Tarquin Hall - The Case of the Missing Servant

Away from the drone of Delhi traffic and the roar of jets making their approach into Indira Gandhi International Airport, Puri had been greeted by peacock calls and the laughter of boys washing at the nearby village pump. When the wind was right, he had also been treated to the smell of chapatis cooking over dung fires and the scent of jasmine, wafting over the exterior wall.

Little had Puri known that in building a new home in Gurgaon, he had become a trendsetter. His move from Punjabi Bagh coincided with the explosion of India's service industries in the wake of the liberalization of the economy. In the late 1990s, Gurgaon became Delhi's southern extension, and was made available for major "development." First, a few reflective glass buildings appeared along the main road to Rajasthan. Then, one by one, the local farmers sold up, and their little fields disappeared under the tracks of bulldozers and dump trucks.

In their place came Florida-style gated communities with names like Fantasy Island Estates. They boasted their own schools, medical facilities, shops, fitness centers and megamalls.

Concrete superstructures shot up like great splinters of bone forced from the body of the earth. Built by armies of sinewy laborers who crawled like ants along frames of bamboo scaffolding, these were the apartment blocks for the 24/7 call center and software development workforce. LUXURY IS A PLACE CALLED PARADISE and DISCOVER A VENETIAN PALACE LIFESTYLE read the plethora of billboards that invited India's newly affluent to share in the dream.

All this was built on the backs of India's "underprivileged classes," who were working for slave wages. They had arrived in Gurgaon in their tens of thousands from across the country. But neither the local authorities nor the private contractors provided them with housing, so most had built shacks on the building sites alongside the machinery and brick factories. Before long, shantytowns of corrugated iron and open sewers spread across an undeveloped noman's-land.

The Puris now found themselves living between five hundred homes built on a grid of streets with names like A3; and a slum with a population of laborers and carrion that was growing exponentially. To the north, the view was marred by towering pylons and, beyond them, a row of biosphere-like office blocks bristling with satellite dishes.

The smog, too, had caught up with them. The new four-lane highway to Delhi had encouraged more traffic, poisoning the air with diesel fumes. Legions of trucks stirred dust into the atmosphere.

These days, the detective found himself struggling to keep his beloved plants clean. Each morning, he came up onto the roof armed with a spray gun and gave each of them a bath, and each morning he found them coated in a new deposit of grime.

Puri had just got around to tending to his favorite ficus tree when Malika arrived with his bed tea and biscuits. She laid the tray on the garden table.

"Namaste, sir," she said shyly.

"Good morning."

He was always happy to see Malika, who had been with the family for six years. She was a bright, cheerful, hardworking girl, despite having an alcoholic husband, a tyrant of a mother-in-law and two children to care for.

"How are you doing?" asked Malika, who was keen to try out her English, which she picked up from watching American soap operas on Star TV.

"I am very well, thank you," said Puri. "How are you?"

"Fine," she answered, but started giggling, blushed and then fled downstairs.

The detective smiled to himself and drank some of his tea before returning to the job at hand. He finished bathing his ficus and then made his way over to the roof's east side, where, on the ledge, he was growing six prized chili plants. He had nurtured each of them from seed (they had been sent to him by a friend in Assam and came from one of the hottest chilis Puri had ever tasted) and was pleased to see that after many weeks of tender care and watering, they were bearing fruit.

He sprayed the leaves of the first plant and was lovingly wiping them clean when, suddenly, the flowerpot shattered into pieces. A split second later, a bullet whizzed by Puri's ear and punctured the water tank on the platform behind him.

With some difficulty, given his bulk, he managed to prostrate himself on the roof. A third bullet smashed into another of his chili plants, showering him with broken pottery and earth. The detective heard a fourth and fifth round hit the side of the house as he remained flat on his front, conscious of the pounding in his chest and the shortness of his breath.

A sixth bullet whizzed overhead, puncturing the tank for a second time. Water began to stream out, soaking Puri's silk dressing gown.

He decided to crawl over to the stairwell. If he could get down to his study and retrieve his pistol from the safe, then he could go after the shooter. It crossed his mind that he would need to put on some shoes as well; his monogrammed slippers would get ruined if he had to give chase through the slums.

But as he reached the door, it suddenly flew open, knocking him squarely on the head. Puri's vision doubled for a moment, and then went solidly black.

Puri came around to find Rumpi kneeling by his side, holding some smelling salts under his nose. Nearby, Malika and Monica stood looking down at him with concerned expressions. In the doorway of the stairwell hovered an anxious Sweetu, wringing his hands.

"Sir, sir, sir, so sorry, sir. I didn't mean to, sir! I heard shots, sir, so I came running and then…I didn't know you were there, sir! Sir, please don't die…"

Puri's head was spinning and he felt nauseous. It took what seemed like several minutes until he could focus his thoughts and then he whispered to Rumpi, "For God's sake, tell the boy to shut up and go away."

Rumpi complied, assuring Sweetu that "sir" was going to be fine and that he should get back to work.

After seeking further reassurance that his life was still worth living, the houseboy did as he was told and returned downstairs.

The girls soon followed him to the kitchen, leaving Rumpi to apply an ice pack to the bump on Puri's forehead.

"Thank heavens you're all right, Chubby," she said tenderly." "I thought you'd been shot."

"Had I not reacted with lightning reflexes and thrown myself on the ground, most certainly I'd be lying here permanently," he said. "Just I was crawling over to the door when that…that fool burst in. Otherwise I would have caught the shooter. Undoubtedly!"

"Oh please, Chubby, it wasn't the boy's fault," chided Rumpi gently. "He was only trying to help. Now tell me how you're feeling."

"Much better, thank you, my dear. A nice cup of chai and I'll be right as rain."

Slowly, the detective pushed himself up into a sitting position, taking the ice pack from Rumpi and holding it on his forehead.

"Tell me, anyone see the shooter?" he asked.

"I don't believe so," answered Rumpi. "I was in the toilet and the others were downstairs. I heard the shots and the next thing I knew Sweetu was shouting you'd been shot and we all came running."

"You called the police, is it?"

"I've tried several times, Chubby. But I keep getting a message: 'This number does not exist.' You want I should try again?"

"Yes please, my dear. An official report should be made. Most probably the cops have been negligible in paying the phone bill. Last I heard, they were some years behind, so the lines were cut off. If you can't get through, send that Sweetu to the station. Tell him to say that some goonda tried putting Vish Puri in the cremation ground, but very much failed in his duty."

The police-an officer and four constables-arrived an hour later. After stomping around on the roof, they concluded that the would-be killer had positioned himself in the vacant plot behind the house.