Club You to Death by Anuja Chauhan (books to improve english .TXT) 📕

me more about what you were saying before. How you’ve spent your whole life cleaning up the filth of the so-called high castes …’

‘Yes, I have.’

‘And you’ve helped clean up after some crimes too …’

The old man’s face grows vaguely wary. ‘Arrey, naee naee naee naee naee!’ He wags his whiskery old head. ‘I promised. I promised – and I’m a man of my word!’

Leo’s voice grows even more persuasive. ‘Aww, c’mon, Guppie Ram ji – tell me! I’ve already guessed half the story anyway from all the hints you’ve dropped! It happened three years ago, didn’t it? You’d spent a few days preparing a composting trench, a really deep, four-foot trench, when you got a phone call in the middle of the night …?’

The old man nods, and assumes a more official tone. ‘I dug up that trench at the orders of Gennil Mehra’s hottie-culture sub-committee. He was the head, and Missus Aggarwal, Missus Khurana and Missus Todi were all members of it too.’

‘And late at night you got a phone call …?’ Leo eggs him on gently.

The old man nods. ‘Yes. I was told ki there had been an accident, there was a mess, and could I please come and help clean it up? So I went along … and found that the “mess” was a body. But he was definitely a very bad persons – an evil persons – and he deserved it! So I agreed to help. We wrapped him in a bedsheet and dragged him out to the trench together … there was jabardast fog that night, so nobody saw us … I made the trench a little more deeper and … rolled him in. What a thump he made when he landed! Then I layered kitchen waste and dirt and topsoil over him nicely and left him to the earthworms. It was almost dawn by the time I finished. Of course, I was given money also – but more than that, I did it for the friendship! Who says rich, high caste folk and people like me can’t be friends, eh?’

‘You only said,’ Leo replies. ‘And I told you you were being too cynical!’

The old man looks reflective. ‘Yes, perhaps you’re right, Lambodar. Perhaps I am being too cynical. That night I really felt I was not being used, or given orders, or being paid. I felt that what we shared, we two, when we buried the body, was love … and dosti – and equal-equal trust. Yani ki friendship!’

He lapses into a rather pensive silence.

‘Here’s to friendship, then!’ Leo refills the glass again.

The old man knocks it back. ‘To friendship.’ He blinks solemnly.

‘But who are we really drinking to, boss?’ Leo presses. ‘Let’s put a name to it! Or a gender, at least – was it a man or a woman?’ His voice is eager. Too eager.

The old man’s face closes down at once. His head vanishes from the camera’s frame as he gets to his feet abruptly, and all that is visible is the bottom of his T-shirt and the beginning of his pyjamas. His dirty-nailed fingers fumble at the waistband.

‘Paishaab,’ his says hoarsely. ‘Toilet. I have to do toilet. Where is it, Lambodar?’

Static fills the screen again – Leo has clearly turned the recording button off.

‘That’s it?’ Bhavani cocks an interrogative eyebrow at Padam Kumar.

‘For the time being, sir.’ The inspector nods fervently. ‘Though of course we are still looking through the rest of the files!’

‘Know who the man is?’

‘Yes, sir! An old gardener called Ram Gopal aka Guppie Ram, who died a year ago! He looked after the DTC garden!’

‘Excellent,’ says Bhavani. ‘He’s talking about the kitchen garden, of course. Where we found Bhatti sa’ab digging carrots the other day.’

Padam Kumar gives a superstitious little shudder. ‘I didn’t like that place, sir! The soil was too smelly, too black, too sticky. Full of jhoothan and garbage that should be thrown away. I can fully believe ki uss chyawanprash mein laash hai!’

‘Rubbish! Composting is a very good and hygienic way to garden, PK. It’s completely organic.’

‘Organic is a good name for it!’ Padam Kumar snorts. ‘All the dead man’s organs are in there! Layered in kitchen waste and topsoil as lovingly as a biryani! No wonder the beetroot is so red!’

His big breakthrough has clearly made the inspector more outspoken than usual. Bhavani smiles.

‘Well, well, maybe you’re right, PK! But great work! Take your chaps out for a drink tonight.’

Padam Kumar goes a little pink. ‘We were all just following your lead, sir! You said find the hard disk, and we found it. Sir, should I start on the paperwork required to get us permission to dig?’

Bhavani nods, delighted at this show of enterprise from his usually sleepy inspector.

Padam Kumar bounces out of the cubicle energetically, a man on a mission. Bhavani settles back in his chair and plays the recording again, taking painstaking note of all the little details. The grilled windows behind Guppie Ram, the bottle of Teacher’s whisky, the digital clock on the wall … but that thing that strikes him most is the voice of the unseen Leo. Perhaps because of his association with the Badshahpur orphanage, his healthy, wholesome charisma and his massive fan following, Bhavani has unconsciously slotted Leo Matthew as an essentially good, Robin Hood-ish character.

But the voice speaking so easily and cajolingly to the inebriated Guppie Ram is not a ‘good’ voice. It is soft and cunning and opportunistic. A serpent’s voice.

Impulsively, Bhavani logs onto Lose It with Leo and stares at the image on the home page fixedly. The instructor has been captured in all his glory – frozen mid-movement with his mane of hair flung back, and his lithe, sinewy body on full display.

This man had been playing a dangerous game, wielding sexual charm, sympathy, information and the moral high ground like a weapon. How many rich, powerful people had he hurt, humiliated, antagonized? Yes, the money he extracted from them had gone to an orphanage, but surely he had also