Cheating Death Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Introduction

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  CHEATING DEATH

  H. R. F. Keating

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First published in Great Britain in 1992 by Hutchinson.

  This eBook edition first published in 2020 by Severn House Digital,

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited.

  Copyright © 1992 by H. R. F. Keating.

  Introduction copyright © 2020 by Vaseem Khan.

  The right of H. R. F. Keating to be identified as the author of this work and the right of Vaseem Khan to be identified as the author of the introduction has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0402-8 (e-book)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This eBook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland

  INTRODUCTION

  Sitting on my bookshelf in my east London study is a twenty-year-old and somewhat dog-eared copy of The Perfect Murder. Some of the pages are marked by my own all but illegible scribbles, others are crinkled by a combination of damp and rainwater; not just any rain, mind you, but honest-to-goodness monsoon rain. I bought the book from a roadside seller while living in Mumbai in my twenties, the sort of grinning, roadside sprite that is as much in evidence in H.R.F. Keating’s 1960s vision of India as he was in the India I found myself in. I’d gone there in 1997 to work as a management consultant, and ended up spending ten wonderful years ‘in-country’. My parents hailed from the subcontinent but I’d grown up in Thatcher’s Britain – all I knew of India came from hazy memories handed down to me by my father (he’d been unceremoniously shunted across the newly-created border to Pakistan as a child during Partition) and bits and pieces I’d gleaned from Bollywood movies.

  The India that I discovered was a nation on the cusp of transformation, a country beginning the journey from a semi-industrialised agrarian economy – the post-colonial India that Keating introduced to us decades earlier and that had largely stagnated since – to the status, today, of superpower-in-waiting. A country of swamis and snake charmers – as it had always been – but now, increasingly, a country of call-centres and coffee shops, of shopping malls and software firms, of MTV and McDonald’s. A country that Inspector Ghote would find both recognisable and wholly beyond his imagining.

  By the time I returned to the UK, a decade later, I had already decided that I would encapsulate those incredible memories of India into a novel. The result was The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra, the first in my Baby Ganesh Agency series. These crime stories, featuring a policeman forced into early retirement from the Mumbai police service and subsequently compelled to ‘adopt’ a one-year-old baby elephant, are my attempt to chronicle the tumultuous landscape of the India that I observed first-hand. Five novels and two novellas in the series later, I can admit that these tales of the subcontinent owe a debt to H.R.F. Keating’s Inspector Ghote series.

  Back when I was casting around for a suitable template upon which to base The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra, my eye alighted on that old copy of The Perfect Murder. I had already had the idea of a policeman who inherits a baby elephant, but I was seeking inspiration that such a work – a crime novel set on the subcontinent – might find an audience. The modern publishing industry was not prone to experimentation, or so my investigations at the time informed me.

  As I reread Keating’s novel and recalled the success that his series had enjoyed, I was emboldened. Two years later I completed my manuscript and whizzed it off to a small selection of agents. The rest, as they say, is history.

  My protagonist, Inspector Ashwin Chopra, could not be more different to Inspector Ghote. Whereas Ghote is a timid, sometimes obsequious fellow, often forced to bend to the prevailing winds of authority, Chopra is a rigid, bristly-moustachioed man, unfailingly honest, and intractably unyielding. And yet in their DNA we find a common gene – an unwavering commitment to that dark flame that flickers so elusively on the subcontinent – justice. For India is a place where justice is often at the mercy of those with wealth and power. This did not sit well with Ghote, and neither does it sit well with Chopra.

  Both Keating and I set out to bring to life these two policemen and the city that they inhabit – Bombay/Mumbai – India’s city of dreams. Yet the respective roads that we travelled to do so could not have been more different. I spent ten years living and working in India; Keating only visited India for the first time a decade after The Perfect Murder was published.

  That being the case, one might rightly ask why he chose the subcontinent as his muse in the first place? The answer: he picked up an atlas, flicked through it, and randomly chanced upon a map of India. From such moments of serendipity are legends born.

  The novel that Keating subsequently wrote was published in 1964 and entitled The Perfect Murder. It featured Inspector Ganesh Ghote (pronounced Goh-té) of what was then known as the Bombay crime branch, a detective of considerable resourcefulness and tenacity. Ghote is not your typical western policeman. There is little of the maverick about him, no melodrama, no bitter divorces in his past (he is dedicated to his wife Protima), no hard-charging, hard-drinking machismo. He is a minor cog within a vast engine of bureaucracy and at the same time accepts this and chafes against it. He is set above the common man – by virtue of his uniform – and yet condemned to forever belong to the lower echelons of that vast stratified populace that gives India such colour and depth. Time and again in these immensely readable novels we see Ghote at the mercy of bombastic senior officers, villainous landlords and wealthy industrialists. In the face of abuse, obstacles and evil machinations, Ghote remains undeterred, finding his way to resolution in every case through a combination of understated intellect and quiet bloody-mindedness. When asked about the genesis of his seminal character, Keating would later reply, ‘Inspector Ghote came to me in a single flash: I pictured him exactly as he was, transposed as it were by some magic arc from Bombay to London. It was a tremendous piece of luck really, because I don’t think Inspector Ghote will now ever die. At least he’ll live as long as I do.’

&n
bsp; Prophetic words. The Perfect Murder has met with enduring success. Upon publication it won the Crime Writers’ Association’s Gold Dagger in the UK and claimed an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America. Keating was on his way. And after twenty-five wonderful books and a short story collection, Inspector Ghote has joined the pantheon of great sleuths: Holmes, Poirot, Maigret. In his own way, Ghote has that shimmering of Golden Age stardust about him.

  The first Ghote arrived more than half a century ago. The world has changed since then and literary sensibilities have moved with the times. Today, controversies abound under the banner of ‘cultural appropriation’, some justified, others perhaps trumpeted beyond the merits of the case by vested interests. Seasoned literary commentators and social media trolls alike are quick to pronounce judgment on writers they feel have not earned the right to depict a particular lived experience. No doubt they would make much of the fact that H.R.F. Keating, by his own admission, knew very little about India when he began researching these novels. His portrayals of India and Indians might offend some, an example of what they might term post-colonial hubris.

  I think this is missing the point. That was a different era, with different dynamics at work. Yes, there will be some who find offence merely in the fact that a middle-aged white man who had never been to India should achieve literary acclaim for novels set in the country. Personally, I believe that writers must have the licence to write that which inspires them. Whilst diversity and cultural authenticity in publishing is something I fervently believe in – for obvious reasons – I will also stand by the right of authors to be authors, that is, to journey on those fantastical oceans of the imagination that make writing such an enjoyable endeavour. For me the key to all such quasi-moral quandaries is whether or not an author has treated his subject matter with respect and empathy. And in his treatment of the subcontinent and its people Keating did more than simply create a series of intriguing crime novels. He brought the India of that time – in all its grit and glory – to the attention of the wider world.

  We only have to look at how appreciative Indian readers themselves were of his portrayal.

  In a 1981 article for India Today (updated in 2014), Sunil Sethi tells the story of Keating’s third visit to Bombay. He is mildly astonished when a young woman, a fan of his books, approaches him to express her admiration. Keating, Sethi tells us, can’t quite believe the reception he received in India: ‘There you are quietly writing away at your desk, and you produce this little book. Your wife likes it, but she’s an interested party. Your agent approves, but he’s also an interested party. Then you come 5,000 miles from home, and people stop you on street-corners to tell you how much they love reading your books. Isn’t it wonderful?’

  Of course, the country has changed dramatically since then. I wonder what Keating would make of this modern India? And what would modern Indians make of him and his work? More importantly, how would Ghote fare? I have a feeling that the inspector, a beacon of decency in a sometimes indecent world, would find himself quite at home as India continues its struggle to undo millennia of entrenched social attitudes: corruption, inequality, nepotism, and the debilitating effects of the caste system.

  Ultimately, as a lifelong crime reader and now a relatively seasoned writer in the genre, I believe that there is nothing so likeable in the annals of crime fiction as an honourable detective. And in Ghote we find just such a man, a man for the times in which we live.

  Vaseem Khan

  London, 2020

  ONE

  There was nothing else for it. He would have to beat his wife.

  Inspector Ghote sat at his desk, paperwork forgotten, and for the twentieth, thirtieth, fortieth time began to go over in his mind everything that had brought him to this point of decision.

  But wait, he said to himself almost as soon as he had begun. Wait. Was he really going to do that? Other husbands did, of course. Other Crime Branch officers even. And cheerfully boasted about it, gup-shupping in quiet moments of the day. Only way to keep the biwi in her place, they said. One good beating every now and again, and no nonsense after about who is making the decisions. Only way to do it. But … But was he really going to do that himself? Take one of the chappals off his feet or find something else and beat Protima? Yet he had good reason. Definitely.

  There was what she had done about Ved going to college, if nothing else. He felt a happy blossoming of revived rage at the thought of that. When it was obvious, with the boy’s interest in science and computers and all, that he should go to somewhere like Bombay’s famed St Xavier’s Technical Institute, what had Protima done? Sitting at the annual police awards ceremony, by chance next to the wife of the Dean at Elphinston College, she had contrived, whispering away while the medals on their velvet cushions were being taken up to be pinned to deserving chests, to arrange that Ved should be admitted when the time came in first year at Elphinston. That venerable academic institution, not at all suitable for the boy, just because she and he had been students there together long ago when he had first come to Bombay.

  And, after all, that had been just only the last straw on to the camel’s back. Nowadays it was she who was making each and every decision in their lives. It was high time he stopped just sitting there, grin and bear.

  He looked at his watch. Near enough to end of office hours.

  Yes, he could leave now, go straight home and do it. It would be a first-class time as a matter of fact. Ved was due to be at a meeting of the Regals Cricket Club – he was in line to be elected captain – so there would be no problem about him being about the place when it was happening.

  Yes.

  He pushed back his chair, got to his feet, shoved his papers into a drawer. And his phone rang.

  He stood where he was, looking at it. Answer or not answer? If he had made up his mind to go just two minutes earlier, he would not have been in the cabin to hear. But what if it was the Additional Commissioner? It was never very much of a good idea to let your boss find you out of your seat even a few minutes early.

  He picked the phone up. It was the Additional Commissioner.

  Ghote’s first thought as he had climbed the circular stair up to the balcony outside the head of Crime Branch’s office was that he might not now, if he was to be given some task, be able to go through with the beating business. He had felt then a twinge of relief which had surprised him. Yet, after all, he had said to himself, the point was his decision had been taken. One hundred percent. So natural enough, isn’t it, to be somewhat pleased not have to do anything about it for the time being?

  But, standing at attention now in front of the Additional Commissioner’s wide sweep of a desk, he could not help asking himself why he was being told he had to go ek dum to this Oceanic College, miles away it seemed up beyond Malad Creek at the outer edge of sprawling Bombay. By the time he had reached the place at this late hour of the day it was very doubtful if anyone in authority would still be there. And the sort of inquiries he was expected to make, if he had understood correctly, could be carried out only with tact and discretion. Certainly not rushed into.

  ‘But, sir,’ he ventured. ‘Tomorrow itself I would –’

  ‘Inspector, I do not think you have at all grasped what it is at stake. This is a matter involving the Centre, Ghote. The Centre. You know what has been happening in Bombay University. Scandal after scandal. State Ministers involved. Those fellows getting nephews and daughters and what-all into colleges when they are not at all possessing requisite number of marks, and then next month, say, college in question being granted right to take extra students thereby gaining very much of capitation monies from State funds. Partymen getting a damn bad reputation. Naturally Delhi is interested.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Ghote thought he ought respectfully to put in.

  The Additional Commissioner shot him a look as much as to accuse him of doubting the importance of what he had been told.

  ‘Oh, I know, Inspector, things in Bombay are not as bad as in
other places. In Delhi itself last year 3,400 cheats in exams were reported. In Kanpur, I think it was, they had three rooms for their BSc exam, one at Rupees 1,000 where you could cheat on your own, one at Rupees 2,000 where you could take the help of the invigilators themselves and a Rupees 5,000 room where you could call for answers from outside. With that sort of thing alleged to be going on, no wonder Government is alerted to each and every new case.’

  ‘Yes, sir, yes.’ Ghote infused eagerness into his voice.

  But evidently still not enough.

  ‘Read this damn report then,’ the Additional Commissioner stormed. ‘Read the report those CBI fellows who were air-dashing here have left. Read it. Read it.’

  He darted furious glances here, there and everywhere over the broad surface of his big semi-circular desk, plucked up the heavy little silvery discs of his paperweights left and right and eventually located the report. He thrust it at Ghote.

  Taking it, Ghote’s immediate reaction was how slight it was. A single sheet and no more. Surely if this business was so important that officers from the Central Bureau of Investigation had been sent hurrying down by air to Bombay, the report they had made ought to be bulkier than this. And why, in any case, had they gone back to Delhi with their investigation not completed?

  Standing, still at attention, in front of the wide desk, on which the Additional Commissioner’s peon, who had crept into the big room, was at that moment neatly laying down a single little round black mat preparatory to placing on it a cup of tea, he read.

  Investigation into Theft and Subsequent Sale of Papers in Statistical Techniques in University of Bombay BCom Examination.

  Upon arrival in Bombay at 1400 hours, June 7, we proceeded to question one Subhash Sarkar, final year BCom student at Elphinston College, Bombay, previously arrested by officers from Azad Maidan PS as being in possession of a question paper for an exam not then due to be held. We were able rapidly to ascertain that the said paper had been obtained, for the sum of Rupees 50 from one Bala Chambhar, student at Oceanic College, residing at Chawl No 4, Dadasaheb Phalke Marg, opp. Vishnu Shoe Clinic, Dadar, Bombay 400014. Pursuing investigation at Oceanic College, we further ascertained that the said stolen paper was obtained from the locked chamber of the Principal, Dr Shambu S. Bembalkar, on Monday, June 5, at some time between 1300 hours and 1330 hours, Principal Bembalkar being the sole holder of the key to the said chamber. We were, however, unable to ascertain by what method the said Bala Chambhar had obtained entry since, proceeding to locate and arrest the said culprit, investigations revealed he had been taken to KEM Hospital. At the aforementioned hospital we ascertained that the said Bala Chambhar, patient under care of Dr P. P. Shah, was in a state of coma, believed due to attempted suicide by poison. This state of coma is liable to persist until the expiry of said patient and we were therefore unable to pursue further inquiries. Signed—