In 1978, the famed British writer, David Yallop received a call from residents in Vatican City to probe the mysterious death of Pope John Paul I. The call resulted in the book titled, ‘In God’s Name’.
I am not David Yallop, but a few days back I also received a call from a chap who refused to disclose his identity, but his concrete-mixer voice told me he had some urgent work with me. It also told me he needed to see an ENT to get his voice box fixed. “We want you to write a story about the mysterious death of a priest,” he whispered, “the body of the person was found floating in a river on an island and we believe he was murdered. Will you be able to write the story?”
“Sure,” I said without giving the nature of the task much thought. “All you have to do is pass me all the available evidence and I will write the story after doing a little digging.”
“That is not the kind of story we want,” the man whispered. It was 10.30 pm and Criminal Minds was running on TV. “The evidence gathered so far points to death due to drowning. What we want you to do is twist the facts, invent some evidence, sow some doubts and make it look like a murder mystery. The trick here is to make an accidental drowning look like a case of murder without the use of any weapon.”
“Would you like an Agatha Christie touch to the story or an Arthur Conan Doyle approach,” I asked. “Who are these people?” the man asked. “Never mind,” I said. “What if I give it the James Bond treatment, with an under-water sequence?” I asked. “You are a creative writer,” the man said, “you figure it out.”
Three days later the man called me. “Have you figured out something?”
“More or less,” I said. “The story starts with four assassins arriving in a dingy with an outboard motor at an undisclosed destination near the Mormugao port. It’s dark, but not too late and the four put on snorkeling gear and begin their journey from the port to the island….”
“Wait a minute,” the man said, “why do they have to snorkel all the way to the island. Why can’t they take the bus?”
“Firstly, Goa is a tourism state and snorkeling is a big thing and secondly, buses are not reliable. They might never reach in time for the murder by drowning sequence.”
“They could go by taxi,” the man suggested. “Those taxi drivers are thieves. They will fleece the assassins and the whole story could degenerate into a fight between the assassins and the taxi driver.”
“You are right,” the man in the concrete mixer voice said. “But they could rent a car…”
“What if they run into a bunch of taxi drivers?” I asked, “everyone would start fighting. You know how taxi drivers hate rent-a-car operators.”
“The story would have been a lot simpler if we had Ola Cabs or Uber,” the man with the concrete-mixer voice said, “but go on.”
“The assassins locate the island and ….”
“Why do you need four assassins?” the man with the concrete-mixer voice asked. “I like even numbers,” I replied. “That makes sense,” he said, “alright go on.” “The assassins force the priest to drink a crate of beers and dump him into the river where he drowns,” I said.
“Great,” the man said, “but how do the assassins get caught?”
“I thought of that,” I said, “while changing into their snorkeling gear a fly accidentally slips into the waterproof suit of one of the assassins and is therefore witness to the whole scheme. We will tell the story from the point of view of the fly.”
“Nice, nice,” the man said. “Every work of fiction needs a good title. Have you thought of one?”
“Of course,” I said, “I am going to call it, ‘Fly on the Ball’.”
