“What did you do with the laptop?”
“What laptop?”
“Barton’s laptop.”
“What about it?”
“We couldn’t find it when we raided your place.”
“You think I waited to complete the job? All I could think about was getting out of there.”
“So you left it there?”
“I didn’t even see it.”
“So it should still be there?”
“As far as I know. Why?”
But he got no reply. Gaikwad returned to his desk and dialed Barton’s number. John answered.
“Hello?”
“It’s Inspector Gaikwad.”
“What do you want?” His tone was hostile.
“Do you still have the laptop?”
“What?”
“Your wife’s laptop. Do you still have it?”
“Yes. I believe it’s still here.”
“We need it.”
“Why?”
“Part of our investigation.”
There was no reply.
“Sir, we’re in the midst of a murder investigation and your own cooperation in this case has left much to be desired,” he said. “If you insist, I can get a warrant for it, but it would save us both time and a good deal of grief if I can come over and take the laptop now.”
“All right,” he said with resignation. “Send your man.”
* * *
Getting the laptop was one thing, getting past the password screen was another—John Barton didn’t know it. By the time a constable had gone to retrieve the machine and returned, most of the whizzes in the cybercrimes office had gone home. Gaikwad thought he could wait until the next morning, but he could sense that the answers he sought lay just beyond the screen.
As if hoping for a miracle, Gaikwad tried the most obvious passwords he could think of: He tried Liz’s name, her husband’s name, the name of her company. He tried these and others in various combinations of upper- and lowercase letters. It seemed to go on forever, and each time the machine told him he had supplied the wrong answer. He could call in one of the tech whizzes, he thought, but that would involve overtime, which they had been asked to limit except in the case of dire emergencies.
Gaikwad was on the verge of giving up. There was always tomorrow, he thought. The phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Dad, I need a ride home.”
It was his son. Gaikwad wanted to tell him to take the bus the way he did when he was a boy.
“Where are you?”
The boy told him. It was only ten minutes away.
“I have a couple of things to finish off. Come here and we’ll leave together.”
“Thanks!”
He hung up.
He went over the case in the file once more. He was risking everything on a laptop that may or may not yield anything. Still, it was further than he had been in the case, and Gaikwad felt hopeful.
He was lost in the files, reviewing the post-mortem report for what seemed like an eternity.
“Hey, Dad.”
He looked up and couldn’t help but smile. The boy walked in with the casual confidence of the young, without a care in the world. He was dressed in cricketing whites, turned brown from the practice, and carried a bag that weighed almost as much as he did, stuffed with his kit. When had he grown so much? Gaikwad wondered. It was only yesterday he was teaching the boy to ride a bike. If he were aware that his father was perpetually worried about his future, he was either oblivious of it or he didn’t show it.
“Ready to go?” he asked.
“Give me a couple of minutes.”
“Interesting case?” The boy was peering at the open files on the table and fingered his way through the papers.
“That’s work stuff,” Gaikwad said sharply. “Have some respect.”
Gaikwad never discussed the details of his cases with his children, lest they think the profession was glamorous. It was at the end of the day more thankless than anything. He didn’t want either of them to be seized by some misplaced sense of adventure and join the force, too.
“New computer?” his son asked, oblivious to the rebuke and making his way straight to Barton’s computer, still on the table, and admiring it.
“No. It’s part of a case,” Gaikwad replied. “And it’s locked.”
“You need to get in?”
“Yes. But the IT guys don’t come in until tomorrow.”
“I can do it for you now if you like.”
Gaikwad could have hugged him.
“How?”
“It’s easy. Look.”
The boy powered the machine off and restarted it. As it booted up, he pressed a key that took him to the administrator’s screen. Gaikwad didn’t know what the boy was doing, but he was mesmerized. The boy’s hands glided over the keyboard. He looked only at the screen.
Within minutes, the machine started up again and prompted him for a password. The boy typed it in: Voila!
The boy moved aside. “If you need to shut it down again, the password is ‘Gaikwad,’” he said, reaching for the cell phone in his pocket that had just pinged.
Gaikwad felt an immense shot of pride shoot through him. He wanted to ask him how he did it, he wanted to ask him where he learned it from, but the boy was already checking his phone for messages and texting back to someone else holding up a cell phone in another part of the city, or perhaps country. Gaikwad moved up to the machine and looked at the folders. His eyes immediately fell upon one that labeled Personal. He clicked on it.
He went through the documents slowly. At first it didn’t make sense. But then things began to fall into place.
He grabbed his phone and called DCP Khan.
“Khan here.”
“Sir, Gaikwad here.”
“Yes. Yes. Any progress?”
“Sir,” Gaikwad said carefully. “You need to see this.”
“What is it?”
“I think I have a suspect, but I’m not comfortable talking about it on the phone.”
“Very well,” Khan said. “Come over.”
Chapter 17
Gaikwad stood with Khan, watching Khurana arrive home. He half expected him to be immersed in his laptop or talking on the phone, as most people seemed to be nowadays, but the billionaire seemed quietly contemplative. The car pulled up to the front of his apartment building. In his impatience, Khurana opened the door before either the driver or watchman could get to it. The driver saluted as he walked past him to the elevator. Khan and Gaikwad had agreed they would give him a few minutes to settle down at home before they visited him.
A minute or so later, Khan looked at Gaikwad.
“Let’s go,” he said. Gaikwad and two constables followed him to the building.
They made their way up and rang the doorbell. Khurana answered, holding a drink. The policemen stood outside, shuffling uncomfortably. Gaikwad could see he recognized him.
“DCP Khan,” Khurana said, ignoring the inspector. “To what do I owe this pleasure? More money for the police fund?”
But Khan did not smile, and neither did Gaikwad.
“Can we come in, sir?” the DCP asked.
“Of course.”
The men followed him in and closed the door.
“To what do I owe this pleasure?” Khurana repeated, still using the tone he reserved for those people with whom he played golf.
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to come with us, sir.”
“Why?”
“We’d like to ask you some questions about the murder of Liz Barton.”
Khurana thought it about for a second, drained his glass, and smiled.
“Of course,”
he said. “But I’d like my lawyer present.”
* * *
Gaikwad made sure that he did a thorough job. He didn’t want to mess this up, and not just because Khan was watching.
“Would you like to wait for your lawyer to get here, sir?”
“That’s all right,” Khurana replied. “We can start.”
“Sir, do you know why you’re here?”
“Yes. But you have the wrong man. I didn’t kill her.”
“Sir, we have recovered evidence from her computer that shows she was taking confidential information about your business and passing it on to her superiors.”
Khurana looked defeated.
“Yes, I know,” he said. “I know what she was doing.”
“So you killed her?” DCP Khan interjected.
“I told you. I didn’t kill her.”
His manner was firm. Gaikwad knew he wasn’t going to change his story. But the evidence he had recovered had been foolproof. Liz Barton had befriended Kabir Khurana and had been taking information on his business ventures and sending them on to her superiors in London. For a man known to be professionally ruthless, it was a massive betrayal—certainly it gave Gaikwad a motive for murder and that’s all they’d have to persuade the judge of.
“Sir, we have seen the information,” Gaikwad continued.
“Yes, yes, I know,” Khurana said. “But it was the wrong information.”
“What?”
“Inspector, I don’t make friends. And I made a mistake making this one. I was emotionally drawn to her. But then I discovered that she was stealing information. We were at a restaurant and I had my iPad with me. I’d been working on a presentation. I got up to go to the restroom and while coming back saw her fiddle with the iPad. She put it away in a hurry, and I didn’t let on that I noticed it. I began feeding her wrong information—fake files left carelessly at her place—just to see what she would do with them. When Mohini began to make irrational business decisions based on the information I’d left lying around, I knew she was betraying me.”
“So you killed her?’
“No. I live every day with the knowledge of my past deeds.”
“Are you referring to the prostitute?” When Jay had told him about it the last time they’d met, Gaikwad had dismissed that piece of information. Now it seemed pivotal.
“Yes,” he said quietly, not making eye contact. “I don’t expect to be forgiven, inspector. I live with that violent act every day. I didn’t want to add another one to that list. I confronted her.”
“What did she say?”
“At first she denied it, of course. But then she laughed at me, calling me a fool and when I told her that I’d been feeding her false information, she became irate.”
“Did you struggle?”
“No. I tell you. No. I left. The next thing I know, I saw on TV that her body had been recovered in Mahim.”
Gaikwad looked at Khan. The DCP’s expression was inscrutable. His phone rang. It was Jay Ganesh.
“All right,” Khan said. “Let’s take a few minutes until your lawyer joins us, Mr. Khurana.”
Gaikwad walked out to take the call.
“What is it?” he said.
“Inspector, it’s Ganesh.”
“I’m busy, can you call back?”
“It’s important. I know who killed Liz Barton.”
* * *
Earlier that day, Jay had called Patil, the police archivist and his source at the department.
“Haan, Jai bhai. How are you?” Patil had said.
“With your blessings, Patil bhai, everything is good.”
“So tell me, how can I help you?”
“Has the department recovered the stolen goods from the burglaries?”
“No, bhai. Most of it has been sold. It will take a while. But we found a long list of targets, where they lived, who their neighbors were. An Excel spreadsheet, in fact. Can you believe it? Even India’s bloody thieves are high-tech.” Patil almost sounded proud.
“Can I see the list?”
“Jay bhai, you’re going to get me into so much trouble.”
“Have I ever burned you?”
“OK. Come fast. I’ll hold it for you.”
* * *
Jay should have asked him to e-mail it, but despite stories about the country’s IT prowess, the overwhelming majority of people were techno illiterate. He rushed out to Patil’s office.
“Going somewhere?” It was Janet.
“To get some records.”
“Don’t tell me you’re going to drive,” she said. “You’re always bloody late. Let me take you.”
Jay wasn’t going to say no. They quickly got into her car and headed there.
“Listen, I’m sorry about . . .” he said.
“Forget it,” she said. “We were working on a story. I know the story comes first.”
“It’s not that.”
“Shut up,” she said, smiling. “Don’t apologize. When this story is wrapped up, you can take me out.”
“It’s a date,” he said.
* * *
An hour later, they were back at the newsroom with a long list of printed names. Jay cross-checked the names on the list with those of the victims. The list had names of the victims and their neighbors. It included details like who left at what time, when they returned, how many people in a household; a highly organized spreadsheet put together by a highly organized thief. Jay then came to Liz Barton’s name. He scanned the information around it. That’s when he saw what he never expected to see. He immediately took it to Janet.
“Look at this,” he said.
She did, looking at it and registering the name on the list.
“Wow.”
“I’m going to call Gaikwad.”
* * *
Janet and Jay arrived at Liz Barton’s building just in time to watch Gaikwad pull up in the police jeep.
“You sure about this, right?” Gaikwad asked him.
“It’s on the list, inspector,” Jay said. “Take a look.”
Gaikwad looked at the list, but didn’t seem placated.
“Yes, but I had spoken to him. I know how he makes his money. Why wouldn’t he just tell me?” he said.
“Why would he?” Jay asked. “You’re investigating a murder, not public integrity. This raises a huge red flag.”
Gaikwad was not convinced.
“I don’t disagree that he could have done it, but hunches aren’t enough,” he said.
“Inspector,” Janet said. “We’ve looked at the records. She wasn’t here that day. She was in Delhi. There was no reason for him to be here.”
“OK. It could be a coincidence, but I’m going by what you say only because—actually I don’t know why I’m going by what you say. But let’s do it.”
The watchman smiled at the inspector and let him through. Gaikwad smiled back. Jay and Janet followed him into the elevator.
“Eleven?” the liftman asked.
“Yes. Eleven,” Gaikwad replied.
No one spoke as the elevator climbed up slowly and then came to a stop.
They got out and walked through the hallway. They rang the bell on the door. They could hear footsteps on the other side. The door opened.
“Yes?” It was Arundhati Hingorani, the human rights lawyer and companion to Gaja Kohli. “Oh, inspector, it’s you. What do you want?”
“Is Mr. Kohli here?”
“What is this regarding?”
“Madam, please let him know we’re here. I have a warrant for his arrest.”
She didn’t have to go. Kohli emerged.
“Gaja Kohli, I arrest you for the murder of Liz Baar-Tone,” Gaikwad said.
“Wai
t a minute here,” Hingorani protested. “Where’s the warrant? What’s your evidence?”
“The evidence will be presented in good time, madam. As for the warrant, here it is.”
Hingorani perused the warrant while Kohli read it over her shoulder.
“This is from Judge Das. I’m going to appeal it. That man is a warrant machine. Even on the flimsiest of evidence, he will issue a warrant.”
Gaikwad knew she was right. It was precisely why he’d approached Das for a warrant. He also knew that if Jay was right, the warrant was justified.
“That is up to you, madam, but we have a valid warrant for his arrest.”
“Then what is he doing here?” she said, pointing at Jay.
“I found the evidence,” Jay replied.
“And what is your evidence?” Kohli asked, a look of amusement on his face. “That Arundhati lives here and I sometimes come here?”
“On the face of it, that’s no evidence, you’re right,” Jay said. “But you were seen by Liz Barton’s driver on the night she died.”
“What does that say?” Kohli asked. “I was coming to see Arundhati.”
“But that’s just it, sir,” Gaikwad chimed in. “The last time I asked you about it, you said you were with Mrs. Baar-Tone. Now you say you were with this lady. Which is it?”
“I was here. Now that I think about it, I was with Arundhati.”
“But sir, Ms. Hingorani wasn’t here that day. She was in Delhi for a human rights conference,” Jay said. “We’ve seen the video footage. My newspaper even carried a front-page story on the conference.”
“And when we originally interviewed the both of you, Ms. Hingorani said you were together the whole week. When we checked, it turned out she was in Delhi. So why were you here, sir?” Gaikwad asked.
“He doesn’t need my permission to come here,” Hingorani said. “What’s mine is his.”
But both Jay and Gaikwad could hear doubt creep into her voice.
“It’s OK, darling,” Kohli said. “I did it.”
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