The Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken (6 page)

There was more. Dippy, the Bollywood starlet and girlfriend of Rocky Schroff, could not have witnessed Faheem Khan's 'last desperate breath' as she had fainted at least a minute before the victim expired. And it had been a certain jasoos by the name of Vish Puri whose foresight had prevented the waiters from clearing away Faheem Khan's broken plate.

The detective would willingly have done a great deal more of the police department's work for them, too, had it not been for that total charlie the Delhi Police Chief who'd arrived on the scene forty-five minutes after the murder and taken charge.

'What are you doing here?' he'd demanded when he'd spotted Puri, making no effort to disguise his abhorrence. 'I am taking personal control of this investigation. Your services are not required! I'm sure there must be some errant groom you should be chasing! Now go!'

Puri had done so with aplomb. 'Leave donkeys to their pastures,' he'd mumbled to Rumpi as they'd left the banquet hall. But privately he'd been livid.

He still was.

And, naturally, he was itching to investigate the murder. The Chief's involvement was an extra hunk of grist to the detective's ego mill.

There was just one problem. Puri didn't have a client. And Most Private Investigators Ltd couldn't afford to take on such a time-consuming and inevitably expensive case without someone footing the bill. The agency was starting to face stiffer competition in the market. 'Every Tom, Dick and Harry - not to mention all the Rajus and Viveks - are getting into security and investigation agencies,' as Puri had put it recently.

Inflation was also starting to bite with the cost of living for the Delhi middle classes fast approaching that of suburban America. The Indian state shamelessly failed to provide the most basic of services, which meant that health care, decent schools, security, and a constant supply of water and electricity had to be paid for privately. The rates of taxation had gone through the roof. And then there was baksheesh.

Hardly a week went by without Puri having to fork out to some official or other. Renewing his driver's licence had recently cost him 500 rupees. Buying a backup gas canister for the kitchen - another 200 rupees. And a few days ago, an official representing the dreaded Municipal Corporation of Delhi (the body that was supposed to provide civic services to most of the city and was corrupt to its core) had stopped by Khan Market to demand his regular payment for turning a blind eye to the fact that the rooms rented by Most Private Investigators as offices were only authorised to be used for residential purposes.

Puri had paid him off; he'd had no choice. If he'd defied him the official would have returned with his lackeys and a couple of jawans and 'sealed' the property. They'd done just that recently to poor Mohit, the dry cleaner. He was now operating his business out of a van parked in front of his premises while he looked for an alternative place to rent.

'What to do, Madam Rani?' asked the detective with a sigh. He finally looked up from his newspaper, thereby properly acknowledging his secretary's presence. 'The most sensational of murders falls directly and most conveniently straight into my lap and I am powerless to do further investigation,' he said.

She opened her mouth to tell him about the message when there came a knock on the door. It was Bhajwati, the cleaner. 'Safai kar doon?' she asked, greeting him with a timid namaste.

Elizabeth Rani let her in and she started to clean the floor with a wet rag, crouched down on her haunches and moving sideways back and forth across the room like a crab.

'You asked her why she was absent last two days?' Puri asked his secretary in English.

'Yes, sir. She said her boy intervened to stop a fight and got bashed up. Then his friends went and bashed up the ones who bashed him up. Then the mother of the first group came with the police and demanded Bhajwati's boy be arrested. She had to pay 3,000 rupees to get rid of them.'

Three thousand rupees was the amount Bhajwati was paid each month to clean the offices of Most Private Investigators. It was one of five jobs she held.

'I tell you honestly and truthfully, Madam Rani, sometimes I wonder if there is any justice left in India,' said Puri, shaking his head. 'Vast majority of the population are so vulnerable, actually. Their rights are violated each and every day.'

'Thankfully there are people like your good self working for truth and justice,' said Madam Rani.

Such naked veneration might have embarrassed many an employer, but not Puri.

'So kind of you, Madam Rani,' he said. 'Now, what all I can do for you?'

'You received an urgent call from a Britisher, Mr James Scott,' she answered.

'Jaams Scott! When he called, exactly?' Puri rose half out of his chair and sat down again.

'Fifteen minutes back--'

'Why you didn't tell me, Madam Rani?' Puri's tone was urgent, not accusatory. 'Scott is former Deputy Commissioner Metropolitan Police, London!'

'Yes, sir, I--'

'I worked with him few years back.'

'Yes, sir, I--'

'The Case of the Naked Jain, you remember?'

Elizabeth Rani just nodded.

'Former Deputy Commissioner Scott came begging to me for assistance. His case was dead in the water, we can say. Also, he was a fish out of water, working in India for the first time. Fortunately I was able to clear up the matter single-handedly. But, frankly speaking, Madam Rani, the working relationship - between Scott and my good self, that is - was not always smooth sailing. When all is said and done, these Angrezi types believe they know better. A lack of trust is there, actually.'

Puri leaned back in his chair, linking his hands behind his head.

'Nowadays Scott is heading this International Cricket Federation anti-corruption unit,' he said, sounding hopeful. 'Must be he needs my help once again. Well, very good.'

'Actually, sir, he resigned that post last week,' stated Elizabeth Rani.

The detective's face showed startled dismay. 'Certain, Madam Rani?'

'Yes, sir,' she said, handing him a press release printed off the ICF website.

Puri read the first couple of lines and then said, 'So what's his game exactly?'

'He requested an urgent meeting right away.'

'He's here in Delhi, is it?'

'Yes, sir. Staying at the Maharajah.'

Puri was thoughtfully silent for a moment. 'I cannot meet him there,' he said. 'It would raise eyebrows - and suspicions, also.

'Yes, sir.'

'The Gymkhana Club is out of the question, also.'

He leaned back in his executive swivel chair and looked over at the portraits hanging on the wall of his father, Om Chander Puri, and his long-dead guru, the patron saint of Indian detectives, Chanakya.

'Madam Rani, we will need to do a Number Three Pickup,' he said. 'Get Randy Singh at International Backside on line.'

James Scott - half-sleeve shirt, farmer's tan, ruddy complexion, semi-permanent frown - stepped out of the main doors of the Maharajah Hotel at exactly twelve-fifteen and asked the doorman to call him a taxi. The order was passed on to a subordinate, and then another, who in turn shouted the command into a microphone, his words booming from an amplifier installed at the taxi stand on the road beyond the hotel wall.

'Ek taxi! Ek taxi! Jaldi karo!'

Soon, a black-and-yellow Ambassador with lopsided suspension and the words 'Power Brake' painted on the bonnet chugged up to the door. Behind the wheel sat a Sikh wearing thick glasses and a pink turban. His beard was wrapped in a chin net.

'I need to go to . . .' Scott referred to a piece of paper in his hand. 'Jaan taar maan taar,' he said in an affected Peter Sellers accent.

The driver repeated the words back to himself, as if trying to make sense of baby babble, and then exclaimed with a triumphant grin, 'Jantar Mantar! Jantar Mantar. Very beauty place! No problem, good gentle man!' Holding the taxi's back door open, he added, 'My city your city.'

After haggling over the price and agreeing to abide by the ruling of the taxi's archaic meter, they set off through the hotel's gates.

'Which country, please?' asked the driver as he honked his way through Delhi's gridlock.

'UK,' answered Scott. He looked out the window, hoping his aloofness would make it clear that he wasn't interested in conversation.

'United Kingdom of Eng-land! Very good beauty countree! Ton-i Blaar. Manchestar Unite!'

Scott gave a weak smile.

'Personally my home Paanjab! Patiala! Very famous and beauty city also!'

The taxi turned into the inner circle of Connaught Place - 'See fine architecture built by Britisher people, kind gentle man!' - with its pillared arcades. Out on the pavements, vendors were hawking bright Rajasthani cushion covers and bhel puri. Tourists sat on cane stools getting intricate henna designs painted on their hands. Smoke rose from barrows where sweet potatoes smouldered in hot charcoal.

'You want nice Indian handicraft? Kashmiri shawl?'

'No, thank you.'

'Tasty chicken tikka?'

'Just drive the taxi, will you?'

'As you like, sir.'

Twenty minutes later, after a prolonged journey to India Gate and back, the Ambassador reached its destination.

'Do waiting, good gentle man?' asked the driver. 'I'm parking. You give missed call, OK?'

Scott declined his offer, paid the fare and, with the words 'pleased to make friendship' ringing in his ears, hurried through the entrance to the park.

To Scott's eyes, Jantar Mantar, the eighteenth-century astronomical observatory built by Maharajah Jai Singh II of Jaipur, looked like a cross between Escher's impossible cityscapes and a skate park. He passed orange-stained staircases that led nowhere, a large heart-shaped structure that curled in on itself, and a couple of enormous, empty bowls.

Following the instructions that had been pushed under the door of his hotel room, he carried on straight through the park. An autorickshaw with a likeness of a curled sandal painted on the hood was waiting on the other side. No sooner had the Englishman clambered on to the back seat, hunched down so as to keep his head from hitting the low ceiling, than the three-wheeler's engine putt-putted into life and the vehicle jerked into action.

The driver zigzagged through the frenetic traffic with the dexterity of a hare until they reached Sundar Nagar market. He stopped in front of a small commercial unit that housed an ATM machine and indicated that this was their destination. An OUT OF ORDER sign hung from the handle of the glass door and this caused the Britisher to hesitate.'There must be some mistake,' he grumbled. But then, a security guard opened it for him. Cautiously, and with a pronounced frown, the ex-Scotland Yard man stepped forward and proceeded inside.

For an ATM booth, it was spacious and plush, furnished with laminated wood panelling on the walls, red carpeting, a small coffee table stocked with bank deposit forms, and two leather armchairs. On one of these, a man sat reading a newspaper.

'Good to meet you again, former Deputy Commissioner,' said Puri as he put aside the broadsheet and stood to greet his guest.

'Christ alive, Vish!' exclaimed Scott. 'Was all that necessary? All the driving around and switching vehicles, I mean?'

'Undoubtedly! You were followed, actually,' answered Puri.

'Who says? Not that taxi driver - surely! Don't tell me that lunatic's one of yours!'

'One of my best,' answered the detective, looking a little hurt.

Scott ran a hand through his thinning hair. 'Right. Well. Sorry. He just went on a bit. About chicken tikka and shawls and God knows what else. Did he lose whoever it was?'

'Naturally.'

'Any idea who it was?'

'Another private investigator. I know the fellow. An idiot person.'

'He's probably working with the Indian Cricket Board. They'll be nervous I'm here. Want to know what I'm up to.' Scott glanced around him as if he'd just noticed the setting in which he found himself. 'Do you mind explaining why we're meeting here?' he asked.

'I often make use of this place, former Deputy Commissioner. The location is central. It is private and most comfortable - air conditioning is there. Lovely it is in summertime.'

'What if someone comes along and wants to withdraw some cash?'

'Jagdish, the security guard, will make certain we don't face interruption.'