‘Have you seen the feed? How did you get it? Are you sure?’
‘I haven’t seen the feed, lieutenant. However, I have a speeding ticket. The overspeeding was recorded by the speed guns an hour and a half before she was found at Boston Public Garden. And she was going at 120 miles an hour in a place where the speed limit is 80. I can’t imagine her driving so fast, lieutenant. Unless she was really stressed or worried, she would never do something like this.’
Shivinder walked in just as Aditya was finishing the last leg of his conversation with Windle.
‘Let me check and get back. I have the access records for the Academic Block. Let me call you back.’ He hung up.
Aditya saw the confused look on Shivinder’s face and told him about the ticket.
‘MIT? Why would she go there that early in the morning?’
‘I don’t know. It surprises me even more because she was in any case planning to go there later that afternoon on her way to the airport. She was to take a flight to Phoenix.’
‘What time did she leave?’ Shivinder was curious.
‘Dad saw her leave around five in the morning. He saw her stop by the door to his room. The keys are hung there, you see.’
Shivinder started thinking. ‘Unless she went there to … check on something about those papers.’
‘That is, assuming she took the papers to the university,’ Aditya argued.
‘They were not with her when she was found. Either she hid them or someone took them from her.’
‘Correct. There are only three possibilities. The papers are here at home, they have been kept somewhere safe by Cirisha, or someone has taken them from her. There can’t be a fourth option, right?’
‘Very unlikely.’
‘They’re not at home. I have scanned every nook and corner. In fact I hunted for the papers even the day she died and the day after. If her murderer had the papers, they wouldn’t have assaulted Dad. So it’s clear that they didn’t find them on Cirisha, if the papers were what they were after.’
‘Which only means she has kept it somewhere in the university,’ Shivinder reasoned.
The phone rang. Aditya picked it up on the third ring. ‘Aditya.’
‘Lieutenant Windle.’
‘Yes, lieutenant.’
‘I checked on what you just told me. The traffic department has a record and a visual of someone driving the car away from the university and getting on to the turnpike. The images captured by the traffic video are too grainy to make out the driver’s face.’
‘OK. So she did go to the university.’
‘But strangely, her access card shows no activity. She hadn’t used her access card to get into the building.’
‘She couldn’t have. It’s here. At home.’
‘At home?’
‘Yes, lieutenant. I just saw it a while ago. And it was not something that came with her personal belongings, which the university returned to us. It was very much here. At home. All along.’
‘Then how did she get in?’ Then after a ten-second pause, he added, ‘Let me check the activity on the Academic Block access control on the morning of 5th June. I have the data with me. Let me call you back.’ And he hung up.
Aditya turned towards Shivinder. ‘She did go to the university. But why? If she wanted to keep the papers, Shivinder, she could have kept them there in the afternoon too. Why at five in the morning?’
‘The only reason I can think of is that she wanted to do something there without being seen.’
‘To hide something?’
‘Maybe,’ Shivinder agreed. ‘Do you really think she would have hidden the papers on campus itself? So that they are safe?’ When Shivinder said this, Aditya’s eyes went round in anticipation. He clenched his right fist and punched it into his left. ‘Yes. Yes! Yes! Yes! As I said, that’s what would have happened. She would have taken the papers and hidden them somewhere. I haven’t seen it since the night before the incident.’
‘But where? Aditya, if you were to hide them on campus, where would you hide them?’ After a long pause, he added, ‘Which is the safest possible place in the institute?’
‘Same place where we found it?’ When Aditya said this, very matter-of-factly, he himself was stunned. Aditya looked as if a hundred-ton container was about to collapse on his head. He slowly opened his mouth and whispered, ‘The locker, Shivinder. The locker.’ He turned and looked at him, a victorious look in his eyes. ‘She went to Richard’s locker and hid the papers there. And she wanted to do it before the campus got crowded. She was worried if the papers were safe here at home. So she wanted to hide them in the locker before the men came in. Remember, it was a men’s locker. That explains why she went there so early.’
The phone rang. It was Windle again. ‘Can you come and see me right away with the traffic ticket and Cirisha’s identity card? By the way, Cirisha did not enter the Academic Block that morning. But I found something strange, paranormal almost. Richard Avendon entered the block at 5.10 a.m. and exited at 8.05 a.m.’
Aditya was stunned beyond belief. It took some time and a hand on his shoulder, that of Shivinder, for him to close his mouth and resume normal breathing.
‘And you know what’s surprising?’ Windle continued, ‘Between 5.10 and 8.05 a.m. he has exited and entered again twice. Exited at 7.01 a.m. entered again at 7.14 a.m., exited at 7.29 a.m., entered again at 7.39 a.m., and exited finally at 8.05 a.m. What do you make of this?’
‘Richard Avendon. Cirisha had Richard’s access card. Instead of her own access card, she took Richard’s by mistake when she went to the campus.’ Aditya whispered into the phone. ‘I am coming there, lieutenant.’
66
11th June 2008
MIT, Boston
The executive committee of the university met again that afternoon to take a final call on who was to succeed Meier as the provost. In the previous meeting they had annulled Deahl’s suspension.
The shortlist was now down to three candidates. The fourth had expressed a lack of interest in taking up the role. Probably the fact that he was up against two bigwigs had influenced his decision. Of the remaining three, the third seemed to be a candidate put up to the committee to make up the numbers. It was mandated by statute that there had to be at least four final candidates. The battle was down to two people—James Deahl and Michael Cardoza.
Both had their godfathers in the executive committee. When their names came up for discussion, the debate expectedly was a heated one. The two of them had furiously lobbied for the post. The desperation was the same on both sides.
67
11th June 2008
Boston
The same afternoon, Shivinder sneaked into the locker room of the duPont Center unnoticed. Aditya had given him his fencing ID card to flash in case anyone checked. Security at the duPont Center was virtually non-existent. To make it easier for Shivinder, Aditya had sketched out the exact location of the locker. Shivinder didn’t encounter any trouble in finding it. On specific instructions from Aditya, he had carried a backpack along.
When Shivinder entered the locker room, there were three people inside. He went straight to Richard’s locker but didn’t attempt to open it. He could feel his heart pounding. He loitered around till the last of the three guys left the locker room.
After making sure that he was alone, he keyed in the code to open it. By the time the locker made a low hissing noise and cranked open, his shirt was wet with perspiration. He looked inside. There was a pile of papers inside the locker. Carefully, he pulled out the entire lot and shoved it into his backpack. His palm swept the floor of the locker to make sure he had taken out everything. He groped around for a couple of seconds. His hand hit something. It was a pendrive. He shut the locker, slipped the pendrive into the side pocket of his backpack, and was out of there in a jiffy. Keeping his head down, covering it with a hoody, he walked out of the locker room to the parking lot. Once he was in the safe confines of the car, he took the papers out of the
backpack and inspected them.
He called Aditya.
‘Aditya, where are you?’
‘I’m with Lieutenant Windle. Did you find anything in the locker?’
‘Yes, I did, Aditya. The papers were there. There was a pendrive too.’
‘Pendrive? That’s new. It wasn’t there the last time.’
‘There is one. It has Richard’s name inscribed on it. Looks like one of those gifts that you receive in conferences. Maybe you guys missed it the last time. It was deep inside the locker and is very small.’
‘Wonderful. Get it here quickly. Now we will show these fuckers.’ Aditya could hardly contain his excitement before he realized that he was in Windle’s office.
‘But tell me,’ Shivinder interrupted his celebration, ‘were these papers supposed to be originals?’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘Because all I have here are photocopies.’
‘Strange. The ones we saw that night were originals. All filled in ink. I saw ticks and crosses in blue and red on those sheets.’
‘Strange.’
‘It’s OK. Get back home. We’ll figure out what we do next.’
The moment Shivinder disconnected the line, his phone rang again. It went silent before he could answer it. In thirty seconds, it started ringing again. Shivinder reached out to respond.
Aditya turned to Windle and explained his conversation with Shivinder.
‘Cirisha probably had the original papers when she drove to Boston Public Garden. That’s where she was murdered. And the papers were stolen from the car. That explains why we found the keys in the car.’
‘But if the person who took away the papers from her got what he wanted, why did he have to ransack my house and murderously assault Dad?’ Aditya’s mind was working at a furious pace.
‘Maybe he wanted the photocopies.’ Windle’s eyes rolled up as if he was thinking. He lifted his right hand, shook it as if to crystallize his thoughts and then pointed a finger at Aditya. ‘The pendrive. The killers were looking for the pendrive.’
‘But why?’
‘I don’t know. We will find out once we see what’s in there. You go home and wait for me. I will join you there within the hour,’ Windle instructed.
Aditya reached home and sat there waiting for Shivinder to come in with the papers. Why was he taking so much time? Two hours passed. Shivinder had not returned. He dialled Shivinder’s number a few times. No one picked up. A look of fear passed across his face. Streams of sweat meandered from his forehead along the wrinkles and started flowing into his eyes. Instinctively his hand went up and rubbed his eyes. He walked to the washroom, splashed some water on his face and looked into the mirror. There was only one thing he could see in his eyes. Fear.
There was a knock on the door followed by the doorbell. He ran to the door; it was Windle. He let him in and walked back to his living room. Windle walked behind him without a word.
‘Shivinder has not returned, lieutenant. I should not have trusted that guy. He has taken everything and cut a deal with the NRA. Or whoever. He played me, lieutenant. He played me.’ Aditya was furious. ‘Instead of listening to him about how someone might spot me on campus, I should have gone to the locker myself.’
‘Well, in which case, we wouldn’t be having this conversation because you would be dead.’
Aditya’s face turned pale. His mouth opened to say something. But no words came out. ‘When? How?’
‘On his way back an eighteen-wheel trailer truck knocked his car over. He died on the spot, even before anyone could pull him out of the badly mangled vehicle. The skid marks indicate that it was a trailer that killed him but we haven’t been able to trace it yet.’
Aditya’s eyes were focused on the floor. After a minute he looked up. ‘What about the papers?’
‘We didn’t find them on him.’
‘No! No! This can’t be true. This just can’t be true!’ Aditya held his head in his hands and started howling. Windle walked up to Aditya and awkwardly placed a hand on his shoulder, trying to comfort him. He didn’t know what to say. Aditya looked up towards Windle. Fear in his eyes. ‘Am I next, lieutenant? Do you think they will come for me next?’
‘Don’t worry, Adi. We are there to make sure that they do not succeed in any misadventure. Leave it to us. You relax.’ Windle made a feeble attempt at reassuring Aditya. In an hour, he left, leaving behind the two detectives to keep watch.
By the time the executive committee meeting ended that evening, history had been created. For the first time ever, the executive committee had not been able to come to a decision on who the next provost should be. It was split right down the middle. For the first time ever, the casting vote of the president would be brought into play to decide who the provost was going to be. The committee meeting was adjourned until the next day. Antonio needed time to think about who his choice was going to be.
68
11th June 2008, night
Boston
Sleep had deserted Aditya. Cirisha died believing that the man she had chosen as her life partner had stabbed her in the back. The guilt gnawed at him constantly, leading him to the edge of a nervous breakdown.
He was tossing around in bed waiting for the night to end, hoping that the new day would bring something bright and positive. An hour past midnight, his phone rang. He was wide awake. On the third ring, he answered the call, wondering who it might be.
‘Hello.’
‘Hi Mr Raisinghania. It’s David.’
‘Oh.’ He didn’t recognize the voice. The line was unclear. ‘Yes, lieutenant.’
‘I just called to confirm if everything is all right. I spoke to my officers a while ago. I have instructed them to be vigilant. You don’t worry, Mr Raisinghania. Have a good night. We are there to make sure you are safe.’
‘Thanks for checking, lieutenant. I was trying to catch some sleep. Maybe I will be able to think clearly with a fresh mind. I’ll talk to you in the morning. Goodnight.’
Windle had never called at such a late hour. Did that mean the cops were worried he might be in danger? Was there reason to be? Numerous thoughts ran through his mind the moment he put the phone down.
He walked over to the window. Through the crack between the curtains he peered outside. A police patrol car was stationed about fifty metres away. Two officers were standing near the bonnet, chatting. Every thirty seconds one of them would look around cautiously. They were vigilant. Aditya didn’t move from the spot. His eyes were focused, though his mind wandered. He was strangely uncomfortable. There was something more than what met the eye. He thought about the incidents of the last few days. Cirisha, the documents, the hospitalization of Narayanan, the duPont Center, Shivinder joining him, volunteering help, the photocopies in the locker, the pendrive and then the accident. The events kept playing in front of him like a video on endless loop. There had to be something somewhere, which would tell him what those guys were after. Knowing that was the only way he would survive.
He went into Cirisha’s study. Something there might give him a clue. Maybe. Maybe not. In any case, he didn’t have anything better to do. He had no option but to keep trying.
Once more, he went through the contents of the box that had come from the university. The folder marked ‘David Windle’ was still there. Apart from that, nothing in the box interested him. He looked up. Cirisha’s ID card was hanging from the soft board above her table. He looked at it and then at the box. He plucked the ID card and kissed it softly. ‘I’ve made many mistakes but loving you wasn’t one of them, Ciri. I don’t know how to prove this to you. I am sorry,’ he stammered as a continuous stream of tears began to flow. ‘I am sorry, my love, that I hurt you. If you are listening to me, I really mean it. I love you, baby.’ He kissed Cirisha’s picture on the ID card once again.
At that very instant he heard a car pull up somewhere close by. Instinctively, he walked back to the window, ID card in hand. A black SUV had stopped near the two officers
. The front window on the passenger side was rolled down. One of the officers had walked up to the SUV. It looked like someone was seeking directions. At 2 a.m., and when most cars were fitted with GPS devices? It surprised him. Standing there behind the curtains, he had a hunch that the SUV meant trouble.
The officer returned to his patrol vehicle. The SUV window rolled up again. Aditya couldn’t see anything inside the car. The SUV didn’t move from its position. Its engine was on, he could make out from the parking lights. They were probably waiting for someone. Aditya was wide awake now. Three minutes passed. One of the officers again went towards the SUV. The window went down again. It was a short conversation this time. The rear door of the SUV opened and the officer went in. Aditya’s heart was racing. Did the officer know those guys? Windle hadn’t mentioned any additional cover being sent for him. And the car didn’t look like a patrol van either.
And that’s when it struck him. The phone call. It was not Windle. The man on the phone had sounded like Windle, but it was someone else. Hadn’t he called him Mr Raisinghania? Windle would never call him that. It was too much of a tongue-twister for him. For Windle, it was always Adi. Or at best Aditya. He panicked. Was it Cirisha’s murderers who had called to check if their next victim was at home?
That’s when he saw the officer who had got into the SUV getting out, envelope in hand. Had he been paid off? The officer with the envelope then walked towards his colleague and within a minute, both of them got into the patrol car and drove away.
‘Run!’ something inside him screamed. He scrammed from the window. Hurriedly, he put on his shoes. Not even waiting to tie his shoelaces, he bolted towards the back door. Six steps and he was at the door. He was about to open it, when he stopped. He remembered something. He ran back to his room, opened his cupboard and from the third drawer from the bottom, pulled out a double-action Colt Python with a 4-inch barrel.
Bankerupt (Ravi Subramanian) Page 23