Madhavan turned to the laptop. He was about to exit the video app when he noticed something on the screen. ‘Did you see this?’
As they gathered around the screen and peered at it, Kabir took out his phone and called Pallavi. ‘I need to know the identity of someone. Can you help me?’
92
Rajan was at the police headquarters that day to meet Kabir Khan and DGP Krishnan.
As soon as he entered Krishnan’s office, Kabir pointed to the lounge chair in one corner of the room and said, ‘Please make yourself comfortable, Mr Rajan.’
Rajan did as he was told.
Kabir strolled up to him with a few papers and said, ‘HSBC Geneva?’
‘What about it Mr Khan? We have spoken about it. Haven’t we?’
‘Oh yes, we have.’
‘I remember mentioning to you that there must have been a mistake. There is no way Kannan could have a Swiss account—’
‘Yes, there has been a mistake,’ Kabir interrupted. ‘The account should have been in your name, right?’
‘What nonsense?’ Rajan burst out indignantly. ‘How dare you accuse me of swindling money and holding it in a Swiss account! How can this be mine?’
‘Well, the only person close to Kannan was you. And Kannan didn’t know how to read and write.’
‘So? How does that make me the offender? What evidence do you have?’
‘By association. This is pure conjecture. But given that he is your father’s son . . .’ He paused. ‘Who else could it be?’
‘The gold you found on him was not mine. If he could get half a gold bar from someone, he could get someone else’s black money too!’ Rajan countered.
‘But who could that someone else be?’
‘How should I know?’
‘Dharmaraja Varma?’ Kabir said, his eyes never leaving Rajan’s face. He wanted to see the change in his expressions. This was just a test to see how much he was willing to share on his own.
Rajan merely shrugged. ‘Maybe.’
‘But it was not Dharmaraja Varma who met with Andrew Mormon, the HSBC relationship manager, at the Taj the night Kannan was killed, was it? It was you.’ Kabir spoke in measured tones that belied the rising anger within.
‘Meeting wh . . . who?’ Rajan asked. For the first time that night, he stammered. ‘I have no idea what you are talking about.’
‘Andrew Mormon, right?’ Kabir looked at Madhavan, who was standing in the corner, as if for confirmation. The latter nodded, his eyes gleaming. ‘That’s what the booking register at the Taj says.’
‘You went there with Kannan that night—’ Krishnan stepped into the conversation—‘and met with the private banker. Why would you do that, unless the account that was in Kannan’s name actually contains your money?’
‘I did not meet Andrew Mormon,’ Rajan insisted.
‘Fuck you, moron!’ Kabir Khan shouted, his impatience getting the better of him. ‘We have CCTV footage of the Taj coffee shop where the two of you met! Want me to show it to you?’ He reached for the pen drive that Pallavi had sent earlier in the day.
Rajan was defiant. ‘Now you will say that I was the one who killed Kannan!’
Kabir nodded. ‘Well, we would have. You were our number one suspect, after all.’ Kabir was enjoying the conversation in between bouts of irritation. ‘But the same meeting with Andrew Mormon, which gave you away, saved you. At the time Kannan was killed, you were with Mormon in the coffee shop. Your meeting ended at two that night. The hotel’s phone records show that you called Kannan’s mobile afterwards, but the call didn’t go through. You then returned home by a hotel cab.’
Rajan sighed. ‘You have all the details, but you are mistaken. I met Andrew Mormon because I wanted to get to the bottom of Kannan’s account. I had known Kannan his whole life. Money did not interest him. He was never one to chase riches. Honesty and integrity meant everything to him. If I had to pick one guy to fight for my life, I would’ve picked him. You operate on evidence. That’s why you are chasing the bar of gold found on him. I go by belief. That’s why I know that the account could not have been Kannan’s. I knew that my chances of establishing this were slim. After all, there is a reason people keep their money in Swiss accounts. But for Kannan’s sake, I wanted to give it a try.’
‘And were you able to figure anything out?’
Rajan shook his head. ‘No. Nothing came out of it, but at least I know that I tried.’
93
Kabir Khan checked his mail the moment Rajan left. He had done so several times already that day. Twelve mails beeped their way into his inbox. Facebook, Twitter, credit card companies, banks, companies selling libido-enhancing drugs, insurance, furniture . . . and nearly lost in the midst of all this a mail from ACP Patil. Hurriedly, he clicked on it.
Khan,
Checked out Patankar. He was a taxi driver with Travel House for six years. A month and a half ago, he was sacked for running an Ola cab service while being on the rolls of Travel House. He enrolled with Ola in June and his cabs started plying in July. By the end of July he had five cabs operational. Attached are the forms he submitted to Ola for enrolment.
Do let me know in case you need any further information.
Patil
Khan clicked on the documents attached and perused them quickly.
‘Well? What is it?’ Krishnan asked.
‘This guy, Patankar—’
‘The one who gave instructions to Lakshmi Narain to pick up Subhash from the airport? What about him?’
‘He bought five cabs and enrolled them with Ola in July. Because of which he was fired from Travel House.’
‘How did a driver get money to buy five cars at once?’
Khan looked at the forms submitted to Ola Cabs and said, ‘The cars are all hypothecated to Axis Bank. Looks like a loan from them.’
‘Even then!’ Madhavan argued. ‘A loan of twenty lakh for a taxi driver. Is it so easy to get a loan these days?’
‘Fair question,’ Krishnan said.
Kabir thought for a minute and then turned on his phone. The screen sprang to life. He brought up the Google app on the screen and typed: June, July, 2016, mumbai. Over two lakh search results appeared. He quickly scrolled through the page.
‘This should have been pretty obvious,’ he sighed. ‘This story is taking a different trajectory.’
He picked up his mobile phone and dialled a number. ‘Patil,’ he said when the call connected. ‘Thanks for what you sent . . . but that’s not enough.’
94
Kabir was about to tell Krishnan and Madhavan his theory when there was a knock at the door.
Krishnan looked up, annoyed. ‘Yes, Kutty, what is it?’
‘Sorry, sir, I just wanted to tell you that there was a small mistake in what I told you earlier.’
‘What do you mean!’ Krishnan roared, rising out of his chair.
‘Okay, okay!’ Kabir stepped in between them. He turned to Kutty and snapped, ‘Out with it! Fast!’ He knew that what they had been told earlier was not relevant any more. He just wanted Kutty to say his piece quickly and leave.
Kutty seemed visibly shaken by Krishnan’s reaction. He cleared his throat nervously and said, ‘The second escape route from the palace that I had mentioned is not from the palace to the Kuzhivilakom temple.’
‘Excuse me!’ Madhavan rounded on him.
‘Let me explain, please! Centuries ago, when the palace was built and the temple was in existence, the second underground passage emerged inside the Kuzhivilakom temple complex. The complex covers an area of over two acres around the sanctum sanctorum. The underground passage extended from the king’s palace to the southeastern corner of the temple complex. When the Privy Purse was abolished in 1971, the control of the temple land passed to the government . . . Well, for all temples except the Anantha Padmanabha Swamy Temple, which stayed with a private trust. At the time a significant portion of the temple land was used for public utilities like roads and other
services.’
Kutty pulled out a map from his bag and spread it out on the table. ‘This is where the underground safety route emerged. And this’—he pulled out a more recent map and laid it over the historical one—‘is what this area looks now. This is where it is.’
A surprised Kabir Khan picked up the map and studied it carefully, an intense look on his face. ‘So you are saying that of the two acres that belonged to the Kuzhivilakom temple, only half an acre remains with the temple? The rest has been taken over by the government?’
Kutty nodded. ‘Yes. And the passage from the palace to the temple which emerged inside the complex, is now under the road that abuts the temple wall. The road that leads from the temple to the Taj Hotel.’
‘Aah. That is very interesting. I think I know where this is. Come on, let’s go. Let’s get this one niggling option out of our consideration subset.’
95
The four of them were standing outside the Kuzhivilakom temple twenty-five minutes later. This time they had come prepared. Krishnan had initially objected to them going on this mission, but he fell in line soon enough.
Khan, as usual, stayed outside the temple while the other three went in. The idol of Ganesha looked very similar to the one found in the Wafi Mall heist, but was not the same. One look at it and Madhavan could see that this was a different idol.
Kutty laid out the map and pointed to the southeastern corner of the temple. ‘The passage from the king’s palace used to emerge somewhere there.’ Madhavan and Krishnan looked in that direction. There was a boundary wall, and beyond it was the road that connected Taj Kovalam to the temple complex.
They came out of the temple and joined Kabir. ‘The passage is right under the road where you are standing,’ Kutty said. In one hand he had the historical map that he had obtained from the land records division, and with the other hand he was pointing to the road ahead.
‘So to get to the passage, we will have to excavate. Like the steps that were found on the eastern side of the Anantha Padmanabha Swamy Temple,’ Khan said. ‘This also means that there is no way to escape from the palace to the coast, or, for that matter, smuggle goods from the palace to the coast through the elaborate drainage system.’
‘Well, that’s what it looks like. If I juxtapose the old maps with the city master plan, then the place where the drainage chute from the palace ends should be right under the road. So yes, there is no escape.’
‘Then there is no point lingering here. Let’s head back,’ Krishnan said.
A dejected Kabir followed the others to the jeep. He had hoped that the exit point of the escape route would give him some insight. But if the drainage line was under the road, there was no point in pursuing his hypothesis. Another theory down the drain, literally. He looked around him—at the Kuzhivilakom temple to his left, the construction site to his right and to the road in between. The road that covered a thousand secrets.
Krishnan waited until Kabir climbed into the jeep, then stared driving towards the Taj. A little before the hotel, they got stuck in a traffic jam. The cigarette shop was closed; the shopkeeper was in custody. A car was trying to park and had held up the traffic in the process.
‘Why do they have such narrow roads? A tourist destination needs proper infrastructure,’ Madhavan lamented.
‘But it’s the same story throughout Kerala,’ Kutty replied. ‘Narrow roads.’
Kabir added. ‘Pallavi, at the Taj, was also cursing the government when I last saw her. The road was not supposed to be so narrow. It was supposed to be a sixty-foot-wide road. But apparently everyone along the road has usurped the land. So now the road is only half its intended width.’
‘One day we will take over and demolish all unauthorized construction on this road,’ Krishnan declared. ‘India needs a benign dictatorship to rid itself of everything illegal.’
‘Benign dictatorship—isn’t that an oxymoron?’
‘Shut up, Kabir!’ Krishnan said. ‘We are talking about the road and traffic.’
Kabir looked up as if he had been struck by lightning. ‘Hold it! Stop! Stopstopstop!’ he cried.
‘We are not moving, my friend! Can’t you see the traffic?’ Krishnan agonized.
Kabir turned and looked at Kutty. ‘Kutty, the map that you are referring to, that’s the master plan, right?’
Kutty nodded warily.
‘Come with me!’ Kabir leapt out of the jeep and ran back. Kutty followed, leaving Krishnan and Madhavan in the car. They had no choice but to wait until the traffic jam cleared and then take the first available U-turn.
Khan was standing with his back to the Kuzhivilakom temple gate when a huffing and panting Kutty joined him. ‘What happened?’
‘Kutty, your master plan had provision for a sixty-foot road, but the ground reality is a thirty-foot road. Thirty feet of what should ideally have been road has been taken over by the construction site.’ Kabir pointed to the construction site opposite the temple. He had seen it a few times in the past but had never imagined it could be so significant. ‘Is it possible that the escape route from the palace is not under the road, but inside that construction site?’
By that time, Krishnan and Madhavan had also reached. They were standing in the middle of the road, looking at each other.
‘The passage has to be inside that construction site,’ Kabir reiterated.
‘We can check that out, Kabir,’ Krishnan offered. He called his deputy and asked him to send backup to the Kuzhivilakom temple immediately. ‘We’ll need backup if we want to go inside.’ He looked at Kutty and added, ‘Kutty, you are from intelligence, you can choose to go back.’
Meanwhile, Kabir was scanning the barricades outside the site. They looked old and worn down, yet they hid everything behind them from public view. There were no hoardings, no notices proclaiming the site to be an apartment complex under construction, no signage. No effort seemed to have been made to draw the public’s attention to the upcoming apartment complex. They waited on the corner for about ten minutes. The reinforcements were taking time. Khan was getting restless. Every now and then he would urge Krishnan to let them go inside. Krishnan resisted the first few times, but then he relented. They were about to go in when Krishnan’s phone rang.
‘Damn!’ he muttered and took the call. ‘Yes, sir.’ A few seconds of muted conversation later, he hung up and looked at his team. ‘That was the chief minister.’
‘What?’ Kabir was anxious. ‘Why?’
‘He doesn’t want us to go in.’
96
They were huddled around Krishnan’s table. The look on Kabir’s face was one of elation. ‘I was right!’ He thumped the table with his right hand. ‘See! I was right,’ he repeated, waving the piece of paper that had just come in, in Krishnan’s face.
‘Calm down. Calm down.’ Krishnan tried his best to settle the rush of adrenalin that had made Khan go pink in the face.
‘I need to meet him. Now!’ Kabir said, grabbing the sheet of paper and walking out of the cabin.
‘Wait,’ called out Krishnan, ‘I’ll come with you,’ and rushed after him.
Within minutes, they were standing outside a door. Krishnan swiped his card and walked in.
‘So!’ said Kabir.
Radhakrishnan Nair wore a blank look on his face.
‘What is this?’ Kabir held out the piece of paper and waved it in front of him.
Radhakrishnan Nair took the paper and read it. He chuckled. Kabir gritted his teeth in response. ‘I didn’t know owning property is a crime in this country.’
‘Why this particular property?’ Kabir asked testily.
‘My father bought this property years ago. Only he can answer this question.’
The sarcasm was not lost. Both Khan and Krishnan knew that Nair’s father was not alive.
‘Who sold it to him?’ Kabir looked at Nair, anger in his eyes.
‘Well, if you have got this far, then I’m sure you know the answer to that question. Why are you e
ven asking me?’
Nair was not wrong. The entire document transferring the title of the property, the construction site outside the Kuzhivilakom temple, to Nair’s father was in the investigators’ possession. Days before the entire temple property was taken over by the government, the temple trust had sold it to the Nair family.
‘Where did you get the money to buy such a large property? It’s half an acre, isn’t it?’ Krishnan asked him in a steely tone.
‘Like I said, I didn’t buy it. I inherited it.’
The discussion was going nowhere.
‘I think I will go and ask Dharmaraja Varma instead,’ Kabir said and turned to leave.
‘You definitely stand a better chance there, Mr Khan,’ Nair remarked casually. ‘But let me tell you one thing, he is not a bad man. Definitely not as bad as you make him out to be.’
‘For you, “bad” is relative, Mr Nair, it has degrees.’ Kabir had a wry smile on his face. ‘For us, it is absolute. Black or white; no grey.’
As he walked out of the room, his phone rang. ‘Yes, Patil?’ he said, as he marched back to the DGP’s room. ‘Yeah, Patankar’s cabs . . . Okay, so they were funded by Axis Bank? . . . Any chance of getting the forms? . . . I just want to see on what basis the bank approved loans for five cabs to one person . . . Really? You mean to say they approved it because these were meant to run as Ola cabs?’ The expression on Kabir Khan’s face was one of curiosity mixed with surprise. ‘Ah! Now I get it. They assumed the five cabs, when plied as Ola cabs, would generate enough revenue to pay back the loans.’
Walking beside Kabir, Krishnan could overhear only his side of the conversation. Although he could fathom a fair amount of what they were talking about, he couldn’t help but wonder what new information ACP Patil had got.
In the Name of God Page 23