Gowda was certain others were plotting this diagram. Nevertheless, he had to do it.
‘What are you doing, sir?’ Santosh asked. He saw the graph on the table and Gowda’s meticulous markings on it.
‘The PM report estimated the time of death at about eleven p.m. and the landlord heard the bike at ten. The stomach contents and extent of digestion indicate that the meal was eaten at about nine thirty p.m., which means somewhere in the radius of ten kilometres is where the meal was eaten. Either the victim ate dinner with the assailant or met with the person on his way home. So what we need to do is methodically search this entire area.’ Gowda indicated the radial lines drawn from the scene of crime.
Santosh stared at the diagram and said carefully, ‘Sir, we can reduce this by at least five kilometres on each line. The brakes of his bike are faulty so he can’t have been driving very fast. I checked it on our way back.’
Gowda looked at him and smiled. ‘Well then … There is one major problem though. It’s not technically our area, but I want you to draw up a chart and put all our constables to cover this locality. You realize, don’t you, that we don’t have much time…’
Gowda stretched as far as his arms would go and yawned. He had been up since three in the morning, dwelling over the case. Somewhere in his mind he knew for certain that there was a link between the dead Kothandaraman, the burnt-alive Liaquat, Roopesh fished out of Yellamma Lake and now Kiran. All four had their throats slit with ligatures that had manja on it. Each one’s skull had revealed a depressed fracture. A signature fracture that resembled in its pattern the weapon that had caused it. A heavy weapon with a small striking surface. The outer table had been driven into the diploe and the inner table had fractured irregularly. Suddenly he was struck by a thought.
‘Do you have a calendar, Santosh?’ he asked.
‘I have a card.’ Santosh pulled out a small date card from his wallet.
Gowda peered at it. ‘Do you see something?’ he said.
‘All the murders except the assault on Liaquat took place on Friday.’ Santosh’s voice shook with excitement.
‘Santosh, I want you to find out if there have been other murders in the last six months, on Fridays. We already know there is no history of this MO. But look for slit throats. Maybe the weapon has been changed. And one other thing. All the victims were male. That narrows it down further, don’t you think?’ Gowda spoke as he made notes on the back of the paper.
Santosh took the calendar back and slid it into his wallet. His first murder investigation and it seemed they were already on track.
‘Have you started questioning the eunuchs yet?’ Gowda asked.
‘I have asked Head Constable Gajendra to do it, sir. I’ll check with him,’ Santosh said.
‘You mean it’s not been done. You mean you didn’t do it … I thought I asked you to handle this, Santosh. If I thought Gajendra could have, I wouldn’t have asked you to.’
The sternness in Gowda’s tone chilled Santosh. For a moment there, he had relaxed his guard. Gowda was treating him as an equal. But no, he was back to being the halfwit assistant who had to be told what he could and couldn’t do.
Gowda’s mobile rang, and Santosh used the opportunity to escape before more of Gowda’s wrath descended on his due-for-a-haircut head.
Gowda put down his mobile thoughtfully. This was a new twist. He leaned forward and rang the bell. ‘Ask Santosh to come in,’ he told the constable who had answered his bell.
Santosh hurried back in. Constable Byrappa had warned him that Gowda’s face resembled that of someone who had bit into grit in a mouthful of rice. Santosh couldn’t even imagine what such a face would be like, but he didn’t want to take any chances. Not with Gowda.
‘Sir,’ he said.
Gowda looked thoughtful, almost agonized. Was this how one looked when you bit into grit in a mouthful of rice? Santosh asked himself. He wasn’t certain. Constable Byrappa ought to be writing novels instead of mazhar reports, he decided.
‘One of my informers just called me. Apparently, a group of men were at Liaquat’s house. They threw out his possessions, burnt them, locked up the house and left.’
Santosh leaned forward in excitement. ‘Does he know who they were?’
Gowda nodded. ‘Corporator Ravikumar. Though I can’t understand the connection at all…’
Santosh waited for Gowda to finish his sentence.
‘I think we should pay the corporator a visit,’ Gowda said.
‘I was just going to suggest that,’ Santosh offered, unable to help himself.
‘You mustn’t hesitate. A good police officer would never do that. So, tell me, what’s on your mind?’
And have my head bitten off, Santosh thought bitterly. He was beginning to think that Gowda suffered from a personality disorder.
The compound wall ran almost the length of the entire road, a high wall washed in a sandstone hue. The top of it was embedded with shards of glass over which two lines of barbed wire stretched. Gowda’s jaw clenched when they were kept waiting at the tall black gates.
‘Bloody upstart,’ Gowda growled. ‘Who the fuck does he think he is? The bloody governor?’
The watchman opened the gates reluctantly. PC David glared at him. ‘Can’t you see it is a police vehicle?’ he demanded. ‘Hurry up!’
The man shrugged. ‘Anna has a lot of enemies. It’s my duty to make sure that all and sundry don’t go in.’
In response, PC David pressed the accelerator down and raced through the gates towards the house.
Santosh’s mouth fell open. ‘Sir,’ he whispered, ‘how can a corporator build a house like this? It’s so…’
‘Ghastly,’ Gowda supplied helpfully. ‘Monstrous? Nauseating?’
‘It’s so big,’ Santosh said. ‘As big as the Mysore Palace!’
‘Not as big, but almost…’ Gowda grinned as the police vehicle pulled up outside the house.
‘Even the gates are like the palace gates. How can a corporator have this kind of money?’ Santosh murmured.
‘Welcome to the world of politics,’ Gowda rumbled. ‘In a survey conducted last year, Karnataka was declared the fourth most corrupt state in the country.’
‘I can see why,’ Santosh said grimly, his eyes falling on the line of cars parked by the side of the house. He thought of his father, one-time corporator in the municipality of Londa. A little, frail man who wore his principles like his hand-spun clothes, with fierce pride; a Gandhian who eschewed personal gain in favour of public welfare. Santosh and his siblings had borne the brunt of those Gandhian tenets. Would he have been here, sitting in a police uniform, if his father had been built on the lines of Corporator Ravikumar? Perhaps not. Who knows what he would have become?
A group of men stood huddled on one side of the house. One of them, an apelike man with arms that curved in towards his body and a wide barrel chest, went in quietly as soon as they saw the police jeep. By the time Gowda and Santosh climbed the steps to the main door, it was flung open by the corporator himself.
‘Please come in,’ the corporator said in his most cordial voice. ‘What brings you here, Borei Gowda? Ah, I forget.’ He struck his palm on his forehead in a theatrical gesture of reproof. ‘You are in uniform … so what can I do for you, Inspector?’
Santosh felt his jaw slip a fraction of an inch. So Gowda and the corporator already knew each other.
The corporator turned his gaze on Santosh. He looked at him, up and down, and dismissed him as inconsequential.
Turning on his heel, he led the way into a room so hung with heavily embroidered drapes that Santosh felt all air escape his lungs. The floors gleamed. On the walls were giant paintings in gilded frames. A woman talking to a swan. A group of singers. Santosh felt his mouth fall open as a shiny black Labrador wearing what seemed like a gold dinner plate trotted over to sniff at them.
‘His father, Romeo, was an inspector in the dog squad,’ the corporator said in a bland voice. ‘Perhaps he senses a connection.’
Gowda smiled. ‘If he’s anything like his father, he can’t be very happy here. Romeo was at his best when it came to sniffing out criminals.’
Santosh looked at Gowda in admiration. Wasn’t the man scared of anybody?
The corporator flushed. ‘What can I do for you, Inspector?’
He sat down in a chair that looked like a throne and waved to Gowda and Santosh to perch on the black leather sofas.
A young man, slight and short, with curly hair and a hint of a squint in one eye, appeared. Diamonds glinted at his earlobes. Gowda felt an instant dislike for him. Thank god Roshan hadn’t got any piercings done yet. The sight of men wearing earrings made him want to gag. With the young man was the ape who had slipped in to inform the corporator of their arrival. A servant followed, carrying a tray. Santosh saw it was silver, on which were two silver glasses brimming with buttermilk.
‘The milk is from my dairy. So the buttermilk is exceptional,’ the corporator said, reverting to an affability that had disappeared for a brief while.
‘This is my brother Ramesh,’ the corporator said. He didn’t bother introducing the other man. But his role was obvious when he placed himself beside the corporator’s chair, arms folded and legs planted in a stance that suggested, ‘here is a being I will guard with my last breath’.
Gowda’s glance flicked over him with interest. But he didn’t speak. Instead, he took the glass of buttermilk and gestured for Santosh to do the same.
‘Yesterday afternoon your people went to Liaquat’s house in Obaidullah Street,’ Gowda said, ignoring all polite niceties.
The corporator stared at him uncomprehendingly.
‘It’s not Liaquat’s house. Chicken Razak lived there. Liaquat was his frooter,’ the corporator’s brother said.
‘Frooter?’ Santosh asked, unable to help himself.
‘His catamite,’ Gowda murmured.
‘What?’ Santosh asked again.
‘Never mind. I’ll explain it to you later.’ Gowda felt a great urge to pinch Santosh, like Mamtha used to pinch Roshan when he wouldn’t shut up and continued to ask embarrassing questions at important gatherings.
‘Your colleague’s new, I see.’ The corporator smiled.
‘Liaquat was murdered some weeks ago. His throat was slit; he was taken to the outskirts of the city and burnt. Probably to get rid of the body, but he was still alive when he was found,’ Gowda said.
The corporator and his brother exchanged glances. ‘What does that have to do with us?’
‘Exactly! What were your men doing in his house?’
The corporator took a deep breath. But it was the younger brother who spoke up. ‘Anna knows nothing about what happened.’
The corporator put his hand on his brother’s arm and said, ‘Inspector Gowda, I would have expected you to have done your homework before you came here. Chicken Razak only rented the house. It was sold to Shivappa, a PWD clerk. But Liaquat wouldn’t move out, no matter what. Shivappa even found him another place. I told Shivappa I would look into it, but I see that my brother has been hasty.’ The corporator paused and closed his eyes for a moment. ‘I don’t even know what this Liaquat looks like.’
‘Neither do I,’ said Ramesh. ‘Sir, in fact, I went along to ensure there was no trouble. Didn’t your informer tell you that? All the men did was to break open the lock and empty the house out.’
Gowda nodded. ‘In a murder investigation, we can’t afford to not check on the smallest detail.’
‘This is the first I have heard of Liaquat’s murder. You realize, don’t you, that Liaquat was a male whore. With Razak in jail, he must have got desperate…’ With a slow smile, the corporator added, ‘Would you like me to make some enquiries? My reach far exceeds yours.’
Gowda frowned. ‘That won’t be necessary.’
The corporator rose. Gowda and Santosh followed. Gowda paused. ‘As a corporator, you should know that you cannot take the law in your hands. The man you mentioned should have gone to the police, who would have taken care of it.’
The corporator smiled. ‘Indeed, and I didn’t take the law into my hands. I will, of course, speak to my brother about this and make sure it doesn’t happen again. But both you and I know that Shivappa wouldn’t have been able to afford police intervention. I don’t ask for much, except loyalty. Most people can afford that. By the way, you don’t need to come all this way if you have any more queries. Just call me,’ he said.
‘Sir, but that was a criminal offence. To break into a locked house! We could have hauled up the brother for that,’ Santosh muttered as they walked to the jeep.
Gowda nodded. ‘Yes, we could have. But he would have been out on bail even before you and I got back to the station.’
Santosh turned to look at the house.
‘I don’t believe him. He knows a lot more than he is letting on,’ Gowda said, as they drove back.
‘He is rather strange. That house and the dog; and the bodyguard. Did you see he’s got a gaggle of eunuchs there? Did you see them? They went in by a separate entrance … it’s like something out of a movie,’ Santosh murmured as Gowda stared at him wordlessly.
‘And, sir,’ he added, slowly, ‘there was a Scorpio parked by the side of the house. It had Tamil Nadu number plates.’