Murder at Crescent Point

by G. S. Dutt

  ‘Yes, the two tapes have the voice of the same person.’

  ‘The second tape is the recording of the statement of Jeevan Das.’

  ‘Oh I see!’ exclaimed Nikki. ‘So Mr Khanna was working in a closed circuit.’ She added, ‘But how come Jeevan Das surrendered voluntarily?’

  ‘Listen to this. You will understand,’ said ACP Rajan.

  Interrogator: Why did you abscond and what is the reason for your surrendering voluntarily?

  Jeevan: I got the news that Mr Khanna had been arrested. Since I have been working closely with him I thought I may also be arrested. So I made myself scarce hoping that things will settle down in a few days time. But what has brought me to the police on my own is the advertisement which you issued in the newspaper yesterday. It levelled a charge of murder on me which I never committed. I thought if I remained underground it will be construed that I was in fact the killer, which is not correct.

  Interrogator: Do you deny that you went to Sangalina Hills and hired a person to keep tabs on a woman named Asha Sayal?

  Jeevan: No, I do not

  Interrogator: Do you deny that you went up to Crescent Point where the woman and the girl Jyoti were later found murdered?

  Jeevan: I do not deny that either. I did go that afternoon to Crescent Point. But when I reached there, Asha Sayal had already been killed. Someone had strangled her to death and thrown her body behind a bush.

  Interrogator: What about the girl?

  Jeevan: I did not find the girl at Crescent Point.

  Interrogator: If you say you did not kill them, then what was your purpose of going to Sangalina and hiring a local man to keep a watch on Asha Sayal?

  Jeevan: I am an employee of the Pioneer Manufacturing and Marketing. One day I was called in by Mr Taneja, who was the then Managing Director. Besides him, Mr Khanna, my immediate boss, was also there. Mr Khanna showed me a photograph of Asha Sayal. He said this woman was not in a sound mental state and she had made some preposterous claims on Jyoti. According to his information, the woman had gone to Sangalina Hills the previous day, with a view to meeting Jyoti and force her to accompany her. He wanted me to go there and keep an eye on the woman and prevent her from taking Jyoti away.

  I did have some questions on my mind about the assignment but being a junior person I did not probe the matter further and went there. Since Jyoti had seen me earlier in office, I asked a person at Sangalina to keep a watch on Asha Sayal. When I got the information that she had gone to Crescent Point I became suspicious and decided to follow her. It took me some time to reach. I did not go directly to the top but watched by moving behind the trees. When I did not find anyone, I went up to Crescent Point and looked around. It is there that I found her dead body. Jyoti was not there. I quickly retreated. On my return to Somabad, I reported the matter to Mr Khanna.

  Interrogator: You said you were called in to the Managing Director’s office. Did Mr Taneja also say something to you?

  Jeevan: No. He did not say anything but he was present.

  ACP Rajan switched off the machine. Nikki was bewildered, ‘Do you think he is telling the truth?’

  ‘We can verify his statement from Mr Taneja who will be here in a few days. One could think that he may have been given the assignment to kill Asha Sayal. But what about Jyoti? There was no apparent reason for him to kill the girl. In view of this and in the absence of any eyewitness he may be given the benefit of doubt and set free by the court.’

  ‘If for a moment we assume that he did not commit the murders, who did?’

  ‘That is the million dollar question.’

  Nikki soon left the office thoroughly dejected. She had felt they were close to solving the mystery behind the murders and yet once again, they were faced with a dead end.

  After a few days Nikki got a call from Mr Taneja.

  ‘Oh! Hello, Uncle!’ said Nikki, surprised, ‘Where are you calling from?’

  ‘I am in Somabad sitting right in front of ACP Rajan. Both of us are talking about you. Do you have some time to come over?’

  ‘Yes I will be very happy to meet you. I should be there in thirty minutes.’

  When Nikki reached the ACP’s office, Mr Taneja got up and hugged her affectionately, ‘All this has happened because of you. We lost Jyoti but have got another daughter in you. No one would have done as much as you have done.’

  ACP Rajan beamed, ‘She is very keen and persistent. In fact she has been goading me! I wish I had an assistant like her.’

  Nikki looked embarrassed, ‘Thank you both very much. I don’t deserve all that praise.’

  Mr Taneja said earnestly, ‘What next?’

  ‘I was waiting for your testimony. Now all that is complete, I will file the case in the court.’

  Nikki burst out, ‘This is all very well, but the main issue of the two murders still remains. All doors are closing upon us.’

  Mr Taneja assured her, ‘Don’t lose heart. Now that I am back here, we will focus only on the murder case. You and I will work together and with the help of ACP Rajan, we will bring justice to my daughter. ’

  Ten days later Nikki read a headline in the newspaper:

  TANEJA RETURNS TO PIONEER AS CARETAKER MD

  The court, taking cognisance of the evidence produced in the case and to safeguard the interest of shareholders and employees of the company, agreed to a suggestion of the prosecution lawyer to appoint Mr Taneja as caretaker Managing Director of Pioneer Manufacturing and Marketing till the case is finally disposed of.

  Nikki rang up Mr Taneja in his hotel and congratulated him. He said, ‘My child, it is all because of your initiative. I have asked your aunty to come and once she is here, we shall all celebrate.’

  — CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE —

  The Revelation

  After a couple of weeks Nikki got a call from Mrs Taneja.

  ‘Hello Nikki, how are you?’ Her voice was gentle.

  ‘I am fine. When did you return, Aunty?’

  ‘I came last week. I must thank you for what you have done for us. The way we were hounded, I never dreamt that we would ever return to India.’ Mrs Taneja’s voice was thick with emotion.

  ‘Don’t worry, Aunty. Things change and sometimes for the better.’

  Mrs Taneja asked, ‘What are you doing this weekend?’

  ‘Nothing in particular, Aunty.’

  ‘We would both be very happy if you could spend the weekend with us.’

  ‘I would love to do that. Where are you staying?’

  ‘In the Taneja Mansion.’

  ‘Taneja Mansion?’ asked a surprised Nikki. ‘What happened to the Khanna family?’ ‘Mrs Khanna and her daughters have shifted back to their old house near the Central Park. And you know where Mr Khanna lives these days.’

  Nikki laughed, ‘Yes I know,’ and added, ‘I will be with you on Saturday afternoon.’

  When Nikki went to the Taneja Mansion, she received a warm welcome from both Mr and Mrs Taneja. They spent some time catching up on all the events that had followed Mrs Taneja’s kidnapping and how they were forced to leave the country.

  Mrs Taneja said, ‘Khanna was the real traitor. He was a measly stenographer. Your uncle made him a manager. We also bought him a house and helped him with money from time to time. But look what he has done! There is no limit to one’s greed. And now his poor wife and daughters…,’ she trailed off.

  At dinner time Nikki noticed that dinner was being served by a male servant. She asked, ‘What happened to Savitri?’

  Mrs Taneja replied, ‘We wanted to have her back but could not locate her. Someone said that she has gone back to her native place.’

  Nikki said, ‘That is a pity. She was such a devoted person. She really loved Jyoti.’

  Mrs Taneja said, ‘I know. I am hoping that when the news about our return reaches her she will come back.’

  The next morning when Nikki came down from her room she found Mrs Taneja busy in household chores. Mr Taneja was reading a newspape
r in his study. Nikki went to him. He saw Nikki and said, ‘Hello, my child. I hope you are comfortable here.’

  Nikki replied, ‘I am fine Uncle, thanks.’ After a pause she added, ‘Now that everything is settled on your business front, we should turn our attention to finding Jyoti’s killer and bringing him to book.’

  Mr Taneja said, ‘Yes, in fact, I have also been thinking about it. You see the matter is over four years old. Everybody would have forgotten about it. I don’t know how to proceed.’ Nikki thought for a while and said, ‘Perhaps we could try one thing.’

  ‘Yes?’ asked Mr Taneja curiously.

  ‘You could announce a handsome reward for anyone who would give information about the killer. We could publish the pictures of both Jyoti and Asha Sayal and briefly state the facts and the place of murder. There is a likelihood that the killer, emboldened by the passage of time, might have confided his act to someone who may come forward.’ Mr Taneja thought about Nikki’s suggestion, ‘It is a long shot, but yes we could try. I will check tomorrow with ACP Rajan and also get a photograph of Asha Sayal from his office.’

  After a few days, Nikki saw a prominent ad in the newspaper with a smiling photograph of Jyoti and the picture of Asha Sayal’s dead body:

  The young girl and the lady in the photographs were brutally murdered by someone four years back at Crescent Point in Sangalina Hills. The murderer is still absconding. Anyone giving information which will lead the police to the killer, will be rewarded a sum of 20 lakhs. The name of the informer will be kept confidential.

  The prize money of 20 lakhs was indeed fabulous. It evoked a lot of interest among the public. Mr Taneja started getting a large number of mail but most of it turned out to be fake. One evening Nikki got a call from Mr Taneja, ‘Nikki in response to our advertisement, today I have received a drawing. Someone has tried to convey a message through it which I cannot fathom. Will you please look at it?’

  ‘Tomorrow is Friday. I finish my classes early. On my way back I will drop in at your office.’

  The next day, at Mr Taneja’s office, Nikki saw the painting. ‘This came in yesterday. But I don’t understand. There was no letter with it. The envelope bears the local postmark,’ said Mr Taneja.

  Nikki looked at the painting. It was made by using crayons of different colours, each colour indicating different landmarks. Scattered on the map were also some coded symbols the significance of which was not clear. Nikki said, ‘This is quite unusual. I can’t make any sense of it except that it purports to convey something about some locations. Let me take it with me and study it in detail. If I find anything interesting I will get back to you.’

  Nikki studied the drawing from various angles for the better part of that afternoon. Two or three things could be understood. One was a green undulating surface showing mountainous terrain. This she thought was a reference to Sangalina Hills. There was a path that seemed to link one place to another. This was shown with broken arrows. This path, on reaching the mountain area, took a turn and moved to some other direction but later ended close to the starting point but did not meet it. It looked like a loop. Nikki assumed that the path started from Somabad and went to Sangalina but where did it go from there? She noticed certain symbols at the end point of the second path. She could not decipher them. But viewing under a magnifying glass she found that these symbols resembled the minarets of a mosque. Nikki thought that the painting perhaps shows that the killer went from Somabad to Sangalina Hills but took a different route for return journey whose terminal point was a mosque not very far from Somabad. But this could just be her conjecture. Looking once again she found that on both the paths, leading to and coming from Sangalina Hills were some other symbols which perhaps denoted some structures or landmarks. She used the magnifying glass again but could not decipher the symbols properly.

  Nikki decided to follow this lead. She called her friend Deepa in Sangalina Hills telling her that she was coming there on Saturday evening and would stay with her that night.

  Early the next morning, she went to the Bus Stand Road and boarded a bus for Sangalina Hills. From time to time she would look at the map to check the symbols on it. Some turned out to be bridges while others were intervening bus stations. She felt perhaps she was on the right track. After getting down at Sangalina Hills she went to the bus office and spoke to the window clerk, ‘I have come from Somabad. This bus goes back through the same route or some other route?’

  The clerk replied, ‘It returns by the same route.’

  ‘Is there any other route also for going to Somabad or close to Somabad?’

  ‘Yes, but that route is circuitous. It goes through Balisa Hills and some other towns and takes three hours extra.’

  Nikki asked, ‘At what time does the first bus go via that route?’

  ‘Five in the morning.’

  ‘Please book one seat for me for tomorrow morning.’

  Nikki went to Deepa’s place and told her that she had some urgent work in the old school which she had completed and would be leaving for Somabad early the next day.

  When Nikki got into the bus the next morning, she found very few passengers. Nikki sat on the seat adjacent to the driver so that she could have a clear view of both sides of the road. One thing was certain. This mosque or whatever the structure, should be closer to Somabad and she would reach there late in the afternoon or perhaps in the evening. When the bus started, Nikki opened the map and kept it on her lap. Although the map was not to scale, she could see some structures corresponding to the symbols in the map. The person who had sent the drawing appeared to have actually travelled on this route and marked the various landmarks in the map by way of appropriate symbols. As the afternoon approached, Nikki became more and more intent on focussing on the objects on both sides of the road.

  After about an hour, the bus stopped near a roundabout. There was a road going to the left and another to the right besides the straight road ahead. The driver announced, ‘The bus will stop here for ten minutes.’ Most of the passengers alighted from the bus. Nikki also followed them.

  She asked the conductor, ‘Is there a mosque near this area?’

  He replied, ‘Yes, the mosque is further up on this road on the right. You can see it from the other end of the roundabout.’

  Nikki asked, ‘Will the bus also go on the straight road?’

  ‘No, we will be turning to the left for Somabad.’

  Nikki crossed the roundabout. She could see the minarets of the mosque at some distance. Nikki went back to the bus and collected her handbag from the rack. She said to the conductor, ‘Thank you. I shall continue from here on my own.’

  — CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO —

  Close Encounter

  It was early evening. Nikki quickened her pace towards the distant mosque. When she reached nearer she found that there was a residential colony beyond the mosque. She crossed the mosque and entered the colony. It was run down, with small, shabby houses, open drains, roadside stalls and a lot of people moving around. Nikki looked completely out of place. She quickly crossed the colony and re-emerged on another road. She turned back to look at the colony. She felt that something in the area was familiar to her. She asked a passer-by, ‘What is this colony called?’

  ‘Tooku Vela Colony.’

  Suddenly, the whole thing became clear to Nikki. She had come to this place four years back to meet Satish the photographer! Thinking of Satish it struck her that maybe the drawing was sent by him. The more she thought about it, the more convinced she became. She asked a man, ‘Where is Tooku Vela street?’ The man pointed towards a dirty lane. As soon as she entered the street she could recognise it. House number 44 was at the end of the lane.

  At that time of the evening the lane was more or less deserted. She reached the green door and knocked. A man opened the door. He was bare bodied except for a lungi tied around his waist. He looked at Nikki and quickly withdrew. From behind the door he said, ‘Yes, what do you want?’

  ‘I have
come to meet Satish, the photographer.’

  The man said, ‘He is not here…how do you know Satish?’

  ‘I had come here four years ago to check about a photograph of my friend who had been killed by someone,’ said Nikki.

  ‘You said four years back?’ asked the man.

  ‘Yes, she was killed in Sangalina Hills.’

  ‘What was the name of that girl?’ asked the man.

  ‘Her name was Jyoti. She was my best friend.’

  The man looked a bit nervous. He said, ‘I think Satish may return soon. His room is locked. I am going out. You could wait in my room.’

  Nikki was in two minds, ‘I will come tomorrow. I hope he will be here then.’

  The man persisted politely, ‘Don’t worry, Satish will be back anytime.’

  Nikki reluctantly followed him. As soon as she was near the door of the room the man pushed her in and closed the door from outside. Nikki heard the door being locked. Shocked at the turn of events, she banged the door. She could not understand the man’s behaviour and feared that something was seriously amiss. She banged on the door, shouting, ‘Hey, what are you doing! Open the door! Open the door!’

  Nikki heard the front door slam shut.

  She felt like a fool, she turned around and switched on the light. The room was in shambles. There was only a bed on which several clothes were scattered. There was a tap and some used utensils in the sink. A stove was lying in one corner. The shelf was lined with bottles of liquor. Bottles were also stacked under the bed. Nikki thought that the man must be a bootlegger. At the far end of the room there was a window. Nikki opened it and saw another lane. She started banging the window and shouted, ‘Help! Help!’

  Hearing the noise, several people gathered near the window. Among them was an elderly woman. She asked, ‘Who are you and what are you doing here?’

  Nikki replied, ‘I had come to meet Satish, the photographer. He is not here. This man has forcibly locked me in his room.’

  The woman said, ‘He is a rogue. You should not have come at this time of the evening to meet Satish. Wait, we will try to get you out.’