by Salil Desai
“Why don’t you retire from the force, Motkar? Or get a transfer to some quiet posting, away from the hurly-burly of policing.” It was Saralkar’s final biting remark before he sat back in a huff and dismissed the entire squad, individually and collectively, from his presence.
PSI Motkar too began shuffling away. His shoulders were drooping as if the combined weight of failure and the shoulder injury would soon turn him into a hunchback. Saralkar watched him on his way out with mixed feelings. “I’m not done with you yet, Motkar,” he snapped.
Motkar stopped and turned around to face him. A grim frown had settled on his face. Before Saralkar could speak, the PSI said, “Sir, if you meant what you said, I’ll apply for a transfer.”
He stood there, a picture of hurt dignity, leaning on some invisible cane of self respect.
Saralkar emitted a fierce snarl. “Don’t bloody try to emotionally blackmail me, Motkar! You deserve every word I uttered and you know it.”
Motkar cleared his throat. The frown on his face deepened, “Sir I admit I have made too many mistakes on this case and that’s why I’m ready to leave if you think I am no good.”
“We’ll look into all that after the case is solved,” Saralkar retorted waspishly. “First you damn well try and undo those mistakes. Start by abandoning that blasted play, which is distracting the hell out of you. It’s all but changed your damn DNA!”
Motkar cringed. “That’s not true, sir. My mistakes have nothing to do with the play . . . Anyway it’s just two days for the final performance after which—”
Saralkar threw his hands up in exasperation. “Yes, we have plenty of time, don’t we? Forty-eight hours is nothing. We have an absconder who can get from here to the other end of the country within that time, but that’s okay. PSI Motkar is busy with his play!”
He glared at Motkar but this time the PSI had nothing to say. An uncomfortable silence hung in the air for a few seconds, then Motkar spoke: “Sir, how did Rangdev Baba react to the news?”
“The bugger just clamped up. And boss simply wouldn’t allow me to take him into custody for further investigations,” Saralkar growled, then aimed a kick at his empty garbage bin and sent it flying to the other side of the room. He glared at it malevolently as it hit the wall and landed.
“I suppose it was because of all those disciples and devotees who had started gathering, sir,” Motkar observed. “Apparently Rangdev Baba’s aides had WhatsApped them to come over to the ashram in substantial numbers to help the baba out of the sticky situation.”
“Of course I know that, Motkar, but these are all tried and tested tricks of such crooks. It’s we who have to call their bluff. And Rangdev’s not all that big. He’s comparatively just small fry. The Police Commissioner had no business being ultra-cautious. Now we’re supposed to interrogate Rangdev here tomorrow morning. By then he’ll have had twelve hours to get his story right,” Saralkar said with disgust. “Whereas if we had had him here just now, he wouldn’t have been able to dodge. He would’ve belched out the truth about Akhandanath quickly—why he ran away and what his involvement with Sanjay Doshi was.”
He again looked at the dustbin moodily, as if he wished he could plant another kick on it if there had been more room.
Motkar nodded, then asked, “Sir, you reckon Akhandanath bolted because he was one of the disciples involved with Sanjay Doshi, and when something went wrong he killed the Doshi couple?”
Saralkar didn’t react immediately. In fact it almost seemed to Motkar that Saralkar had not heard his question at all. Then suddenly the senior inspector bent and opened his drawer. He took out the thick file of documents he’d brought from Bangalore. Saralkar began flicking the pages feverishly, stopped and gazed intently at one of the documents.
He looked up at Motkar, his face and eyes now like some flickering screen, broadcasting the excitement in his mind. Quickly removing the document that had riveted his attention, Saralkar handed it over to Motkar.
Motkar realized it was the printout of police mug shots of a young man. Scrawled on top of it was the name Shaunak Sodhi, along with a brief physical description. He looked up at his boss again. “Sir, do you think that—”
Before he could complete his sentence, Saralkar spoke: “Yes, Motkar! If we put a long, flowing beard and tresses on Shaunak Sodhi’s photo, isn’t it possible he would bear a close resemblance to our absconding friend Akhandanath?”
Motkar looked down at Sodhi’s photo again, trying to visualise Akhandanath. He nodded slowly. “Yes, sir, there is definitely a resemblance and if Akhandanath is indeed Shaunak Sodhi, it will answer a lot of questions about the exact nature of contact between Sanjay Doshi and Rangdev Baba.”
Saralkar broke into a chuckle but soon his face became serious and reproachful again. “You’ve sent out a priority alert for Akhandanath with photographs, right?” he asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, get the police sketch artist to Photoshop Akhandanath’s photo and send out variations without a beard and moustache, with only a moustache, with only a beard, and so on. My guess is Akhandanath will shed his facial hair to escape detection. So don’t go home tonight before you get the variations done, Motkar,” Saralkar looked at Motkar spitefully.
Motkar had always known his boss had a mean streak. But Motkar also knew this time he had only himself to blame for inviting Saralkar’s wrath. He nodded, picked up Sodhi’s photo print for reference and wearily began calling up a suitable police sketch artist.
It was almost midnight by the time Saralkar reached home. He let himself in with his key. The drawing room was dark and empty, but he could see the glow of the table lamp in the bedroom. Jyoti was awake, he realized with a sudden twinge of guilt. She must’ve been expecting him back since evening. It’s the least any wife would from a man who had been away for a week.
Saralkar tiptoed across to the bedroom and glanced inside. Jyoti looked up from her book for a second, then continued reading. He knew at once that he had hurt her deeply once again—for the umpteenth time in their married life—with his little insensitivities. An apology played on his lips but refused to leave his mouth. “You . . . shouldn’t have stayed awake,” he just said gruffly.
She didn’t respond or look up. He waited, then started unbuttoning his uniform, and fled into the bathroom to freshen up. Ten minutes later he stepped out but Jyoti hadn’t moved, as she usually would have, to heat up and serve dinner.
“No dinner for me tonight?” he attempted to jest awkwardly, hoping she would get up at least now. But she didn’t even look at him.
Taken aback and embarrassed he went into the kitchen cum dining room and switched on the light, anticipating that the dinner would be on the table, like lunch in the afternoon, for him to heat and eat. But the table was more or less bare. He felt both a little prickly and uneasy for it had never happened before in all these years. Saralkar felt annoyed. Was Jyoti trying to teach him a lesson? His empty stomach cried out to be filled. He walked over to the refrigerator. May be she’d just left the food inside, so he would have to take the additional trouble of thawing it, then heating up. A limited lesson to an incorrigible, uncaring husband.
Much to his dismay the refrigerator seemed devoid of fresh dinner either. There were only eggs, some curd, and some milk— nothing else that was ready to eat. He slammed the refrigerator door. Jyoti really hadn’t made or left him any dinner. He stood there uncertainly, hungry, angry, acutely aware that he had somehow brought it upon himself—that his wife of twenty years had one fine day decided to let him feed himself, tired of his peremptory, neglectful ways.
It was a moment of truth, as his pride grappled with the realisation that perhaps he had caused her one hurt too many. Seconds later he drew back the curtain and his ego that stood in the bedroom doorway and walked across towards Jyoti’s side of the bed, then sat down beside her.
She pretended not to look at him. He watched her for a few moments, his ego still making belated protests, and then
for the first time in his married life said, “I’m sorry.” It hurt as he spoke, but it wasn’t so bad.
Jyoti finally looked up at him, her eyes searching for something in his face. Saralkar hoped she wouldn’t cry or something. It would all be so dashed melodramatic if she did. He was already experiencing withdrawal symptoms for having behaved so uncharacteristically from his normal, irritable, bossy, and gruff ways. Should he have thrown a tantrum at her instead?
But Jyoti’s reply reminded him exactly why they’d stayed married for so long. “Must keep you hungry more often,” she said with a little smile. “Come, let me lead you to your dinner.”
“You mean it’s ready? How come I couldn’t find it?” he asked relieved, both because Jyoti hadn’t given him the terrible time she would well have been justified in giving him and of course because he wouldn’t have to go to bed on an empty stomach.
“That’s because you don’t know all the places where to look.”
He followed her into the kitchen and was taken aback when she opened the microwave to reveal a big container of sabudana khichadi, one of his favourite dishes. It had never crossed his mind to look inside the microwave directly—a simple, effective hideaway.
Minutes later she had heated it up and served it, along with curd from the refrigerator.
“We’ll fight once you finish,” she said sitting by the table as he tucked into the khichadi with relish, “you uncaring man!”
But later they didn’t fight. They did other things, which many in this land of the Kamasutra would have considered age inappropriate. Another reason for the longevity of their otherwise cranky, conjugal life.
Morning saw a flurry of requests from Rangdev Baba’s lawyers for postponement of questioning, claiming he had suddenly started feeling unwell the previous night and had been advised to undergo a complete medical check-up and bed rest by the doctors.
Saralkar had shot down the all-too-familiar feints, characteristic of politicians, god-men, public officials, and white-collar criminals, to duck questioning by the police. He had given a deadline of noon for Rangdev Baba to present himself at his office and the commissioner had backed him to the hilt this time.
To a bleary-eyed Motkar, still suffering from the effects of inadequate sleep, Saralkar’s mood seemed unusually chirpy, in complete contrast to the foul mood just the previous night. In fact, he had expected his head to be bitten off even this morning, considering Rangdev Baba’s delaying tactics. Of course, his boss had always had a mercurial temperament and Motkar had witnessed many a drastic change in his mood before. But even by those standards Saralkar appeared abnormally exuberant.
Perhaps, Motkar concluded, it was because overnight his boss had become even more certain of cracking the case now that the possibility of Akhandanath turning out to be Shaunak Sodhi had emerged.
But then who would blame Motkar for making the wrong diagnosis when Saralkar himself barely realized why he was feeling so upbeat—whether to attribute it to having deduced Akhandanath might be the elusive Sodhi or to the delicious dinner of sabudana khichadi or to the age-inappropriate, after dinner pleasures.
“Let’s join a few other dots on the case till Rangdev turns up,” he said to Motkar. “Do we have any fresh inputs or updates?”
“Sir, Shirke and Shewale have something. Shirke checked out the land sales transactions of the Doshis. About a month before they were found dead, there was a selling spree. One by one all the lands and properties in the names of all the Sodhi impersonators were sold off, as if in a planned manner. The pattern was that the transactions in which the same Sodhi impersonator was involved were completed one after the other within a period of two to three days. Then that of the next impersonator and so on,” Motkar explained. “This got Shirke thinking. He wondered if this pattern meant that the various impersonators, except Mobin Ghatwai, belonged to neighbouring states, since they didn’t have any records here. Perhaps they were brought here for a few days one by one to complete the transactions and then sent back.”
Saralkar sat up. This tied in with his own hunch that perhaps some old associate from Karnataka had indeed been helping Sodhi and Bhupathi. “That’s good thinking by Shirke. Yes, it’s quite easily possible to have brought in impersonators from Goa, Telangana, Gujarat, MP, or Karnataka. My guess is Karnataka because both Sodhi and Bhupathi hail from there and my gut feeling is they had a network of associates. Check with Karnataka Police first. Send them photos and thumbprints from the sale deeds.”
He slapped his palm on the desk looking terribly pleased. “What else, Motkar?”
“Sir, the other thing is about the call records of Meenakshi Rao, the lady who spoke to Anushka Doshi late night and early morning.”
“The one who is in Tirupati now? Isn’t she back yet?”
“She’s supposed to be back tomorrow but we haven’t been able to get in touch with her again.”
“So what about her?”
“Sir, from the detailed call records an odd fact as emerged.”
“What’s that?”
“The last call she made on Saturday early morning to Anushka Doshi . . . She claims she’d called to check whether she could come over for a particular ritual.”
“Right. And that Anushka Doshi told her not to.”
“Well, the mobile tower location data shows that she was actually calling from the same locality in which Anushka and Sanjay Doshi stayed.”
“What?”
“Yes, sir. She wasn’t calling from her own house, which is in Aundh Road, Bopodi area. In fact, Meenakshi Rao was in all probability calling from the same building in which Anushka Doshi stayed. But she didn’t tell us that, so the question is what was she doing there at such an unearthly hour, sir? And why did she claim she was calling Anushka to check whether she could come over when she was already there in her building or at least nearby?”
“That’s bloody odd,” Saralkar said thoughtfully. “How long was her phone active in that locality?”
“Sir, it was active for about thirty minutes, though no other call was made, except the call to Anushka.”
“And then?’
“Sir, her mobile was switched off and remained so for several hours.”
Saralkar puzzled over the fact for a few seconds. “If Meenakshi Rao came to Anushka Doshi’s house, then obviously she must’ve driven there on her own if she has a two-wheeler or a car. Otherwise at that time in the morning the only way she could’ve gone is by an auto-rickshaw or radio cab.”
“Sir, she does not own any vehicle. When we’d checked her address and neighbourhood, it was one of the things we asked and found out. And I doubt whether she’s the kind who uses radio cabs.”
“So find the nearest auto stand near her house and trace the auto-rickshaw driver who took her fare that day. At such an early hour, there are not many on the road and the only ones available are generally waiting at an autostand to pick up early morning passengers who want to catch a train or a flight. In all likelihood such auto guys are early morning regulars, so it should be easy to make inquires and find the one who took her fare. If that doesn’t work, make inquiries with radio cabs. Maybe she did use one after all.”
“Yes, sir. We’ll also reconfirm when Meenakshi Rao’s getting back to Pune.”
“Had you physically verified her brother’s address too? What he does and all that?” Saralkar asked sharply.
It was again one of those awkward moments for Motkar, something which every policeman encountered now and then, when they realized something elementary had slipped past them even after so many years of experience.
“No, sir. We didn’t really think it necessary to verify her brother’s details once we’d got confirmation about her address and identity.” He held his breath, knowing he could well be in line for a volley.
Saralkar regarded him as if skinning Motkar alive was exactly what was on his mind. But perhaps the PSI was saved by the senior inspector’s mood. “Get it done now,” Saralkar finally rebuked in a
tone mild by his standards.
Just then a constable knocked and came in. “Sir, that Rangdev Baba is here.”
Saralkar reflected momentarily whether to make him wait or start the questioning right away. Generally, keeping a suspect waiting helped heighten anxiety but Saralkar felt keen to have a go at the baba immediately.
“Come, Motkar,” he said, getting up from his desk and heading out of the room. Motkar followed him into the interrogation room. Slumped in a chair, Rangdev Baba seemed to be desperately trying to convey the impression that he was now nearing a state of collapse. A lawyer and a doctor flanked him. The lawyer wore a black coat and the doctor a white one, as if they didn’t trust Saralkar to believe who they were, if not for the garments.
“You are not required here,” Saralkar said piquantly to both of them.
“But, sir, my client—” the lawyer started speaking.
“Save your breath and leave the room. There’s no detention, there’s no arrest, so what’s the fuss about?”
The two men looked at each other and then at Rangdev Baba, who was observing the exchange with watchful anxiousness.
“Bu-but, sir . . . Baba is unwell, so—” the doctor said.
“Looks hale and hearty to me. We’ll call you if required,” Saralkar said and shooed them away.
The black and white coats looked at the Baba again, hesitant to leave.
“Come on. Don’t waste my time,” Saralkar growled and his tone packed enough authority to propel them out of the room.
Even as Motkar shut the door, Saralkar was giving Rangdev Baba the once over. The Rangdev Baba of today was quite different from the one they’d spoken to the previous day. His whole demeanour was like that of a boxer who knew he was just a few punches away from a knockout, only worried how hard it would hit and when.
“Why did Akhandanath run?” Saralkar asked.
Rangdev Baba shook his head slightly. “I don’t know why. Perhaps he got scared.”
“Scared of what?”
“Of what might happen to him in police custody, of being accused or held for the murder,” Rangdev Baba said with calculated boldness.