‘No, that can’t be so.’
‘When the second party comes with the briefcase full of payment, likewise he too doesn’t open the briefcase before the camera so that it could be recorded whether the briefcase contained rupees, or dollars, or pounds or Euros.’
‘You’re right there.’
‘The repute of that vault is such that it clearly indicates that the services of that vault are for men of crime. Any person engaged in honest business won’t go there. He would rather go to a reputed bank. And even if it is an open secret that the Johri Bazar vault is for criminals, no criminal is expected to go there with gold bricks or diamonds or watches, or currency notes openly in bare hands.’
‘You’re right.’
‘And since you have already instructed them that you wanted to transfer some special, delicate items of yours to the lockers one by one and did not want them to be seen by any person, you can rightfully say you did not want them to be seen by the camera
as well.’
‘ok, I followed everything you said. But tell me, what point do you want to make in the light of all these things?’
‘I think that that Malayali clerk won’t demand a big sum of money in lieu of switching off the camera in the vault for ten minutes.’
‘Hmm, ok, I’ll go and see.’
‘You mean now?’
‘Yes, Jeete, I won’t get drunk till this problem is sorted out.’
‘That is why you will go to Johri Bazar now?’
Thursday: 21 May
Jeet Singh was waiting for Gailo’s call in the morning when his mobile rang.
He looked at the screen and found the call was from Shekhar Navlani.
‘Salam, sahib.’
‘Where are you?’ Navlani asked.
‘At Kalba Devi.’
‘Can you come to the office of Cobra Securities?’
‘Yes, sahib, certainly.’
‘You still remember where it is or you have forgotten?’
‘I do remember, sahib. Naureen House, Second Floor, Yashwant Chowk, Kala Ghoda, Fort.’
‘Fine, I am in Dhanekar’s office. If anybody stops you at the door, take his or my name.’
‘I am coming, sahib.’
He reached the destination in twenty minutes.
Shekhar Navlani was sitting in a visitor’s chair in the office of Adinath Dhanekar, a partner in Cobra Investigation and Security Services. When Jeet Singh reached the office, he found Navlani alone, smoking. Dhanekar was not present there at the moment.
Jeet Singh greeted him with due respect.
Navlani took the last drag from the cigarette, shoved it in the ashtray and said, ‘I wanted to discuss certain things about your case with Dhanekar. I thought it would be done best in your presence.’
‘You are doing so much for me, sahib. I can not ever pay back your favours, but I will definitely pay your fee. It will take some time but I will do it nevertheless.’
‘Arre, who asked you about the fee?’
‘You did not ask, but I promise to pay every paisa of it, sahib.’
‘Forget about that now, and listen to what I am saying.’
‘Yes, sahib.’
‘I have reached an understanding with Cobra Investigations for the leg work. Dhanekar has assured me that he will employ his ablest investigators to find the missing witnesses, and his best man Kadam will go after Mira Kishnani.’
‘That’s great. Sahib, I got to know of some things about the store manager Tiwari, maybe they’ll be of some use to you.’
‘What have you found out?’
‘He used to live in a rented room in Parel’s Railway Colony, but left the place on Tuesday, early morning. Nobody knows where he has gone.’
Navlani noted Tiwari’s last address on a note sheet lying before him.
‘Sahib, he was dismissed on Saturday evening, and the store employees came to know of it on the next working day in the morning, when the store opened for the first time on Monday. Everyone expressed surprise over it because nobody had the slightest notion he would leave the job in such haste. The new owners confirmed that he had left the job and gone to Ballia, his native place. What I want to say is such an old employee won’t leave the job and go back to his hometown in this manner. He might have given up his job but he couldn’t go away abruptly because he had to first settle a number of things like gratuity, provident fund, current salary, etc. And then, colleagues generally throw a party, a farewell party, on such occasions, to say goodbye to the retiring employee.’
‘ok, ok, but I still do not get what you want to say.’
‘Sahib, it seems definite that Tiwari was made to resign and disappear. But I don’t think those who have forced him to do this have also assigned a person to keep an eye on him. I have a gut feeling that he’s still in Mumbai.’
‘But how can we know where he is?’
‘There must be a way, sahib.’
‘Yes, there must be a way.’
‘I have his mobile number but whenever I make a call on it, the recorded announcement says the number is presently not available.’
‘He must have been ordered to get rid of his known mobile number.’
Jeet Singh kept quiet.
‘If he has been forced to go missing then he can’t stay in Mumbai for long. Because this way he could be sighted by an acquaintance and that would defeat the whole purpose of forcing him to disappear. He has to leave Mumbai, sooner or later. Ballia is very far from here and it stands to reason that he’ll go there by train. I will ask Dhanekar to arrange a watch at the railway station and also try to find out if any Devki Nandan Tiwari has made any reservation for Ballia or for any big railway station close to Ballia.’
‘That would be great, sahib.’
‘Now listen to why I have called you here.’
‘Yes, sahib, I’m listening.’
‘I have taken out a copy of Sethji’s ten-year-old will from the sub-registrar’s office.’
‘That’s some real fast work, sahib.’
‘Your tip that the will was ten years old helped in expediting the process.’
‘Actually, it was Lakhani sahib who told me about this.’
‘Lakhani must have remembered it because his signatures were on the will as a witness. The second set of witness signatures belonged to a lawyer named Dilip Nalwade, who drafted the will and had it registered. His signatures were stamped with his office seal, and the address of the office was also mentioned in it. The address is for a place in Matunga but when I checked it, it was found that he no longer operates from there.’
‘He might have made progress in these ten years, earned a lot of money, and moved to a fancier place.’
‘It is possible. It won’t be difficult to locate him if he is still practising in Mumbai. However, he might have made progress in these ten years but at that time he was a dumb lawyer.’
‘And why do you say so?’
‘This is a xerox copy of that will,’ Navlani took a foolscap paper from under the notepad and showed it to Jeet Singh.
‘Sahib, you better tell me what’s in it.’
‘Everything in this will is as per what is expected of a responsible family head i.e. the equal share of inheritance to all dependants, which are four beneficiaries, two sons, a daughter and the wife. The reasons why I am calling him a dumb lawyer is the fact that the will says all movable and immovable property of the testator is to be divided in four equal parts among his wife, elder son, younger son and daughter.’
‘But what’s wrong in that? After all, Sethji had only one elder son, only one younger son, only one daughter and only one …’
Jeet Singh suddenly went silent.
‘So,’ Navlani, smiled, ‘enlightenment finally dawned upon you. To paraphrase it in your lingo—something struck your brain.’
‘The word wife is making a difference?’
‘Yes, and a huge difference at that because Sethji married again i.e. if he did marry again.’
&nbs
p; ‘Let us suppose that he did.’
‘ok, so this will declares his wife as the inheritor of one-fourth of his total assets. Had Sethji died a widower, there would have been no problem. But his second marriage has created a complication, an abnormality because this will is so framed that the inheritance of a quarter of all his assets goes to his wife, which is Sushmita.’
‘Oh!’
‘Had the lawyer been more intelligent and had the will been drafted more carefully, the beneficiaries would have been mentioned by name. Then it would have said that the assets were to be divided equally among his elder son Alok, younger son Ashok, daughter Shobha and his wife Kamla, Vimla, Ramla or whatever her name was. The fact that the name of the wife is not mentioned automatically makes his new wife the inheritor of a quarter of all his assets. I think this is the reason why his children are at unease, why they are dying to prove that Sushmita was Sethji’s live-in partner, and not his wife. This is why the evidence of the marriage has been destroyed and witnesses made to disappear. They are confident because the police are on their side. They know that injustice can be done with impunity if the corrupt police are on your side.’
‘Sethji might have made a new will later!’
‘When?’
‘After the death of his wife some six years back.’
‘I also thought about this possibility, but the sub-registrar office has no record of any such will.’
‘The will might not have been registered!’
‘In that case it will be declared null and void.’
‘What does that mean, sahib?’
‘It would be declared useless, not applicable in this case.’
‘Even if it has been drafted properly and has the signatures of two witnesses?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why so?’
‘Because to cancel a registered will, to unarm a duly registered will, a new registered will is essentially required. It is not necessary to get a will registered, for an unregistered will is also a valid document, but if a previous will is registered then only another registered will can cancel the previous will.’
‘Oh!’
‘If any new will made by Sethji after his marriage is discovered, it would be declared null and void because it was not registered while a previously registered will was available.’
‘Is it possible that he would have made a new will?’
‘It is quite possible. Maybe he also wanted to get it registered but death did not permit him to do so.’
‘Sahib, such a will may be of no use legally but if recovered, it could uncover a number of secrets.’
‘Such as?’
‘Sethji could have declared Sushmita his heir in that will!’
‘So what? The children must be aware of the fact that a ten-year-old, registered will was in existence. Probably Sethji might have himself told them about it. They were after all his children, and they must have at least enough knowledge of the law to know that if the new will was unregistered, then it was not even worth the paper it was written on.’
‘What if the new will disqualifies someone from inheritance?’
‘He won’t get disqualified.’
‘Probably he might not be aware that the will was not registered.’
‘So you want to say that to prevent this disqualification from happening, such a person might have hired a contract killer to assassinate Sethji?’
‘Isn’t it possible, sahib?’
‘A son or the daughter got the father killed?’
‘It may not have happened this way but isn’t it possible?’
‘Even if we go by your logic, the will might still be nonexistent, for the one who arranged the assassination of his own father must have also destroyed the will. Don’t you think so?’
‘He may have destroyed the will, but he can’t destroy the lawyer who drafted it, or the witnesses who signed on it.’
‘Sethji was an educated person. He might have drafted the new will himself, taking a hint or two from the previous one. And maybe he was yet to get it attested by the witnesses.’
‘But he needed a lawyer to get it registered even in that case!’
‘Such lawyers roam outside the registrar’s office in hordes, call one and a dozen come running. And they also take on them the task of arranging the witnesses. This is a line of business and you will find hundreds of middlemen and lawyers doing it outside every registrar’s office.’
‘Hmm.’
‘But for argument’s sake let’s consider that a lawyer drafted the will and another person and he attested it as witnesses. My question is—if someone could destroy the evidence of the marriage and make the witnesses disappear, can’t he also muffle the voices of these two people?’
‘He can, those who have might can do anything.’
‘There you are.’
‘They have the might of their money and the muscle of the police, they can do anything indeed.’
‘They most certainly can.’
‘Sahib, this is just a copy. Can they get the original destroyed or stolen from the registrar’s office?’
‘Jeet Singh, even the registrar’s office keeps a copy. The original is given to the testator after the registration and endorsement by the registrar.’
‘But the copy in the registrar’s office could also be destroyed!’
‘I don’t think they could do it because nowadays the records are all computerized. And if by the rarest of rare luck they succeed in it then we have this copy to establish the will’s existence.’
‘Sahib, keep it carefully protected.’
Navlani laughed.
‘So, shall I leave now, sahib?’
‘You may go, but first let me tell you some other minor things.’
‘I am all ears, sahib.’
‘On the tenth floor in Tulsi Chambers, Changulani sahib had a south Indian neighbour named Ramaswamy. He works in the secretariat in a senior position, and was a good friend of Mr Changulani’s. That’s why I went to meet him at his flat yesterday. He was sad about this whole episode. During the conversation, we started talking about the habits, likes and dislikes of the departed soul. He started saying how responsible and farsighted a man Changulani sahib was. How he had given the keys of his flat to all of his children, despite the fact that they rarely came to meet him.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he used to live alone and was fond of going out for fun before marriage. He said he gave the keys to the children to ensure that if anybody reached the flat when he was out, he could go in and stay there in place of a hotel.’
‘Sahib, in today’s world of mobile phones such situations are a rarity.’
‘You are right, but he might have thought that there was no problem in all his children having a key to the flat.’
‘And by children you mean to say both sons who live in England and the daughter who lives in Kolkata?’
‘Yes.’
‘The son-in-law did not have the key?’
‘It is the same thing if the daughter had the key or the son-in-law had the key.
‘Sorry! So, did any of them come like that?’
‘Ramaswamy said the sons never came but the son-in-law used to come.’
‘Every now and then?’
‘Yes, that is how it appears to be. We have been told he comes to Mumbai once every month, sometimes even twice, because of his hosiery business.’
‘And when he comes to Mumbai, he opens the flat of Changulani sahib in his absence and occupies it?’
‘Yes, that’s why the keys have been made available.’
‘Sahib, this thing suggests something new to me.’
‘What’s that?’
‘In this scenario, it would be wrong to say that only Sushmita had access to the fancy knife that was used in the murder. When the keys had been distributed so abundantly, then anybody could have taken that knife—the carving knife—from the household.’
‘And now you will say that anybody could ma
ke the murder weapon available to the supari killer!’
‘I will certainly say this, sahib. This has emboldened my theory that someone from the family paid the supari for Sethji’s murder. And now I can say that it must be the son-in-law.’
‘Why him in particular?’
‘Because he is here any time. He is said to have reached Mumbai with his wailing wife after hearing of the sad demise of his father-in-law but who knows he was not here earlier also while Sethji was still alive?’
‘Hmm, you have a point there.’
‘Sahib, please, have this angle investigated.’
‘ok.’
‘Sahib, he is a rich fellow, must be travelling by plane. Flight records will say when he came and went.’
‘Right!’
‘And please, do the same for the London-based sons.’
‘ok, I will do something.’
‘I would be obliged, sahib. Can I go now?’
‘Yes, but do one thing.’
‘What?’
‘Talk to Sushmita. She might have some information regarding the new will.’
‘ok, I will do that. Now I will leave, sahib.’
Navlani nodded.
Jeet Singh returned to Vithalwadi.
Gailo was sitting in his taxi in front of the building that housed his flat.
Jeet Singh went around the taxi and occupied the passenger seat beside him.
‘What’s the matter,’ he asked, ‘you look worried?’
‘I am,’ Gailo said, ‘there is indeed a system of surveillance by cameras.’
‘So, what did I tell you?’
‘I am so dumb, why did it not come to my mind earlier?’
‘But now you know of it, no?’
‘Yes, now I do.’
‘So, did you succeed in fixing that clerk?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then why are you worried?’
‘Jeete, that Malayali clerk Cherat agreed to do as asked in the end, but I would have been more confident had this camera thing not been there.’
‘You said he agreed in the end. It means there was some problem in that!’
‘No, no problem, but he was bloody showing an attitude, as if he was a very important fellow. Said he was very busy, could meet outside only at midnight after the duty hours, and I had to wait till then.’
The Colaba Conspiracy Page 12