Up in Flames (24 page)

             
Ironically, with his simmering sulks, he’d been the one who had caused shame and embarrassment. He the cause of the evening ending early. He the subject of reproachful glances and tart remarks. The unfairness of it, the supreme irony of it, took his breath away even now.

             
His gaze rested contemplatively on the screen and he realised he had got away from his research. Forcing his tired eyes and brain to concentrate, he read on, and learned that the majority of cases of sati seemed to have occurred in Rajasthan, the bulk around the Sikar district. He sat up straighter as it occurred to him that the drop in the ocean suddenly appeared far larger concentrated as it was to a particular area.

             
Casey realised that he didn’t even know where in India the two families had originated. Maybe it was time he checked the backgrounds of Chandra’s family and that of her in-laws. It might be interesting to learn if either of them came from Rajasthan, which appeared to be the sati capital of India.

             
Too tired to concentrate any more, he shut down the computer and went to bed, if not to sleep. The vivid pictures brought on by reading of yet another young woman’s agonising death churned on through a wakeful night. Mercifully, since Casey had finally got around to reminding his parents of the house rules, they weren’t accompanied by overloud music.

When he got to work the next morning, Casey handed the pile of printouts to Catt and suggested he have a read.

             
‘Reckon you’re on to something?’ Catt enquired.

             
‘Don’t know yet. Could be.’

             
Catt grinned. ‘I know that look. Something’s stirring.’

             
Something was, but it had yet to clearly reveal itself to Casey. It seemed that clarity required an extra input.

             
While Catt began to read the computer printouts, Casey got on to the Passport Office and asked them to check the birthplaces of the older members of the Khan and Bansi families and get back to him. He presumed by now they had all taken British citizenship. As for the grandparents, no doubt they held Indian passports. He would have to get on to the Indian High Commission and hope the notorious Indian bureaucracy wasn’t too long-winded.

             
And while he had the services of Shazia Singh he might as well make use of them. Grabbing all the notes on the case, he went in search of her and thrust the paperwork at her in the hope that she would see something his own culture blinded him to.

             
It only took her an hour to put her finger on at least one part of the evidence that had been niggling Casey.

             
And as she sat down in his visitor’s chair and pointed out the relevant section, she said, ‘See, sir. These red fibres and the jewellery round the body. Seems to me someone was trying to make Chandra a sacrificed bride.’

             
‘Or trying to make it look that way,’ Catt pointed out from his seat in the corner.

             
Shazia shrugged. ‘Whichever. Presumably, whoever did it, not being able to persuade Chandra that ritual suicide was a good thing, had done the next best thing and thrown the clothes and jewels over her so she would have the appearance of a widow dressed to meet her dead husband in heaven. You know, of course, that when Hindu widows were immolated in funeral pyres they were dressed as brides, not the widows they actually were?’

             
Casey nodded. ‘I’ve been doing my homework,’ he revealed. ‘But as Sergeant Catt remarked, was this set-up done for religious reasons or to deliberately to throw us off track?’

             
Shazia Singh shrugged. For once she had no answer.

             
More to the point, neither did Casey. But at least he was beginning to get a few ideas. He ushered both Shazia Singh and a protesting ThomCatt out of his office and shut himself up alone to think them through.

In spite of his splendid isolation and hours of thinking time during the day, when Casey reached home that evening, he had still not managed to acquire clarity.

              Casey’s father, trying in his own way to be helpful, with a shaking hand offered him a half-smoked wacky-baccy cigarette. Exhausted, drained, feeling beaten and with his mind elsewhere, unthinkingly, Casey took it, and drew in a long, deep drag. Then another one.

             
It didn’t take long for the drug to take effect. Soon, he was as relaxed and laid-back as his parents. In his drug-induced dreamlike state, Casey found himself travelling back over the investigation from a curiously high, Godlike altitude, with a detachment that was equally Godlike. He saw again the burned, blackened bodies; the charred floorboards at the centre of the fire; the threads of cloth and twisted metal that forensic had recovered. He saw the blue-skinned idol that had sat in the corner of Chandra’s room. He even recalled its name. Krishna. Hare Krishna. Hare Krishna. Hare Hare, he muttered in sing-along tones, to which his father’s reedy voice companionably joined in.

             
He remembered also that Shazia Singh had said that Krishna held a special significance for widows. What was it again?

             
His mind went off at various tangents - Chandra - the manner of her death and that of her child - the idol in the corner that the neighbour didn’t recall seeing - the first meeting with Rathi Khan and his family.

             
In the distant reality, beyond the suffusing, rosy glow of his father’s ultra-strong wacky-baccy, Casey thought he heard someone knock at the door. He ignored it. Moments later, he became aware of his mother’s voice, saying, ‘Willow. Willow Tree, hon. There’s someone to see you.’

             
Casey looked up to see Thomas Catt standing in the doorway, a bottle of wine in one hand, a bunch of flowers in the other and, on his face, an expression of open-mouthed astonishment as he sniffed the air and took in Casey’s sprawled figure.

             
Casey waved him to a seat, wafting the wacky-baccy’s aroma towards him as he did so. ‘Wondered when you’d turn up.’

             
ThomCatt, with his parental fixation, had a habit of latching on to the parents of others and practically adopting them. Once he’d learned that Casey’s parents were visiting it had only been a matter of time before Tom turned up. Casey, imbued with love for his fellow man, couldn’t understand why it should have bothered him.

             
‘Willow Tree?’ Wearing a bemused expression, Thomas Catt perched on the sofa beside Casey’s now comatose father. ‘I always thought you were a William.’

             
‘That’s what you were meant to think.’ Somewhere, in the back of Casey’s mind, anxiety stirred. But the anxiety was immediately swamped in a rosy euphoria and he sniggered. ‘Willow Tree’s the sort of name you get when you have hippies for parents,’ he explained. He waved his arm again. ‘Meet the folks - Star and Moon.’

             
Catt nodded politely towards Casey’s mother, who immediately offered him a joint. Catt declined, equally politely. But a grin was starting to edge in on the corners of his mouth. ‘I won’t stop,’ he said. ‘I can see you’re relaxing. I just thought I’d call on the off-chance that after shutting me out of the office you might have hit on something.’

             
‘Hit on something?’ Casey slurred. He sniggered again as he regarded the curling smoke from the wacky-baccy. He’d hit on something all right...

             
‘About the Chandra Bansi case.’

             
‘Oh that. Thought I was getting somewhere a minute ago. Gone now.’

             
Catt stood up.

             
Casey stared up at the length of him. ‘You going already? Just got here.’

             
‘Just remembered I’ve got a date. I’ll see you tomorrow. Don’t get up,’ he said to the three slumped figures, none of whom showed any signs of stirring. He held up the flowers and the wine and said, ‘I’ll just put these in the kitchen and let myself out.’

             
When Catt had gone, Casey took another puff, leaned back and a few minutes later, the earlier vague stirrings sharpened and he found the clarity of vision that had previously eluded him. Suddenly, like one of those revelations about the secret of the universe that drug-taking was supposed to induce, he saw everything sharply for the first  time. He was surprised to find that now, as his inner mind was suffused with feelings of contentment and warmth towards all, the whole thing made sense. He wished Catt hadn’t gone. He wanted to explain this marvellous clarity to him. Because he knew who had committed the double murder. He even knew why. The only thing he didn’t know was whether he could prove it...

             
He gazed at the smouldering hand-rolled spliff and grinned inanely. Maybe he should have tried this earlier? Maybe it was time he gave over being the stuffed shirt his parents proclaimed him to be. Maybe...

The next morning, Casey had trouble meeting his own eyes in the bathroom mirror as he shaved. He hoped Catt’s arrival the previous evening had been a figment of his drugged imagination. But he suspected it wasn’t.

             
Thinking of his sergeant reminded Casey of something Tom had said right at the beginning of the case. Catt had been inspired when he had said that whoever had done the killings must be either, mad, bad or dangerous to know. 

             
Casey wasn’t sure whether it was the weed to which he had succumbed in a weak moment the night before that had enabled him to stumble on the solution to the case. He  hoped not as he didn’t want some devilish corner of his mind tempting him into a repetition the next time a case proved troublesome.

             
But, he’d worry about any possible inherited addictive-personality traits later. For now, he wondered how he could prove his conclusions - his father’s wacky-baccy wasn’t that miraculous. He also wondered how he could explain his weak self-indulgence to Catt. After taking the high moral ground so often in the past on the drugs issue, he was conscious that the previous evening’s exhibition made him look like a hypocrite. Catt would never believe it was his first smoke since his teens. He didn’t want to lose his sergeant’s respect. It meant too much to him.

             
After he climbed in the shower and took a long, vigorous scrub and shampoo to wash any lingering drug-scent away, he was careful to dress in his most sombre suit from a wardrobe sombre with similar hues. Fortunately, the suit selected had just come back from the cleaners. It was still encased in its protective plastic so was uncontaminated by tell-tale odours; it wouldn’t do, after such a thorough scrub to risk wearing yesterday’s suit. Especially, as he realised that the PC Purgatory which had plagued him throughout was likely to be replaced by a hellish chorus as various combatants derided his conclusions.

             
Because, even though he was confident that he now knew the who and the how and even the why - if such a killing could have a reasonable why - he knew he had no proof worthy of the name and if, as seemed likely, Chandra’s family remained silent, his conclusions would receive a sorry reception.

             
He drove to the station through puddles of rain. The weather had changed overnight. The oppressive, sticky heat of the past week or so had finally gone, washed away by a heavy shower. Today was drizzly, grey and miserable and for bodies briefly acclimatised to sticky heat, the little breeze struck chill.

             
He picked up a grinning Catt at the station. For once, Catt had the good sense to keep his mouth shut and made no reference to the previous evening. Casey gave him a quick explanation of his conclusions on the investigation as they headed for the Khans’ home. But when they got there the house was empty, truly so this time, Casey thought, as there was not even the tell-tale and swiftly withdrawn face at the window. There was an air of abandonment, desolation even, about the place.

             
‘Perhaps they’ve flown the coop,’ Catt suggested. ‘Would be the best thing all round, if they had. At least it would bolster your case.’

             
A week ago, Casey wouldn’t have been tempted to agree with him. But he was tempted now. More than tempted to hope that Catt was right and that the hellish prospect waiting in the wings had flown out with them.

             
As they paused at the entrance to the drive for a break in the traffic, a middle-aged and expensively dressed white woman knocked on Casey’s window. He lowered it and looked enquiringly at her.

             
‘I’ve seen you on TV,’ she confided. ‘You’re the officer investigating the death of Mr Khan‘s daughter. Were you looking for Mr and Mrs Khan?’

             
Casey nodded.

             
‘Only they’re all at the hospital. The old man was taken ill. He went off in an ambulance with Mr Khan. His wife and the rest of the family followed in the son’s car.’