A MURDER AND A MYSTERY

CHAPTER 11: GOTYA

Gotya got his name by a sheer accident and the story behind his name is quite funny. When he was born, the nurse who delivered him could not locate his testicles. She was quite alarmed and informed the doctor. She also told the mother about this discrepancy. His mother was worried about the missing pair of balls, and informed her husband and mother in law who were at hand. Soon, there was a commotion in the nursing home, with the relatives of the boy wailing and shouting about the balls. Finally, the doctor came and confirmed that the child was definitely male and the testicles were safe and secure. It was a case, he said, of undescended testicles, which was uncommon. The testicles were still in the infant's abdomen and would take some months to descend into the scrotum. There was no need to worry.

The balls were restored to their destined home within two weeks. Goti, in Marathi and some other languages, denotes a small ball or a marble or even dice. The relatives were all crying about the missing Goti. The nurse jocularly told them to name the child "Gotya", and the name stuck ever since.

When Gotya received William's call to come over and urgently meet him, he wondered if the culprits were apprehended; though he had serious doubts about this. After he had left Williams after their first meeting, he pondered over the developments. Should he or should he not inform his family about Shipra? The question haunted him; there was no reason why he should not tell them, but he could not decide. Williams had asked him to wait till he could get to Manohar. Had he been able to trace the boy? What did Manohar have to tell about Shipra's death? Gotya took a train from Dadar and reached Bandra and hurried towards the police station.

Williams told him about his theory. This murder was complicated and unless there were further positive leads, the investigation would not move ahead. There was politics involved and it would be better if the enquiries were conducted with utmost discretion till the situation cleared. Gotya needed to act detective since Williams would not like to be directly involved. No one should know at this stage that the police had identified the body and was moving ahead. It would mess up things. Can Gotya do this?

Williams wanted Gotya to go to the guest house again and meet the man he had met before; the person who had informed him about Manohar. Searching for Manohar without even knowing how he looked would be impossible. Gotya should convince the man to come over to the police station and describe the identity of Manohar to Williams.

Gotya agreed for he was now curious about what happened to his sister. He understood why Williams was cautious. If the party was involved, the case will surely be hushed up and further investigations would be stopped. The truth will never come out.

With a bit of luck, he was able to talk to the man and bring him to Williams. The man described how Manohar looked like and Williams drew a sketch. It was not his job, but then, he had to do. Williams had acquired many skills during his professional career and one was to capture details of people and lock it in the camera of his mind. When the man finished, Williams showed him the sketch. The man could not believe he was seeing Manohar on paper. It resembled the person accurately.

The next step was to find out the shop where Manohar worked. There were thousands of shops in Bandra. The guest house was in Bandra West so the shop could have been located in the West. Manohar worked at a grocery shop It would take months to find out, for there were thousands of shops all over Bandra West. Where does one start?

Williams thought over it for hours. The best solution would be to begin with shops located in a radius of one kilometer of the guest house. It could not be further away than this. Or could it be? A thought suddenly came to William's mind. What if Manohar worked in some shop close to the building where Sebastian lived? Ultimately, every lead must end there, at the flat.

Williams told Gotya that from now on he needed to be with Williams through the day. He would give Gotya the sketch and Gotya would go to every grocery shop around the guest house and the flat, show the sketch to the shop owner and enquire.

Gotya would begin the rounds early in the morning. The first two days yielded no results. He was concentrating on shops near the guest house. On the third day, a shop owner told him that Manohar used to work for him, but that was quite some time ago. He lived somewhere in Borivali but the exact address was not known to him. The shopkeeper told Gotya that Manohar used to work at different shops and never at one shop for a long time.

Williams was pleased. This meant that the boy could still be employed with some shop. He asked Gotya to go around shops located near the building where Shipra was found. Meanwhile, he would try to get some help from his friends in Borivali police station.

Gotya resumed his operations around the building. He hit gold with the third shop he stepped in. The owner remembered Manohar well. But why was Gotya looking for him? Gotya made up some story about being Manohar's friend; he had lent some money to Manohar which he had not returned. As he was unable to contact his friend he had come to the shop as he was told that Manohar was working in some shop in the locality.

The shop owner told Gotya that Manohar had not been reporting for duty for the last four days or so. He lived in Borivali, but the owner did not have his address. Gotya thanked him for the information, and the shop owner assured him that he will ask Manohar to pay back the dues when he reported for duties.