The Setting Sun (14 page)

‘I must tell my wife. This will cheer her up. She’s a bit low because our son left to catch his flight this morning.’ He shuffles back the way he came. When he reaches the corridor, he calls out in a matter-of-fact tone: ‘Kiron, dear, Moore-Gilbert’s come.’

‘Who? Who?’ The voice is tired, faint.

‘Moore-Gilbert,’ Modak shouts feebly.

A frail figure soon appears, clad in a one-piece scarlet sleeping-suit, like an infant’s. The fine features are still beautiful, grey-white hair thin but smartly cut and the same beaky
nose as her husband. Huge luminous grey eyes blink out of almost translucent skin. When her husband shows my card, she slowly breaks into a smile. She seems as moved as I am.

‘Bill’s son? I can’t believe it.’ She shakes her head wonderingly. ‘But let’s have tea first. Perhaps you’d like cake, too?’ She calls through to the daughter.

While we wait, Mrs Modak tells me about the church service they’re going to later. She complains that fewer and fewer attend these days. I’m impatient to get onto Bill, but don’t want to be too pushy, so I begin by asking if her family is Christian.

She nods. ‘My father converted. He was one of the Bengal terrorists.’

What?

‘He threw a home-made bomb which wounded a policeman. In 1917.’ The pride in her voice is unmistakable.

‘But he was underage and was made a ward of Cornelia Sorabji, that brilliant lady.’ The first Indian woman barrister, if I remember right.

‘They let him off on condition he left the country. Miss Sorabji sent him to Durham to study, where he lodged with a Reverend William Trotter. That’s how it happened.’

I explain that I did my own undergraduate studies there. ‘What did he read?’

Mrs Modak chuckles disarmingly. ‘You see, with his, er, interest in chemistry, that was the logical thing. When he returned after the Great War, he gave up politics and became one of India’s leading industrial chemists.’

I’m struck by the apparent incongruity of Modak, IP, marrying the daughter of a ‘terrorist’.

‘You know, you look like your father.’

I’m startled. All my life I’ve been told I resemble my mother more. Nonetheless, I’m glad she’s brought the subject round.

‘But he was bigger than you.’

Again, I’m surprised. I know for a fact I’m an inch taller. Is her memory playing tricks? Perhaps she means more heavily built, which would be right.

Bill in sugar-cane fields

‘A very handsome man. We often had him to dinner when we were in Satara. Being a bachelor, he appreciated home cooking. Charming company.’

I breathe easier. I try to imagine what Kiron looked like when Bill knew her.

‘Yes,’ Modak chips in, ‘he’d drive round from the Inspection bungalow in his station wagon. Sometimes we went to the club for tennis or badminton after work, though neither of us drank. Quite unusual for policemen in those days.’

‘When did you first meet him?’

Modak coughs croakily. ‘Well, I first heard about your father at training school in Nasik. I arrived the year he left. I was told two things. First, he used to cut up nationalist newspapers to use in the toilet. No one was sure whether it was an economy measure to support the war effort, or a political statement.’ Thin lips rubber-band into something like a smile. ‘Also, he was a duffer with Marathi. He failed the exam thrice.
He really had to cram for the final attempt, or he’d have been out on his ear.’

I can’t be sure whether Modak’s scoring a point.

‘Rather than relying on the pandits, he apparently found a local lady friend to help. If so, it worked. When the viva voce began, they asked him to state his name and so forth. He’s said to have replied in perfect Marathi: “Good Lord, gentlemen, this is the fourth time I’ve appeared before you and you still don’t know my name?” ’ Modak chuckles scratchily.

Once more, I can’t quite decipher his tone. What does he mean by ‘lady friend’? Yet I’m intensely grateful for these anecdotes which bring the Indian Bill alive.

‘Then, one day during the Patri Sarkar disturbances, the district superintendent told me your father would be joining us. He was supposed to be on his way to Belgaum, if I remember right, to deal with some incident of sabotage and came to us at the last moment. Hobson was the DSP’s name,’ Modak adds with a flicker of distaste. ‘He took me out on the veranda of Satara police station, pointed to Shivaji’s old fort on the clifftop opposite and said: “This Moore-Gilbert’s so fit, he’ll be able to run up to the gate of Ajinkya Tara and back in fifteen minutes. He’ll soon sort out the terrorists round here.” I remember being startled. It took that long in a car.’

‘And did he?’

Modak smiles ambiguously. ‘He was certainly very athletic.’

‘Can you tell me more about the Parallel Government?’

My host brings his fingertips together in an uneasy gesture of prayer.

‘Well, we live in a different world today, of course. But from our point of view then, they were terrorists, pure and simple. We treated them as criminals rather than politicos.’

This sounds like Rajeev. ‘Why?’

‘We didn’t want them to accrue prestige. In any case, they often behaved like common dacoits, running about the rural districts, robbing and beating people.’

‘The Government of the Bastinado,’ Kiron adds with a pained expression. ‘You know, like Mussolini’s thugs.’

I nod sagely. But I’m still trying to process what lies behind the unspoken distinction between her father and the Parallel Government. I infer from Modak’s use of the derisive nickname, Patri Sarkar, that time hasn’t modified his views of the movement. He grimaces, as if in confirmation of my hunch.

‘When they caught someone who was – according to them – a collaborator, they’d say: “You’ve made yourself a donkey of the British, so we’ll treat you like one.” Then they’d nail horseshoes into the soles of the victim’s feet.’

I’m shocked. Shinde never mentioned anything like this. But also encouraged. There
is
another story, after all.

‘Once I was called to investigate a train hold-up. I arrived to find they’d killed the driver and guard, so there’d be no one to testify against them. Completely unnecessary. Threatening reprisals against people’s families was their usual way. Very effective. They created such a climate of fear that our job was made almost impossible. There was anarchy in much of Satara. Apart from one district in Bihar, nowhere took up arms against the British to such an extent. Between them and the pressure from above to solve the problem, our lives weren’t easy.’

‘That’s why my father was sent there?’

Modak nods, but a shadow passes over his face. Sensing I’m on delicate ground, for reasons I can’t fathom, I deflect the conversation onto the weekly confidential reports which I hope will express Bill’s point of view.

‘Yes, I had to write them, too, once I became DSP.’

‘Would a special additional DSP like my father have done so?’

Modak reflects a moment. ‘I think so.’

‘I was told they were destroyed after thirty years?’

‘Not sensitive material. Not in my time, at least.’

‘Do you know anything about a secret Memorandum
my father’s supposed to have written about the Parallel Government?’

An aggrieved expression sours Modak’s face before he shrugs. ‘First I’ve heard of it. Have you tried Mumbai?’

As I explain my travails, I wonder whether Bhosle has got this wrong, too.

‘Well, these things could be in Satara, you know. I don’t imagine that storage is a problem in the rural divisions.’

‘Is it worth trying here in Pune?’

Modak shakes his head, and confirms that in those days Satara reported to Belgaum.

‘Are you planning to visit Satara?’

‘I’m not sure yet.’

‘It would give you a better idea of what we were about, your father and I.’

Before I can explore the possibility, Mrs Modak gets up.

‘My dear, the driver’s coming in twenty minutes, we should get ready.’

Her husband nods. ‘Of course. I’m so sorry, Moore-Gilbert, but we’ll have to stop for now. Can you come tomorrow for high tea? I’ll try to find photographs. I’d ask you for elevenses, but I have to see the doctor and then we’re out for luncheon.’

As I gather my hat and sunglasses, I hear Mrs Modak’s low voice.

‘Why don’t you give him the books, Emmanuel? Perhaps he can help with Ashoka?’ She turns to me. ‘My husband’s written a memoir and two novels.’

I’m stunned. This could be my gold mine. But I’m arrested by the uncertain look on Modak’s face. His wife gazes at him insistently.

‘Very well,’ the ex-policeman concedes.

I wait uncertainly while he pads down the corridor after Kiron. I wonder who Ashoka is, and what help I can possibly give. The daughter returns to gather the tea things. I’m
puzzled by her, too. Mrs Modak would have to have had her in her sixties. Besides, she behaves more like a servant.

My host soon returns with three books which he hands me, one by one. This is incredible. The memoir’s entitled
Sentinel of the Sahyadris: Memories and Reflections
, and was published in 2001. The front cover is a painting of a deserted fort overlooking a verdant ravine. I wonder if this is the one in Satara which Modak mentioned.

‘You’ll find a lot in it about our problems with the Patri Sarkar. The other two are detective novels. I always liked Erle Stanley Gardner and Agatha Christie. I’ve tried to give them an Indian slant.’

One’s called
The Guru and the Policeman
, and, according to a quick scan of the blurb, involves a fraudulent holy man whose Western devotees come to grief while searching for enlightenment. Is this Modak’s commentary on the Osho commune? The other,
No Place for Crime
, boasts a black-and-white photograph of a man lying in a pool of blood, revolver, banknotes and jewels scattered beside him. ‘Set in India of the 1940s and later,’ the sleeve announces, ‘this police novel focuses on the experiences of a young police officer whose career starts with the British and continues long after they have folded their tents and gone.’ With trembling fingers, I turn to the contents page. There are four chapters: ‘Nasik, Satara, Nasik Again, Bombay.’ This surely draws on Modak’s experiences in the 1940s?

My host signs each book laboriously, ‘with warmest regards’. I’m shaking with excitement as I thank him. By tonight I expect to have a substantial counter-narrative to Shinde. I ask if Modak knows his book. He shakes his head.

‘Every Tom and Dick has had his say about the Patri Sarkar. And Hari,’ he adds with his rubber-band smirk. ‘Only those who were there really know what happened. Shall we say five-thirty tomorrow afternoon?’ Modak adds, handing me
his card. ‘We don’t want you getting lost again,’ he chuckles creakily.

Back at the hotel, the evening’s turned surprisingly cold, a reminder that we’re high on a plateau and its December, after all. I settle under my covers and thirstily examine Modak’s books. I wonder whether to begin with
No Place for Crime
, since it was the first to be published, some twenty years before the memoir. But since it’s facts I’m after, I decide to start with the latter.
Sentinel
is a 300-page hardback, only the first quarter of which looks relevant, the rest being devoted to Modak’s career after 1947. In the index, I find several entries for Bill. Oh no, not again. The first page I cross-reference sets the tone: ‘Have I given the impression that … all British police officers were like Hobson and Moore-Gilbert? There were plenty of good capable officers … I was unlucky to have to deal with two of the worst.’

A couple more such passages, and I’m winded. Coming from someone I’d assumed was friendly with Bill, as well as a comrade-in-arms, the impact’s worse even than reading Shinde. However, this time I react quite differently, at least to begin with. I’m furious. Modak has children himself. How would he feel if someone gave them such things to read? Even if Kiron caught him off guard, he could surely have found some excuse not to offer the book. And why was Kiron so keen for me to see this stuff, after such warm words about her old acquaintance?

With an enormous effort, I remind myself that after reading Shinde, I made the decision to find out the truth, however painful or inconvenient it might be. Heart aching, I start again at the beginning. I learn that Modak was in fact born in Satara, where his father was deputy collector, the administrative number two in the Raj system. He entered the PTS shortly after Bill had graduated, leaving a lingering reputation as an overbearing presence in mess life. Their first meeting is
represented with distinct ambivalence. Greeting Modak with ‘a friendly handshake’ on arriving in Satara, ‘the handsome blonde giant’ boasts that he’ll mop up the saboteurs ‘ “within a month” ’. Modak comments acidly: ‘SM Moore-Gilbert stayed on in Satara for a year and a half, and caught nobody, not even one single dacoit or saboteur.’ Here’s an unpleasant incident involving Modak’s former head constable, Gaikwad, whom Bill had apparently sneakily appropriated: poor Gaikwad’s obliged to carry his new boss across a swollen stream, because Bill couldn’t be bothered to remove his boots. Hard not to see this as an allegory of the ordinary Indian policeman, or even Indian, burdened by the lazy, autocratic British.