The Murder Suspect

by Rani Ramakrishnan

  Five pairs of eyes looked at me as though seeing me for the first time. I must have shocked the daylights out of them. Stanley recovered first. ‘Just because you are in quicksand, who gave you the right to pull us into it?’

  ‘Really, Stanley!’ I said. ‘Look, I don’t know what you guys have done or not done, and, frankly, I am not interested. I am just tired. What do you guys want? Why are you trying so hard to kill my peace?’

  They did not answer for a while, and then 1991—the youngest of the lot—spoke up. What was he doing with these people anyway?

  ‘What did you tell the CBI, Nalini? Sunday night they came home and took us all in for questioning. Yesterday IndeGen issued suspension orders for all of us. We did nothing wrong, and now we are being harassed, and we know it’s all because of what you told Choudhary. He believes you.’

  I almost laughed. Choudhary believed me! Well, that was rich. He had them rounded up on Sunday night itself. That was quick. Choudhary did not waste time, I had to grant him that much. Suspension, I reckoned, was harsh. What did the CBI have on them that necessitated the severe action?

  ‘Why were you suspended?’

  ‘It is more to do with our past than the present. Now everybody knows who we are and what we did. It was in yesterday’s papers,’ 1991 said.

  ‘Everyone’s past was in the papers?’ I asked, shocked.

  ‘Yes, Alisha’s murder, Stanley’s sexual harassment case, Cy getting his job through recommendation, Devyani’s shameful experience in school and her cross-dressing, my name change—everything about all five of us. The only ones spared were Chirag, Manav, and Sukhbir.’

  How had this happened? Choudhary’s fortress was a leaking mess. He had allowed their past and private matters to hit the media. His Titanic was sinking fast!

  ‘The others I can understand but 1991 and Devyani—why suspend you both? There is nothing in your past for which you deserve to be suspended.’

  ‘We got the sack for the watch,’ Devyani said glumly.

  I remembered the watch, its recording device, and the offensive recording. I remembered everything. Suddenly, I did not feel sorry for them at all. They had done the unthinkable, and I would have had them arrested if I could. They must have seen the look on my face, and understood that I knew.

  ‘So you know about the watch,’ Devyani said ruefully.

  ‘I listened to a recording captured by it. I am sure you also listened to it,’ I told them icily.

  ‘No, nobody let us hear it. They told us there was an audio recording, that’s all,’ Devyani replied.

  ‘How was the quality of the recording? Was it clear? Was there any friction? How was the voice quality? Was it...’ 1991 trailed off, seeing my furious expression. I might have frightened him.

  But he went on unable to curb his excitement. ‘Nalini, believe me, the recorder was a harmless and brilliant product. We developed an application that made the device erase background disturbances and keep only human sound.

  ‘It will capture human voice even when faintly heard from a few metres away and enhance the audio quality to make the speech audible and clear. It is a brilliant piece of technology. Can you imagine what all it can do?

  ‘If fitted to a mobile, it will make conversation possible even in noisy places. Every mobile manufacturer will want it. It has endless potential. We can use it for video chats, we can use it in video cameras, for movie-making—I cannot imagine all its uses. This one product can take IndeGen to the next level.’

  I was dumbfounded. He was charged up like a five-year-old. He was the product guy pitching his latest invention with all the faith and enthusiasm of someone who believed that he had found the next big thing in technology. His enthusiasm was genuine, forcing me to wonder if he was too. Maybe there was no conspiracy at all.

  Assuming that his product interested me, he continued, ‘Nalini, it was Devyani’s idea. You know how she landed her job at IndeGen. She said we should do something spectacular like that and show Piyush how our prototype worked rather than tell him about its features.

  ‘Stanley and I have been developing the software on Innovation Fridays for a whole year now. We had worked all year to showcase it to Piyush. We wanted to show our mock-up’s prowess and see if our idea excited him. That’s all.’

  ‘Who put the darn thing in his wristwatch?’ I asked.

  ‘I did,’ 1991 said guiltily.

  ‘When?’

  ‘After our snorkelling trip, when we were resting on the beach. Piyush had taken off his watch, and I slipped it in. It was charged for twelve hours of recording. The plan was to tell him about it over breakfast on Sunday and make him listen to it himself. It was to be a surprise for him from our side—a return gift for all the surprises he planned for us.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘We were upset when he gave the watch to Chirag that evening. You know how Chirag can be. What if he refused to allow us to extract the recording and present it to Piyush the next day? That would ruin our plan. Even the thought worried us.

  ‘Devyani, Stanley, and I talked about the problem after all of you retired for the night. We were busy discussing the matter when Piyush joined us in the conference hall around 12:30 a.m.

  ‘He overheard us mentioning his name and the watch so we had to tell him our secret. He laughed at our sloppy execution and told us to quit worrying. He promised to deal with Chirag in the morning.

  ‘Around 1:00 a.m. all of us dispersed. None of us saw him again. We don’t know why he called Chirag at 2:30 a.m. and insisted on the watch being returned. We don’t know what urgent matter made him call at that time and freak Chirag out of his skin.’

  ‘Datura,’ I said absently, more to myself than to them. ‘Datura forced him to place the call.’

  When he learnt about the embedded device, he must have realised what had been recorded inadvertently. That was why he had volunteered to secure the recording from Chirag himself. He would have done it smoothly too, without anyone ever finding out about us, but the datura in his system changed all that.

  It magnified his fears and created an unnatural sense of urgency about everything. It drove him to call Chirag in the middle of the night and demand the watch back. A normal Piyush would have remained calm because he would have known how Chirag would react to the situation. Everything happened because of the poison.

  Five pensive faces were staring at me. They expected me to step in and save them. How would I accomplish that? I was a suspended employee myself. My automatic willingness to help them surprised me. They had poured their woes at my feet, and here I was pondering ways to help them.

  Suddenly I remembered that only three of them had come clean. Cy and Alisha were yet to clear the air about their role in the matter. What had Cy been doing roaming around in the middle of the night?

  I confronted Alisha. Her reaction was a huge surprise—a crimson blush. She could have been a teenager caught doing something forbidden. The others snickered and made covert remarks. I glared at them and they shut up. Cy appeared uncomfortable and, for a change, unable to find words to speak. Finally he cleared his throat and, looking fixedly at his shoes, he said with difficulty, ‘I was returning from Alisha’s room that night.’

  Whoa! I turned to Alisha, who was blushing all over again. Cy was her new hobby! I had assumed that Alisha would find something to do with her time. I had never imagined that she would find someone.

  Chapter 22

  That answered many questions except the truth of who murdered Piyush, I thought miserably. Everyone had perfectly good reasons for having done what they did and for being where they’d been. That left only me. I was sinking further into the bottomless pit of suspicion, and, with every passing day, my guilt was becoming indisputable.

  ‘Well, well, now here is a sight I did not expect to see,’ a slick voice announced behind us. ‘But I admit, it is quite a pleasant surprise.’

  I did not have to turn around to know that the speaker was Creep Choudhary. The oth
ers, however, did not know him by his voice and had to look to see who was mocking us. Blood drained from their faces, and they looked ready to bolt at the first opportunity.

  I waited for him to reach us, and then offered him a greeting. He nodded in response. He joined us at the table without an explicit invitation. I had known he would. We were becoming familiar with each other’s ways; it was not a good sign.

  ‘All of you rushed to Nalini for help, I see,’ he said, but nobody answered.

  ‘Anyone can visit me. You are clearly allowed to come here freely enough, so why not others?’ I said.

  ‘I met a few people who are not welcome here,’ he said smugly and smiled, actually smiled. He was enjoying himself, and I was furious. He had met my mother, no doubt. Now he knew everything there was to know, and he was smiling. He must be thrilled to have another nail firmly hammered into my coffin.

  ‘I would stop a few others too if I could,’ I replied. I was doomed anyway, why bother with caution.

  ‘I am sure you would,’ he said. He turned to the others. ‘Care to share?’ They stared at him, confused.

  ‘He wants to know why you are here,’ I explained. Choudhary raised his right eyebrow at my comment. Being able to translate his choice phrases was scary. It meant we were speaking too often. That was an unpleasant reminder.

  ‘We came to meet Nalini,’ Cyrus said.

  ‘About?’

  Silence.

  Choudhary was not one to give up either. He also waited. Their tit-for-tat bored me. These people distrusted each other, and their sparring match could carry on forever. I had been sitting in the sun for a long time and wanted to go indoors before I turned to toast. Besides, I needed to use the restroom. This pregnancy was such a bother.

  ‘I need to pee,’ I declared, stunning my already dazed audience. The old Nalini Bose would have been more refined. Unperturbed, I rose and ambled down the slope to the house. The others followed. They had to.

  At my insistence, they repeated everything they had told me for the Creep’s benefit. Explaining took forever. He wanted to know why they had withheld this information until then. At least they ought to have been honest with their interrogators when questioned two days before.

  They offered a typical explanation in response. The first time, they stayed quiet because they wanted to stay out of the police’s web of suspicion. Later, when the CBI questioned them on Sunday, they assumed that given their pasts, anything they said would be considered excuses to cover up guilt. So they shut up and didn’t utter a word about anything that had happened that night.

  Choudhary was furious that Cy had lied to him earlier. Apparently, Cy had already been questioned about roaming around the resort late at night. He had stated then that he had been on his way to the reception to chat with the night duty staff because he could not sleep. To protect Alisha’s reputation, he had maintained his original story even when questioned again on Sunday.

  ◆◆◆

  After the others left, I attacked the Creep for running a porous operation. He insisted that nobody in his team had leaked information to the media. We argued and set the matter aside without arriving at a conclusion.

  He told me about his visits to my parents and all that he had learnt from them. He then asked me how I had killed both my grandparents. He even wanted to know if it had been a dry run for future events like Piyush’s murder. I deemed it unnecessary to respond to his speculation, but he kept shooting accusations at me.

  Once again, the arguments went back and forth. In the end, he let the matter rest. Even without a confession, he had enough evidence to use in court. He could claim in his report that Piyush was only the third person from my ‘family’ to have died under suspicious circumstances. Who would believe my denials after that?

  After all this, he stated the real purpose of his visit. He wanted to speak to my household staff. The request surprised me but refusing was out of question. Besides, most of my staff were staunchly loyal to my family. Maybe something good would come out of their questioning, I hoped wistfully.

  ◆◆◆

  After lunch, I telephoned Pan. The circumstances were awkward, and my voice had lost clout in the organisation. Even so, I had to try. Five outstanding employees were depending on me to rescue their careers. A few of them were unlikely to get employment elsewhere. I was their only hope.

  It was a long and tedious call. I was no longer dealing with a friendly colleague but with a heckled boss eager to offload his problems on the first scapegoat. Despite everything I said, he insisted that his hands were tied in the matter.

  Since the day the media had learnt about their respective backgrounds, everybody—clients, vendors, the public—was questioning the integrity of all IndeGeners. He read out a few disturbing comments posted on social media so that I could get an idea of what the rest of the world was saying about the company and its people.

  From what I heard, I realised that all my efforts to eliminate discrimination from our DNA had backfired. IndeGen was being touted as a company that sought the unsavoury elements of society and made them respectable. What else could be expected when the person in charge of human resources was herself a characterless murderer?

  Having weathered one crisis after another since Piyush’s murder, the matter involving the employees was the last straw. Pandurang had to be seen taking action against somebody. Therefore, he acted. Suspending the controversial five, in his opinion, calmed the stakeholders who had until then been hounding him.

  He refused to acknowledge that by doing so he had played into the hands of those who were shaming IndeGen. His single act had endorsed their stand that all IndeGeners were tainted, but, like a blinkered horse, he could not see the folly of his decision.

  He was less courageous than Piyush. A born follower, he was lost without a leader. Not only was he incapable of undoing his own actions, he was also unfit to run the company. We could not agree on anything. The call ended in an impasse.

  Drastic times called for drastic measures. This was not a time to be docile and wait for things to happen. This was the time to act. Otherwise all that I had worked for in the past decade would be destroyed, and I would have to share the blame for it.

  My only fervent hope was that I was not putting my weight behind the wrong lot, especially since none of them had said even one kind word to me in my time of

  ◆◆◆

  The IndeGen office was located in front of a plush park in Kharadi, a crowded Pune suburb. When Piyush set up shop there, the area had been mostly residential. One had to take a diversion from the main road, travel two hundred metres down a smaller lane, and there, located opposite a quaint little park on a corner plot, was the house which was IndeGen’s original office. Later, when we expanded, we bought more land and built our grand office around the same humble house.

  Several buildings south of the park were demolished and rebuilt to accommodate our modern office complex. The park itself remained intact to this day, a beautiful witness to our company’s journey. From the main offices, one could look out and see children playing there every day even today.

  I deliberately chose this location for my dramatic reply to Pandurang’s ineptitude.

  On Wednesday, February 17, when the IndeGeners came to work, we six outcasts welcomed them. Stationed across the road on the pavement adjoining the park, a tent was pitched strategically opposite the main gates. We sat inside while a long banner with the words ‘SAVE INDEGEN’ in big, bold print fluttered outside.

  The first lot of pedestrians that spotted us crossed over to the other side to avoid us. Many who drove to work read the words and drove past without a backward glance. None of this worried me. Our display was a mere spectacle; the actual attack was yet to begin.

  ◆◆◆

  All six of us were dressed in black; we had painted our faces black as well. Our tent was black. Even our banner was black. Only the words on it were in deep, fiery red and yellow. We had placed comfortable chairs inside, and
the tent protected us from the heat. All of us had brought laptops, and we buried our noses in them, ignoring our disinterested audience.

  They must have thought we were idiots from the way we were behaving. I welcomed this perspective. Creating an impression, especially an unforgettable one, was important. It would form a talking point at work. We had to be on their minds all day if we were to succeed in our plan.

  Their indifference lasted until midday. During their lunch break, several IndeGeners crossed over to enquire what we were doing. They were curious about our unique protest, which seemed to be achieving nothing useful.

  When they reached our tent, we gave them pamphlets to read. Each flyer was different. There were six variants in all. Each one narrated the story of how one of us joined IndeGen and become an IndeGener. Careful to use positive language, each handout sketched the heart-warming tale of our transition into IndeGeners.

  Devyani’s read:

  On my first day at IndeGen I was a nervous wreck. I arrived early, long before regular working hours, and sat in the lobby until it was almost time for the early birds to trickle in for work. By then I needed to use the restroom.

  I was touching up my makeup when someone entered. He saw me applying makeup and stopped dead in his tracks. Then, politely, without staring, he told me that I was in the wrong restroom. The ladies washroom, he informed me, was next door.

  My first test at IndeGen had begun!

  I turned around, smiled at him, and informed him that I knew that I was in the men’s room and that I was a guy who liked to dress in women’s clothes sometimes. I uttered the words in one breath and completed the statement before I lost courage. From his stunned look, I knew that I had shocked him.

  But he recovered within a few seconds. He smiled back at me and congratulated me for my bravery. He told me that he too fancied some of the makeup stuff women used, but had never been bold enough to try them on himself. He complimented me and said I was the most liberated individual he had ever met.