The Perplexing Theft of the Jewel in the Crown

The air-conditioner, newly repaired, thundered away in the corner of the office. In spite of its best efforts, the atmosphere had become decidedly heated.

‘Poppy, the boy has a mind of his own,’ said Chopra, who had returned to the restaurant to find his wife waiting for him, and not in the best of moods. ‘You cannot tell him what to do.’

‘I am not telling him what to do,’ huffed Poppy. ‘It is in his best interests if he attends school and learns to read and write properly.’

‘He is a child. What child wants to go to school? We are looking after him now. It is up to us to guide him.’

Chopra sighed. His wife had the annoying habit of changing the subject, without actually changing the subject, whenever she found herself losing ground in an argument.

‘I am not working him at all. Whatever he does, he does because he wishes to. He is a very hard-working and bright boy.’

There was a knock on the door and Irfan entered holding a stack of manila folders.

He beamed as he saw Poppy, whose irritated expression immediately melted away. She bent down and gave him a hug. ‘Put those things down,’ she said. ‘I have a gift for you.’

She watched as Irfan unwrapped the shirt she had purchased for him. ‘Wow!’ he said, eyes shining. ‘It’s just like the one Shah Rukh Khan wore in Chennai Express.’

‘What would you know, Mister Slavedriver?’ she snapped, rounding on her husband. ‘The poor boy is clearly overworked.’ She cradled Irfan’s head as he struggled to escape. ‘Come, I will take you to the doctor right away.’

‘Come and stay with us for a few days,’ begged Poppy. ‘At least until you are better.’

‘I like it here,’ said Irfan. ‘All my friends are here. Plus Ganesha is here.’ He saw that Poppy seemed crestfallen and went back to give her a hug. ‘Maybe you can take me to EsselWorld next week, like you promised?’

After Irfan left, Chopra looked at his wife, at the softness illuminating her features.

After twenty-four childless years Poppy’s heart was overflowing with affection for their two wards Ganesha and Irfan. It was as if a dam had burst inside her and now a great torrent of maternal love was sweeping all before it. He knew that deep within the folds of his own heart he had grown as fond of Irfan as she had. Although the thought remained unspoken there was no doubt in his mind that in Ganesha and Irfan his wife had found an outlet for her long-suppressed mothering instincts, that, in some sense, they had both circumvented Chopra’s diktat against adoption.

Chopra regarded his wife, standing with arms folded and chin jutting out, an unequivocal display of hostility. He thought of all the things he could say, and then he waved his hands in surrender. ‘OK, OK. I have enough on my plate as it is without fighting with you about Irfan.’ He turned to leave.

Poppy had not finished with him yet. With a sudden sinking premonition he realised what she was going to say.

‘Yes, yes, I know. You have a big case for the Queen of England. Well, let me ask you this: is the Queen paying you? Did the Queen ask for your assistance? Does she even know that you exist?’

‘Don’t you Poppy me! Augustus Lobo is my boss. He specially requested my help. What is the point of having a private detective for a husband if he cannot locate one silly little statue?’ Poppy’s glare would have melted stone. ‘Is it too much to ask that you spare some time for a paying client?’

He hesitated, considering the wisdom of telling his wife everything, and decided that Poppy had a right to know.

‘Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place?’ Poppy finally exhaled. ‘Poor man. And two children, you say?’ She shook her head again. And then a thought seemed to occur to her. ‘And you are sure he is innocent?’

He hesitated. ‘No, I am not sure. I have only my own instincts to guide me. They have served me well for thirty years. Right now, they are telling me that this is not the work of Garewal. That he is being set up. I cannot just stand by. I worked with the man – I owe it to him.’

Poppy’s expression softened. She walked around the desk and laid a gentle hand on his cheek. ‘Always the hero,’ she sighed. ‘Well, I would rather you were a hero than a villain.’

Chopra found Ganesha horsing around with Irfan in the rear courtyard.

Earlier that morning, he had made the decision to leave the elephant behind, hoping he would recover from his sombre mood. He was delighted to discover that Ganesha did indeed seem his usual self.

The little calf was playing cricket with the boy. His trunk was curled around the handle of a cricket bat. Irfan ran up and hurled a tennis ball at him with his good hand, in imitation of Irfan’s favourite fast bowler. Ganesha’s trunk whirled around and – smack! – the ball went arcing over the wall and into the neighbouring compound.

Irfan leaped up and clapped his thighs delightedly. ‘Wah, Ganesha! Good shot!’

Chopra smiled. ‘Indeed it was. If Ganesha keeps playing like this we will have to consider replacing Sachin Tendulkar as India’s number four.’

The boy and the elephant turned to watch him approach. Irfan’s face was flushed, and even Ganesha seemed happy to see him.

Chopra was aware that a special bond had sprung up between Ganesha and Irfan. Baby elephants and human children were, after all, similar in so many ways.

For one, they both grew to maturity at almost the same rate. This was not surprising given that elephants and humans had similar lifespans. Elephant calves and human children also shared the same sense of play and fun. And, as he had discovered to his occasional cost, the same sense of mischievousness.

Chopra was relieved that Ganesha had found a friend. It sometimes bothered him that the elephant had been sundered from his own species. Elephants were extremely social animals. He often dreamed of how Ganesha might enjoy a different life if he was with his own kind out in the jungle. But orphaned male calves were not always welcomed into a strange herd. In the wild, elephant bulls were aggressive and unpredictable beasts. An outsider, even a calf such as Ganesha, might easily be shunned or even injured. He could not take that chance.

And then there was the simple fact that Ganesha was now a creature of the city, as much a Mumbaiker as Chopra. He had not been trained in the ancient jungle crafts by a caring mother and fussy aunts. He did not know the first thing about how to survive outside the concrete jungle.

But there was another reason that Chopra was glad that Irfan and Ganesha had become companions. He had read that any young elephant raised in a human environment ran the risk of becoming over-reliant on a single carer. There had been a calf in Africa reared by a white woman. For years the woman was the calf’s sole carer, to the extent that the calf would allow no one else to feed him. And then the woman had been called away for a protracted period. Without her the calf pined, refusing to take his feed. He died shortly before the woman could make her return.

Now, when Chopra arrived at the restaurant in the early mornings to find Irfan hosing down Ganesha in the little elephant’s favourite game, he would feel a gladness blooming inside him. If anything ever happened to him, there would be others who Ganesha loved and trusted and who, in return, loved him.

His stomach growled suddenly and he realised that he had hardly eaten all day. ‘Irfan, can you ask Chef to prepare me a plate? I will eat in my office.’

‘Yes, sir. Do you want butter chicken? Chef is also doing special mutton karahi today.’

Then he knelt down beside Ganesha and patted him on the head. ‘I am so happy to see that you are feeling better.’

‘I need your help, boy. An old friend of mine is in trouble. He has been accused of a crime that I do not think he committed. I am trying to clear his name. For that I will need you by my side tomorrow. Do you think you can help me?’

Chopra knew that if a stranger were to see him talking in this way to an elephant they might think that he was becoming addled. But, irrational or not, he had come to believe that Ganesha understood everything he said. And there was also that insidious voice at the back of his skull that he couldn’t quite shake – the voice that told him that somewhere behind those wet elephant eyes was his Uncle Bansi.

And yet Chopra had never subscribed to the notions of rebirth and reincarnation that so many of his countrymen took for granted. He did not believe that human souls could be transmigrated into the bodies of animals once they passed from this world. He had no idea where the human soul actually went, but he was fairly certain that he was in no danger of being reborn as a cockroach.

The journey of the human soul post-death was the greatest mystery of all, and one that he intended to solve only when he shuffled off this mortal coil.

Rangwalla was waiting for him in the office. The room was redolent with the fragrant aroma of mutton karahi. Chopra eased himself into his seat and stirred the thick curry base of spiced tomatoes and fried chillies. The karahi was one of Chef Lucknowwallah’s signature dishes and one of Chopra’s favourites. He ladled himself a generous measure from the copper serving bowl and then ladled out another bowl for Rangwalla, who was drooling quietly.

Rangwalla appeared as uncomfortable out of uniform as Chopra had first felt when he had been forced to shed the khaki. He was wearing a short black kurta with embroidered buttons, a pair of heavily starched and creased navy blue trousers, and closed-toed black sandals. His beard had been trimmed and his hair was pomaded with an Arabic perfume.

‘Rangwalla, let’s get something straight. We are now partners. I am your boss but I am also your friend. Perhaps I should have said this years ago. Well, better late than never. Now sit down and share a meal with me. And besides, I cannot hear myself think over the rumbling of your belly.’

While Chopra visited the circus the former sub-inspector had been travelling to all corners of the city tracking down the employees of the Prince of Wales Museum from the list that his new-old boss had given him.

Rangwalla removed a sheaf of papers from his postal bag and smoothed them out on the table, instantly smearing them with curry.

There were eleven people on the list. Of the eleven, one, a junior curator, had died early into his tenure at the museum, a victim of the so-called Malabar Hill leopard attacks.

The leopard had terrorised the affluent Malabar Hill area for weeks. Another refugee from the city’s relentless growth, the big cat appeared to have decided that enough was enough. Its unprecedented boldness had made headlines. It had even been caught on CCTV entering the lobby of an apartment building to attack the security guard as he dozed behind his counter.

The leopard had not actually killed the young curator. It had merely chased him out of a parked taxi and into oncoming traffic. The terrified fellow had been run over by a truck.

A second employee had quit her post a month after joining, and left the state following her marriage. Rangwalla had tracked her down and phoned her in far-off Kanyakumari. He was satisfied that she had nothing to do with the robbery.

Rangwalla, employing the arcane skills for ferreting out information that Chopra had come to rely on over the long years of their association, had obtained photocopies of personal documents for each of these individuals, as well as statements from colleagues, neighbours and family members.

Chopra quickly scanned the dossiers and realised that, superficially, at least, each of these individuals was a law-abiding citizen with no conceivable connection to the crime or to anyone capable of committing such a crime.

The sheet of paper showed a headshot of a dark-skinned man with a flat cap of oiled hair, a thin moustache and a pugnacious expression. The document, a copy of a driving licence issued by the state of Maharashtra, named the individual as one Prakash Yadav.

‘Because that driving licence is a fake. A very good one. The same goes for all the other documents he submitted when he applied for the position of security guard at the museum six months ago. Those documents were vetted by the security agencies and came up clean. That is how good they are. Do you remember Ragu the forger? I showed the documents to him. He said they were the best fakes he has ever seen.

‘A day before the heist, Yadav took extended leave, claiming that his father had passed away back in his native village. Earlier today I spoke to the sarpanch of the village he named on his papers. No one there has ever heard of him.’ Rangwalla paused to mop up the last of his curry. ‘There is also the fact that as a security guard he would have had access to all areas of the museum. He was a night-shift guard which would have given him plenty of time to chisel out that hole in complete secrecy.’

Chopra was silent. Rangwalla had uncovered something of great significance. A first thread that they could use to unravel the mystery.

‘No. And not much chance of finding him either. This man is no mastermind. He was employed for one reason – to get into the museum before the new security measures were installed and plant the gas canisters inside the Kali statue ready for the day of the heist. If what this McTavish person told you is correct then he also installed a computer virus into the CCTV system just before he vanished.’ Rangwalla knuckled his jaw. ‘As soon as he completed his assignment, he was no longer needed. If you ask me, he is probably lying at the bottom of Mahim Creek modelling a pair of concrete sandals.’

Rangwalla was, in all probability, correct, thought Chopra. There would be no reason for those who had orchestrated a crime of this magnitude to leave alive a walking, talking liability such as Yadav – and if this was the case the trail might end right here.

A large belly entered the room, followed by its owner, a big man in a navy blue safari suit. The man was swarthy, with a thick moustache and curly hair. He beamed at Chopra. ‘Myself Pramod Kondvilkar. You are Chopra, yes?’

Kondvilkar flashed his eyes at Rangwalla. ‘In private, if you don’t mind.’

When Rangwalla had left Kondvilkar lowered his bulk into the vacated seat. The wooden frame protested beneath the unaccustomed strain and Kondvilkar’s fleshy arms flopped over the sides.

‘What can I do for you?’ repeated Chopra, his tone clipped and to the point. He was overcome by an instant feeling of dislike. Kondvilkar emanated a palpable sense of sleazy menace. His apparent bonhomie did not fool Chopra for a second. He had seen enough sharks in his time to know when one came swimming by.

For his part, the big man continued to smile pleasantly. ‘I am working for the Maharashtra Dangerous Animals Division, Chopra Sir. I have received a complaint. It seems that you are keeping one elephant here on these premises. It seems that this elephant attacked a young child yesterday. At the St Xavier school, yes?

‘He did not attack the boy. He merely defended himself. The boy set fire to Ganesha’s tail.’

‘Ganesha? Ah, what a correct name for an elephant!’ Kondvilkar continued to beam genially. ‘But, Chopra Sir, you will be agreeing that when an elephant defends itself against a human it is not a fair contest, yes?’

Kondvilkar raised his hands. ‘For myself, nothing, sir. No, no, goodness me. But you see, my bosses, they are saying we cannot have dangerous elephants on the loose. They are wild creatures. Why, in the villages, they are known to cause much destruction and injury to human life. My bosses wish me to take this Ganesha of yours into custody.’

Chopra’s hands whitened on the arms of his chair. ‘You will do no such th—!’

‘Calm yourself, sir,’ Kondvilkar interrupted, patting the air placatingly. ‘I am on your side. Elephant is avatar of our Lord Ganesh, yes? How can he be harming anyone? I think that if I tell my bosses this, they will believe me.’

Kondvilkar’s white teeth flashed once more. ‘Such paperwork costs a small fee, Chopra Sir.’

Kondvilkar looked pained. ‘Who said anything about a bribe? Why to use such dirty words?’

A yawning silence stretched across the suddenly chilly expanse of Chopra’s desk. ‘Stand up.’

Chopra walked around the desk. Without warning he reached out and grabbed Kondvilkar by the scruff of the neck.

Pushing Kondvilkar before him, Chopra made his way through the restaurant where a buzz of laughter erupted at the sight of the protesting official and the enraged former policeman.

‘You are making a big mistake, Chopra! You will pay for this! That elephant is a menace! I will have him put down!’

Chopra heaved Kondvilkar out into the road. He tripped over the steps leading up into the restaurant and fell in a heap on the dusty street.

Kondvilkar rose to his feet and dusted himself off. ‘You mark my words, Chopra. You have not heard the last of me.’

Intellectually, Chopra knew that things would grind to a halt on the subcontinent if the system of bribes and kickbacks were eliminated overnight.

Bribery permeated so much of life in his country that most people simply considered it a cost of living like any of the other taxes or surcharges the politicians dreamed up. And with government salaries so low the temptation to go along with the status quo was very strong indeed.

But it was a slippery slope. If you paid one bribe, you could not stop there. You would become known as someone who offered bribes. As a policeman, you would also be someone who took bribes. And if you did that then what was the point of your uniform?

There had never been a price at which Chopra was willing to sell his integrity, in or out of uniform.

He closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. It had been a trying day. He dearly wished to rest. He did not know that the day’s most unpleasant surprise was yet to come.

An hour later he stepped back out into the bustling restaurant. It had become his routine to look the place over before he headed home each night. Often he would sit for a few minutes with old colleagues or new acquaintances. It was a good way to keep up with the police grapevine. Chopra had never been the most gregarious of men, but he found this daily ritual invigorating.

Word of the restaurant had spread and, by and large, Mumbai’s police fraternity had embraced his vision. It gratified him to see so many policemen in the place. It gratified him even more to see that most left their rank at the door.

And, contrary to his own expectations, he was discovering that he quite enjoyed having a circle of friends who were actually glad to see him each evening.

It was a somewhat new experience for Chopra, who had spent his career maintaining a professional distance between himself and his colleagues, particularly those he did not feel measured up to his own lofty standards of integrity. He was now beginning to realise that policemen were people too, plagued by the same desires and foibles as ordinary citizens. It was inevitable that they would occasionally succumb to the weaknesses that were part and parcel of the human condition. Some resisted better than others.

Then again, every finger was not the same, as his father would have said. But put them together and you made a fist.

It was while he was sitting with Inspector Joshi from the Marol station, congratulating the younger man on his recent promotion, that he noticed the grizzled-looking gentleman seated across the aisle. The man had a dark face but light hazel eyes. A scar ran from the lower lip to under his unshaven chin. He wore a dark kurta and a gold bracelet on his wrist. A short rolled turban covered his hair.

He was dining alone, mopping up what looked like Chef’s chicken jalfrezi with a tandoori flatbread.

There was something about the coarse-looking individual that gave him pause. An aura that he had come across many times during his years in the service. The aura of a born criminal. But then again, what criminal would be foolish enough to eat here?

The man belched loudly, then raised his hand and called out loudly for a waiter.

Chopra turned and saw Irfan approaching, holding a jug of water. Irfan reached the man, who looked up and met his eyes.

The copper water jug clanged off the restaurant’s marble flooring as Irfan froze.

The man’s face split into a slow smile that sent shivers up Chopra’s spine. ‘Hello, Irfan,’ said the man. ‘At last, I have found you.’

Chopra stood and stepped across the aisle. He looked down at Irfan and saw his petrified expression. There was no doubt in his mind that the boy was terrified.

The man glanced up at him. Then he turned back to Irfan. ‘Why don’t you tell him who I am, Irfan?’

The man unfurled from his seat. Chopra realised that his thin face had made him seem smaller than he was. In reality, the man was taller even than himself, with a rangy physique, muscle on bone. ‘My name is Lodi. Mukhthar Lodi. And I am the boy’s father.’

Chopra was astounded. Of all the things he had thought the man might say, this was the most unexpected. He felt his knees tremble.

Controlling his voice, he said, sternly, ‘You are lying. Irfan is an orphan. He told me so himself.’

Lodi smiled. ‘Irfan is a runaway. He is fond of telling lies and causing his father much grief. It has taken me many months to find him.’

Chopra knelt down and took Irfan’s hand. ‘Irfan. Do not be afraid. No one can harm you here. Just tell me the truth. Is this man your father?’

He watched as Irfan looked up at Lodi. And then the boy closed his eyes, a shudder passing through him.

TWO STRANGERS IN THE RESTAURANT