The Taj Conspiracy Read Free

Mehrunisa acknowledged as she dug into her voluminous Birkin bag for a torch. Depositing her bag in a corner, she switched the torch on.
    Its powerful beam cut a yellow swathe through the chamber as Mehrunisa approached the gate in the marble screen. Mumtaz Mahal’s cenotaph was in the middle, as per the original plan. However, on his death, Shah Jahan was buried alongside his wife and his cenotaph rested next to her, disrupting the famed perfect symmetry of the Taj. The original tombs were in a basement chamber below, a common practice in mausoleums of the period. Mehrunisa shone her torchlight on the cenotaphs, eager to get into the hallowed space—and her heart contracted. She sucked in her breath.
    How had she failed to see it?
    A body lay on the marble floor beside Mumtaz’s tomb. Motionless. Mehrunisa moved her torch in a shaky arc, trying to focus the light on the supine body. As it revealed the face, a scream tore from her throat. The cry sailed up the soaring marble dome, rebounding in a powerful echo. Arun had first demonstrated to her the high-domed chamber’s remarkable acoustics, saying her name loudly, so all around her had cascaded, like droplets, nisa-isa-sa sa . Now her scream fell on her like shards as, six feet away, she saw Arun Toor, dead, his blood streaking the marble floor crimson.

Agra
    T he echo faded away, no feet hurried to the mausoleum, the Taj returned to silence. Mehrunisa stood there, her heart hammering inside her. Was the murderer still around? She took a breath and tried to calm herself. The blood on the floor had congealed, which meant that the murder had probably been committed several hours back. It was unlikely that the murderer would still be lurking around. She should summon security, but she owed it to Arun to get closer, to see if there was any sign of life.... Even as she thought that, she knew it was futile. A deep breath and Mehrunisa opened the latch to the low gate. Gingerly, she stepped inside, the torchlight guiding her.
    She shone it on his face and immediately turned away, feeling nauseous. Whoever had done this to him had been violent. The entire left side of his face, beneath his beard, was bruised and swollen. She forced herself to look again, and noticed, this time, that there appeared to be something on his forehead. What she saw her mind registered at once but refused to comprehend. Shaking her head as if to clear it, she studied the drawing in red—blood?—on the lined skin above Arun’s brows. A vertical eye had been traced in the middle of Arun’s forehead: an oval with a central circle, the blood encrusted unevenly.
    A third eye?
    Mehrunisa, half-Persian, brought up in the Middle East and Europe, schooled in Renaissance art, was nevertheless familiar with her paternal heritage, thanks to her father’s insistence that young Mehr holiday in India every year. Mehrunisa’s favourite time was with her godfather, where an average day could include an exploration of a world wonder, a camel ride through a desert hamlet, or a shadow puppet performance of stories from the Mahabharata .
    Mehrunisa pondered the third eye, the mind’s eye, the inner eye.... A sign of enlightenment, it adorned the foreheads of Hindu sages as vermilion or sandal paste marks. But this drawing was more specific, the circle in the centre indicating an open eye. Shiva was usually depicted with his third eye closed, the opening of which was regarded as calamitous. Why had Arun drawn the eye on his forehead? Had he drawn it?
    Mehrunisa’s gaze fell on Arun’s left hand that lay on his chest, index finger crusted with blood. Had Arun used it to draw on his own forehead? But Arun was right-handed.... Her eyes trailed to the right arm prone beside the body. The white bandage that bound his right hand—he had accidentally cut his palm the previous week—was bloodied. A gash on the wrist from where blood had seeped was still open. His wrist slashed and left to die? Did people die from a