Before nine the next morning, McIntyre hauled me in with a peremptory phone call, wouldn’t say what it was about. Fearful for Adi’s well-being, I left my meal untouched, my hair uncombed, and my hat on the handstand.
Puffing little clouds of aromatic smoke, McIntyre stalked about, taking it all in with cynical amusement. And then I had no time to think, for he was flinging questions at me like a firing squad, and I was the blindfolded bloke trussed to the pole.
“Bloody mysterious key! Won’t say where you got it.”
“It belonged to the victim,” I repeated, “Satya Rastogi.”
He rapped my knuckles with the stem of his pipe. “How’d you get that?”
“Just a scrape. Tripped and fell.”
“So you say.” McIntyre gazed down at me with a grimace. “And that key. You got it from young Framji?”
“No.” Why did my voice sound so hollow? I frowned, swallowed, and tried again, realizing I had to give him at least part of the truth. “His father Burjor met Satya that morning. Satya gave it to him for safekeeping.”
A lie, but a reasonable one. It had been given as collateral.
McIntyre’s gaze froze. “My God,” he rumbled. “He admitted that? Have we got the wrong Framji?”
“It’s not Burjor,” I said flatly.
“How d’you know?”
“When Adi entered the factory gate, he would have seen his own carriage waiting there. He didn’t. So Burjor had already left.”
McIntyre contemplated this, his frame rigid. When he spoke, his voice cracked like reluctant thunder. “Something you’re forgetting. Framji senior and junior, they could be in it together.”
His words chilled me. This I had not imagined, a devious collusion that defied belief. Now I considered it like a surgeon at an amputation—disliking the task but resolved to it.
Eventually I said, “No, I know these men like I know my own hands. Murder does not leave the killer unscathed. The act changes a person.”
Was that why I could no longer aim true? Diana was a superb markswoman, but I could no longer trust my aim. I recalled sepoys in my company trudging past broken bodies, the charnel we’d left along the way to Kandahar. “Some spend hours on their knees, desperate to forget, to return to how they used to be, used to feel. But it’s no good. One can’t go back. The sooner one accepts it the better. Few do.”
McIntyre scoffed. “I’ve seen blokes ice-cold after killing half a dozen.” His eyes had an unusual gleam.
I held his gaze. “I watched both Framjis. Lived with them. I’ve questioned Adi’s staff, Satya’s family, even Banner. Adi, he’s deeply hurt, grieves his friend and partner. And he’s rather stunned by Satya’s secrets. He’s learning about the mechanism of locks—these recent burglaries, got anywhere with them?”
McIntyre snapped. “What’s that got to do with it?”
“Adi’s an inventor of sorts. Wants to make a new kind of safe. Might have quite a market now. That’s how the lad thinks: problem—opportunity. He won’t take the easy way; the crudeness of crime repels him. Burjor, now, he prays in the morning just as much as he did two years ago, when I recuperated here.”
He slumped into his chair. “How on earth can you know that?”
I chuckled. “Whole house can hear him. Their Zoroastrian prayers are a singsong chant. I hear Diana most mornings. This market crash has shaken Burjor, but he’s busy trying to trade as usual. That’s his center, where his energies lie.” I said nothing about Burjor’s repeated appeals for bail—no sense poking a sleeping bear.
McIntyre leaned his bulk forward, forearms on the table. “So, who else?”
“The two employees—I’ve watched their homes, followed them, even snooped around inside. Neither has any extra cash. They have their problems, but there’s no sign of guilt eating away at them.” I said nothing about Vishal’s dead brother-in-law.
McIntyre pulled back. “Humph. So, no leads.”
I said, “Well, Satya bought a large quantity of silver.”
McIntyre picked up his fountain pen as I went on. “So, we have three possibilities. His parents—” I had a flash of memory, his mother Meera, beheading vegetables easily with a little curved knife. “Two, Jussawalla, the craftsman who sold him a pile of ingots. Or three, a customer we haven’t met yet, who paid for a murti of solid gold. People take religion seriously here. To sell a fake idol is akin to heresy. Worse, because Ganesh is the god of wealth. To cast him in gold would be seen as honor. To cloak him in gold over base silver could be seen as a betrayal of the god himself.”
“A betrayal of what? Slow down, man!”
“To us it would feel like being gypped—paid for gold, got silver. To a devout Indian, to a Hindu, it could feel like—like a debasement of his faith.” Hadn’t the whole mutiny, just thirty-some years ago, been driven by religious outrage? British administrators now avoided disrupting religious practices, no matter how cruel or unfair they might seem.
“What were you doing at the Imperial Mint? And don’t give me that hogwash about the key,” McIntyre said, dropping his anvil-like stare on me.
Blast. I felt sweat trickle down my armpits, reassembled my face to neutral respect. “That’s a separate case, sir.”
After what seemed like hours, McIntyre said, without moving, “Boy, you’re running out of rope.”
I heaved in a breath, felt my aching shoulders ease. McIntyre maintained the cold glare that reminded me of a stuffed tiger.
“I understand,” I said, wobbling to my feet. When I ducked my head in farewell, he did not move. “Right,” I said, turning to leave.
A pale English officer entered, his sweat-patched uniform indicating the rank of inspector. New to the tropics, then. Unkempt as I was, I did not expect he’d rate me a look. But he met my glance and flinched. His gaze sharpened into a frown. Damn.
I forced myself to keep a steady pace as he watched me exit.
It was the British officer who’d questioned me after the tramway accident yesterday.
The timing of McIntyre’s interrogation puzzled me. Why now? Was he preparing for Adi’s trial? I spent the rest of the morning going through my notes to collect material for Adi’s defense. After luncheon, Gurung came to tell me I had a phone call.
“Who is it?” I asked Burjor as I entered his office.
Dressed in his linen undershirt and prayer cap, Burjor gave a slow shrug. He hadn’t shaved, but his eyes were keen as he handed me the instrument.
“Yes?” I said into the mouthpiece. For a second, I heard only breathing.
“Captain sahib?” asked a low, unsteady voice.
I knew that voice. I had worked with that voice two years ago—the round-bellied sub-inspector who brought me chai whenever he could. I had not once paid for it.
“Sabrimal?”
He spoke quickly. “Sahib, you saved me from poison, remember? So I am thinking, this favor I should do in return, sahib?”
Two years ago, that sentence would have been beyond him. His mastery of English had improved. “That was long ago, Sabrimal. What’s the matter?”
He was quiet, then said, “Sahib, don’t say I told you, all right? Trial is starting soon. There is a witness. He is saying he heard your brother. He is … come and see, sahib! I must go.”
The line went silent, then a female voice spoke. “Operator seven nine, do you wish to place a call?”
“No, ma’am,” I replied, and lowered the earpiece. I held it for a moment, then gently placed it on its cradle. Heavens. I had a mole inside McIntyre’s police force!
Nodding to Burjor, I made for police headquarters without delay.
When I ambushed Smith in the corridor, he scowled. “How the devil did you know?”
I pulled him aside. “Heard about it. The trial’s starting?”
His mouth thinned. “It can’t get about, all right? We’ve got a new witness. Saw your boy arguing with the victim the day before Rastogi was killed.”
I flinched. “Did he identify Adi?”
“Official identification’s tomorrow.”
Taking his uniform hat from under his arm, he stuffed it on his head, a signal for me to leave. Yet a voice in me hollered, no! This was all wrong. Why would Adi have an altercation in the street? He shared premises with Satya, why wouldn’t they speak inside?
I followed Smith through the bullpen. “This new witness. Who found him? What’s he saying?”
Dropping into his chair, he said, “Name’s Pritam Dutta. He’s a clerk working on Queens Road. Walked in this morning with information about the death of Satya Rastogi. He has named Adi Framji. Says he heard them clear across the street.”
I scowled at this blatant nonsense. “How could he be sure who it was?”
“Says he knows your boy.” Smith shifted about in his seat, then read off the damning words from his notebook. “Your chap said, ‘You swine! I’ll kill you.’ No doubt at all about it.”
“Where’s the report?”
“Being typed up.”
Jotting down the witness’s name, I mumbled a goodbye.
Reluctant to return to Framji Mansion, I searched the bullpen. If I could just get hold of that new witness’s report … Pritam Dutta—what community was he from? It was strange, I thought, how one’s name immediately gave one a picture of the person, an expectation, however false. My own moniker was a contradiction that should not exist, yet I had no time now for the rage that usually simmered toward my irresponsible English father.
I dithered at a window, trying to decide how best to proceed. The worst hadn’t happened yet because Adi’s trial was still ahead. I gripped the windowsill, unsure what to do. Seeing the injured mali had brought back disjointed details without cohesion. I felt as though I was chasing a locomotive that would soon be out of sight.
So, it was pure chance that I spotted Sub-inspector Sabrimal leading a man out, a small, compact man in traditional dhoti-kurta and black brogues.
Wait—was that the new witness?
There was no statement in Smith’s file, because it was still being typed up! They’d kept Pritam Dutta waiting. My God! Sabrimal had called me on the telephone, while Dutta, the witness, was stashed somewhere in the constabulary. He was leaving, but I could not follow him—dressed in my civvies, I’d be easily spotted.
With no time to waste, I went the other way and charged up to McIntyre’s burly sergeant. “Have you a spare kameez?”
He blinked in incomprehension while the dratted witness was getting away. I cried, “A chador, a turban. Anything!”
Pulling open a drawer, he gestured at some folded clothes. I squatted, hauled out a dark kurta and a strip of white cloth, then peeled off my coat, vest and shirt, tossing them at his feet.
As shocked gasps hissed behind me, I donned the billowing kurta, wound a tight turban, and wrapped the chador over myself. Damn, I thought, glancing down at my trousers and army boots; they’d have to do.
Ignoring the astonished stares from policemen both native and white, I dashed through the hall and down the outer stairs. Where had Dutta got to?
Right or left? I rushed toward the market, and there spied my quarry. He’d paused watching a large group under a banyan tree where humbly clad civilians clustered around black-coated lawyers who resembled crows among a host of sparrows.
Dutta stepped across the busy street to avoid them, and then crossed back again, for he was headed toward the left.
That maneuver allowed me to catch up. His furtive manner was peculiar, the way he avoided the group, turning his face to the side. I filed it away to consider, lengthening my stride to cover the distance. As I neared, he gave a tongawala an address. Sonapur Lane.
My pulse thudded in my ears. Sonapur Lane? Satya’s family lived there. Hailing a Victoria, I leapt in, ignoring the cry of surprise from the driver. Leaning out of the window I said roughly, “Go! That way!”
The startled driver clicked to his mare and flicked his whip over its back for good measure. Leaning out of the window, I kept my eyes on Dutta’s tonga. When we were so close as to overtake the three-wheeled tonga, I called, “Slow down!”
The tonga driver pumped hard, bearing Dutta away. He turned left and we followed.
Passing Lohar Chawl, we continued on to Sonapur Lane, where Dutta descended and shook out his dhoti. He climbed up a few stairs, his black shoes stamping over colorful rangoli decorations. Then my Victoria continued and I lost sight of him. At the next intersection I pounded a fist to halt the carriage, thrust a rupee at the driver, and hurried back.
Why had this blasted bloke popped up just now? Why not earlier? An ache hammered at my temples as I strode toward his door. I wanted to choke the truth out of the blighter.
Sounds of welcome came from above the stairway. An urgent question and then “Baba!” A woman and a child, perhaps two. When their voices dropped, I could no longer distinguish the words. My quarry was speaking in rapid vernacular. Gujarati? The dialects of India numbered in the hundreds, and I could not make this one out.
Now I knew where he lived, how could I learn more? I leaned against a wall pretending to assemble a smoke as I considered how this could be better managed.
Dutta had taken pains to avoid that group at the banyan tree. So that’s where I’d start. I needed a way to question him without giving away my purpose. Why had he pointed the finger at Adi? If I got the truth from him, I might just get Adi out of that miserable cell.