The Murder Suspect

by Rani Ramakrishnan

  Piyush was furious. During the investigation, he prowled the aisles of IndeGen like a lion on a hunt. He didn’t rest until every last person involved in the incident was flushed out. He also ensured that the board member whose son was responsible for the fiasco was removed immediately.

  That man took the move as a personal insult. On his last day, he had marched into Piyush’s cabin and threatened him in the coldest tone. He had promised that Piyush would pay for what he had done. I was present in the room when he made the threat. After Manav’s revelation, I wondered if he had made good on his promise by killing Piyush.

  Chapter 17

  Manav had resumed speaking. ‘The hackers had entered my cloud account and had gone through some of my encrypted files before they were shut out. We never discovered how much of my research they had accessed and what they had understood from it. We satisfied ourselves with the knowledge that they had not had enough time to steal any significant information.’

  Choudhary gazed at Manav, his expression serious. I could see his brain cells processing everything he had learnt. ‘How exactly did you keep this matter of an internal hacker a secret?’

  ‘Nalini did all that. She would know best. I was not privy to the details. My only concern was my set of files, and I asked Piyush about them. He told me what I needed to know and reassured me that the hacker had possibly been caught in time.’

  The Creep’s attention shifted to me. Without uttering a word he waited for me to answer his original question.

  ‘I made sure that we shared information on a need-to-know basis. Once we stopped the hacker, we took even Devyani off the scene. Only top management knew. The people whom we dismissed had to leave because of negligence. We never made the matter of password-sharing public.’

  The Creep nodded. Then he turned back to Manav. ‘So, some of your data might have landed in the wrong hands. Care to share how they stood to gain by killing Piyush?’

  ‘It’s just a theory I have,’ Manav said.

  ‘I am listening,’ Choudhary said, all nice and polite.

  Where did this guy live? He was never around when I was being questioned. With me, it was always like a cat-and-mouse game. Choudhary was a chameleon who treated each person differently, I decided.

  ‘Some time ago, Nalini suggested that the company should replace Piyush.’

  ‘Okay, but I don’t understand why he had to die.’

  ‘Well...’ Manav paused in thought, as though deciding how to frame his words. ‘So far, Nalini has considered five candidates.’

  I stared at him open-mouthed. He had all his facts, and they were right.

  He looked apologetically at me and explained. ‘I have been tracking your work because I was worried how things would work out once Piyush took a back seat in day-to-day operations at IndeGen.’

  Returning his focus to the Creep, he continued, ‘I had those five checked out. All of them, without exception, had personal connections to at least one person on my list of money launderers.’

  I thought I was done getting shocked for one day, but Manav kept injecting me with more and more disturbing information.

  ‘This was odd, so I checked how she was procuring these profiles. She was using the usual methods... through references and other trusted means. People on my list were reaching out to the individuals Nalini usually contacted for her senior resource recruitment and were getting their candidates in. All the candidates themselves looked benign, but the persons pushing their candidature were far from it.’

  I listened, stunned. Clandestine money launderers were tapping my sources! How outlandish was that? Even Creep Choudhary looked sceptical. Manav must have noticed our scepticism.

  ‘So what you are saying is that someone killed Piyush and is now trying to get his man the top job,’ Choudhary clarified.

  ‘Yes. If Piyush had stayed alive, then he might have objected to the new CEO shelving my investigation. He would have been an inconvenience.’

  ‘Has something like this happened before?’

  ‘Yes. Last time, in another case, we were on the verge of nailing a big economic offender, but at the crucial moment they killed our primary facilitator who was not even privy to specific data. After that, we had to shelve our investigation because we had been exposed, and the paper trail we were following was conveniently destroyed before we got our hands on it. The police are yet to find the killers.’

  ‘I see.’ Choudhary’s voice was stone hard. ‘So you think that this time too, someone on that list is probably the real killer.’

  ‘They had the motive, and the timing was right.’

  ‘So, have you brought the list for me?’

  ‘I am afraid I cannot share my list.’

  ‘Of course you cannot.’ Choudhary was livid and almost shouting at Manav. ‘You think this is the circus or something. I came here, accommodated your request, and you are offering me nothing but a load of crap. Is this your effort to absolve Nalini? If that is the case you are succeeding brilliantly!’

  He continued to fume. ‘Now that I have your theory, I will forget about my prime suspect and submit what you just puked as my findings. We will close the investigation because we don’t know who the “few” people on your list are. There are only over a billion Indians in the world, and your list is a subset of that small list, right?’

  Manav didn’t interrupt. When Choudhary stopped for breath, he quietly explained, ‘There are others in my team. I cannot unilaterally compile and publish a list without their explicit consent. That process would require permission, and information would need to be shared with too many people and... it’s too risky. I will lose control over the flow of sensitive information. Involving the CBI in this murder investigation itself was a political stunt, so you will appreciate my reservations about disclosing my suspects to you. Your top bosses may be on the list.’

  The Creep stayed mum. Was this the calm before the storm? It sure appeared so.

  ‘There is another way you can track down the persons I am investigating without reading my files,’ Manav continued. ‘I have told you that Nalini has shortlisted five people. All five have connections to powerful individuals in our country. You can follow those connections and you should have the killer.’

  ‘I don’t need advice on how to run my investigation and find my killer.’

  ‘It was just a suggestion.’

  ‘Well, I don’t need it.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Is there anything else you wish to share?’

  ‘Nothing right now.’

  ‘Okay, then you can go.’

  Manav rose immediately. ‘Our discussion will remain between us, right.’

  ‘You’ll know if it doesn’t,’ Choudhary replied, clearly pissed about things. Manav nodded to me and left.

  As I rose to show Choudhary out, I grabbed my keys, and he noticed. He raised one eyebrow quizzically.

  ‘Going for a walk,’ I said. ‘Do I need permission for that?’ I added sarcastically.

  Instead of replying, he fell into step with me. As we walked around the corner to the next lane, he struck up a conversation as though we were regular people taking a morning stroll.

  ‘I believe you have a supporter in Pakhi Gokhle.’

  I did not comment. He knew everything, and that troubled me. He had heard about Pakhi’s character certificate. She must trust me enough to submit a declaration of this nature for me—the woman whom her husband had been sleeping with. I would never have issued a similar letter in her favour had our situations been reversed. I had always called her Candy Floss. She was the sweet one, and today she had proved that again. Vouching for your husband’s mistress was not something a woman would normally do.

  ‘So you both are friends?’ Choudhary asked.

  ‘We barely know each other.’

  ‘Yet she vouched for you.’

  ‘Her gesture shocked me too. But she is like that—sweet to everyone, according to Piyush.’

  ‘She married
Piyush knowing that he was marrying her for her father’s money.’

  ‘She told you that?’

  ‘You did too. Actually, she told me Piyush was the first honest man she had met, and she had been happy to marry him. According to her, any man who proposed marriage to her was doing so for her dad’s money. He was the only one who admitted it openly.’

  ‘I agree with her. Piyush was definitely one of the most honest men I have ever met.’

  Choudhary shrugged, unimpressed. Piyush had a wife and a mistress, and both insisted he was honest. From his perspective, that was the opposite of honesty. I looked away from his judging eyes, unperturbed. He couldn’t work out why I did what I did and why Pakhi became a part of our triangle.

  We were three strong individuals whose paths had crossed at different times in our lives, times when one of us needed the other. We accepted what we received without considering how others would view our choices. That was just how it was.

  ◆◆◆

  It still baffled me that Piyush could have overdosed on aspirin. How many would one have to consume to do that? I had read in the papers that he would have been alive despite the overdose if we had found him in time. The catastrophe was that he had dived into the rocky sea in pitch darkness; rescuing him at that time of the night would have been impossible.

  Besides, even if he had been pulled out of the sea at night, he would have been dead already. Drowning was a quick process, it appeared. Well, whatever the case, whether he died because of the datura or the aspirin or the water, he was dead—and I was the primary suspect. Because of that, IndeGen had suspended me, pending an enquiry.

  The day after my bail, the media overflowed with stories about my successful exit from custody. They wrote about how I had been the leech eating into Pakhi’s happy marriage and how she had rescued me in spite of that. ‘For Piyush’s unborn child,’ she told the press when they questioned her about her benevolence. She became a martyr with that one gesture. From Candy Floss she was now St Pakhi the Great. Well played, Pakhi, I thought ruefully.

  Reading the gory details of how I had been consulting a gynaecologist, how I had not taken birth control measures, how I had plotted to kill Piyush, the infamous daturas nurtured in my backyard—everything was in the newspapers the next day. Readers commented on how devious I was and how difficult it was for people to trust anyone anymore.

  Everywhere I went, I was the fallen woman. Even street children recognised me. Some passers-by booed, others ignored me, and several walked up to me and said obnoxious things as though they had a right. Some people took indecent liberties, and one or two earned a black eye in return. This nightmare continued for a week.

  My neighbours decided that I was a bad influence on their superior society and demanded that I move out. I agreed to do what I could to get out of their hair. I had no desire to stay where people shunned me. I did my best to find another place to live, but no community in Pune would accept me. No apartment or house was available to me for rent.

  Then that became news.

  A local paper carried an article about the city’s resident cold-blooded murderer scouting for a new house and perhaps new hunting grounds, inadvertently warning innocent women to protect their husbands from this individual. For the first time since Piyush’s death, I laughed out loud.

  How funny people were! Every individual had to fit into a type, and, come what may, they belonged to that type. I was the ‘mistress type’ according to them. More accurately, the ‘killer-mistress type’!

  It didn’t escape my notice that nobody was pointing even a finger at Piyush. I was the only villain in this story. I was the one who had enticed him. I was the one who had made him live in sin. I was the one who had killed him in cold blood. In all this, he had just been an innocent victim!

  Finding a house with these negative sentiments running rampant in society proved a wasted effort, and I had to get help from my new and most resourceful confidant: my lawyer. I told him I needed to leave town because I was bored stiff and because my colony folks wanted to throw me out. He asked me where I wished to go. I said that my hometown was as good a place as any. As usual, he delivered.

  He made sure that the authorities approved my request and within a few hours called me back to say that I was free to leave as long as I was reachable on the phone and able to return when the court dates came up.

  My doctor was less obliging. She thought the baby was under too much stress already, and a long journey to the hills at that particular time was far from the best idea. I promised her I would be careful but insisted that I had to go. Resigned, she advised me on precautions, and, finally, I was all set to go back to a place I had vowed never to return to: Kalibari.

  ◆◆◆

  The last time I had been in this tiny village near Darjeeling was more than a decade ago. My flight from here had been hasty and my decision to stay away, firm. In the long years since, I had never reconsidered my decision, until now. With nowhere else to go, retracing my steps to this hamlet held a strange appeal.

  I had grown up here under my grandparents’ loving care. They had given me everything in their power, and yet I was miserable. Something was missing. Experience had taught me that some things were missing from everyone’s life. I appreciated that truth now, but, as a child, life had been tough. I was unruly and difficult, but my grandparents put up with me. They offered me their unconditional love—another thing I did not understand in time.

  Everything, even love, came at a price. That was my sincere belief. Accepting that they wanted nothing from me in return for their affection had also been a life lesson that I learnt too late. Not for Piyush though. For him, my love had always been unconditional. What he could and could not offer me was never a consideration. For me, it had been enough that I could offer him unconditional love.

  Chapter 18

  As far as the eye could see, it encountered a tranquil, beautiful landscape. The skies were clear, and, on the edge of the horizon, Mt Kanchenjunga smiled at me, her snow-clad peak at once inviting and comforting. A few feet away from me, gentler slopes stretched peacefully into the distance; rows of tea shrubs made them refreshingly green. Behind me, tall pine trees dotted the path I had taken to reach my current vantage point. Sipping my morning cuppa with the winter sun smiling down on me and waking every cell in my being, I was at peace. I felt happy.

  This was my second homecoming, and the circumstances of my trip, though different, were uncannily similar. As my car trundled up the driveway to the sprawling mansion I had once called home, I was reminded of the million times I had walked down that path after school, unhappily wishing I could go elsewhere.

  As a child, I hated coming home. Everyone was always looking out for me and scrutinising my every action, trying to make sure that I was as comfortable as a princess. I tried telling them that I needed space, but nobody listened. They wanted to help, and the only way they knew how was to hover around me all the time.

  My grandparents’ friends came visiting often. Grandpa invited them over so that I had more people in my life. This made me even more miserable. Their presence reminded me of those absent from my life—my parents.

  ◆◆◆

  I had arrived here a few days ago, and, so far, my stay had been nothing but pleasant. The climate here seemed to agree with my hormones. The morning sickness was under control. I was sleeping well and eating even better. Having a cook who knew exactly what I liked helped matters a great deal. There were servants to do my small chores, which wasn’t too bad either.

  Every morning, I had tea and brunch up here in the lap of the mountains, gazing at the Kanchenjunga and feeling special. During the day, I took an active interest in the estate’s operational activities. I checked the books, took part in meetings, and gradually took over the running of the property.

  Coming here had also changed my association with my parents, especially my mother. All these years, I had avoided dealing with her and had kept my address a secret. She had to s
ettle for merely knowing that I was alive. Coming here changed all that. Now she knew where I was, and she took every opportunity to visit me. I hated that.

  She had been an air hostess in her youth. Unfortunately, she still lived in the past, dreaming about all that had been. Her present life was unglamorous, and she hated it.

  She and my father had married young. He was from a landed family with all the comforts wealth could buy. He was also intelligent and ambitious. He joined the prestigious Indian Foreign Service after college.

  Infatuated with each other’s success, they married. But soon they became bored with each other and began to take interest in other people. Theirs was still a happy marriage because each was unaware of the other’s frivolities.

  As in every imperfect love story, one day things changed. When mom announced her pregnancy, dad was sure I was not his. I knew this to be true because I had seen a paternity test report issued by a foreign hospital three days after my birth. The test cost a fortune, according to my father. All I cared to remember was that it was the first thing they did when I arrived in this world.

  They separated.

  They kept passing me around like an unwanted parcel until I was four. Then they gave up the exercise and dumped me on my grandparents’ doorstep. Soon after, my mother married a wealthy businessman and settled down in Kolkata. I was unwelcome in that household.

  My father was always abroad, and I seldom saw him. Eventually, he too remarried. His wife was nice enough and invited me to live with them. My grandparents were thrilled. I thought that they could not wait to get rid of me. I felt unwanted.

  I went to live with my father and did not survive even a fortnight in his house. He disliked me and had no qualms about showing me how much. He never physically abused me, thank God, but he kept reminding me that I was a usurper in his house and life. He bitterly told me that, like my mother, I was an unwanted leech draining his wealth and time. In the end, his wife sent me back.