by Juggi Bhasin
Rahul met Kripal’s eye and a slight smile crossed his face. ‘You are good, Inspector, but not that good. All this is circumstantial evidence. There is no direct footage or proof that I killed her.’
Kripal leaned forward, his face suffused with fury.
‘Listen to me, you bahenchod corporate twig! I can crush you whenever I want! All I have to do is call a couple of pahelwans, muscled men from my village, my brothers, and they will tear this place down. They will destroy your Italian marble floor, take the doors off your cupboards and rip out your false ceiling. They will do whatever is necessary to find Shamona’s body, or her remains, in your flat. Even if you have disposed of her body, we will find some evidence that you murdered and buried her somewhere. Do you want me to call the wrecking squad, bahenchod, or will you drop the pretence and come to your senses?’
He stopped for a minute and then spoke again in a smooth voice. ‘I hate what you corporate motherfuckers have done to my Gurugram! Never mind that! I don’t care if you are a mass murderer! You pay the rate, you breathe the air in my Gurugram. It’s two lakhs for each murder. So you pay me eight lakhs, not annually but every month, for the rest of your life. Think of it as rental you are forced to pay. There will be no negotiation, bas!’
Kripal leaned back and crossed one foot over the other, glaring at Rahul.
Rahul smiled and offered his hand to Kripal. ‘You win, Inspector. You’ve caught me with my pants down. There will be no negotiation. I will comply with your demands. How do you want the money?’
Kripal shook his hand and got up. ‘It will be cash obviously, you twit.’
‘Deal,’ answered Rahul.
‘Like in a marriage, give me a roka now. I don’t like to go back empty-handed.’
‘Of course, Inspector. Follow me to the bedroom.’
‘Why the bedroom?’
‘You don’t expect me to keep my ill-gotten cash, as you put it, in the open, in the dining area?’
Kripal nodded and followed Rahul to the bedroom. He saw the mirrors and stepped back in fear. ‘Last time I saw these mirrors during the search, I found them ugly. There’s something sinister about them. Why don’t you get rid of them?’
‘I can’t do that, Inspector. I am surprised you haven’t figured it out, a man of your exceptional intelligence. It’s a two-way trick mirror, Inspector. I keep my ill-gotten cash behind it.’
Kripal laughed and hundreds of Kripals followed suit in the trick mirror. ‘Rahul, you are some motherfucker! The cash is behind it? Really, you are something else, you bahenchod!’
‘Oh! That I am, Inspector! Step forward a bit. You need to be paid. I will be doing just that, dear Inspector.’
CHAPTER 37
It never really cools down in Chennai. Maybe in December it does for a few days. But the senior management at Yummimages, including its Managing Director Rahul Abhyankar and Deputy Managing Director Suhel Bagga were not complaining as their trail-blazing, content-driven behemoth moved corporate headquarters from Gurugram to Chennai. The new headquarters were located in a six-storey upmarket building at Rutland Gate Road. It was late evening and Rahul was interviewing Revathi, a seasoned professional, for the post of chief content officer.
‘So, Revathi, that’s pretty much it for the interview. I have told you of your package. We would like you to join us as soon as possible. Anything you might want to ask me about the company?’
Revathi replied, ‘Thank you for the offer, Sir. I accept it with great enthusiasm. Do I want to ask anything more about the company? Well, not really. The rise of Yummimages is the stuff of corporate legends, really. Your reputation precedes you, Sir. It would be an honour to work with you. Would it be all right if I join in the first week next month? I have to go through some formalities in my previous company.’
Rahul got up and shook Revathi’s hand. ‘But, of course, Revathi. Take your time and welcome on board.’
Revathi smiled and walked out towards the door. She suddenly frowned and stood at the door.
‘A quick question, Sir. A thought struck me. Why did you shift the corporate office to Chennai? The whole world is running towards Gurugram.’
Rahul looked up and beamed at Revathi. ‘Good question, Revathi. The honest answer is that we were fed up of Gurugram. A lot of the top management here, including Suhel and I, are northerners; we are from what is called the Delhi–Gurugram belt. We were fed up of the culture that prevails in this belt. I think every second person there is a whacko. Either they fight on roads over some idiotic issues or beat up their wives or are at each other’s throats because of neighbourhood parking. I have never heard of such fights in Chennai or Bengaluru.’
Revathi smiled. ‘Well, maybe it happens here in some areas dominated by the northerners.’
Rahul laughed and said, ‘You prove my point. Well, good riddance to bad rubbish as they say. Glad to be here.’
‘So am I, Sir. Goodbye.’
After Revathi left, Rahul sounded Suhel on the phone in the next cabin.
‘Hey, buddy, think I will take the late evening flight to Delhi. The lease of the Gurugram flat has come up for renewal. I am thinking I will buy it out from the landlord.’
‘Good thinking, Rahul. Even though we have left the city, it’s not a bad idea to have a foothold there. Should I get someone to book the ticket?’
‘Don’t bother. Nancy is on the job. So, I will see you Monday. Hold the fort for me.’
‘Will do, and show my butt face to Gurugram.’
‘Ha ha. Will do!’
Rahul left the office and hurried to the airport to catch the late evening flight. He landed in Delhi late at night and caught a Zuber to drive him to his apartment. He went up the elevator and unlocked the door. It smelled musty, but he told himself that was to be expected after he had been away for such a long time. He quickly unpacked and stepped into the bathroom for a shower. He alternated between hot and cold and came out feeling refreshed. He ordered a pizza and opened the booze cabinet to fix himself a drink. He put on some lounge music, and naked, he climbed on to his bed and sipped his malt. He felt relaxed. He hummed an old tune and put his hands behind his head. They brushed against a concealed switch in the wall. There was a whirring of machinery. The mirrors in front of him moved back. A well-lit rotating platform came to rest not far from the foot of his bed. He sat up, stunned to see what lay in the well-lit glass cage. There were at least a dozen embalmed bodies on various platforms stretching all the way back. Three bodies in the front row caught his attention. They were those of Simone, Tanya and Kripal. They all had a similar shocked expression.
Horrified beyond anything he had ever experienced before, he got up and shakily walked to the glass cage. He pressed his face against the cage and saw the life-like expressions on the faces of the three embalmed victims. He spoke to himself.
‘God in heaven! Who the fuck are they? How, in the name of hell, were they trapped in this glass cage?’
Author’s Note
We live in a dangerous world where many of us utter a silent prayer before boarding an aircraft, walking into a train carriage or even taking a short ride in the metro. Fear is the recurring motif of our times. It stares us in the face and worms its way silently, day after day, into the evening news headlines without compassion and with complete, insolent authority.
And why not? After all, the world as we knew it has changed. We live in a world where fiction and reality are intertwined and what was once considered bizarre and unreal has become the new ‘normal.’
What is it that makes some characters tick and do something bizarre or completely improbable? This is the theme in my latest offering Fear Is the Key. The motivations of a disempowered terrorist resorting to violence can be understood but certainly not justified. The real challenge is to spot the sick mind in a sea of supposedly ‘normal’ faces and prevent him/her before he/she embarks on a cycle of death and destruction.
The idea of the book took shape during the long walks and intense
conversations I had with Dr Vandana Dimri, an eminent psychiatrist with the NHS in Hull, UK. Dr Dimri has years of experience in dealing with individuals driven to despair, madness and borderline violence. Thank you, Dr Dimri, for patiently explaining in a simple and lucid way the innermost workings of a human mind affected by mental disease and despair.
We might never really find the right and true answer to what really prompts a human being to carefully, methodically, and without feeling, plot and execute a fellow human being’s death. But it is important to understand the process even if the motivation and conclusion continue to baffle us. That is what I have attempted to do in Fear Is the Key. If this effort can touch even a single string in the vast composition of the human condition, then, as they say, it was worth the effort.
Acknowledgements
‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.’
In a Dickensian sense, the times we live in are probably the latter. Unlike in Dickens’ times, people today don’t suffer as much from want of food but from the demons raging in their minds, which keep striking with clockwork regularity. You can call these demons depression, psychosis, schizophrenia, obsessive compulsive disorders, but the striking fact is that they possess more and more minds each day—almost like a plague. My heart goes out to those suffering from mental health issues. In a small and insignificant way, this book acknowledges that their issues can no longer be brushed under the carpet. They have to occupy centre stage.
This is my fifth book with Penguin, which is now Penguin Random House. My journey with Penguin began with that one person who believed in me five years back, and I dare say, still believes in me. That person is executive editor Vaishali Mathur. Unlike the Dickensian line, it has always been the best of times with Vaishali when it came to discussing a story idea, developing the book and finally putting it on book shelves across the country. It has been ‘such a long journey’ as Rohinton Mistry would say and a wonderful one with Vaishali. Thank you, Vaishali, for your support and faith in me at all times.
A big thank you to Aslesha Kadian for painstakingly editing the book. I hope, Aslesha, you enjoyed the book as much as I did receiving the edited version from you. Kudos to Meena Rajasekaran for developing a book cover that you simply cannot ignore. Believe me when I say that a book sitting on the shelves draws people by the sheer magnetism of its cover. You simply cannot walk past the book without stopping to give it another look.
A big thank you to the sales team led by Vijesh for ensuring that the book is picked up by every thriller buff in the country. You guys are the best.
And finally, a homage to Alistair MacLean—my favourite author in school. I still remember that the library period at my school—St. Columba’s—was my favourite. I could not wait to get hold of the latest Commando comics, Biggles, The Hardy Boys, Desmond Bagley and, of course, an Alistair MacLean book. I hope, Mr MacLean, that I have done justice to the title Fear Is the Key, which is inspired by your book that has stayed with me all these years.
THE BEGINNING
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This collection published 2017
Copyright © Juggi Bhasin 2017
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Jacket images © Meena Rajasekaran
ISBN: 978-0-143-44000-0
This digital edition published in 2017.
e-ISBN: 978-9-387-62529-7
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.