Banquet on the Dead (8 page)

‘Lakshman babu,’ the boy said to him.

The next minute Lakshman walked in through the door and wiped his face and neck with his handkerchief. Blotches of sweat showed through his shirt. It wasn’t a particularly hot day, but it didn’t have to be for Lakshman to sweat. He looked up, sighing, at the fan, as he walked to the table and sat himself down. Praveen saw that his beard was also glistening. It would be a while yet before he dried completely.

‘Cold drink?’

‘No, no, just turn the fan up.’

Praveen gestured to the boy. Then he turned to his brother and asked, ‘What are you doing here?’

‘There are people at the house,’ said Lakshman, and wiped his face again. ‘People who are apparently asking questions.’

‘Questions—about what?’

‘About Grandmother.’

Praveen closed the book in front of him and frowned. ‘What about her?’

‘Well, they are asking why a woman so old had to go to the well in the first place. Especially if she was so afraid of water.’

Praveen said, ‘That is something all of us are asking, isn’t it?’

Lakshman turned to the boy and said, ‘Babu, go and get us two goli-sodas.’ And after he had gone, he leant in closer and said, ‘I came here so I could talk to you in private. Too many people about the damned house.’

‘Yes?’

‘If there is anything that you would like to tell me—anything at all, that you would like to—confess—to me—’

‘What would I confess to you?’

Lakshman said, ‘I am your brother. You can tell me anything.’

Praveen closed his eyes and said in a deliberately calm voice, ‘Brother, will you please tell me what you are getting at?’

‘Well, do you happen to know why Ammamma went to the well?’

‘I do not!’

‘So you had nothing to do with—er, her falling over?’

Praveen stared incredulously at his brother for a long minute. ‘How dare you?’ he asked, finally, his voice starting low but rising. ‘
How dare you
!’

Lakshman looked genuinely confused. ‘I thought you—I heard—’

Praveen slammed his palms on the table and got up. ‘What about you, brother! Shall I ask
you
now if you killed Ammamma? God knows you had more reason than I did to kill her!’

Lakshman only frowned, as though he was debating within himself on the merit of what Praveen had said. Then he answered, ‘Maybe. But I did not kill her. I was inside the house when she fell into the well.’

‘And I was here, in my office. Can anybody confirm your statement, that you were in the house?’

‘Mother can,’ said Lakshman slowly.

‘Ha! Yes, a mother’s support to a son’s alibi. How convincing!’

‘Hey, listen, I came here to support you if—’

‘Oh, shut up, Brother! What makes you think I need your support? You thought I killed her and you came to offer me support? What kind of a brother are you?’

Lakshman’s face, still beaded with sweat, now contorted with anger of its own. He rose as if to strike his younger brother, but restrained himself. ‘You—you—everyone in the house is saying that
you
killed her, you understand! And I come to you here—in this godforsaken place—look at how I am sweating, you ungrateful pig! And you, you hurl abuses at me?’

Praveen clutched the edges of the table to steady himself. His voice was subdued, confused. ‘They think I killed her?’

‘Of course they do! Can you blame them after the scene you created last week?’

‘Oh—oh—that—that—I did not mean what I said.’

‘Oh, come on, you meant it. Everybody who was there thought you meant it.’

‘I did not,’ said Praveen. ‘I did not.’ Then he let go of the table and his hands went to his hair. He threw his head back to look at the ceiling, and yelled, ‘I did not!’

‘Look, if you’ve not done it, all’s well. I just wanted to make sure—’

‘I have not done it.’

‘Sit down, Brother,’ Lakshman said.

Praveen collapsed on the chair.

‘Now, tell me again, did you or did you not do it?’

‘I did not,’ Praveen said weakly.

‘Can you swear to me that you didn’t?’

Praveen’s eyes moved to pin down his brother. Both of them now were drenched in sweat. Above them the fan rotated furiously, creaking and scraping as it did so.

The door opened and the boy walked in, his hands full. ‘Two goli-sodas,’ he said.

7

P
RAMEELAMMA WAS A
white-haired woman of five-foot-one—about the same height as Kauvery’s. She walked with no visible discomfort, yet from within the folds of her sari Nagarajan spotted a brown belt fastened around the waist. She had flawless, fair skin; the same shade as her daughter’s, Nagarajan noticed, but it did not glow as much as the younger woman’s. She nodded her thanks to the constable in the doorway as she passed, and took the chair across the table.

‘First of all, madam,’ Nagarajan started smoothly, ‘I am very sorry for your loss’. The lady’s eyes did not look like they’d been shedding a lot of tears. Come to think of it, Nagarajan reflected, none of the three members of the family they’d met so far had shown any outward signs of grief. The servant had been the only one stricken. Of course, that was neither here nor there—every person had their own way of grieving, and some showed it more than others—but Nagarajan had expected to see some darkening around the eyes of the murdered woman’s daughter, if not anyone else’s.

She did not look at them directly. Her hands twisted around each other, and her eyes—clear and focussed— were set on the edge of the table-top. She murmured something in response.

‘We will try to make this as free of pain as possible for you, madam,’ Nagarajan said. ‘We’re back here again because your son asked us to come.’

She raised her eyebrows and gave them a half-nod.

‘Now, we’re not sure yet, of course, that it was not an accident, but we’d like to—’

‘It was not an accident,’ she said in a flat, emotionless tone. Then she raised her glance to meet his fully. ‘It was not an accident, Inspector. I know it was not.’

Nagarajan heard Hamid Pasha beside him stir with interest and settle back in his chair with a soft chuckle. He waited for the lady to speak, and she looked for a moment as if she had something to say, but then she fell into silence.

Nagarajan asked, ‘What makes you so sure, madam?’

‘I know my mother.’ Her voice was also that of her daughter, he thought. It was mellower, and it did not contain the same shrill notes of excitement that the younger woman’s had, but it was made of the same stuff. Prameelamma had a stern, commanding voice—the sort of voice one would expect in a woman who had raised five children virtually on her own.

‘I know my mother,’ she repeated. ‘She was terrified of water—all kinds of water! It was a great mystery to me how she bathed every day, sir. She was that scared. Wild horses would not have been able to drag her to the well.’

‘And yet somebody did, behen,’ Hamid Pasha said softly.

She looked at him, as if his presence had registered with her for the first time. ‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘Someone—or some
thing—
did make her want to go to the well. But even if she did, bhaisaab, she would not have gone close to the well. She would have had to be pushed in.’ And then Nagarajan heard the catch in the throat, the quick quiver of the lip, but these only lasted a fraction of a second. She was back in control almost immediately. ‘Someone pushed her in. I have no doubt about that.’

‘But you hesitate, madam,’ said Nagarajan. ‘Do you not share your son’s wish to have the murderer caught, assuming this is a murder?’

She gave him a smile, and it seemed to Nagarajan there was sadness in it. ‘What is the point, Inspector? She was a lady nearing eighty. Her grandsons and granddaughters have children now. She lived a full life.’

Again, Hamid Pasha stirred. ‘Behen, are you not angry that your mother was killed this way, in cold blood?’

‘Angry, bhaisaab? What will anger resolve? I lost my daughter when I was twenty-five. My husband died when I was forty. All my other sons have had close shaves with death. My grandson almost died in the same well. Whom should I get angry at? How can you be angry at something that has no face?’

Nagarajan saw the colour rise in her cheeks, and the eyes shine. This may be a woman ravaged and beaten by time, he thought, but there was still a lot of passion within her.

Hamid Pasha said, ‘But this murderer has a face, behen.’

‘We have had such deaths before,’ she said dismissively. ‘This was not the first, and I doubt it will be the last.’

‘So you don’t want us to carry on further, hain?’

She smiled at him. ‘If I say “no”, will you stop?’

Hamid Pasha shook his head grimly. ‘No, madam. Allah alone has the right to take lives. When humans assume that right, Hamid Pasha will intervene.’

‘Maybe it is Allah’s will that my mother should die in the well, bhaisaab. How can anyone of us—even you— profess to know what He wills?’

‘It may be His will that your mother should die in the well, but it is
not
His will that her death should go unavenged, behen. Because if it were, He would not have sent me here.’

She looked at him closely now, at the grizzled beard, at the Nehru cap, at the black waistcoat and the white shirt, at his wrinkled and freckled skin. Nagarajan could tell she did not share Hamid Pasha’s high opinion of his abilities. But she said in the indulgent tone one used with a stubborn child, ‘Sure, if it means so much to you, please stay and investigate.’

They did not need her permission; after all a murder was a murder. One did not ask murder suspects if they minded being interrogated. One went ahead and did it anyway. Nagarajan wondered if he should point this out to the lady, however gently, just to establish who was in control, but Hamid Pasha did not let him.

‘Thank you very, very much, behen,’ he said, bowing in an exaggerated manner, and turning to Nagarajan, he said, ‘Shall we?’

Nagarajan cleared his throat. ‘Madam, could you give us an account of what happened that morning, as closely detailed as you can remember? We will then ask questions on any matters that we’re not clear on.’

She nodded slowly. ‘It was just like any other day. I woke up at five, as I usually do. Mother was sick the previous night. She did not join me in the tulsi pooja like she daily used to. After I finished my prayers I went into the kitchen and started making breakfast for the family.’

‘And where,’ Hamid Pasha asked, ‘was your daughter at this time?’

‘Karuna? Karuna did not arrive until the evening, after we had—we had—’ Another catch in the throat, another thin quiver of the lips.

‘Ah, please go on.’

I started making breakfast with Gauri, Ellayya’s wife. She generally comes to the house early in the morning, around six. At the same time I saw Mother go into her room—I think she had visited the bathroom. At seven we served breakfast. Then I saw Swami come out of Mother’s room.’ She looked at them both.

Nagarajan asked, ‘But you did not see him go in?’

‘No, I was just setting the table, so I was in and out of the kitchen a few times. One of those times I came to the dining table, carrying plates in both my hands, and I saw him come out of the room—and he saw me looking at him.’

Hamid Pasha smiled.

She continued, ‘We just stood there, looking at one another. I remember his face was a bit pale—like he had not had much sleep or something.’

‘Did he give you any explanation, madam, for why he was in his mother’s room?’

‘Well,’ said Prameela, ‘he didn’t have to. After all, we all go in and out of Mother’s room quite freely. I only remember this day because—well—anyway, he did mumble something about chlorine bags and walked away.’

‘Chlorine bags?’

‘Yes, you know, for the well. We have to treat the water every now and then with chlorine to make sure it doesn’t go bad.’

‘And the chlorine bags were put in your mother’s room?’

She nodded. ‘Mother’s room is big, and it has a small attached storeroom to it. Swami usually has the chlorine bags put in there every time we need to clean the well.’

Hamid Pasha leaned forward. ‘And the smell, behen? Chlorine has a strong smell, does it not? Did it not bother your mother?’

‘Oh, I know what you mean about the smell! But no, I have never heard her complain about it, no,’ she said, twisting her hands. ‘But on this day she was complaining about it all morning. As I said, bhaisaab, she had been sick, and she was a cranky one when she was sick.’

‘Ah, she wanted the chlorine bags removed, did she?’

‘Yes, and Swami asked her to put up with them for just an hour or two longer, because he was going to use them to treat the water in the well that day. And I heard Mother mutter away all morning—she really did get cranky when she was sick.’

‘Did you see your mother during breakfast?’

‘She wanted breakfast to be brought to her room. Swami took it to her, and brought out the empty plates. That must have been around eight. Then he joined me for breakfast. By the time we were all finished it must have been—let me see—half-past-nine?

‘I was in the kitchen for the next one hour or so, bhaisaab, and then I went up to Kotesh’s part of the house. My grandson called me to play chess with him, so I went there. I was with him until half-past-twelve, and then I went to sleep in one of their rooms.’

‘You did not have lunch, behen?’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t have lunch generally. I only have breakfast and dinner. I prefer to sleep in the afternoons.’

‘So you would not happen to know if your mother ate her lunch or not?’

She shook her head again. ‘No. I woke up in the early afternoon and I was doing my daily writing... I must have lost myself in it, because when I heard the commotion downstairs and came out to see what it was, it was already five-thirty.’

Hamid Pasha asked in a murmur: ‘And what did you see?’

‘Oh—oh—it—did not look very bad, bhaisaab. She looked just like she was sleeping... Only I knew from something about the face that she was not. Praveen had carried her all the way from the well and he had propped her up with a pillow. He was rubbing her hands with his, but I could see it was all over.’