This is the first story I wrote about Dipy Singh - Private detective. You can check out some background on this on this earlier post I wrote here on Indian detective characters
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Dipy and the vampire in the bloodbank
I had made Dipy’s acquaintance at a party, and we had got chummy after that. “Dipy” was Deepinder Singh Gehlot, and he was a private detective. I had always thought of private detectives as a pictured Sherlock Holmes – tall, thin, piercing eyes, etc, but Dipy was not like that at all. He was a most normal looking person – a clean shaven Sikh of medium height and built, clean shaven, a slightly receding hairline, reasonably fit…nothing extra ordinary.
I was between jobs at the time, and in no hurry to join another job due to a generous settlement. Dipy was anyway self employed, and his profession worked unorthodox timings as it is. Thus, we used to have ample opportunity to meet up and chat over beer and tandoori chicken.
We had met in a bar, and were generally chatting, when the discussion turned to his line of work. He described various cases he had worked on earlier – fraud, deceit, theft, matrimonial, industrial espionage, etc. It was at this point that I asked him, what was the weirdest case he had ever worked on.
“I really don’t know whether I should tell you, Joshi saaheb.” He said. “It is dangerous to talk to writers; confidential stuff can end up splashed all over the media. No one will believe my story anyway, and I will be branded as a crank.”
“Nonsense.” I said. “Writers are the safest people to talk to. We are discreet, and are sure to change names and places. Anyway, I am a very small writer, and of fiction at that. The more fantastic the better.”
Dipy smiled crookedly, and took another gulp at his beer.
“Well, if it comes to that. I suppose, I can change names and places too. And you are right; no one will believe the story anyway.”
“What is this completely incredible story anyway?”
Dipy settled him self more comfortably into his armchair, refilled his glass and said “OK, listen…”
The incident had happened about a year back, when he had received a visit from a friend of his. They had had not been in touch for a few years, but one day they had chanced to meet in the market. When the friend came to know his line of work, he had been very excited, and taken an appointment to meet him.
“Hi Amit, come in. What’s up man?”
“Arre Dipy, are you really a private detective? You are not pulling my leg?”
“Of course not. I have been in this racket for some time now.”
“Oh that’s wonderful. I wanted to speak to someone desperately about my problem, but I dare not go to the police. They will lock me up in a padded cell. But Dipy we have known each other very well for years. You will believe me wont you?”
“Hey hey…easy up…what’s the problem?”
Amit sidled close to Dipy and whispered.
“Dipy, I have a major problem, and I have no idea how to deal with it.” Amit looked around carefully and continued. “I am being troubled by a Vampire.”
“Vampire?!!”
Dipy looked at him thoughtfully. Amit looked normal enough, but you never know – could be a mental case. Amit interpreted his gaze correctly and moaned, burying his face in his hands.
“You don’t believe me either, do you?”
Dipy shifted in his seat uncomfortably, maybe there was a simple explanation to this after all.
“I tell you what, Amit. Why don’t you tell me just the facts of the case? We will leave the diagnosis of the situation till later. Just tell me what is troubling you, and what is the sequence of events that led to this.”
“Ok, that sounds fair.” Amit looked very relieved. “You know, after college I did a diploma in Pathology and later opened a blood bank. You might have heard of it – Anviksha blood bank. It did, and in fact is still doing quite well. The location is good, centrally located and close to a few hospitals, and we give good service.”
“Blood fetish…” thought Dipy.
“Blood bank is an interesting business – the raw material costs nothing, the main expense is on testing and storing the blood. We get the blood mainly through voluntary blood donations, and we charge a fee to give out blood. Nobody argues about the cost – the doctor couldn’t care less, and the patient is always in a life or death emergency. So we can charge a reasonably high rate and get away with it. Of course, there is huge investment and running costs for the storage equipment and testing. There are some cheaper blood banks, but a lot of people came to me, because we provide blood which is 100% free from HIV, venereal diseases or other nasty pathogens.”
“Good business. What’s the catch?”
“The catch is simply that blood is a matter of reputation, and legalities. If there is the slightest bit of scandal about the blood or the service, we will be shunned. Also, the government is very strict about the rules, so we can lose our license. So we are always on a knife edge.”
“That’s Ok I suppose…so where does your problem start?”
“Some time back I hired a new person as lab assistant. He didn’t have any technical qualifications, but I hired him anyway.”
“Eh? Why?”
“Well, I …I don’t know…I just thought that he could do the administration and clerical jobs and other odd jobs…but…” Amit seemed to be lost in thought for a minute and then he continued. “It seems incredible now, but I never thought about this.”
“Well…never mind. Go on.” Dipy spoke calmly, but he was puzzled about this.
“Every thing seemed to be fine for some time, but soon I started noticing some strange things. Every few days, a packet or two of blood seemed to be vanishing. Normally, there is some loss because a packet breaks, or goes bad or there is suspected infection. But this was a bit too much. There was not much financial loss, but it is a big break of security and discipline. I started questioning people, but no one owned up.”
“Maybe someone is stealing your stock and selling it to another hospital or patient.” Dipy offered.
“No yaar. It is not practical. Other blood banks do not need blood. I told you it is free, only testing and storage has to be done. And before giving blood to patients, cross matching of the patient’s blood sample has to be done with the blood we have. This involves a lot of people –the front desk, the lab technician; the storage technician…the peon…all of them cannot be involved to steal a few pints of blood.”
“Ok, go on.”
“After I started asking questions about this, for some time the problem stopped. But over the next few days, I noticed everyone seemed to be getting cuts or nicks in strange places. One boy had a band aid on his wrist, another had one behind his ear…once I saw our technician girl bend over to pick up something – her skirt rode up – and there was a band aid behind her knee. And when I asked them about it, they looked surprised; as if they were noticing it for the first time. There was a bandage, for god’s sake, so it couldn’t be an unnoticed nick, but they claimed no knowledge about it.
And one day…” Amit faltered and fell silent.
Dipy had been listening intently and with growing interest. “Yes, one day what?”
“This is where it starts getting incredible.”
“Don’t worry about that; tell the story as you saw it.”
“Late one night, I had finished my dinner at home, and suddenly remembered some book I had left behind at the office. I wanted to finish it off, and anyway I was not sleepy, so I went to the office to pick it up. I reached the place, and imagine my surprise, when I found the chowkidar asleep, and the door open. This is too bad – I thought, and tried to rouse the chowkidar, but he was insensible. Wondering who could be inside – the chowkidar could not let anyone inside whom he did not know – I decided to go in very quietly and surprise the person. It did flash in my mind, that this might be connected with the vanishing blood, so wanted to catch the person red handed.”
Amit paused for a minute, gulped, and carried on.
“I went in quietly, and saw that there was no in the reception area, but the door to the storage room was open. When I peeked in, I couldn’t believe my eyes!”
“Why? What was going on?”
“It was that fellow…he had a bag of blood in his hands and he had put a straw in it, and was happily drinking the stuff, as if was a pack of Frooti!”
“Eh!” There couldn’t be much to say to this, and Dipy was struck dumb.
“Swigging the blood down like a… a bloody cold drink, I tell you. I couldn’t control myself, I shouted – Bhalla – (that’s his name, R K Bhalla) Bhalla, what the hell are you doing. I would have expected him to be startled or something, but he turned around as cool as cucumber and said, hello Amitji, how are you? Nice evening.”
Dipy couldn’t help himself, he started laughing. Amit gave him a nasty look.
“Its no laughing matter, I tell you. He was totally calm as he stood there, with a bag of blood with a straw in it in his hands, and traces of blood on his lip. I couldn’t say anything – I stammered and yammered, and I fainted. When I woke up, he was gone – the place was empty.”
Dipy looked at him seriously. “You woke up and the place was empty? What about the bag of blood?”
“It was gone. Vanished.”
“Look Amit…listen to me very carefully, and don’t get upset. Are you sure that you didn’t dream the whole thing? No, no …relax” He said hastily, as Amit shot up from his chair. “I mean, what proof do you have that the whole thing happened at all?”
“Proof!” Amit shouted. “I’ll show you proof. Look at this!” he rolled up his sleeve to show a bandage on his hand, in the crook of his elbow. “That bloody thing took a taste of me as well.”
Later that day, Dipy went to the blood bank, posing as a casual friend of Amit’s and was shown the place around. He was introduced to the staff – 3 female and 2 male technicians, 1 peon, 1 cleaner and – most importantly – to Mr. R K Bhalla.
Bhalla was as non vampirish a persona as one could ever be. He was medium to short height, wheatish complexion, had a small paunch, and sported glasses with thick black frames and oiled hair. He was so ordinary looking, that he was almost invisible. In spite of his detective training, Dipy found his gaze slipping off him. Looking at him, Dipy was reminded of his morning’s conversation with Amit.
“If you are so convinced that he is a vampire, why don’t you sack him?”
“Arre, how can I? On what grounds? If he goes to the courts or to the press, the local corporator…or anybody at all, I will be permanently disgraced as a complete nutcase. And if the case of the missing blood comes out, I could lose my license – it could even be a criminal case. If I had been told a story of a guy who drinks blood out of straw, I would think that the story teller is crazy.”
Dipy stayed in the blood bank only long enough to familiarize himself with the layout of the place and establish the faces of the people in his memory. Then he went out, and briefed his assistant by phone to find out what he could uncover about Bhalla’s past history and record. Then he went and sat in his car, and waited for the staff to get off work for the day.
When Bhalla left the premises and walked out, Dipy got out of the car and started to unobtrusively follow him. But, at the first turning in the road, Bhalla had vanished! Dipy looked high and low for him, but he had lost him completely. He was wroth with himself – a detective of so many years standing, and the person he was following managed to lose him so fast!
There was no help for it, so he shrugged his shoulders and went home.
The next was equally frustrating. His assistant could not come up with any background about the fellow at all. He might have sprung up from the air, for all the dossier he had. No one seemed to have any record about him, and no one seemed to remember him. Dipy groaned and cursed the poor data basing of the country. If this had been in the US or any developed country, he would have just fed in his social security number and got all the info he could possibly want.
In the evening, he again tried to shadow him, this time maintaining a closer distance to him. But again, the first corner Bhalla turned, he disappeared! Dipy cursed loud and long, and vowed to have more people the next day.
The next day, he put two more people on the job, one waiting at the corner at which he usually disappeared, and one at the next turning. But to no avail. Some where between the two, Bhalla gave them the slip again.
Tired and dispirited, Dipy dropped in a neighboring bar for a drink and went home late in the night. He let himself in with his key, and turned on the light – and he got the shock of his life!
There, sitting calmly on his favorite arm chair, and looking very comfortable indeed, was R K Bhalla.
One thing Dipy prided himself on was his sang froid. So he did not start or stammer or faint like Amit, but merely nodded to him.
“Ah, Mr. Bhalla. Nice evening.”
Bhalla replied with equal aplomb.
“Nice evening. Bit humid though.”
“That’s right. Would you have a drink?”
“Sure.”
“I don’t think I have your favorite drink though.” Dipy replied with a flash of wickedness.
Bhalla laughed.
“Really? I would have thought that you are full of it. Anyway, a small whisky and soda will do for me, if that’s no bother.”
Dipy got them both a drink, and sat down in a chair facing him. He studied his visitor closely, and was again struck by how un-vampire like and normal he looked, apart from a strange glitter in his eye…
“So Mr. Bhalla, what fair wind blows you here?”
“Oh, I have been observing for some time now that you are anxious to talk to me, but have not been able to…catch me…so I thought I would drop in and save you the trouble.”
A cool customer, thought Dipy, and decided to cut to the chase.
“So, from your remarks, I gather you have guessed why I was curious about you?”
“Oh yes. I have been expecting something like this ever since Amitji caught me in the office.”
Dipy started a bit, in spite of himself. Though he had wanted to cut to the chase, he had not expected Bhalla to be quite so blunt about it.
“So you admit that you were there that night, and were …ah…drinking…er…”
“Blood? Of course I was. Amitji saw me didn’t he? Do you doubt your friend’s word?”
“Pardon me Mr. Bhalla, but are you a…vampire..?”
Bhalla threw back his head and laughed. The laugh was not soft and chilling, but very normal. But for all that, it threw a shiver up Dipy’s spine.
“Of course I am. You were expecting something out of Bram Stoker? Count Dracula, wearing black evening dress, a pale complexion and blood stained fangs? Come come, Mr. Gehlot, for a seasoned detective, you have been basing your opinions too much on the imaginations of film writers and authors.
I am a modern vampire; I do not need to go around frightening the populace. All I want is a regular supply of blood to keep me pink or rosy. I don’t want to kill anyone, or steal their souls.”
“So you are nothing but a bigger version of a mosquito or a tick, eh?” Dipy sneered, trying to provoke him into telling more. But Bhalla was unmoved.
“You can think of me like that if you wish. You are fundamentally correct; I live off the blood of others, so that I don’t need to find that much food on my own. However, I would advise you to be a bit more polite, if you meet any other relative of mine…all of them are not as calm tempered as I am.”
“What! There are more of you?” Dipy was thunderstruck.
“Well, why not? Why should you assume that you have met the only living vampire?”
“But…what are you doing in my friend’s blood bank?”
“Ah, here I am a pioneer. I have taken a lesson from you humans. It like what you people do to honeybees. The bees go from flower to flower, collecting nectar and converting it to honey, and then the bee farmer calmly goes and takes that honey, to save himself the trouble of collecting it himself. In the same way, instead of hanging around in dark alleyways and waylaying solitary travelers, I calmly take what is required from the blood bank. Saves me no amount of bother, and you friend Amit is not hurt in any way. Good idea, isn’t it?” Bhalla looked indecently pleased with himself.
“But this can’t go on. You must get out of Amit’s life.” Dipy blustered.
“Oh? And who will stop me? And how?”
This simple question threw Dipy, he started flailing mentally, going through whatever he knew about vampires and how to repel them.
“Well…er…we will attack you. Show you the image of the cross; shower you with garlic and holy water…drive a wooden stake through your heart…shoot you with a silver bullet…” Dipy stopped, because Bhalla was lying back in his chair and laughing his guts out. HA HA HA…
Finally, he stopped, and wiped his eyes.
“Oh, Mr. Gehlot…can I call you Dipy? Thanks. If only you could hear yourself, how ridiculous you are sounding. You have been watching silly TV serials. You, an agnostic Sikh, are going to scare me by primitive Christian myths of crosses, holy water and garlic? Ha Ha. Anyway, I am an Indian vampire, so a cultural Hindu; If not a practicing one; so these idiotic ideas will not affect me. Regarding that wooden stake bit, it is infinitely impractical. You or even a group of your people will never be able to do it, because I am stronger than you can imagine. Even If you succeed, you will be arrested and hanged for murder – try convincing the Mumbai police and high court that you killed a blood bank attendant because you thought that he was a vampire. As for the silver bullet – just think of the difficulties involved. Getting a silver bullet made, you would require a really understanding jeweler and gun smith for that, not to mention gun licenses and all that.”
Dipy was totally baffled. Bhalla had him at every turn.
“Even if what you say is right, this can’t go on. You have to leave Amit in peace.”
“Ah, but you are wrong. I don’t HAVE to do anything, except what I please. I am very comfortable here, and don’t want to leave just yet. Anyway, what is your problem? I am not hurting your friend or his staff, and am on a diet anyway, so I don’t drink too much blood.”
“Diet?”
“Oh yes. I was putting on a bit of weight. Even I am affected by this slimming fad which is going around these days. I tried drinking only plasma – you know, blood with the red corpuscles removed – for a few days, but found it too bland. So I have shifted back to blood, but am controlling my intake. Its like being in a buffet, when you see so much food in front of you, you lose your appetite.
Anyway, as I was saying, I am not harming your friend in any way, so I recommend to both of you that you should leave me alone.”
Dipy’s head was spinning, but he tried one last tactic.
“What do mean, not hurting anybody? What about your drinking blood of all the people there? Wont that hurt them?”
Bhalla was embarrassed, and looked down, twiddling his toes. He looked shamefacedly at Dipy and said, “Well, you have got me there. I shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t help myself. One gets bored of frozen food now and then, so the opportunity of hot fresh blood was irresistible. But you certainly have a point. I won’t sample Amit or his staff anymore.”
Dipy was relived; this fellow had some reasonable points. He relaxed and became friendlier.
“Just for my curiosity, why did you bite them in such weird places? I thought vampires bit people on the neck.”
“Tchah! Again you are being influenced by popular fiction. We bite people on the neck only if we want to kill them. Other than that, we just choose a point where blood is close to the surface, and take it from there. Your original analogy of a tick or mosquito was the correct one. Of course, some of us prefer arterial blood, so they go only for the arterial points, but most of us don’t mind venal blood…it’s got a particular taste I like.”
Dipy had another question, which was worrying him a bit.
“Tell me; is it true that if a vampire bites someone, that person also becomes a vampire?”
Bhalla smiled back at him.
“Sometimes…that’s for me to know, and you to guess. Anyway, it was nice talking to you; I will make a move now. Remember what I said – leave me in peace, and I will not trouble anyone…bye. See you at the blood bank if you drop in.”
And before Dipy’s popping eyes, he turned into a bat and flapped away.
At this point, Dipy went quiet and asked for a drink. I came back to my senses, so engrossed had I been in his story. I got up and refilled his glass.
“So, what did you do about the guy then?”
“Do? Nothing. What could we do, Joshi saaheb? He had proven that we could do nothing to him – his demonstration of turning into a bat itself was a warning to us. And anyway, as he said – he was not harming anyone.”
“So, you mean he is still there, working in that Blood bank?”
“Ah. No. He died soon after.”
“Died? How?”
“AIDS. The poor fellow must have gotten greedy, and had some blood which was not tested. Probably the temptation of hot food must have been too much for him.”
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You can check out the book here Dipy Singh - private detective
