Venom, page 31
She heard a wild root-hog snuffling in a garden, saw black shadows darting on a white porch. The air was rich with the smell of roasting peanuts.
Her mother was on the verandah, asleep. There was a bead of saliva at the corner of her mouth and her breath was sour with the taint of wine.
‘Michel,’ she heard her whisper, ‘I'm sorry, Michel.’
And then she heard André Gondet's voice. ‘My father says you've got mixed blood.’
Michel.
This was the devil that had haunted her all those years.
‘It's all right, Adrienne,’ he crooned to her. ‘Soon it will be over. I will make you pure again.’
♦ ♦ ♦
Sergeant Madan Lai lay asleep on the wooden cot in the corner of his office. He was exhausted. He had spent all day walking around the city chasing after this damned farang and he was worn out. He hated night duty. He would rather be at home in bed with his wife, Moni. Thinking about her plump little body made him even more restless.
He lay on the hard cot in his khaki tunic and shorts, his nightstick resting on his chest. He drifted off to sleep. He did not hear the first tentative knock on the bolted wooden door.
Outside Bedi was growing more frightened, and more frustrated.
He knocked again, louder.
He tried again. And again, this time with his fists.
Sergeant Madan Lai opened an eye and sighed. There was that damned banging again.
‘Someone at the door, Moni,’ he murmured.
Suddenly he remembered where he was. Shiva! Perhaps it was the inspector! He leapt to his feet and staggered across the room and threw open the door. He blinked in surprise at the little brown man in the ragged kurta standing in the shadows. He grabbed the kerosene lamp that hung next to the doorway and shone it in his face.
He straightened his uniform and tried to assume a dignified attitude. ‘What do you want?’
‘The farang!’ Bedi whispered. ‘I've seen him!’
‘What farang?’ Madan Lai said, his mind still woolly from sleep. Suddenly he remembered. ‘The murderer?’
‘Yes, yes! I came as soon as I could. Come quickly!’
‘I must phone the inspector,’ the sergeant said and hurried back inside.
♦ ♦ ♦
The telephone rang in Budjinski’s room at Clark’s hotel. He groped for the bedside lamp, turned it on then snatched the receiver off its cradle.
‘Budjinski.’
‘We've got him,’ Gupta said. “There's a car on its way. Be in the lobby in three minutes.’
♦ ♦ ♦
Valentine lay in Michel's arms like a rag doll. It was getting light. She heard voices chanting, smelled burning sandalwood.
‘Is it ready?’ she heard Michel say.
‘Yes, sahib,’ a voice growled.
‘Don't be afraid,’ Michel said. ‘I am going to save you.’ She felt his lips brush her cheek through the thin piece of linen that covered her.
‘Goodbye, Adrienne.’
She heard the fire-crackle of burning reeds very close and the acrid stench of wood smoke. Oh God, not that.
No, Michel.
Not that.
♦ ♦ ♦
Budjinski leapt from the back seat of the blue Polis Fiat and stared around in confusion. There were police everywhere, shining torches into the faces of the startled pilgrims. Angry shouts echoed along the river banks, everyone alarmed by the sudden presence of so many police.
Gupta Singh appeared beside him. ‘He's somewhere on the ghats! We have to hurry!’
They were on the Hari Schandra ghat. Budjinski ran blindly into the darkness, towards the Ganges. The first yellow-bright sliver of sun appeared over the distant horizon, throwing specks of gold on the river.
A man’s voice was bellowing from one of the ghats. A policeman was frantically blowing his whistle.
A skein of smoke rose into the air.
♦ ♦ ♦
Valentine moaned.
A breath of wind blew the sheet back from her face. She saw the tied bundles of sandalwood around her, a heart of orange flame, belching smoke. The billowing yellow clouds parted, and she saw Michel, his head shaved, wearing just a single piece of coarse white mourning cloth.
Behind him stood the chandal. His creased brown face twisted into a frown. He took a step towards her, unsure.
I'm alive, can't you see? I'm alive!
With a supreme effort of will she moved her hand. It was enough to shift its weight to the edge of the pallet and it fell away and swung loose from under the sheet.
The old man roared in alarm, his shouts echoing along the banks of the river. He rushed towards her to pull her clear. Michel blocked his way, and she saw the glint of a knife in his right hand.
The chandal stopped when he saw Michel was armed. Bellowing like an old bull, he turned away and scurried away up the steps.
Michel threw the sheet back over her face. Valentine knew it was over.
The stench of the smoke made her want to retch. She could feel the heat from the flames now. Let it be quick, she thought. Just let it be quick.
♦ ♦ ♦
Budjinski saw him first.
Despite the shaved head and loin cloth, he knew it was him just from the way he stood, like he was mocking the whole world. It had to be him.
Then he saw the old chandal stumbling up the ghat towards him, pointing to the white-shrouded figure on the bier, almost invisible now behind the screen of yellow smoke.
Budjinski shouted a warning and ran down the steps. Michel looked up and saw him. Suddenly he was gone, melting away into the dawn.
Budjinski didn't try to follow. He had to get to Valentine.
Please God let me be in time.
He threw himself into the smoke and flames and pulled the shrouded body off the bier.
PART SIX
The Trial
August 1973
Chapter 47
Delhi
Justice in India did not come easily or cheaply. The courts were overburdened, choked by a bloated and indifferent bureaucracy. The system was riddled with delays, bribery and inefficiency. One case, initiated in the tenth century, was still pending.
After Independence in 1948 the British Common Law system was retained, but the tradition of trial by jury was scrapped. Instead, guilt or innocence was decided by a single judge.
There were few surprises and little real drama in an Indian courtroom. After charges were laid, the police and the public prosecutor prepared what is known as a First Information Report. This FIR contained all the evidence pertinent to the case: statements from the accused, the witnesses, pathologists, and the police, as well as much unsubstantiated gossip.
The lower court magistrates read the FIR to establish whether, in their opinion, a prima facie case existed. If they agreed, the case was brought to trial. By that stage everyone had read the FIR: the counsels for the defense and the prosecution, the defendants, even the press. The document often ran to many hundreds of pages, a ragged bundle loosely tied with string, dog-eared, crumpled and stained.
Surprise witnesses were rarely produced, new evidence seldom exhibited. Instead, the counsel for the defense set out to discredit the prosecution's case, as stated in the FIR.
Michel had been incarcerated behind the thick and ugly walls of the Tihar prison for almost a year, the monotony broken only by visits to the Parliament Street courts for the preliminary hearings.
Incredibly, he had eluded Gupta Singh's police in Varanasi. He had been arrested in Calcutta four days later and charged with possession of a stolen passport. It took the local authorities three days to realize that they had in their custody the man half the world was looking for.
The case had made headlines around the world. As the list of suspected victims grew, extradition orders arrived almost daily, from the Philippines, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and finally, Thailand.
Public interest rose to fever pitch. Michel Christian was rumored to be responsible for the deaths of twenty-one women. He was profiled endlessly in India's Sunday papers. He had become a celebrity.
Now, a year later, in the crowded, Hogarthian madness of the Tis Hizari courts, the trial of Michel Christian was to begin.
♦ ♦ ♦
Mohinder Singh dabbed at his face with a white handkerchief and pushed his tinted spectacles higher on his nose. He bowed to the judge and announced his first witness.
Sanjoy Bedi walked into the courtroom, blinking owlishly at the press of faces that were suddenly turned towards him. He looked as if he expected that the crowd would turn on him at any moment. Mohinder Singh tapped an index finger impatiently on the table. He dreaded what his adversary would do to the poor old man.
♦ ♦ ♦
There was no dock and no witness box. Sanjoy Bedi, dressed in a long white kurta, stood in the center of the crowd of advocates and junior lawyers clustered around the bench. Michel sat a few feet away, glaring at him malevolently, close enough to touch. He was wearing the dandaberi, thick steel cuffs around his ankles attached to a two-foot-long bar locked on to his belt. His left wrist was cuffed to one of the soldiers by a long chain.
The Nawab and his minions sat next to Michel; the prosecutor and his junior clerics on the other side.
‘What is your name?’ Mohinder asked him.
Bedi looked at Michel and shuddered. He had never been in court before. He had not known it would be like this.
‘When I got out of here I'm going to kill you,’ Michel whispered.
‘What is your name?’ Mohinder repeated.
‘B-Bedi, Sahib.’
Judge Misra leaned forward, straining to hear over the hum of the overhead fans.
‘Your full name,’ Mohinder Singh said.
‘Sanjoy Bedi.’
‘What did he say?’ Judge Misra asked.
‘Sanjoy Bedi,’ Mohinder told him. The PP's patience was legendary. It had to be. His job was purely to coach his witnesses through everything they'd already recited in the FIR. ‘What is your occupation?’
Bedi began his speech. He had had plenty of time to rehearse it. Like Michel, he had been kept at Tihar for the past year. It was customary procedure, enabling key witnesses to be produced at will. The suffering this caused an innocent man was never considered.
‘I am an honest man, Sahib—’
‘What was that?’ Judge Misra asked.
‘He said he is an honest man—’ Mohinder Singh told him.
‘Was there ever any other kind?’ the Nawab chortled and turned to the gallery of spectators for approval. There was a ripple of laughter.
‘We are sure you are an honest man. But what is your occupation?’ Mohinder said.
‘I have a silk emporium, Sahib.’
‘In which city?’
‘In Varanasi.’
Judge Misra leaned forward with a pained expression. ‘I can't hear. Tell the witness to stand closer to the bench and speak up.’
The prosecutor motioned for Bedi to stand closer to the bench. The old man shuffled forward. He was now standing barefoot in a puddle of water that had dripped through the ceiling when the monsoon storm had broken. He looked ragged and miserable.
‘Now then,’ Mohinder Singh asked, ‘can you tell us what happened—’
‘Just a minute,’ Judge Misra interrupted, ‘start again from the beginning. I haven't heard anything yet.’
Mohinder Singh nodded and smiled. ‘Now then,’ he said, as loud as he could, ‘what is your full name?’
The rain began again. Mohinder had to shout to make himself heard. He led the old man through a series of biographical questions to get him accustomed to speaking at the right volume and pitch. Finally, he said:
‘Now I want you to have a look at the man sitting on your left. Have you seen him before?’
Bedi turned and stared at Michel, thankful that the farang was safely restrained in the heavy chains of the dandaberi. He could feel Michel's hot breath on his arm.
‘You're a dead man,’ Michel whispered.
Bedi felt his knees start to give way under him.
‘Please answer the question,’ the PP repeated. ‘Have you seen him before?’
‘Yes, Sahib ...’
‘Please tell us where and when.’
‘He wanted to rent a room from me, Sahib. I gave him my best room.’
‘The lavatory, I should imagine,’ the Nawab said.
Mohinder looked towards Judge Misra, hoping for intervention. There was none.
‘This was on the 5th of July, 1972.’
Bedi hesitated. ‘Yes, Sahib.’
‘And how was he dressed?’
‘He wore a turban, Sahib. And a dhoti and a white shirt.’
‘So he was in disguise?’
‘Objection!’ The Nawab leaped to his feet. ‘My client was not in disguise. The defense intends to show that the person in question was not my client. Therefore, he was not in disguise.’
Judge Misra ruminated on this. In Indian courts testimony was not recorded verbatim; instead the judge edited and censored it to his personal taste.
‘Objection allowed.’ He turned to the court clerk, a Sikh in a blue and gold turban with a huge wiry beard. ‘On the 5th July, 1972 a man in a turban and dhoti came to my boarding house. He looked a little like the defendant.’
The Sikh's ancient Remington clattered to life.
Judge Misra turned to the PP. ‘Continue.’
Mohinder Singh sighed and shook his head. Things were not going well.
‘Have you seen this woman before?’
Mohinder Singh picked up a tattered brown folder. He withdrew a black and white photograph of Valentine Breton and handed it to Bedi. It was then passed around the court. People in the spectator gallery and in the press corps craned their heads for a glimpse.
‘Yes,’ Bedi said. ‘He brought this woman to the hotel.’
‘That must have impressed her,’ the Nawab smirked. His sycophants chortled on cue.
Mohinder Singh looked imploringly at Judge Misra, who still pointedly ignored him. Even he's intimidated, Mohinder Singh thought sourly.
He continued. ‘This was on the 7th of July, 1972?’
‘Yes, Sahib.’
‘What time?’
‘It was in the afternoon, Sahib. I do not know what time.’
‘And what happened?’
‘He took her up to the room. I brought them tea. He requested it.’
‘A brave man,’ the Nawab shouted. More laughter.
‘And what happened then?’
‘I did not see her again. Sahib. The next morning—’
‘Yes, yes. We'll come to that.’ Mohinder Singh paused. They had reached the part in the man's testimony that even he doubted. ‘When did the police visit you?’
Bedi mumbled and stared at the floor. Everyone strained to hear over the hammering of the rain and the shouts of two of the Nawab's junior lawyers, who were arguing heatedly between themselves.
‘When did the police visit you?’
‘I'm not sure, Sahib.’
‘After the defendant brought the girl back to the hotel?’
‘Yes, Sahib ...’
‘They showed you a picture of this man?’ Mohinder pointed to Michel.
‘Yes, Sahib ...’
‘Why didn't you tell the police the man they were looking for was staying in your house?’
Bedi looked fearfully at the judge.
‘I did not recognize him, Sahib. In the photograph he had Western clothes and his hair was very dark. It was only next morning, when he left with the girl, and I saw him without the turban …’
The old man's voice trailed off. Mohinder saw the Nawab grinning in triumph. Judge Misra turned to the court clerk. ‘The witness states that when the police showed him a photograph, he did not recognize the defendant as the same man who was renting a room from him. Continue ...’
♦ ♦ ♦
The Oberoi Hotel was one of New Delhi's premier hotels. It overlooked the golf links on one side, and Humayun's Tomb on the other. It boasted New Delhi's only skyline cocktail bar, the Skylark.
Detective-Superintendent Ravi Engineer led his guest to a table by the window and ordered two gin and tonics. Engineer and Budjinski had met many times at police conventions around the world and had become firm friends during Budjinski's two previous visits to the Indian capital on Interpol business. When Noelle had been murdered it was Engineer who had handled the case, and personally supervised the return of her body to Paris.
When Budjinski returned to India for the trial, Engineer had invited him to stay with him at his home in Delhi.
Engineer was a Brahmin, a thin ascetic man with pale skin and short, graying hair. He had been educated at Cambridge and to Budjinski he still sounded for all the world like a major in the British Army. A thin clipped moustache added to the effect.
‘Well, what do you think of Indian justice, old boy?’ he asked Budjinski in English.
Budjinski swallowed the gin. ‘It's not a trial, it's a circus.’
‘Oh, I don't know. I thought it was quite dignified in there today. Sometimes it gets quite out of hand.’
‘The prosecutor - what's he called? The PP. He's a fucking idiot.’
‘No, he's just uninspired, that's all. You must be, to do that job. It's not his fault.’
‘This could go on for months.’
‘It's possible.’ Engineer looked out of the window. In the distance, lightning swept and flickered across the night sky.
‘If they let him go, I'll kill him myself. I swear it.’
‘Oh, my goodness. No bloodshed, old fellow. Let's keep this civilized and make sure he gets hanged.’
‘I don't care how it's done.’
‘They'll convict him, René.’
‘Will they?’
‘Have another drink. And don't worry. Things will go better tomorrow.’
♦ ♦ ♦
It was the second day of the trial.
The Nawab rose slowly from his seat like a bird of prey spreading its black wings. Beneath the gown he wore an immaculately tailored black coat with grey striped trousers and white choirboy collar. He towered over the old silk merchant, and the dichotomy was obvious to everyone. Bedi, already terrified out of his wits, looked as if he was about to faint.
