A Curious Indian Cadaver by Shamini Flint

Author:Shamini Flint
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789085241522
Publisher: For the Benefit of Mr. Kite
Published: 2011-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Ten

Singh, as plump as a bolster, sat on a lobby sofa and stared at the visitors to the hotel as if he was an undercover cop of limited abilities. The inspector was in a state of shock at Patel’s news, but the Indian policeman sitting across from him was adamant. “Autopsy is stating that dead girl was about ten weeks pregnant at time of death. So you see,” he concluded, “that’s why she killed herself. She is knowing it would become obvious soon.” Patel gestured with two hands to indicate a rounded belly which was not that far removed from his own.

“What about the wedding?” said Singh.

“Child is being born six months after marriage,” pointed out Patel.

“An unconvincing premmie,” agreed Singh. It would have been too late to pretend the baby had been fathered by a particularly virile MBA, not so soon after the marriage.

“Unless Kirpal Singh is father – in which case he cannot object to an early child, yes?” suggested Patel.

But Singh couldn’t get his head around the hypothesis that the MBA was the delighted Dad. Surely it must have been Sameer? He tried to focus on the details of his conversation with the boyfriend, picturing the young man striding up and down like a beast of prey confined against its will. Sameer had been devastated by Ashu’s death, but Singh had not picked up any hint that he had lost a child as well as a lover. Sameer would have been much more determined, and had far more leverage, to persuade her not to marry Kirpal, if he’d known. Which meant that either Singh had read the signs wrong – and this was not something the inspector ever admitted – or Ashu had kept the news of her child from her lover.

“That’s why she was using the fire,” explained Patel, looking around warily for eavesdroppers. He was divulging society-pages gossip of the first order about one of Mumbai’s leading families. “Actually it is quite common. Girls are trying hard to hide pregnancy from family, you know?”

“Trying hard? If Ashu Kaur really did herself to death by fire just to hide the physical evidence of her condition that’s a bit of an understatement, don’t you think?”

And it hadn’t worked. Singh suspected it hardly ever worked. Wouldn’t Ashu, chemist and scientist, have known that? Or had she just been desperate – treated it as her last throw of the dice?

“Anyway now case is closed like a liquor shop next door to mosque,” Patel had said, wearily relieved. “Definitely suicide.”

Singh tried to piece together the girl’s movements to form a moving picture in his mind. She’d snuck out of the house at some yet-to-be determined time, rushed over to the factory – directly? – to have an altercation with the boss for the entertainment of Mrs. Bannerjee. Later in the day, she’d met her soon-to-be discarded lover on Marine Drive and then – if Sameer’s testimony was true – been picked up by a young angry Sikh in a car.

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