Naina Mathur looked fresh and energetic despite the early hour. She also appeared completely unperturbed by the swollen cadaver that lay on the banks of the creek from which it had been recovered barely an hour ago. Whatever clothes the deceased may have once worn had since torn off to reveal putrefying blue and grey nakedness, now masked partially by a plastic sheet.
Naina lifted up the sheet – clearly a nearby find and not a police issue – with a loud complaint about contaminated crime scenes and a pointed look at the three constables in attendance. The men carried expressions of disgust and revulsion in their eyes and handkerchiefs over their noses and mouths, though the cloth did little against the omnipresent odour.
Giving them a look of disapproval as she pulled on her gloves, Naina settled down to work. “He’s been in the water for at least two weeks,” she said out loud, moving aside a flap of disintegrating skin to get a clearer look at the bones underneath.
“Suicide case,” the senior constable declared. Naina smirked to herself at his smug tone. She may well have outranked him – junior forensic analyst that she was – but was well-used to condescension and dismissal. Not this time, she decided, making a mental note to cement the reputation the incident could possibly get her.
She threw back the sheet covering the cadaver to display its decomposition in all its gory glory. Immediately, sounds of choking and gagging escaped from the throats of the junior cops on the scene. One of them left to throw up. The other man went with him to help, leaving the senior constable no choice but to stay and face his embarrassment.
“Yeh suicide nahin hai, madam,” a voice piped up. “This is not a suicide.” Naina turned to see a local man, dressed in a banian that had seen whiter days and a faded lungi, hovering nearby.
The constable interjected, “Arre! Not a suicide? You know better than madam, kya? Let madam decide.” He then said to Naina, by way of explanation. “This man found the body. He lives in that slum nearby and came out to...to answer nature’s call. The big call. Or so he claims. That’s when he found the body.”
“Uh huh,” Naina responded, uninterested in the man’s bowel movements.
“Nahin sir,” the man persisted. “Suicide bodies wash up farther north along the coast. Not in this backwater stream. They jump off the rocks at Lovers’ Point and the current...”
“Shut up, you fool!”
“He’s right,” Naina cut in. “The victim’s bones are broken. Drowning doesn’t do that. This guy was beaten up before he was pushed into the water. Whether he was dead or alive when he went in, I’ll know after a full post-mortem.” She pulled out her phone and typed into it before adding, “Based on tide patterns and the fact that he has been in the water this long, it looks like this man fell or was thrown in about two-to-three kilometres south of this backwater creek.”
The local responded with a satisfied grin, even as the constable tried to reassert his authority by asking him, “What’s in that area? Do you know? Or you’ve never taken a crap there?”
“Sir, they don’t allow us there. That area is full of private bungalows. Security is very tight. They don’t like us hanging around. Even in the resorts, where the beach is supposed to be public, they keep chasing us off. Of course, they cannot chase out important men like you...”
If the cop caught the sarcasm, he also knew well there was nothing he could do about it, at least not at the moment. He watched sullenly, now rejoined by his fellow policeman, as Naina took measurements, signalling to the photographer waiting in the wings to come forward and also do his job.
“Take down his name and address,” she told the senior constable, gesturing to the local. She added, “Is the inspector coming? Do we need to wait for him?”
“No, madam. It’s too early in the morning for him.” Naina rolled her eyes. “All right then, you can load the body into the van. I’m done here. I’ll finish the rest of the examination at the mortuary.”
The driver of the van stepped forward to pick up the body, inviting assistance from the policemen with a glance. The two junior constables made a hasty exit in search of yet another tree to vomit behind.
With a sigh and a grumble about how his day would go given that it began with touching a rotting corpse, the senior constable helped the driver load the body into the van, trying not to flinch as seawater and offal stained his uniform in the process.
“All talk, till they see a body. You’d think they’re kids, not cops,” Naina muttered to herself. With a last look at the scene and a nod at the still-hovering local, she piled into the passenger seat of the van. She shut her eyes in the hope of catching up on sleep on the long drive back.
Excerpted with permission from Farside: Everybody Has Another Side, Jaishankar Krishnamurthy and Krishna Udayasankar, ebury Press.