The heat in my throat blocked any sound from escaping. I screamed noiseless screams. Objects, people became blurred. The outlines of the door, chairs, table softened, merging into the background. Blobs of bright colours appeared and disappeared. Strange shapes formed and dissolved. Oh God, I’m hallucinating. Truly, truly going insane.
Loud noises, words I didn’t understand. Or were they even words? Creatures, terrifying gigantic ape-like forms loomed over me.
Ice, planet sized chunks of it, is what I desperately yearned for. Although, I would probably turn them into steam, in a matter of seconds. This heat was killing my senses. I couldn’t see, I couldn’t hear. I felt as if I was levitating. Hot air rises to the top, I recalled. I blanked out.
And slowly entered a new world. The floor turned soft, outlines of connected loops appeared. Coughing – although not in continuous spells and sounding much less gruff. I had completely entered dream-world.
“Kavya, Kavya. Can you hear me?” someone was saying. I knew the voice. A safe voice. What a lovely world I had stepped into.
“Kavya, focus. Can you see me?”
I forced myself to partially lift my eyelids, to observe. “Sarla?” I got a huge, tight hug. It felt real. So, so real.
I opened my eyes wider. “You’re safe. All of you are safe.”
I was seated on the grass just outside our ominous prison – the Lab. Raima was next to me, holding a water soaked napkin against her eyes. Sid was being made to drink a bottle of water. Venky sir alternated between casting worried looks at us and barking orders to the policemen, telling them what chemicals to release to stop the gas.
“Who did this to you? I suspect you have it figured out,” asked Sarla, urgency in her tone. An important looking, solid, elephant-like policeman was standing next to her – the police inspector, I guessed.
I looked around us. “Our murderer’s escaped.” Only after I said that did the implication dawn on me. We would be targets again. And no killer who makes such an elaborate plan will miss the second time.
Chapter Twenty
The devil promises to resurrect
“Unlikely,” said Sarla. “As soon as Venky and I realized someone was trying to kill you, I asked Inspector Rao to block all exits from ISIC and bring everyone here.”
The Inspector boomed, “I’ve ordered my men to arrest everyone, assuming they are all culprits.” I almost felt sorry for the ‘culprits.’ Inspector Rao didn’t seem terribly polite.
“Dr. Venkataraman, what is going on? This chap nearly handcuffed me and dragged me here. Why am I being treated like this?” Lakshmi ma’am screamed, her face bright red.
“Because you or someone here attempted to murder my son and his friends,” snapped Venky sir.
“If you say so, but I…” Lakshmi ma’am clammed up. A scowl from Inspector Rao was sufficient.
“Aruna ma’am tried to kill us,” I blurted out.
“What?” shrieked Aruna ma’am. “The kid has gone mad. Stark, raving mad. The effect of whatever gas she’s been exposed to.” Sarla and Venky sir were in no mood to indulge anyone, after what had happened to us. Inspector Rao pointedly ignored her.
“You were the one who sent us to the Lab, or have you forgotten?” asked Anna caustically. My mind was racing through a maze, trying to find a path that made sense. I had figured out part of the way – or so I thought – but I needed to make sense of it all.
“I told you because someone mentioned it to me. There was general talk to that effect, so when I saw you, I informed you.”
“Really? Who else was part of the general talk, as you claim?” asked Sarla evenly.
“Oh, I don’t remember. Dr. Reddy and Dr. Patel. Dr. Lakshmi, too, for sure. Maybe even NL. Besides, you’ve overlooked the most important element - I don’t have access to the Lab. The Lab can only be opened by one of the three PharmaGlobal researchers. I totally fail to understand what you are trying to pin on to me.”
“The theft of a vaccine and our attempted murder.” Epic, Kavya. Simply epic. Now you’ve thrown yourself into a shark tank without a shark gun.
Aruna ma’am guffawed. “Venky, do send this girl for immediate medical treatment. You,” Aruna ma’am pointed an accusatory forefinger at me. “Haven’t heard a word of what I said. I do not have access to the Lab, which means, you silly girl, I don’t have a key to open the Lab. Now, Venky, can we please call in some real police, instead of these clowns you’ve got.”
The last part was a complete mistake. Till then, Inspector Rao had begun to grudgingly agree with Aruna ma’am.
Silly girl? Ha! My turn to smash the ball through the basket - slam dunk time. “Actually, you do have a key to the Lab. You stole it from Reddy sir and, I don’t know how, but you managed to make a copy of it. You returned his key when we were all in Reddy sir’s room, after he discovered that the jewels had disappeared.”
“Plain absurd,” declared Aruna ma’am vehemently.
Venky sir stepped in. “The key is an electronic swipe card. It would have been a breeze for you, Aruna, to take a blank swipe card and re-program it to resemble the access card to the Lab.”
“So too for NL. Or you, for that matter. Or,” Aruna ma’am paused and glared at the five of us. “For all I know, one of these kids is a young computer genius. Well, Sid, are any of your friends genius hackers?”
I was bubbling to retort. “None of them, though, had shreds of burnt canvas in their dustbins.”
“Burnt canvas? Explain.” Inspector Rao gave me a penetrating stare.
I explained Aruna ma’am’s plan. Or, at least, what I thought it had been. She realized she would have to break the lock to enter Reddy sir’s room. The moment he noticed that, he would check for the Lab access card. So she devised a devious scheme. She broke the lock and stole not just the access card but also the prominent cheap painting above the study table. Aruna ma’am had hoped that after the initial ruckus of the stolen painting, no one would pay much attention. And the police wouldn’t be called in. Meanwhile, she would use the chaos in the room to return Reddy sir’s access card.
Absolute silence for a few minutes.
“Ridiculous,” shouted Aruna ma’am. “I’m being set up. If I did steal the vaccine, as you claim I have, where is it?”
Damn! That was the part I had no answer to. We hadn’t searched her room. We had been in her home but not really searched that either. She would, most likely, have hid the vaccine in her office. These prof. types lived there.
“The fridge,” said Raima suddenly. “The vaccine needs to be in cold storage – right, Venky sir?”
Venky sir nodded.
“Well, Aruna ma’am’s freezer was locked.”
I remembered, when we were in Aruna ma’am’s house, Raima couldn’t add a bucket-load of ice to her glass of water like she normally does.
“Preposterous. I have never heard such nonsense. Venky, either you put a stop to this or the ISIC Board will hear of this,” roared Aruna ma’am.
But I had already noticed Inspector Rao nodding at one of his constables, who jogged towards Aruna ma’am’s house. The next few minutes stretched into eternity. Absolute silence. No movement. My heart pounded faster than the speed of light. I had made a few guesses and now Raima had topped them. I prayed like crazy that we hadn’t made fools of ourselves.
Inspector Rao’s phone rang to a popular Bollywood tune.
“Yes,” he barked into the phone. “Hmm, okay.” He hung up, staring at us with piercing eyes. My heart sunk. We - no, I – had made a galaxy-sized gross error. Now Venky sir would get into serious trouble because of me. “You’re smart kids,” was all he said.
The constable had forced open the freezer. A mini thermos-like container lay inside. The vaccine.
Aruna ma’am’s face puffed up, eyes narrowed and lips curled. “If only you had died in the Lab. I knew instantly, the moment you mentioned being in my kitchen and having seen the garbage bin, that I was treading on thin ice. You kids are obviously s
mart but how smart, I wasn’t sure. I realised you might just make the connection some time or the other, so I decided to get rid of you.”
The motive turned out to be shocking. Aruna ma’am was being bribed with a humungous amount of money. By PharmaGlobal!
“What?” “Why?” Surprise and disbelief all around.
The owner of PharmaGlobal realised that his researchers were close to finding the cure. If they succeeded, he would have to pay the researchers a substantial bonus. The researchers were to receive a share of the profits made by the company. To avoid that, the promoter organized a theft. A theft which pointed to one of the researchers as the culprit. This would give the owner the excuse to shut down the Lab. The research was already nearing its end – PharmaGlobal figured any reasonably decent researcher would be able to complete it. The two-day workshop was part of the plan – it would give Aruna ma’am more than sufficient time to steal the vaccine.
“The banks were right when they thought not enough security was being assigned,” exclaimed Sarla. “But tell me, Kavya, how did you know?”
“The break-in of the cupboard above the work counter: the assumption was that this was a sloppy attempt by a PharmaGlobal researcher to implicate an outsider. After all, an insider would know that the cupboard below the work counter was unlocked. But, what if, the break-in was because the culprit didn’t know about the lower cupboard?
“Then, there was the Nizam’s jewel case. When we examined it, I realized the jewels couldn’t magically slip from the glass part into the wooden storage compartment. Someone must have knocked the jewel case. On the other hand, I couldn’t get over the painting theft. Why would anyone risk entering Reddy sir’s room to steal only a cheap painting? Doesn’t make sense. Unless…unless, it was a distraction. To steal something else.”
My guess was that Aruna ma’am inadvertently hit the jewel case while ripping off the painting.
“If it hadn’t been for these abominable, meddlesome snoops, I would have been unbelievably rich by now,” muttered Aruna ma’am. She glowered at us, her eyes blazing. “When I get out of prison, my sole mission will be to find you, wherever you try hiding. And then…” her lips thinned and curled as she deliberately left the sentence incomplete.
I could literally hear Raima and Sid say, “Ah, our poor conspiracy theorist,” as their eyes twinkled at Sunil Mahapatra’s confession.
His uncle – the legal head of PharmaGlobal – had pulled strings to ensure Sunil sir was part of the research team. “Although I am good, it is difficult to break into the clique of top-notch researchers. They refuse to accept anyone new.” This project was like being President of India – meteorically prestigious!
Sunil sir didn’t want to appear ignorant in front of the others, so he downloaded a bunch of reference books onto his Kindle. “This way I wouldn’t have to ask one of the researchers if I wasn’t sure of something.”
Sunil sir had been speaking with his uncle when we overheard him. “It was evident, at the time, that one of the researchers was the culprit. And it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that I was the obvious suspect – the one who didn’t quite fit in. The rest of the researchers made no pretense of how much they despised me.” Sunil sir and his uncle were trying to identify the real thief.
“Hey guys, so am I also part of the Crime Busters’ League now?” asked Sid, as we were saying goodbye, two days later.
Venky uncle (he insisted we address him as ‘uncle’ now and not ‘sir’ any longer) and Ravi uncle - Varun’s father - were busy doling out advice to Anna about her job and how she must do a double Masters’ degree. Poor thing – adults seem to love telling her what to do. Sarla had left the previous day.
“Totally,” Varun and I said together.
“Gosh, you really do have a death wish, Sid,” said Raima. “Wasn’t this one bad enough?”
Sid received his zillionth punch from Raima, when he said, “If I survived you, I’ll survive death.”
“I have a feeling our next adventure will be even more thrilling,” I said, my eyes sparkling.
About the Author
Ketaki Karnik is the author of The Case of the Chinese Mastermind, the first adventure of the Crime Busters’ League.
Armed with a MBA, Ketaki roller-coastered through management consultancies and corporates. Through all this, her only lifeline to sanity has been concocting the next Crime Busters’ mystery. In addition to being a mystery fiction junkie, Ketaki is a movie buff who loves the guitar, chocolates and anything sci-fi.
Join Ketaki’s gang of mystery addicts to share your real (or imagined) sinister plots on the Crime Busters’ League facebook page.
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