The Case of the Missing Servant

Eighteen

Brigadier Kapoor called while Puri was on the way to see Munnalal. It was his third attempt in as many hours, but the detective had been too busy to pick up earlier.

"Puri! I've been trying to reach you all day! What is your present location?" he demanded as soon as the detective answered.

"Sir, I'm out-of-station, working on a most crucial and important case-"

"More important than mine, is it?" scoffed Brigadier Kapoor indignantly.

"Sir, honestly speaking, my commitment and dedication to your case is one hundred and ten percent. Just an emergency-type situation was there and it became necessary for me to leave Delhi right away for a day or two."

Puri sounded unreservedly conciliatory. He was, after all, in Brigadier Kapoor's employ, albeit temporarily, and it was expected that an employer would periodically berate his or her employees to keep them in line. If the detective had been in his client's shoes, he would have probably done the same. How had the Marathi poet Govindraj put it? "Hindu society is made up of men who bow their heads to the kicks from above and who simultaneously give a kick below."

"I don't want to hear excuses!" barked Brigadier Kapoor, sounding as if he were back on the parade ground. "An entire week has passed without a word. I've not received one piece of intelligence! Now report!"

In fact, it had only been five days since Puri had agreed to take on the case, and in that time, the Most Private Investigators team had been anything but idle. As he explained, his top two researcher-cum-analysts had been doing the initial footwork: getting hold of Mahinder Gupta's financial statements and phone records and analyzing all the data for anything suggestive or suspicious. At the same time, Puri's operative Flush had been ingratiating himself with the target's servants and neighbors.

He had also been going through the subject's garbage.

"Trash Analysis" was standard procedure in any matrimonial case, "Waste not, know not!" being one of the detective's catchphrases. The stub of an airline boarding pass or a cigarette butt smeared with lipstick had, in the past, been enough to wreck the marriage plans of more than a few aspirants.

Fortunately, getting hold of people's garbage was a cinch. Indian detectives were much luckier than their counterparts in, say, America, who were forever rooting around in people's dustbins down dark, seedy alleyways. In India, one could simply purchase an individual's trash on the open market.

All you had to do was befriend the right rag picker. Tens of thousands of untouchables of all ages still worked as unofficial dustmen and women across the country. Every morning, they came pushing their barrows, calling, "Kooray Wallah!" and took away all the household rubbish. In the colony's open rubbish dump, surrounded by cows, goats, dogs and crows, they would sift through piles of stinking muck by hand, separating biodegradable waste from the plastic wrappers, aluminium foil, tin cans and glass bottles.

Flush had had no difficulty whatsoever scoring Gupta's garbage, even though he lived on his own in a posh complex called Celestial Tower, which, according to a hoarding outside the front gate, provided a "corporate environment" in which residents could "Celebrate the New India!" But so far, Puri's promising young operative had discovered nothing incriminating.

"No condom, no booze, no taapshelf magazine," he'd told his boss the day before on the phone.

Gupta subscribed to publications such as The Economist and The Wall Street Journal Asia . He was strictly veg and ate a lot of curd and papayas. His only tipple apart from Diet Coke was Muscle Milk, a sports drink. He also used a number of different hair-and skin-care products.

Socially, he mixed in corporate circles and attended conferences with titles like BPO in the Financial Sector-Challenges & Opportunities. He visited the temple once a week and kept a small puja shrine in his bedroom, complete with photographs of his parents, who lived in Allahabad, and a number of effigies, including Ganesh, Hanuman and the goddess Bahuchar Mata.

Gupta employed a cook, who came for two hours in the afternoon; a sweeper, who, along with the floors, was charged with washing the three bathroom-cum-toilets every day; and a cleaner who was responsible for wiping everything the sweeper wasn't assigned to do.

The latter had told Flush that her employer was a private man who was meticulously tidy. Her only gripe was that he had recently purchased a "dhobi machine," which she resented because it had robbed her of the income she had been earning from washing his clothes.

The sweeper had grumbled about the low pay and the fact that Gupta shed a lot of hair, which blocked the shower drain in the master-bathroom-cum-toilet. She'd also had plenty to say about the memsahib down the hallway, who was apparently carrying on with another housewife in flat 4/67.

Gupta's driver had not divulged any salacious secrets about his employer either. The two bottles of Old Monk rum with which Flush had plied him had elicited no stories of "three-to-the-bed" orgies, nights of cocaine-fueled debauchery or illicit visits to secret love children. Apparently, Gupta spent most evenings either playing golf or watching golf on ESPN.

"He's an oversmart kind of guy," Flush had concluded.

Ordinarily at this stage in a matrimonial case, Puri would have advised his client against any further investigation. But he wasn't leaving anything to chance and had his team go to phase two.

Flush had been charged with tapping the subject's phone lines and tailing him. And that very evening, assuming he could make it back to Delhi, Puri was planning to gate-crash a premarriage party Gupta was having in his apartment, to plant a couple of bugs.

Puri explained the plan to Brigadier Kapoor, but he still sounded dissatisfied.

"What about his qualifications? Have you checked on them?" he asked.

"Gupta attended Delhi University as advertised. That much is confirmed."

"Any girly friends?"

"We did interviews with two batchmates. Both told that Gupta kept himself to himself. A very studious fellow, it seems. Didn't so much as talk to females. No reports of hanky-panky. Equally, he was strictly teetotal. Never touched so much as one drop of alcohol or bhang."

"Other marriages?"

"We're getting on top of the registers, sir."

"What about his time in Dubai? What was he doing there?"

"Working for a U.S. bank. I've contacted my counterpart in West Asia. A highly proficient fellow. He's asking around."

"Any affairs?"

"With females, sir?"

"Males, females-anything?"

"No indication, sir."

Brigadier Kapoor let out an exasperated sigh.

"Listen, Puri, I want you on the case around the clock," he reiterated. "Time is running short. The marriage is only three weeks away. I'm more convinced than ever that something is not right with this man. He came for tea the other day to meet my dear wife and I could see it in his eyes. As plain as day. There's something missing.

"Now," Brigadier Kapoor carried on, after clearing his throat. "I know a thing or two about men, Puri. When you've fought alongside them, sent them into battle, seen them felled by enemy fire and bleeding to death in front of your very eyes, you become a good judge of a man's character. This man is hiding something and I want to know what it is. I'll expect to hear from you day after."

Munnalal lived at the far end of a long, dirty lane overhung with a rat's nest of exposed wires and crisscrossing cables. Caught within these tendrils, like bugs in a spider's web, forlorn paper kites and plastic bags floundered.

The lane and its narrower tributaries, which branched off into a seemingly endless warren, were lined with terraces of tall, narrow brick houses. Their diminutive front doors were overlaid with iron latticework and daubed with red swastikas to ward off the evil eye.

Puri had to abandon the Ambassador at the far end of the lane and proceed on foot.

He was acutely conscious of how conspicuous he appeared in such impoverished surroundings. Many of those he passed eyed him with apprehension, assuming, no doubt, that he was a plainclothes cop, government official or rich landlord.

A woman sitting on the front step of her home, picking lice from her daughters' hair, dropped her gaze when she spotted Puri drawing near. Farther on, three old men crouched on their haunches against a wall, turned, looked him up and down through narrowed eyes and then muttered surreptitious comments about him to one another.

Only the neighborhood's squealing children, who ran back and forth playing with all manner of makeshift toys-metal rims of bicycle wheels, inflated condoms-were not intimidated by the detective's official bearing. Grinning from ear to ear, they cried with outstretched hands, "Hello, Mister! One pen!"

Fortunately, no one paid any attention to Tubelight, who led the way, walking ten steps ahead of the detective without giving any indication that they were together. Dressed in the simple garb of a laborer, he had spent the past few hours in one of the neighborhood eateries, playing teen patta with a group of local men.

Gleaning information about Munnalal, who was not well liked in the neighborhood, had proven easy. Word was that he had come into a good deal of money in the past few months and gone from driving the cars of rich sahibs to owning a Land Cruiser of his own. He hired out the vehicle in the local transport bazaar, mostly to "domestic tourists" visiting Rajasthan from elsewhere in India.

"They say he's got a new plasma television, too," Tubelight had told Puri when the two had rendezvoused on the edge of the Hatroi neighborhood twenty minutes earlier and the operative had reported all he'd learned. "It's his Koh-i-noor. Spends his days sitting and staring at it."

Cricket was Munnalal's main staple, along with Teacher's Fine Blend.

"He's completely tulli most days," Tubelight had added. "A heavy punter as well. Into the bookies for twenty thousand."

The local lassi-wallah had also proven a mine of information. Over a couple of glasses of his refreshing yogurt drink, he'd told Tubelight that Munnalal was a wife beater. On a number of occasions the vendor had spotted bruises on Munnalal's wife's face and around her neck.

The man sitting on the side of the lane, selling padlocks, combs and wall posters of Hindu and Bollywood deities, had confirmed this. He'd also told Tubelight that Munnalal often fought with his neighbors. Recently there had been a dispute over a wall shared with the Gujjar family. It had resulted in a punch-up. Munnalal had put his neighbor in the hospital with a concussion and a broken arm.

"Sounds like quite a charmer, isn't it?" Puri had commented.

"Want me to keep an eye on him, Boss?" Tubelight had asked. "See what he gets up to?"

"Such a fool will provide his own rope," the detective had replied sagely. "I'm going to shake his tree and see what falls to earth."

"You're going to do a face-to-face?"

"Why not? I'm feeling sociable! Let us pay Shri Munnalal a visit. Lead the way."

Puri soon reached the house and banged on the door. It was answered by a harried-looking woman with a bruise on her cheek, who looked him up and down suspiciously and demanded to know what he wanted.

"You're Munnalal's wife?" asked the detective in Hindi in a deep, authoritative voice.

"What of it?"

"Go tell him he has a visitor."

"He's busy."

"Go tell him. Don't waste my time."

The woman hesitated for a moment and then let Puri in.

"Wait here," she said as she went to fetch her husband.

By now Puri, who was wearing his aviator sunglasses, was standing on the edge of a small courtyard scattered with a few children's toys and bucket of wet laundry waiting to be hung on the clothesline. In one corner, a charpai leaned against the dusty wall.

TV cricket commentary blared from an open door on the other side of the enclosure. A moment later, it suddenly stopped and Puri could make out the woman's scolding voice followed by a man's. He was speaking Rajasthani, which the detective didn't understand, but his tone was suggestive of someone less than pleased at being interrupted.

A moment later Munnalal appeared at the door to inspect his visitor.

One look at Puri caused him to stand a little straighter and to thrust the bottom of his vest into the top of his loose-fitting trousers. There was no hiding the fact, however, that he was a man loath to shift from his favorite mattress. Fat-faced, with a gut spilling over his waist, he had not shaved in days. Stubble had taken root on his bloated throat like black fungus, spreading over his chin and cheeks and threatening to engulf the rest of his features. His sunken eyes were bloodshot. And his vest, which failed to contain the great bunches of hair that protruded from his armpits, was dotted with spots of grease.

Still, what Munnalal lacked in looks and appearance, he evidently made up for in shrewdness. In Puri, he instantly recognized a threat. Rather than demanding to know his visitor's identity and purpose, he turned on the charm.

"Welcome to my home, sir," he said in Hindi with a smarmy smile.

"You're Munnalal?" asked Puri with a perfunctory handshake, almost overcome by the stench of booze on the man's breath.

"Yes, sir."

"I've come to offer you some help."

"Help? Me, sir?" he said, surprised. "How can I refuse?"

"You can't," said Puri.

With a half-quizzical look, Munnalal offered the detective a plastic deck chair in the shade on the east side of the courtyard.

"Make yourself comfortable, sir," he said before disappearing back into his room and calling his wife to bring the two of them refreshments.

When Munnalal reemerged a few minutes later, he had put a comb through his greasy hair and changed into a clean white salwar.

"So, sir, what can I do for you?" he asked Puri, drawing up a chair opposite his guest. He offered Puri a cigarette and then lit one of his own.

"I need some information," replied the detective.

"Ask me anything," he said grandly with a broad grin and a flourish of his hands.

"I understand you used to drive for Mr. and Mrs. Ajay Kasliwal."

"That's right," replied Munnalal. "I was with Sir and Madam for a year or so."

"So you knew the maidservant Mary?"

Munnalal's grin froze.

"Yes, sir. I knew her," he said, cautiously. "Is that what this is about?"

"You knew her well?"

"Not well-" Munnalal broke off, clearing his throat nervously. "Sir, why all these questions? Who are you-sir?"

Puri explained that he was a private detective from Delhi working for Ajay Kasliwal. Munnalal digested this information for a moment with a troubled frown, drawing on his cigarette a little harder each time.

"They're saying on the TV that Sahib murdered the girl," said Munnalal, exhaling a cloud of smoke.

"Ajay Kasliwal is innocent. Someone set him up. I'd like to know what you know about it."

Munnalal forced a laugh.

"Me? What could I know? I'm just a driver, sir."

"You were a driver. But from what I hear you've gone up in the world. They say you're a rich man these days."

"Who says that?" Munnalal asked skeptically.

"Your neighbors, mostly," said Puri. "They say you live like a maharaja. Munnalal-sahib they call you. Apparently, you drink Angrezi liquor. You bet big sums on cricket. Seems you've come into a lot of money recently."

Munnalal shifted uneasily in his chair. "It's my business how I live."

"Where did the money come from?"

"An uncle died and left me his house," he said defiantly.

"An uncle?"

"He was childless. I was his favorite."

Puri surveyed Munnalal with patient eyes.

"What can you tell me about the night Mary disappeared, August twenty-first?"

"Nothing, sir."

"Nothing at all?" Puri smiled. "Come now, you must know something. Where were you that evening?"

"I took Sahib to a hotel and waited for him in the car park."

"You didn't go back to the house?"

"Not until later when I dropped him home-that was around one in the morning."

Munnalal stubbed out the end of his cigarette and quickly lit another one.

"That's strange," said Puri, whose hands were folded neatly in his lap. "I'm told you were at the house at around eleven o'clock and carried Mary's body from her room to the back of the vehicle."

"Who told you that?" exploded Munnalal, his eyes filled with venom.

"That's not important," answered the detective coolly. "What is important is that you tell me exactly what happened at Raj Kasliwal Bhavan on August twenty-first. Otherwise I might have to pass on what I already know to Inspector Rajendra Singh Shekhawat. Perhaps you know him? No. Well, he's a very energetic young officer. I'm sure he's good at getting people to talk."

Abruptly, Munnalal pushed back his chair and stood up. For a moment the detective thought he might lunge. But instead, he began to pace back and forth, regarding Puri like a caged tiger.

"You were there that evening, weren't you?" said the detective.

"I never left the hotel car park. The other drivers will back me up."

Puri slipped his sunglasses down the bridge of his nose and stared at Munnalal over the top of them.

"I have a witness who saw you carry the body from Mary's room to Mr. Kasliwal's Tata Sumo."

"I never murdered anyone!" shouted Munnalal.

Puri held up a calming hand. "There's no need to get angry. As long as you cooperate you've got nothing to worry about."

Just then, Munnalal's wife emerged from the kitchen bearing two metal cups of water on a tray. She served Puri first and then her husband. Munnalal downed the contents in big gulps. Then he handed the empty cup to his wife, fished out a few rupees from his shirt pocket and sent her out to buy him another packet of cigarettes.

"What do you want?" asked Munnalal when they were alone again.

Puri placed the cup of water on the ground untouched.

"What any person wants? To be comfortable."

Munnalal's lip twisted into a knowing sneer.

"How comfortable?"

"That depends. First I want to know what happened at Raj Kasliwal Bhavan that night."

"What if I refuse to talk?"

"I don't need to tell you what the police will do to you to get a confession."

Munnalal grunted knowingly and sat down again. A long silence ensued as he weighed his options.

"Sir, I never killed that girl," he said, sounding conciliatory. "She tried to kill herself."

His words were met with an expression of cold skepticism.

"That's the truth," insisted Munnalal. "I went to her room and found her lying on the floor. There was blood everywhere. She'd cut her wrists."

"What business did you have going to her room?"

Munnalal faltered. "I…she…she owed me money. I went to collect it."

Puri sighed. "Don't lie to me or it will be the worse for you. Now tell me: why did you go to her room?"

"I already told you, sir!" protested Munnalal. "I went to her room to collect the five hundred rupees she'd borrowed from me. She was lying there covered in blood. She'd used a kitchen knife. But she was still alive. So I tied her wrists with cloth to stop the bleeding, carried her to the Sumo and drove to the clinic."

"Then what?"

"The nurse took her in. That was the last I saw of Mary."

"What was the name of the clinic?"

"Sunrise."

Puri took out his notebook and wrote down the name.

"Then what did you do?" he asked.

"I returned to the hotel to pick up Sahib."

There was a pause.

"You had blood on your clothes?"

"A little but I washed it off."

"And the knife? How can you explain it ending up in the garden behind the house?"

Munnalal shrugged.

"Someone else must have thrown it there."

"You never touched it?"

"When I first entered the room, I picked it up. But I didn't return to the room after that."

"Did you inform anyone the next morning?"

"No."

"Why not?"

Munnalal looked cornered. He took another long, hard drag on his cigarette and said, unconvincingly, "It could have meant trouble for me."

Puri pushed his sunglasses back up the bridge of his nose.

"Let me tell you what I think really happened," he said. "You went to that room to have your way with Mary. Probably it wasn't the first time. She turned a knife on you. There was a scuffle and you stabbed her. Maybe she died then and there. Or, like you say, she was still alive. Either way, you carried her to the Sumo and drove away. Later, you came back to the house and cleaned up the blood, got rid of her things and threw away her knife. Probably you also went into the house and took a silver frame to make it look like she'd stolen it and run away."

"I told you, I didn't murder her and I never stole anything either," objected Munnalal. "Go to the Sunrise Clinic and they'll tell you she was brought in alive."

Puri stood up.

"I'll do that," he said. "But there is still the matter of the knife and the witness who saw you remove the body."

"Sir, I'm sure we can come to some arrangement," Munnalal said. "I'm a reasonable man."

"When you're ready to tell me the whole truth, then we'll find out how reasonable you can be," said the detective. He handed Munnalal his card. "You've got until tomorrow morning. If I don't hear from you before then, I'll tell Inspector Shekhawat everything I know."