Tarquin Hall - The Case of the Missing Servant

Puri allowed himself a chuckle.

"I very much doubt that will hold up in court."

"I have hard evidence as well."

"How can there be more evidence when the accused is innocent?"

"For that, sir, you will have to wait until tomorrow. I am not at liberty to divulge anything more."

The detective held up his hands in a gesture of defeat.

"Well, I can see I'm going to have my work cut out proving my client's innocence," he said. "Obviously you are determined to see this thing through, so I suppose I'd better get back to my work."

Puri lingered for a moment by the door, looking down absentmindedly as if he'd forgotten something.

"There's something else I can help you with?" asked Shekhawat in the patient tone reserved for children and the senile.

"There is one thing, actually," said Puri, suddenly sounding unsure of himself.

He took out his notebook and flipped through the pages until he came to one in the middle crammed with illegible writing.

"Yes, that's it," he said, as if reading from it. "From what I'm told, the girl's body was cremated after no one came to claim it. Is that correct?"

"That's true."

"And the photograph taken by the coroner was out of focus and extremely grainy."

Shekhawat eyed Puri suspiciously, no doubt wondering how he had come by this information.

"If you say so," he said.

"Also," continued the detective, "her face was all bashed up, bloody and swollen. She'd obviously been given a severe beating."

The inspector's nod was vague encouragement to go on.

"Given this, I'm curious to understand how you can be sure she is the maidservant Mary."

"That's not in dispute. Two witnesses have identified her from the coroner's photographs."

"Former or current employees of the Kasliwals, no doubt."

"The defense will be informed at the appropriate time," said Shekhawat officiously.

Facecream had discovered a gap in the perimeter wall behind the servant quarters just large enough for a person to squeeze through. She'd made use of it a couple of times in the past two days, sneaking out undetected to go to a pay phone booth a few streets away.

But Facecream was not the only person using this secret gateway: the earth between it was well trodden.

This raised the alarming possibility that an outsider was entering the property unseen and unchallenged-perhaps the same person who had tried to open her door that first night.

Determined to find out who was coming and going through the wall, she had set a trap, stringing a tripwire-or rather a trip-thread-across the gap. Anyone passing through it would now inadvertently tug a bell hanging inside her room.

In the past two days, she'd had just one bite-a stray pyedog. But the line remained taut. And now, as she set off for a midnight rendezvous with Puri, she was careful not to fall victim to her own ruse. Treading carefully over the thread, Facecream passed through the gap in the wall.

On the other side lay an abandoned property, an old bungalow with broken windows surrounded by a large garden overgrown with vines and long grass. She stopped, surveying the shadowy terrain ahead for any sign of movement. Nothing stirred in the undergrowth save for grasshoppers. The only sounds were distant ones: the hum of an autorickshaw, the screech of an alley cat. Up above, bats darted through the air. In the moonlight, she caught glimpses of them swooping above the tree line, where their black wings appeared momentarily, stretched against a hazy backdrop of stars.

Jaya feared the bats and the owl that lived in one of the khejri trees. She had warned her new friend Seema not to go into the garden at night.

The bungalow, she believed, was inhabited by malicious djinns. They had driven out the owners and guarded their territory jealously. At night, lying in her room, she claimed to be able to hear their terrible, mocking laughter and the cries and screams of those they had entrapped in the spirit world.

Djinns, Jaya told Seema, often possessed people. Just recently, one had attached itself to her aunt, forcing her to speak in strange tongues. It was only thanks to a travelling hakim that she had been cured. He'd taken her to the tomb of a Sufi saint and exorcised the malicious fiend.

But Facecream did not fear djinns. Parvati, the mountain goddess, whose magic talisman she wore around her neck, had always protected her against attacks from both ghoulish and human assailants. Living rough on the streets of Mumbai when she'd first come to India had also given her a sixth sense for recognizing danger. And just in case, her Khukuri knife was tucked into her waist.

Facecream set off across the garden and made her way down the side of the bungalow, nimbly avoiding the odd bits of rusting metal hidden under the tall grass and weeds, and stopping now and again like a deer testing the air.

When she reached the front of the property, she passed through the leaning iron gate that stood at the entrance to its neglected driveway, tugged her shawl over the back of her head so that it framed her face, and turned left into the quiet lane.

The security guards in the sentry boxes positioned outside the other neighboring properties were all snoring loudly and she slipped past them unnoticed. The drivers at the bicycle rickshaw stand were all asleep as well, slumped on the seats of their vehicles with their legs stretched out across their handlebars.

Further on stood a large house surrounded by a high wall and a pair of gates mounted with bright lights. Soon after she had passed these lights, Facecream noticed a shadow creep along the ground in front of her. Then, gradually, it began to shrink.

She was being followed.

The distinctive sound of rubber chappals scuffing against the ground told her that her stalker was no djinn.

For a moment, Facecream considered turning around, drawing her Khukuri and charging. But then she remembered Puri's advice about controlling her reckless streak and decided to wait for better attack terrain.

She continued to the next junction, turned right and broke into a sprint. Reaching the first parked car, she hid behind it, lying flat on the ground, and watched to see who came around the corner.

A few seconds later a pair of hairy male legs appeared. They stopped, shifted from left to right indecisively and then hurried on in her direction. Facecream could see from the man's skinny ankles that he was no match for her. She drew herself up on all fours like a cat and prepared to spring at him. But at the last moment, she held back and let out a loud "Boo!"

Tubelight staggered back in shock, looking as if he might keel over.

"What are you doing? Trying to give me a heart attack?" he cried.

"Ssssh! Keep your voice down! You'll wake the guards!" hissed Facecream. "What are you doing here?"

"Boss is running late and asked me to let you know."

"So why were you following me?"

"I knew you wouldn't want to be seen with me behind the house."

"You weren't trying to sneak up on me?"

"Don't be ridiculous. If I'd wanted to do that, I could have easily taken you by surprise."

Facecream laughed. "You were making more noise than a buffalo in heat."

"Listen, if I'd been on my guard you would never have been able to surprise me."

"Whatever you say, bhai."

Puri picked them both up and drove them to the Park View Hotel, where he was staying. It was nowhere near a park (his room provided a view of a car park), though it was a modern affair with air-conditioning, clean sheets, and Western-style toilets.

The trio sat at a table in the otherwise empty restaurant. The night manager placed a bottle of Scotch, some bottles of soda, ice and glasses on the table before returning to the front desk.