Under a Monsoon Cloud: an Inspector Ghote Mystery Read online

  PENGUIN MODERN CLASSICS

  Under a Monsoon Cloud

  H. R. F. KEATING was born at St Leonards-on-Sea, Sussex, in 1926. He went to Merchant Taylors, leaving early to work in the engineering department of the BBC. After a period of service in the army, which he describes as ‘totally undistinguished’, he went to Trinity College, Dublin, where he became a scholar in modern literature. He was also the crime fiction reviewer for The Times for fifteen years. His first novel about Inspector Ghote, The Perfect Murder, won the Crime Writers’ Association’s Gold Dagger and an Edgar Allen Poe Special Award. He lives in London with his wife, the actress Sheila Mitchell, and has three sons and a daughter.

  ALEXANDER McCALL SMITH is the author of several series of novels and is best known as the creator of The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency books.

  H . R . F . KEATING

  Under a Monsoon Cloud

  Preface by ALEXANDER McCALL SMITH

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  First published by Hutchinson and Co. 1986

  Published in Penguin Books 1987

  Published in Penguin Classics 2011

  Copyright © H. R. F. Keating, 1986

  Preface copyright © Alexander McCall Smith, 2011

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of both the author and the author of the preface has been asserted

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  ISBN: 978-0-14-196286-3

  Contents

  Preface by ALEXANDER McCALL SMITH

  Under a Monsoon Cloud

  Preface

  A perfectly loveable inspector

  I went to Bombay, as Mumbai then was, as an incidental literary pilgrim. I was an incidental pilgrim in the sense that I had to pass through the city on my way elsewhere, but even so I was aware from the moment my plane landed that I was on hallowed turf: I was in the city of Inspector Ganesh Ghote of the Bombay C.I.D. Others feel the same way, no doubt, when they first set foot on the pavements of Baker Street, or find themselves outside one of the houses associated with Jane Austen. Pilgrims, of course, may go to the places of their pilgrimage in awe, but must be ready for a let-down. Bombay, though, did not disappoint: there were the Ambassador cars in which Ghote might travel; there were the street characters; there were the buildings and alleyways into which some suspicious character – some goonda perhaps, a thoroughly bad hat – might vanish. The whole intriguing world of this remarkable city, so brilliantly caught in Keating’s little gems, was there for the savouring. And yet, we might remind ourselves, the first nine Inspector Ghote novels were written before the author had actually visited India.

  H. R. F. Keating began work on the Ghote novels as a deliberate attempt to give his fiction a more international tone. The Perfect Murder, the first of the series, was intended to broaden the appeal of his work, particularly in the United States. Something his earlier crime novels had failed to do, being considered ‘too British’ to appeal to American taste. And it would not have been surprising if novels set in a country the author had never visited ended up reflecting the author’s culture, rather than that of the country in which they are set. Yet in Keating’s case this did not happen. These books are not embarrassing portrayals of an idealized India; they have an authenticity that has been recognized, even in India. As such they fall into that small – very small – category of novels: those that are works of pure imagination but that nonetheless convey a valid sense of place and culture.

  It would be easy, of course, to dismiss these novels as being classic examples of post-colonial assumption of voice, and no doubt there is a body of critical writing that does just that. Such criticism, however, is not only somewhat predictable, but misses the point that an accomplished piece of fiction can perfectly easily transcend the circumstances of its creation. It does not matter who wrote it and what the author’s personal credentials are: the story can soar above all that, revealing truths about what it is to be human. So the fact that Keating, at the beginning, had no direct experience of India matters not one whit. If he could make his books feel Indian; if he could step into the shoes of an Indian detective inspector and make it sound credible, or at least highly enjoyable, then that was merely testimony to a rich and creative imagination, a tribute to his ability as a novelist. After all, historical novelists do this all the time: they write about places they have never been and cultures of which they cannot, by definition, have personal experience. If one wants the contemporary blood and sinew of Mumbai, then one can read Vikram Chandra’s magnificent epic, Sacred Games; if one wants something more picaresque, something lighter and more comic, something that has the elusive quality of fable to it, then Inspector Ghote can be called to hand.

  The real charm of the Inspector Ghote novels lies in the characters who populate them. Ghote himself is one of the great creations of detective fiction. Unlike many fictional detectives, who are often outsiders, possessed in many cases of difficult personal demons, Ghote is utterly loveable. His rank gives him some status, but not very much. He has his own office, with some personal furniture and effects, but we are always aware of his superiors, and of the barely disguised contempt that many of them have for him. In Inspector Ghote Trusts the Heart, for instance, not only is there the coldly dismissive Superintendent Karandikar, known as ‘the Tiger’, who is only too happy to belittle a mere inspector, but we also meet the Commissioner of Police himself, a being so elevated as to inspire quite understandable awe in Ghote’s breast. What visitor to India over the last few decades – although less so now – will not have caught a glance of the chauffeur-driven cream or white Ambassador cars of such personages – complete with flags and curtains to exclude the common gaze?

  Ghote, then, is the small man, the man who has made enough of himself to be given a position of responsibility, but who is always at the mercy of those more powerful than he is himself. If one were to read these books with no knowledge of India, one would conclude that it is a society of egregious inequality. And that, alas, is the reality of modern India, in spite of vastly increased wealth and the rise of a much larger middle class. Keating has an intuitive understanding of this feature of Indian society, and of the way in which the rich and powerful work. The wealthy Mr Des
ai, in Inspector Ghote Trusts the Heart, is typical of the rich businessmen who crop up in the novels. He has made his money and is not at all apologetic about the comfort and power it brings. He is surrounded by servants, just as is Mr Lala Varde in The Perfect Murder, and these servants are treated with a haughty lack of consideration, not as people with feelings. Overstated? If one were to be tempted to say that the master–servant relationship in the Ghote novels is unrealistic, then one might simply read that remarkable fictional portrayal of exactly that issue in Aravind Adiga’s Booker Prize-winning The White Tiger. Keating, it seems, has got it spot-on.

  Ghote’s dignified acceptance of his perilous status makes us want so much for him. We want him to remain on the case when influential people further up use every weapon they possess to have him taken off. We want him to be heard when he is ignored or deliberately silenced. We want him to find domestic contentment, and we want happiness for his wife, Protima, and his son, Ved. They deserve it so much more than the spoiled and over-indulged families with whom Ghote comes into contact. The picture of the ghastly child, Haribhai Desai, in Inspector Ghote Trusts the Heart is utterly toe-curling and, one fears, very realistic. I remember once visiting a cloyingly luxurious safari lodge in East Africa and meeting fellow guests, a very rich Indian family (surely related to Keating’s Mr Desai). Their young son was with them – a pampered and overfed child dressed in a beautifully cut miniature safari suit. How the rich so obligingly set themselves up to be preserved in aspic by the novelist, and how skilfully, and with what relish, does Keating perform this task!

  But it is not just finely pitched social observation that makes these novels so good, it is also Keating’s engagement with issues of corruption and integrity. Keating has often expressed his interest in broad philosophical issues, and his writing, although entertaining and amusing, frequently engages us in an examination of how we understand the world and work within it. This, perhaps, is the single quality that gives to the Ghote novels their timelessness. They are about how the good man, the honest man – the man who is sufficiently self-aware to allow himself a lot of room for self-doubt – preserves his integrity in a world of false values, greed and rampant injustice. Ghote’s struggles, like the struggles of the powerless and downtrodden people whom he sees in his day-to-day work, are universally recognizable. In these books they are presented in such a way as to engage and amuse us; that is Keating’s skill. That is what confers on these vivid and lovely little books their status as classics of detective fiction. That is what gives these novels their lasting appeal.

  Keating’s overall contribution to crime fiction has been a major one, but we should be particularly grateful to him for what he has given us in his marvellous creation of Inspector Ganesh Ghote, Bombay C.I.D, solver of mysteries, agent of such justice as an imperfect world can muster, or expect.

  Alexander McCall Smith, 2011

  1

  Inspector Ghote had been awaiting the memo from the Commissioner for a week or more. He knew, too, what it would say almost to the exact words. Yet when the stiff white envelope was put in front of him he felt such a thud of plummeting dismay that it might have been entirely unexpected.

  Bombay’s tingling pre-monsoon heat, hardly relieved by the fan squeaking away in the corner of his office, struck at him suddenly, as if until this moment it had not existed. Automatically he reached down to the bottom drawer of his desk for the towel he kept there and mopped at the heavy bulbs of perspiration that had sprung up all over his face and neck.

  It needed a strong effort of will to pick up the envelope, sweatily stained from the fingers of the peon who had brought it, and tear it open.

  The words he read were as heavily ominous as he had anticipated. And all arising, he thought, from one foul prank fate has played on me.

  From the Commissioner of Police, Bombay

  To: Inspector G. V. Ghote

  I have considered certain events alleged to have occurred at Vigatpore PS on the night of June 24/25 last year and I must request a full account of your part therein. I require to have the aforesaid account before me by 0900 hours on Monday, June 4.

  He felt sick. Sick as if he had been struck down by food poisoning.

  *

  Inspector Ghote’s temporary transfer to the police station at Vigatpore, miles distant from Bombay, had been abrupt. He had been summoned one morning by the Assistant Commissioner, Crime Branch, and told that owing to an unprecedented number of officers being unavailable to replace the man in charge at Vigatpore, who had fallen ill, he was being given the posting.

  ‘I am sure you are not having anything too important on your plate itself, Inspector. Pass on whatever has to be dealt with immediately. Anything else can be allowed to wait.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  On the veranda outside the Assistant Commissioner’s office Ghote had stood prey to contradictory feelings. A sudden posting to an unknown area: it would bring all his capabilities to the fore. But, on the other hand, was not his work here in Bombay being rated altogether low? If each and every case before him was something that could be disposed of to someone else at a moment’s notice or even left untouched for weeks, then what sort of a report would he get next year on his Confidential Record?

  And Vigatpore, it was a bloody backwood only.

  He was the sole passenger to alight at the station late that evening and at first there seemed to be no one to meet him, though he had sent a message stating the time of his arrival. For a quarter of an hour and more he paced the deserted platform, soon beginning to fume with bad temper. But just within the time-limit he had set before taking action he heard a vehicle approaching in the stillness of the hot night and a few minutes later a police jeep drew up outside.

  He decided not to take its constable driver to task for his lateness and merely watched him in stony silence as he gathered up his luggage and put it in the back of the vehicle. However, as they made their way towards the little hill station he thought it best to chat with the fellow in order to find out what he could about his new responsibility.

  He did not discover a great deal, chiefly only such facts about the small town as he had already picked up for himself in the course of the hectic afternoon in which he had sorted out his work-load, explained the sudden move to his wife – Protima had flared into one of her come-and-gone rages – and got together what he would need for an indefinite stay away.

  But he did learn from the driver one thing that added to his unease. It seemed the officer he was replacing, Inspector Khan, had arranged for him to stay not at one of the town’s hotels but at a private house as a paying-guest.

  ‘It is the residence of Shri Shivram Patel, Inspector. Very, very influential.’

  ‘Oh, yes? What is he then?’

  ‘Now nothing at all, Inspector. But before-before he was chairman of the Zilla Parishad, could say what was to happen in whole damn district.’

  ‘And he is that no more?’

  ‘Achcha, Inspector. You see, he was owning only damn creamery in area and everybody-everybody was having to bring milk to him only.’

  ‘But then?’

  ‘Then they were starting up dairy cooperative, and nobody-nobody was any more selling him milk at price he only was fixing. Inspector, that man is most poor now, and, Inspector …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘He is damned angry all the time also.’

  Ghote sat in silence then, contemplating not without some anger of his own how little bodily comfort he was likely to have during his stay in this place. One of the facts he had found out in his hasty research of the afternoon had been that the word Vigatpore was said to come from the Sanskrit for ‘Town of Difficulties’. At the time he had thought what a piece of useless information that was. Now he was not so sure.

  Shivram Patel’s house when they arrived at it did nothing to alter his feeling. It appeared to be deserted and the driver, after waiting outside the gates for some ten minutes occasionally hooting the horn, was constrain
ed to turn the vehicle until its headlights illuminated an overgrown and neglected compound. Ghote saw a fat bandicoot scuttle rat-like away. There was a gap in the mud wall next to the locked gates, and through it they managed one after another to squeeze.

  Even at the massive house door the driver had to tap and tap with the dangling chain with which the place would be padlocked when empty. And it was not until he had thumped hard at the thick timbers that at last a dim light appeared in the window above.

  It was followed by the sound of the heavy wooden door-bar being lifted and the door itself was finally opened an inch or two by an ancient servant, grimy and unshaved, holding a dim hurricane lamp, its glass almost totally obscured by soot.

  But at least the fellow acknowledged that a paying-guest was expected, though not with any graciousness. In silence then he led Ghote through the house. By the orangey light of the lamp Ghote made out that the rooms they passed on their way to the wide wooden staircase leading to the upper floor were unnaturally bare. No doubt they had once been well furnished. Here and there patches on the walls were visible where hangings or pictures must once have been, and at one point there was even, high up, a distinct round area where in bygone days a large clock must have sonorously ticked out the prosperous hours. But now all was denuded, echoing and starkly uninviting.

  Upstairs they trailed along a lengthy corridor and at the far end the old servant ushered Ghote into a small room. Its furnishings seemed to be only an earthen chatti for water in one corner and, looking as if it had been flung down with contempt, a bulging straw mattress.

  ‘This is for you,’ the old man muttered.

  And then, showing much more shuffling speed than he had done hitherto, he turned and vanished into the darkness.

  By the faint light coming through the room’s sole window Ghote undressed and lay down on the bulky mattress. At once he felt a dozen different sharp pricks from the straw inside. But, exhausted with all that had happened to him during the course of the day, it did not take him long despite the parching heat to fall into a heavy sleep. The last thought he was conscious of was that next day the new task he had been plunged into would no doubt test his capabilities severely.