Tarquin Hall - The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing

“Aman seduced her, didn’t he? She told her parents, so you murdered her.”

“Just keep moving.”

“Aman only chooses the ones whose parents are die-hard devotees, doesn’t he? He must really get off on that. Knowing that his victims are terrified of telling their parents. What a sense of power it must give him.”

Swaroop gave her a shove. Facecream stumbled forward. “Did you bring Manika down here yourself and hold her under the water?” she asked, recovering her balance.

“Didn’t have to. Poor little Manika was so scared that she came and jumped in all on her own.” He let out a short, psychotic chuckle. “I don’t suppose you’d be prepared to save me the bother and do the same? A suicide note would come in very handy as well. ‘Farewell, cruel world!’”

Facecream walked on in silence. They reached the cliff edge. Below the waters of the Ganges crashed and swirled around rocks and boulders. She turned to face him.

“Last chance,” he said, brandishing the revolver. “Tell me who you work for.”

“All right, all right, you win!” she said, glancing back at the precipice. Facecream sounded frightened for the first time. “I work for a private detective. We’re investigating the murder of Dr. Sureshjha.”

“So that’s it!” Swaroop shook his head as if in pity. “I should have known. And what’s the name of this private detective you work for?”

Facecream didn’t answer.

He took a step forward. “Well?”

Just then a twig snapped behind him.

In the second that Swaroop was distracted, Facecream struck, delivering a swift kick to his wrist and then another to his left kneecap.

He stumbled and fell back on the ground, firing off a shot into the air.

“Bitch!”

Facecream sidestepped him and hurled herself toward Flush, who had been trying to sneak up on Swaroop.

“Run!” she shouted.

Together the two operatives sprinted up the path.

Three rounds whizzed over their heads. The sounds echoed and re-echoed off the cliffs, half drowning out their pursuer’s curses.

“Get back here! I’m going to kill you, you bitch!”

They turned a bend in the path and Facecream stopped. Picking up a branch, she motioned for Flush to hide behind a bush and readied herself.

Her baseball-style swing could not have been better timed. It caught Swaroop square in the face, sending him reeling backward, bloody and unconscious.

“That was incredible!” marveled Flush as Facecream kicked the revolver into the undergrowth.

“Save the congratulations. Let’s go.”

As they reached the gate and reentered the ashram grounds, the sun was coming up and the devotees were beginning to make their way in silence to the gazebo. The two operatives returned their nods and smiles, walking slowly past the darshan hall.

Out of the corner of her eye, Facecream spotted Maharaj Swami emerging from the main reception building.

Spotting her at the same time, he turned to the senior devotees accompanying him and pointed in their direction.

“Hurry!” Facecream urged Flush, grabbing him by the arm. “They’re coming.”

They ran through the car park, watched by a group of bewildered-looking devotees, and pushed past the chowki-dars on duty at the main gate.

A local bus bound for Haridwar happened to be passing along the road and they jumped on board.

Looking back as it pulled away, Facecream saw their pursuers sprinting after them, shouting for the driver to stop, but getting left behind.

“We’d better jump off at the next bazaar,” she suggested. “Til get a change of clothes and we’ll hire a car.”

They took a minute to catch their breath. Then Flush said: “I waited for you on the side of the residence hall at five like you told me to do, but the helicopter landed and I had to hide. Who was that lunatic with the gun?”

“That’s Maharaj Swami’s number two,” explained Facecream.

She went on to describe in a whisper what she had found in the Godman’s room.

“But Swaroop smashed the data key and the tapes, so now we’ve got nothing.”

Flush grinned. “Have faith,” he said.

Rumpi rose at five-thirty the next morning. She checked in on Jaiya, who was still sleeping soundly in her room, and then went downstairs to make herself the glass of warm water with lemon juice and black salt that constituted an essential part of her morning ritual.

The photographs from the godh bharai party had come back from the shop yesterday evening and for a while she had sat at the kitchen table looking through them again with a contented smile. Monika joined her from the servant quarters, admired the pictures herself, giggled about funny things people had done and said during the baby shower and started making the tea. While the milk, cardamoms and black Darjeeling leaves boiled, she talked excitedly about the Saif Ali Khan movie she had watched the night before. Naturally the plot sounded extremely convoluted and the actor had taken off his shirt at almost every opportunity.

Rumpi switched on the radio and listened to the headlines on All India Radio as she started to prepare aloo paranthas, Jaiya’s favorite.

First, she added jeera, chili and turmeric powder to the boiled aloo and then mixed the atta in a bowl with a little water until it turned into dough. Then, while Monika mopped the floor, Rumpi heated her tava and retrieved the ghee from the fridge.

Puri’s wife often found that she did her best thinking while cooking. She had never completely understood why – there was something about preparing food that was relaxing, therapeutic even – but often, while she stood chopping ginger or stirring the paalak paneer, some name she’d had trouble remembering earlier would suddenly pop into her head or a solution to a problem would miraculously bubble up to the surface.

This morning, it was the act of making little dough balls, stuffing them with a potato mixture and rolling them out into flat disks that led – not immediately, it should be said – to the identification of the mastermind behind the kitty party robbery.

When this eureka moment came, Rumpi stopped what she was doing, quickly washed her hands, told Monika to finish preparing breakfast and then reached for the phone.

First she called Arti of Arti’s Beauty Parlor and asked for Uma’s number, saying that she needed to ask her about some recipe.

It took Rumpi more than five minutes to get Arti off the line. Then she called her beautician.

“Uma? That’s you? This is Puri Madam this side. Hello? Hello? Can you hear me?” She had to raise her voice. “I said this is Puri Madam. Yes, that’s right. Good morning. Sorry to call you so early. Tell me, you’ll reach work at what time? Hello? Hello?”

Practically shouting now: “Uma? You’ll reach work at what time, exactly? It’s your off? I see. Actually, something important has come up. You’ll be at home? What’s your address, Uma, I need to see you. No, no, nothing bad, I promise. Something I want to ask you. I would need only five minutes of your time…”

Next Rumpi called her mother-in-law.

Yesterday, Mummy-ji, who had refused to give up the investigation, had spent the day following Lily Arora around Delhi.

The kitty party hostess had lunched with a handsome young man who wore expensive shoes and had driven her to a luxurious farmhouse in Najafgarh, where the two had spent a couple of hours.

Expensive Shoes had turned out to be a party organizer who was helping Lily Arora plan her husband’s surprise sixtieth birthday party. The kind of money she was spending on the function was far in excess of the amount that had been stolen and Mummy had concluded that the Aroras could not be facing any kind of financial difficulties.