After three hours, Tubelight had nothing to show for his efforts, he was out of cigarettes and, with the front of his kurta now moist, he would have welcomed a change of clothes.

  Tubelight considered bringing in Mangal, a snake charmer, whom he’d used a few times to great effect. This technique involved sitting the victim on a chair stripped of its seat, placing his basket containing a big, black cobra underneath and getting him to play a little tune. But he decided to try a different tactic. All the rings and talismans that the supari wore spoke, despite his bravado and swagger, of a superstitious nature.

  Billy might just prove the answer.

  Before going to collect him and letting him loose in the basement, Tubelight sprinkled a quantity of a certain dry herb into his captive’s lap, down his legs, and even put some in his hair.

  When he returned twenty minutes later, it was with a pet carrier containing a kitten, black in colour save for a patch of white beneath his chin and a splash on the tops of both paws.

  Having always been scared of cats himself, especially black ones, Tubelight didn’t dare handle the animal.1 Instead, he opened the door to the storeroom ajar and let Billy inside.

  It took the herb, vidaalaparnassa, commonly known as catnip, a few minutes to take full effect.

  The supari’s shrieks began as the kitten began to climb up his legs.

  Having Billy rolling around on his lap and gently clawing his thighs engendered screams.

  And when the kitten clambered up onto the hired killer’s shoulders, he started begging for mercy.

  Puri was appraised of the full confession as he was on his way back to the DNA laboratory to pick up the second result.

  The supari, who was called Jaggu, worked for Hari Dev, aka Hairy Toes, mostly helping run extortion rackets and doing away with people.

  ‘He’ll never testify,’ said Puri, though he was pleased with his operative’s success. ‘He would not last five minutes total in the jail.’

  ‘No need for him to testify, boss,’ said Tubelight. ‘He knows everything about Hari Dev’s operation. Says his boss is laundering several crore though the bank – going there every day to deal with the transactions personally.’

  ‘Can he identify the inside man in the bank?’

  ‘He’s got no idea, boss. Believe me, he would have told me if he knew.’

  Puri couldn’t bring himself to believe it was the mild-mannered branch manager, Mr Dhawan. He had always been so polite and helpful and seemed almost painfully honest. Then again no one else knew that he had been in the next stall to Hari Dev in the toilets. It must have been Dhawan who told him – perhaps just in passing and in all innocence – and old Hairy Toes had deemed Puri an immediate threat.

  ‘What to do with Jaggu?’ asked Tubelight.

  ‘Keep him on ice for now. And tell me one thing: where did you get the cat?’

  ‘My cousin’s daughter. She likes cats, keeps them in the house. She doesn’t seem to realize how dangerous they are.’

  Dr Prasher came to greet Puri again at his office door.

  ‘It’s wonderful to see you again, sir. You’re looking well. I trust you weren’t kept waiting. Do make yourself comfortable. May I get you anything? Some tea, coffee, water?’

  Puri took his place in front of his desk with a feeling of déjà vu that for once did not seem misplaced.

  This time he passed on the coffee and made a point of saying he was pressed for time.

  ‘Of course,’ said Dr Prasher, sounding languid nonetheless.

  He opened the file, studied the contents for a moment and looked up with a little frown.

  ‘Interesting, sir,’ he said. ‘You sent us two specimens, one for a female, the other for a male, both of similar age, and you asked us to compare their sequences with those of an elderly woman, whom I will refer to as Subject A. A more advanced test had to be conducted to analyse the sweat retrieved from the article belonging to the male, Subject C.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said Puri, impatiently. ‘It was a match, also, I take it? Correct?’

  ‘In point of fact, no, sir. It was not,’ said Dr Prasher.

  ‘That cannot be.’

  ‘I can assure you, our results are one hundred per cent accurate. There is no question that Subject C is not related to Subject A.’

  ‘You would not want a saliva swab or blood test to confirm?’ asked Puri.

  ‘Should you or the subjects require peace of mind, we would have no objection to confirming the results. However, I can assure you there is no need.’

  Dr Prasher passed Puri a copy of the file and began his concluding-the-meeting patter.

  ‘I believe that concludes our business. We do appreciate you have a choice of facilities—’ Dr Prasher began.

  But Puri was out the door.

  TWENTY-ONE

  The blood, shovel and dirt Bobby discovered in the dickie – it all made sense now. Grim and terrible sense.

  Gathering the hard evidence needed to put Mantosh Singh away for life, as he no doubt deserved, was another matter altogether, however. There were only two people alive who might ideally be able to tell Puri what he needed to know and testify in a case, and one couldn’t remember her name, while the second wasn’t ready to talk, let alone testify in court.

  Still, when Puri and Mummy had gone to speak with the retired cook, Surjeet, three days ago, they hadn’t known that Riya was alive and that Gajan Singh wasn’t her son. Armed with this information, perhaps the use of shock tactics would persuade her to come clean.

  Inconveniently, however, Puri couldn’t go and speak with Surjeet right away: he’d arranged to meet Ram Bhatt at home at six thirty and dared not cancel for fear of antagonizing his former client. Also, Mummy, whom he felt obligated to take along, was back at home, and, without his own car, he could envisage spending most of the evening criss-crossing Delhi in the traffic, picking her up, driving to Tilak Vihar and so on.

  There seemed nothing for it but to send Handbrake in the Maruti to pick up his mother and endure a ride in an auto.

  The journey through the madness of Delhi’s rush hour, which any stranger would have been forgiven for thinking was part of a mass attempt to get into the Guinness Book of Records for the most noise created by tens of thousands of cars stuck in gridlock traffic all at once, proved a wholly unpleasant experience.

  After forty-five minutes crawling in an open vehicle, assaulted by choking diesel fumes and blaring air horns, and feeling like his skin was being eaten by acid and his hearing had been impaired by a fair number of decibels, the detective staggered out of the vehicle in front of the Bhatts’ luxury villa with its voguish sliding laminated-wood gates, all polished and spot-lit.

  The security guard, who promptly ticked off the auto driver for blocking the gates and insisted he push his unseemly looking vehicle out of the way, looked unconvinced when Puri explained that he had an appointment with Ram Bhatt himself, asking a couple of times for confirmation of his name and the time of the meeting, before returning to his sentry post to use the phone to the house (though keeping an eye on him all the time).

  Puri suffered a further humiliation when he realized that he had miscalculated how much the auto ride would cost and his last sixty rupees, all in grubby five- and ten-rupee notes, didn’t quite suffice. The driver demanded another twenty and the only way to avoid an argument and a scene was to ask to borrow the amount from Ram Bhatt himself after Puri was allowed inside.

  ‘It’s not enough that you ruin my daughter’s life, but now you want to borrow money from me?’ he said, only half-joking, checking his wallet for change as they stood in the entrance hall of the house. ‘Fortunately I think I have a few notes left myself.’

  ‘Apologies, sir, but you see my Amby, it—’

  ‘Broke down by any chance? You know you really should get yourself a decent car, Mr Puri. I mean the Ambassador, it’s ancient.’

  ‘The car was in an accident. A hit-and-run. I was fortunate to escape with my life.’

  ‘That sort of thing must all be in a day’s work for you,’ said Bhatt without empathy.

  ‘Not every day, fortunately, sir. It is the eleventh attempt on my life to date.’

  Bhatt called for one of the servants to take the cash out to the auto wallah waiting in the street.

  ‘Come, we can speak in here,’ he said, leading Puri into a reception room that looked like a cross between an airport first-class lounge and a hothouse, with water trickling down glass panes framing jungle foliage and white leather couches arranged on a rink of highly polished Italian marble.

  ‘I don’t know if you’re aware, but Tulsi is trying to make another go of it. Apparently Vikas hasn’t snored for the past couple of nights. Maybe something has finally cured him. Let’s see. But either way this doesn’t change anything between us. You didn’t do your job properly, pure and simple, and it caused my daughter incalculable trauma and damage,’ said Bhatt.

  ‘Sir, kindly hear me out if you will,’ answered Puri. ‘I’ve been making some enquiries and have come to know that your son-in-law was not a snorer before marriage. It seems someone found a way to “tamper with him”, so to speak, meaning they caused him to start snoring in this way.’

  Bhatt regarded Puri sceptically. ‘I find that hard to believe.’

  ‘Well, sir, you may be aware that he is allergic to—’

  Puri stopped mid-sentence. Something under the couch in front of him had caught his eye.

  It was a tail. A striped, furry tail. And it was swishing back and forth.

  He pointed. ‘That is a cat,’ he said.

  Bhatt looked down at the tail. ‘Yes, Mr Puri, very good, you’re not a detective for nothing. That is a cat. Now you were saying?’

  The cat came suddenly scurrying out from beneath the sofa, chasing a piece of fluff.

  Puri drew back in alarm, pulling his legs up on to the couch.

  ‘Really, Mr Puri, it’s just a cat. Only minutes ago you were telling me that people are always trying to murder you.’

  The detective kept his legs up off the floor all the same. ‘Problem is you don’t know what they’re thinking,’ he said.

  ‘Nothing malicious, I can assure you. We call him Shah Rukh. Amir and Salman are somewhere around the place as well,’ said Bhatt.

  ‘You’ve three cats?’ asked Puri, eyeing the animal as it rolled around on the floor, batting the fluff with his paws.

  ‘Tulsi’s a soft touch when it comes to animals. She’s got that female fostering kind of nature going on. The dogs we have outside – you would have seen them – she rescued them. The cats she got from the street also as kittens.’

  Bhatt lowered his hand and clicked his fingers, and the cat scurried over to him.

  ‘I have to admit that at first I was reluctant to have a cat in the house,’ he went on. ‘Like you, I was suspicious of them. I suppose we Indians grow up believing cats are bad news, don’t we? All that superstition – backward village thinking, Tulsi calls it. Then again, there are people who are genuinely allergic to cats. Vikas is one of them. The first time he came here, he started wheezing and sneezing all over the place. He’s banned Tulsi from bringing pets into the house.’

  The detective had a knowing look in his eye. ‘The cat – cats – they shed fur around the place, I suppose?’ he asked, as if speaking to himself.

  ‘Sure, if one of them sits on your lap it always leaves hair on your clothes.’

  Puri blinked. Was this the source of the cat dander rather than Ruchi’s laboratory? Had Tulsi engineered the snoring?

  Bhatt broke into his thoughts with an impatient snap of his fingers. ‘Hello, Mr Puri, are you still with me?’ he demanded. ‘We were discussing Vikas and his snoring.’

  The detective gave a start. ‘Yes, sir, apologies. As I intimated, I believe Vikas’s snoring began after marriage and he’s been manipulated in some way.’

  ‘And you’ve evidence to prove this?’ demanded Bhatt.

  ‘Not as of yet,’ said Puri cautiously, in view of the revelation about Tulsi’s cats. ‘It is a theory, only. Meantime, a question: can you think of any person with motive enough to try wrecking the marriage?’

  Bhatt threw up his arms in despair. ‘Who would do such a thing? And if there was any such person, it was your job to find them out before the marriage!’

  ‘It seems we might have been looking in the wrong quarter,’ Puri admitted. ‘Kindly give me a day or two and I’ll revert.’

  By eight o’clock, Puri and Mummy were back in Tilak Vihar and searching for Balwant, the young man who’d helped them find Surjeet, the retired cook, the first time.

  They found him lazing in a local barber’s shop near to the gurdwara, watching Twenty20 cricket on TV while the owner, apparently his relation or friend, swept up around him.

  ‘I can’t help you people,’ said Balwant after listening to Puri’s request for help. ‘Auntie was very distressed by your last visit. She even called her old employer, the one you were asking about, Mantosh Singh, and told him you’d been to see her. He said you were after money, that you’re trying to blackmail him. He said she shouldn’t talk to you again if you show up.’

  ‘Listen, na,’ said Mummy. ‘Mantosh Singh tried to murder his wife and we can prove it.’

  ‘Then why do you need Auntie’s help?’ asked Balwant.

  ‘Because she was a witness. And we need her to provide one or two missing pieces,’ said Puri. ‘If she refuses to cooperate a guilty man could escape justice.’

  Balwant gave a shrug. ‘Don’t speak to me about justice,’ he said. ‘How about our fathers’ murderers? Some of them are MPs sitting there in the parliament today. They brought the mob to our doors, handed out kerosene and matches, and now they sleep in comfortable beds and ride around in courtesy cars.’

  ‘Two wrongs don’t make a right,’ said Mummy.

  ‘We are talking about hundreds of wrongs,’ said Balwant.

  ‘By that measure, I should simply steal all this barber’s money and shoot him down at the same time, and I should not face charges because such crimes are common and plenty of crooks get away with it,’ said Puri.

  ‘It’s not like that,’ said Balwant.

  ‘It is precisely like that. The law is not perfect but we cannot give up on it if and when it suits us. I for one would see each and every person responsible for the killings in 1984 put behind the bars. Many of them should be served capital punishment, actually. What occurred remains a great shame for India. It is a stain upon each and every one of us. Thus we must ensure the law is upheld at all times and evildoers are served the maximum penalty. Responsibility lies on my head to set a good example for future generations. Had the police not acted in such a cowardly fashion in 1984 and instead done their duty to protect each and every citizen, hundreds of innocent citizens would be alive today. Were I to walk away from this case and not pursue the truth, I would be guilty of doing the same.’

  Balwant, who had listened respectably to Puri’s impassioned soliloquy, gave a nod.

  ‘Grief and bitterness poisons and hardens the heart. When you have faced such injustice, soon you lose faith in everything. Family, authority, your god.’ He jumped down off the barber chair. ‘But you’re right, ji,’ he continued. ‘If Auntie knows the truth then she has a duty to tell what she knows. Come, I’ll take you to her now.’

  Tilak Vihar was experiencing load shedding and the lanes and alleys were filled with residents sitting out in front of their properties, huddled in blankets, faces lit by lamps, lanterns and the odd mobile phone.

  When the party reached Surjeet’s door, Balwant suggested he go inside alone first.

  Ten minutes later, he emerged looking defeated, and explained that Surjeet had demanded that they go away and leave her alone.

  But Puri wasn’t having it and, stepping up to the door, bellowed, ‘Auntie-ji, listen to me! We have found Riya alive! You hear me? Alive! I have a picture of her here on my phone. She’s on her way to Delhi as we speak! Open the door and I’ll show you!’

  He waited a moment, his ear to the door before trying again. ‘We know you helped Riya escape from her room,’ he lied, though by now he was convinced this was the truth. ‘She told us you brought her the key, pushed it under the door. Had you not acted, she would have died for sure. You did the right thing. You understood right from wrong. You did not abandon her to die as her husband did. Do the right thing again now. Help us.’

  Puri waited.

  A few seconds passed.

  The door opened slowly and a pair of haunted eyes appeared in the light cast by the light of Balwant’s mobile phone. Tears trickled down the crags of her face.

  ‘Alive?’ she asked.

  ‘Riya suffered memory loss and has been in Vrindavan in a widow ashram,’ explained Puri.

  Surjeet cupped her hands over her face and gave a whimper. ‘All this time, all these years, I thought ma’am was dead,’ she said. ‘There had been so much killing, so much suffering, I never spoke of what happened. What was the point? It could only lead to more pain.’

  She wiped away the tears and dried her eyes.

  ‘The picture of her, I want to see it,’ said Surjeet as Balwant fetched a few chairs from inside and placed them in the alley.

  Puri showed her the image on his mobile phone that had been taken earlier in the day of Riya by Dr Srivastava after he secured her release from the ashram and persuaded her to come and live with him and Saanvi in Delhi.

  ‘Yes, that’s her, that’s ma’am,’ said Surjeet, smiling in surprise through the tears. ‘But why has she stayed away all these years?’

  Puri explained the circumstances and that her memory was patchy.

  ‘What about sir? If I cooperate, will he face arrest?’ Surjeet asked.

  ‘Do you think he deserves to be punished?’ asked Mummy.

  Surjeet handed back the phone to Puri. Her face was a picture of conflicting emotions.

  ‘What sir did was wrong,’ she said. ‘I taught myself to forget. But it was wrong. He’s not a good man. I know that. I have always known that.’

 

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