The Case of the Vicious Vampires

by Ketaki Karnik

  The brilliance of the plan was that Venky sir had a watertight alibi in the form of a meeting and the man would carry out the theft without coming in contact with him. In case the police tapped his phone, there would be no call from the man for two months, by which time the police would probably give up trying to solve the crime. Besides, by then, the vaccine would be out in the market via some other company and PharmaGlobal, too, would lose interest in searching for the thief.

  “So how were you going to open the safe without the combination?” asked Unseen.

  “That was sheer genius on the part of Dr. Venkataraman,” said Sarla. I suspect more to annoy Unseen than anything else. I remember Sarla telling me that culprits make mistakes when they let emotions get in the way.

  The man was to buy two copies of the same book and dog-ear the page numbers that he used in the combination. He would sneak the books into NL sir and Aruna ma’am’s rooms.

  “I picked a book which they were certain to own, so seeing a copy wouldn’t bother them. They’re both so caught up in their work that it wouldn’t strike them that this was a second copy. The book: A Brief History of Time.” Venky sir took a deep breath.

  Sarla gave him a gentle smile. “Don’t worry, I’ll continue. Remember the title of the book – A Brief History of Time. Not History of Time; that’s another book. Study the book thoroughly to find the dog-eared page. Kavya, I know this is all very vague and won’t make sense at first, but I’m sure you’ll figure it out. Think like you normally do and you’ll be able to put it together. I’m sure you will eventually understand what I’m saying. The book could be in their offices or homes. And one more thing: our captors don’t want you to come in contact with either NL or Aruna, so you’ll have to visit their offices and homes when they’re not around.”

  Venky sir continued. “Sid, take your time. Don’t blunder in or rush in like…like Macbeth in the first scene. We don’t want to alert NL or Aruna.”

  Sarla then informed us that their kidnappers had installed cell phone jamming devices and blocked the Wi-Fi. They would unblock it only when calling us. Finally, we were to leave our cell phones in a bag outside the dining hall and use the one that had been sent to us.

  “Our captors want to know your plan. What will you do first?” Unseen prodded Sarla. “Oh, by the way, you are being watched and will continue to be watched all through, so don’t try anything funny.”

  I froze. Too much was happening. I stopped thinking, aware only vaguely of Raima’s nails biting into my arms.

  “Well? Guys, what is your plan?” asked Sarla softly, her eyes pleading.

  “Give us five minutes to think and call us back.” I don’t know how I managed to bring out the words. My throat was parched and my fingers trembled as I made triple-sure, after Varun and Raima, that the phone was turned off.

  Silence, as the call sank in.

  “We have only five minutes before that horrible man calls us again,” said Raima finally.

  “Obviously, Appa and Sarla haven’t stolen the vaccine. What will the kidnappers do to them once they realize we don’t have it?” Sid’s face was drawn, creases all over. “I know the combination of the safe and I’m certain it hasn’t been changed – it’s my date of birth. In fact, I opened the safe yesterday, on my way out of the Faculty Block, because I remembered Appa had asked me to get his cheque book from it. So we don’t have to go through the whole act of searching for the books.”

  “Sarla and Venky sir made up that story to buy time, so we have to play along,” I said. “They’re giving us opportunities to bump into or, at least, warn NL sir and Aruna ma’am, so that we can ask for their help.”

  “Except, we can’t, can we? Even if we ignore the kidnappers’ warning, we know NL uncle and Aruna aunty are up to something foul. NL uncle is so deeply buried in debt that he will merrily gang up with the Devil. And, as for Aruna aunty, we still don’t know exactly what she’s planning except that it will be evil.”

  Sarla had said trust is a rare commodity. The way she had said it stuck in my mind. I think she was trying to say don’t trust anyone, which means we couldn’t even go to the PharmaGlobal researchers for help.

  “I’m scared,” said Raima, stating the obvious. “I think Sarla meant it when she said that she believed the captors would harm us if we didn’t follow their instructions. Actually, I think they’ll harm us anyway.” Raima, as always, had put it perfectly.

  “So, what do we say when they call us now?” I asked, bringing us back to the immediate.

  We turned to Anna. Not that she knew any more than us. “Let’s stay with Sarla’s plan,” she said, more question than statement. None of us had a better idea.

  The room tensed with the ring of the phone.

  I suspect they called us back before the five minutes were up, but, then again, I had lost all track of time.

  “Well?” asked Unseen.

  “We’ll start with NL sir’s house. He’ll be in office so there should be no one at home,” said Varun, his words running into each other, in nervousness.

  “Okay, I’ll call in half an hour for an update. Don’t forget to drop your phones and never forget that someone is watching you all the time. Make sure you find the vaccine by evening if you want to see Dr. Venkataraman and Sarla again. And, if you want to live.”

  “What should we do?” asked Varun, putting on his shoes.

  A faint tweak, the snapping of a small branch. Was I imagining it? Then again, Unseen had said we were being watched. None of what he said seemed like empty threats. Sarla had warned us too. My senses were on super-alert. I put a finger to my lips and indicated to the others that we should leave. They were too dazed to argue. Even Varun quietly stood up and opened the door.

  Once outside, I whispered, “I think someone was watching us. Very closely. So careful what we say.” I thought of the spy movies I’d seen. “If I were Unseen, I’d bug our room.” NL sir’s house would probably be safe from bugs. The kidnappers wouldn’t have had enough time to install bugs in his house. “That’s where we can talk freely.”

  The colour drained from Raima’s cheeks.

  “Don’t worry Raima, we’ll get through this,” said Anna softly. But I could see her thinking – how?

  The dining hall was deserted. As instructed, Sid placed his phone in a plastic bag. Varun followed.

  Varun grasped Raima’s hand as she was about to reach for her pocket. Knowing we were being watched, and possibly heard, we had an almost soundless conversation.

  “They don’t know Raima has a phone. Or even Kavya. I keep playing with my phone, so they might have seen mine. And we should assume they know everything about Sid,” said Varun.

  “It’s obvious that someone who is working would have a phone, so I’m going to add mine,” said Anna. “I’m conflicted about Kavya and Raima. Let’s assume they’ve been watching you guys for longer than the last hour. Chances are, they’ve seen the two of them with a phone.”

  I thought about the call I made yesterday to Sarla’s office. Was anyone around? I hadn’t been paying attention, but there had been something spooky about us sitting in the middle of a lawn, surrounded by trees. Sid had called us actors on a stage. Prey in an arena was more accurate.

  “Appa and Sarla’s lives are in danger. Let’s not try anything funny,” said Sid shakily. Raima nodded and dropped her phone in the bag. I did the same. Sid left the plastic bag by the side of the dining hall and we hurried towards NL sir’s house. There was a lot we wanted to talk about without being overheard.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I am controlled by a deadly puppet-master

  NL sir’s house was a copy of Venky sir’s, but smaller: a narrower front lawn, shorter back lawn and even the main house itself was scaled down.

  “How do we get in?” asked Anna.

  “Easy. The layout is similar to my house,” said Sid.

  We went around the house and entered the back lawn through a small mesh wicket gate. “The malis go in
and out of the gardens, so no one locks their gates; they are only bolted,” explained Sid, thrusting his fingers through the patterned mesh to reach the bolt. We walked on a large stretch of well-kept lawn and watched as Sid ascended the open staircase to the servants’ room, on the first floor. The servants’ block, although next to the house, wasn’t joined to it; there was a tiny one foot gap.

  Sid climbed over the staircase banister and jumped onto a narrow parapet. “Sid, careful,” yelled Raima and Anna simultaneously. I drew in a sharp breath.

  “Chill, I’ve done this many times before. Appa gets mad when I do, but it’s fun,” he said with a smile and a wave. The narrow parapet he had jumped onto was the yawning atop the ground floor verandah of the main house. Sid walked along the parapet and stopped midway. He turned his back to us and pushed open a wide, net window. It opened easily. “Everyone keeps their staircase window open for fresh air. And being ISIC, no one bothers bolting their windows.”

  Sid climbed in. In less than a minute, he threw open the back door for us. “Enter,” he said with a low bow.

  “Gosh Sid, even at a time like this,” muttered Raima walking in.

  I hurriedly shut the door behind us.

  “So, obviously, there’s no book. What should we do?” asked Varun.

  “Let’s take a quick look in his library, in case he has a copy. If he does, we’ll have to hide it so that we can buy more time,” I said.

  “Good idea,” said Raima. “But what are we going to do with more time? It’s clear we can’t trust anyone.”

  “The only thing we can do is play along till we think of something,” said Anna.

  “But Anna, don’t forget, there is no vaccine at the end of this charade,” said Sid.

  “It’s like playing Halo with no bullets left,” added Varun.

  Dead end. Trapped. That’s how it felt. The cave opening had closed and there was no way to get out.

  “There’s only one way to go,” I said slowly. “Deeper in. We have to find the master brain if we want to end this.”

  “Sarla, the best detective in the world, tried. And failed. How are we going to find him by this evening?” asked Raima.

  “Sunil Mahapatra is a good name to start with,” said Varun.

  “We need to find the vaccine. That will give us leverage. As of now, we don’t know who is holding Sarla and Venky sir. And why? Because someone wants the vaccine - someone in addition to the actual burglar? Or is this an act for PharmaGlobal’s sake? Like Manish Bhasin did, to cast suspicion away from himself and implicate someone else?”

  “Kavya, normally I would have told you to stop mixing your mystery stories with real life,” said Sid. “But, in this case, I think you’re right. We don’t know the real motive of the kidnappers. And frankly that doesn’t matter. We need to find the vaccine first. Then we can negotiate.”

  “Is Sunil Mahapatra’s room worth another visit?” asked Anna.

  I thought back to the ultra-tidy room, everything in place. I tried to visualize it inch by inch. What had we missed? A locked drawer? A locked bag? Random disconnected images whizzed past, like watching four basketball games simultaneously, at light-speed fast-forward mode. One image stuck. “Reddy sir. We need to search his room.”

  Anna widened her eyes.

  “Remember his room. A complete mess. Everything thrown about, lying out in the open. Even Venky sir ticked him off for not locking up expensive items. Why then would he bother to lock up his small suitcase and store it in the cupboard? His other suitcase, the larger one, wasn’t locked.”

  “Kavya,” said Raima, eyeing me skeptically. “Your imagination is running totally wild. The suitcase is probably locked because it has money in it. Right now, though,” she sighed, “we have no other option. We have to find the vaccine, which means following every lead.”

  I knew, ordinarily, Raima and even Anna – who’s actually super cooler than she pretends – would have objected vehemently. Their consent petrified me. It was an indication of the humungous universe-sized danger we were in.

  “Let’s not forget we are being watched. One wrong move and the kidnappers could do anything to Appa and Sarla. Even kill them,” Sid shuddered.

  Varun put his arm round Sid’s shoulders. “We’re not going to let anything happen to Venky sir.”

  “The VIP guesthouse is on the opposite side of the campus, from both the Faculty Block where NL uncle and Aruna aunty’s offices are, and their homes. Your rooms are midway between the VIP guesthouse and the Faculty Block and houses,” explained Sid.

  “Don’t worry Sid,” said Raima, squeezing his arm. “We are going to search Reddy sir’s room only if we can do so without the kidnappers knowing.”

  Made sense, except how were we going to manage that? How could we explain our heading towards the VIP guesthouse? Then, there was the critical question of timing. How do we buy more time? We’d be done with Aruna ma’am’s house in 15 minutes, which we could drag for half an hour, at most. The Faculty Block would take us 10–15 more minutes, which we could pull for another 30–45 minutes max.

  Meanwhile, Anna suggested we take a quick look at NL sir’s library, in case the book was obviously placed there. Anna found the book within seconds of entering. She made Varun climb the step-ladder and hide the book behind the row on the top shelf.

  All the while, I ran through a zillion ways to sneak into the VIP guest house. I couldn’t come up with one which seemed even 1% sensible. And, we had to execute this plan within the next hour.

  “That horrible person is going to call soon,” Raima’s voice quivered. “What’s our plan?”

  I had no plan. Nor did any of the others.

  “We need to pray that miracles happen,” I said, launching into the looniest scheme ever, which even in baby books or silly action comedy movies, wouldn’t half count as a plan.

  We’d say we wanted to avoid eating dinner in the dining hall, with the others, in case someone asked Sid about Venky sir. Hopefully, Unseen would buy our we’re-kids-and-therefore-tongue-tied act. So, we’d get our dinner packed and decide that instead of eating in the room, we would eat outside, on the lawn. Step three: Sid would take us to his favourite place, which would happen to be between dense wooded trees and close to the VIP guest house. A place where it would be difficult for Unseen’s spy to keep watch on us. We’d sneak out of our dinner spot and race to the VIP guest house. At the speed of light. Like Superman, so that the spy wouldn’t notice our disappearance.

  “The last stretch to the VIP guest house is an open lawn,” pointed out Sid.

  “I remember. We’ll have to hope our luck holds and the Spy assumes we’re still having dinner.”

  “Reddy uncle eats early, so we’ll have to time it with his meal.” That was perfect. I didn’t want to be creeping around the campus, late at night, with kidnapper psychos on the loose.

  “We’re still left to figure out a way to stall the kidnappers for time,” said Anna.

  As if on cue, the phone rang.

  “Update,” ordered Unseen.

  Anna took a deep breath. “We didn’t find the book in the house. It must be in NL sir’s office.”

  “Next?”

  Sid crossed his fingers. “I just remembered today is the last Saturday of the month - the monthly call day. Which means both Aruna aunty and NL uncle will be in office till nine in the evening. We’ll have to search their office rooms after that.”

  A moment’s silence. Brilliantly done Sid, I thought. But would Unseen fall for it?

  “Monthly call? I haven’t heard of this before. Dr. Venkataraman?”

  “Umm…err,” Venky sir’s eyes were darting between the camera and Sarla.

  “Oh, good you remembered Sid,” cut in Sarla smoothly. “You don’t want to have Prof. Aruna or NL walk in while you’re searching their rooms. What possible explanation could you give for rummaging their rooms? Then they’ll ask for Dr. Venkataraman and you would have no answer.” Sarla gave a piercing stare. I could
almost hear her say, “Okay, I’m going with what you want but I hope to God you know what you’re doing.”

  I hoped so too!

  “This must be the monthly call you once mentioned, Dr. Venkataraman. The one with a foreign university,” continued Sarla, leading Venky sir along.

  No wonder she was a super sleuth!

  “Oh yes. Totally slipped my mind. We call it a ‘Track 2 Notes Exchange’ with MIT. Informally, in the interest of advancing science, they brief us on what they’re working on and their preliminary findings and we do the same. It’s extremely useful because you get different perspectives on tackling problems.”

  Silence, again. Unseen was obviously trying to figure out whether we were making this up.

  “Would you like to join the call? We are going to discuss relativistic quantum theory and singularities today.” I gulped. That was a huge risk Venky sir had taken.

  “No, I have better things to do. Search their rooms after the call. But search Aruna’s house now,” roared Unseen.

  We were still heaving sighs of relief as we entered Aruna ma’am’s house, in the same way as NL sir’s house. I prayed that my hunch about Reddy sir was right. Our lives depended on it.

  “Eek,” said Raima, crinkling her nose.

  Sid let out a laugh as we piled into the kitchen to see what had disgusted Raima so much. A hundred people seemed to have used the kitchen. Soiled vessels, plates, spoons, knives overflowed from the sink and were strewn all over the kitchen platform. Interspersed were bowls, plates and vessels of various sizes and shapes containing stale, green-tinged food.

  “Are you surprised that no maid lasts longer than a week with Aruna aunty? A few days back she asked Appa to check with our maid. She refused outright.”

  Raima asked around if anyone wanted a glass of water. I did. “I doubt she’s going to notice if two more glasses are added to the pile of to-be-washed vessels,” said Raima, extracting two glasses from the cupboard.