by Leena Nandan
Mumbai, 5 February
The waves crashed on the black rocks. The wind had raised its pitch and the sky was darkening with grey thunderclouds. She shivered, wary of the angry mood of the sea. It was pleasantly cool, but the sense of unease would not go away. Was it the late hour that was making her so unsettled? She pulled her coat protectively around her and checked her bag yet again. In Delhi, lone women did not walk around alone at this time of night, but Mumbai was different.
They were safer. Still, the words felt hollow to her and she took a snap decision. She would not wait here any longer. Some other rendezvous point would be fixed.
The hair on her arms rose as she heard footsteps. It was too uncanny that after half an hour of waiting, just when she had decided to leave, the man was approaching her. Her heart was pounding louder than the waves. Turning around, she saw him. He wasn’t the man she had come to meet. He was a stranger, anonymous, sinister, making no bones about his intention. With a muffler around his face, only his eyes—white slits at that—could be seen. But no—there was a white gash on his face too—his teeth, bared in a wolfish smile. The man was mocking her, enjoying the terror that emanated from the pores of her being. She threw sand at him, he ducked easily. Now he was laughing aloud. She turned and ran, but he came inexorably closer. Her knee gave way and she fell. The knife rose, curved and shining in the faint moonlight. She jerked away, but he had anticipated it and he changed the downward swing. His laughter was full throated by now, almost a symphony with the waves and the wind. He aimed for her throat and slit it in one sure movement. The last thought she had was of regret, as crimson blood seeped out on the rocks and the light went out from her eyes.
NINE
New Delhi, 5 February
Vikram picked up a paper from the top of the pile with all the delicacy of a surgeon lifting out shrapnel. It didn’t work. The files which had till then been content with tilting drunkenly, promptly toppled over, landing on the floor with a resounding crash.
He didn’t need a fortune-teller to predict the outcome.
‘Sir, the floor is in no shape to withstand these vibrations. The whole building will collapse.’ That was the caretaker; complete with nasal voice and whining tone. ‘As it is my blood pressure is so high.
I was resting, but this sound made me come up.’
‘I was just testing the laws of gravity,’ said Vikram, but of course sarcasm was totally wasted on the moron, who was grumbling as he exited the door.
For the hundredth time, he wondered why life had suddenly become so complicated. Being in charge of cyber crimes where a meeting in a quarter was the most that anyone could aspire for, he’d whiled away the time with hi-tech computer games.
Occasionally, some overzealous bloke would hunt him down and ask for a report, but since this phenomenon also coincided with the leap year, life, in general, was cool.
Then today morning, Tushar Sen, a college friend he hadn’t met in years, had breezed in from nowhere and taken him out for lunch.
‘Fattening up the goat before the kill,’ muttered Vikram bitterly to himself, now that he could see the whole game.
‘Hey, Vic, you can’t hide forever behind these machines,’ was Tushar’s opening remark as they sipped piping hot coffee. Guaranteed to provoke, it succeeded. Not for nothing had he always been called the master manipulator.
‘You need to get your head examined, buddy. This is something I asked for as a break. I’m working on cyber fatigues.’
‘Fatigued is the word. You do look pretty jaded. And this place, masquerading as your office, is just awful.’
‘Idiot, fatigues as in camouflage for soldiers. I’m trying to work out if computers can be made to simulate situations of attack and defence…’
‘Look, pal,’ and now Tushar was serious (or was he simulating seriousness? God, he was beginning to play mind games with himself), ‘you’ve got to snap out of it. I know Leila hurt you pretty bad, but you have to forgive and forget—and that’s not just a tired old cliché. You’ve got to move on in life.’
Vikram almost snapped his head off, but caught himself in the nick of time. He really didn’t need any of this nor was there any point in overreacting.
‘Okay, forget it. Shall we finish eating, if you’re done with calculating how much this will set you back by?’
Tushar refused to be offended. ‘Not until I’ve said my piece. And it’s nothing to do with your burnout. This is serious stuff.’
‘Lay off, man, you’re beginning to bug me. I told you I need to work things out…’
‘And I’ve got just what you need. It’s a highly complex situation where the layers are just beginning to peel off.’
‘Onions are what you have in mind and I’m no chef,’ said Vic pushing back his chair. ‘I’ve had enough—and I don’t mean the food.’ The waiter, looking overwhelmingly tired, smiled at him nevertheless; he paid the bill, leaving a generous tip, and walked out of the restaurant.
Tushar followed him out but he wasn’t alone. From nowhere, a very tall, thin man wearing thick glasses and sporting a noticeably receding hairline, materialised. Tushar introduced them, looking a trifle sheepish.
‘This is Benoy, who works in the same organisation as I do, as Chief Security Officer. Benoy, Vikram here is from the Central Reserve Police Force—we’ve been friends for donkey’s years’
Only, I’m the donkey here, thought Vikram, furious at the obvious setup.
Ignoring Vikram’s glare, the man held out his hand. ‘Hi. Glad to have a chat with you.’
Vikram had no intention of being cornered like this and ignored the proffered hand. ‘You’ll have to excuse me. I hadn’t bargained for a pincer attack.’
‘Vic, just take a look this and I won’t bother you again,’ begged Tushar. Just to get rid of him, Vikram glanced at the paper in his hand. It was a drawing, somewhat like a blueprint, with tiny notations all over.
‘You’re building a house and it’s looking goofier by the minute. In addition to being sadly deficient in culinary abilities, I’m also no architect.’
‘This is the document our company’s top research scientist was working on,’ said Benoy. ‘He was found dead just outside his research centre two days ago—he suffered a heart attack. But we know nothing more than that.’
For a minute, Vikram was curious, his policeman’s instincts coming to the fore. But he resolved to show no interest. With studied indifference, he said, ‘Well, happy hunting. I’m done for the day.’
‘The scientist was Leila’s father,’ said Benoy
The muscles in Vikram’s jaw knotted as he tried to control his anger. ‘Don’t try to play games with me. Look for someone you can psych.’
‘She’s in danger, for God’s sake,’ and now Tushar had shed the veneer of casualness altogether. ‘These guys are pros. They won’t stop at anything. We have to establish control before it’s too late.’
‘Then go sleuth around yourself. I have other things on my mind. And it doesn’t concern me anyway.’
With that, Vikram had got into a taxi and left. He didn’t glance back, but he could picture Benoy and Tushar standing on the pavement, following the taxi with their eyes till it disappeared from view.
Back from the so-called lunch, he felt completely out of sorts. The memory of Tushar’s cutting comments on his existing, rather, non-existing assignment, made him look even more critically at his surroundings. The cyber unit appeared even more forlorn and godforsaken than always. Damn Good Samaritan Tushar and his theories and his spiel. A nagging voice said the guy was right. He did need mental stimulation, something that would make the adrenaline flow. But he hadn’t been kidding when he said he needed a break after nearly getting killed. That was irrespective of Leila and how she had walked out on him. He already been too keyed up, too much on edge and it could have led to a serious judgmental error, which he could ill afford, being the leader of the elite operations force. But he had been the ultimate loser; there was no gainsayin
g that.
The phone jangled and he was jolted out of his dark reverie. It must be Tushar again, he thought as he barked out a curt hello. There was silence and then from nowhere, that voice, low-toned, husky which had always—and even now—thrilled him to the core of his being, said, ‘Vikram, I need your help.’
All sorts of rejoinders ran through his mind. How did she remember his number, why was she calling him? This was their first conversation after the acrimonious parting centuries ago. He had been too proud to point out how wrong she had been in accusing him of going like a lion after a kill each time he led his men. And he had been stone cold when he heard of her engagement; not even tried to reach her and demand an explanation.
‘I’ll be there in an hour,’ he said.
She met him at the door—maybe she didn’t want the servants to see him, he thought nastily. They went into the elegant, spacious living room. She was wearing a simple pink saree, too plain for a newly-wed, but his favourite colour and it gave him a mixture of pleasure and pain.
To counter it, he said brusquely, without even asking how her quiet and subdued mother, whom he always liked, was coping with the tragedy: ‘What’s the problem?’
She looked at him in silence, as if wondering whether she could trust him and said, ‘It was all a mistake. Dad overreacted and before we knew it, he was gone.’
‘Hold on—tell me from the beginning. What did he overreact to?’
The doorbell rang. She froze for a moment then hurried to open the door; a suave, classically handsome man stood there. ‘Vikram, meet my husband Suneil Bansal. Neil, Vikram has come to offer his condolences—he was out of the city. He’s asking how Mother is coping.’
She was babbling and Neil watched her with an inscrutable look. There were too many undercurrents and Vikram wanted none of it.
‘Well, I’ll be leaving then.’ He turned on his heel and left, hoping she would stop him, wishing she would say it was he whom she loved after all…
The man had been watching Vikram’s office and knew that this was the right time to make his move. The information was all there and the opportunity too, as Vikram was clearly leaving for the day. Damn Vikram and his meddling. He realised that he was working himself up into a fury and it would hamper his objective. He had to be as noiseless as possible and what he was after would not take much time anyway. He knew exactly what he was going to do. He just could not afford to be incriminated by the evidence collected on the case and he would do anything to make sure his neck wasn’t in the guillotine—even wring someone else’s if the need arose.
He picked the lock easily, entered the room on silent feet and stopped short, muttering a curse underneath his breath as he espied Vikram’s secretary. She had her back to him and was humming to herself while she painted her toenails. Maybe he could step behind the shadow of the large steel cabinet and wait for her to leave. He pivoted and his sleeve caught on the handle. She turned around at the noise and caught sight of him. Time seemed to stand still and then her mouth opened to scream. He caught her arm and twisted it hard. She tried to pull away and now his anger and fear had mounted to fever pitch.
He had not bargained for meeting anyone and now he had to think on his feet. Looking around for anything handy, he caught sight of the old-fashioned telephone with its curled wire cord. He lunged towards it even as she made one more attempt to free herself. Thankfully he was wearing gloves. Wrapping the telephone cord round her neck, he pulled it hard. Her eyes were bulging now and then she slumped to the floor, dead. He looked around frantically for the data, opening drawers and breaking open file cabinets in his haste. Finally he had a bundle, all labelled neatly, and he shoved them into the pockets of his jacket, pulling the door to as he rushed down the stairs, just in time to hear the ping of the elevator as it stopped and someone got out. He had done it!
It was not yet six when Vikram reached office. He was in no mood to go to the set of rooms which could not be called home. He unlocked the door, entered and stood still. Celia lay there, one arm thrown out, with the nail polish still held tight in her hand. She had been strangled by the telephone cord. The drawers of the cabinet where all the discs were stored had been pulled out by force and the contents were strewn on the floor. One part of his mind noted all the details clinically, while the other went cold with rage.
This had come too close on the heels of his meeting with Tushar. By God, someone would pay for it.
Tushar was nowhere to be found. All calls to his office and residence drew a blank—the cell phone, whenever dialled, told him in that maddeningly cheerful tone that the subscriber was unreachable. For a wild moment, he wondered whether Tushar too had been done in but then got a hold of himself. Something was definitely very wrong but it could be related to whatever he was handling in the computer unit and not with the murky secrets he had just learnt. He had never been security conscious, basically because of his cynical belief that nothing he was doing merited any importance. He had coded all the data of the call centre case and stored it in several CDs for evidence as well as on the computer as back-up; he now had the unenviable task of going through all the files to put the evidence together.
The telephone had to be checked for fingerprints. He picked up his cell phone, dialled the police station, and narrated the incident. What would it be like on the other side of the table, answering questions? Would he, in fact, be a suspect? With the secretary being smart though not so young, the possibility of an affair going wrong would not be ruled out. Should he mention that she spent more time in the beauty parlour than in the office? His mind was wandering, and he realised it wouldn’t do; rambling statements from a person of his training and experience would give rise to needless doubt.
What followed was routine. An unimpressive police inspector by name of Khanna came and jotted down the answers. He wanted to treat this as a suicide and was offended that the corpse had not been considerate enough to make this plausible. Only after Vikram told him that he was a CRPF officer presently on deputation with the cyber crimes division, did he start looking suspicious. His feelings seemed to be outraged at the very idea that anyone could opt for something so lacklustre and he made sure Vikram understood that he was going to have a spot of explaining to do. This being the well-trodden path of any investigation, Vikram asked them to notify him of the time of death once the post mortem was over and started the tedious task of trying to locate Tushar. He wondered why he had never realised before how slippery his friend was when it came to being tracked down.
There was a missed call on his phone, from Leila’s number. He called back and was surprised to find that she sounded hysterical, but he had no time to worry about her state of mind, so he promised to meet her in town the next day. It was late night by the time he finally ran Tushar to earth. They met in Tushar’s office and it came as a great surprise to Vikram that Tushar was in the Security wing of 24x365, which he had been visiting till very recently in connection with the cyber theft case. His interaction had been directly with the CEO, which, come to think of it, was in itself rather strange, considering that the Security wing should necessarily have been in the loop on a theft matter. Maybe they loved their little power games. Vikram shrugged mentally and put the matter out of his mind, focusing instead on Celia’s horrible murder.
Tushar’s comment when they sat down was an unexpectedly belligerent. ‘Got off your high horse, have you?’ By the time Vikram had gathered his wits together, Tushar had launched into a lecture delivered in a hectoring style. How caught up people were in their own trivial problems, how little anyone cared for others. He marveled at human frailty, where petty emotions took precedence over everything else and railed at the erosion of values and ethics. The words rolled off his tongue like a wellrehearsed speech and were accompanied by much gesticulation and table pounding. Vikram almost applauded when Tushar paused for breath, but it wasn’t in jest. He was genuinely intrigued and for the first time in the last many months wanted to know more.
Lei
la’s father, Dr Maken, had been a scientist of no mean renown. His area of specialisation had been radio waves. Whatever he was doing was public knowledge, thanks to the media, and their omnipresent ‘breaking news’. But behind the scenes, he was hard at work at a far more difficult proposition—how to analyse the cellular and internet communication records of their employees, to zero in on those who were leaking information to rival companies. It required in-depth knowledge of encryption and data analysis. A whole unit had been placed at his disposal, comprising a senior scientist, Dr Natasha Grewal and a team of young researchers, one of whom had died recently in a road accident.
The team assisted him only for data gathering. Analysis was done solely by Dr Maken. They had theorised at length about the matter; the final massive report from him would provide clinching evidence. But the scientist behaved totally out of character on the evening of February 3. He tried to leave the research facility without informing anybody and suffered a heart attack just outside the premises; his body was discovered only much later by a couple out for a late evening stroll in the generally deserted area.
It was a more elaborate description of what he had recently learnt—was it only hours ago? Vikram remained silent as he absorbed the implications. His investigative brain was in overdrive.
‘First things first. Who or what is Benoy?’
‘He is involved in this matter as the Chief Security Officer of Future Insights, while I am Director Security in the head office.’