Murder in Bollywood (5 page)

At around 9.30, ACP Meeta Kashyap arrived and everyone stood up in attention as she made her way past their desks and entered her office. A few minutes later, she sent for Hoshiyar and told him that the home ministry was seriously considering her request to provide the SCS with someone from the public prosecutor's office, who would work with them on all their cases in his capacity as a legal expert, making sure that in their quest to hunt down criminals, they did not transgress the perimeter of legality, which would help eliminate all loopholes for criminals to slip through, and guarantee a very high rate of conviction. She further informed him that once her request was cleared on paper, a young lawyer by the name of Percy Printer, who was fresh out of law school, would be assigned to them, and she gave Hoshiyar the task of breaking him into the squad. She then remarked, sounding exasperated, that Zagde was once again being lazy with the paperwork, as he hadn't as yet submitted a number of reports, which he was meant to prepare while Hoshiyar was away. Then as a final task before Hoshiyar left her office, she instructed him to send someone over to Pindi Das, loitering around near the paan shop, and tell him to get rid of his ridiculous disguise and be at his desk in five minutes.

‘And one more thing,' she added as an afterthought, ‘while you were on holiday, some man had called for you. Didn't give his name, but said it was a matter of great importance, which he would tell only you. He left behind his number and wanted you to call him the moment you got in. The fellow sounded genuine, so I suggest you give him a call,' ACP Kashyap said, handing Hoshiyar a piece of paper containing the telephone number.

A little while later, Hoshiyar went for a stroll near the headquarters' main gate and from his cellphone called the number, but no one answered. Just as he put away his phone and turned around to go back inside, he received a text message from the number he had just dialled, which read, ‘Who's this?' Hoshiyar immediately replied that it was him and within a few seconds, he received a call from that mystery number.

‘Hello, is this Inspector Hoshiyar Khan?' the caller whispered tentatively.

‘Yes, speaking. Who's this?'

‘My name is not important, Inspector saheb. All that matters is the information I have to give you. It's regarding a great crime that everyone saw, but no one realized. But I cannot reveal any more over the phone. Do you know where JK Film Studio is?' he asked.

‘Yes, but that place has long been abandoned,' Hoshiyar replied.

‘Yes. I know. Meet me there tonight at midnight and come alone,' the man instructed.

‘Wait! How do I know this is not a hoax?' Khan responded, unsure and intrigued.

‘JK Studio, tonight at midnight. Wait for me in the confession booth and come alone,' was all that the man said before cutting the phone.

The once-iconic JK Studio. The abandoned JK Studio. The desolate JK Studio. That long-crumbled edifice from a bygone age had many unflattering adjectives to it. But the one that was heard the most was the ‘haunted' JK Studio. Rumours of it being haunted began in the 1980s, when a young film extra, by the name of Maya, was killed during filming, when a giant wind machine, used for creating a storm-like effect, suddenly came apart and one of its massive metal blades hurtled through the air and, in the blink of an eye, struck Maya on the neck before she could react and get out of the way, severing her head from her body completely and sending it flying to the other end of the set. The incident led to a heated altercation between the cine workers' union and the producer of that film, in which the union accused the producer of deliberately hiring defective, badly maintained equipment just because it was cheap, while the producer put all the blame on the supplier for faulty equipment. At the end of it all, the stars associated with that project lost interest in it one by one and moved on to bigger films, while the poor producer kept chasing them around to get them to complete his film, until one day, he dropped dead of a heart attack, triggered, no doubt, by the ever-mounting debts he had incurred on account of his ill-fated project. As for the film itself, it was shelved permanently, never to be completed. In fact, the tragic death of Maya also coincided with the downfall of JK Studio, which, immediately after that incident, became the centre of a property dispute between the five brothers who owned it, and in time, went into litigation, and stopped renting itself out for shootings altogether. Then one Sunday afternoon, the oldest of the five invited his younger siblings over to his farmhouse in Khandala to settle that long-festering property issue over a civil across-the-table discussion. But during the course of that meeting, something went drastically wrong, one can only assume, because the oldest of the five pulled out a hunting rifle and shot his brothers dead, two of them at the dinner table, while the other two he chased all the way to the main gate, before putting a bullet each in the back of their heads, after which he turned the gun on himself and blew his own brains out. This macabre incident proved to be an eye-opener for their children, who instead of carrying forward their fathers' fight, showed great wisdom by setting aside their differences and getting together. They also decided to wash their hands off JK Studio and have nothing to do with it whatsoever. In other words, they weren't going to sell it, fight over it or break it down. They were going to let it remain the way it was and never give it a second look so that it rotted and disintegrated and completely fell apart, slowly, but surely, which would be the perfect revenge over the place that destroyed their family, turning brother against brother, until none remained. And over a period of twenty long years, this was exactly what it had become. The once-mighty JK Studio now stood in ruins. Its courtroom, jail, railway station, hospital, marketplace, where movie moguls and superstars had regularly gathered under the arc lights to create make-believe, found themselves defaced by decay. And then there was the legend of Maya, who the locals believed, haunted the place. According to them, she wandered about the studio every single night, from midnight to sunrise, dressed like a village girl, which was her get-up in the movie when she was killed and if any unsuspecting person, who hadn't heard of Maya or the tragic tale of JK Studio, accidentally ventured on to that property and came face-to-face with her, he would in all probability remark that he was a stranger to those parts and had lost his way, then ask the lady standing in front of him for directions to the main road, to which Maya would smile and simply remove her head, offering it to the man who would, but naturally, die of fright. It was out of fear of this urban legend that the locals ensured that the last remaining film set on the JK Studio property, namely a church, remained clean and well maintained, because they had come to believe that it was a holy place and if they did their bit to look after it, then God would keep them safe from the terror of Maya, which made absolutely no sense, but God works in mysterious ways; so while everything around it fell apart, the fake church remained. Earlier that evening, when Hoshiyar had telephoned Rumi begum in Delhi and told her about his midnight rendezvous with a mysterious informer at JK Studio, she had nearly jumped out of her chair, threatening to abandon her cousin's wedding and return to Mumbai unless he promised to go nowhere near that haunted place. It was only after Hoshiyar agreed to take with him a copy of the Holy Koran and a bottle of Aab-e-Zamzam that Rumi begum permitted him to go, albeit very reluctantly.

It was a little before twelve when Hoshiyar Khan, all by himself, made his way past the Mazgaon docks and halted his police cruiser outside JK Studio. As Hoshiyar cast a glance at the studio's main gate, he realized that it was closed, but unbolted, and there wasn't any security guard in sight. He stepped out of the cruiser and pushed open the gate, making sure not to press against its dilapidated metal frame too hard, for fear it might come off at the hinges and fall to the ground, after which he got back into his jeep and proceeded forward, looking around cautiously, until he reached the church at the far end of the studio lot, precisely at the stroke of midnight. There was something in the air, which wasn't the winter chill or the faint possibility of running into Maya, that seemed to energize him in a strange, unexplainable way. Perhaps it was a feeling that something major was afoot, or maybe the thought was running through his mind that he was walking into an ambush. Whatever it was, Hoshiyar could feel it in his bones that that night was very different from any other, which added an air of purposefulness to his stride, as he pushed open the church door, then drew his flashlight and ventured into the darkness ahead. The first thing that struck him about the place was its attention to detail, for although it was only an old film set, it looked every bit like a real church, with benches lined in rows and multicoloured stained glass windows, not to mention a giant crucifix high up on a wall, a short distance behind a raised platform on which stood an altar and a pulpit, along with a number of candle stands containing long white candles. But as Hoshiyar looked around, he realized that the most integral element seemed to be missing, which was the person who had called him there. Hoshiyar then lit a few of the candles lying nearby to get a better look at his surroundings, and that's when he saw the confession booth, tucked away in a dark corner. As Hoshiyar pointed his flashlight in its direction, he saw the figure of a man seated inside the closer of the two compartments of the confessional, who seemed to gesture to the good inspector to join him. Hoshiyar made his way to the confession booth ever so cautiously and took his place inside the second compartment, separated from the man in the first by a sliding wooden panel, which moved sideways to reveal a translucent net that permitted both occupants of the confessional to only get a look at each other's silhouettes, and that too due to the flashlight which Hoshiyar had taken with him, without which both the parties would have seemed invisible.

‘You're very punctual, Inspector, and I like that in a man. But I'd like you even more if you'd turn off your flashlight, as I wouldn't want you to see what I look like,' the man began nervously.

Through the translucent barrier and in whatever light that was available, Hoshiyar could make out that his mysterious companion had a heavy beard and moustache, and was wearing sunglasses, a black trench coat and a full-brimmed hat, also in black, looking very much like a character from a 60s' murder mystery movie, who appears from time to time just to create drama and suspense, and in the end turns out to be nothing but a red herring. In fact, on account of the man's get-up, Hoshiyar began to feel that the meeting was going to be a royal waste of time, considering the beard and moustache were obviously fake, which even led him to believe that the man in the terrible disguise was none other than Inspector Pindi Das trying out a new look, but he quickly abandoned that idea as Pindi Das's disguises were a lot worse.

‘What's your name?' Hoshiyar asked in reply.

‘Shobhit. Shobhit Acharya,' the man said.

‘Shobhit, this morning when you and I spoke over the phone, you told me that you had information about a great crime that everyone saw, but no one realized. What did you mean by that?' asked Hoshiyar.

‘Murder, Inspector. Not one, but three cold-blooded murders. That's what I meant,' Shobhit replied with a quiver in his voice.

‘Murder! Whose murder? Tell me, Shobhit, who has been murdered?' Hoshiyar inquired, raising his voice.

‘The last of the three happened last night, along a byroad, off the Shimla–Delhi highway. He was a private investigator by the name of Chandu Mule, who I had hired to investigate the first two murders,' Shobhit revealed.

‘Chandu Mule!' Hoshiyar exclaimed. ‘I have heard of the man. He was one of the toughest cops from narcotics during his day. What happened to him?'

‘He was shot dead while following a lead. A police patrol car found him late last night. He was lying on the road outside his jeep, shot six times,' answered Shobhit, as if he had spent a long time to get the facts memorized.

‘Did he have family?' Hoshiyar inquired.

‘A wife and two daughters,' Shobhit replied.

Hoshiyar grimaced in regret, turning his face away, and then a few moments later, spoke once more, coming back to the matter on hand.

‘Tell me, Shobhit, whose murders did you hire him to investigate?'

‘The murders of Nikhil and Mallika Kapoor,' came the reply.

‘Nikhil and Mallika Kapoor! You mean the film director and his actress wife! But didn't they die in a tragic double accident?' Hoshiyar asked in surprise.

‘Oh no, Inspector saheb, it was murder all right. But your incompetent commissioner botched up the investigation. So I tried to contact you at the Special Case Squad headquarters, to request you to investigate the case, but you were on leave. Never mind. All that matters is that you've returned. But now you will be investigating three murders instead of two,' Shobhit informed.

‘What makes you so sure that Nikhil and Mallika were murdered?' Hoshiyar inquired.

‘Well, Chandu who was investigating their death is now dead himself. Isn't that proof enough?' Shobhit remarked.

‘Chandu was investigating other cases as well and any one of them could have gotten him killed. But you've been trying to contact me ever since the police closed the book on the Nikhil and Mallika case, which means you've known all along that they were murdered. I want the truth, Shobhit. Tell me everything you know, right now,' Hoshiyar demanded.

‘All right,' Shobhit conceded hesitantly.

‘On the tenth of December last year, Nikhil Kapoor threw a grand party at his house to celebrate his birthday, which was attended by the who's who of the city, along with the biggest names in Bollywood. After the party wound up, he invited eight special guests to join him and Mallika for a game of cards in his private study. Everything was going fine until Nikhil, who was sozzled by then, got up from his seat and loudly proclaimed, “Someone at this table has killed before, and someone at this table will kill again. I know the killer by name and I know the killer by face.” After this, he said something about a great treachery that had befallen, which was going to be avenged. But he was so damn drunk that most of what he said was just incoherent rambling. Anyhow, his words not only embarrassed Mallika no end, they also disturbed and offended everyone else, so much so that one by one, they all left. Then a few days later, both Nikhil and Mallika wound up dead. A couple of days after that, the eight special guests at that card game met once more, this time at an isolated farmhouse, far away from Mumbai, where they screamed and shouted and hurled accusations of cold-blooded murder at one another, after which they settled down and promised to stand by each other for old times' sake, because they were all connected by a past, which if it ever came out, would destroy each and every one of them,' Shobhit revealed.

‘What do you mean connected by a past? Does this have anything to do with Nikhil Kapoor's words about someone at that table having killed before?' asked Hoshiyar.

‘Tell me, Inspector saheb, do you know the meaning of omerta?' Shobhit inquired.

‘Yes, it is an oath, an unbreakable code of silence, observed by organized crime families, which make up the mafia,' Hoshiyar replied.

‘Precisely. And I am bound by a similar oath, as are the remaining seven who were the other guests at that card game, for it was an oath that we all took a long time ago when we buried a past in which one of us had spilt blood. But who that person was, none of us knew until Nikhil must have figured it out, which cost him and Mallika their lives. I wanted the police to succeed in unmasking the killer at any cost, because Nikhil meant the world to me. But when they failed and I couldn't contact you, I hired the services of detective Mule to get to the bottom of this case. I even violated the oath and gave him certain hints about the past, in the belief that he would be smart enough to figure the rest out, after which he assured me that he would expose the killer come what may. Just a day before he was killed, he called me from Shimla and said that the matter was a lot more complicated than I had ever imagined, as it involved more than one past. And until he didn't have all the pieces of that puzzle, he didn't want to name the killer, whose identity he had uncovered by then. But he had asked me to look out for Rohan, Nikhil and Mallika's adopted son, because he believed the boy wasn't safe. That was the last I heard from him,' Shobhit concluded and fell silent.