'You're Munnalal?' asked Puri with a perfunctory handshake, almost overcome by the stench of booze on the man's breath.
'Yes, sir.'
'I've come to offer you some help.'
'Help? Me, sir?' he said, surprised. 'How can I refuse?'
'You can't,' said Puri.
With a half-quizzical look, Munnalal offered the detective a plastic deck chair in the shade on the east side of the courtyard.
'Make yourself comfortable, sir,' he said before disappearing back into his room and calling his wife to bring the two of them refreshments.
When Munnalal reemerged a few minutes later, he had put a comb through his greasy hair and changed into a clean white salwar.
'So, sir, what can I do for you?' he asked Puri, drawing up a chair opposite his guest. He offered Puri a cigarette and then lit one of his own.
'I need some information,' replied the detective.
'Ask me anything,' he said grandly with a broad grin and a flourish of his hands.
'I understand you used to drive for Mr. and Mrs. Ajay Kasliwal.'
'That's right,' replied Munnalal. 'I was with Sir and Madam for a year or so.'
'So you knew the maidservant Mary?'
Munnalal's grin froze.
'Yes, sir. I knew her,' he said, cautiously. 'Is that what this is about?'
'You knew her well?'
'Not well-' Munnalal broke off, clearing his throat nervously. 'Sir, why all these questions? Who are you- sir?'
Puri explained that he was a private detective from Delhi working for Ajay Kasliwal. Munnalal digested this information for a moment with a troubled frown, drawing on his cigarette a little harder each time.
'They're saying on the TV that Sahib murdered the girl,' said Munnalal, exhaling a cloud of smoke.
'Ajay Kasliwal is innocent. Someone set him up. I'd like to know what you know about it.'
Munnalal forced a laugh.
'Me? What could I know? I'm just a driver, sir.'
'You
'Who says that?' Munnalal asked skeptically.
'Your neighbors, mostly,' said Puri. 'They say you live like a maharaja. Munnalal-sahib they call you. Apparently, you drink Angrezi liquor. You bet big sums on cricket. Seems you've come into a lot of money recently.'
Munnalal shifted uneasily in his chair. 'It's my business how I live.'
'Where did the money come from?'
'An uncle died and left me his house,' he said defiantly.
'An uncle?'
'He was childless. I was his favorite.'
Puri surveyed Munnalal with patient eyes.
'What can you tell me about the night Mary disappeared, August twenty-first?'
'Nothing, sir.'
'Nothing at all?' Puri smiled. 'Come now, you must know something. Where were you that evening?'
'I took Sahib to a hotel and waited for him in the car park.'
'You didn't go back to the house?'
'Not until later when I dropped him home-that was around one in the morning.'
Munnalal stubbed out the end of his cigarette and quickly lit another one.
'That's strange,' said Puri, whose hands were folded neatly in his lap. 'I'm told you were at the house at around eleven o'clock and carried Mary's body from her room to the back of the vehicle.'
'Who told you that?' exploded Munnalal, his eyes filled with venom.
'That's not important,' answered the detective coolly. 'What is important is that you tell me exactly what happened at Raj Kasliwal Bhavan on August twenty-first. Otherwise I might have to pass on what I already know to Inspector Rajendra Singh Shekhawat. Perhaps you know him? No. Well, he's a very energetic young officer. I'm sure he's good at getting people to talk.'
Abruptly, Munnalal pushed back his chair and stood up. For a moment the detective thought he might lunge. But instead, he began to pace back and forth, regarding Puri like a caged tiger.
'You were there that evening, weren't you?' said the detective.
'I never left the hotel car park. The other drivers will back me up.'
Puri slipped his sunglasses down the bridge of his nose and stared at Munnalal over the top of them.
'I have a witness who saw you carry the body from Mary's room to Mr. Kasliwal's Tata Sumo.'
'I never murdered anyone!' shouted Munnalal.
Puri held up a calming hand. 'There's no need to get angry. As long as you cooperate you've got nothing to worry about.'
Just then, Munnalal's wife emerged from the kitchen bearing two metal cups of water on a tray. She served Puri first and then her husband. Munnalal downed the contents in big gulps. Then he handed the empty cup to his wife, fished out a few rupees from his shirt pocket and sent her out to buy him another packet of cigarettes.
'What do you want?' asked Munnalal when they were alone again.
Puri placed the cup of water on the ground untouched.
'What any person wants? To be comfortable.'
Munnalal's lip twisted into a knowing sneer.
'How comfortable?'
'That depends. First I want to know what happened at Raj Kasliwal Bhavan that night.'
'What if I refuse to talk?'
'I don't need to tell you what the police will do to you to get a confession.'
Munnalal grunted knowingly and sat down again. A long silence ensued as he weighed his options.
'Sir, I never killed that girl,' he said, sounding conciliatory. 'She tried to kill herself.'
His words were met with an expression of cold skepticism.
'That's the truth,' insisted Munnalal. 'I went to her room and found her lying on the floor. There was blood everywhere. She'd cut her wrists.'
'What business did you have going to her room?'
Munnalal faltered. 'I…she…she owed me money. I went to collect it.'
Puri sighed. 'Don't lie to me or it will be the worse for you. Now tell me: why did you go to her room?'
'I already told you, sir!' protested Munnalal. 'I went to her room to collect the five hundred rupees she'd borrowed from me. She was lying there covered in blood. She'd used a kitchen knife. But she was still alive. So I tied her wrists with cloth to stop the bleeding, carried her to the Sumo and drove to the clinic.'
'Then what?'
'The nurse took her in. That was the last I saw of Mary.'
'What was the name of the clinic?'
'Sunrise.'
Puri took out his notebook and wrote down the name.
'Then what did you do?' he asked.
'I returned to the hotel to pick up Sahib.'
There was a pause.
'You had blood on your clothes?'
'A little but I washed it off.'
'And the knife? How can you explain it ending up in the garden behind the house?'
Munnalal shrugged.