Under a Monsoon Cloud: an Inspector Ghote Mystery Read online

  So gradually the whole business, terrible though it had been, faded from his mind.

  6

  Time passed. The monsoon, which lingered on that year with occasional storms even as late as October, catching out the umbrellaless crowds and sending them scurrying with folded newspapers over their heads, eventually ended. The pleasant months of winter came. And went. The broiling, humid days of summer arrived.

  And then one sun-crackling day in April Ghote was summoned by the Assistant Commissioner, Crime Branch. He thought it was in order to be given some more than usually important assignment and went up to the A.C.P.’s office with no more than a prickle of anxiety.

  There was a young woman sitting in one of the three chairs drawn up in a marshalled row in front of the A.C.P.’s desk. She was a person of about thirty, serious-looking, with large horn-rim spectacles, wearing a rather modern sari in little squares of bright scarlet with alternate designs of a lotus and a swastika in each.

  Ghote made some quick, instinctive assessments, a matter of second nature. Educated, yes. A graduate, in all probability. Gujarati, of course, from the way she wore that sari. And, unless she was a Muslim, a married woman, her forehead marked by a crimson tika.

  He came to a halt at the side of the A.C.P.’s desk and clicked heels in salute.

  ‘Ah, Ghote,’ the A.C.P. said. ‘I want you to meet Mrs Desai.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ he answered, the common name of Desai meaning at that moment nothing in particular to him.

  ‘Mrs Desai, Ghote, is the sister-in-law of one Sergeant Desai S.R., a former member of the Maharastra Police, who, I believe, served under you during your secondment to Vigatpore last year.’

  Then, with an explosive impact like the splitting of a dam wall, all the events of that night of June 24 poured back into his mind. Now at last, he supposed, he was to learn just what had been the aftermath of the plot he and Tiger had put into action. Now he was to hear the full implications of that instant of decision back in Vigatpore when he had put himself on Tiger’s side once and for all.

  He barely managed to get out a hoarse ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Mrs Desai, Ghote, has certain anxieties concerning the death of her brother-in-law, and it occurred to me that since you were right here in the building and had been at Vigatpore also about the time poor Desai drowned, you might be able to set those anxieties at rest here and now. And no more said about them.’

  The A.C.P. darted a look at Mrs Desai, Sergeant Desai’s sister-in-law, his bhabhi, that to Ghote’s eye spoke of an urgent desire to be rid of a nuisance.

  And he had learnt something himself of which till now, of necessity, he had been ignorant. Desai had, after all, been believed to have drowned. Well and good. All that Tiger and he had been through on that fearful night seemed to have been worthwhile. Krishna’s mountain umbrella still protected the ornament of the police service. And there was, after all, no one anywhere who could know what it was that the two of them had actually done that night.

  He felt a surge of confidence.

  ‘If I can help in any way, sir,’ he said, ‘though I left Vigatpore before this sad thing happened. I am learning of it only now.’

  But the red-saried, horn-rimmed bhabhi had ignored all this. Her eyes behind her thick spectacles were fixed on the A.C.P. And they were flashing in anger.

  ‘But that is the whole question,’ she stormed. ‘My husband has all along been altogether unable to believe that his brother drowned. From his earliest boyhood that man was a magnificent swimmer. He could not have drowned.’

  ‘But, madam,’ the A.C.P. answered, with a placating wave of his hand, ‘as I understand it the – er – event took place when there was a first-class storm in progress, the first of the monsoon. Isn’t that so, Ghote?’

  ‘Well, yes, sir,’ Ghote hastened to agree. ‘If poor Desai did expire during the first storm of the monsoon, that was just only before my posting to Vigatpore ended. And most certainly that was a very, very wild night.’

  Desai’s bhabhi ignored him.

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘there is scientific evidence also. I am graduate in biology, let me remind. I am fully capable of judging such things.’

  Scientific evidence, Ghote thought with sudden dull dismay. Had Tiger then got it wrong? Was it not possible to get water into the lungs, however well they had succeeded in pumping it into the internal cavities?

  ‘I have seen Government Medical Officer’s report, remember,’ the bhabhi went on, her gaze lifted to the A.C.P. like a horseman’s steed scenting battle. ‘No sign of blueness of nails due to asphyxia. Not one mention. And, let me tell you, death by drowning is death from asphyxia. That you were not knowing, were you?’

  She gave the A.C.P. a look of rich triumph, and Ghote could not suppress a dart of admiration. Here was a woman, not all that old and, even if she was a graduate, certainly no more than just middle class, and yet she was standing up to as authoritative a figure as the Assistant Commissioner, Crime Branch, in his own office, at the heart of Bombay Police Headquarters. A girl full of guts.

  How different from poor, foolish, moonily grinning Desai. No doubt the brother, her husband, must be a fellow in much the same mould, which was why it was she who had taken up the case.

  And she had a right to. If, it seemed, Desai’s death had not left a bereaved mother and a father with no one to break his skull on the funeral pyre, all the same it had left one brother without another. His own act of deceit, and Tiger’s, had covered up the truth of that loss.

  ‘Madam,’ the A.C.P. answered, with not a little sharpness now, ‘I am a fully trained police officer, as also is Inspector Ghote here. Kindly do not think that we do not know what evidences are to be found on a body that has drowned. Now, let me ask you this: did that Medical Officer’s report from Vigatpore state there was no observed blueness of the nails? Or did it simply fail to mention such?’

  And the bhabhi, for all her former fearlessness, quailed.

  ‘It did not mention,’ she murmured. ‘But that must be meaning there was no such sign present.’

  ‘Not at all, madam, not at all. Are you thinking that a medical officer in such a mofussil place is any sort of a genius fellow? It is lucky he was even mentioning other signs of drowning. Did he state, yes or no, that there was water in the lungs and internal cavities?’

  Ghote waited for the answer. Dreading it. But again the bhabhi was honest.

  ‘Yes,’ she said dispiritedly. ‘He was stating. In an altogether text-book manner. Some evidence of water, he was saying.’

  Ghote rejoiced. What luck that this medico was a fellow gripped entirely by the text-books. Evidently he must have found water in the internal cavities and, because it was written down that water also would get into the lungs, he had stated that it had been there. But, as the A.C.P. had said, it was unlikely that a medical officer anywhere as out-of-the-way as Vigatpore would be a genius fellow.

  ‘Well, it is just as I thought,’ the A.C.P. was saying, in an encouraging tone as he got up from behind his desk. ‘I am glad, madam, that we have been able to set your doubts and those of your husband at rest. And may I also add my sincere condolences?’

  Slowly the bhabhi rose from her chair. The look of defeat was plain to see on her face.

  Ghote felt sorry for her. She had fought a good fight, and, little though she had known it, right had after all been on her side. Desai had not drowned. But if that had been proved, what consequences there might have been for Tiger Kelkar. And himself.

  Then almost at the door the bhabhi turned and confronted the A.C.P. once more.

  ‘No,’ she said loudly. ‘No, I still do not believe that Subhash could have drowned. I have seen his swimming powers with my own eyes.’

  ‘But, madam – ’

  ‘No, Mr Assistant Commissioner, if you will not grant us full inquiry, one of my batch-mates at college is now an investigative reporter for Sunday Observer. She would bring everything into open.’

  ‘But
– But – ’

  Ghote had never seen the A.C.P. at such a loss. He wished he himself was not present.

  ‘But, madam,’ the A.C.P. brought out at last, ‘kindly do not be thinking that I have in any way rejected a police inquiry. Such an inquiry, indeed, is what we would expect to hold in the circumstances. That I can promise.’

  The bhabhi stood for a moment at the door, fierce and proud in her bright red sari.

  ‘Very well, Mr Assistant Commissioner,’ she said, ‘we shall expect to hear what progress is made.’

  And she left.

  The A.C.P. coughed.

  ‘Let that be a lesson to you, Ghote,’ he said, ‘if at any time you rise to senior rank. Too much importance can never be placed on good relations with the public.’

  ‘No, sir,’ Ghote said.

  He found himself torn in the days that followed between a hope that the A.C.P. had merely been offering something sweet to appease the ferocious young woman who had been confronting him and a fear that an inquiry would be ordered and that it would somehow uncover the stratagems even of Tiger Kelkar.

  And there was, too, deep-down a feeling, which he did his best to quell, that he wanted any investigation which Desai’s bhabhi had won for herself to succeed. To do what it ought to do, reveal the truth.

  So it was with not entirely unmixed feelings, one day some three weeks later, that he heard that Inspector Sawant had been handed the job of conducting an inquiry into Desai’s death and that he wanted to talk to him.

  Sawant was a hard-working, conscientious fellow, but he was not the sort of pushing investigator that in his day Tiger had been. He would look at all the facts that came before him and he would draw the logical conclusions that were there to be made from them. But no more.

  So the chances were high that what he and Tiger had put there to be discovered would be brought to light, and the conclusion they had put there to be drawn would once more be arrived at.

  He felt little anxiety, then, over the interview with Sawant, and had no difficulty in producing the few necessary evasions and the few necessary lies. He even managed to drop a hint about Desai’s mania for betting while not, he felt, pitching it too strong.

  ‘Thank you, Ghote,’ Sawant said at the end. ‘I have yet to go to Vigatpore, of course, but I do not think I would need to trouble you again. I have about as much chance, after all, of finding there was anything amiss as a fakir has of solving a crime by opening a page of the Koran at rupees ten a time.’

  And that was that.

  Once more he was able to push the events of the night of June 24 into the back of his mind. He could not quite blot them out as completely as before. He caught himself occasionally worrying over whether poor, saluting Shinde would stick to the story he had given him if he was questioned, and at other times he wondered whether the bet business had been really too weak. But mostly he was able to exclude all thoughts of Vigatpore from his head for two or three days at a time.

  It was only his catching sight, one day towards the end of May, of Inspector Sawant’s burly form going out of the Headquarters’ gate that gave him one final jab of anxiety.

  He set off after him at a run and succeeded in catching him by the arm as he was waiting halfway across the traffic jostle of D. N. Road on the pocket of safety formed by the jutting stones of the twin parallel road dividers.

  ‘Sawantji,’ he said, ‘how are you?’

  ‘Fine. Fine, Ghote bhai. Just off to Vigatpore, one last time, thank goodness.’

  ‘Oh, yes? All gone okay, has it?’

  ‘Yes, yes. Nothing other than what it seemed, of course. Only one last thing remaining. The fellow’s clothes had never come to light. It is possible, I have been thinking, that he would have had in his pocket some note of any bet he had made about swimming Lake Helena in a monsoon storm, and I would like to be able to state who he had made it with. Tidying up, you know.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Ghote answered, able to assume a proper carelessness because that was exactly what he felt. ‘Well, good luck, bhai. I won’t keep you.’

  What in fact had he done with Desai’s clothes? he asked himself almost idly. In the final confusion of that terrible night he had disposed of them somehow. But where? He had completely forgotten now.

  ‘Goodbye then,’ Sawant said hurriedly. ‘I am a little late for train.’

  ‘Right then. Goodbye.’

  But just at that moment a new surge of traffic came sweeping round from Lokmanya Tilak Road and Sawant was unable to make his plunge for the far side. He turned to Ghote again with a shrug.

  ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘I was hearing only good reports of your time in Vigatpore. You were setting right a lot that Inspector Khan, who is nothing but a hopeless slacker, had let go wrong.’

  Ghote felt a surge of pleasure.

  ‘Oh, well,’ he said, ‘I was doing my level best only. But I was not there too long, you know. Some things still in a hell of a mess. Did you see inside the Muddamal Room?’

  And the moment the words were out of his mouth he was appalled by what he had said. Of course. That was where he had stuffed away that damn blood-stained jacket. In the Muddamal Room. Tucked behind a confiscated public-address loudspeaker – he could see it now – and easy enough to find if anyone took the trouble to look.

  ‘Muddamal Room,’ Sawant said. ‘Do you know I have never looked in there, and I even thought at one time it was possible the fellow had stripped to undershorts in the station itself. With the rain there was that night it would have been quite a sensible thing to do.’

  ‘Yes,’ Ghote said, deep in despondency.

  He looked down at the rough stones of the road divider at his feet.

  ‘But Desai was not at all sensible,’ he said desperately.

  Inspector Sawant, however, had seen his chance and had darted across the road in front of a boldly decorated truck taking vegetables round to the back of Crawford Market.

  7

  Ghote stood where he was amid the tangy metallic fumes of the jockeying, jostling traffic of D. N. Road as the full bitterness of the situation swamped through his mind. How could he have been such a fool? When Sawant had said plainly that his inquiries had produced nothing, to go and throw out such a clue to the beginning of it all. How could he have failed to remember where he had put that jacket of Desai’s with the blood clear on its collar? But he had. In his overwhelming need to put behind him everything coming after the moment of Tiger’s rage he had succeeded only too well in blotting out that one vital detail.

  Or had some inner force he was quite unaware of pushed up into daylight the devastating truth at just the worst possible moment?

  Because it was almost certain now that Sawant, who was nothing if not methodical, would at once ask himself why Desai’s uniform was bloodstained. And then the end of the long thread leading to the truth would be in his hand.

  All that he himself and Tiger had done to conceal that single rage-provoked error would be in terrible danger of being brought to ruin.

  Tiger.

  Abruptly it came to him that what he had done was to put Tiger in peril once more. And worse peril than he had been in at the moment he had killed Desai. There was no hope of him, even from Pune, being able to get to Vigatpore ahead of Sawant, not if Sawant was leaving Bombay in a few minutes’ time. So the damning evidence was bound to come to light. Blood on the uniform of the supposedly drowned man. That uniform hidden, and hidden in the police station. And when had the station been all but deserted? Only when he himself and the A.D.I.G., working late on his Inspection, had been alone there.

  And he did not even know if Tiger had succeeded in establishing his own scrap of alibi by faking the time he had returned to the Inspection Bungalow.

  The least he could do now was to give him warning.

  Leadenly he turned, waited for the traffic to clear between himself and the pavement outside Headquarters with its row of squatting newspaper sellers up against the wall and made his way across.r />
  Leadenly he tramped to his office. How was he to break the news? Tiger would scorch him with his anger for the stupidity of the mistake he had made. But tell him of it he must. He owed him that. To learn that their ruse, seemingly hidden by now in the wrappings of time, had so unexpectedly risen to light: that chance at least he must give to Tiger.

  And with it the possibility, slim to nothingness though it must be, of his hitting on some way of accounting for that blood on the jacket of the supposedly drowned man.

  But Tiger’s fury would be horrible.

  Leadenly he sat himself down at his desk and picked up the telephone to put a call through to Pune. He would have to be guarded on an open line. But Tiger would understand quickly enough. And react.

  He had more than a little difficulty in getting to speak to a figure as senior as A.D.I.G. Kelkar. But he persisted, tempted though he was more than once to put down the receiver and give up, escaping the wrath that would await him.

  ‘Ghote?’

  The voice at the other end of the line, distorted and buzz-blurred though it was, was unmistakable.

  ‘Yes, sir. It is me. Sir, I have some news which I am thinking you – ’

  He came to a dead halt. Somewhere here at headquarters or there at Pune someone might be listening in.

  ‘Sir, some news I am thinking you would like to hear.’

  ‘Yes, Inspector?’ the voice crackled.

  ‘Sir, owing to something I regret for stating to a third party without due and proper caution, sir, they are about to – ’

  Again he came to a stop.

  He ought to have spent time framing a properly concealed message.

  ‘Speak up, man. I’m not sitting in my seat just waiting to hear what you see fit to tell me.’

  The whip-crack he had feared. But there would be worse, far, far worse, soon.

  ‘No, sir. No. Sir, it is the jacket. The one with – with something on it, sir. It is about to be discovered. In two-three hours only.’

  ‘Discovered? Where, man, where?’