16

Sunday Morning

The morning dawned bright and beautiful and the hills came alive with bird calls. The sky was a cloudless blue as the sun prepared to break through the horizon. Durgabai grumbled as she made her way slowly up to her mistress’s room, the wooden stairs creaking in sympathy with her joints.

The Mumbai apartments did not have staircases, she groaned, so she was happier in Mumbai. These stairs are so not kind to my ageing knees. It’s a shame that I have to climb up while the lazy young louts are still sleeping.

The uncle-nephew duo were sleeping off the after-effects of their nightly potations, so it was left to the old woman to carry up a tray with a thermos filled with hot water, lime and honey for the mistress of the house. Durgabai was devoted to her employer. During the past fifteen years of her service with Ramola, the woman had never failed in her duty and she was not going to start now.

Durgabai liked it here. Life was peaceful and happy with none of the Bollywood crowd to disturb them. More importantly, she didn’t have to deal with Ramola’s paramours. The air was unpolluted and the food was uncontaminated. Durgabai sighed contentedly. If only she didn’t have to climb these dreadful stairs every morning, life would be very comfortable indeed.

One would think that the late night would want to make her sleep in late, but no, madam has to get up at the same time every morning.

Ramola led a disciplined life. Up at six, she began her day with two glasses of warm water before she started her yoga and meditation regimen. At seven thirty, she went for a walk and at nine she bathed and breakfasted. There had been no break in the routine for the past two years.

Thank God the guests are leaving this morning. Life will be peaceful once again. They are all wolves in sheep’s clothing and mean nothing but trouble.

The old woman hadn’t approved Ramola’s decision to invite these men from her past to this sanctuary of peace. She couldn’t decide who she hated more: Arif, Sammy or Rohan. The woman considered Arif to be a murderer, Sammy a dangerous snake and Rohan a scorpion. Sen was a temperamental man but harmless enough. As for Ahuja, she equated him with a rat despite Ramola pointing out that rats were a better species. Durgabai didn’t trust any of them.

‘Mind your own business, Durgabai,’ Ramola had admonished her, when the woman warned her against Rohan. ‘What do you know of men or love?’

True, I know nothing about love. But I know enough about men. Tortured, beaten and humiliated by a husband twice her age, Durgabai had not known a day of happiness after her marriage. Four years later, when the alcoholic wastrel had thrown her out of the house, penniless and anaemic, she didn’t grovel to go back.

Relieved to be rid of the cruel man, Durgabai fled to Mumbai. It was better to die of hunger than to undergo the daily torture. Mumbai turned out to be her saviour. With the city’s incessant demand for domestic help, it hadn’t taken time for her to find a job. At Ramola’s house, she found affection and security. The star was a considerate woman. In exchange for her unstinted devotion, Ramola gave her reasonable wages and the freedom to run the house.

Sighing, she tottered up the steps with her tray. In the beginning, she had protested. ‘Let Dinesh bring you the tray in the morning,’ she had requested. ‘I have problems negotiating the stairs.’

‘Durgabai, I don’t want to encourage those fellows to enter my room. You know that. Give me some time, we’ll find a way.’

It was another matter that a solution to the problem had not yet been found. It made sense since they were living in a far-flung cottage. One never knows with men, especially after they’ve had a drink or two.

That morning, there was no response when Durgabai knocked on Ramola’s bedroom door. She must be asleep. They got back quite late after the party. Maybe, I should give her another half an hour. I hope she won’t be cross that I didn’t wake her on time.

The woman hovered irresolutely at the door. They had a busy morning ahead as all the guests were scheduled to leave right after breakfast. After a moment’s hesitation, she knocked again. The door was not locked. She turned the knob and walked in.

The next moment there was an ear-splitting scream. It penetrated the alcohol-soaked brains of all the occupants of the house. Tia, in the adjacent room, was the first to react. She flew to Ramola’s room. His heart pounding, Ahuja rushed upstairs from the guest room on the ground floor. Sen woke up with a start and hurried into the corridor. Rohan’s befuddled brain was still somnolent as he emerged from the library on the ground floor with the duvet wrapped around his shoulders and made for the staircase.

‘What the hell!’ cursed Sammy, struggling into his slippers and wrapping a shawl over his pyjamas. ‘Why can’t a guy be allowed to sleep in peace … Kya problem hai?’ he shouted, emerging from his room.

He espied a shocked Tia keening softy by Ramola’s door, her body hunched over with grief. Durgabai stood near her, pale, terrified and trembling with fear. The tray and its contents were scattered all around the corridor.

‘Madam …’ she whispered, ‘madam, she …’ A sob choked off the rest of the sentence.

‘Kya hua madam ko?’ he barked impatiently.

‘Madam … sh … sh … she’s dead. There’s blood on her body.’

‘What nonsense!’ he thundered. ‘Dimaag kharab ho gaya tumhara?’

The woman collapsed sobbing.

Dinesh and Ganesh, who had also heard the scream, pounded up the stairs together, stopped abruptly and stood gaping at Durgabai. Sammy rushed into Ramola’s room. Sen, who followed him, stood rooted at the foot of Ramola’s bed. His face, drained of colour, froze into an expression of horror. Seconds later, Rohan and Ahuja entered the room and came to a dead halt at the sight of the dead woman. Sedated with the sleeping pill he had taken at night, Arif was the only one who continued to sleep through the commotion.

‘Oh my God! Are you sure she’s dead?’ There was a catch in Rohan’s voice. ‘Who could have done this to her?’

‘She was perfectly healthy last night,’ added Ahuja, his voice wobbly with emotion. ‘Why would anyone want to kill her?’

‘It’s clearly a case of murder,’ Sammy said softly.

‘Murder?’ Sen exclaimed. ‘I don’t understand …’

‘Ramola couldn’t have stabbed herself, could she?’ Sammy asked, sarcastically. ‘Police ko phone karo,’ he instructed the gardener, who was staring slack-jawed at his mistress.

‘Poolis?’ Dinesh stared blankly at the politician.

‘Haan, police. Don’t you understand?’ Sammy took charge. ‘Lock the room. No one is to touch anything in the room and no one will leave until the police arrive.’

Durgabai was the first one to get a grip on herself. She rushed downstairs to the hall, grabbed her phone, and called the police. Minutes later, Tim arrived with a posse of police personnel. It had taken him a while to understand Durgabai’s hysterical babbling.

It’s impossible. She couldn’t be dead. There must be some mistake. Ramola was standing at the gate, waving at me just a few hours ago … how could she die? … Durgabai is mistaken.

After calling the colonel, Tim rushed to Charmwood. The front door was open and he strode in and ran up the stairs taking two steps at a time.

Dear God, please let it be a practical joke. A trick she dreamt up to summon me. In a minute, she will emerge from the room, laughing.

Tim tamped down his personal feelings, donned the mantle of the professional police investigator and made himself look at the corpse. Her eyes, fixed and vacant, stared unseeingly at the ceiling and the lips had turned blue. Death had frozen her face into a rigid snarl. Ramola’s body was cold. The duvet and the sheets were stained with blood as were her night clothes. She was dead; very definitely dead. He felt his legs buckle under him.

‘Ramola … dead!’ Colonel Acharya had exclaimed when Tim telephoned him. ‘Are you sure, Tim?’

Although they had been anxious about Ramola’s safety, the murder came as a shock.

There was disbelief as the message was relayed to the bridge partners. Only last night, they had bantered and made plans for a musical evening.

By the time Acharya arrived at Charmwood, Tim’s entourage had efficiently cordoned off the cottage with the Police-Line-Do-Not-Cross tape. The police photographer had photographed the macabre scene which looked as gory as anything that Sen himself would have visualized. Only after every angle of Ramola’s boudoir had been captured on film, was Ramsar’s one-man forensic team allowed in to dust for fingerprints and gather whatever forensic evidence he could glean. The doctor had already examined the deceased.

The colonel, unwilling to miss anything, managed to make his way unobtrusively to Tim’s side. The young man’s face was pale and set as he gingerly drew the blood-stained duvet and bedcovers off the corpse, allowing Acharya to have a quick look at the deceased.

There was no doubt in the colonel’s mind – Ramola had been brutally murdered. There were several stab wounds on the right side of her chest. Rigor mortis had already set in.

Steeling himself, Tim watched the forensic chap as he prised the clenched hands and taking out a magnifying glass from his pocket, he began examining the hands. A tiny scab of tissues under the nails of the right hand caught Acharya’s attention.

‘There seem to be what looks like traces of skin tissue under her nails. A DNA test will have to be done,’ the colonel murmured.’ A DNA test of that stuff under her nails should prove to be skin tissue of the person who attacked her. Can you arrange to have that done, Tim?’

Acharya rubbed his chin and stood staring at the body for a moment. Then, he ran his observant eyes around the room. The colonel believed that a minute observation of the crime scene was an important aspect of an investigation. It often led to the discovery of some clues, he knew.

The room was in disarray. Drawers had been yanked out and tipped over, the clothes had been pulled out of the wardrobes and papers lay all around the writing desk as though someone had been hastily searching for something.

A large, circular bed occupied most of the room, flanked by a pair of semi-circular cabinets on either side while a wall-mounted television occupied the space facing the bed. The left side of the room culminated in a bay window and a massive walk-in closet occupied the opposite end. The heavy writing desk by the window was probably where Ramola worked on her book.

A door by the bed led to the adjoining room where most of the wall surface was covered with mirrors. An ornate dressing table, surmounted by a vanity mirror complete with lights and stacks of cosmetics, was at the far end. An antique chest of drawers stood incongruously by the door in the otherwise modern room. The dressing room opened into a luxuriously fitted bathroom.

Looking around, the colonel espied the waste-paper basket. Surreptitiously, he crept closer and looked into it. Apart from a few scraps of paper and some tissues, there was nothing.

The photographer and forensic chap having finished their job, were winding down the staircase, leaving Tim and the colonel in the room.

A preliminary hunt for the murder weapon, by the two of them, did not yield any result. Groaning, Acharya went down on his knees and peeped under the bed. The bad leg was his nemesis. Although, he could walk long distances, crouching was a challenge. It was a low bed with very little space underneath.

Durgabai had been slipping up. An enormous amount of dirt had accumulated under the bed. The colonel probed with his walking stick and let out a sneeze as the dust tickled his nose. Switching on the light on his mobile, he spotted an object under the bed.

‘Allow me,’ Tim offered, lying down on the floor to reach the object.

Using the colonel’s cane, the young man managed to retrieve it after some effort.

‘It is a vial of insulin,’ he said, scribbling the batch number, date and year of manufacture as well as the name of pharmaceutical company in his notepad.

‘Ramola was a diabetic, so I am not surprised to see a vial of insulin, but what is it doing under the bed?’ mused the colonel, moving towards the heavy writing desk placed near the wide bay window that overlooked the valley. This was where Ramola had worked on her manuscript.

‘Ramola said that she had finished working on her memoir and that it was ready to be mailed to the publisher so it must still be in her laptop.’ Acharya muttered, looking at the laptop that lay on the table.

‘Let’s have a look at the files. The memoir should be here,’ Tim suggested.

With the colonel peering over his shoulder, the young man tapped a few buttons on the laptop and it came to life.

The next minute, the two of them stared disbelievingly at the machine.

‘Oh my God!’ exclaimed Tim. ‘The hard disk has been formatted. There is not a single document or file in the laptop.’

The two of them exchanged worried looks.

‘All is not lost,’ said the colonel. ‘It is possible to retrieve information from the hard disk. You should interrogate Tia about the laptop. She was the one who handled the manuscript.’

‘I wonder if the girl has a copy of the manuscript. It’s a very important document, with the entire story of Ramola’s life. It must’ve been a very damaging document for someone to take the trouble of formatting her laptop,’ Tim remarked.

‘From what I understand, Tia worked on her own laptop. She should have a copy. I think you should take possession of this laptop and send the hard disk to the computer experts to retrieve the information. Why would anyone take the trouble to format Ramola’s laptop if a copy of the manuscript exists in Tia’s laptop?’

‘True. We have to question the girl. Colonel, if the manuscript is gone, the murderer has to be one of the guests,’ Tim surmised under his breath. ‘Tia’s life could be in danger, too.’

‘That’s quite possible. However, there are some diaries, which Ramola mentioned. Have the diaries been found? They may still be there.’

‘The diaries are missing,’ declared Tim after a thorough search of the room. ‘Whoever formatted the hard disk must have taken the diaries, too. I won’t be surprised if Tia’s laptop has nothing in it.’

‘I will speak to the girl as soon as I am finished with the statements. The DSP would want the details the moment he arrives.’

After locking the room, they went down to the hall, where the guests and servants had been asked to gather.

Tim had informed his headquarters at Almora. He now instructed a constable to take signed statements. The deputy superintendent of police (DSP) was on his way from Almora to take charge of the investigation, Tim informed the guests who were huddled together, speaking in hushed voices.

Just then, Ahuja, who had gone up to his room to fetch his phone, came rushing downstairs.

‘I’ve been robbed. Someone has taken my wallet from the room,’ he said. ‘What’s going on? First, murder and now, larceny.’

‘Was anything else taken from your room?’ Tim asked.

‘I don’t know. I was looking for the wallet. It’s not there.’

‘Where did you keep it?’ asked the colonel.

‘It was on the bedside table. I’m sure I put it there last night.’

‘Did you search the room?’

‘Yes, I did. The wallet is missing.’

‘Was there a lot of cash in it?’

‘I am not a rich man, but, I withdrew money from the ATM before leaving Mumbai.’

‘Don’t worry, we’ll register a complaint,’ assured Tim.

‘Will you be able to get the money back?’

‘I can’t promise you that. We have a list of the local goons. They will be rounded up and I’ll do my utmost to recover your wallet.’ Tim looked around the room. ‘By the way, where is Mr Arif Khan?’

‘I forgot all about him in the chaos,’ said Sammy. ‘Where on earth is he?’

‘Has no one seen him?’ Tim’s voice conveyed concern. ‘Which is his room?’

‘I’ll show you,’ offered Ahuja helpfully.

The two of them bounded up the stairs, taking two steps at a time. Minutes later they were banging on the don’s door. It was a while before Arif opened the door. He stood rubbing his eyes.

‘What’s going on?’ he demanded, sleepily.

‘Ramola has been murdered,’ replied Ahuja bluntly.

Arif’s drowsiness vanished instantly. He looked stunned. ‘What? When? How?’ He shot the questions at Tim, his mind grappling with the information. ‘How is this possible? I mean, who …’

A criminal pretending to be a friend, that’s what he is. Tim shrugged his shoulders, which were beginning to ache with the stress of not giving in to his anguish. I’ll not spare anyone, he decided. One of these chaps is the murderer and I’m not going to relax until I figure out which one.

‘At the moment we have no answer but we will find Ramola’s murderer,’ promised Tim. ‘I want you to accompany me to the hall, where the others have gathered.’

‘Am I a suspect?’ Arif’s voice hardened.

‘Everyone is a suspect at the moment. We have to follow procedure.’

‘May I have a couple of minutes to freshen up?’

‘I will wait.’ Dropping his amicable stance, Tim adopted an official tone.

They went down and joined the others in the hall.

Sammy was pacing the floor impatiently, his mood getting darker by the minute.

‘When are we likely to be let off?’ he asked testily. ‘I’m required for a very important meeting at the party headquarters.’

‘You’ll have to ask my superiors that. They will be arriving shortly. This is a clear case of murder and I can’t allow anyone to leave until the formalities are completed,’ replied Tim.

This was his first murder case at Ramsar and the victim was someone he loved. A part of him was numb with the shock and the other was on autopilot as he followed police procedure without faltering. Observing the guests, the policeman wondered if any of them felt the slightest tinge of sorrow. Only the servants and Tia seemed to grieve for Ramola.

‘That could take hours,’ complained Sammy. ‘I can’t hang around indefinitely. It’s election time and I’m needed for the meetings.’

‘I am not authorized to take a decision. By the way, you seem to have hurt yourself. There is a cut on your left cheek,’ Tim pointed out.

‘Yes, I must’ve nicked it shaving this morning,’ shrugged Sammy. When did he shave? Tim wondered. They were woken up by Durgabai’s scream and thereafter no one has had time to do anything. He’s obviously lying.

‘I’m not surprised,’ mumbled Sen.

‘What do you mean?’ asked the truculent politician.

‘Nothing, nothing at all. Just a slip of the tongue.’

Sammy glared at the director. ‘Watch your tongue, asshole!’

‘And you mind your language, Sam. The murder has upset me. I spoke without thinking. No offence meant,’ Sen explained.

‘Please, please, gentlemen,’ Tim intervened. ‘Let’s avoid unpleasantness. We have a murder on our hands.’

‘So, when is your boss arriving?’ asked Sammy, cleansing his hands with the sanitizer to remove the unpleasant traces of his argument with Sen.

‘He is on his way,’ Tim replied shortly.

The director walked to the opposite side of the room and joined the other guests. He did not wish to get into a scrap with the politician.

The servants were huddled in a corner, whispering among themselves, their hushed voices and wary eyes giving away the unease. Exhausted after the morning’s events, most of the guests were brooding silently.

Nerves frayed, everyone waited for the DSP to arrive.

A pall of gloom hung over Charmwood.

Durgabai sat on her haunches, watching the guests. One of them had killed Ramola. She wondered which one of them was the killer.