Murder at the Grand Raj Palace Read online

  “I can guess,” said Chopra mildly.

  “You cannot!” snapped Dashputra. “Our guests have a certain expectation, founded upon a century of service. That is why the very best come to us, time and again. At this very moment, the cast of Boom 3 are checking in to the hotel—they are shooting on the premises. I have a royal wedding booked in—two of India’s oldest noble families are practically taking over the place for the next week. And if that isn’t enough, the premier of Mongolia is due here in three days’ time. A state visit. He is bringing a stable of horses as gifts for the chief minister. He breeds them, wild ones direct from the steppes. I am reliably informed that one of those brutes kicked to death the manager of the last hotel he stayed at.” He shook his head ruefully, then did a double-take as he spotted Ganesha lurking behind Chopra. “What is that elephant doing in here?”

  “He’s with me.”

  The GM blinked. “Animals! Truly, they will be the death of me.”

  “Perhaps we should concentrate on the matter at hand?” said Chopra.

  Dashputra’s moustache twitched. “Yes, of course. Let me take you to the Khumbatta suite. We’ll talk on the way.”

  The Khumbatta suite was the most opulent of the 500-plus rooms at the Grand Raj Palace Hotel.

  A gilded elevator whisked Chopra, the GM and Ganesha up to the hotel’s top floor, depositing them into a lushly carpeted corridor. Two security guards posted outside the suite snapped to attention as they approached, exchanging glances as the little elephant passed by.

  The GM used an electronic keycard to open the door to the suite.

  “I assume one of those keycards is the only way to get into the suite?” asked Chopra.

  “Yes,” confirmed Dashputra.

  “Who had access to the keycards for the Khumbatta suite on the night Burbank died?”

  “Burbank had the only copy that we had issued. But that doesn’t mean anything. These keycards can be reproduced by anyone on reception. It’s all electronic. Guests lose them all the time.”

  “I will need a list of all those who accessed the suite—or had access to it—during the twenty-four hours prior to Burbank’s death.”

  “It will be arranged.”

  “By the way, is there CCTV on this floor?”

  Dashputra shook his head. “I am afraid not. Our guests value their privacy far too much to allow us to install security cameras.”

  Chopra was silent, hovering in the doorway. “There’s always the possibility that Burbank let his killer in. If he was murdered, I mean.”

  The GM shuddered. “We have kept the details from the press so far. It is fortunate that the hotel’s owners have such influence in the city. They have prevailed upon the editors of the major news outlets to confine their reporting to the scant facts that we have released, namely that Burbank passed away in his suite. We have not yet informed them of the circumstances of his death. Can you imagine the headlines when they find out that he committed suicide?”

  “Can you imagine the headlines if it turns out he was murdered? And that someone in this hotel might be the killer?”

  Dashputra blanched, but said nothing.

  Chopra followed the GM into the suite, Ganesha close behind.

  Although he had visited the Grand Raj before, he had never stayed there, and certainly had never been anywhere near the rarefied air of the Khumbatta suite. As he looked around, he understood why the suite—favoured by presidents and A-list actors, billionaire industrialists and spoilt scions of noble families—cost a million rupees per night. This was opulence on a scale that Chopra—living in a mid-sized apartment on the fifteenth floor of a tower block in the Mumbai suburbs—could barely comprehend.

  The thought bothered him.

  He was a man to whom wealth meant little. The vast inequalities in his country had always seemed to him a matter too readily accepted by his fellow countrymen, and paid lip service to by successive Indian governments. In the seventy years since India had gained her independence, the country had made steady economic progress, such that now she was being touted as a global superpower. You could not turn on the TV without being accosted by yet another self-congratulatory report of Indian advancement, the velocity of which appeared to be increasing with each passing day. Just last week, for instance, the media had foamed themselves into a fury of excitement at the news that India had launched a hundred satellites into space from a single rocket, a world first.

  But the truth was that, for the vast majority of its billion-strong population, this glowing vision of a prosperous, globalised, Sputniked India was little more than a pipe dream, a billboard advert that hovered mirage-like before their swimming eyeballs—as far out of reach as those satellites—even as political slogans clanged incessantly in their ears. What did it say for a nation claiming to be a “serious player in the burgeoning private space market” that each year thousands of farmers committed suicide at the advent of famine? In the slums of Old India, millions of men, women and children toiled beneath the back-breaking weight of their inheritance—the inheritance of caste prejudice and grinding poverty—while in the marbled halls of power, the country’s leaders drove the unstoppable tank of New India into the steaming swamp of the future.

  Perhaps Dashputra mistook Chopra’s grim silence for a momentary awe as he began a potted description of the suite, one he had no doubt delivered many times and from which he could not keep a note of personal pride. “You are standing in the most desired hotel room in the whole of the subcontinent,” he gushed. “Five thousand square feet of unparalleled luxury. The floors are white Makrana marble; the upholstery and draperies cut from handwoven silk. The suite boasts a private spa area, a dining room and a master bathroom overlooking the Gateway. A dedicated valet is on call twenty-four hours a day, as well as a personal chef and a private butler.”

  Ganesha stared round-eyed at Dashputra. The little elephant seemed more impressed than his guardian.

  “Where was Burbank’s body found?”

  Dashputra led the way into the largest of the suite’s bedrooms, another vast space that could have accommodated most apartments in the city. A hand-knotted carpet rippled over the marble floor, and a crystal chandelier shimmered above the four-poster bed. There was no canopy, he noted; the bedposts, fashioned from dark Burma teak, speared nakedly towards the room’s mirrored ceiling.

  Above the bed’s carved headboard was a covered painting.

  “What’s that?” asked Chopra.

  “That is the reason Burbank was staying at the hotel,” replied Dashputra. “Two nights ago, the Grand Raj hosted an art auction. Burbank purchased this piece for ten million dollars. It is now the most valuable painting ever sold by an Indian artist.”

  “Why is it still here?”

  “The police would not allow us to move anything from the room. Everything has been logged as evidence. That is why I have a twenty-four-hour guard on the door. No one goes in or out without my express permission.”

  “Can we remove the covering? I’d like to take a look.”

  Dashputra frowned. “I would rather not touch it without someone from the auction house being present.”

  “Which auction house is it?”

  “Gilbert and Locke,” replied Dashputra promptly. “From London. It was quite a coup for us to convince them to host their auction here. A number of our rivals also attempted to woo them, but there is no place like the Grand Raj.” Dashputra’s haughty tone folded into sorrow. “It is terrible that Burbank has died. I don’t think Gilbert and Locke will look favourably upon this at all.”

  “Who is representing them here? I’ll need to speak to them.”

  “A woman by the name of Lisa Taylor. She is the auction director.”

  Chopra wrote the name down in his notebook. “Where can I find her?”

  “She is staying at the hotel. I will give you her contact details.”

  “Thank you. Where exactly was Burbank’s body?”

  “On the bed.” The GM
gave a little shudder.

  Chopra knew that the body had been taken to the morgue at the local hospital, presumably for an autopsy. He would soon have access to the report and the forensic findings, including photographs of the crime scene, if indeed that was what it was.

  “I must tell you that the police believe that this was suicide,” said Dashputra, as if reading his mind.

  “Not all of them,” muttered Chopra.

  “In that case let me show you something.”

  He led Chopra into the suite’s master bathroom. More white marble, gleaming mirrors and a porcelain tub in which a herd of hippos might comfortably have bathed.

  Dashputra pointed at the tiles on the far wall. “This should convince you.”

  On the wall, written in what looked like foot-high letters of blood, were the words:

  I AM SORRY

  A VERY IMPORTANT ANNIVERSARY

  Poppy Chopra sat disconsolately on the veranda in the rear courtyard of the restaurant that bore her name, the restaurant her husband had established after his retirement from the police force. Her hopes that the place would provide him with a meaningful way to occupy his time—and thus keep him from the stress and excitement that his doctors had warned him might aggravate the heart ailment that had forced his retirement in the first place—had been short-lived.

  Within days of leaving the service Chopra had somehow managed to embroil himself in uncovering one of the largest human trafficking rings in the country, and had then proudly announced that he was setting up his own detective agency, so that he could risk life and limb on a daily basis.

  In time she had convinced herself that fighting against his perverse desire to fling himself into harm’s way at every opportunity was pointless. This desire—driven by his need to pursue justice—was as ingrained in her husband as the knots in the planed boards of the veranda beneath her feet.

  Besides, the restaurant practically ran itself.

  Between her mother—installed in the front—and Chef Lucknowwallah—running roughshod over operations at the rear—the place had proved to be an efficient and hugely popular venture. If only her husband could understand that it was perfectly permissible for him to sit back and enjoy his success.

  She thought about sighing, but realised that with no one to hear, the dramatic gesture would be wasted.

  At the far end of the veranda, the blind tutor, Usha Umrigar, was finishing up her lesson with Irfan.

  The boy, at first reluctance personified, had finally begun to make progress.

  Chopra had taken him on at the restaurant, a young street urchin whose smiling, mop-headed demeanour concealed a tragic past. Irfan had been raised on the streets by his father, a cruel and exploitative man. This Fagin-like figure had bullied and beaten Irfan—and numerous other young boys—into stealing for him. The man had finally got his comeuppance, but Poppy could only imagine the scars he had left behind. Sometimes, in the dead of night, a keening ache would arise in her breast as she thought about those horrible years Irfan had endured, not knowing love or kindness, not knowing that there were people in the world who would treat him not with cruelty, but with compassion and affection.

  For Poppy now regarded the boy as her own.

  During the twenty-four years of her marriage to Chopra she had known only one great disappointment—that they had been unable to have children. Or, more accurately, she had been unable to bear children. Many marriages would have cracked under this burden; but Chopra and Poppy had weathered the disappointment—in many ways, their trial had brought them closer together. At times, she had mooted the idea of adoption, but for some reason, her husband had never convinced himself that he might be successful in such a venture.

  And so the years had passed, childless, but not barren. Poppy had found innumerable ways of occupying her time; she believed in the mantra that if one wanted to see change in India—with its myriad ills and inequalities—then one had to get out there and do something about it.

  Even now, as a woman in her early forties, her relentless dedication to the cause—whatever cause happened to have elbowed its way to the forefront of her conscience—was a source of inspiration, she felt, to those around her.

  And then, miraculously, fate had chosen to turn her life upside-down.

  The little elephant, Ganesha, had arrived on their doorstep, closely followed by Irfan.

  Something had burst inside her then, a dam that had held her emotions in check for all those childless years.

  She found herself surrendering to the torrent of maternal feelings that raged through her and there was little doubt now that both she and Chopra considered themselves guardians to the elephant calf and the ten-year-old boy who had ended up in their care.

  For a parent was not defined solely by genetic inheritance. The true definition of parenthood was the ability to love, to care, to put the welfare of another before one’s own.

  Consider Irfan.

  A sense of pride swelled inside her as she saw him develop into the fine young man she knew he would one day become. Educating him was just phase one of the masterplan…

  The tall, thick-shouldered tutor rose to her feet, dismissing Irfan with a little pat on his head, then turned her sightless gaze to Poppy.

  “What is the matter?”

  “Nothing,” said Poppy, as Irfan beamed at her and skipped back inside the restaurant to begin his shift. The boy had no need to work, but refused to give up his job, or to move from the restaurant to their home. He lived here, where he had a comfortable hammock and could be close to his pachyderm partner-in-mischief, little Ganesha. Nothing that Poppy said could convince him to change his mind. And her husband was as much use as a rolling pin made of mud.

  Sometimes his laissez-faire attitude was truly infuriating.

  “Something is the matter,” said Umrigar, her large, burn-scarred hands clasped around her bamboo cane.

  She was dressed in a simple navy blue sari with white trim, her iron-grey hair held back in a bun, her dark, broad face lit by mid-morning sunlight. “You’ve been huffing and puffing in that chair throughout my entire lesson.”

  “It’s Chopra,” said Poppy. “He was supposed to meet me here this morning so that we could plan our anniversary.”

  A soft warbling sound floated over the veranda. Poppy realised that the tutor was laughing at her.

  “What in the world made you think he would be interested in doing that?”

  Poppy glared at the older woman.

  Her anger stemmed partly from the fact that Umrigar had placed her finger precisely on the sore spot that Poppy had identified. Her husband didn’t care, she had realised. Yes, of course, he was as committed to their marriage as he had always been, but he didn’t care. Not about things like their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, due to take place in precisely four days’ time. He had wriggled and squirmed each time she raised the topic. He simply didn’t seem to grasp that twenty-fifth wedding anniversaries didn’t happen every day.

  In fact, by definition, they only happened once, and after a twenty-five-year wait.

  It wasn’t that he was unwilling—she had expected that. It was that he was willingly unwilling. He said things like: “I’m happy if you’re happy.” And: “Choose whatever you like.”

  And meanwhile her friends kept going on about the big day, pressing her for news. That insufferable Jaya Sinha from the thirteenth floor, she with the tax auditor husband with a head like a watermelon, claimed that he, of all people, had booked her an all-expenses trip to Disneyland for their tenth anniversary, and had even dressed up as Mickey Mouse to serenade her in her hotel suite. The image of the brick-faced Mr. Sinha wooing his wife dressed as a giant mouse made Poppy shudder, but she couldn’t fault the man’s commitment. Whereas her own husband…

  Where was he? What was he doing in south Mumbai?

  No doubt embroiling himself in another investigation just when she had asked him to set aside a few days. She wouldn’t put it past the man to have anoth
er heart attack just so he could avoid their anniversary altogether.

  Well, if he thought he could wriggle out of it that easily, he didn’t know her very well.

  Chopra would go to the ball.

  Even if she had to drag him every step of the way.

  UNDER THE HAMMER

  Chopra found the auction director Lisa Taylor in the hotel’s Olympic-sized swimming pool.

  The blond woman was doing laps, maintaining a steady, long-limbed backstroke. Hotel guests sunned themselves on the loungers around the pool. An elderly white woman in a wide-brimmed sun hat lowered her book, and peered over her spectacles at Ganesha. “Is that an elephant?”

  Chopra felt the answer was self-evident.

  It was difficult to be wrong about an elephant.

  The woman continued to stare at Ganesha until he became uncomfortable and shuffled around behind his guardian. “Hmm,” said the woman enigmatically, then went back to her book.

  Chopra moved to the edge of the pool, knelt and flagged down Lisa Taylor as she swam by. She stopped, and trod water. “I am sorry to disturb you, Miss Taylor. My name is Chopra and I am investigating Mr. Burbank’s death. May I talk to you?”

  She stared at him, then plunged to the side and hauled herself out of the pool.

  She stood in front of him, dripping, the sun glistening off her wet shoulders. Chopra couldn’t help but notice that she was a very attractive woman, her luxurious figure set off by the red bathing suit she wore. She blinked blue eyes at Ganesha. “Is he with you?”

  “Yes,” said Chopra, glad of something else to focus on.

  Taylor knelt down and tickled Ganesha under his ear. “You’re a handsome devil, aren’t you?”

  Ganesha responded with delight, waggling his ears and tapping her cheeks with his trunk.

  “Until I came to India I’d never seen an elephant except in the zoo. The only pets I had at home were guinea pigs. Now I think I’d like my own elephant.” Taylor straightened up. “Give me a moment to change. Perhaps you’d care to join me in the Banyan restaurant? I’ve not had breakfast yet.”