Kolkata Noir

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Kolkata Noir - book excerpt

Part 1

1999 – Calcutta

Paulami Roychowdhury loved the view. Richard was lying on the unmade bed, his smooth, tanned chest rising and falling in silence. Beyond the prone figure of the boy, she could see the Oberoi Hotel’s swimming pool, surrounded by polished tropical foliage, reflecting the late morning Calcutta sun. Waiters in white, starched livery moved silently between bathers, dispensing cocktails, mocktails, and other refreshments best added up in dollars. Life. Somewhere far away she could hear the roar of the city. For a moment Paulami wished the image would freeze, suspended in time and space, her eyes forever fixed on the inert, perfect shape on the bed, afloat in one of the city’s most salubrious private hotel suites.

She caught her reflection in the oversized mirror. Getting older was a drag. Abir, who spent his nights in filthy Chinatown music bars, ogling women ten times more tired than herself, was good for nothing but his money. The irony of having to spend so much of his money to get away from him wasn’t lost on her. Having to hide a little scandalous behavior from the neighbors in Bagh Bazaar, while he came home drunk, was like a sore she’d been scratching for years. Annoyed, she kicked one of the legs of the four-poster, scuffing her gold-embroidered Punjabi juttis on the dark wood.

She would have loved to stay with this boy, the first white boy she’d been with since returning from her studies in Leeds twenty years earlier. Richard had managed to pry her from her gilded cage. But the longing would pass. Richard wouldn’t be able to solve her problems. Still, one could always use a thorn to remove a thorn.

The air-conditioning was turned up too high. Shivering into her best Baluchuri sari, Paulami snapped out of her well-deserved revelry. Her gaze drifted away from the movie scene she’d created for herself. She let go and sashayed away from her lover towards the phone. Things to do, people to call. Life in Calcutta wasn’t a holiday. Life in Calcutta was murder. And time was its most reliable assassin.

***

The lift operator, a small, grizzled man from UP who hadn’t seen the sun in years, showed Madhurima Mitra into the bar. She’d never set foot in the Broadway Hotel. She certainly had never been in the hotel’s ground floor night spot, now virtually empty and smelling of stale cigarette smoke, spilt beer, and the kind of existences she had little time for outside her professional life. Madhurima didn’t go to bars. At least the air-conditioning worked.

It was easy to spot Becker, the only foreigner in the dingy room, installed at a small table, a large bottle of Kingfisher in front of him. Who drank at 6pm? She thanked the lift man and wound her way between the tightly packed tables towards Becker. She’d checked the hotel register. He was a photographer. He’d booked in for a week.

As she got closer, she made a quick appraisal. She already knew Becker was in his mid-20s, a few years younger than herself. He had provided an address in London and had entered the country on a six-month tourist visa, also issued in London. The hotel had furnished her with a C form and a photostat of his passport. The foreigner was sitting down, but she could tell that he was pretty tall. Broad shoulders, a face a little too worn for his age, ash blonde hair. His tan confirmed that he’d been in India for a month. His eyes. She looked away as he returned her gaze.

“Good afternoon. Are you Mr. Becker?”

Becker smiled. Madhurima was the kind of woman who always smiled back, at the appropriate frequency. Everyone deserved a smile. Those who didn’t got one anyway. A smile was professional. It was defense. It was authority. The foreigner smiled a little more and made an inviting gesture towards the worn chintz chair across his table. She stood. It gave her more self-confidence. It was proper, she supposed, as proper as her smile. She was on duty. And even if she hadn’t been… But then she wouldn’t be here. She’d be at the gym, at home, somewhere. Not at the Broadway, not drinking beer.

“I’m Inspectress Madhurima Mitra, Kolkata Police. Nice to meet you, Mr. Becker.”

Becker stood up. He was a little slow doing so. Definitely not in a hurry. He held out his hand, probably to make up for his reticence. His touch was cool and light as a feather. Madhurima suspected that his handshake varied as much as his smile. She had to admit that hers did too. The moment was a little awkward, a little too long, but quite acceptable in the bar’s dim, rusty, old movie light.

“What am I supposed to have done, Ms. Mitra?” his voice trailed off. She detected a hint of concern on his face. Deep down everyone was guilty of something.

“You’ve done nothing we might be concerned about…” she trailed off for a little dramatic effect. “Not at this moment, anyhow. I’m investigating the disappearance of Richard Dunlop, a British citizen. He rents a room in this hotel.”

Becker relaxed.

“Could you step out to the reception, please, Mr. Becker?”

“If you want the entire hotel staff and half of Ganesh Chandra Avenue to discuss our conversation for the next couple of days, then that’s the best option.”

She was annoyed for a second. He was right. And he was rude. But she moved on, pulled out the chair he’d offered her, and sat. He wasn’t the first rude man she’d encountered. A waiter came past with the drinks’ menu. She waved him away before he’d reached the table.

“When did you last see Mr. Dunlop?”

“Four days ago, in almost exactly the same seat you’re sitting in now.”

She opened a notepad and pulled a biro from her breast pocket.

“What time was that?”

“Closing time. We had four beers and he told me his life story.”

She jotted down everything he said. First impressions were important.

“He’s been found dead?”

She shook her head. The foreigner could sense there was something she wasn’t telling him.

“I appreciate your cooperation, Mr. Becker. We have no reason to believe that Mr. Dunlop is dead. But he’s been missing for four days.”

“If something happened to Richard, I’d be glad to help.”

“You are a photographer?”

Becker nodded, more to himself than to her.

“I’m sure you know that already.”

“You don’t like the police?”

Becker pulled himself upright.

“I’m sorry if I gave you that impression. I am here to help.”

“Can you tell me more about him?”

“He’s a bit weird. He has almost no money. He’s been all over, Jaisalmer, Goa, Hampi. Too many tourists, he told me, so he came east. Richard told me he liked Calcutta, he described the city in quite lyrical terms — he mentioned the morning fog on the Hooghly, the crumbling Raj buildings, the food. He talked about Bengali women.”

Becker looked at her with an expression she couldn’t quite read before he continued.

“He told me he bagged a degree in German from Leeds a few months ago and was trying to put as many miles between his academic past and his current self as possible. He was trying to find something, but he wasn’t sure what. Adventure and glory, he said. At one point, quite a few beers into an evening, he shouted ‘Independence or death’. He was definitely driven, restless.”

“So, you felt sorry for him.”

Becker didn’t look like he minded sitting in bars alone. He almost looked part of the furniture.

“He was the only other foreigner drinking down here every night. He didn’t strike me as the kind of guy who goes nuts because he’s been in India too long. Perhaps he isn’t lost at all, just broke and in need of a beer while planning his next move. Now I think about it, what he told me about his life in the UK was more revealing than what he told me about what he’d been up to in India. He hated being in Leeds. Perhaps something traumatic happened to him there. He was a man on the run, so to speak.”

Madhurima raised her eyebrows.

Becker corrected himself, “I didn’t mean that in the sense of Richard being a criminal fugitive. If he was, you’d know by now, I guess.”

“What did he say about Bengali women?”

Becker shifted in his seat, looking like a man who’d already said too much. As if information he’d furnish on Richard Dunlop might sound like a reflection on himself. She felt oddly touched by the thought.

“He told me Bengali women were beautiful. He said this could be a place where a young man might fall in love. At the time, I didn’t think much about it, and I didn’t press him. He’s right, of course.”

He was looking directly at her. There was nothing leery in his expression, but Madhurima blushed anyway. She noted his answer on her pad, hoping the dim light in the bar was on her side.

“Did you have the impression he was…” she was looking for the right words, “he had met a woman here?”

“Yes, I did, but as I said, I didn’t ask any questions. He didn’t volunteer anything else.”

Madhurima relaxed. The foreigner was helpful. More helpful than her colleagues back at the Bowbazar Station, who’d saddled her with the case of the missing tourist because no one was keen to investigate the whereabouts of foreigners. And because they wanted her to fail. All except Emran. He was on her side. The others didn’t want to see a woman rise through the ranks. One day they might have to take orders from her.

“So, he ran off with a rich woman?”

His question made her uncomfortable. He was giving her goosebumps. She wasn’t entirely sure how much to tell him. He wasn’t supposed to be asking questions. That was her job.

“It’s possible.”

Becker shrugged and took a sip of beer and waved for a second bottle.

“If you tell me what really happened, I can perhaps make some suggestions. I know Richard a little. He was gregarious and very private at the same time.”

“He would run off with an older woman?”

Becker laughed. Short and dry. “Well, I guess he did, if you put it like this.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“You’re not telling me what happened.”

She searched his face, though she didn’t exactly know what for. She realized that she held back not just because he was a witness in an investigation that might have far-reaching, career-defining consequences, but because he was a foreigner. But she might need a foreigner to find a foreigner. She tried to look Becker in the eyes, but there was something else there from which she recoiled. If she were really honest to herself, it was her, not him, that bothered her. His calm, friendly demeanor, his apparent helpfulness, his non-judgmental gaze, and the subtle negation of it that floated in the way he looked at her, flustered her. Madhurima pulled herself together and came to a decision.

“Richard Dunlop checked into the Oberoi, the finest hotel in the city, with a local woman called Paulami Roychowdhury four days ago. Did he tell you about her?”

Becker shook his head.

“I guess they’ve checked out since, destination unknown?”

“Yes, destination unknown. That’s a nice way of putting it.”

He smiled. She blushed again. She wasn’t used to working with foreigners, she decided. But her great uncle, her role model, Calcutta’s most celebrated detective in the 1960s, had always told her: when in doubt, take a leap. Especially a leap of inquiry. He’d told her again and again that her mind was the most powerful weapon at her disposal. That’s how she’d gotten to where she was today. Another leap wouldn’t hurt.

“Mr. Becker, I need more than this. Mrs. Roychowdhury is a well-known, wealthy, socialite from North Kolkata. She’s old money. Her elopement will scandalize the entire city. I need to find her. And Mr. Dunlop, of course. Not just for his sake, but for mine too.”

Becker raised a questioning eyebrow. She envied him his calm.

“I was assigned this case because it’s a social disaster. Her husband is old Calcutta money. Her brother-in-law owns one of the finest properties in North Calcutta. If I fail to find Mrs. Roychowdhury and Mr. Dunlop both alive and well, I’ll be pushed into traffic duty.”

The door to reception creaked open. A uniformed cop stuck his head inside the bar. He waved for her with some urgency. She couldn’t very well ignore him, but she took her time wrapping up her interview. Looking flustered in front of her subordinates, or for that matter, the foreigner, wasn’t an option. She got up with economic ease, not a gesture of uncertainty in her movements that might have betrayed her insecurity. Becker was just too damn calm.

“We will meet again. Please don’t leave the city. In fact, please stay in the hotel this evening. I may have to get back to you soon.”

“I’ll be right here talking to my little, brown friends.”

She was incensed, then she realized he was talking about his bottles of Kingfisher. There was so much room for misunderstandings with outsiders. That added an extra challenge to her situation. But she had to admit to herself, it wasn’t all bad. Becker was interesting. He was cooperating. And she liked his eyes, even as she couldn’t really hold his gaze. Nor could she explain exactly why that might be the case. There was something loose about the way he looked at her. Perhaps some things didn’t need to be understood quite as properly as she generally expected.

Outside in the real world, a car was waiting for her at the crowded curb. Assistant Commissioner Mazumdar sat in the back. He looked impatient. Madhurima wouldn’t have been at all surprised to find out that he was friends with the Roychowdhurys. He was cut from the same cloth. And he was here because something had happened. Something terrible.

***

Paulami hadn’t been to Kishore’s rajbari, her husband’s family’s stately home in Shobha Bazaar, for years. Abir had told her in drunken bouts of sentimentality about growing up beneath Belgian chandeliers, surrounded by vases from China and oil paintings of Indian landscapes by long forgotten Britishers. When the brothers had inherited the sprawling building, they’d immediately fallen out over money. While Abir enjoyed a stellar career as one of the city’s top transport engineers, Kishore had invested whatever funds had been handed down by the family into transforming part of the mansion into a hotel. But for all its fading zamindar glory and Kishore’s unique art collection, the building’s location, in the heart of what had once been called Black Town (as opposed to White Town where the Britishers had lived, further south), had kept the tourists away. When the hotel had opened its doors, offering twelve huge rooms crammed with antiques, the newspapers had rightly pointed out that the property stood on the edge of Sonagachi, Calcutta’s most notorious red-light area. A trickle of foreign tourists, unaware of the less than salubrious surroundings, continued to check in, but the domestic travelers stayed away. The rot, Abir had told Paulami, had soon set in again.