nice girl, and what happened came as a great shock to us. I hope you’ll keep our sentiments in mind as well?’

  ‘Certainly, Mrs Sodhi.’

  ‘Well, see you then.’

  ‘See you.’

  She closed the gate. Arjun stood there a moment looking up at the top of the house before turning away.

  6

  THE FOUR-STOREY BUILDING BESIDE THE Sodhis’ residence was a bland, anonymous example of modern Delhi construction, the shiny tiles and marble and large split ACs suggesting that its inhabitants stepped out only to enter the large cars in the driveway. It didn’t take much imagination to see a similar building standing in place of the Sodhis’ house next door a few years down the line. At the corner of the open gate and the wall was a solitary chair: the night watchman’s post, with a bundle in a plastic bag under it. If it rained he would presumably have to shelter under his own umbrella. Arjun stopped for a moment to look up at the barred balconies, and the chair—a clear line of sight up and down the lane.

  Arjun walked up the lane to the RWA gate and considered the two shops across the road. He went over to the large grocery store. Packed with all sorts of new consumer goods, it was an upscale version of the traditional kirana shop (the open rice and dal sacks were in the middle). He asked a worker to get him a cold drink from one of the Visi Coolers, and moved to one side where a middle-aged person who looked like the owner stood with his hands on the counter, looking out at the road. Arjun drank his Coke leisurely, and then pointed at a row of plastic curd containers inside the Visi Cooler behind the man, asking if it was a new item. Yes, it was, the man said, a new flavour. With the opening made, Arjun moved on to questions about water and electricity in the area and the amount of traffic. Then he mentioned that he had gone to a house down the lane, belonging to the Sodhis, to inquire about a vacant top-floor room. The shop owner frowned when he heard this.

  ‘They’re giving it on rent again? I didn’t know about that.’

  ‘That’s what someone told me,’ Arjun said. ‘But it turned out to be incorrect.’

  ‘Yes, that Chinky girl was killed there. I heard her father has kept the place.’

  ‘He’ll let it go soon. They told me to inquire after that.’

  ‘You’re interested in taking the place?’

  ‘No, for my sister’s daughter,’ Arjun said. ‘She’s preparing for her IAS exams.’

  The shop owner nodded. ‘It’s a quiet place. It’ll be good for her.’

  ‘Yes, I like the area,’ Arjun said, drinking his Coke. ‘What had happened though?’

  ‘She was killed, strangled by someone.’ He added, ‘That’s what I heard.’

  ‘Did they catch the person who did it?’

  ‘No. The police must have lost interest by now. I heard they had arrested one of her boyfriends but then let him go. But you know how it is with these Chinky girls, they have so many boyfriends.’

  ‘No, I don’t know how it is with them,’ Arjun thought. The man was speaking calmly and evenly. He looked a decent enough person, someone who treated the women in his family with respect. And yet he could casually imply all sorts of things about a dead girl, just because she happened to be a ‘Chinky’.

  ‘You think one of her boyfriends did it?’

  The man shrugged, yelled at one of his boys to attend to a customer, then said, ‘Who knows what happened? I run my shop and mind my own business.’

  Arjun nodded, and finished his Coke.

  ‘But I did see something that night . . . I even told the police about it.’

  ‘What did you see?’ Arjun asked as casually as possible.

  ‘That evening, someone came out of this lane with a bag. I couldn’t see his face, as the streetlights weren’t working. Normally I wouldn’t have remembered, but then the person went and got into a car parked some distance away. It was the car I had been looking at, a large grey-coloured SUV.’

  ‘Did the police find the car?’

  The man shook his head. ‘I couldn’t make out the number plate. It was dark. Anyway, I saw something and told the police: a man of medium height carrying a suitcase came and got into an SUV. It’s up to them to take action. Arrey, you fool, don’t spill the sugar while measuring it!’

  Arjun paid for his cold drink and walked back to where he had parked his car by the small park. He got in, and then took out the square of paper from his coin pocket and unfolded it. The design stamped on the crumbling circle, he now saw, was in fact two letters: WY. What sort of a tablet was it? And if it was a tablet, where was its cover? He had a faint suspicion already, but to be sure he would have to get a chemical analysis done. He had been lucky: he had put on the tube light inside the room to see better inside the almirah, and it had ended up showing him this. Whether or not it was connected to Amenla’s death he couldn’t say yet. Still, it told him that the Delhi Police might have approached the case casually, with a possible piece of evidence lying around for a year. As he lowered his window and lit a cigarette, he thought about what the shopkeeper had told him. Arjun hadn’t asked more questions as he hadn’t wanted to make the man suspicious. The details would most likely appear in the police investigation records—but how was he going to get hold of those?

  X

  At the office of Nexus Security in Kalkaji, all three employees were standing and watching the news on the wall-mounted television as they took a tea break. Arjun had recently expanded his firm by adding a young detective to his staff. Ujjwal Negi was a young man from the upper reaches of the Garhwal region of Uttarakhand, and had earlier been working for a Hindi magazine in the capital—some network of contacts which Arjun hadn’t understood even till now had made him come inquiring when Arjun’s secretary Liza Thomas had put out word. Arjun had been impressed by the applicant’s quiet confidence and grasp of events in Delhi, and noted how unnoticeable and anonymous the slim, moustached youth in shirt and trousers and leather chappals had seemed. Ujjwal had confessed he knew nothing about detective work, but that he was willing to learn. Arjun had taken him on for a month’s trial. Only later did he ask himself if he h
ad been favourably inclined towards the young man because he came from the hills. But within that first month the young man had assisted Liza in trailing and identifying the home address of a college admissions tout who had cheated a couple from Assam of several lakh rupees while promising them admission for their son in an engineering college. Arjun had taken him on as a junior detective after that.

  Seeing barren fields on the screen, Arjun asked them what they were watching.

  ‘More farmers committing suicides in Maharashtra,’ Liza Thomas said gloomily.

  The office helper, Chandu, poured out a cup of tea from the thermos. Arjun took a sip. Oversweet, as always: changing their tea seller in the nearby Market No.1 had made no difference.

  ‘The drought maybe,’ he offered by way of comment.

  ‘Also water being diverted to sugarcane plantations and factories,’ Ujjwal said.

  Chandu looked at him admiringly, and Liza smiled.

  ‘What?’ Arjun asked, looking at all three of them. ‘Have I missed something?’

  ‘He’s preparing for his civil service exams, sir,’ Liza said.

  Ujjwal looked down at his leather chappals like a boy caught telling a lie.

  ‘Hmm.’ Arjun took a sip of his tea. ‘Well, you might become a DC somewhere in Garhwal in a few years. Okay, time to get back to work, I think?’

  He went into the inner room with his tea; his office had been partitioned with a half wall to make space for the new employee. The civil services! Arjun thought with irritation as he placed the shoebox on the desk and switched on his desktop computer. He took out the square of folded paper from his pocket and placed it on the desk. How desperately they all wanted to become a babu and sit in an office and push files. And who would do the real work of the country then?

  Ujjwal entered the room, and came and stood before Arjun’s desk. Finally he had to look up and ask him what he wanted. The junior detective cleared his throat and shifted his weight on his feet.

  ‘Sorry, sir, I didn’t tell you before because I thought you might get angry.’

  ‘Tell me what?’

  ‘That I’m preparing for the prelims. My father wants me to try for it.’

  ‘All right,’ Arjun said. He found himself calming down. ‘You’re free to do what you want. But no studying during work hours, all right? And you have to give me two months’ notice before you leave.’

  Ujjwal nodded vigorously. ‘Yes, yes, don’t worry about that, sir. And I’m sitting for the exams only after a few months.’

  Arjun grunted and returned to his office mail, while Ujjwal went to his desk on the other side of the partition. When he had finished dealing with the correspondence, Arjun unwrapped the square of paper. He studied the red tablet for a while, then put it back on the piece of paper. Next he opened a notepad and started writing down the names of the books he had seen on the shelf in the dead girl’s room. He wouldn’t have expected to find books in the room—what did the young read these days?—and even if he had, it would have been those short romance novels priced around Rs 100, or maybe foreign fantasies about werewolves and warriors. It would have seemed unlikely that she read books like India after Gandhi and Democracy in NEFA and A House for Mr Biswas, but those were a few of the names he was now writing down. He recalled again the amused half-smile in that photo of Amenla taken in Mokokchung. Together with the list of books, it seemed to suggest a deeper, more complicated personality than one would have normally assumed. A call-centre worker, from the North-east—what sort of dreams had she had, what plans for the future? Pulling out his mobile phone, he went through the photos he had taken a while ago. Apart from the police records, he would need the original crime-scene photos as well. He glanced up at the Delhi map on the wall beside his desk: Safdarjung B Block where Amenla had lived would most probably fall under the DCP South office at Hauz Khas, with the actual thana being Safdarjung.

  He called out to Ujjwal across the partition: ‘Do we know anyone who can get chemical analysis done?’

  ‘What do we need to check?’

  ‘Come have a look.’

  The junior detective got up from his desk and came over. Arjun pointed to the tablet on the piece of paper. Ujjwal bent down and squinted at it. ‘What is this?’

  ‘That’s what we need to check.’

  ‘Hmm. Let me talk to Liza.’

  Arjun watched through the partition as Ujjwal spoke to her. He came back inside and said, ‘National Chemical Laboratories in Patparganj. They should be able to do it.’

  ‘Correct. There’s a chemist called Tinku there. Get his number from Liza and call him.’ Arjun wrapped up the tablet in the paper and handed it to Ujjwal. ‘Go and give it to him and ask for a full analysis as early as possible. Remember, we want the sample back, or at least part of it.’

  ‘All right, sir!’ Ujjwal said with such enthusiasm that Arjun raised his eyebrows.

  He switched off his computer, stood and picked up the black shoebox.

  ‘I need to go see someone about this case,’ he told the junior detective. ‘Close the office with Liza if I’m not back in the evening.’

  On his way out he told Liza to get the contact details for Rohit Chaudhry and the NESAD president, Oyum Tagu.

  ‘Which Rohit Chaudhry is this?’ she asked him.

  ‘Google “Naga girl murder”. September last year in Safdarjung.’

  ‘Okay. And what kind of name is Tagu?’

  ‘One his parents gave him. My guess is he’s from Arunachal Pradesh.’

  7

  FROM HIS CAR ARJUN CALLED Mr Longkumer and fixed an appointment with the elderly gentleman for that afternoon. Then he drove the short distance to his flat in B Block in nearby CR Park, where he heated up some leftovers for lunch. He opened a bottle of raja mircha pickle and used a spoon to break off a piece of chilli before drizzling some of the oil over his rice and dal. The hottest chilli in the world, growing wild in the Naga hills. You’d have to be a different type of human being to enjoy that stuff, Arjun reflected. And for someone like Amenla, how would staying outside all these years have changed her?

  As he washed his plate and spoon at the kitchen sink, Arjun had to remind himself that it was first and foremost a murder case, and the prime suspect, even though he had been let go by the Delhi Police, appeared to be the former ‘Indian’ boyfriend. Rohit Chaudhry was the person he would have to start the investigation with. Arjun lit a cigarette, then sat down on the sofa and pulled up the black shoebox on the coffee table.

  The bundle of currency notes was all Indian money, crisp Rs 1000 and Rs 500 notes that added up to Rs 16,500—maybe cash kept on hand for emergencies. But all in new notes? Surely she had debit and credit cards? Those were in her rectangular leather wallet, a couple of them in the name of AMENLA LONGKUMER, two of which had expired even before September of the previous year. He went through the wallet carefully, but apart from a small old black-and-white photo of a couple—the man clearly Amenla’s father—there was only a restaurant bill from September of the previous year, from a place called the Hungry Rabbit in a south Delhi mall, and a visiting card of someone from the American embassy in New Delhi. Arjun took in the glossy print on the creamy white paper and the name: Cooper Grant, Second Secretary. He stored the number in his mobile phone before putting the wallet aside. The old driving licence, with a faded photo of Amenla, had been issued a good ten years ago in Mokokchung, and was valid for fifteen years. Arjun figured it could have been arranged through family contacts, without her actually taking the test, so that she had a home ID of sorts while in college in Delhi. He picked up the passport; flipping through the blank pages he returned to the first page and saw that it had been reissued in the second half of 2012. He recalled the brochure for the Canadian university in the drawer. Had she been planning to go abroad?

  The jewellery consisted of a few small earrings and thin pendants, expensive-looking, in a zip-lock pouch, and a couple of chains, including two with coloured beads that signified the colours
of particular Naga tribes. Arjun wondered if the ‘Indian’ boyfriend might have gifted her any of the pieces in the pouch. Next he picked up the stack of envelopes. The scrawled handwriting on all of them was the same, addressed to Miss Amenla Longkumer, from Bendangtoshi Longkumer, Mokokchung. The addresses ranged from a hostel in Shillong (Seven Sisters Cottage) to several in Delhi, running from Amar Colony to South Extension. The third last and second last envelopes had Humayunpur as the address, and the last envelope Safdarjung Enclave, which tied in with what Mr Sodhi had told him. Most of the letters were addressed to the Shillong hostel; they petered out over the years after she had moved to Delhi. He did a rough calculation—maybe more of their conversations had taken place over the phone after that?

  He went through some of the Shillong letters: news from home for one’s daughter, the pet dog giving birth to puppies, relatives visiting them, the weather, preparations for Christmas, reminders not to forget her prayers, preparations for the Moatsü festival, love from her oba and oja. The English words were small and spaced apart, as if Mr Longkumer had written with effort, and more touching for that reason. The first Delhi letter, as Arjun had half-expected, was mostly full of advice to be careful, of the heat, of the people, with her money, and not to forget going to church, not to get into bad company. It brought a small smile to Arjun’s lips: some things never changed. The letter ended with Mr Longkumer expressing hope that she would find her own place: The world is yours, my dear daughter. The other Delhi letters were noticeably more sombre in content: her mother’s diabetes, the dismal political situation in Nagaland, the need for her to be careful with money, coaching classes for the civil services. The last one, sent to the Safdarjung address, broached the topic of marriage, and how her parents would like her to come back to Nagaland and get settled. But what would she have done there? Arjun thought as he slipped the letter back into the envelope. At least here in Delhi she had made a life for herself. He wondered what she had written back in reply, and if her father had saved those letters too.