Club You to Death by Anuja Chauhan (pdf e book reader .TXT) 📗

bunch tied to the grill of the window below the security camera comes loose and floats up to the ceiling! How, bhai?’

One of the men from the back-up team speaks up hesitantly. ‘Sa’ab, at the time of taking over of the crime scene, the glass shutter at that window was found shut. But not locked.’ He points at the window below the security camera.

Bhavani goes very still. His eyes travel from the window grill, to the camera above it and back again, repeatedly.

‘So,’ he says softly, ‘anybody could have slid it open from the outside, reached in to loosen the ribbons securing the balloons, causing them to float up higher and cover the camera lens.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And once the job was done, he or she untied the balloons entirely so they floated off here and there on the ceiling!’ Bhavani turns to the inspector. ‘PK, we need to find out whose bright idea it was to have balloons as decorations at the Bumper Tambola.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘For the time being, it looks like this Mukesh Khurana is our most obvious suspect. Get him in here for questioning, and go through the CCTV footage with Ram Palat from the rest of the Club minutely. Gates, corridors, restroom, gardens. Prepare a list of everybody who was in the Club between eleven-forty-five and twelve-fifteen.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Bhavani heaves a dissatisfied sigh.

‘Somebody has been acting very, very over-smart. We will have to change gears to catch this one.’

The Club president sticks his head into the gym, cocking it to one side like an inquisitive hen. ‘ACP!’

Bhavani looks up.

‘Bhatti sir.’

‘So glad to catch you alone,’ Devendar Bhatti says as he enters the gym and looks around gingerly. ‘I’ve postponed the elections by a week. Hopefully, that should be sufficient time for this episode to die down! And I’ve ordered an excellent breakfast by Chef Suresh to be delivered to the Guest Cottage for you and your men. Bring me up to date, won’t you? I see the body’s gone.’

‘We don’t have good news, sir.’

Bhatti, in the act of dropping into a chair, freezes, then nods quickly and sits. ‘Tell me,’ he says crisply.

Bhavani Singh briefs him rapidly on his discoveries.

Bhatti’s face sags slightly. ‘So it isn’t a bench press accident after all.’

‘No, sir.’

‘Pinko Hathni? What is it? It sounds vile.’

‘It’s a cocktail of ephedrine, heroin and fentanyl, sir. Hardcore stuff! They put in enough to kill an elephant. The protein shake masked its – very mild – taste.’

Bhatti’s face lightens. ‘I see. So the fellow was taking it to enhance his performance and accidentally took too much. Well, that clears things up!’ He smiles at Bhavani, relieved. ‘You’ve done a good job, ACP. I’ll have good things to say about you to your chief today!’

Bhavani smiles genially. ‘Thank you, sir … but we think you have nat fully understood.’

He proceeds to tell him about Usain Bolt and the psychedelic gorilla sex. And the suspicious manner in which the CCTV footage seems to have been manipulated. But Bhatti shakes his head with stubborn hauteur.

‘You police chaps are too suspicious! He had a filthy drug habit and he probably diddled his dosage. The balloons are just a coincidence. Write out the report the way I want it written and go.’

Ex-home secretary sa’ab believes he is still in office, Bhavani thinks sadly. Shooting out orders and expecting them to be followed. His kingdom has shrunk to thirty-two thankless acres and even that will be taken away from him the moment this election is held. After that it’s just memoir writing and lit-fests and funerals. Ah well, who are we to disillusion him?

Aloud, he says patiently, ‘Sir, that is nat the way.’

Bhatti’s nostrils flare. Now looking like a haughty hen, he says, ‘Don’t tell me what to do in my own club, sir!’

Bhavani sighs gustily. ‘No, sir.’

There is a long, tense pause. Which the old policeman spends hunkered silently in his chair, staring down at his rather knobbly knuckles, radiating calm and sympathy in waves. It works. It always does. If Bhavani Singh were an Avenger, radiating calm and sympathy would’ve been his superpower.

‘The government is at our throat, Bhavani,’ Bhatti says finally, his watery eyes anxious. ‘You must have read about it in the newspapers. They resent everything that existed in this ancient, cultured city before they came in from dhokla-land and conquered it. They want to tear all of it down and replace it with a shiny, new New Delhi!’ He gives a short, indignant laugh. ‘New New Delhi! Like Shri Shri Ravi Shankar! With no history or culture apart from their own crude version of it! Typical nouveau ruler mentality! Naturally our club, with its traditional ties with the older regime, its illustrious members, and its traditions of independent intellectual thinking is high on their hit-list! They’ve got their eye on our land – which is not owned by us but only leased to us by the city corporation – and they want to throw us out. A messy murder on the premises will give them the perfect excuse. Do look at the bigger picture here!’

Bhavani, who had thought much the same thing on his morning drive to the Club, allows his expression to grow implacable.

‘Sir, we are a small man and we can look only at the small picture. A murder has been committed and a murderer has to be caught. The forensic report has already been filed. It says poisoning. Please cooperate with us.’

Bhatti glares angrily at him. Bhavani gazes back doggedly. Finally, the older man mutters a peevish imprecation and flounces out of the room.

Well, we’ve certainly ruffled his feathers! Bhavani thinks, unperturbed, as he rises to his feet and sets off for Guest Cottage No. 5. He wonders if the offer of an excellent breakfast by Chef Suresh is still standing …

He needn’t have worried.

When he walks into the cottage, he finds a fluffy masala omelette, six fat, crispy heart-shaped cutlets, a rack of thick, well-buttered slices of toast