A CELEBRATION AT POPPY’S

The three policemen from the Railway Protection Force, with their distinctive blue berets, looked around as the accordion-player strained the notes of a bittersweet melody from his instrument. One, moved by the song’s lament, raised a beer to the young man and flung a rupee in his direction, the spinning coin deftly plucked from the air by the black-faced langur perched on the youth’s shoulder. The monkey stuffed it into the jingling bag of coins clutched in its paws, then looked up expectantly for more.

The youth turned and almost walked into Chopra, who had just entered the restaurant.

On another day he would have dismissed the young man – he did not wish to encourage troubadours and beggars in his place of business – but tonight he had much on his mind.

Head down, he barrelled past the accordion-player and stormed into his office, where he discovered Poppy and Rangwalla waiting for him.

Having greeted them both, he slumped into his seat behind the desk. Poppy, who had summoned a plate of Hyderabadi egg curry and steamed basmati rice from the kitchen in anticipation of her husband’s arrival, lifted the bamboo cover from the tray. Chopra’s nostrils twitched at the smell, but recent events had deprived him of his appetite.

It had been a night of furious activity.

Having returned to The King’s Ransom with a subdued Sunil Kartik he had waited with DCI Bomberton for the forces of law and order to arrive.

The wait had been anything but orderly.

The detained crowd included some of the richest and most powerful men in India – who were not about to be cowed by an Englishman and a private detective. Before the cavalry could arrive many had slipped away on hastily summoned launches, even as Bomberton did his best to corral them in the ballroom. From those who remained came a constant stream of invective, dire threats and wild-eyed oaths. Mobile phones grew hot beneath the fury of the nabobs.

Chopra had advised Bomberton to ferry those left behind to the nearby Colaba station. He had called Poolchand and asked the station’s holding pens to be cleared to make room for their grandiose new visitors. Bomberton had reluctantly agreed to the plan, but before they could get within a mile of the place a pack of ravenous lawyers had descended, nonplussing the station in-charge and making him regret the fact that he had chosen to work on Christmas Day.

Thus began the machinations that would ultimately end with not a single one of those present for the Koh-i-Noor’s ‘auction’ remanded on charges. Chopra, weary with exhaustion, had grown hoarse in his attempts to convince his seniors that these men were as guilty as Sunny Kartik and Bulbul Kanodia.

He should have known better.

He remembered the words of ACP Suresh Rao, who had been incandescent with fury to discover that Chopra had stolen his thunder. ‘You may think you have won, Chopra, but you are wrong. You have made enemies of some of the most powerful men in the country. Worse, you have made them look foolish. They will not forget. And they will never forgive.’

The Commissioner of Police and the state’s Chief Minister had been equally scathing.

‘What exactly are we to charge them with?’ asked the Commissioner acidly. ‘Attending a masked ball? Their lawyers will make mincemeat of us. That is if they don’t tie us up in red tape for the next ten years. You do not even have the diamond. All you have is Kartik and Kanodia, and Kartik’s father will move heaven and earth for his son. Circumstantial evidence won’t hold up in court, Chopra.’ He had relented long enough to offer the former policeman a few words of grudging praise. ‘Be content with what you have achieved. Do not try to bite off more than you can chew.’

What had he achieved? Well, at least he could take consolation from the fact that he had made good on his promise to prove Shekhar Garewal’s innocence.

Garewal had been released an hour earlier amidst a blaze of publicity. Yet, instead of issuing an apology, the authorities claimed that Garewal’s arrest was a ruse designed to flush out the real culprits, and that Garewal had been helping them with the investigation all along.

Garewal himself remained tight-lipped. It was obvious that a deal had been struck.

As he drove Garewal home, his former colleague had choked back tears of gratitude. ‘Chopra, you have given me back my life. Without you, I was a dead man.’

‘I should never have doubted you.’

‘You didn’t,’ said Garewal. ‘Not where it mattered. Here.’ And he had touched his chest.

Garewal had asked Chopra to stay for a celebratory drink but he had declined. He knew that what his old colleague needed most was time with his family, time to sit back in his own home and reflect on his narrow escape. How that escape would shape the remainder of his life was a question that only Garewal could answer.

Chopra realised that Poppy was speaking. He concentrated now as she explained to him exactly what had been going on in his absence.

Poppy told him that Irfan had returned to the restaurant late the night before, at about the same time that Chopra had been on the yacht with Bomberton. He had been accompanied by Ganesha who, Chopra was horrified to learn, had been abducted by Pramod Kondvilkar from the Maharashtra Dangerous Animals Division.

No one seemed to know how Ganesha had escaped from Kondvilkar’s clutches or, for that matter, how he had ended up with Irfan. From the boy there came only a simple explanation. ‘Ganesha found me and brought me home. If you will permit me to stay, I will never leave again.’

Poppy had broken down in tears when she discovered the two of them back where they belonged, safe and sound. Chopra listened as she painted a picture for him of their happy reunion…

Following their dramatic escape, the two fugitives, weary and battle-scarred, had made their way back to the restaurant. Here they had been greeted with cries of delight by all the staff and an overwhelmed Poppy, who had come in looking for her errant husband, displeased that he had pulled another of his vanishing acts.

‘Where have you been, you naughty boy?’ she had said crossly, simultaneously hugging Irfan and scolding him. ‘Who gave you permission to go?’ She held him at arm’s length and inspected him. ‘You have lost weight! And look at those bruises! Why did you go with that man? Was he really your father? Oh, if only that villain was in front of me now!’

‘You do not have to worry about him,’ said Irfan, glancing at Ganesha. ‘He has gone away and will not be coming back.’

Poppy squinted at him suspiciously. Then her face broadened into a smile. ‘Well, if he ever comes looking for you again, he will find me here. And heaven help him then!’

She hugged them both again, then looked them over with a practised eye, her nose crinkling. ‘You two need a bath.’

A look of intense worry alighted on both Irfan and Ganesha’s faces. It was not that they disliked bathing; it was simply that Poppy’s idea of a bath differed greatly from their own. They liked to roll around in the mud and then use a hosepipe to rinse themselves clean. A bath orchestrated by Poppy meant soap, lotions, talcum powder, loofahs, moisturiser and a veritable alchemist’s cupboard of oils that left them smelling oddly for days.

‘Ah, I see you are back. Had enough of lazing about, have you?’ Poornima Devi hobbled into view. ‘Well, instead of standing around why don’t you fetch my tea? I am not paying you to gawp at the walls.’

‘Mummyji, the poor boy has been through enough!’ said Poppy sternly.

‘Nonsense!’ said Poornima. ‘When he is my age and must live with pain each and every waking moment, when he is surrounded by ingrates and buffoons, when he is thrown to the mercy of a boorish son-in-law, then he can say he has had enough.’

‘One chai coming up, Poornima Madam,’ said Irfan brightly. He gave Poppy a last hug, then skipped from the room, Ganesha trotting close behind, a bright moon of happiness rising inside him.

Irfan could never tell Poppy and Chopra how much it had pained him to leave them, that he had only done so to protect them from his evil father. The word ‘family’ had been an alien concept in his life. But for the first time, he was beginning to understand what other children took for granted. He prayed that he would never be away from them again, even for a single day.

In spite of his grim mood Chopra found himself smiling as he listened to the tale. He had not had the opportunity to return to the restaurant before now, having spent the entire night at CBI headquarters with Bomberton and the senior echelons of the Brihanmumbai Police. Halfway through the night he had been asked to accompany a police diving team into the harbour to try and pinpoint exactly where the Koh-i-Noor had gone down. As he had suspected, the search had so far proved to be a fruitless task.

Finally, having been thoroughly debriefed by the Commissioner and the Chief Minister, a weary Chopra had been released, along with Garewal.

As if by divine providence a knock sounded on the door at that very moment, and Irfan entered, drawing Chopra from his moribund thoughts.

The boy’s gaze alighted on Chopra. He hesitated, then ran forward and flung his arms around him. At first stunned, Chopra finally felt his own arms moving to embrace the boy. A knot of emotion bobbed in his throat.

‘How are you, boy?’ he said, finally.

Irfan wiped his eyes with the curved back of his malformed left hand. ‘I am not crying,’ he said. ‘I have been cutting onions for Chef.’

Chopra smiled. ‘Is Ganesha asleep?’

Irfan shook his head. ‘No. He is waiting for you.’

‘Then let us not keep him waiting.’

Ganesha was standing under his mango tree playing with a series of red balls that jangled as he moved them about with his trunk. Chopra recognised them as the ones used by blind cricket players.

The elephant turned as Chopra approached, then trotted forward and butted him in the midriff, almost knocking him off his feet. Having recovered from this violent demonstration of affection, Chopra knelt down and looked the little elephant squarely in the eye. ‘I am very sorry that I was not there to protect you,’ he said. ‘It will never happen again.’

In this Chopra was merely stating a fact. It was one of the concessions he had wrung from the Chief Minister in return for his cooperation in the expansive exercise of backside-covering that was now underway in the halls of Mumbai’s civic administration.

There would be no more visits from Pramod Kondvilkar or his ilk, of that he could be certain.

Ganesha bugled his understanding, then turned back to his game.

Rangwalla coughed behind Chopra. ‘So what happens now? With the Koh-i-Noor case, I mean?’

‘Now? Now they will search the harbour until they either find the diamond or give up.’

‘They will never give up. The British won’t allow it.’

‘Maybe not. In the meantime, Kartik has been released on bail. He is confined to his home. His lawyers are already claiming that he is the victim of a conspiracy. Without the diamond it is going to be an uphill struggle to convict him.’

‘What about Kanodia?’

‘Kanodia is in big trouble. Kartik has blamed everything on him. The Commissioner’s informants are saying that even the Chauhan gang has disowned him. I think Kanodia will end up taking the fall. It does not matter that Bomberton and I have testified against Kartik as the real mastermind behind the plot. Everyone wants Kanodia to be the scapegoat. Everyone needs him to be the scapegoat.’ Chopra’s expression was morose.

‘Well, at least he got to hold the Koh-i-Noor,’ said Rangwalla, his tone bordering on the wistful.

‘Yes,’ said Chopra, recalling how lovingly Kanodia had cradled the Koh-i—

He froze. A thought burst into his mind like a new sun igniting inside a nebula.

‘Rangwalla, get the van. We are going to Seven Roads.’

‘But what about your supper?’ said Poppy.

‘It will have to wait.’