Banquet on the Dead (3 page)

Nagarajan shook his head at the pipe. ‘It’s hard to tell with this one,’ he said. ‘The servants like her.’

‘So you have talked to the servants, eh?’

‘To some of them. Servants are generally the best people to approach regarding people. They see everything, hear everything, and remember everything.’

Hamid Pasha again gave him the tight-lipped smile and puffed.

Nagarajan said, ‘If the servants like a person, it jolly well means that the person is all right.’

‘Not always, miyan. Some people are especially good at keeping their servants happy. Because they know, you see,’ and his eyes twinkled, ‘that there are people like you who would come enquiring about them to their servants’.

‘Well, either way, the servants say she was an angel. I haven’t talked to members of her family much about her, to be honest.’

‘Achha. Why?’

‘Well,’ Nagarajan said, shifting a bit in his seat, ‘it’s like this—’

‘You did not find it necessary?’

‘Yes, you’re right. I did not find it necessary. It seemed like an open-and-shut case. Everyone seemed to agree that it was an accident. It seemed superfluous to question all the family members.’

‘And now?’ Hamis Pasha asked. ‘What do you feel about it now?’

‘I—don’t know. The woman’s grandson thinks that it should be looked into a bit more deeply.’

‘Achha
?
And why does he think that?’

‘He’s a doctor, this fellow. He says the woman did not drown in the water. There was no water in the lungs. He says she hit the water as a corpse.’

‘So she fell into a well?’

‘Yes, sorry, I am saying this all back-to-front.’

Hamid Pasha blew out a puff of smoke. ‘No, miyan. Say it just the way it comes to you. Very often we try to present information in a way we think other people will understand it better, but in the process we end up making it worse. You are doing just fine. Leave it to me to organise the pieces in their place.’ After a pause in which he carefully examined the rings of smoke that curled upwards, he said, ‘In a well, eh?’

‘Yes, it’s a family well—an open water one. He used to be a farmer in the old days, Kakaji. They used this well for irrigation.’ Nagarajan cleared his throat and tried his best not to cough. The room had now filled with a thin film of smoke. He wondered if he was more in danger outside at the mercy of the mosquitoes or in here at the mercy of Hamid Pasha’s hookah. He waved his hand in front of his eyes to clear the air.

‘So what do they use the well for now, miyan?’ Hamid Pasha asked at length. ‘I imagine there is no more agricultural land around the place?’

‘Yes, you’re right. There is none. There hasn’t been for a long time now. As far as I know they use the well for household needs. And as recreation, I suppose.’

‘Hain?’

‘Yes, the family is in the habit of swimming in the well. It’s a bit of a tradition, by the looks of it. The doctor has learnt swimming in that well, and now he has taught his son to swim in the same well. You know how it is.’

‘Acha. I imagine that tradition will stop now after what has happened.’

‘Yes,’ Nagarajan said. ‘I imagine it will.’

‘So what did the doctor say? He said the woman hit the water as a corpse?’

‘Yes.’

‘But that is understandable, is it not? She was a woman of eighty. Say she toppled over by accident. Her heart would be very likely to stop out of fright by the time she hit the surface, would it not?’

Nagarajan nodded. ‘That’s what I told him too. I told him that the case did not warrant looking into again. But he insisted that his grandmother had a very strong heart.’

‘But it is not a question of strong or weak, is it, miyan? It is a question of fright. I am scared of heights. If I am to fall off a building, I
know
for sure that I will hit the ground as a corpse.’ Hamid Pasha cast his pipe away, much to Nagarajan’s relief. Then he said, ‘Did the doctor say anything about the old woman’s attitude to water?’

‘You mean whether she could swim?’

Hamid Pasha impassively considered Nagarajan for a moment. ‘Miyan,’ he said, ‘the woman sank. So she obviously could not swim. What I meant was whether the doctor told you that the woman was scared of water?’

‘Oh,’ said Nagarajan, ‘the woman was terrified of water. He explicitly mentioned it to me.’

‘That is interesting, is it not? On one hand that invalidates what the doctor was saying, because if she had a natural fear of water, her heart would have likely stopped before she hit the water—but that raises another point, does it not?’ Hamid Pasha massaged his neck and looked down at Nagarajan.

‘Yes,’ said Nagarajan. ‘If she was so scared of the water, why was she at the well in the first place?’

‘
Shabhaash,
miyan! Maybe she had a daily routine which took her to the well?’

Nagarajan shook his head. ‘No, I asked him. She avoided the well like the plague. In all of his life, the doctor had not seen her come to the well even once.’

Hamid Pasha sat forward in his chair. ‘Now that is interesting. I am starting to think there might be something to it, after all.’

‘I thought so too—dash it, I wish I could just close the damned case, but there might just be something to it.’

‘Yes,’ Hamid Pasha said, stroking his beard. ‘Let us go there tomorrow, shall we, miyan, and have a look around the house? If we meet any people willing to talk, we will talk to them, ask a few questions;
poochne mein kya jaata hai
?’ It doesn’t hurt to ask, does it?

Nagarajan picked up his hat and stood up. ‘So I will see you at the station tomorrow? Let’s say, nine in the morning?’

Hamid Pasha stood up too. ‘
Zaroor,
miyan
. Khuda Hafeez.
’ Go with God.

‘Namaste.’

The door closed behind him, and as he set his hat on the head and inserted the key into his bike, he heard Hamid Pasha’s guttural voice behind him.

Kyun hume maut ki paigaam diye jaate hain
Yeh sazaa kam hai ke jiye jaate hain?
Why do I get sent the message of death;
When living is such a punishment in itself?

3

‘A
BIG HOUSE
, this,’ Hamid Pasha remarked.

They were sitting on the concrete ledge in the shade of the big neem tree opposite Kauvery Bhavan. It was a cloudless morning. The sun, faithful to its early-March duties, was beating down with purpose. Hamid Pasha spat out a mouthful of zarda into the dust and resumed his examination of the house.

It was a double-storeyed white building situated a good thirty metres in from the gate. An old oak tree stood in the front right corner of the plot and spread its branches out, framing the house rather picturesquely when viewed front-on. Even from this distance the solidity of the large teak doors and ornate design on the windows were easily visible. A staircase to the first floor started at the right edge of the house and curled out of sight behind it.

‘Yes,’ he said, agreeing wholeheartedly with his initial assessment. ‘It
is
a big house.’

‘It’s a recent construction,’ said Nagarajan. ‘There used to be an open plot here up until four years ago. The family used to live in that tiled house over there before this was built.’ He pointed at the gate.

‘Shall we take a walk, miyan?’

They got off the ledge and ambled across the road to the front gate. Hamid Pasha limped over to the still-new nameplate and fingered it gingerly. ‘It is never a good thing, is it, miyan, to name a house after a living person? It is the fastest way to kill them, it is! No? You do not believe me? Name me one person—just
one
—who has lived to a ripe old age after having a monument named after him. You cannot! Do you know why? They do not exist. If you ask me, why does one have to name buildings? And if you really have to, why not name it after a dead person?
Mara hua kutta ko kaun maar sakta hai
? Who can kill an already dead dog,
hai na?
’

Nagarajan did not respond to the question. He pointed at the smaller building with a tiled roof to the left of the house. ‘That’s where the servants live.’

‘And that is where the family used to live until four years ago?’

‘Yes.’

‘Who all live here?’ Hamid Pasha asked, following Nagarajan who had begun to walk along the compound wall.

‘All of them. The old woman, her three sons, her daughter, and their respective sons and daughters.’

‘
Hai Allah
.
Itne saare
?’ So many?

‘Only the daughter’s eldest son and his family live here. She has two other sons and a daughter. They come and go.’

The grey compound wall was smooth to the touch. It stood at a height of eight feet. At the top of the wall there were broken pieces of glass in different colours—mainly yellow and green—embedded into the concrete.

‘The well is situated just beyond this wall,’ Nagarajan said.

‘These people do not seem to like having visitors,’ said Hamid Pasha, looking up at the glass pieces.

‘Oh, they’re not that bad. Like all rich people, they think everyone wants a piece of them. If you ask me it’s just fear.’ He pointed at a small heap of sand and concrete that lay on the path. ‘They were getting it repaired here, I think. This is where the contractor’s son heard the woman as she fell over.’

Hamid Pasha frowned at the wall, then at the heap of building material. He thoughtfully chewed on his paan and spat out a mouthful. ‘I think, miyan, that you should tell me what exactly happened on the day—as they say, begin at the beginning and end at the end.’

‘It happened three days ago, on the second of March,’ said Nagarajan, ‘The body was found at five-thirty in the evening in the well by Praveen, the younger son of Venkataramana. Venkataramana is Kauvery’s youngest son.’

‘The only one that got married?’

‘Only one among the sons, yes. The time of death was placed by the doctor at five to eight hours beforehand, so that gives it a window from nine-thirty to twelve-thirty.’

Hamid Pasha asked, ‘But you said someone heard the woman fall over?’

‘Two people, actually. One is Ashok, the son of the building contractor. He was working right here and he distinctly remembered the woman’s scream followed by a splash. The other fellow is Nagesh, the gardener’s son. He was levelling some land and planting some beansprouts by the side-gate, and he heard her fall over too.’

‘Both report the same time?’

‘Slightly different, but that is to be expected. Ashok says it happened at one, and Nagesh swears it happened at five minutes to one. Close enough, I’d say. Both are absolutely sure that it was the woman’s voice. They knew her well.’

‘And the family? Anyone heard her?’

Nagarajan shook his head. ‘No, all of them were either resting in the house or were outside attending to work. None of them heard her. But some of them saw her go to the well around 12:00.’

‘Acha?’

‘Yes. There is a path leading away to the well which is in full view from the house. Three people—Kamala, Venkataramana’s wife, Lakshman, Venkataramana’s older son, and Durga, Koteshwar Rao’s wife—they all saw Kavery walking along the path towards the well. All three cite similar times. The women say twelve, and the man says five minutes to twelve.’

‘And nobody else came to the well at that time?’

‘No, nobody. Not to our knowledge, at least.’

They turned into what looked like a small lane, along the wall. It opened into the front yard of a decrepit old shed. A big, dusty lock appeared on the door. Hamid Pasha nodded at the approaching gate, with which the compound wall ended. It was designed in the same way as the first one, with black metal grilles rising up to a height of about seven feet and a latch secured with a padlock. Just outside the gate there was a patch of land newly smoothed out with good helpings of dark-brown soil, in which green saplings had been planted at regular intervals.

‘Is it not strange, miyan,’ said Hamid Pasha, ‘how they are planting bean sprouts outside their gate? Why not inside, where they have so much room?’

Nagarajan shrugged. ‘There is no real danger of stray animals here. All this land belongs to them. So they might just erect a gate over there.’ He gestured at the mouth of the lane. ‘There are always people around here too. No real danger.’

Hamid Pasha had just begun to nod when they saw someone approach the gate from the other side. She was a small, strongly built woman in her forties, with sharp, aquiline features marred only by the round shape of her face. She walked with the heavy step of someone in pain, and her eyebrows rose as she neared them, partly in irritation, partly in curiosity.

‘Yes?’ She stopped a foot beyond the gate and placed her hands on her hips, looking at Nagarajan squarely in the eye. ‘Some more formalities to complete?’

Nagarajan took off his hat and said, ‘Yes, madam. This is Hamid Pasha. He has taken an interest in this—er— situation.’

Her gaze did not waver. ‘We need no interest, Inspector.’

‘He has offered to help us.’

‘We need no help either. What we need is for you to leave us alone.’

Nagarajan glanced at his companion. The latter was looking at the woman with interest, stroking his beard and smiling faintly. He looked back at their host and said, ‘Doctor Koteshwar Rao asked us to come.’

The mention of the name had no immediate effect, but there was a gradual thaw in the woman’s manner. ‘Did he? I ought to have a word with him.’ Her arms dropped from her hips. She opened the gate and let them in. Locking it behind them, she caught up and led the way.

‘That is the well,’ she said, pointing in the direction of the bushes on the right. ‘If you walk through the bushes you will see it.’ She half-turned and addressed Hamid Pasha: ‘Would you like to see it?’

‘Later, memsaab, later. You could perhaps take us first to the house?’

She nodded and led them along the path towards the house. They passed a grimy dwelling on their left. ‘Servants’ quarters,’ the lady said. ‘The family used to live in this house before they had the big one built.’

‘So you came here as a child, memsaab? You played here? Grew up here?’

The walked for a moment in silence. Then she said tersely, ‘Yes.’