Bad Day at the Vulture Club

Book 0: Baby Ganesh series

by Vaseem Khan

Genres: Mystery

Synopsis

In the gripping new Baby Ganesh Agency novel, Inspector Chopra and his elephant sidekick investigate the death of one of Mumbai's wealthiest citizens, a murder with ramifications for its poorest.

The Parsees are among the oldest, most secretive and most influential communities in the city: respected, envied and sometimes feared.

When prominent industrialist Cyrus Zorabian is murdered on holy ground, his body dumped inside a Tower of Silence - where the Parsee dead are consumed by vultures - the police dismiss it as a random killing. But his daughter is unconvinced.

Chopra, uneasy at entering this world of power and privilege, is soon plagued by doubts about the case.

But murder is murder. And in Mumbai, wealth and corruption go in hand in hand, inextricably linking the lives of both high and low....

Release date: August 8, 2019

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 384

Sample

An Englishman’s office is his castle



Cyrus Zorabian maintained an office not far from his home. At precisely 10 a.m. the following morning Chopra left Ganesha in the van and was shown into a newly renovated tower block on Lal Bandar Road by William Buckley, the deceased industrialist’s PA.

Buckley had agreed – at Perizaad Zorabian’s request – to assist Chopra in poking around Cyrus’s office; but he did not seem particularly happy about it. ‘This was Mr Zorabian’s most private place,’ he said, as he unlocked the door. ‘It has been left untouched since the police investigation.’

Chopra shouldered his way past the PA, shaking himself out of a halo of maudlin thoughts from the previous evening . . .

As he had suspected, his wife had been less than thrilled to discover that he had returned home with a vulture in tow. Poppy was a woman of vast emotional latitude – less than a year earlier she had given Ganesha sanctuary for a night during a monsoon deluge that had almost drowned the little elephant – but this was one vertebrate too far. She had vowed not to speak to Chopra until the carrion-eating menace was removed from her home. Her mother, the widow Poornima Devi, had been little better. ‘Who do you think you are? The vulture whisperer?’ she had sneered. ‘That scavenger will probably peck out my heart while I am asleep.’

‘What heart?’ Chopra had muttered, under his breath.

He forced himself back to the matter at hand.

He stood now in Cyrus Zorabian’s office, a lavishly appointed space that would not have looked out of place in a Merchant Ivory production. The theme was clearly Edwardian gentleman’s study: the walls were lined with oak bookcases, walnut wainscoting and embossed wallpaper. Beneath Chopra’s feet was a thick, emerald-green Oriental rug flecked with gold coins. The furniture, including the expansive desk, was baroque; the wing chairs upholstered in chintz. The only thing missing was a draconian fireplace.

Chopra inhaled a sense of the man from this space. ‘He was an Anglophile,’ he concluded.

‘The Zorabian family worked closely with the British during their time in India,’ said Buckley. ‘The respect was mutual.’

Chopra examined the bookshelves.

The bulk of the reading material was non-fiction, encyclopedias and the like, as well as entire shelves dedicated to yellowing copies of National Geographic. There was a shelf dedicated to classical poets, both Persian and English – Firdausi, Rumi, Byron, Keats – but Chopra got the feeling these had been ordered wholesale for the purposes of fleshing out the canvas.

‘Was he a big reader?’

Buckley hesitated. ‘Mr Zorabian regretted not having as much time for reading as he would have liked.’

In other words, thought Chopra, this was all largely for effect. What did that say about the man whose murder he was attempting to solve?

‘What exactly was Cyrus’s role in the family business?’

‘He was the CEO,’ said Buckley simply.

‘How long has he been at the helm?’

‘He took over when his father died. And then he handed the business over to his son a few years ago, but when he left, Mr Zorabian stepped in again.’

‘Why did his son leave?’

Buckley blinked rapidly behind his spectacles, as if he had let slip something better left unsaid. ‘Mr Zorabian and Darius had a difference of opinion regarding the direction they wished the business to go in. In the end, it was deemed prudent by all parties that Darius should branch out on his own.’

‘So Cyrus kicked his son out,’ mused Chopra. This was something he could not recall reading in the newspapers.

‘It was a mutual decision,’ countered Buckley stiffly.

‘I wonder if Darius would agree?’

‘Perhaps you can ask him when you speak to him?’ replied the Englishman testily.

Chopra gave a brisk smile. ‘You don’t approve of Perizaad hiring me, do you?’

‘It is not my place to question Miss Zorabian’s decision,’ said the PA, his eyes drilling straight ahead.

‘Tell me, Buckley, why are you still here?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, it has been three months since Cyrus’s death. You were his PA. He is no longer around. So why are you?’

A flush stole over Buckley’s parched cheeks. ‘The winding up of Mr Zorabian’s affairs has been a complex process. I have been helping with the arrangements.’

‘Is Perizaad the new CEO?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you her PA?’

Buckley pushed his spectacles up his nose. ‘She has her own personal assistant.’

Chopra allowed the awkward silence to stretch, until Buckley could stand it no longer. ‘It is my hope that I will be retained. If not, I shall move on. There are plenty of opportunities for a man of my experience.’

‘How did you end up working for Cyrus?’

‘How does anyone end up anywhere?’ replied Buckley cryptically. ‘I grew up in England, but travelled extensively for many years, working all over the world before arriving in India. I found employment with a British expat living in Mumbai. Eventually he decided to return to the UK. He recommended me to Mr Zorabian before he left. The rest is history.’

‘Did you like him?’

‘Like him?’ echoed Buckley.

‘Cyrus. Did you like him?’

‘We had an excellent working relationship,’ said Buckley. ‘I was by his side for nine years. He was a great man. A great man.’

So great, you had to say it twice, thought Chopra.

He was beginning to get a measure of the Englishman, and what he sensed made him uneasy. There was something about Buckley that didn’t quite ring true. He wondered if Perizaad Zorabian had sensed it too, and that was why she had not offered him a new role.

He made a mental note to take a closer look at the man’s background.

Chopra next took out a photocopy of the sheet found in Cyrus Zorabian’s wallet, with its enigmatic jumble of letters: INDUKNAAUIKBAHNXDDLA.

‘Have you any idea what this means?’

‘The police already asked me this. No, I have no idea.’

‘Does it seem curious to you that the first five letters are IND and UK?’

‘Curious? Why?’

‘One might read them as “India” and the “United Kingdom”.’

‘If that is indeed what they stand for, then, yes, it is curious. But what of it?’

‘You are from the UK. Cyrus was from India.’

‘I do not see your point.’

Chopra continued to lock eyes with the man, then put the paper away. He wasn’t sure what his point was. The line of text would have to remain an enigma for now. He struck out in another direction. ‘The police gave me a movements timeline for Cyrus on the day of his death. That morning he visited a woman named Geeta Lokhani. Lokhani has been in the news recently. She is one of only a handful of very senior women in the BMC – Mumbai’s municipal council. But she is leaving to enter politics. She plans to run for member of the state Legislative Assembly. By all accounts she is a shoo-in for her local seat when the elections take place later this year. Why was Cyrus meeting with her?’

‘He met with many politicians. He was a man of influence, constantly being courted for his patronage. There was nothing unusual in that.’

‘Was this the reason the chief minister disliked him? Lokhani is running for the key opposition party.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Buckley. ‘He never discussed that with me. But it was no secret that he and the CM didn’t see eye to eye.’

‘I would like to speak with Lokhani. Today, if possible. Can you arrange it?’

‘I will try,’ said Buckley, somewhat sullenly, Chopra felt.

He turned his attention to his immediate environment. ‘I need to go through Cyrus’s desk.’

‘The police have already searched the office.’

‘I suspect their search would have been cursory, at best,’ said Chopra. ‘If Perizaad’s assertion is correct that they had been all but ordered to bungle the investigation.’

Over the course of the next hour he went through the desk, and then the rest of the office, meticulously looking into every nook and cranny, pulling out books from the various shelves and checking behind them, exploring any potential hiding places. Buckley stood in silence, watching him with a cold look in his blue eyes, as if he fully expected Chopra to make off with the family silver.

It was as he was leafing through one of the poetry books – a copy of Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat which had caught his eye because of its worn spine – that a folded paper fell out.

He scooped it up from the floor.

It was a clipping from a popular Mumbai newspaper. The story was about a burned car wreck in which two unidentifiable human bodies had been discovered. The article was dated four months earlier.

He held up the clipping. ‘Do you know anything about this?’

Buckley scanned the article. ‘No,’ he said eventually.

‘Why would Cyrus have kept this article?’

‘How do you know Mr Zorabian put it there?’

‘Most of the books here have never been touched. But this one is the most well-thumbed of the lot. You say he wasn’t much of a reader, but I think he liked it.’

Buckley said nothing.

Chopra scanned the clipping again. There was little he could glean from the scant details provided. He noted, however, that the car had been found in an out-of-the-way corner of Marol, the neighbouring cantonment to his former police station in Sahar, the biggest in the region. That gave him a thread, at least, because it meant that any investigation might well have landed up at his old station.

He continued to stare at the article. There was something about the deaths, the horror of burned flesh, that sent a shiver through him, a premonition, perhaps, that this seemingly insignificant and possibly unrelated crime – if, indeed, it was a crime – would somehow haunt him.

Why had Cyrus held on to this? What did it mean to him? Because there was no doubt that it meant something. If there was one thing Chopra had learned over the course of his career it was that seemingly inconsequential details often helped shed light on what made a man tick. So often, that was the difference between solving a case or not.

He folded the clipping into his pocket, then put the book back. ‘Is there anything else you would like to tell me? About Cyrus’s affairs? Anything that might be tied to his murder?’

‘No,’ said Buckley.

Chopra bit his tongue. The Englishman’s clipped responses were infuriating. ‘Very well. I will wait for your call regarding the meeting with Lokhani. Thank you for your time.’



When he was once again inside his van, Chopra called Perizaad Zorabian. ‘How much do you know about William Buckley’s past?’

‘He was my father’s man. Why do you ask?’

‘I get the feeling he wishes you hadn’t employed me.’

She gave a tell-tale sigh, one of tiredness, stress. ‘William believes the matter should have ended with the police investigation. He feels there is little to be gained by pursuing things further. That, in some ways, I am refusing to allow my father to find peace. Perhaps he is right.’

‘We shall see,’ muttered Chopra.



Rangwalla wavered in the street, lunchtime crowds passing by him in a din of chatter and industry. Before him was the Sahar police station where he had spent two decades of his working life, until he had been unceremoniously ejected from the ranks of the Brihanmumbai police. Even though he knew it was ACP Rao who had engineered his dismissal, he could not help the bitterness he still felt towards his old employers.

And yet without his khaki uniform, he felt strangely naked, and, more importantly, vulnerable. For the first time, perhaps, he understood how daunting it was for the ordinary Indian citizen to enter such dens of law enforcement, given the dubious reputation of the service.

He walked across terracotta tiles towards the saloon-style doors of the station. As he reached them, a jeep screeched into the courtyard behind him. He turned to see two policemen, one he did not recognise, the other the man he had come to see, spilling from the vehicle, dragging behind them a ragged-looking individual wailing at the top of his lungs: ‘But it wasn’t my fault! They didn’t have any cash – what was I supposed to do?’

Rangwalla winced as the larger of the two cops thrashed the man across the back of his legs with a wooden truncheon. ‘Tell it to the judge,’ he said, bundling him through the doors.

His colleague’s eyes widened in recognition. ‘Rangwalla Sir!’ He snapped to attention and shot off a quick salute.

‘How are you, Surat?’ said Rangwalla.

Constable Surat – now Sub-Inspector Surat – had once been Rangwalla’s understudy at the station. Young, overweight and irredeemably idealistic, Surat had seemed to Rangwalla to encapsulate everything that was wrong with the modern generation. He had taken the recruit under his wing, attempting to educate him in the ways of the world, but, for some strange reason, his cynical view on matters had simply washed off the junior policeman’s back.

‘How is Inspector Chopra Sir?’ asked Surat. He had always hero-worshipped the man, Rangwalla now remembered.

‘He needs your help. That’s why I am here.’

Surat practically vibrated with enthusiasm.

‘About two years ago there was a fire at the Gafoor Fashions Textile Factory over in Marol. The building collapsed, killing a number of the employees working inside. A police complaint was registered against the building’s owner – here at the Sahar station. The investigation ruled it an accident, caused by negligence, but the father of one of the victims believes there was more to it. I need to talk to the officer who carried out the investigation.’

‘I remember the case.’ Surat nodded. ‘It was handled by a colleague sent here from another station – he was an expert in that sort of thing, apparently. But he has since been transferred to Kolkata.’

Rangwalla swore under his breath.

Kolkata was on the far side of the country.

‘However, a copy of the case file is still lodged with us. Would you like to see it?’

Rangwalla hesitated. Surat had always been an expert on stating the obvious. But he did not wish to place the young man in a moral quandary. He knew that the woman who now ran the station was not the type to look kindly upon outsiders rooting around in official police records. Malini Sheriwal – known in the force as Shoot’em Up Sheriwal – had once served on Mumbai’s notorious Encounter Squad, taking down gangsters at will, usually in a hail of bullets. Rangwalla had no desire to become the focus of her ire.

‘It is OK,’ said Surat, sensing his indecision. ‘The case is officially closed, so no one will mind if you take a look. In fact, I will show you the site, if you like. It will give us a chance to catch up.’

The boy has become a man, thought Rangwalla, a lump stealing into his throat.

Surat vanished into the station, returning swiftly with the file. As he hopped into the jeep, Rangwalla couldn’t help but ask him about the miscreant he had dragged in earlier.

Surat grinned. ‘He is surely the most stupid criminal I have come across. Yesterday he attempted to rob an electronics store, only to discover that they carried almost no cash. You know, ever since the government recalled all five-hundred and one-thousand rupee notes.’

Rangwalla understood. The government’s recent demonetisation push had been an attempt to clamp down on money laundering, counterfeiting and ‘black money’ – money that had escaped the taxman’s attentions or had otherwise been obtained through corrupt means. One of the unintended consequences had been the effect on small businesses, many of which ran almost entirely on cash.

‘And so our thief asked them to write him a cheque,’ said Surat. ‘In his own name.’

For an instant Rangwalla was speechless, and then he burst into a wild bray of laughter as Surat edged the jeep out into the road.

An old friend comes in handy



Back at the restaurant Chopra left Ganesha in his compound, then waited in his office for Rangwalla to arrive. When his associate detective finally showed up, wiping the dirt and sweat from his throat with a dirty handkerchief, he seemed less than satisfied with his lot in life.

‘What is the matter?’ asked Chopra.

‘I was thrown out of a rickshaw,’ said Rangwalla, smacking dust out of his jeans.

‘What did you do?’

Rangwalla scowled. ‘Why is it that whenever something like this happens you automatically assume I was the one at fault?’

Chopra waited.

Rangwalla slumped into the seat before him. ‘The rickshaw driver had a picture of his father on the dashboard. I merely commented that he was a striking-looking man.’

‘He took offence at that?’

Rangwalla had the decency to look away. ‘Apparently, it was not a picture of his father. It was his wife.’

They ordered fresh lime juices. Irfan brought them in, whistling a jaunty Bollywood tune as he entered.

‘Did you finish your homework?’ he asked as Irfan set down his glass.

Irfan puffed out his cheeks. ‘Yes.’

Chopra raised an eyebrow.

‘Weell . . . I’ve finished most of it,’ said Irfan.

Chopra smiled. Irfan had grown up on the streets and as a consequence had received little in the way of formal schooling. Poppy had tried to rectify the matter by hiring a tutor to visit him at the restaurant, in between his shifts. Initially reluctant, Irfan had, in time, taken to the new regime. He still refused to move into their apartment, however, preferring to stay at the restaurant where he could be close to Ganesha.

In a way, Chopra was glad.

The boy had a streak of independence, a rebelliousness that he hoped he would never lose. Poppy’s intentions were well-meaning, but she didn’t quite realise that Irfan’s upbringing had left him with a mind all of his own.

‘What case are you investigating now?’ Irfan asked.

‘A very complicated one.’

‘Uncle Rangwalla said you were working with Parsees?’

Uncle Rangwalla. Chopra tried to picture his deputy in an avuncular light, and failed.

‘It’s true that my latest case involves the Parsee community.’

‘Is it true that they are all crazy and that they secretly eat their dead when no one is looking?’

‘Where did you hear that?’ said Chopra.

Irfan’s eyes swivelled towards Uncle Rangwalla, who looked as if he’d swallowed a small bird and was now choking on it.

‘That is untrue as well as being unkind,’ said Chopra eventually. ‘We should never make fun of others just because they are different.’

‘But Uncle Rangwalla is always telling jokes about the Parsees.’

Chopra glared at his assistant detective who blushed under his beard.

He stood up and ruffled Irfan’s hair. ‘Go on. Off you go.’

Irfan paused at the door. ‘You’re very busy these days, aren’t you?’

Chopra understood the question behind the question. ‘I’m sorry. I have been very busy. But I promise, once I make some headway on this case, I will find time to take you out. Perhaps a day trip to Elephanta Island? We’ll take Ganesha as well. He will enjoy that.’

‘That boy’s as eager as a Gurkha with two grenades,’ said Rangwalla, after Irfan had left.

Quickly, Chopra brought him up to speed with the investigation into Cyrus Zorabian’s death.

‘You seem to have waded into a swamp,’ commented his deputy. ‘Do you really think there was more to his death than a random attack?’

‘It’s too early to say. But there are matters here that I believe the initial investigation either did not uncover, or could not be bothered to follow through.’

‘Does it surprise you? With Rao in charge?’

‘I suppose not. Anyway, how did you get on?’

It was Rangwalla’s turn to describe his prison meeting with Hasan Gafoor.

‘Do you believe him?’ asked Chopra, when he had finished.

Rangwalla looked uncomfortable. ‘He seemed genuine. Perhaps he’s the one true innocent in this city. The mythical virgin in a whorehouse.’

Chopra winced. His deputy had always had a colourful grasp of language. ‘What will you do next?’

Rangwalla shrugged. ‘What do you think I should do?’

‘I think you should use your initiative. You are no longer my junior officer, Rangwalla.’

Rangwalla gave him a sour look. He hated the idea of using his initiative. In his experience using one’s initiative usually got people like him into trouble.

‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’ he muttered.

Chopra suppressed a smile. He had always suspected that his former sub-inspector had a keen mind, though one that worked in a different manner to his own. Men like Rangwalla hated the limelight; yet, so often, when the dung hit the fan, they rose magnificently to the occasion.

Rangwalla squirmed in his seat for a few moments longer, before a flash of insight jolted him upright. ‘I need to find out who it was that tried to strong-arm Gafoor into selling his plot.’

Chopra nodded approvingly. ‘And how exactly will you do that?’

Rangwalla hesitated. His mind had gone alarmingly blank, as if the effort of deduction had drained him of further inspiration.

Chopra relented. ‘Do you remember ACP Ajit Shinde?’

‘The one with the wooden leg? Married whatshisname’s sister, the girl with the squint and the donkey? Used to drag it around with her everywhere she went. She was a bit soft in the head, by all accounts. Then again, Shinde was no catch himself.’

‘No,’ said Chopra stonily. ‘That was Constable Shankar. Shinde always used to say that in situations such as this, the best thing to do is to follow the money. If I were you I would find out precisely who benefited from Gafoor’s misfortune.’



When he entered his apartment Chopra’s first task was to check on his impromptu houseguest. He stepped into his office, expecting to find the vulture lodged on the perch she had found for herself on his bookshelf.

But there was no sign of the bird.

‘Poppy,’ he said, stepping back out into the living room, ‘where is the vulture?’

Poppy, who was sitting at the table filling out a complicated-looking form, did not look up. He guessed that she was still upset about the matter. ‘I think my mother took him,’ she finally ground out.

Chopra paled. ‘Your mother?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You didn’t ask?’

‘I was busy,’ said Poppy, signing her form with a flourish.

‘Where did she take her?’

‘Her?’ Poppy looked up.

‘Yes. The bird is a she.’

Her brow furrowed. ‘It’s strange. I’ve never thought of a vulture as a she. I suppose there have to be female ones otherwise they’d die out. Possibly due to lack of common sense.’ Chopra smiled, but Poppy did not smile back. ‘I think she said she was taking her up to the terrace.’

When Chopra reached the building’s roof he discovered his mother-in-law, Poornima Devi, sitting with Mrs Subramanium in a pair of bamboo chairs, the pair of them bent deep in conspiracy. Before them lay a steel tray upon which were stretched out a trio of dead rats, the vulture hunkered in front of the tray.

As Chopra looked on, the bird grasped one of the rats with a talon, then tore off its head with her beak.

‘What are you doing?’ he gaped.

‘What does it look like we’re doing?’ replied Poornima, pulling at her white sari as a gobbet of half-masticated rodent fell from the bird’s mouth to land beside her sandalled foot. ‘We are training the bird to eat rats.’

‘Why?’

‘So that it can help clean up this building. We are infested with them at present; all coming over from that new slum. Belligerent ones, too. The other day one of the little devils was sitting on my dresser, bold as brass.’

‘I must say, Chopra,’ chimed in Mrs Subramanium, ‘we haven’t always seen eye to eye, but this is a most excellent idea of yours.’

‘Mine?’ said Chopra weakly.

‘Well, you brought the bird home, didn’t you?’ said Poornima.

‘That bird is part of an ongoing investigation,’ protested Chopra.

‘That doesn’t mean it cannot earn its keep while it is staying with us.’

‘But you’re feeding her dead rats!’

‘It is a vulture,’ pointed out his mother-in-law acidly. ‘What were you intending to feed it? Lentil soup? Samosas?’

Chopra realised that for once, contrary to all that was holy, his mother-in-law had a point. He looked down at the vulture; the arch scavenger had gobbled down the first rat and was tearing enthusiastically into the second.

‘There really is no need to get your bowels in an uproar,’ continued Poornima, squinting at him out of her one working eye. ‘Bahadur will bring it back down again when we are done.’

Feeling somewhat light-headed Chopra returned to the flat where he found Poppy humming around the kitchen; she had completed her form and was beginning preparations for dinner.

He noticed the form was still on the table.

He picked it up and scrutinised it.

It was an application to join the Poo2Loo campaign’s ‘Volunteer Leaders’ programme. The form began with a formal petition, which each applicant was required to . . .