THE BUTCHER OF BENARES Read online

  He handed the guest’s passport to Hawa Singh. It read, Name: Tom Barry; Age: 42 years; Occupation: Swiss Guard. His home address was in the town of Milton Keynes, in the UK.

  They climbed the stairs to his room, a sparsely furnished bed-sit with white walls that looked newly painted, with a couple of framed pictures of the Kashi Vishwanath temple and the evening aarti at Dashashwamedh Ghat. There was a wooden cupboard. The bedsheets smelled as if they had been freshly ironed. A curtain printed with red flowers and green leaves hung from the single window. There was no air-conditioning. Altogether a cheap, functional room.

  Ruby looked around with her trained eyes. Hawa Singh opened the cupboard. There was a bulging rucksack in it. A few clothes hung on the hangers. A jacket and a pair of track pants were folded and kept on a shelf. There was a pair of heavy army boots. A travel book. A Swiss knife.

  Hawa Singh rummaged through the rucksack and took out few more clothes and books. The subjects ranged from travel, Benares, astronomy, Vedic astrology to the Holy Bible.

  He put down the books in a row on the bed. Both Hawa Singh and Ruby knew there was a connection there, but what exactly, they couldn’t say.

  Hawa Singh turned to look into the toilet. There were the usual men’s toiletries: a shaving kit, aftershave, hair cream, a deodorant and a lighter. There were a few cigarette stubs lying on the floor. He picked one up and saw it was from a rolled cigarette. He smelt it. Ganja.

  Hawa Singh handed the butts to Ruby who placed them in the evidence pouch she carried. The stubs looked similar to the one Hawa Singh had found at Dashashwamedh Ghat. He remembered that similar stubs had been found in the room of the first victim, Eva Marie Cassidy.

  He looked at Ruby curiously. ‘Is it possible that the killer met with all his victims on an occasion or occasions before he killed them?’

  ‘It’s a possibility,’ said Ruby.

  ‘So why are these cigarettes to be found only inside the toilet?’

  ‘Maybe they cleaned up the room and threw them here.’

  Hawa Singh said, ‘Or the killer came to meet his victims personally. It was he who may have smoked them. Maybe he had come here too.’

  He called up Brahm Dev and asked for CCTV footage. There was none in the guesthouse.

  ‘Do you remember anyone who came to meet Mr Barry in his room?’ asked Hawa Singh.

  ‘Yes, I remember a sadhu with long hair who had come here. Other than he, I didn’t see anyone,’ said Brahm Dev, shakily.

  Hawa Singh thanked him and let him go.

  ‘In Benares, a sadhu’s is the easiest disguise to assume. No one would know who he really was,’ conjectured Hawa Singh.

  ‘One thing is clear,’ said Ruby with conviction. ‘That the killer goes about in disguise. He came to meet your father as a Naga sadhu, and maybe to meet Tom Barry disguised as another kind of sadhu.’

  ‘Maybe he is there right in front of us every day and we have not been able to identify him.’

  ‘That’s very possible,’ said Ruby.

  Hawa Singh searched the room thoroughly. The shelves. Under the bed. Under the mattress. Between pillows. Inside drawers. Inside the boots.

  He found a digital camera in one of the pockets of the rucksack. He checked, but there was not a single photo. It looked as if everything had been deleted.

  He handed it to Ruby saying, ‘See if we can retrieve some pictures from it.’

  They stood near the door, taking a last look at the room, ensuring they hadn’t overlooked anything. Ruby looked again at the books lined up on the bed.

  She noticed a page-marker sticking out of the Bible. She opened to the page and pulled it out. It was a long strip of white paper with clear writing on it in blue ink. Ruby turned and showed it to Hawa Singh.

  He read: Bhrigu-Samhita.

  CHAPTER 32

  Hawa Singh shook his head to rid himself of the jumble of thoughts rattling in it. The water rippled under them as Ruby sat close to him in a rowing boat. Sitting opposite them were the two opposing spiritual forces in Benares, Baba Ramtirath, the leader of the Naga sadhus, and Neelambar Nath, the new leader of the Aghoris. Hawa Singh had picked them up from Dashashwamedh Ghat.

  In the middle of the Ganges, they were on neutral ground. Rowing the boat were a brawny Naga sadhu and an Aghori, who manned either side. Baba Ramtirath was, as usual, wearing rimless glasses over his blue eyes, and nothing else. Neelambar Nath wore a grimy, ash-smeared loincloth.

  There was a boat to their left rowed by ten Naga sadhus who never left their leader’s side. They all held tridents in their hands and their long matted hair flew in the wind. Their eyes were set on Hawa Singh and the Aghoris.

  To the right was another boat, carrying a group of Aghoris armed with swords and tridents. They, too, had pledged their lives to protect their leader.

  Hawa Singh had not bothered to call in any policemen. He wanted the Nagas and the Aghoris to trust him, and thereby enlist their aid. Ruby Malik was there to study them, analyse them and, as had become their protocol, provide support to Hawa Singh.

  By now the SSP had given full rein to Hawa Singh to conduct his own investigation. Neeraj Thakur was too busy trying to butter up his seniors in Delhi and retain his job.

  Hawa Singh looked over at Baba Ramtirath who was smoking a chillum that exuded fumes of ganja. He was one of the very few foreigners to be commanding such a high religious position among all the Hindu sects. ‘You are one of the most important exponents of Vedic astrology here,’ Hawa Singh said to him. ‘What could possibly be hidden in that manuscript to get the Vatican so interested?’

  Baba Ramtirath took a deep breath of fresh air and bent to dabble a hand in the water. ‘The Bhrigu-Samhita is as mysterious as this river. The Ganges is called the mother of all rivers, and the Bhrigu-Samhita is the mother of all astrological texts in the world.’

  Ruby noticed that Baba Ramtirath was as poised as a yogi. There was not a hint of a dent in his implacable calm. In contrast, Neelambar Nath appeared positively fidgety. His eyes wavered from side to side. They kept turning, as if for reassurance, in the direction of his followers in the boat alongside. He looked like he had something to hide.

  Baba Ramtirath went on. ‘As you know, the Bhrigu-Samhita was compiled a few thousand years ago. The original text might contain things unknown to most that caught the interest of the Vatican. But I, for one, am not aware of any such thing. As I already told you, the original manuscript was lost to antiquity.’ He took a dismissive drag at his chillum. A direct hit.

  Ruby took over. ‘The killer used a wooden Cross,’ she addressed no one in particular, ‘and smeared ashes from cremation grounds on all his victims. He also took out their hearts. All this seems connected to the Aghoris.’

  Neelambar Nath looked furious. ‘Are you telling me I’m the killer?’ he almost shouted. ‘I have had enough of this. You forced me into giving my fingerprints. You interrogated the Aghoris and inspected our resting places. You have found nothing to link us to the murders.’

  ‘There’s another kind of link,’ interjected Hawa Singh.

  ‘What?’

  ‘We have found that the Butcher also killed Tailanga Swami,’ said Hawa Singh.

  This shook Neelambar Nath and even Baba Ramtirath looked startled. Ruby noticed the changes in their body language. Was it possible that they both knew the Butcher? And were afraid of him?

  ‘Swamiji was killed by an axe while—’ spluttered Neelambar Nath.

  Ruby cut him off. ‘We are sure of what we’re saying. Also, the wood used to make the Cross and the wood used in the axe’s handle come from the same place, from the cremation ground. The wood used for cremation.’

  ‘Your fingerprints may not match but all other factors point to the Aghoris and the cremation grounds,’ pitched in Hawa Singh.

  Perhaps it was only a cold draft of wind over the Ganges that made Neelambar Nath shiver, because he went on gamely. ‘There are many others who work at the cremation grounds. Like
the Doms. I’m sure that none of the Aghoris is the Butcher.’

  Ruby noticed that Neelambar spoke with a certain confidence that usually goes with telling the truth. She looked at Hawa Singh and the unspoken words in the slight flutter of her eyes were enough for him to get the point.

  One of the many things that niggled at Hawa Singh’s mind was that none of the victims had any signs of struggle on their bodies. Still, the Butcher managed to wrench out their hearts and kill them. Without facing the slightest resistance?

  In the case of Prashant Singh, he knew that Prashant loved to inflict pain, and was what some called a sadist. He enjoyed hitting, whipping and slashing people and revelled in their cries of anguish and writhing and pleas—till he triumphantly shot them between the eyes.

  But the Butcher was a man who was evidently in control of his mind and senses. He calculated as precisely as a mathematician. At the same time, he was deeply and unshakably religious.

  Hawa Singh had another question for Baba Ramtirath. ‘Is there any way that such murders can be committed without the slightest struggle or fight?’

  ‘I know what you mean. I have read in the papers about the absence of such telling signs on the bodies found. Well, there is one possibility.’

  They were all ears. Even Ruby’s watchful effort to register any other reaction, however slight, met with no result.

  ‘There is an ancient Indian form of martial art known as Marma-Adi, as old as the Vedas and the Bhrigu-Samhita itself. During the Vedic ages, this art was known to kings and warriors, and was put to practice in the battlefields. Marma-Adi is the science of manipulating marmas, or the vital points in a human body. These are nerve junctures located close to the skin’s surface. The human body contains 107 marma points which, when struck accurately, induce insensibility. Like if lohit, a marma point on the leg, is struck, it results in paralysis. Striking another point in the region of the neck can cause unconsciousness.’

  ‘None of the Aghoris, including myself, know of this,’ Neelambar Nath broke in excitedly, as if a point had been made. ‘We are not into martial arts. We only do tantra-mantra and black magic.’

  ‘Who are the practitioners of this art?’ Ruby asked Baba Ramtirath.

  ‘Marma-Adi is now a near-extinct science,’ replied the blue-eyed sadhu. ‘It lives on only in a few remote corners of the place of its origin. Even in this age of technology, Marma-Adi has remained a tradition shrouded in mystery.’

  Total silence greeted this revelation. There was only the creak of the oars, the gurgle of the river, the peal of temple bells, and the occasional splash of boys diving for coins in the Ganges. A sparrow chirped between flitting from one boat to the other.

  Hawa Singh noticed that the distance between the boats of the Naga sadhus and the Aghoris, now just a little ahead of theirs, had reduced. There was heavy tension in that little distance. They looked ready to kill each other.

  Hawa Singh turned to Baba Ramtirath. ‘Do you know of someone, particularly in Benares, who practises this martial art?’

  ‘I know of only such one person in Benares.’

  ‘Who’s that?’ Ruby asked.

  ‘That’s me,’ said Baba Ramtirath, his blue eyes shining serenely.

  CHAPTER 33

  The night sky was so clear, and the stars were shining so brightly—it was almost an astronomical miracle at this time of the year. Below, the Ganges looked like a black road, gently meandering with the city lights dotting its sides.

  Ramnagar Fort stood like a benevolent guard over the city of Benares. The moon was a big, bright spotlight on the Fort. On its terrace stood the Kashi Naresh, Maharaja Abhay Narayan Singh, looking through his telescope at the vast spectacle of the skies.

  It was a Russian-made LS110, a classic Newtonian telescope, named after Sir Isaac Newton, its seventeenth-century inventor. It had a large aperture—110 mm—to achieve high resolution and very bright images, and long focal length to achieve high-power magnifications, without making the telescope too cumbrous. One of the great advantages of the LS110 was its light-gathering power. It delivered stunning views of even very remote galaxies and nebulae.

  Abhay smiled with satisfaction as he looked through the telescope. He had many tools, devices and machines by Russian manufacturers, but he believed that it was with this telescope that the Russians achieved perfection.

  He looked and, at low-to-medium power, the moonscape became a fabulously intricate panorama of craters, rays and rills. He set it on higher powers and explored the individual crater systems in detail.

  It was as if God had chosen to bless Benares tonight with such a clear sky in winter. Abhay observed the cloud belts of Jupiter with their ever-changing detail. He looked at the four main moons of Jupiter, orbiting the giant planet, and sometimes casting shadows onto Jupiter’s dense atmosphere. He looked at Saturn’s magnificent system of rings and its famous moon, Titan.

  Hawa Singh and Ruby Malik came up on the terrace. This time, they luckily didn’t have to wait. The air was wintry all right, but there was not much wind.

  ‘Ah, so the police are back in my home,’ said Abhay, looking up from his favourite pastime.

  ‘You seem to have a great interest in astronomy,’ Hawa Singh said.

  ‘Yes, apart from clock-making, I love to observe the skies. It makes me realize that I may be King, but I’m actually just a tiny speck in the universe. Our family has always had a deep interest in astronomy. You do know, our day-to-day lives are still linked closely to astronomy? And that it has been a continuing hobby, indeed an obsession, of mankind since earliest civilization?’

  Hawa Singh observed that Abhay was wearing a windcheater under his long coat that was zipped high up his neck. He had his habitual gloves on, and wore elevated boots. There was a woollen cap on his head that covered his ears. The only visible part of his body, as always, was his face.

  ‘Every time we meet, I notice that you observe me with the eye of a hawk—or should I say policeman?’ said Abhay.

  Hawa Singh smiled. ‘As a policeman, you get wired to that sort of behaviour.’

  Ruby took off her gloves. Abhay looked at her hands, long and white, ending in slender manicured fingers. He marvelled at her long slender neck, her firm chin, the high cheekbones catching the moonlight, the sculpted silhouette of her head and body turned slightly away from him.

  Beautiful.

  And he was ugliness personified.

  ‘Is it my interest in astronomy that has brought you here?’ he asked with sarcasm.

  ‘As a matter of fact, it is,’ replied Ruby coolly. ‘That, and its link with astrology.’

  For a moment he had been transfixed by her loveliness, but he quickly recovered himself. ‘Are you referring to the latest case at Jantar-Mantar?’ he asked, moving away.

  Ruby looked at Hawa Singh, amazed.

  ‘You might be successful in hiding it from the media,’ said Abhay smoothly, ‘but remember, I’m the Kashi Naresh, the King of Benares. Nothing is hidden from me.’

  Abhay sat down on one the chairs placed around a table. He gestured politely towards the others. After the two had taken their seats, he poured scotch into large-bowled tumblers of cut glass and handed them around. ‘Cheers to the Butcher of Benares!’ said Abhay.

  They stopped, their drinks halfway to their lips as they stared at him in astonishment. Was the man quite mad?

  He looked at them and laughed in merriment. ‘Look at your faces! You were paralyzed by fear because you’ve failed to nab him! Oh, I am worried too, but at the same time slightly excited, in a way. At last, something is happening in Benares. It’s such a dull place, otherwise! You visitors come and take your customary dip in the Ganges, go to the temples, watch the evening aarti, do some pooja—and the pilgrimage is over. The Butcher has changed everything.’

  Hawa Singh raised his glass slightly and took a sip.

  ‘So what kind of an astronomer are you?’ asked Ruby.

  Abhay shook his head in self-deprecatio
n. ‘Oh, I’m just an amateur, or more specifically, you could call me an archaeo-astronomer.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  Abhay took another sip from his glass. ‘It’s basically someone who studies ancient cultures and their practices of astronomy.’

  Ruby was studying him constantly. He turned to show her he was aware of her intense gaze, and beamed genially at her. ‘There have been found, all over the world, many mysterious ruins of ancient monuments with astronomical significance—like the Stonehenge in England and Carnac in France, the pyramids of Giza in Egypt and the Yucatán. They mark the same kind of commitment that transported us to the moon and our spacecraft to the surface of Mars. You can call them neo-lithic computers or astronomical devices.’

  Hawa Singh looked around at the vast spread of darkness, the sky above dotted with stars and the telescope pointing up towards the gods.

  Abhay went on, ‘Few people realize that the seven days of the week—Sunday to Saturday—were originally named after an astronomical source. Ironically, they derive from the time of Ptolemy in the second century AD and his incorrect theory that the Sun, Moon and five planets revolved around the Earth. Thus were the days named after the Sun or Sol (Sunday), the Moon or Luna (Monday), Mars or Mardi (Tuesday), Mercury or Mercurious (Wednesday), Jupiter or Jeudi (Thursday), Venus or Vendredi (Friday) and Saturn or Saturnus (Saturday).’

  ‘Do you think,’ asked Hawa Singh, ‘that astronomy could have any bearing on the dates of the recent murders?’

  Abhay, who was still looking at Ruby, suddenly turned his face away. ‘I have not been able to ascertain the significance of those dates or even days.’

  Ruby could feel her body gaining warmth as the whisky went down. ‘There have been theories,’ she said ‘that sacrificing eleven human beings can transfer their life energy into the killer. Do you know anything about this?’