The Perplexing Theft of the Jewel in the Crown (22 page)

After the door had closed Poppy rushed in from the corridor where she had been anxiously wearing a hole in the floor. Rangwalla had insisted on handling the questioning alone. He had interrogated thousands of suspects in his life; it was something that required experience and patience. It was no task for an amateur.

At least Banarjee had seen the wisdom of leaving it to a professional. The chastened martinet had retired to his office. Rangwalla suspected the old man had no desire to face those responsible for his humiliation.

‘Did they confess?' Poppy asked breathlessly.

‘No.'

‘What about Fonseca? He is a good boy at heart. I am sure if we work on him he will blurt out the truth.'

‘Perhaps,' said Rangwalla. ‘But I would not bet on it. Wadia is the leader of that pack. I doubt Fonseca would be willing to cross him.'

‘But then what do we do? We cannot just let them get away with it.'

Rangwalla scratched thoughtfully at his beard. He was thinking about Wadia's supercilious expression and that parting wink. The boy was arrogant. Like many criminals Rangwalla had met Wadia believed he was smarter than everyone around him, too smart to ever get caught.

‘I may have a plan,' he said eventually. ‘I need to see Principal Lobo. We will require his help.'

The party was well underway.

As Chopra looked on from the shadows of his office, a group of uniformed policemen stood and raised a toast to a senior officer seated in their midst. A chorus of ‘For he's a jolly good fellow' rose above the piped restaurant music. The man of the hour, who Chopra vaguely knew, stumbled to his feet, feigned surprise, and thanked his colleagues profusely.

The door to the kitchen swung open.

Rosie Pinto advanced on the senior officer behind a vertiginous birthday cake that wobbled enticingly atop a silver dessert trolley.

Chopra frowned. He had had enough of birthdays and birthday cakes to last him a good long while.

Following his ignominious exit from Bulbul Kanodia's bungalow he had returned home to shower and change out of his cake-splattered clown suit. Bahadur, the apartment complex's security guard, had almost fallen from his stool at the sight of Chopra in his outlandish get-up.

Having scrubbed himself to a high sheen, Chopra had dressed and then gone to fetch Ganesha.

At Cross Maidan he had discovered a despondent Tiger Singh.

It seemed that Bulbul Kanodia had been so displeased with the destruction of his daughter's cake that he had cancelled the festivities there and then, and banished the troupe from his home. Aarti Kanodia had flung herself to the lawn and thumped the grass with her fists, wailing at the ruination of her grand day. Incensed by his daughter's distress, Kanodia had refused to pay the circus performers.

The dwarves, who did not take such things lightly, had turned violent.

Furniture had been broken. Guests had been abused. Threats had been made.

Eventually the police had been called.

It had taken Chopra the rest of the day to fix the mess.

He had hurried to the Bandra police station where the dwarves had been detained. By enlisting the help of an old police contact he had engineered their prompt release. He had then written out a cheque for Tiger Singh to cover the circus's losses. Finally, he had invited the entire troupe to a complimentary meal at his restaurant, which they had declined, the dwarves having made up their mind to visit a ladies bar instead to help them recover from their bad mood.

‘You are a gentleman, Chopra,' Tiger Singh had sighed, ‘even if you are not much of a clown.'

Chopra walked out through the restaurant's kitchen and into the rear courtyard, where he found Ganesha hunkered down under the mango tree, investigating fallen mangoes with his trunk and picking out the best ones. He liked to line them up before popping them into his mouth one by one. It was a game, one of a number Ganesha had recently invented.

Chopra was continually amazed by how the little elephant developed in new and intriguing ways each and every day. Ganesha was still decked out in his colourful outfit, a gift from the circus troupe for his extraordinary debut.

Chopra settled into his rattan chair and considered his next course of action.

He now had in his possession what he believed to be compelling proof of Bulbul Kanodia's involvement in the theft of the Crown of Queen Elizabeth from the Prince of Wales Museum. Chopra believed that the card he had discovered was an invitation to a gathering where Kanodia would attempt to auction the Koh-i-Noor diamond to unscrupulous buyers.

Had he still been an officer of the Brihanmumbai Police Chopra would have passed the invite – along with his suspicions – to his seniors. He would have allowed those best placed in the service to deal with the matter.

But the fact was that he was no longer part of the police service.

What's more, he did not trust a man like Suresh Rao to give due consideration to any evidence that he, Chopra, had unearthed. ACP Rao was the sort to cut off his own nose to spite his face. And Rao had gone out on a limb with his own seniors by arresting Garewal – he would not change course now.

The only thing that could save Garewal was if Chopra produced the Koh-i-Noor and with it a red-handed Kanodia. The more he thought about it the more certain he felt that this was the correct course of action.

A bucket clanked in the gathering darkness.

Chopra turned, expecting to see young Irfan. But it was Rosie Pinto who came striding across the courtyard, the steel pail swinging by her side.

‘Good evening, sir.'

‘Good evening, Rosie.'

He watched as Ganesha stirred from his well-earned rest and lumbered to his feet to greet Irfan. Ganesha froze.

His ears flapped once. He peered behind Rosie, then, not spotting Irfan, raised his trunk and sniffed the air.

Then he turned to look at Chopra, who recognised the puzzlement on the elephant's placid features.

Chopra felt a great sadness welling inside him.

During the frenetic action of the day he had managed to avoid dwelling on Irfan's absence, clamping down on his emotions every time his thoughts drifted in that direction, but now, as he observed the distraught elephant, the realisation that Irfan would never again bring a bucket out to Ganesha landed with a thud.

He leaned forward and patted the little elephant on the head. ‘I am sorry, Ganesha, but Irfan is gone. He has returned to his home.'

The elephant calf stared at him, confusion evident in his eyes.

‘There was nothing I could do. We must all make the best of it.'

Chopra stood and moved towards the restaurant. As he walked away he felt Ganesha's eyes on his back. At that moment the guilt that he had suppressed ever since he had allowed Irfan to walk out of the restaurant returned with a vengeance.

Poppy was right. He had been too quick to permit the boy to leave. Children could so easily be intimidated. What if Irfan had been too afraid to tell the truth? Chopra had sensed that this man who called himself Irfan's father was a bad egg, even before he'd found out who he was. Why had he let Irfan just walk away with him? If Irfan had been his own flesh and blood would he have allowed him to leave with a man like that?

A cloud of shame arose inside him. He felt the ghost of Gandhi hovering on his shoulder, rebuking him: ‘There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience.'

There and then he promised himself that he would track the boy down, no matter what it took. He would ensure that Irfan was in good hands. And, if not, well then he would move heaven and earth to return the boy to where he belonged – a safe and loving environment.

Rosie watched her boss disappear into the restaurant, then set down the bucket. ‘Well, young man, how about some lovely coconut milk? I have put some Dairy Milk chocolate in it today.'

Ganesha swivelled his head towards the assistant chef, then looked down at the bucket. Then he turned his back on them both, collapsed onto his knees and closed his eyes, his ears folded flat against his head in the profoundest sorrow.

The next afternoon, Poppy once again arrived at Rangwalla's flat with the glint of purpose in her eye. This time she was armed with a renewed sense of optimism.

A long conversation with her husband the previous evening had revealed that he had finally come around to her way of thinking, that he too had been having serious misgivings about the manner of Irfan's exit from their lives. Chopra was now firmly behind the notion that they must find Irfan and assure themselves of his wellbeing. He had even spoken with Rangwalla, who had sent all his old informants out scouring the city for the boy.

Now, as a bleary-eyed Rangwalla materialised from his bedroom, Poppy felt a bright band of hope around her heart.

‘I have been up all night, hounding my people,' Rangwalla explained, somewhat embarrassed at the fact that he had only just arisen from his slumber. ‘I have an address.'

‘Then what are we waiting for?' said Poppy.

The ragpickers' slum was a notoriously difficult place to navigate.

Having negotiated their way through a Byzantine maze of narrow, open-sewered alleyways, Rangwalla and Poppy emerged into a tiny courtyard around which a ragtag assortment of shanty homes had been haphazardly thrown together as if by a storm. In the courtyard a single spigot provided water for the locality. A line of women bearing clay pots chattered by the tap.

A naked infant squatted to play with a dead cockroach while his mother filled her pot. Leaning in the doorway of one of the dwellings a milky-eyed old man chewed on a neem stick as he watched the water-gatherers.

The ragpickers of Mumbai were a community unto themselves, low down even in the pecking order of the city's poorest classes. The majority were children from the rural economy who had gravitated to Mumbai in search of a better life. They spent their days trawling through the waste generated by a human termite mound of twenty million, rooting for plastic, metal, glass, anything that might fetch a few rupees at one of the city's many unscrupulous scrap dealers.

The ragpickers lived a hard life of constant exposure to the dangers of untreated waste – noxious gases, medical cast-offs, hazardous chemicals. To claim a few grams of copper they scarred their lungs making bonfires of discarded electrical goods. They worked barefoot and without gloves. Often they earned barely enough for a day's meal. Some called them parasites. But the city's civic authorities understood that without these ‘parasites' Mumbai would become a cesspool, drowning beneath the weight of its own accumulated rubbish.

Rangwalla moved towards the old man and spoke to him. The man gesticulated with his neem stick to a dwelling on the far side of the courtyard.

As he walked over to the bricolage home Rangwalla checked his watch. It was already 5 p.m. He had to be at St Xavier's in precisely one hour to put into motion the plan that he had hatched yesterday with Principal Lobo, the plan that would entice Raj Wadia and his gang out into the open.

It had been a busy few days for the former sub-inspector. If truth be told, he was still coming to terms with the sudden upturn in his fortunes.

Once again he felt a surge of gratitude towards Chopra for delivering him from the hell that he been in since being sacked from the police service. Now he was intent on repaying the confidence his senior officer had shown in him, starting by cracking the case of the missing bust.

He had spent the best part of the previous evening sourcing the information and materials he needed for his plan to entrap Wadia. It had taken longer than he'd anticipated to convince Lobo of the necessity of his machinations – the old principal was not enamoured of what he insisted on calling ‘this new-fangled hoodoo'. The technicians Rangwalla had found worked late into the evening in Banarjee's office, beneath the principal's brooding gaze as he prowled the flagstones with his hands clasped behind his back, jowly face gummed into an expression of furious impatience. ‘I should just thrash it out of them,' he kept muttering.

The technicians, unsure who the old man was referring to, were suitably unnerved.

Rangwalla rapped on the shanty home's rickety balsawood door. Seconds later, the door swung back to reveal a short, emaciated woman in a dull brown shalwar kameez staring out at them with a blank look. Behind her he could see milk boiling in a steel pot on a kerosene stove resting on the floor. A second woman was busily sweeping the tiny one-room dwelling with a rush broom.

She stopped as Rangwalla peered in at her, then came to the door to stand by the first woman.

‘My name is Rangwalla,' said Rangwalla. ‘I am looking for Mukhthar Lodi.'

‘Why are you looking for him?' asked the woman with the broom. Her eyes were fish-like and her lips taut with distaste.

‘You knew Mukhthar?'

‘What do you mean “knew”? Is he dead?'

‘No.'

‘Shame,' said the woman.

‘Do not say that, Nazia,' admonished the woman who had opened the door. ‘Would you take my husband from me?'

‘Husband!' pouted Nazia. ‘Hah! He is an animal!'

‘Do not call him that!'

‘What else do you call a man who beats and terrorises his wife?' She turned to Rangwalla. ‘That animal even put cigarettes out on her. He did—' Her eyes flickered to Poppy. ‘He did many bad things. But will my sister hear a word said against him?' She rolled her eyes. ‘Allah save us from martyrs.' She turned back to her sister. ‘Shabnam, you are a fool.'

‘He is still my husband,' muttered Shabnam stubbornly.

‘Then Irfan is your son?' said Poppy quietly.

Shabnam stared at her, before shaking her head. ‘No. I am Mukhthar's second wife. Irfan is not my child.'

‘Ask her what happened to the first wife,' Nazia prompted belligerently.

‘It is just a rumour.'

‘Yes, the sort of rumour that gets up and applies hot candlewax to your breasts when you are asleep.' She leaned forward and said, in a conspiratorial voice, ‘He burned her alive. Whoosh! Claimed it was an accident, but we all know the truth. I have heard of Hindu women committing sati by jumping on their husband's funeral pyres, but he made a sati out of her in advance.'

‘Ugly lies!' snapped Shabnam, hot tears springing to her eyes. ‘You are just jealous because you are an old maid.'

‘Yes, I am jealous of your husband. A murderer, a liar and a thief. Wah wah, sister, what a prize specimen you have caught!'

‘Where can we find him?' Rangwalla said, interrupting the quarrelling sisters.

‘Why do you want to find him?' asked Shabnam, her expression suddenly wary.

‘We are looking for Irfan,' explained Poppy.

‘Why?'

‘He ran away from your husband. He came to live with me. Then your husband found him and took him. I want to make sure he is well.'

‘Hah!' snorted Nazia. ‘If he is with Mukhthar then he will not be well, that is for sure. That man is the devil himself. Do you know he makes them all steal? The boys. And if they don't get him what he wants, he beats them – heavens above how he beats them!'

‘You are exaggerating, Nazia,' scowled Shabnam.

‘Oh, am I?' said Nazia. She grabbed her sister roughly by the arm and spun her around. ‘Is this an exaggeration?' She pointed at a jagged knife scar running across the back of the woman's neck. ‘This was his idea of an anniversary gift.'

‘It was an accident,' whispered Shabnam, shaking off her sister. But her voice was miserable.

‘Please tell us where we can find him,' pleaded Poppy. She reached into her purse, removed a one-hundred-rupee note and held it out to the women.

Nazia bristled. ‘Just because we are poor, madam, it does not mean that we have no shame. Keep your money. If Mukhthar has Irfan then it is not a good thing. We do not know where he is but we wish you Allah's blessings in finding him. And if you do find Mukhthar… kill him!'

She led her stricken sister away, closing the door behind them.

Poppy was crestfallen, and Rangwalla sensed her anguish. ‘I will keep searching,' he promised. ‘I will find him.'

‘How, Abbas?' said Poppy miserably. ‘Even his own wife does not know where he is. And the city is so big! How do we find one little boy in a haystack of twenty million?' Tears lurked at the corners of her eyes.

‘Perhaps we must trust in God,' suggested Rangwalla. He waited, then said, gently, ‘We must go to the school. Lobo will be expecting us for this evening's assembly.'

Principal Augustus Lobo, veteran of innumerable Christmases in the city of Mumbai, reflected that in all his years he had rarely presided over a Christmas Eve Vespers such as this. Over those long years he had come to believe himself inured to the manifold pranks and mischiefs of his young wards, but recent events had convinced him that the world had indeed changed, and not for the better. He had always looked upon himself as a shepherd, tending his flock through their treacherous formative years to a profitable manhood from which both they and society might benefit.

But now he saw a blight taking hold of his young wards, the blight of modernity, where the pursuit of personal gain at any cost was all-serving, all-conquering.

He looked down now upon his gathered congregation with a stern expression. ‘Students of St Xavier, it is with a heavy heart that I stand before you today. At a time usually reserved for veneration of our Saviour, I am forced instead to discuss a most unsavoury matter.' Lobo's gnarled fingers whitened around the edges of the lectern. ‘Three nights ago something of great value was stolen from the office of the school secretary. I will not divulge the exact nature of the stolen goods, but the perpetrators of this deed know that of which I refer.' He punctuated this statement by thumping the lectern, startling Brother Machado who had been looking on nervously from the wings. ‘I speak now to those villains, those goondas!… Your efforts have been in vain! I have this very day received a revised set of the stolen items, prepared in advance against this very contingency. These new items will now take precedence over those that were stolen. In short, sirs, the originals are now worthless.' Lobo washed his petrified audience with a glare of intense disapprobation. ‘I have placed the new items in the exact same place from which the originals were taken. I dare the thieves to try and take them again.' Another grimace. ‘If you have a shred of decency, sirs, you will hand yourselves over to me. Did you think you could hoodwink old Lobo? Hah! I have been besting the likes of you since before your fathers were born.'

At the rear of the assembly hall Poppy leaned in towards Rangwalla. ‘Do you think it will work?' she whispered.

‘I do not know,' replied Rangwalla. ‘But if Wadia is as arrogant as I think he is, he will not be able to resist the challenge.'

‘And if he takes the bait, you will catch him red-handed?'

‘No,' said Rangwalla. ‘If he takes the bait I will not need to. He will be caught but it will not be
red
-handed.'