by Ajeet Sharma
‘Mr Balraj, cut the big talk and tell us why you have called us,’ interrupted Sarraf.
‘Yes, of course.’ He reorganised his thoughts. ‘Friends, we shouldn’t get disheartened and must go ahead as planned.’ He observed their reactions. What he got in return was a stare from each one of them. ‘Very soon,’ added Balraj, showing a reassuring hand, ‘I will have a meeting with Surendra Pal’s son, Jaskirat Singh. By law, Pal’s shareholding in the Mayford Ritz Hotel will go to him, his nominee.’
‘Along with that will go the voting rights too,’ said Patel.
‘So?’
‘Will he approve your buyout offer, Mr Balraj, is the most important question of the day,’ said Sarraf.
‘Someone’s got hopes,’ taunted Virani.
‘His vote has already been bought by me. Didn’t I pay Pal in Goa?’ Balraj gnashed his teeth seeing Virani laugh audaciously, but continued, ‘If Jaskirat decides not to vote in my favour, he will have to return the amount I paid his father.’
‘What are the odds he will return that money? There is no record of the deal. You paid cash to Pal. Didn’t you?’ said Patel.
‘You don’t bother. I can get my money back if I have to.’
‘Isn’t it a blessing in disguise that you haven’t paid us a penny so far?’ commented Virani.
Balraj sensed a problem. ‘Why a blessing?’
‘The time wheel has moved on,’ said Virani.
Sarraf washed his hands off. ‘Frankly, Mr Balraj, I am backing out of this chase.’
The other two men spoke:
‘Me too.’
‘Same here.’
Balraj felt blood shooting up his legs. ‘What happened, men? Hoping to extort more money out of me?’ he cried.
‘It’s not about money,’ said Patel. ‘We are worried about our lives here. We have our families, for God’s sake.’
‘Don’t you realise?’ said Sarraf. ‘Shigeru has learnt about us and our deal. Who do you think killed Surendra Pal?’
‘Why didn’t he kill all of you if he’s the one behind it?’ questioned Balraj.
‘Probably because Pal was the one leading the pack,’ said Patel. ‘Most likely, it was Jaskirat who told people about our game in his circles.’
‘The loud mouth had his father killed,’ said Virani.
‘Why did he have to go around singing about it?’ asked Balraj.
Balraj was unaware that Surendra Pal did not have a like-minded son. Jaskirat had hostile opinions about many decisions his father took. There were rumours, which had somehow failed to reach Balraj, that Jaskirat was never in favour of the builder’s takeover bid. On the contrary, he admired Shigeru Yamazaki and his will to fight back.
‘Jaskirat bad-mouthed his own father,’ said Sarraf. ‘Shigeru found out. He has his spooks everywhere.’
‘Whatever,’ said Patel. ‘It’s a warning to all of us.’
‘I am going to meet Jaskirat and speak to him,’ said Balraj defiantly. ‘I’ll take him into my confidence so that he doesn’t bad-mouth the three of you now. Anyone coming along?’ He gauged the expressions on their faces.
After enough wandering, Balraj could see his vehicle chugging back to the road when Rustom Patel said, ‘All right. You handle him on your own and inform us when you get his approval.’
30
Leena Goswami learnt one day that Balraj had an out-of-office meeting in the evening. No one, including his secretary, had any clue about who he was to meet and where. She wanted to find out.
At eight o’ clock that evening, after handing Balraj a report on the trends in the hotel industry in India—Balraj Infrastructure was coming up with a hotel in Jaipur—Leena left for the day. She drove out of the basement of Balraj Tower, steered to the opposite side of Barakhamba Road, and stopped before a bus stop.
Minutes later, Balraj’s ebony Jaguar XJ wheeled out of the gate. Leena started her car—an old Maruti Swift, which she had driven to the office that day for her task—took a U-turn, and followed her boss.
Half an hour later, once they crossed Dhaula Kuan, she knew they were going to Gurgaon. Driving behind, she maintained a distance so as not to make Balraj’s driver suspicious. A little before nine, they were at a dark stretch of the Golf Course Extension Road in Gurgaon. To play safe, Leena switched her headlights off.
She could see the tail lights of the saloon go bright as it stopped outside a construction site. It was a premium home project of Balraj Infrastructure. There were at least fifty different projects of various builders coming up in the area, which was marked by unfinished buildings with scaffoldings around them. The workers and labourers at the sites used heavy machinery and equipment that howled and screeched, filling the silence around the area.
Balraj’s site too was under construction but looked ghostly. There was not a single worker or labourer or even guard. He was in a legal dispute with the Ministry of Environment and Forest. The project was on a court stay order owing to certain clearance irregularities on the part of his company.
Leena steered down the road to her left and accelerated over the wild grass until she came across a big neem tree and parked under it. She grabbed her duffle bag from the backseat, took out her clothes, and changed into black jeans, a black T-shirt, and dark blue sneakers.
She headed towards Balraj’s construction site. What’s going on here? she wondered, walking on the thick grass.
Balraj was inside the site and his driver had driven away. Leena had barely walked a few yards when she heard the sound of a vehicle coming from behind. She crouched as the road lit up ahead of the approaching vehicle. It braked outside the site. In the faint light of a distant street lamp, Leena could see a short and round figure in dark attire alighting from the vehicle and walking into the site. The vehicle then steered ahead and vanished into the dark.
Leena reached the boundary wall and crept into an unmanned security booth. In the dim light, she saw the figure in dark clothes going to a building at one end of the site.
Inside a well-furnished room in that building, Balraj waited for his guest. His site manager had made all the necessary arrangements for the meeting. The room had an illegal supply of electricity from a street pole nearby, an attached washroom, designer furniture, and a well-stocked refrigerator.
The doorbell rang and Balraj got up to welcome his guest. ‘Please, come in.’ He opened the door and ushered Niranjan Fotedar in.
31
Fotedar and Balraj were meeting in private for the first time. In the past, they had only briefly interacted with each other a few times in social gatherings. Tonight, they would form a special association.
‘I fail to understand, Mr Fotedar, why you insisted on such privacy.’ Balraj went to the refrigerator to fetch a few beer cans. ‘Tell me, what has brought you to me?’
Leena scurried into the building. If outside the seventeen-floor building it was dark, then inside it was blindness. She stood motionless for a few seconds for her eyes to acclimate to the darkness, but failed. She put her phone screen on and saw stairs in front. As she moved towards them, the sand grains on the rough floor cracked under her sneakers.
Leena reached a passage on the first floor and switched her phone light off. Not sure where her target would be, she dragged her feet through a door frame on her left and found herself standing in an airy room, which had a wide window in the wall opposite her. There was a spread of dim light outside. Slowly, she shifted her feet forward and tripped over a cement sack in the way. Managing to reach the window, she peeped out. The source of light was a bright room in the adjacent apartment on the same floor of the building. Its windows were shut and had frosted glasses. They are there.
Leena made her way out of the room, back to the passage, and tiptoed to the apartment. She stood before its closed door and could see a thin line of light in the space under it. She moved ahead, taking the support of the unplastered wall and stopped as her hand went into the hollowness of another door frame.
Lee
na stepped in and heard voices coming from the parallel room. She put her phone screen on again and performed a speedy search. There was a heap of cement near a wall, coils of thick insulated wire stacked in a corner, a muddy reservoir containing a mixture of mortar and lime at the centre of the room, and big rectangular marble slabs inclined against a wall. Right in front was an exit for a balcony common to the two rooms. Leena went to the balcony. There was an unpolished wooden door, half open, to the room in which the two men were sitting. Leena sneaked into what was like an alcove and peeped inside. She could hear their voices but could not see them.
‘So, Balraj, you silence someone for me and in return I get you Jaskirat Singh’s vote,’ said Fotedar.
‘But how the hell did you know I’ve been sweating it out for his vote?’
‘Nothing is hidden from me,’ said Fotedar and drank from his Tuborg can. ‘Haven’t you scheduled a meeting with Jaskirat? Trust me, he won’t agree to approve your buyout this way. I know him too well.’
Balraj was able to hide his frustration. ‘Never mind, but who gave you the crazy idea I’d help you in your dirty job?’
‘Balraj, I have been in Delhi for the past twelve years and I know who does what,’ said the parliamentarian.
‘How can you help me with Jaskirat?’
Fotedar drank some more beer. ‘K&B India Limited, the manufacturer and marketer of personal care products, is one of the largest buyers of airtime on Jaskirat’s Northern Television Network.’
‘Okay?’
‘One of the major promoters of K&B is my brother-in-law.’
‘And …?’ Balraj leaned forward.
‘The deal with Jaskirat would be that he better vote in your favour or his television network will lose the annual business of more than ninety crore rupees from K&B.’ Fotedar’s eyebrows danced and his grey-haired head bobbed pompously.
‘Shit, I always knew I was born to win!’ Balraj kissed all the rings on his fingers. Then on second thought, he asked, ‘What if, even after the threat, Jaskirat refuses to vote in my favour, and the marketing head, or the CEO, or any other top executive at K&B disagrees with your brother-in-law to withdraw the ads from Northern Television?’
‘Good question,’ said Fotedar fiddling with the clasp of his silver bracelet. ‘First of all, the possibility of Jaskirat not voting in your favour will not arise. In all likelihood, he would lose his pants to retain the K&B business. If the possibility does arise, there is still no reason to fret, as the likes of marketing heads and CEOs don’t have much of a say against their promoters’ wish, no matter how absurd the wish is. So K&B will withdraw all its ads with immediate effect.’
The mean grin did not leave Balraj’s face.
‘You game?’
‘I’ll be damned if I’m not!’ Balraj guffawed. Fervently, he apprised the politician of the nature of his deals with the four directors on the Mayford board.
Fotedar listened intently and said, ‘Along with them, you will have to pay Keshav Kaul as well.’
‘Who Keshav Kaul?’
‘My brother-in-law, one of the promoters of K&B.’
‘How much?’
‘You know your job.’
Balraj realised he committed a mistake opening his mouth about the payouts. He threw himself back into the sofa. When he began his crusade to acquire Mayford, he never knew it would be such a long and costly battle. What a fight it has been, he thought, and took a swig of his beer. ‘Whom do you want eliminated?’
‘A young promoter of a start-up that markets beverages.’ Fotedar then talked about Gul Manwani, his donations to the Home earlier, and the purchase of sales and marketing rights by the start-up. ‘From now on, all decisions concerning donations to my Home will be taken by this start-up. Its promoters are carrying out physical verification at the Home at present. They will donate only if they are satisfied with how I have utilised Manwani’s donations so far. They are new in business and want to play heroes … at my expense. They think I am running a racket there.’
‘Are you?’ Balraj raised a brow.
Hiding in the alcove, Leena did not miss a single word of their conversation.
‘Of course not. The Home is like a temple, but these men are instigating the inmates against me. That can harm my career. So, if the main guy goes, the other two will disappear too. The operations will then go back into the hands of Manwani, with whom I’ve had a gainful association in the past.’
‘What’s this troublemaker’s name?’ asked Balraj, scratching the back of his long earlobe pierced with a kite-shaped diamond stud.
‘Karan Jaani.’
‘And what’s the name of the start-up?’
‘Freedom.’
Leena heard that. ‘Oh my god! He’s Vidu’s partner,’ she whispered to herself.
‘Freedom?’ Balraj had a sharp memory. He recalled the brief meeting he had with its three directors at his office. One of them was the boyfriend of his wife’s friend from Boston. Balraj lit a Havana cigar. ‘When do you want him dead?’
‘As early as possible. Maybe tomorrow? Tonight?’
‘No, you get me Jaskirat’s approval first. Then I’ll do your job.’
‘No problem. Tomorrow itself, I’ll get in touch with him and get you what you want.’ Fotedar finished his beer in one gulp and hurled the can out through the alcove where Leena was hiding. As the can clanked on the balcony grill, she let out a frightful scream.
‘What was that?’ Balraj panicked, flicking his eyes to the balcony.
‘Shriek of a woman. Let’s go get her.’ Fotedar sprang up and took out a steel gun from somewhere inside his black kurta.
Leena ran out into the passage and dashed towards the stairs. The two men went to the balcony and followed the sound of her footsteps. Balraj had a flashlight in his hand. He threw its wide beam around before they ran to the stairs.
Leena reached the ground floor, picked up a sharp stone, and threw it in the direction she did not intend to go in. The stone landed on a marble fountainhead.
‘She’s somewhere near the fountain,’ whispered Balraj hearing the sound, switching the flashlight off. Slowly, they walked to the park between the buildings as Leena sneaked out in the opposite direction and ran to the main gate of the site.
‘Put the damn flashlight on!’ said Fotedar.
Balraj switched it on again. ‘Where did she go so fast?’
‘Let’s find her vehicle,’ suggested the parliamentarian. They ran to the main gate, stumbling over stones and bricks in their way.
‘There’s no … vehicle here,’ said Balraj, panting heavily, as they reached the gate.
‘Damn! She’s escaped!’ said Fotedar, grinding his teeth and sweating profusely. He still held his gun, ready to shoot. ‘Who do you think she could be?’
‘No idea. Maybe a reporter.’ Balraj put his phone screen on.
‘Who’re you calling?’
‘My mommy,’ he retorted. ‘It’s my driver I’m calling. You also call yours. Don’t you wanna go back now? Or you waiting for a press conference on our deal?’
With her car’s headlights off, Leena drove back at a high speed. Her apartment was not far away. She phoned Sameera on the way, but the call went unanswered.
It was one o’ clock when she reached home. She tried Sameera’s number again. No luck. Then, for the first time after the breakup, she dialled Vidu’s number. A female voice informed the number did not exist.
Leena did not want to hold back what she learnt that night. Using her phone, she logged onto Google. In the search box, she typed ‘delhi news channel’, the best news channel in her opinion, and tapped on the first search result. That took her to the channel’s official site, from where she got its contact number. Using a web-based service, she called the channel—she did not want to reveal her identity—and through a voice menu, was connected to a female voice.
‘Delhi News Channel.’
‘Could you please connect me to a crime reporter?’
&nb
sp; ‘Who’s calling?’
‘An informer.’
The call was transferred and after a few seconds, Leena heard another female voice. ‘Nazia Akhtar.’
‘Hello, I want to—.’
‘Who’s this?’
‘I can’t tell you my name but it’s something very important that I want to share.’
‘Who—’
‘I, just now, heard a conversation between two very dangerous and powerful men who want to kill the promoter of a start-up …' Leena stopped as she felt a cold and hard object touch her spine.
‘Hello,’ came the reporter’s voice into her phone.
Leena could not utter a word. A dark hand gently took her phone away, switched it off, and slid it into a pocket. Bravely, she turned round—to a man who had dead eyes. Without a warning, he pulled the trigger. The bullet travelled through her abdomen and produced a splash of blood behind her. She fell to the floor, staring at the ceiling.
Leena Goswami died instantly.
PART THREE
32
After attending Leena’s condolence meeting, they assembled
at Sameera Bali’s house.
Karan sat beside Sameera with his arm round her shoulders. There were several questions in her mind and one of them was: why did Leena have to call her so late that night?
‘What’re you thinking?’
‘Nothing, Karan,’ she said. Her almond eyes were red and swollen. She was not able to get over the thought that her friend needed her when she was dying, but she was of no help. Sameera always kept her phone on silent mode at night.
‘May she rest in peace,’ said Ira, sitting across from them.
‘Yeah, she does need a good rest after an eventful life,’ said Vidu bitterly.
Rishi did not like the comment. He felt sorry for Sameera but not in the least for Vidu.
‘Who could have killed her?’ Ira looked at everyone.
‘Oh, come on. Don’t we know? Wasn’t she getting too comfortable with Jaggi Balraj?’ said Vidu.