Murder in Mumbai (11 page)

He looked at the time. It had been barely fifteen minutes since his parents had gone in. They'd said one hour. So it was more likely that it would be ninety minutes to two hours. That's how things worked. You tacked on time, expected nothing else, and asked no questions.

Jay did not know when he first noticed the black BMW parked at the corner. On a normal day, he would not have paid any attention to it. But BMWs, Audis, and Mercedeses were much desired by the newly rich, and this was a solidly middle-class area. Even if someone were considered wealthy, they would spend their money on Japanese reliability, not German style: a Lexus, perhaps; certainly a Honda; definitely not a BMW 7-Series.

Jay kept his attention on the car. The windows were tinted. He could not make out if there was anyone inside. He was tempted to get up and walk past it to see, but the fear of being towed and his mother's wrath were not worth the risk. Besides, it was a car parked in the middle of the street. Nothing more than that. So what if it were a BMW? Perhaps this area was changing, too. It wouldn't be the first.

Just then Jay saw a man leave a ramshackle two-story building and approach the BMW. He wore a suit, yet did not look uncomfortable in it despite the heat. His mustache was trimmed. He wore his prosperity comfortably. The man looked around furtively before getting into the backseat, almost as if he did not want to be seen here. A moment later, the car glided away, oblivious of the stones, gravel, and potholes on the road. Jay immediately recognized the man. He'd never met him, of course, but his photograph had been in the papers recently. It was Vikram Hazra.

What was he doing here? It could be an innocent visit. But why come here when he could send a legion of peons and supplicants? It must have been important. With nothing to go on except his instinct for a story, Jay got out of his car and walked toward the building from which Hazra had emerged.

Jay looked around. There was a Xerox shop on the ground floor. College students stood in clusters, awaiting their orders of photocopied notes, pages from American biology textbooks, indifferent to the concept of copyright violations. A typist sat outside, his old Godrej typewriter replaced with a word processor, providing his services mainly for those needing legal paperwork for the courts nearby. The board on his rickety table informed the world that he was also empowered as a notary—a one-stop shop for all your legal needs. But Hazra wouldn't have come from here. He had to have been upstairs.

Jay walked to the entrance and looked at the board. On a worn wooden plate were the words Eagle Services. Something about the name jogged his memory. But what? He walked up the stairs to investigate. He tried the door, but it was locked. He looked for a bell, but there wasn't one. What had Hazra been doing here?

Jay realized he had to get back to the car, but he had to do one more thing. He walked down the stairs and walked up to the typist.

“Bhai sahib,” he said, big brother. “Eagle Services?” He pointed up.

The typist looked at him with curiosity. “You have to make an appointment.”

“What do they do?”

“If you don't know, why are you asking?”

“A friend told me about them.”

“Then ask your friend what they do,” the typist said, laughing at his own joke.

“Is there a number I can call?”

“Sorry. Besides, I have work to do,” he said, pointing to the pile of papers he had to type up. “You know how much money I'm losing just by talking to you?”

Jay knew where this was headed.

“Sorry, bhai sahib,” he said. “I would like to compensate you for your loss.”

“Achcha,” the typist replied, smiling.

Jay removed his wallet and prayed that he had some money in it—an amount this man would not consider insulting. He took out two one hundred rupee notes. About $2.50. The man's smile broadened. He took it.

“They're an investigating agency,” he said. “Very discreet. No one is supposed to know, even me. But their secretary left early one day to be with her boyfriend and gave me some papers to type. I put two and two together.” He looked content with his intelligence.

“What do they investigate?” Jay asked.

“Think of them more as problem solvers,” he said. “Yes. Problem solvers.”

“What kind?”

“Use your imagination, son. They're discreet. Have an office in a crappy building, but their clientele drive Mercedes and BMW cars. So probably not errant spouses.”

Jay smiled. “You've been a big help, bhai sahib,” he said.

But the man had already gone back to his typing.

* * *

Excited, Jay returned to his car. It was still there, just as he had left it. Later, his parents emerged from inside the clinic. His mother looked stoic. His father, with an eye patch, looked like a dissipated pirate. Jay smiled at them.

His mother didn't smile back. His father's effort was half-hearted.

“All good?” Jay asked.

“Yes,” his mother replied. “We need to come back tomorrow, though, to take the patch off.”

“That didn't take much time,” Jay said.

“They said an hour,” his mother said. “It took ninety minutes. No one in this country has any concept of time. They say one thing and do another. No respect for anyone.”

Jay smiled to himself and drove them home, making small talk all the way. But all he could think of was what Vikram Hazra was doing at Eagle Services.

Chapter 11

All Gaikwad could think about during his morning walk, despite Chitre's best efforts to engage him in conversation about a flat sold in their building, was what Barton's driver had told him. Immediately after the identification of the body, Gaikwad had spoken to John Barton, Hazra, Khurana, and Kohli, and though, in the back of his mind, he tried to find motives for each man he interviewed, he'd hoped that the killing was a random one. But the driver's revelations had been instructive to say the least: Barton had known of the threat to his wife's life though he said nothing about it; the driver had overheard a loud argument between Liz Barton and Hazra a week before she died; he'd seen Khurana with her several times and, perhaps most incriminating, he'd seen Kohli visit Barton only a few hours before her death.

Kohli, of course, had an explanation for it. He'd said that she was offering him money. Before that interview, Gaikwad had held Kohli in high regard, but the conversation had burst another bubble. Kohli was as dirty as the rest of them.
We live in an era of no heroes,
Gaikwad thought.

It would have been too easy, he thought, had only one of their stories been inconsistent, but now three people he'd spoken to would have to be questioned again—and this time the conditions of the questioning wouldn't be as sympathetic.

* * *

He decided to start his day with a visit to Hazra. He rode his bike to the Mohini office, weaving through the traffic that inched forward. He was tired by the time he got there.
Not the best way to start the day,
he thought.

He walked past the giant statue of two hands enveloping the Earth, which had become a city landmark, into the cavernous marble foyer. A pretty young woman wearing a headset sat behind a lone desk. Inside, the furniture and style had the efficiency of Scandinavian design, incongruous amid the chaos and inefficiency of the city. Workers streamed in, others walked out for smoke breaks or other appointments. They all looked at him, but pretended not to. The only uniformed person most of them interacted with was the security guard in their residential high rises. Gaikwad felt ill at ease here in his uniform. It drew both overt and covert attention. Perhaps, he thought, he should have come in mufti.

“Yes,” asked the pretty young woman behind the desk.

“I'm here to meet Hazra.”

“What is this regarding?”

“I'm with the police. Please tell him I'm here.”

She dialed a number on a phone he couldn't see and whispered silently into the mic.

“Top floor,” she said. “He'll be waiting.”

* * *

The first thing Gaikwad noticed—you couldn't help but notice it—was the view from the giant window behind Hazra's desk. It was as if you could reach out and touch the other skyscrapers, temples to Mammon that reached up as high as the eye could see. The view, Gaikwad thought, was one that could lull someone into a false—perhaps
one-sided
might be a better term—sense of the city's affluence. Now it was easy to explain the confident demeanor of people who sat in offices like this: It was positively empowering.

“Impressive, isn't it?” Hazra said as he looked up from his computer toward Gaikwad.

The inspector was a little embarrassed that he was caught gawking.

“I don't often get an opportunity to see Mumbai from this high up,” he replied.

“It makes you giddy,” Hazra said, smiling, and without missing a beat, “So what can I do for you, inspector?”

The tone was friendly.

“I have some more questions about the American's death.”

“Oh?”

“What was your relationship with her like?”

“We've been through this inspector,” Hazra said, the smile not leaving his face, but his tone becoming distinctly icy. “We were colleagues. I was passed over for a promotion. But we worked well together. At the end of the day, inspector, all I care about is Mohini. I'm here for the company and to serve its interests and that's what I do.”

“Let me go over this again then, sir, just to be sure: You had a good working relationship with her, but you also had the most to gain from her out of the way. I mean, you're in her office now, aren't you? The one with the nice views?”

“Inspector, that's crossing the line. I kept to my office for a little while after her death, but I'm running the show now and its location is more central.”

“Plus, the views are nicer, I bet.”

“What are you getting at?” The smile had left Hazra's face.

“Let me tell you my problem, sir: You tell me you had nothing to gain from her death and that you had a good working relationship with her, but during the course of our investigation, I've learned that you paid Gaja Kohli to protest against Mohini. If all you care about is what's best for the company, why would you do that?”

The blood drained from Hazra's face. He was no longer a man at ease. He took a few moments to compose himself, but it was enough time for Gaikwad to know that whatever would come out of the man's mouth next would either be an evasion or an outright lie.

“How did you come by this information?” The composure had returned to his voice and face.

“We can't reveal that.”

“Well, it's an absurd suggestion. I don't even know who Gaja Kohli is.”

“Sir,” Gaikwad said, “please don't make this difficult. We have evidence that you not only met Kohli but spoke to him several times. We have phone records to prove it.”

Hazra paused for a moment. “How is your boss, DCP Khan, inspector? You know, he and I play golf together.”

“I'm happy to hear that, sir,” Gaikwad replied. “Perhaps you'd be happier answering questions from him than me.”

Hazra became quiet. For a moment, he seemed to weigh his options. “I just told him to protest against the company. Not kill her.”

“Can you repeat that loudly, sir?”

“I just told him to protest against the company. Make her uncomfortable. Not kill her.”

“So you did speak to him?”

“Yes.”

“And what was the nature of your conversation?”

“You already seem to know that.”

“Yes, but we want to know if your version tallies with ours.”

Hazra looked around the room. He seemed to focus on the mantel with the photographs of his family. “I had nothing to do with her death. Nothing. It's true that I spoke to Kohli and asked him to target her for protests. But that was only to scare her. I wanted to be in charge of the company.” He paused. “That position should have been mine. I was all but assured it before they gave it to an unqualified foreigner. But I would never kill her. I would never kill anyone. I just wanted to scare her away back to America.”

“So who did the work? Kohli? Who made the threats? You or he?”

“What threats? I don't know about any threats. I didn't ask him to do that. I don't know how far he went.”

“Did Kohli kill her?”

“I don't know. My instructions were only to scare her away.”

“Sir, understand my problem,” Gaikwad said. “A woman is dead. You wanted her job. You asked an activist to follow her to scare her back to America. But you say you don't know if he left her threats on your behalf. You say you don't know if he killed her. Why should I believe you?”

“I'm telling the truth, inspector.” His voice was hushed.

“We've also come by another bit of information.”

“Oh?”

“Which is why it might be helpful if you told us what you know rather than us carrying out a conversation of this nature.”

Hazra thought for a moment. “I have nothing to add.”

“Yet, we know that a week before Liz Baar-Tone left for Singapore you were spotted having a loud argument with her.”

“It's that bloody driver isn't it?”

“Answer the question, sir.”

Hazra looked defeated. “Yes. We had an argument.”

“About?”

“Company matters.”

“We're in the midst of a murder investigation, sir. Let me be the judge of whether the matter is company-related or not. And if you choose not to cooperate, we can continue this conversation in the comforts of the police station.”

“We fought about Kabir Khurana.”

“Khurana?”

“Yes. She was spending an awful amount of time with him. Frankly, I thought they were sleeping together.”

“And that bothered you?”

“No. I don't care. My concern was the company. I was afraid he was using her to elicit company information. After all, it's well-known that Khurana Enterprises lost the energy contract to us, and Kabir Khurana is not someone who takes a loss lying down.”

“So you were angry?”

“Yes,” he said, whispering. “Yes, I was. That bloody woman was destroying this company.”

“And did you threaten her?”

“Threaten?” Hazra sounded incredulous. “I threatened to tell the board in London. I didn't care what happened to her. She could have died for all I cared. I only cared about Mohini.”

Hazra paused at his own words. He looked embarrassed.

“I didn't mean that, inspector,” he said apologetically. “I've never wished anyone ill in my life. I just cared about the company.”

“And your position in it, no doubt, sir.”

“Ambition is not a bad thing, inspector.”

“No sir. It's not. But how far one goes with it can be. How far did you go, sir, to stop her?”

“I didn't kill her, inspector. I'm telling the truth. I can only speak for my actions, not for Kohli's or anyone else's. But you know, there was one other person who wanted her out of the way?”

“Who?”

“Her husband.”

“How do you know that?”

Hazra sighed and looked down toward the floor. “I told her husband.”

“What?”

“I told her husband.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That his wife was spending an inordinate amount of time with Kabir Khurana.”

“How did he react?”

“He flew into a rage. Began calling her names.”

“But he was having an affair, too?”

“Inspector, don't ask me to explain human nature. I was hoping he'd react in a way that would lead both of them to leave the country.”

“But that didn't happen.”

“No. She was dead a few days later.”

“Sir, I don't need to tell you this, but you might have directly contributed to her death by inciting her husband.”

“Look, I didn't mean for her to die. If I could take it back, I'd do it differently. I just had Mohini's best interests at heart.”

“And your own, too.”

“Yes,” he said, almost silently. “Yes.”

“And you'd go to any length to protect them?”

“Yes,” Hazra said, before he realized what that admission could entail. “But I wouldn't kill anyone.”

“You've been very helpful, sir,” Gaikwad said. “I'll return if I have any more questions, and if you remember anything else, call me.”

* * *

Gaikwad cursed the traffic as he rode back to Nepean Sea Road from Nariman Point. Gaikwad wore no helmet; a white handkerchief covered his mouth and nose to keep the pollution at bay. In the wind, it flapped up and down, rendering it useless.

He arrived at the building, once again passing the American consulate with its endless line outside. He dismounted and walked through the gate. The watchman recognized him and smiled. Gaikwad had called him from Hazra's office to ensure the American was, in fact, home. He wanted to surprise John Barton. Gaikwad smiled back and waved, walked to the elevator. Magically, the liftman pressed 11.

* * *

John Barton opened the door. He looked disheveled. He hadn't shaved and his growth was fast crossing over from being stubble to becoming hair. His eyes were red and swollen. Gaikwad could smell the odor of alcohol tinged with sweat. He stared at Gaikwad vacantly, as if trying to place him. Gaikwad saw a flicker of recognition.

“Yes, inspector?” he said, but with the monotone with which one might greet a stranger.

“I had some questions about the case.”

“This is not a good time, inspector.”

“I'm afraid it's urgent.”

“Look. I've helped all I can. I just want to be left alone.”

“We've come across some new information . . .”

“I don't care,” Barton said loudly. “I don't. I'm sorry.”

“Mr. Baar-Tone, we can either have a conversation now or I can take you in handcuffs to the police station.”

John looked resigned. Gaikwad was glad he didn't create a scene, or threaten to call the consulate or do other things that foreigners did when they became involved with the law in the city. Barton moved aside and let Gaikwad enter.

The room was starkly different from the last time he was here. For one thing, it was in disarray. Unwashed clothes lay on the floor. Half-eaten plates of food and half-full glasses of drinks lay on tables. The artwork on the wall was the lone sign that this room once possessed order.

“Well, what do you want?”

“Why didn't you tell me about the threats to your wife?”

The antagonism became subdued. Gaikwad could see him fold. Barton slumped to the couch, buried his head between his knees, and held his temples. Gaikwad gave him time to become composed.

“I should have told you.”

“Yes. You should have. Why didn't you?” Gaikwad said, his voice growing louder.

“I wanted to leave this bloody place. I couldn't bear it. She loved it here. I just wanted to go back home.”

Gaikwad decided to grope in the dark for the truth. It was an old tactic. Say something you suspect and hope the suspect corroborates it. He decided he'd go for it.

“So you threatened her? Made those threats?”

“Yes,” Barton mumbled. “Yes. I didn't mean anything by it. I just wanted to scare her so we could go back home. I just wanted it to be the way it was. Before we came here. Before we became other people.”