The Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken (3 page)

'My wife's no more. A boy comes during the day to clean and do shopping and so forth. He's a new one. Useless.'

'He's present, also?'

'Didn't come today. Inspector Thakur's visiting his home. It's far - two hours at least.'

'He comes every day back and forth is it?'

'Look, I don't give two damns about his travel arrangements. What I care about is Ragi's whereabouts last night.'

'I understand your frustration, sir,' responded Puri. 'Nonetheless facts are required. So tell me: this channa batura . . . the maid prepared it, is it?'

'Yes,' was the laconic reply.

'Any is left over?'

'It got finished off.'

'What time you ate exactly?'

'Eight-thirty.'

'You always eat at this hour, sir?'

'Always.'

'She ate also - the maid that is?'

'Must be.'

Next, the detective examined what was left of the moustache, scrutinising the shorn section of the upper lip. The hairs were cropped close to the skin. It was a meticulous job.

'Expertly done, one can say. Any implements were left behind - scissors and so forth?'

'Nothing was found.'

A honk of the Ambassador's horn reminded him that Rumpi was waiting. He checked his watch. Fifteen minutes had passed. He would have to make his search of the crime scene a quick one and return later if necessary.

He made his way to the bedroom, the chappals cutting into the middle portion of the bottom of his feet so that he was forced to tiptoe. On the bed sheet, the detective found a few shavings, indicating that the work had indeed been carried out while Bhalla lay asleep. There was also some shaving foam residue on the side table, as well as a watermark in the shape of a razor.

But why not cut off both parts with scissors and be done? Puri wondered. Surely the spiteful thing to do would have been to cut both ends off and leave them lying on the floor - a matter of a couple of minutes' work.

'Why so thorough a job?' he said out loud.

'What was that you said?' Pillai, who was lingering in the doorway, asked.

But the detective ignored the question.

'Tell me one thing,' he said. 'The security guard saw this moustache thief climb inside over the balcony, is it?'

'Came banging on the door from what I understand,' answered Pillai.

'Thus our visitor got panicked and ran away. He went over the balcony again?'

'I believe so. That was when the security guard fellow gave chase.'

Puri headed into the kitchen. The maid, an elderly servant woman, was standing at the counter making paneer. She looked scared, but the detective read nothing into this. Servants were often shoddily treated and always fell under suspicion as soon as anything went wrong in a household. Was it any wonder they feared authority?

He began by asking her if it was true she'd eaten any of the same food.

'Yes, sahib,' she answered timidly in Hindi.

'You felt drowsy?'

'Yes, sahib.'

'How much did you eat?'

'A small portion.'

'Where did you sleep last night?'

'The same place I always do. Here on the kitchen floor.'

'On a bedroll?'

'A sheet of newspaper.'

Puri managed to disguise his disgust at the manner in which this woman was forced to live.

'Did anyone else enter the kitchen in the past twenty-four hours?' he asked.

'One man came yesterday. To check the gas canister registration.' She added hurriedly: 'He showed me his identification. He was from the MCD.'

'He was alone in the kitchen?'

'The phone rang after he came. I went to answer it. So I--'

'Who was calling?' interrupted Puri.

'A sales wallah. From the phone company.'

'The channa was sitting on the stove?'

'Yes, sahib.'

'Would you recognise this gas canister wallah?'

She looked down at the floor. 'My eyesight is not good, sahib.'

Puri asked her whether she'd been woken in the middle of the night by the security guard banging on the door and she confirmed that this was indeed what had happened. He thanked her and made his way to the apartment's back door. It led on to a small balcony. There were scuff marks on the top of the wall and down the side of the building.

He returned to the living room. The Ambassador's horn sounded again.

'Vish Puri will take the case,' announced the detective with a bow that was intended to convey humbleness. 'Seems we are dealing with a cunning individual. He entered the premises yesterday afternoon only. Then and there, he added some knockout drug to your channa. So much chilli was present that you did not notice the taste.'

His fee, Puri went on to explain, would be 4,000 rupees per day, plus expenses.

'So much?' exclaimed Bhalla, wide-eyed.

'One week I'll require in advance. Cash, banker's draft or electronic transfer, only.'

'Show me results first, Puri, then only I'll make payment,' insisted Bhalla.

The detective gave a truculent shake of his head. 'Rest assured, sir, Vish Puri never fails. In my long and distinguished career, no mystery till date has gone unresolved or unsolved.'

'Two thousand per day, three days maximum,' suggested Bhalla.

'Price is final, no negotiation.'

Puri tiptoed towards the door. As he reached for the handle, Bhalla relented. 'Just get me Gopal Ragi!' he said. 'All right you win.'

'First class,' replied the detective. 'I would be sending my man later to pick up payment.'

He returned to the Ambassador to find Rumpi fuming.

'You've been twenty minutes, Chubby!'

'Hearties apologies, my dear,' answered Puri. 'The case is more complicated than I imagined. A most hairy set of circumstances we can say.'

TWO

THE ROAR OF fifty thousand fans greeted the Puris as they found their seats in the VIP section reserved for the 'near or dear' of ICT players. Delhi Cowboys captain Gopal Shastri had just hit a six, smacking the ball deep into the west stand, and the home crowd had gone wild. Throughout the hallowed Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium, built on the site of the capital of the fourteenth-century Delhi Sultanate, air horns blasted over the sharp beat of dhol drums, and the team's Hindi-English anthem was bellowed out: 'Khel Front Foot Pe!'

Even Rumpi's father, Brigadier Mattu, who'd dressed in a tie and blazer for the occasion (he was also wearing a brown monkey cap that framed the centre of his face and lent him the look of a gentleman bank robber), was up on his feet waving the team's colours.

'Seems we're off to a first-rate start, sir,' said the detective as he sat down in the seat next to his father-in-law.

'Three fours off the first over alone, Puri!' replied Mattu. 'Good to see our boys on the offensive.'

The Brigadier - slight and grey-haired with an inquisitive face - slowly re-took his seat. Then, with a sharp pencil and meticulous hand, he updated his scorecard. It was resting on a thick sudoku volume; a bookmark indicated that he'd completed at least half of the brain-teasers. 'Most probably did them over his cornflakes,' the detective thought to himself. Mattu had a registered IQ of 137 and was a former code breaker, after all. He spoke seven languages fluently, including Mandarin and Tani, which he'd learned while stationed near the Chinese border in the contested Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. He was a topper at bridge, the Gymkhana Club champion no less. And he was a walking encyclopaedia of cricket.

'Our team's weakness is with the bowling,' he told Puri. 'We're unlikely to see much swing in the ball today. Let's just hope Maharoof's in good form. He's certainly got a supportive crowd behind him.'

The stadium was indeed heaving - every seat was occupied, some by more than one fan. Children sat bunched atop walls and concrete overhangs, legs dangling through railings. All the aisles and steps were jammed with eager faces.

When the Cowboys' captain hit another six, the whole place erupted in cheers and Bollywood songs - a feverish carnival of flags and banners and impromptu dancing. STUNNER! flashed across the stadium's giant screens, quickly followed by advertisements for mobile phone networks, fast food chains and popular skin-whitening creams - all this to the bone-shaking decibel level of Queen: 'WE WILL, WE WILL ROCK YOU!'

'Very good, young man!' called out Rumpi's mother, who was sitting to the right of the Brigadier, patting her hands together in delight. 'Very good!'

Down on the boundary, they could see India's latest cultural import from the West, American cheerleaders in little pleated skirts and tight halter tops, performing acrobatics with their sparkly pompoms and favouring the crowd with flashes of their cleavage and knickers.

'Give us a D . . . E . . . L . . . H . . . I! GO COWBOYS!'

The reaction from the almost exclusively male - and by the looks of it totally tulli - fans down in the bleachers was no less frenzied than it had been for Shastri's s-tunning shot. Like lewd punters at a strip club, they ogled the goris' ample proportions and howled and wolf-whistled.

Thank the God Rumpi's mother, who was hard of hearing, couldn't make out the Punjabi obscenities being shouted, Puri thought.

'Do you know, beta, I used to be able to do that?' the detective overheard her telling Rumpi as the girls performed a series of cartwheels. 'I was junior gymnastics champion. But I didn't wear uniforms like those. Must be very practical I suppose.'

Practical was not a word Puri had come across in the reams of newsprint that had been dedicated to the cheerleader controversy in the Indian press over the past few days. 'Vulgar', 'obscene' and, perhaps most damning of all, 'un-Indian' had been the reaction from not only the religious right, but the liberal, self-appointed guardians of India's secular democracy as well.

'All the organisers are doing by making scantily clad white women dance in front of huge crowds is to stoke the base, voyeuristic and sexual insecurities of the Indian male,' historian and cricket aficionado Ramachandra Guha had been quoted as saying in the Hindustan Times.

Puri could not have agreed more. 'Why we are taking worst characteristics of Western world, I ask you?' he had written to the honourable editor of The Times of India last week. 'This is most certainly not cricket.'

But as Puri well knew, the presence of the cheerleaders, who were on loan from major American football teams like the Washington Redskins, was in keeping with the new, highly commercial face of cricket. India had, in the words of one commentator, 'masala-ed' the sport of its former colonial masters. Pristine whites and tepid bitter and understated British 'I say!' applause had been subverted by garish uniforms blazing with advertising and raucous bhangra dancing.

The sport's new Twenty-Twenty format was electrifying - fast paced and, at three hours long, tailor-made for TV. In India alone, the audience numbered in the tens of millions. Bollywood stars and billionaire tycoons ranked amongst the owners. And along with the deities of Indian cricket, the cream of Australia, South Africa and the West Indies had signed up.

Perhaps most extraordinary of all, however, was the participation of eleven Pakistani players. The Kolkata Colts had bought Kamran Khan, the twenty-three-year-old fast-paced bowler, for the duration of the annual month-long tournament.

It was Khan who now claimed the Delhi captain's wicket.

Approaching from the Willingdon Pavilion end, he delivered a devastating yorker, clean bowling Shastri's off stump and sending the bails flying. 'SHAME!' flashed up on the screens as the crowd emitted a harsh sigh of disappointment. The American cheerleaders, for whom cricket was clearly a total mystery, launched into another series of cancan high kicks and the loss of Delhi's star batsman was soon forgotten amidst the male fans' leering and caterwauling.

'Twenty-two off fourteen balls,' said the Brigadier as he updated his scorecard. 'I believe our boy is up next.'

Soon, cheers greeted Rumpi's nephew Rohan as he stepped out on to the field, bat in hand. The entire Mattu clan rose to their feet, beaming with pride. Rohan was being touted as one of the country's new hopefuls. At just eighteen, he'd captained the Indian Juniors and, last month, been called up to the national squad for a friendly against New Zealand. Batting at number ten, he'd scored an impressive thirty-three not out.