The Perplexing Theft of the Jewel in the Crown (13 page)

Chopra had hired Lucknowwallah on the spot and had been greatly relieved when the chef had not haggled over his salary. He could not afford to pay the rate that a man of Lucknowwallah's experience could command. Lucknowwallah had dismissed his concerns with an expansive wave of his hand. ‘Neither of us are here for the money, Chopra,' he had opined.

The chef had settled in quickly and soon the restaurant's patrons had begun to rave at the conveyor belt of magnificent dishes that emerged from his kitchen.

The problem was not the chef. Lucknowwallah was an artist and highly strung. He could handle that. No, the problem had been created by Chopra himself. For the millionth time he wished that he had not caved into his wife's demand that he ‘find something for my mother to do'. As if the old crone did not have enough to do making his life a misery at every opportunity.

But at Poppy's behest he had installed Poornima Devi as the restaurant's front-of-house manager. He had anticipated that the old woman would quickly tire of the post and leave of her own accord.

To everyone's surprise, his mother-in-law had taken to the role with an industry that unnerved all those around her.

Poornima Devi's ability to inspire terror in the waiting staff ensured a fast and efficient service in the dining area. Her grasping memory – usually employed in recalling Chopra's numerous faults – meant that nothing was forgotten in the day-to-day running of the operation. Furthermore, with Poornima supervising proceedings the number of wastrels frequenting the restaurant had swiftly dried up. Those diners who suddenly realised that they had forgotten their wallets just as swiftly found them again under her withering, single-eyed scorn.

Chopra knew, from personal experience, that an enraged Poornima Devi was a Kaliesque vision of terror.

His mother-in-law insisted on wearing the white sari of a widow, her grey bun and black eye-patch lending her once-attractive face a terrifying severity. She had steadfastly refused to don the bright pink uniform that Poppy had chosen for the restaurant's staff. ‘Should I wear make-up too, like some cheap floozy?' she had sneered. ‘Would you sell your mother to the Kamathipura brothels?'

It was perhaps inevitable, Chopra reflected, that a battle of wills would ensue between Chef Lucknowwallah and Poornima Devi. The two were chalk and cheese and rarely saw eye to eye.

He sighed. Sometimes he longed for his days as a police officer, when all you had to worry about was getting shot.

He found the chef pacing the floor of his office, vibrating with indignation.

‘What has she done this time, Chef?'

‘That… that…
woman
… has ordered me –
ordered
, mind you! – to see to the over-spicing of my Shahi Chicken Korma!' The fat little man quivered with indignation. There were curry stains on his white chef's jacket, obscuring the initials AL embroidered on the breast pocket.

Lucknowwallah's round cheeks glowed red from the jungle-like heat that prevailed in his kitchen. The top of his head was covered by the white cricket umpire's cap that was his trademark, though Chopra suspected it was a gesture of vanity, a failed attempt to conceal Lucknowwallah's thinning hair.

Before Chopra could respond the chef exploded again. ‘Am I a khansama now, Chopra? A two-chip cookwallah to be ordered around by a glorified waitress? I, who trained at the knee of Master Lal Bahadur Shah! I, whose forefathers served as
vasta wazas
for the courts of emperors! When Akbar lay dying after fifty years on the throne, do you know what he asked for? Not gold or concubines… Akbar begged for the peacock heart basted in saffron oil that was the invention of my ancestors! When General Sikander was sentenced to be crushed to death beneath an elephant's foot for daring to love Emperor Jahangir's favourite consort, do you know what his last request was? Did he ask for one final kiss from his lost love? No, sir! He asked for one last taste of the kabuli biryani that made kings of my predecessors!'

Chopra sighed and realised that his evening's travails had only just begun.

Back in the compound Irfan knelt down in the mud and patted Ganesha on the head. ‘Someone hurt you today, didn't they, Ganesha?'

The little elephant remained morose, shrouded in a depressed silence.

‘You must not be so sensitive. People hurt each other all the time. Like Chopra Sir says, it is in their nature. You must become tough, like me. Then it doesn't matter how much they hurt you.'

Ganesha opened his eyes. Then he unfurled his trunk and lifted it to touch the boy's face. He slid the tip of the trunk down towards Irfan's shoulder and traced the cigarette burns that had made circular scars on the skin.

‘A bad man did that to me,' said Irfan, his voice suddenly low. ‘He tried to break my spirit each and every day. But one day I realised that no one can break your spirit unless you let them. So I ran away. Now he cannot touch me. No one can touch me.'

In the sudden silence there was only the steady drone of traffic from the nearby road. And then Ganesha lifted his trunk once more to the boy's face and brushed away the tears that had materialised on Irfan's cheeks.

Christmas in Mumbai.

Inspector Chopra (Retd) had often wondered how, given the fact that less than three per cent of the population of Mumbai was Catholic, the festival could engender such hysteria. In the run-up to the big day the whole city seemed to be overcome by a frenzy that he found impossible to fathom. It was another sign of the times, another line in the sand marking the ever-rising tide of westernisation that was engulfing urban India.

As he looked around at the streams of his fellow Mumbaikers thronging the brightly lit mall, he corrected himself. Perhaps westernisation was not the right word. Retailisation. Merchandisation.

He set down the shopping bags he had been carrying and checked his watch. The watch was twenty-five years old and had been a gift from his late father on the occasion of Chopra's wedding. He remained sentimentally attached to it even though it spent more time in the repair shop than it did on his wrist.

It was already midday. He knew that he should be working on the Koh-i-Noor case – each stuttering tick of the watch's second hand was a personal rebuke – but he had made his wife a promise.

Poppy was an inveterate fanatic of festivals. It did not matter which festival, his wife loved them all. She seemed to be instantly infected by whatever happened to be going around. He did not begrudge her this happy knack – he simply wished that she would leave him out of it. But Poppy, as is the way of some people, seemed convinced that Chopra would enjoy such occasions just as much as she did
if only he would give it a chance
.

‘Ho ho ho!'

He turned. Standing before him was a short, thin man clad in a Santa Claus outfit that was many sizes too big for him, giving the impression that he had lost a lot of weight very recently. The outfit seemed to be wearing the man rather than the other way around. A fake white beard was attached to his chin and fluffy eyebrows pasted on above his eyes. One of the eyebrows had tilted downwards, but he seemed unaware of this.

‘Ho ho ho!' he repeated, in a thin reedy voice.

‘Can I help you?' Chopra asked crossly.

The annual epidemic of Santas was another thing that bothered him. In his opinion they were not only irritating but also suffered from the crime of being inferior knock-offs. The vast majority that descended upon the city each year – in malls, in restaurants, even in the local branch of his bank – looked more like costumed hashish addicts of the type he often saw sleeping rough under the many flyovers of Mumbai.

‘Sir, we have many great offers waiting for you in our menswear department!'

Chopra looked around. Poppy was busily examining a shelf full of boys' shirts. His wife had grown greatly attached to her pupils at the St Xavier school and had decided that this year she would expend her Christmas budget buying gifts for them instead of hosting her own Christmas party. ‘Just imagine their little faces when they open their presents!' she had sighed.

He slipped his identity card from his wallet and waved it under Santa's nose. ‘And I have a jail cell waiting for you. Now go away.'

He watched the man scurry off, hitching up his voluminous red trousers as he went.

‘How do you think Irfan would look in this?' he heard Poppy ask behind him. She held up a garish yellow T-shirt stamped with the logo of Ralph Lauren.

‘Poppy, I really must go.'

She put down the T-shirt and walked over to him. Her concerned eyes carefully examined his face. ‘You are working too hard.'

‘I feel fine.'

‘Did you take your pills?'

‘Yes.'

‘I am glad Rangwalla will be working with you. Perhaps now you can take things a little easier. You know what the doctor said.'

Chopra did know. The doctors had told him to stop being himself; to stop being Inspector Chopra. He could not do that.

‘We interrupt this broadcast with a special bulletin. We are going live now to WD-TV studios.'

Chopra looked up at the giant television screen hanging from the ceiling high above. The screens were dotted around the store, ostensibly to provide entertainment for the shoppers. However, it had not escaped his notice that the broadcasts were regularly interrupted by prolonged adverts for the store's latest and greatest offers.

A newscaster in a tailored suit appeared on the screen. His face, below a glistening bouffant hairstyle, was grave. ‘Namashkar, ladies and gentlemen. We have a breaking exclusive on the stolen crown investigation brought to you exclusively by WD-TV. We go live to CBI headquarters where Assistant Commissioner of Police Suresh Rao has convened an emergency press conference.'

The picture cut to a whitewashed room lit by bright overhead lighting. Behind a long table bristling with microphones sat DCI Maxwell Bomberton and ACP Suresh Rao, flanked by a number of other important-looking policemen. Bomberton's balding head glistened under the lights. His red face was puffed with anger.

‘ACP Rao, would you care to comment on the rumours that you have taken one Shekhar Garewal into custody in connection with the theft of the Koh-i-Noor?'

‘I'll give you a comment,' growled Bomberton before Rao could open his mouth. ‘You're damned lucky I don't arrest you right now and throw you into jail!' He leaned forward as if he fully intended to leap from the podium and accost the reporter who had dared to ask this question. ‘This is an ongoing police investigation. I demand to know where you got this information!'

‘So it is true?'

‘Answer the question, damnit!'

‘I cannot reveal my sources, sir.'

A thin nasally voice piped up. ‘ACP Rao, this is Romesh Ratnagar of the
Times
. Let us stop being coy. I request you to herewith confirm that Inspector Shekhar Garewal has been placed under arrest and that even now he is in the Anda Cell of the Arthur Road Jail.'

Rao licked his lips and exchanged nervous glances with his colleagues. Their thoughts clearly mirrored Bomberton's belligerent words. How had the press got wind of Garewal? ‘I am afraid I am not at liberty to confirm this information.'

‘You mean you don't know?'

‘What? No. I mean yes. I do know. I just cannot… confirm,' Rao finished lamely.

‘Ah, I understand. You do not have the authority.'

Rao flushed. ‘Of course I have the authority. It is simply that—'

‘You require DCI Bomberton's permission before you may speak. I completely understand. I had thought the days of the Raj were over but I see that I was mistaken.' A sniggering arose from the gathered newspeople as Bomberton scowled.

Rao's face was now the colour of a beetroot. ‘Look here, Ratnagar,' he spluttered, ‘DCI Bomberton is a guest of the Mumbai Police. He is not running this investigation.'

‘It appears then that no one is running this investigation, sir, as you do not have the authority even to confirm—'

‘
I
am running this investigation.'

‘Then you can confirm or deny a simple case of fact! Is Garewal in custody or not?'

Rao glared at Ratnagar. ‘Yes.'

A gasp echoed around the room, followed by a nervous buzz of chatter. Bomberton turned to Rao, his face apoplectic.

Ratnagar shouted down his colleagues, pressing home his advantage. ‘So the very man you saw fit to place in charge of security for the Crown Jewels is the one behind this plot?'

Rao realised that he might have put his foot in his mouth. He struggled hastily to backtrack. ‘We cannot confirm any further details regarding Garewal's arrest at this time.'

‘Why not? There must be some reason that you have arrested him. We have a right to know. Or is Garewal merely a scapegoat? Have you arrested an innocent man, ACP Rao, to conceal the government's incompetence? Is the real culprit out there somewhere laughing at the Indian Police Service? Were you hoping to pull the wool over our eyes, sir?'

Rao thumped the desk. The glass of water before him leaped from the podium and fell to the floor. ‘Garewal is as guilty as hell!'

‘How can you be so sure?' asked Ratnagar smoothly.

‘Because one hour ago we recovered the Crown of Queen Elizabeth from his home!'