Max O'Brien Mysteries 3-Book Bundle. Mario Bolduc
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door revealed a wash basin and toilet.
The caretaker was standing in the middle of it all with arms folded to show he was ready for questions or criticisms. Max showed him David’s photo.
“He may have come here to see someone — possibly you?”
The man looked defiantly at both of them. “Police?”
“Do you recognize this guy? His picture was in the papers last week.”
“Never seen him here.”
Max put the photo away. So, they were going to have to go door to door. They got ready to leave.
“Strange that a newspaper would rent a place like that,” Max said before they got to the corridor.
“Owners.”
“The Reporter owns this building?”
“Yesss. They wanted to pull it down, but they changed their minds. I don’t know why. Meanwhile, they rent. That’s how Ahmed got the apartment.”
“Ahmed?”
“Ahmed Zaheer.” He pointed to the furniture and items scattered round the place, “This is all his.”
“And where did this Ahmed go?”
“To Canada. To die.”
29
The Srinagar Reporter occupied a modern block on the southern edge of town. The windows of the editorial office overlooked the road to Jammu and Delhi a little way off, which symbolized accurately their basic political stance. The daily was “secular and progressive,” and, as their highly vocal and visible publicity claimed, an “All-India Publication Promoting Respect & Understanding Among Indians of All Castes & Beliefs.” Deepak Vahsnirian, editor-in-chief, was a sort of Indian Walter Cronkite who spoke in a low voice punctuated with sighs of limited dramatic impact, a gentleman, or trying very much to be one. Any minute now, Max expected him to get out a pipe and start stuffing it like a character in some British film from the fifties. Vashnirian prided himself on being a man of conviction, “not an easy thing in this country, even less in this city.”
A Hindu himself, he hired a number of Muslims, and not necessarily as sweepers and cleaners, he hastened to add. He, of course, was a member of the Indian National Congress, “India’s great party,” chased from power by the narrow-minded nationalists of the BJP.
“Still, those of the Congress weren’t always up to the standards of their illustrious predecessors, Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru,” Jayesh put in, referring to the state of emergency proclaimed by Indira Gandhi in the 1970s.
Vashnirian’s complexion darkened, and Max frowned. This really wasn’t the time.
“We aren’t here for politics, Mr. Vashnirian. We’d like to talk to you about Ahmed Zaheer.”
“How much does he owe you?”
Max and Jayesh exchanged glances as Vashnirian came round his desk to face Max.
“Oh, you’re not the first, you know, and you won’t be the last, but you’ll not get a single rupee from this newspaper, no more than any of the others.”
Zaheer had led a dissolute life, he said: baccarat, roulette, chemin de fer — he was better known in Macao than he was in Srinagar, debts all over town, not to mention his attitude. He annoyed the staff royally with his spoiled-child act. “Why he even showed up at the office dead drunk, and quite often too.”
Vashnirian frowned. “You Westerners imagine them all on hands and knees toward Mecca with a machine-gun slung across their shoulders, as though most Christians are members of the Ku Klux Klan!” He sighed once more his face becoming sad. “Ahmed was the best journalist this paper had. The most formidable …”
“The kind Indira would have loved to throw in jail.”
More poisonous looks from Max to Jayesh, who raised his arms in surrender, “Okay, okay, I’ll shut up.”
“Ahmed had, I don’t know, fifty years of vacation piled up, and he said one morning, ‘I’m going to Sri Lanka for a few Adonises, then …’ ”
Max looked puzzled, so he explained: “I didn’t tell you he was gay? No one knew except for everybody. I mean he wasn’t officially out of the closet and not the slightest intention of even opening the door. And Islam, well, that’s a closet inside a closet.”
“Sri Lanka? I thought he died in Canada.”
“Yes, you’re right, Niagara Falls.”
Now Max was beyond puzzled.
“He changed his travel plans at the last minute, I suppose,” said Vashnirian, then. “A stupid accident, really. He fell, and they only found his body at the bottom of the falls next day.” Vashnirian paused. “I suppose he should have gone to Sri Lanka after all.” He went on to ask them the reason for their interest in Ahmed Zaheer, and Max improvised a story about insurance contracts Zaheer had signed. The editor showed them the journalist’s office, now occupied by a serious young intern with large glasses and curly hair. Anything that might have been of interest had been scattered or destroyed, hardly surprising. There was no hope Zaheer would be careless enough to leave anything the least bit compromising lying around, anyway. Next, Vashnirian invited his visitors to eat in a local café (“if it isn’t closed for the bloody war!”). He just had to make one telephone call while they waited in the entrance hall.
Niagara Falls, huh?
A Muslim homosexual, barfly, gadfly, and gambler. What kind of nutbar had David got himself in with?
Jayesh was thinking the same thing. “Maybe your nephew was gay.”
Max had wondered that, too. Perhaps all this secrecy was just in aid of an ill-fated love-affair. Zaheer would be the inconsolable lover at the foot of the falls. David rushes over to his place to erase all evidence of their liaison. Sure, why not? Naah. “David would never do anything like that with me or anyone else,” Vandana had said. What if she were wrong?
It was a tempting theory nevertheless, but didn’t lead anywhere. David’s trip to Srinagar was nearly two weeks after Zaheer’s death, so why wait that long before rushing off to “save his reputation”? And who would then be responsible for the bombing? Come to think of it, there was no proof of any kind of link between David and Zaheer at all. The lady at the Mount View and Shabir, her handyman, could have invented anything for a few rupees more. Even if what they said was true, there was no evidence that David went to Zaheer’s apartment that night. Possibly any other apartment for any number of reasons.
The more Max thought about it, the more he had the impression his investigation was founded on hypotheses and witnesses who weren’t reliable, starting with Adoor Sharma, the amateur pimp. It was all a house of cards that the slightest breeze could bring down in a heap. Niagara Falls. Adoor Sharma. The strongbox. Max thought and thought, racking his brain, till an intuition, rather an image, took form in his mind. He rifled through his memory — Tourigny and the phone number he’d tried in vain to identify. He thought for a second and looked up. Why not?
Max went over to the reception desk and asked the young lady if he could use her phone. She pointed to an empty room a little way off, and he went in, dialled the number for Canada Direct. The young Acadian woman asked if she could help him. He read her the phone number kept in David’s safe “… in the Niagara Falls area code, please.” One ring, then two, three, and someone answered the phone brusquely. It was a woman’s voice, melodious, professional.
“Niagara Parks Police, Joan Tourigny speaking. How can I help you?”
Part Three
KLEAN KASHMIR
30
Philippe and his son, two shooting stars, David, with his life before him. New Delhi, his