The suburb of Budge Budge was about as picturesque as a frontline trench, and for a policeman, almost as dangerous. Not for the first time was I grateful for a fast car, a diligent driver and the cover of darkness. As the Wolseley sped past derelict mills and hollowed-out wharves, I wondered just what it was Suren thought he was doing, hanging around in a place like this, and, rather more importantly, why he’d felt the need to get himself arrested for killing someone.
The police station was a beleaguered-looking redoubt, the shutters over its barred windows scorched and pitted, and the wood of its doors cladded and stiffened with iron. The car pulled up and I got out to the sound of glass cracking in the dirt beneath my boot. The street seemed deserted save for a grizzled pie-dog who sat in front of the station, gnawing on the shin bone of some beast that probably didn’t need it any more, and who growled defensively as I passed.
The doors were shut fast, which made sense. There was probably little point in reinforcing the damn things if you then left them wide open, and anyway, this didn’t look like the sort of neighbourhood where the locals made a habit of popping in to the station to hand in a lost wallet.
I rapped on them with the side of my fist, then called out in English, having found long ago that in India the judicious deployment of the English language often helped speed up people and processes that would otherwise take far longer.
Sure enough, the cover over a spyhole shot back like a rifle bolt and I was appraised by a yellowing eyeball. I looked over to my driver, Shiva. Not being overly keen on him waiting alone outside like a sitting duck, I called for him to join me, but he shook his head. I should have expected that. He loved that car as much as his own family. It was only as the bolts slid back and I crossed the threshold into the fortress-like thana that I realised there may have been another reason for his reticence. If the worst did happen and we were suddenly attacked by a mob, having the car meant he’d at least have a decent chance of escape. As for me, I’d be stuck in the station with the constables, ready to be roasted like chickens.
The copper who opened the door attempted a salute that petered out halfway to his head, his expression somewhere between wary and world-weary. I knew how he felt. It was late and I was too tired for pleasantries so I got to the point.
‘Where is he?’
The constable gestured with a nod. ‘Please follow me, sir.’
There wasn’t much to the place: just a room where a few more constables slouched indolently against bare walls; a small office with its door ajar; and a corridor leading to the cells. If there was electricity, someone had cut the supply, because the place was illuminated solely by the flickering light of a hurricane lamp and the air smelled of kerosene and piss.
Suren, dressed in a soot-smeared and bloodstained shirt, sat on a bench behind the iron bars of a cement cell. His face bore the scars that went with what was known in the trade as a rigorous arrest: a burst lip and one eye swollen shut. The other, though, seemed surprised to see me.
I rattled the bars of his cell and yelled at a constable who sat warming a desk a foot away. ‘Open this bloody door!’
The man rose quickly, hurried over and, in a metallic flurry, pulled out a ring of keys.
‘What the hell, Suren?’ I said.
The sergeant staggered to his feet.
‘It’s not what —’
I cut him off with a gesture, waited for the constable to unlock the door, then ordered him and his colleague to wait outside with the other officers. Once they’d gone, I directed Suren to retake his seat.
‘What happened to your face?’
He raised a hand to a purple cheek.
‘A slight disagreement with the constables who detained me.’
‘Lucky it was only slight,’ I said. ‘Any more serious and they might have killed you. What did you do?’
Suren sat down but remained resolutely mute on the matter. I ran a hand through my hair. ‘They’re saying you killed a man, then set fire to his house.’
He looked up and stared at me with his good eye.
‘I didn’t kill him.’
The denial was wholehearted but it was still only half a disavowal.
‘And the building? You didn’t try to torch that?’
Suren paused.
‘No… I mean yes, I may have set it alight, but not to…’ His voice tailed off into a sigh. ‘It is most difficult to explain.’
‘Well, you better find a way,’ I said. ‘You’re up on charges of murder, arson and resisting arrest. More than enough to see your neck in a noose.’
Suren shook his head.
‘They can’t hang me,’ he said with a degree of certainty which the circumstances hardly seemed to warrant.
‘They most certainly can,’ I said. ‘Now tell me what happened so I can sort this out.’
A bead of sweat trickled down from his temple. He shook his head again.
‘I cannot, but it is imperative that I to speak to Lord Taggart. You must get a message to him.’
‘Why?’
‘Because the dead man in that building… it was Prashant Mukherjee.’
The name hit me like a kick from a mule. Mukherjee was a prize ass. The sort of pompous, pontificating high-caste Hindu that made me understand just why so many lower-caste Bengalis had converted to other religions. But to a certain sort of Hindu, mainly the upper-caste, down-on-his-luck variety that blamed all their problems on foreign invaders and Muslim usurpers, Mukherjee was a folk hero. The soft-spoken Hindu high priest who provided the intellectual veneer to justify all manner of thuggery from his hardline co-religionists in the Shiva Sabha.
‘Bloody hell, Suren,’ I said. ‘Of all the people whose murders you could have got yourself mixed up in, you chose Prashant Mukherjee?’
‘It was hardly a choice,’ he said.
‘What am I supposed to do now? I told Uddam Singh that I’d find you and that we’d meet him in half an hour’s time to discuss his boy. We stand him up and he’ll put a price on your head.’
‘Uddam Singh will have to wait,’ he said. ‘The priority is speaking to Lord Taggart. Without him, I am dead already.’