‘Why did you kill Raja?’
‘I did not kill Raja.’
‘Then why is there blood on your clothes?’
‘I really don’t know – I swear. Raja suggested that I try to get rid of my addiction. So he got a doctor to see me. He said that the doctor would help me. That doctor gave me an injection to reduce the withdrawal symptoms. I felt drowsy. Then I fell asleep.’
‘Can you remember the doctor? Was the doctor a man or woman?’
‘I really can’t recall...please oh please get me some drugs… I can’t tolerate this pain anymore.’ Satya said grabbing the feet of Reddy.
A constable grabbed Satya and forced him back to his seat.
‘What happened then?’ Vikram asked.
‘Then I was woken by the security guard to find myself covered in blood and Raja was dead.’
‘Are you sure that you were not hallucinating about the doctor?’
‘No… I do not think so...’ Satya said this hesitantly as if he was not sure.
‘I think that you killed Raja under the influence of the drugs.’ Sanjay said.
‘I did not kill Raja. I know him since my childhood days. He was my cousin. He supplied me with my drugs. Why should I kill him?’ Yet again there seemed to be no conviction in his voice.
‘What! He was your drug supplier?’ Vikram exclaimed.
Satya nodded miserably. ‘Yes, he used to give me drugs. Sometimes, on credit. When I lost my job, he got me this job of door to door salesmanship. He became an agent for kitchen supplies and asked me to do the actual selling as I am a good salesman.’
‘Yes...I was a good salesman...till drugs overcame me.’ He repeated tears slowly rolling down his face. These few days had taken a toll on Satya. He looked defeated, tired and old. He did not look remotely attractive now with his unkempt and dirty appearance, stubble on his chin and shaking and perspiring body.
‘So Raja brought you here?’
‘Yes, he said this is the safest place for me and police would never think of looking for me here.’
‘But why was he going out of his way to hide you?’
‘Because he was my cousin.’ Satya said simply.
What a naïve man. Vikram thought incredulously. Then he thought that it must be the drug addiction which had fuddled his brain.
In the meantime, the constable came back and confirmed that Raja had indeed spoken to the caterer about Satya’s employment. The Commissioner glared at Reddy. ‘How come you missed such an important point? Looks like Raja had a lot of information about this entire business. Now he has taken all the information to his grave.’ The Commissioner looked utterly disgusted.
‘Don’t worry about it.’ Vikram said soothingly. ‘These kind of slips happen in any investigation. But we will definitely crack the case soon. I can feel it in my bones.’
Now Vikram turned to Satya and asked, ‘But why did you dislike the police so much that you had to challenge them at each step?’
‘I did not dislike the police. I have no reason to dislike them. I am a law abiding person even though I am an addict.’ Satya groaned, ‘Please give me some methadone or cocaine. I cannot bear the pain anymore.’
‘Yes, will give you soon.’ Reddy said soothingly.
‘We recovered a laptop from your apartment where we found that you have downloaded some photos of Padma’s strangled body. Where have you kept the camera?’
Satya looked perplexed. He then gave a queer crackle of laughter. He cried, ‘If I had a laptop, I would have sold it and bought more drugs. I do not have a laptop or a camera. Please give me some drugs. I am dying.’ He fell down sobbing at Reddy’s feet.
Commissioner Sanjay said, ‘If you confess to the murder then we will let you have the drugs immediately.’
Vikram spoke up immediately, ‘Sir, this is not right. At this moment, he wants the drugs so badly that he will confess even if he had not committed the murder.’
‘Okay if you want to be so politically correct! Let a doctor see him. Let him get some relief then we will interrogate him again. But I am convinced that he killed these people under the influence of drugs. It’s an open and shut case.’
Satya Prakash was led away by the police for treatment.
21
INTENSE DISCUSSIONS
In the meantime, in Vikram’s office, Murali had come back from his trip to Delhi. Radha was once again going through his expense report.
‘Really Murali, you spend too much and nothing to show for it. Nothing at all.’
‘What do you mean – nothing at all? Did I not find out that Dr. Amit and Dr. Priya were studying in AIIMS at the same time?’
‘That you could have found out easily if you had made some telephone calls from here.’
‘Vikram sir asked me to go to Delhi. Do you mean to say that he was wrong?’
Radha knew that she was treading on thin ice here. So she looked back at the expense sheet.
‘Rs 1000 for dinner! Where is the bill for this?’ Murali produced the bill. ‘Well, you could not have eaten all these dishes all alone. So I assume that you had a guest. Who was she?’
‘How do you know it was a female guest?’ Murali blustered.
Radha rolled her eyes and tapped her feet impatiently. ‘Well, was it a male guest?’
‘No, it was a female guest.’ Murali admitted sheepishly. ‘It was one of Dr. Amit’s ex-girlfriends. Very pretty.’ He added enthusiastically, ‘She really liked me you know. I wonder why women like me so much.’
‘It’s your lack of intelligence.’ Radha said promptly. ‘They find it refreshing to talk down to someone stupid like you for a change.’
As Murali’s face slowly turned purple, Vikram entered the office. On seeing Murali he said, ‘Murali, you are back. Good job in Delhi. I have some other work for you. Can you go to Asha Foundation and find out if Padma had any other boyfriend or admirer before she got attached to Dr. Amit? Also find out Dr. Priya’s whereabouts when Rajagopal was killed. And Radha, ACP Reddy will come soon. I notice that we are out of cold drinks. Can you get some fresh stock delivered in 15 minutes?’
Scowling at Radha, Murali hurried out to do Vikram’s bidding. But Radha was too busy dialling for a fresh supply of soft drinks to take any notice.
Reddy was sitting in the Vikram’s office sipping an ice cold can of Coke and reading Dr. Priya’s and Dr. Kiran’s narrative. They planned to go out for lunch, but as Reddy wanted to discuss the case with Vikram, he had dropped in a little bit earlier. They were planning to go to 10 Downing Street for lunch as they were both craving continental food. After he finished reading, Vikram said, ‘What do you think?’
‘After reading Dr. Priya’s narrative, I am reminded of the proverb, ‘‘Too much courtesy, full of craft.’’ ’
Vikram nodded. ‘Yes, I thought so too. The lady seems to be trying too hard to show us how much she loved her mother-in-law.’
At that moment, ACP Reddy’s phone rang. It was Satish Rao the head of Begumpet Police Station. ‘I had contacted Dr. Renuka’s lawyer. Do you know who gained the most from Renuka’s death?’ Satish Rao asked.
Satish answered his own question, ‘It was Dr. Priya. I think that recently, Dr. Renuka had been quite upset with Dr. Priya. She wanted to leave her property to various charities and Ms Barkha, and had contacted her lawyer asking him to change her will. But she died before she could sign this new will.’
‘Oh wow! Her death came at a really opportune moment for Dr. Priya then. When was the previous will made?’ Reddy asked.
‘After her son’s death, she had willed all her assets to Dr. Priya. It seems that around two years back she had made a similar instruction, but had changed her mind at that time and had retained her original will.’
‘Hmm, so Dr. Priya had every motive to kill Dr. Renuka.’ After finishing the call, Reddy updated Vikram.
Vikram said, ‘As per Veena’s grapevine, there is no love lost between Barkha and Priya. But as per Dr. Priya’s narrative, ever
ybody is nice and loving. It does not ring true. Again from Veena’s informal channels I have come to know that lately Dr. Renuka was getting majorly irritated with Dr. Priya. Mainly because she was not conforming to her ways. She was rebelling against the restrictions being placed on her by Dr. Renuka. Satish’s call confirms that Veena’s information is correct. So Dr. Priya’s account needs to be read with a pinch of salt.’
‘Not a pinch, but a large bag of salt.’ Reddy said humorously.
‘What do you make of Dr. Chanchu’s narrative?’
‘He says that he is a good friend of Amit. But he has practically character assassinated him,’ Reddy responded
‘Yes – I felt that with friends like Chanchu, Amit would not need enemies.’
‘True. But Chanchu did try to guide Amit away from Padma and save his engagement to Dr. Priya.’
‘I wonder why? Was it because he was a true friend or he wanted to marry Padma himself? Remember, Mallika had said that Chanchu was attracted towards Padma.’
‘But Mallika is a disgruntled employee. She has a grudge against Chanchu and might be simply badmouthing him.’ Reddy continued. ‘But again like Dr. Priya I would take his narrative with a pinch of salt.’
After finishing lunch, they proceeded to the Commissioner’s office. Sanjay Kumar had called an urgent meeting. In the meeting the Commissioner announced that he wanted to call a press conference to announce that the random killer had been captured. But Vikram restrained him.
‘I am not satisfied that this person is really the killer.’
‘What nonsense are you talking Vikram.’ Sanjay said irritably, ‘All evidence points towards him.’
‘I do not think so at all. I will not be satisfied till I get answers to the following questions:
1.Why did Raja, go out of his way to help a loser like Satya?
2.Why did Raja ask him to cover Charminar on 1st April when Padma was killed?
3.Why was the killer so desperate that he brazenly attacked Dr. Chanchu in a public place like the KBR Park?’
‘Are you indicating that Raja is the actual killer?’ Reddy asked.
‘I would not rule it out. He was certainly cocky and confident enough. In fact he had all the traits of a killer. Remember, Mallika had complained that too many patients died under his care. Let us get the phone records and trace the location of Satya and let us also check whether there was one more person present in all the locations along with Satya where the murders were committed. I suspect, an image of a random killer was carefully built up and Satya Prakash was identified by the actual murderer to be the fall guy.’
‘And the actual murderer was none but his cousin Raja.’ Reddy exclaimed.
‘But then who killed Raja?’ Sanjay exclaimed. ‘I think this guy Satya is the random killer and he killed Raja.’
‘But why should he kill the very guy who was hiding him and supplying him with drugs?’ Vikram asked.
Reddy said, ‘And I remember that Raja had worked in Dr. Renuka’s nursing home before he joined here. Maybe we will get a clue there regarding why he murdered her.’
‘Yes, good point.’ Vikram now turned to the Commissioner and said, ‘Sir, I suggest you do not inform the press anything till we have done some more investigation. The case is not as straight forward as it seems.’
The Commissioner looked disappointed, but he agreed.
Vikram looked at Reddy and said, ‘Let us go to Dr. Renuka Reddy’s hospital immediately.’
By the time they reached the hospital, Dr. Priya had gone out. But Barkha, Dr. Renuka’s long-time friend was present.
When asked about Raja, she said, ‘Raja was a nurse here. But he used to take unusual interests in all the patients and would visit them often even though he was not supposed to. There were an abnormal number of deaths while he was here. There were rumours that a nurse saw him inject poison in the saline drip of one of the patient. That patient died. Dr. Renuka got suspicious about Raja. She asked him to leave.’
‘Did the number of deaths fall after he left?’ Vikram asked.
‘Surprisingly, yes. In fact we had all thought that Dr. Renuka was overreacting. Dr. Priya wanted Raja to continue. But Dr. Renuka was adamant. Dr. Priya gave him good references and this helped him get the job in Asha Foundation. But after he left, the death rates decreased.’
‘But why did Dr. Renuka not hand over Raja to the police?’
‘What are you saying? If we called the police, the negative publicity would have been extremely bad for business. Can we afford to let the public believe that we might have a killer nurse in our hospital? We got rid of Raja and that was that.’
Vikram asked, ‘Yes, there had been instances where the nurses were random killers. Take the example of Charles Cullen.’
Reddy said, ‘Who was Charles Cullen?’
‘Charles Edmund Cullen was a former nurse who is suspected to be the most prolific random killer in American history. He confessed to authorities that he killed up to 40 patients during the course of his 16-year nursing career. Cullen stated he administered overdoses to patients in order to spare them from going into cardiac or respiratory arrest and end their suffering. However, many of his victims were not terminal and were about to be released from the hospital shortly.’
Reddy asked Barkha, ‘Are you sure that Dr. Priya gave the recommendation for Raja?’
Barkha smiled thinly, ‘Yes, she was always supporting young men whether they were worthy or not. She pretended to be a grieving widow in front of her mother-in-law but we, who work closely, know better.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well she had been widowed within two years of her marriage. But she never remarried – I think because Dr. Renuka would not have approved. But it did not mean she lost interest in men.’
‘But I believe that she had become engaged to another doctor?’
‘Yes she had been engaged to Dr. Amit Pancholi, but she called off the engagement.’
‘Why did she call off the engagement?’ Reddy asked.
‘I think that Dr. Renuka did not approve of the relationship. Priya wanted to be Ms Goody Two Shoes in front of her at least,’ Barkha said spitefully. She drew a breath and then continued, ‘But it was a long time ago – more than two years I think. But Dr. Renuka was beginning to suspect that Priya was getting dissatisfied with her current lifestyle and wanted a family of her own with husband and kids, etc.’
‘Was Dr. Renuka recently upset with Dr. Priya because she wanted to remarry and have children?’
‘From what I have seen, this could be true. Dr. Renuka was too strict with Dr. Priya. She was chaffing under her restrictions. After all she is young, beautiful and lonely. She also wanted a bit of fun in her life. But Dr. Renuka only wanted her to work or stay at home rest of the time. Anybody would want a little more freedom.’
They had said goodbye to Barkha, and came out of the hospital. Reddy looked at Vikram excitedly and said, ‘This could very well be the reason why Dr. Renuka wanted to change her will. So Dr. Priya got rid of her before that and tried to shift the blame on the random killer.’
Vikram nodded and said, ‘Possible. By the way, could you crack the messages in the Android phone that we recovered from Amit’s apartment?’
‘Yes, Vikram it completely slipped my mind to tell you. The forensic lab called up yesterday. They have recovered WhatsApp and Facebook messages as well as his emails.’
‘Can you get a search warrant? I also want to check messages sent to Amit by a certain person.’ Reddy turned to look at him in surprise and asked, ‘Messages? Search warrant! For what purpose?’
Vikram told him.
22
VIKRAM EXPLAINS
It was 7 pm. Syamjith, the Commissioner’s PA, was about to leave the office, when Reddy rang.
‘Syamjith, can you please book the conference room for tomorrow morning at 10 am? Vikram wants a meeting with all the stakeholders in the random killing case. I have already informed the Commissioner and
he said that he would be able to attend.’
‘Who else will attend? Do you want me to send a mail?’ Syamjith asked calmly.
‘Can you please ensure that the Telangana Times editor, Kinshuk also attends? I will inform the others.’ Reddy requested.
‘It will be done,’ Syamjith responded.
Next day at 10 o’clock eight people had assembled at the conference room. Vikram was standing near the projector kept at the head of the table while Reddy and the Commissioner occupied the chairs on his left and right.
Dr. Priya and Mr. Ashok Manepally were seated next to ACP Reddy. Dr. Priya looked cool and composed, while Mr. Ashok looked tense and kept wiping his face. Mr. Kinshuk Jain was seated next to the Commissioner. He looked happy as The Telangana Times would be the first to publish the conclusion of this case. Dr. Nitin Kala and Dr. Chanchu were sitting next to each other near Kinshuk. The usual supercilious and arrogant expression was missing from Nitin’s face as he looked tense. Dr. Chanchu’s head was bandaged and looked like he was in a bit of discomfort. An office boy had served tea and biscuits.
Reddy looked at each face in turn. A little company of well-bred people, all outwardly composed. But he knew one of them would be stripped of their mask and the face of the killer would be revealed.
Vikram poured water from the water bottle kept nearby into a glass and took a sip. Clearing his throat, he now began to speak.
‘All along, I had been wondering about this random killing. What was the killer’s motive behind the murders? Why did he send mail to the press challenging the police?
‘Once Satya Prakash was arrested, I interviewed him to understand him better. I found him to be a shy, unambitious kind of person who had no interest in anything other than his next drug fix. But again we know that in his killer avatar, he had written emails to the press which were full of arrogance and cockiness. We also know that he was foolish enough to leave a trail of evidence wherever he went.
A Season for Dying: A Vikram Rana Mystery (Vikram Rana Series Book 2) Page 11