The Turning - Chapter Twelve

CHAPTER TWELVE

While Banoo Maa, Zerxes and Scherezade were dining in Banoo Maa's comfortable kitchen, at the Shahane household, the atmosphere was one of unease, of strain. Nobody had as yet felt like dinner, not even Kuntabai, who normally ate early. The Khannas had postponed their departure to Calcutta on hearing the news of Dina's death from Vinod. Then the 'death' turned out to be murder. . .

Vinod had been visited by the police, who had wanted to know how he had known where Sattar had been staying in Poona. It seems that that stuck-up brother of Dina's had informed the cops that he had been given information about Prakash's hotel in Poona by Vinod.

A pall of disquiet had descended upon the household. Nivedita's behaviour was growing stranger and stranger. Kuntabai could hardly contain her apprehension about her grand-daughter's state. It was she who had asked Arun and Suchitra to stay back for a few days more. They were both so normal and sensible; their presence was somehow reassuring.

Nothing and nobody could calm Nivedita any longer. Not even Vinod. His brand of therapy made her even more unpredictable and demanding. More neurotic than ever. He'd have to do something about her, thought Vinod to himself moodily. The silly bitch had actually started caressing him in public!

Once she had disconcerted everybody at the dining table by suddenly asking Vinod, "It's a good thing she's been killed, don't you think? Don't you? Don't you?"

At around 8.30 pm, Kuntabai took Vinod aside. "Beta, any further news?"

Vinod shook his head. "Nothing, except that it definitely was murder."

Kuntabai thought for a moment. "Call up your father, Vinod. Ask him to come here for dinner. It is time he came back to us." She seemed to take it for granted that he would be at home.

Prakash was at home and agreed to come over with surprising alacrity. He was quite fed up of being at home anyway, with Fatima mooning around, giving him baleful, accusing stares. Sonali was out of bounds now; temporarily at least, or so he had tried to convince himself. He had consciously decided to stay away from her until all this had blown over, and had told her so when he had last met her at her clinic. She had agreed with almost insulting readiness. He had tried to avoid reading the signs of the beginning of the end of yet another relationship.

The call from Vinod was a Godsend. And the summons sent by his mother, a pull back into the security of the womb. At least here was the promise of the beginning of a rapprochement, he told himself hopefully.

It was indeed a homecoming of sorts. Only Nivedita, on hearing of his arrival, chose to go to bed with a headache.

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After Prakash had left, Fatima had an early dinner and was preparing to go to bed herself, having been told by Prakash not to wait up for him. Just then, the doorbell rang.

She shuffled to the door. One of the two Police Inspectors who had visited earlier stood on the doorstep. It was SI Rodricks. She stood behind the half-opened door, peered suspiciously at him, and mumbled sullenly that Sahib was not at home.

Rodricks managed to slip in through the door and nimbly step inside past her, saying easily, almost conversationally, "I'm glad to know your Sahib isn't in. There are certain things I'd like to know from you. Things I'm sure only you can clarify."

Under Patil's instruction, he had learnt that adroit questioning, rather than force and intimidation, produced better results. Generally people liked to talk, Patil had often told him. And sooner or later they would let slip something, some tiny, vital clue, which would be instrumental in helping to unravel the skein of circumstances leading to the murder, and ultimately to the murderer himself. Or herself. He was quite liberated in his views of the so-called gentler sex even when it came to murder. Especially when it came to murder!

His tactics worked with the dour, dumpy, middle-aged maid. Her stance was less defensive as she stood looking at him, allowing a hint of inquiry to creep into her gaze.

Rodricks returned her gaze with an understanding, almost sympathetic look. "What is your name?" he asked her.

"Fatima."

"Fatima, you have served your mistress faithfully for many years," he remarked half interrogatively, uncannily striking the right chord.

There was naked grief in the round homely face, which crumpled into silent tears. "Oh yes, Sahib. The Bibiji, I be with her, many many years. She was good to me. She taught me to read and write English, a little." She sighed in remembrance. "Then, when her Baba Hanoz died, when she left her Khurshed Sahib, . . ."

"Khurshed Sahib?" cut in Rodricks. "Was he her first husband?"

"Yes," replied the maid, going on with her story. "When she left Khurshed Sahib, she did not take Fatima with her. She was not sure where she would go. I went to live with Banoo Memsahib. Then, when she marry this one, she became Mussalman, then she came and brought me here. I lived with her again. Helped my Bibiji." She was weeping in earnest now, sniffing into the voluminous folds of her black odhni, which she wore draped over her shapeless black kameez and loose salwar.

Rodricks made a few soothing noises. When the sobs subsided, he asked, adopting a casual, almost friendly tone, "Did your Bibiji and Prakash Sahib get along well?" Then, as she looked blank, he asked, "Were there any fights between Bibiji and the Sahib?"

"No, no fights," conceded the maid reluctantly, adding viciously, "But he have another woman, the Sahib. He cheat my Bibiji. My Bibiji was not happy, for many many years." Her resentment of Prakash Sattar was evident.

"How do you know he has another woman?" he asked.

A sly look came into the homely face, and the semi-literate voice took on almost a coy tone. "He talks to her on phone. I sometime pick up other phone, by mistake." She paused, looking at him as though daring him to make any comment and then added, almost conspiratorially, "He talks love-talk to her!"

"D0 you know who this woman is? Has she ever come here?" The maid shook her head at him, as though amazed at his naivete.

"Sahib not mad, to bring other woman here!"

"Did your Bibiji and Sahib go out together much, to parties and things like that?" The woman creased her brow in thought.

"No," she said at last. "But before Bibiji's birthday, they went to her sister's house. Had dinner there. I did not cook, that day."

"I see. And when was Bibiji's birthday?" The tears started afresh. "What to tell you, Sahib," she cried. "The Bibiji, she died one day after her birthday!" The sobs grew louder, and then ceased gradually. The other end of the odhni had fallen away from her shoulder, and she caught at it hurriedly, wrapping it around herself securely.

Rodricks murmured thoughtfully, his sharp memory at work, "And the Sahib had gone out of town just the evening before she died. So he went out of town on the day of your Bibiji's birthday?" he inquired, infusing just the right amount of incredulity in his tone.

"Yes." It was a flat, emphatic, vindictive affirmative. Then she added grudgingly, "But before he went, Bibiji's people came here for lunch. Banoo Mem, Fardun Sahib, Rashna Mem, Sherrie Baby, Zerxes Sahib, Shirin Mem, Jamshed Sahib, Tehmul Sahib," she ticked them off her fingers, adding, "They came after that girl went away." She looked at Rodricks, as though waiting for him to react.

He did not disappoint her. "Girl? What girl? Do you know who she was?"

The sly look was back. "She never been here before, but I think she be the Sahib's daughter."

"By his first wife?"

"Not by my Bibiji," was the scornful answer.

"How do you know it was the Sahib's daughter?"

"She call him 'Papa'."

"Hmmm . . . " Rodricks took a turn around the room. "So Sahib's daughter had come on the day of your Bibiji's birthday, and gone away before her other relatives arrived!"

The odhni-covered head nodded vigorously several times in confirmation.

Rodricks went on. "Think carefully, Fatima. Did the Sahib's daughter give any present to your Bibiji?"

"No, she had nothing in her hand, only her purse. Sahib gave Bibiji present. In the morning. And all others gave. Sherrie Baby, Fardun Sahib, all others."

"Do you know who gave what?"

"The Sahib, he gave scent. In silver paper. I saw new bottle, and silver paper in basket in Bibiji's room. She put on scent when I went to give her her saree after ironing. Then see, Banoo Memsahib gave her locket. She put it herself on Bibiji's neck. Her sister, Shirin Mem gave saree. She said that. Don't know what Fardun Sahib and 5herrie Baby gave."

"So the Sahib gave her scent." Not the least of Rodricks' strengths as an investigator was that he could adopt the idiom of the person he was questioning. Making his victim feel at home with him. He asked casually, "Do you know which scent? Can you show me the bottle?"

"No Sahib," Fatima shook her head, not without a certain satisfaction at the news she was about to impart. "That bottle is now not there!"

"Now not there? Was it broken or something?"

"No, no glass," she said decidedly. "Bottle not broken. Gone!"

"When did you first find out, that the bottle was missing?"

"I saw it was not there today, when I go to clean Bibiji's table."

"And the silver paper? Is it still there, in the basket?"

"Maybe," was the hesitant answer. "I have not cleaned Bibiji's room. Don't feel like it, " she said defiantly.

Rodricks was too canny to point out the contradiction of her earlier statement, that she had 'cleaned' the table. Obviously, curiosity had prevailed over any desire to clean up.

"Shall we go and see if it is there?" he suggested.

She silently led the way to Dina's bedroom. Rodricks followed. He was pretty certain there was no silver wrapping paper in the dust-bin.

He himself had given the room a thorough once-over, when the finger print chaps and the photographers had come over, for the routine sceneof-the-crime investigation. Not that there had been much sense to it! The corpse had gone, and everything nicely tidied up by the time the police really got on to the job, he thought to himself glumly. Very convenient indeed, for someone!

Then he remembered the crumpled saree which had also been taken for testing. It had been sprayed with the poisoned perfume all right! The poor woman had been perfumed to death! And the bottle of 'scent' had been given by the husband.

Well, he knew where that bottle had gone. But how many people had had access to it while Dina was alive? Apart from the husband himself? A whole lot, he thought to himself gloomily. And quite easily, apparently, if that sister of Dina's could have purloined the whole bottle itself, without being detected in the act!

Suddenly, something occurred to Rodricks. Something so obvious, that almost all of them had missed it! But he knew better than Patil the ways of these Parsees. No way would a Parsee dame be wearing a saree at home unless she was expecting guests. And Dina Sattar had died in a choli and petticoat after having discarded the saree sprayed with the poisoned perfume. So Dina Sattar had had a visitor or visitors on the morning of her death! She herself had definitely not gone out. The watchman had sworn to that.

Her husband had been away. All her relatives had visited her just a day earlier. Who had been her visitor? Or visitors? It had to be somebody she was expecting, as she had taken the trouble to dress up. And someone who had been allowed up by the watchman as a matter of course. Without meriting suspicion or inquiry. Somebody obviously well-dressed. Of the same social standing as Dina!

Rodricks put a casual question to the maid. A sly look entered the dull, suspicious eyes. "Maybe better if I do not say," she demurred, almost coyly. "Sahib will not like it, if he comes to know!"

Upon Rodricks sternly repeating the question, iniorming her that it would do her no good to keep things from the Police, she ultimately revealed that Dina's first husband Khurshed Sooneji had come to visit her.

"I see," Rodricks murmured to himself. "So husband No. 1 enters the case now! I wondered if he would!"

Almost immediately, however, he realized that the information was not really of much use. Dina must surely have sprayed on the perfume before Khurshed arrived. Diluted with perfume, nitrobenzene would take at least twenty-four hours to cause death! Or so the Docs said. Still, he would have to check him out. He couldn't take any chances. This poison wasn't'perfectly understood. It could probably cause different reactions in different people, depending on the individual metabolism. The Docs themselves weren't too sure!

"Did anybody else visit her on that day?" He asked the maid, who was now looking uncomfortable.

"One other man came. I have not seen him before. I heard Khurshed Sahib say it was his brother. Porus. Never seen him here before. He was very angry when he came," Fatima volunteered, once again warming to her story.

"Angry about what?" prompted Rodricks.

"That Khurshed Sahib still come to see Bibiji," was the surprisingly prompt reply, before Fatima thought it expedient to add a cautious "I think".

"Then what happened?"

"Then Khurshed Sahib leave very fast. After that man. Bibiji then go to her room and go to sleep."

The maid started sniffling again, adding mournfully, "Then, she die!"


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