The Case of the Vicious Vampires

by Ketaki Karnik

  Sid was still rubbing his arm as we bolted the terrace door. Four steps later he stopped abruptly and pointed down.

  Chapter Nine

  I turn burglar

  A lady was walking towards the room facing us – the only occupied room on the floor, apart from hers. Hair tied tightly in a bun, a pair of specs firmly perched on her nose and attached to a cord so that they didn’t get lost, plain blue kurta teamed with trousers and practical flat sandals – she’d make my high school principal look like an adorable teddy bear. She held a thermos in her right hand and with her left hand kept turning the lid clockwise.

  “NL,” she called out. “NL, are you there? Can you come out for a second?” A high-pitched irritating voice.

  “Yes, Aruna. Give me a minute,” came the response in a tired tone. I could literally see him roll his eyes, shake his head and let out a long breath before getting up from his chair.

  “Aruna Sengupta and N.L. Rao,” whispered Sid. “ISIC profs. Dying to murder each other.”

  Imagine a gigantic gorilla. The kind you see in movies on Africa, not the ones in the zoo. Now, take away his food and then start teasing him. That pretty much described the round faced, bald and bearded N.L. Rao.

  “What is it, Aruna?” Arms tightly folded across his chest, he made no pretense at hiding his annoyance.

  “Unscrew my thermos.” No please, no thank you, just an order. Aruna ma’am was really something.

  N.L. Rao stomped to the middle of the floor and grabbed the thermos from Aruna ma’am’s hands. She held on to the lower end of the flask to give NL sir support while he unscrewed the cap. As NL sir was about to take off the cap, Aruna ma’am reached for the lid.

  “Ouch,” cried NL sir.

  The thermos tilted and its contents spilled on his hands, shirt and trousers. NL sir tugged at his shirt to keep the hot liquid from burning his stomach.

  “Oops, there goes my coffee,” was all that Aruna ma’am could say. “NL, you’d better go wash up before the stain becomes permanent.”

  NL sir glared at her.

  But, I had noticed something else.

  Raima spoke up first. “Am I dreaming or did she spill the coffee on purpose?”

  “Thank God you said it, Raima. Otherwise I’d get accused of imagining things again. I noticed that too. And, did you see, while walking to his room, Aruna ma’am was actually tightening the cap,” I said.

  “What is she up to?” muttered Sid.

  NL sir turned around and headed towards the stairs. The men’s bathroom was on the ground floor, Sid informed us.

  As soon as NL sir was out of sight, Aruna ma’am set the thermos down on the floor and strode towards his room, extracting a small rectangular object from her trouser pocket and uncapping it.

  “A pen drive,” said Varun.

  We inched down a few more stairs, clutching the side rail to ensure our footsteps were firm and noiseless. From midway on the stairs, we could see clearly into NL sir’s room. Which also meant that if Aruna ma’am looked up, we were so dead.

  She inserted the pen drive into NL sir’s laptop and clicked the mouse a few times. Then she stopped moving the mouse around. Her head swung between the pen drive and the screen.

  “She must have found the file she wanted to steal and is now copying it into the pen drive,” said Varun.

  One more movement of the mouse and Aruna ma’am yanked out the pen drive.

  I tried to slink backwards, but the staircase was too narrow to hide us. All she needed to do was cast a half glance upwards and she’d see us.

  She swiftly walked out of NL sir’s room, picked up the thermos and rushed into her room.

  The four of us stared at each other, way too many questions bubbling within us.

  “What was that all about?” said Sid, narrowing his eyes.

  “Let’s find out what she stole,” I blurted. “NL sir is not back, so…”

  “Kavya, stop it.” Raima cut in. “You’re losing it again. Sid, where is Venky sir? He needs to know.”

  “Aruna ma’am will deny this and there’s no way we can prove anything, Raima. A fleeting peep into his laptop – that’s all. Quick in and out of his room. No risks, I swear.”

  “And what will we figure out by peeping into his laptop?” asked Raima.

  “Raima, I’m still alive, remember,” Varun fancied himself as a computer whiz. Gaming champ, first, obviously. Then, computer whiz.

  “That’s what I’m worried about,” muttered Raima. “And what if NL sir comes up?”

  Varun and I instinctively turned towards Sid. The guy, who, I swear, can chat up a lamp-post. Guess these writer types have a natural talent for being glib.

  Fortunately, Aruna ma’am work desk was right inside the room and not in the line of sight of her room door. All the same, we tiptoed through the common lounge area. Raima, Varun and I entered NL sir’s room, while Sid planted himself on the staircase leading down to the men’s washroom.

  NL sir’s room was perfect for playing hide and seek. Leaning towers of Pisa, of books and loose sheets, had been erected everywhere – on the floor, on his desk, on the shelves, above the cupboards, and even on the window sills. Lucky for him, my environment teacher (because of whom I could write lengthy essays and paint a zillion posters on ‘save trees, go green’ in my sleep) didn’t know he existed. We cautiously weaved our way towards the writing desk, scared of knocking over a mountain of papers.

  The screensaver was running on his laptop.

  “I hope NL sir hasn’t locked the laptop,” said Varun.

  “I don’t think so, since Aruna ma’am found what she needed in a few seconds,” I said, although I wasn’t entirely convinced by my response. NL sir had taken his time to step out of his room. And Aruna ma’am might well be a professor of hacking, along with Maths or whatever else she taught.

  I flicked the mouse. The laptop was unlocked.

  Raima gave us a stern now-what look. Varun slid into NL sir’s chair and clicked on ‘Recent Documents.’ “This will work only if Aruna ma’am opened the files before copying them.”

  “Hello NL uncle,” drawled a voice loud enough for us to hear. Unnaturally loud. Pinky aunty, Varun’s mother, whose booming voice would easily carry across the campus, speaking at that volume is fine. But, not Sid. He’s normal. And NL sir would know that. He was certain to become suspicious. “I came looking for you and I was about to leave because your room was empty.”

  “Hi Sid. Clumsy Aruna spilled an entire thermos of boiling hot coffee on me. Neared killed me. I’d gone to clean up.” I could almost see the repulsion on NL sir’s face. Not that he bothered to lower his volume so that Aruna ma’am wouldn’t hear him. The entire thermos? Nearly killed him? Big-time exaggerations.

  “We need to leave,” said Raima. Two files – ‘A1.doc’ and ‘A2.doc,’ popped up in the list of recent documents. A1? A2? What sort of file names are these? File names are supposed to tell you about the file. Like ‘Summer project _ historical buildings.’ The only reason you’d give such cryptic file names is if you were hiding something.

  “Appa says I should aim for Stanford. And that I should ask you for advice on how to get in. Uncle, you really rock. To get into Stanford with a full scholarship – wow!” said Sid, the word magician.

  Pride oozed in every syllable of NL sir’s reply. “Oh, it’s nothing, Sid. But, to get into Stanford, you need to start working from now.”

  “Varun, we need to leave. Now.”

  “One sec, Raima,” Varun opened ‘A1.doc.’ It was 28 pages long, a bhelpuri of strange Greek alphabets – formulae of some sort. It reminded me of Anna’s engineering textbooks.

  “Varun, there’s no way you can read this in a few seconds. NL sir is going to walk in through that door any minute. And we need to be out of his room before that. Close the file and let’s leave,” ordered Raima. Varun pursed his lips, reluctantly closed the file and stood up. “Wait, I have an idea.”

  “But NL uncle, I don’t
want to study a single science subject. Why should I say I want to learn the basics of Physics?” Sid raised his voice. A sign that we had to hurry up. He couldn’t hold off NL sir any longer.

  “Varun, now.” Raima tugged Varun’s arm.

  “Hang on,” Varun extracted a keychain from his pocket and unscrewed the metal fighter plane replica into half. One half was attached to a pen drive.

  Jupiter could have fitted into Raima’s open mouth. “Varun, no. That’s stealing!” Raima was right – we weren’t thieves like Aruna ma’am. But the curiousity was killing me and I have to admit I was thrilled that, for once, Varun’s zillion gizmos included something useful! Varun inserted the pen drive in the laptop to copy the files.

  “Think again about dropping science…” NL sir’s voice wafted in and out.

  “Of course uncle, we can continue this in your room,” Sid was practically yelling.

  Varun pulled out a pen drive. I glanced at the screen. “You left Word open, Varun,” I said anxiously. “Leave the computer as it was.”

  He closed the program. “Shit,” he clicked on Outlook by mistake.

  “Quick Varun, Kavya,” urged Raima. Varun moved the mouse to the cross icon on the top right of the screen. Something caught my eye. I put my hand on his shoulder. A mail.

  “3:30 pm today behind the students’ old canteen. Be there. No excuses.”

  No signature.

  NL sir’s response: “Ok.”

  “Kavya, now.” Raima’s voice rose in panic as she pulled me along. What was the e-mail about? I was certain it didn’t have anything to do with ISIC. What else could… I yanked Raima back, as she put one foot outside the door.

  Chapter Ten

  I find myself in a conclave of rogues

  NL sir stood on the stairs, facing the first floor. Facing us. Sid faced downstairs.

  “SMS Sid,” I whispered. Varun was already at it. I peeped. NL sir took a step up.

  Oh no!

  Sid blocked his way. And I mean, actually blocked – the way I did in basketball. But NL sir managed to climb up another stair.

  Would Sid see our message in time? “Message him again,” pressed Raima.

  “NL uncle, I’m going to sit for a minute. I strained my ankle practicing a taekwondo kick I learned from YouTube.” I couldn’t resist peering again. Clearly, Sid hadn’t read our message. He was merely trying to stall NL sir. I had to get his attention. But how? His back was to us.

  Sid clutched the handrail, walked down four steps and squatted on a stair, facing the first floor. NL sir was forced to turn around to face Sid. And importantly, for us – face down to the ground floor. Sid, you totally rock!

  “Appa was mad at me. Said I should attend proper classes if I wanted to learn taekwondo, not randomly try some moves from YouTube.”

  “Venky is absolutely right,” said NL sir. “You could injure yourself very badly.”

  I pointed to the room next door. Raima and Varun nodded. Taking long, steady strides, I silently entered the next room.

  “Is Stanford fun?”

  Raima and Varun followed. We crushed behind the door.

  “So you think I should apply?” the sound of footsteps closed in, as NL sir and Sid walked into the next room.

  “What did you find?” asked a breathless Sid. “It better be worth the torture of listening to NL uncle trying to convince me to do a Ph.D. in Physics. He thought he was being subtle, but seriously…if Appa is cool about it, I don’t know what his problem is.”

  “You were cramazing, Sid,” said Raima (her way of saying ‘crazily amazing’). Sid gave a wide smile as he flopped onto the bed.

  “First, Sarla’s bursting to tell us something. We asked her to wait till you came,” I said excitedly. Maybe, it was me who was bursting to hear about Sarla’s find, not the other way round!

  “It’s not a big deal, Kavya. Simply this. Dr. Reddy was implicated in a computer theft during his college days. Apparently, he hacked into a local bank and stole Rs. 5 crore. There was no concrete evidence against him, so he was let off. At that time, computer hacking was a new concept and the police didn’t have the expertise to catch such thefts. Immediately after, literally a month later,

  Dr. Reddy took up admission in a third-rate university in the US.”

  “As if he wanted to run away from India as soon as possible,” I said. Sarla nodded. “It was mid-year, so none of the better universities admitted him. Once that academic year ended, Dr. Reddy moved to Princeton.”

  “The rogue! He must have stolen the vaccine,” exclaimed Varun.

  “He’s definitely a baddie. But that doesn’t mean he stole it,” said Raima.

  “This fits in perfectly with the rumour Appa heard about how Reddy uncle acquired the Nizam’s jewels. Apparently, Reddy uncle conned a family friend into passing the jewels onto him. Once a villain, always a villain. People don’t change easily,” said Sid. “But tell me about the fruits of my labour. What did Aruna aunty steal?”

  We filled in Sid and Sarla as Varun booted his laptop (filled with games, and not school notes in case you wondered!).

  “Kavya, this is totally your kind of stuff. A jumble of formulae, some sort of science crap,” said Varun. I had long given up arguing with Varun that anything that’s not computer-y or gaming related but still is science, isn’t “crap!”

  Varun had opened ‘A1.doc.’ I dislodged Varun from the chair and started scrolling through the file. The others crowded around me. 4D, 6H, 3S, QD… “This is in code,” I said knowledgably, picking up a pen and notepad. “I’ll have to study the entire document thoroughly to crack it.” First, figure out the most frequently appearing character. That, very likely, would be an ‘e.’ Incredible, what you can learn from mystery books.

  “What happened?” asked Raima, as I put down the pen after jotting down that ‘4D’ appeared 13 times in the document. Code? What if these were not codes, instead they were…were what?

  The answer came to me in a flash. Abbreviations. Yes, of course, abbreviations. Repeated tugs on my grey cells, like a teacher rapping my knuckles, told me these were obvious abbreviations. Where had I seen these? Chemistry? No. Maths? No. Physics? No.

  “Cards,” I exclaimed. “Playing cards. Four of diamonds, six of hearts.” Sarla grabbed the mouse from my hand and scrolled through the document, looking over my head.

  “Whoa,” she let out a gust of breath.

  “What is it Sarla?” I spun around.

  Her face was red with excitement. “Unbelievable! Have you heard of Black Jack? It’s a popular card game played in casinos. Prof. Rao has developed a mathematical formula for winning at Black Jack. Do you know what that means?”

  “You can make planet-loads of money on Black Jack,” I said, my knowledge of Black Jack coming from (what else?!) a mystery book I had read. “No wonder Aruna ma’am was so desperate for these files.”

  “I always thought there was something slimy about both Aruna aunty and NL uncle, but today has been quite a revelation,” said Sid.

  ISIC – Institute for Scientists or Institute for Scoundrels?

  “Just goes to show that you can never really know someone well enough. Dangle a big enough, red enough carrot and no one can resist the temptation,” declared Lakshmi ma’am authoritatively, with a lop-sided unfriendly smile. Her condescending sideways glance at everyone around the lunch table would make Einstein feel like a duh in Physics.

  We were seated in the Professors’ dining room. The ultimate treat. Even Sid had combed his hair and changed out of his crumpled “I like this place. And willingly could waste my time in it” T-shirt (need you ask? It’s a Shakespeare quote from As You Like It).

  This was epic – the story to tell my classmates. Thanks to Sarla. She wanted to “get a better sense of the PharmaGlobal researchers.” Casually, without raising any alarms. Venky sir suggested she join the exclusive Professors’ lunch. In disguise, of course. Sarla wore a streaked hair-wig, darkened her skin and put on purple glitter ey
eliner (at which Raima shrieked in ecstasy and promptly pocketed the bottle). “Eyeing her eyes,” was Sid’s ridiculous remark as Raima salivated over Sarla’s collection of coloured contact lenses.

  “I could go as myself and the PharmaGlobal researchers wouldn’t recognise me. They are completely blind to everything around them.” We were part of Sarla’s disguise. “Sid, his friends and their cousin,” was how Venky sir introduced us. An invisibility cloak must have covered us as we entered the Professors’ dining room; no one bothered to even acknowledge us. As if, we were ghosts.

  “That is a rather negative view of people, Lakshmi.” Reddy sir slurped on his chicken and lemongrass soup, looking like one of those mouth-licking cartoon characters. Seriously, I’m not exaggerating. Don’t blame him, though. The soup was truly yummy.

  “Rubbish! You live in Disney World. One of the four of us stole the vaccine. No doubt about that. We were nearly done. An undergraduate student would have been able to complete the research from here onwards.” Lakshmi ma’am captured the butter plate, generously and meticulously buttered her warm bread roll, ignoring the fact that Sarla was waiting for it.

  “It could have been the guards,” responded Reddy sir.

  “No. It was us. You or Moshin. Or Sunil, hmm…now that’s a strong possibility. Theoretically, even me. Although, you would need to be organised to carry out the theft and that is the one thing I am absolutely not.” Her humourless laugh, sounded like a crow cawing. “The guards don’t have the IQ to comprehend what we were working on and how important or valuable it is.”

  Sarla’s eyebrows shot up, as did Venky sir’s. But both of them stayed silent.

  “So typical of you, Reddy. Always wanting to blame someone else,” Moshin sir may as well have thrust a dagger into Reddy sir.

  “Who do you think stole the vaccine, Lakshmi ma’am?” I didn’t ask that question. I swear. It sort of slipped out on its own. Deathly silence. What was I thinking? Or rather, why didn’t I think before babbling away? Everyone turned to stone. And stared at me.

  “That, young lady, is an inane question. I am not a police inspector.” I gulped. Laser beams decimated my eyes. “As I said before, it could be any of us. Actually, any of the other three. The reward is staggering. All of Reddy’s silly jewellery isn’t a patch on what we’re talking about. Two billion dollars, at the least.