Dead in a Mumbai Minute (11 page)

We walked in to the lobby, where we were met by a putrid smell.

‘Is that …’

‘The smell of death,’ said Shayak. ‘The morgue facilities were last upgraded fifty-odd years ago. I am working on it now.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I am trying to convince the bureaucrats in charge to let Titanium install a new one for them.’

‘Why would they turn down such an offer?’

‘Do you really need me to answer that?’

No, I didn’t. The answer was sure to be something about official malfeasance, with a liberal dose of unofficial corruption on the side.

We entered a lift that looked like it had been there for a century, and creaked up to the fifth floor, the smell of rot our constant companion. We got out and Shayak led me down the hall to an unmarked door.

‘Have you seen an autopsy being conducted before?’

‘Yes,’ I replied.

‘You were okay with it?’

I nodded, and we walked in. I saw a man in white lab coat and gloves reaching into the cavity of a body – no doubt, Ashutosh Dhingre’s. He looked up and smiled at Shayak.

‘What a pleasure!’ he said, pulling out what looked like a liver.

‘This is my colleague Reema Ray,’ said Shayak. ‘Reema, this is Dr Sudhir Mishra.’

‘Welcome, Reema,’ he said, teeth still very much on show.

I may not be as squeamish as most around death, but I didn’t think I’d be smiling if I were elbow-deep in a man’s entrails. I tried to return his warmth, but failed.

‘What do you know so far?’ Shayak asked.

‘Murder, for sure. Nothing accidental about this one. Have to establish whether it is the blunt head trauma or the sharp trauma to the neck that actually killed him.’

‘Any idea about time of death and weapon?’

‘Time of death appears to be between 2 am and 4 am,’ said Dr Sudhir. ‘Weapon, it is too early to say.’

‘Could it be a glass bottle?’

‘I had heard something about a bottle at the scene, and the lacerations do fit that scenario,’ he nodded. ‘But contrary to what they depict in the pictures, a bottle isn’t your usual murder weapon. Many people are hit over the head and walk away with only superficial damage.’

His words conjured images of unsuspecting people randomly being whacked about with glassware. In Dr Sudhir’s world, perhaps.

‘What if it was a thick, heavy bottle?’

Dr Sudhir gave this some thought. ‘Hit at just the right spot, where the skull is soft, it might cause serious damage, yes. I will have to examine the bone to give you a confirmation of that.’

‘Could a shard from the same bottle have been used to create that neck wound?’ asked Shayak.

Dr Sudhir nodded. ‘A glass fragment certainly could have been the culprit.’

‘What about the trace evidence and other samples?’

‘They have been harvested and are ready for you. You’ll find Paresh in his office waiting for your arrival.’

With that, we returned to the screaming lift, going down a couple of floors. ‘Paresh Parikh is Dr Sudhir’s assistant,’ explained Shayak. ‘He is the leading expert in the country on trace. He’s helped train the team at Titanium.’

Even before the grill gates could open, a man greeted Shayak like an old friend.

‘Mr Gupta! We have been expecting you!’

From actresses to lab techs, everyone seemed to welcome Shayak.

Back at the Titanium offices, we helped Paresh take the collection kits and boxes out of the car. When we all piled in to the lift, I was stunned to see which button Shayak had pressed. The fourth floor. I was finally going to get a glimpse of the mysteries that lay within.

We walked into a small foyer, after which there was another door to clear with an additional swipe and a biometric scan. Shayak led us in.

When the doors opened, I had to try very hard to stop my jaw from dropping. It was as if I had walked in to a scene from a spy film. On my right was a glass-enclosed lab. Four white-coated techs were already at work. On the left was a series of doors, each with a swipe machine and a biometric scanner.

But I wasn’t going to find out what was behind those doors just yet. We turned into the lab. I could see Paresh’s eyes light up. Boys and their toys, I thought to myself, till I caught my reflection on one of the room’s shinier surfaces and saw the glazed look that I too wore.

‘Sorry to bring you here like this. I had meant to give you the tour first,’ Shayak said to me.

I couldn’t care less that he was laughing at me. I was dazzled. Our college lab had been adequate and I had seen some equipment on visits we had made to professional establishments. But in the past few years, the only piece of machinery I had at my disposal had been a computer, phone and fairly decent camera.

And now I suddenly found myself in a toyshop worthy of a couple of Os and a seven.

Paresh knew his way around the lab. He got straight to business, unpacking his kit. Vials, envelopes and plastic bags emerged. Some I had seen the techs collecting at the scene, such as the soil samples and scraping from the victim’s shoes, while others had been brought in directly from the morgue. Blood, hair, microscopic evidence of where Ashutosh Dhingre had been and what he had been doing.

‘There was some sort of substance under the victim’s nails,’ said Paresh. I knew this could be crucial: if there had been a struggle, these scrapings may contain DNA of the assailant.

‘There are glass fragments from the wound,’ he added.

‘And the glass collected from the scene?’ asked Shayak.

‘All here,’ said Paresh, pointing to a plastic collection box.

‘Reema, do you want to get started on this?’

I stared at him. Handle evidence on my own in this lab?

‘Someone will help you with the equipment, of course.’

I nodded, and Shayak summoned one of the techs who had been at the scene.

‘Kaushik, this is Reema, from Investigations. Will you help her reassemble this mess of glass, please?’

Kaushik seemed rooted to his spot, befuddled by this unexpected conversation with the boss. He took a minute to recover, and then nodded. Darting a furtive glance in my direction, he led me to a corner of the room.

‘Hi,’ I said.

‘Hello,’ he replied. His whole body was stiff and it seemed an effort for him to speak to me at all. Was this Shayak’s residual effect, or was it the impact of seeing a woman in the lab?

I waited for him to begin but when he didn’t, I opened the box. ‘It seems to be a wine bottle,’ I said.

‘Right, and we should try to reconstruct it. It shouldn’t be difficult estimating its circumference.’

‘I am not sure about the age of the bottle. Judging from the thickness of the glass, it might be quite old, meaning it might be of unusual size.’

‘Okay.’ Kaushik put on gloves and began to sort out fragments. He was picking out the larger ones first.

‘If you could give me an idea of what you are looking for, I could help,’ I said.

‘I would like to create a 3-D model of the bottle. But unless we have some idea of the dimensions, it will be time consuming. I am sorting pieces that look like they are from the main body and others which appear to be part of the neck or base.’

‘What if we first try to assemble this label? If it is an old bottle of wine, it is likely to be well known, and we should be able to find some reference images online.’

I could see Kaushik approved of my suggestion. We started sorting out the pieces with bits of paper stuck to them. The label, once white or cream, was red with either wine or blood or both. But the letters were still legible and, as they came together, I flushed with excitement. It was a Chateau Lalou, 1899.

On the table right there, the shards of glass had transformed into motive. The bottle would easily be worth more than a crore. To a collector, it would be priceless.

We looked online for images; the Internet and especially eBay was full of pictures of Lalous, many of them probably fakes. I finally found a reliable source and pulled it up for Kaushik.

‘Okay, I should be able to proceed much quicker with this.’

Kaushik took large fragments from various parts of the bottle. The base had more or less broken off in one large chunk. Then he measured the arc of various large pieces from the body and neck, and entered the values into a computer programme. Soon we were holding a 3-D recreation of the Lalou’s internal dimensions. Then Kaushik painstakingly photographed each piece of glass, examining them for evidence that the state forensics lab may have missed. We then began assembling the pieces, jigsaw puzzle-like, around the model. It came together beautifully, except for a gaping hole from around the shoulder of the bottle.

‘Could the crew have missed some pieces at the crime scene?’ asked Kaushik.

‘Does the Titanium team usually miss things?’

‘Not often.’

It was more likely removed by the killer. The perpetrator had had the presence of mind to carry away the murder weapon – the piece of glass that had been used to slit Ashutosh Dhingre’s throat. It could now be anywhere. The logical choice for disposal, given the circumstances, being the bottom of the Arabian Sea.

Kaushik took out a brush and handed it to me. ‘Would you like to do the honours?’

It was time for fingerprinting. This was a process I was familiar with, so I took it from him without hesitation. There were numerous prints on the bottle. I took a small plastic sheet and carefully pressed it over one, and it came off cleanly; I then repeated the process with the others.

Kaushik took the prints from me. ‘I’ll start running these to see if we have any hits in the state database. Do you know if any suspects have been printed yet?’

‘As of this morning, no.’

As soon as he had scanned them, he turned to me. ‘I can tell you right now that these aren’t from the same hand. There are two sets of prints here, but one is not as clear as the other. You’ll show sir the bottle?’ Kaushik asked.

It took me a moment to figure out who ‘sir’ was, and I nodded. Kaushik turned back to the scanner.

When I couldn’t find Shayak in the lab, I went to his office and peered in. There was a small reception area where his assistant was seated.

She looked up at me and smiled.

‘Is Mr Gupta in? I’d like to see him, please,’ I said, introducing myself.

She made a call and waved me through another door, behind which I found Shayak at a desk significantly smaller than what I had expected on the fourth floor.

‘What do you think?’ Shayak asked without preamble.

‘It’s like stepping into an episode of
CSI.’

‘And?’

‘There can’t be many facilities like this in India.’

‘How do you feel being a part of it, now that you’ve been here for a few weeks?’

In the light of the morning’s events, I wasn’t sure where to begin. ‘I think it is a little early to say. As I’ve said before, there is a great deal about the company that I don’t know.’

‘Ask away, then.’

‘Are you sure this is the time? I have a lot of questions.’

‘A preliminary forensics report will be on my desk in thirty minutes. Till then, I might as well bring you up to speed. Things are likely to only get busier in the days to come, and I don’t want you to have any doubts.’

‘Fine.’ But where to begin? ‘What exactly does Titanium do?’

‘We are a security solutions provider. In every sense of the term.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘We ensure that our clients, their homes and their businesses are free from external or internal threats of any kind. Our process often starts with a detailed risk assessment, and then we provide a strategy to address any weaknesses we find. That might include your run-of-the-mill equipment installations, security guards, bodyguards, IT solutions, intelligence reports. In short, whatever it takes.’

Much of this I had heard already. ‘And who are these clients?’

‘The bulk of our business comes from large international corporations in India, prominent businessmen and government agencies. We also do security details for politicians, and people you might call celebrities, such as cricketers and film industry personnel.’

I wondered how Kimaaya would feel if she heard herself described as ‘personnel’.

‘And that’s it?’

‘Not enough for you?’

‘Something is not adding up.’

Shayak nodded. ‘Once again, you are right. There is a component of our work that I am not at liberty to discuss. Most of it is for governments.’

Governments, plural. Was Titanium a security contractor working with the army? If so, whose army? And what was the nature of this work? I was imagining secret missions and authorized assassinations.

I was revisited by the feeling that I was being left out of Titanium’s most exciting assignments. But Shayak said he couldn’t talk about it, and that meant he wouldn’t, let alone involve me in it. ‘Where do I fit into all of this?’

‘Our investigation team is critical to our process. That is why, after years of operating mainly with consultants, I felt the need to develop our in-house capabilities further. Though we don’t typically take on stand-alone investigative cases, most of our clients require intelligence reports at some stage of their relationship with us.’

‘Such as?’ I felt silly asking now; shouldn’t I have cleared this up before I joined? Instead, I was won over cheaply, on a boat, by a speech. And perhaps a kiss?

Shayak smiled. ‘I think we’ll need some coffee if you want me to get into all that.’ He picked up the phone and called for a couple of cups.

Food, I suddenly remembered. But now seemed hardly the time to bring it up.

‘When a client approaches us for the first time,’ Shayak continued, ‘we begin with a risk assessment depending on their needs. If we are called in for an external security threat, we try to understand where the organization’s weaknesses are, who may have made the threat, how serious it is and so on. There is obviously a need for investigators there. If there is an internal breach, we begin by sending in forensic accountants to examine the books. Most often, the money tells the story. The next level involves digging deeper into the private lives of suspects. If the client is an individual, the requirements are often more straightforward – checking out stalkers, for instance or, in certain instances, accidents and other unforeseen events.’