The Case of the Mysterious Messages - Part 11

Note: This is serial fiction. Please read the previous parts before starting with this one:

Link to previous part : http://ashrafchoudhury.blogspot.in/2013/08/the-case-of-mysterious-messages-part-10.html

She was looking at me, judging me, trying to decide what to play next.

“It was here when I came. I collected it and put it in my bag” Anju finally replied, fishing through her bag.

Finally she came out with a Samsung charger, and showed it to us.

“But he had a Nokia phone, right?” I asked.

“How…How do you know that?” she stuttered, and her voice was now quivering.

“After you left last night, I went to visit a friend who is an ethical hacker. We went through the mail that you and Ravi had been exchanging, and his signature on all his mails was ‘Sent from my Nokia phone’” I finally brought her house down.

“You hacked into my inbox?” she said it more with anger than with surprise.

“Let’s say I did a lot more than that, Anju,” I said. “And I know a lot more than you think.”

 Her head was bowed. And I continued to rub it in.

 “When I went through all the mails you and Ravi had been exchanging, I found something very curious. 

There was a detailed description of the kidnap drama you two would enact, of how his company’s HR department would pay the money, how you would negotiate and how you would collect the money. But there was one thing missing. You know what I mean don’t you?”

She looked up. Her eyes were boring into me, yet at the same time they were a thousand miles away.

 “There was no mention of approaching Ravi’s parents and asking them to fund the ransom. That was your own little scheme- a little bonus you had planned for yourself, right, Anju? Ravi had no clue you were trying to con his parents as well, did he?”

At this, tears started flowing out of her eyes. She didn’t even try to hide them.

“But…they deserved it, didn’t they?” she stuttered, in between sobs.

“I am sure they did. But this kind of a revenge scheme, with a double cross thrown into a fake kidnap plot, is too complicated to work, don’t you see, Anju?”

She didn’t say anything, and went on sobbing.

“Ravi must have found out somehow that you were trying to squeeze his own parents with his own plan. He was a devout son, and never had any ill felling for his parents. That is why he walked out of your plan. And walked out of here. Out of his own free will. And that is when his messages on Facebook started getting nasty, didn’t they Anju?” I finally elaborated everything for everyone’s benefit.

She was crying loudly now, having no more cards to play. Both Sunil and Lola were equally stunned, at Anju’s evil designs and my newly discovered detective play to say anything.

“But there is one thing that I don’t understand” I finally asked. “After playing your double game with Ravi’s parents, how on earth did you plan to stay happily with Ravi and your child anymore?”

And the answer she gave sent shivers down the spine of everyone present there, and sent us scurrying out of the door.

***

Sunil had finally got off the phone, and I and Lola were eagerly waiting for him to give us the news.

The rain had stopped, and we were sitting in K.C.Das restaurant on M.G.Road.

“That was Inspector Mirza, my good friend from Banjara Hills Police station. They had checked in at Ravi’s parents’ house at Banjara Hills. But it seems the house was already empty by the time they reached there. 

The neighbors too had no idea where the family could have gone. But the local travel agent who runs a travel agency just below the apartment, has confirmed that Ravi had come to his office yesterday, and had booked three tickets to London for last night.” Sunil finally informed the two of us.

“So did they safely check out?” Lola asked excitedly.

“Yes. Mirza checked with the airport authorities, and found out that Ravi Rao and his parents had infact boarded the flight to London at 10pm last night.” Sunil replied, and we heaved a sigh of relief.

“So the goons that Anju had hired to enact the robbery cum murder at Ravis’s parents’ house must have failed” I asked.

“Yes. She must have thought that with Ravi’s parents out of the way, there was no way Ravi could have found out that she had asked his parents to pay fifty lakh rupees for his ransom. And with no one else in this world to go to, she had thought that she would have Ravi all to herself” Sunil added.

“It was the perfect plan. Too bad Ravi found out about her evil plan. But how did he get to know?” Lola asked.

“It seems he got an email intimation from the Bank when his father withdrew thirty lakh rupees from their joint account. Then he must have got in touch with his father, who was surprised that his son was still in India, and that too in good health. Ravi then would have told his father about the plan that he along with Anju had made to collect some money for their soon to be born child. Surely his father would then tell him that they too had received a call asking for his ransom. And then Ravi could clearly read through Anju’s double game”, Sunil explained.

“All said and done, I want to know why did you let that bitch walk free after all this?” Lola asked me.

“Isn’t it a fair punishment to her that the love of her life, for whom she had hatched all this conspiracy, has left him for good? Didn’t you see the way she had cried and moaned when he sent her the last message on facebooktoday from London? Plus the pain of bearing his child, without him beside her, won’t that itself kill her?” I asked, putting one hand on Lola’s shoulder.

“True. And moreover, come to think of it, she didn’t really commit a real crime. Ofcourse she could be booked for conspiring against Ravi’s parents ‘with intent to kill’ charges and ‘fraud’, but remember Ravi himself staged his own kidnap. He was also involved. So Anju had planned a kidnap that didn’t happen, asked for ransom money that she never got, and hired goons to execute a murder of an old couple who had already left the country for good. So tell me, what were you going to charge her with?”Sunil added, supporting my judgment.

Lola could see reason now. She was smiling. And then she put her arms around me and kissed me on my cheeks.

It was my turn to blush now.

“So Anuj, I have a proposal for you? I am old now and its time I retire. How about carrying on my legacy and joining me at my office as a private investigator?” Sunil smiled and asked me, taking another bite from one more famous Bengali rasgulla.

“Oh come on Sunil, I am not cut out for all this dangerous cloak and dagger stuff. I am just the guy who loves to poke his nose in other’ peoples’ affairs, once in a while” I smiled, taking another puff from my cigarette, and blowing up smoke into the clear sky.

The clouds had parted, and the sun had come out after a long time. Bangalore weather, as predictable as ever, I thought, wondering about the beautiful city that I lived in, with all its unpredictability and unpredictable people.

I so loved this city.

(Concluded)

The Case of the Mysterious Messages - Part 10

Note: This is serial fiction. Please read the previous parts before starting with this one:

Link to previous part : http://ashrafchoudhury.blogspot.in/2013/08/the-case-of-mysterious-messages-part-9.html

It was well past midnight.

The sound of the rain hitting against the window pane was still loud. Lola and I were still too excited about how the day had unfolded. Sleep seemed to be a distant possibility.

We had been lying on the bed, still excitedly talking about the events of the day.

“Why would Ravi send such self-contradicting messages?” Lola wondered aloud.

“I don’t know Lola. It even baffles me to think how a man could turn so hostile within a period of twenty four hours?” I wondered.

“Does happen to people, I guess. If they are hurt, or if they find out that their loved one has ditched them” Lola offered.

“But why did he send messages on facebook? Why not send simple SMSs, or even make a call directly?”, Lola asked again.

“SMSs and calls are easy to trace. Plus, maybe he didn’t have a SIM card on his phone when he was imprisoned in that room. Remember, he had just come back from Russia. Maybe he just hijacked into a neighbor’s wi-fi and the phone had facebook app installed. So he messaged on facebook itself. He couldn’t call or send SMSs”, I calculated. 

“But remember the messages themselves? I mean at night his messages are so full of love and good hope ‘I just wish everything gets over soon, so that I can be with you again’. And then the next day evening his messages turn hostile. ‘When a man trusts a woman and finds the trust betrayed – what punishment could be worse than this?’ I mean, what could make him turn so topsy-turvy within one day?” I added.

“I don’t know. Maybe he went crazy” Lola said, unable to offer any other explanation.

“Yeah”, I offered.

“I mean he was crazy, wasn’t he? I mean, what kind of son makes a plan to dupe his own parents to rob them of their money?”, Lola wondered.

“Hmm”, I thought. That was something to think about, keeping in mind he was a dutiful son, and dotted on his parents.

Suddenly, something came up into my mind. I had to check it out.

I got up from bed, and grabbed my jacket and the car keys.

“Where are you goingRuffu?” Lola sat up on the bed.

“Lola, I have to go and check out something. You go to sleep.”

And I ran out into the rain.

***

Shivaji Nagar is one of the oldest and busiest areas in Bangalore.

Lined up with vegetable markets, fish markets, beef markets, chicken and meat markets, it is forever infested with people going around doing business and commerce. The main shopping hub, Commercial Street, is also very nearby to Shivaji Nagar. Shivaji Nagar is also famous for its many mosques, temples and churches. It is an area which is a living proof of secularity still surviving in India.

I knew Shivaji Nagar would be too crowded at this time of the day. It would be impossible to drive there. 

Plus I wasn’t in the mood to drive right now. I was feeling lighter and happier, now that I had a clearer idea of things to come.

We took the metro till M.G.Road. From there, we hired an auto to Shivaji Nagar.

By the time we were crossed Commercial Street, I was actually smiling. Sunil noticed it, and asked me what it was. I gave him my most mysterious smiletill date.

It was still raining since last night. The rain made sure that the potholes on the roads of Shivaji Nagar were all filled with mud water. Our auto had a difficult time, making its way  between all the potholes on the road, and splashed mud water all over.

Finally we reached our destination, the address given by Anju last night.

I hoped Anju had reached the place before us. I was not in the mood to wait in this rain.

She hadn’t. So we waited under the thatched roof of a hut. The hut smelled of cow dung, and God knows what. All our jeans were already covered with mud.

“Are you sure she will turn up?” Sunil asked.

“She will be here alright”, I knew.

We waited for around fifteen more minutes.

Finally we saw her, walking down the road, with an umbrella in her hand. The umbrella had done little to keep her dry. Instead the wind kept swaying her umbrella from this side to that.

Finally she walked up to us, completely wet.

“Hello”, she said, closing her useless umbrella.

One look into her eyes told me that she too hadn’t had any sleep last night.

Last night, in our apartment we had made this plan to meet here today. Come rain or high water, we had made a plan, and we were sticking to it. But something in me had changed, and Anju had no idea about it.

She led us wordlessly up some rickety, old wooden steps, which turned thrice before reaching the second floor. The corridor was old wood, supported by rotting cast iron pillars from the ground, dating to the pre-British era. I was nervous on more than one count.

She led us across a passage lined up with doors, made of rotten old wood. Finally she stopped infront of one door. The door looked so old that it was difficult to tell the original color of the wood. A bright new lock hung on the door.

She opened the lock with a key that she took out from her purse.

It was the smallest room I had ever seen. I doubt if the residents of this room ever saw any sunlight. The room smelt odd too. The paints on the wall were peeling off. All the four corners of the small room had Paan spit decorated on them with utmost sincerity.There was just one cot in a corner of the room, and that was the only piece of furniture in that room.

“So this is where Ravi was hiding until he disappeared all of a sudden” Sunil asked finally?

“Yes. I found out this property where nobody had been staying since the last one year. This was the perfect hideout since nobody would ever care to come and look for Ravi here” Anju replied.

“Look, there is clear evidence that Ravi didn’t leave from here out of his own free will. There are clear signs of a struggle” Anju added, pointing to the jar of water that had fallen down, and had spilled all the water. Also the mattress on the bed had slide out of the bed, and half of it was now resting on the floor. “He must have been dragged from here” Anju added, matter-of-factly.

“Looks that way” I added to support Anju’s theory.

“In that case Ravi must have left in such a hurry, that he would have left all his belongings here?” I asked.

Sunil looked at me suspiciously. He must have calculated that I was playing at something here.

“Right. But he didn’t bring anything that belonged to him here. We didn’t want to leave any evidence about his presence here” Anju explained.

“Quite right. But what about his mobile phone? He was messaging you on facebook on it, right?” I asked.

“He must have had it on him when he was kidnapped from here.” Anju said, looking here and there, not meeting my eyes.

“Yes, of course. I forgot he was still messaging you from his phone after he had left from here, right?” I asked, a smile now appearing on my face.

“But I wonder how did he get enough time to collect his charger too, when he was kidnapped from here?” I added some more spice now.

Anju looked at me now, her eyes trying to read how much more did I know. I smiled, my infamous crooked smile, at her. And with that Anju knew that things were not going as she had planned. I was reading right through her now.

(To be continued)

The Case of the Mysterious Messages - Part 9

Note: This is serial fiction. Please read the previous parts before starting with this one:

Link to previous part : http://ashrafchoudhury.blogspot.in/2013/08/the-case-of-mysterious-messages-part-8.html

The environment in the room had changed drastically after Lola’s astute observation.

Now that her big secret was out, Anju stopped fidgeting with her dupatta, and was more confident and comfortable now. She also understood that other than Sunil, two other people had got deeply involved in her story, and that there was no use trying to hide anything from anyone now.

Lola made lemon tea for everyone to ease the air a bit. It had started raining outside again. Bangalore weather, it was as unpredictable as Anju’s ever changing stories.  I went and closed the windows in the hall. The sound of the rain hitting the window was ever disturbing.

“So tell us everything from the beginning. Tell us how it all started. And this time if you say anything other than the truth, I swear to God, I will leave your case, and then you can go and help yourself or take help from Boris” Sunil warned her.

She took a deep breath, and took a few sips of the hot lemon tea Lola had brewed for us all.

“Well it all happened so suddenly. I didn’t tell you, Sunil, but I and Ravi- we kept in touch all the time. We never really got over each other. The separation was more like a sort of protest against his parents’ misbehavior. But one thing I was totally sure was that I wasn’t going back there again. We chatted and emailed each other jokes and small friendly things. Just friends, that’s all, nothing more. We never met, or did any video chat, just plain old SMSes and messages via facebook.”

She paused, and took a few more sips of the tea.

“Then six months back, he got this chance to go onsite to Russia on an assignment. He messaged me. He was very excited at the prospect. The money was good, and he was always eager to visit foreign countries. We said our good byes, and that was it. I understood that he got busy there, and I too was preoccupied with my own life.”

“Then last week this happened. His parents came and cried about him being kidnapped- I told you all that. After they went, I went to see Mr. Sashi, who was the HR guy of Ravi’s company, and asked him what his company was doing about it. He was already acting on it.  Poor guy was actually doing all that he could. He engaged Boris, and we met in his office. Later that day as we were leaving, Boris casually invited me for coffee at Café Mateo on Brigade road, and I said ok, with the vague idea of tapping  him for more info- whatever.”

With each of her sentences, I was getting still angrier.

“Anju, you are still lying” I boomed.

She was avoiding eye contact with anyone, and now suddenly her eyes flooded with tears.

“I don’t know what to do…” she cried.

Lola came near her now, put a hand around her, and told her softly “Just tell them the truth. They are trying to help find your husband.”

“Umm.. I actually skipped something. Four months back I went to Russia to meet him. I was actually missing him, and he too said that he was lonely, and that the weather was great there, and I should visit him”, she said, and then broke down, crying with her head on Lola’s shoulders.

Sunil and I looked at each other. Things were slowly falling into place.

So that’s how they grew close to each other again, I observed. And then there were multiple possibilities. My mind zoomed over what could have happened after that.

Lola gave Anju some water. “So what was the plan after that?” Sunil asked.

“There was no plan. It was unplanned. It just happened” she said.

“I am not asking about the baby”, Sunil interrupted. “You must have thought of something. After all, this happened when everyone knew that you were supposed to get a divorce.”

“No plan” was all Anju said, breaking down again.

“I will tell you what the plan was”, I said, suddenly everything becoming very clear to me.

“You both played a game, didn’t you Anju?  Faked his kidnaping, planning to recover the ransom money from his parents. After that you both would have vanished somewhere and lived happily with the baby. That was the plan, wasn’t it Anju?” I was jumping, and clapping my hands now.

Sunil gave me a ‘am-i-the-detective-or-you’ kind of look. Lola was in disbelief.

Anju didn’t say anything. She was on the floor now, crying. She nodded, and in between sobs said, “But they deserved it, didn’t they?”

“But why hire me then?” Sunil wondered.

“Because something had gone horribly wrong with the plan. What went wrong, Anju?”

“Ravi had actually disappeared. Right Anju?” I shouted at her.

She nodded, still crying.

“Yes. I had him confined in a one room place in Shivaji Nagar that I had rented. But last week he vanished. The door was broken. And there was no sign of him.” Anju said, in between sobs.

“Who took him?” asked the bewildered detective.

“That’s what she wanted you to find out.” I told the detective, who still had a quizzical look on his face.

“But, if you both had planned it together, how come you don’t know where he went?” the detective still wanted to know.

It didn’t sum up right. Something was missing here. My head spinned as I tried to think about the obvious.

Anju looked up from the floor, held up her I-phone, and cried “Look at these messages”.

I looked into her phone. There was the facebook application open. It was opened on the Private Messages page.

I read the messages, one by one, and with each message, my head started spinning more and more.

(To be continued)

The Case of the Mysterious Messages - Part 8

Note: This is serial fiction. Please read the previous parts before starting with this one:

Link to previous part : http://ashrafchoudhury.blogspot.in/2013/08/the-case-of-mysterious-messages-part-7.html

It was already past eight when we left Mr. Shahi’s office. He instructed us not to go back to Sunil’s office after that because he was sure by now Boris must have found out that his tab was last operated from there.

So Sunil accompanied us to our two bedroom apartment in Koramangala 1^st block. Not that we had a big house like Sunil was used to, but he felt he would be much safer with us, rather than facing a Russian goon alone.

We reached our apartment on the second floor. Lola went into the kitchen to prepare dinner for all of us. Me and Sunil were sitting in our hall.

“So what do you think about the whole episode?” I asked him.

“I don’t know what to think. I have solved hundreds of cases in my career. But this one appears very confusing to me” I heard the old man say. Maybe old age was catching up to him, and affecting his grey matter, and clouded his vision. But I didn’t dare tell him that.

“Mr. Shashi either genuinely didn’t know, or refused to share anything more about Boris than the fact that he is used by individuals and companies to negotiate with gangs in central Asia and east Europe.  He told us that Anju’s husband, or ex-husband - Ravi- worked for his company, got kidnapped while working in Russia, and as HR head of the company Mr. S is doing his best to get him released, and for that purpose they have established links with Boris. He knows nothing about Boris except that he’s met him a couple of times and engaged him on the case. Boris is supposedly trying to find out who kidnapped Ravi, and so far he hasn’t been able to do it. Mr. S doesn’t know – and doesn’t want to know- anything more about Boris” Sunil concluded his observation.

“Yes, Right. We have to find out more about this Boris” I replied.

“Yeah, get involved with him. Go kill yourself” Lola shouted from the kitchen.

“Anuj is right Soniya. We have to find out more about Boris. That is our only chance.” Sunil came to my defense.

“Why do you have to Ruffu?” Lola came out of the kitchen, and stood near at the passage between the hall and the kitchen. “Isn’t this percolating into your thick skull- he’s a dangerous goon with connections with killer gangs and mafia and politicians all over the place. Why do you need to court trouble?” she was begging me now.

I was silent for a while. Even Sunil thought it best not to say anything lest he created a difference between husband-wife.

Suddenly Sunil’s mobile phone rang.

It is Anju, he whispered and picked up the call and put it onto speaker.

“Sunil, Sunil. Where are you? Don’t go into your office under any circumstances. Boris is waiting there for you” she sounded nervous and frightened.

“And who is Boris? And what business does he have with me?” Sunil was being careful.

“I will tell you about him when I meet you. And he knows you have his tab. I don’t know how did you manage to get it, but he has traced it to your office. He is waiting there with two of his goons” Anju’s frightened voice came out of the phone.

After a short silence, she asked “Where are you Sunil? I need to meet you. Now.”

Lola, me and Sunil looked at each other. There was moment of silence during which we looked at each other and tried to decide what would be the best thing to do at the moment.

“Tell me Anju, why should I believe you? What guarantee do I have that you don’t have Boris listening to you right now?” Sunil finally asked.

“You don’t understand. I am in the same position as you. Boris thinks I am working with you and taking him for a ride. He thinks for some reason, I stole his tab and gave it to you when I met you earlier this evening.” Anju’s helpless voice sounded.

That seemed like a good guarantee, the Russian mafia man looking for her blood as much as ours. She was in the same shit as we were.

I passed the address to Sunil, who read it out to Anju.

***

Anju came right after we had finished having dinner.

If she recognized me from the airport last evening, she didn’t show it. Maybe she thought I was too insubstantial to be worried about, or maybe she truly was afraid of Boris now.

She looked totally different now. She was wearing a salwar kameez, and as she sat on the edge of the sofa fidgeting constantly, straightening her dupatta, pushing back her hair from her temples, scratching the sofa’s arm with her fingernails from which the nail polish had begun to fade- what a transformation a mere 24 hours had brought, I thought.

She was directly talking to Sunil now.

“Sunil, you have to trust me. We both are in grave danger. Boris is looking for both of us”, she held his hand, trying to beg him to believe her story.

“First tell me who is Boris, and how is he connected to you?” Sunil said in an indifferent tone.

“Before I came to you, I went to the company’s HR department- they engaged Boris immediately as they had done something similar in another case. I came to know about Boris through their HR head”

“Why did you come to me then?” Sunil asked flatly.

“I came to you because I felt they weren’t getting anywhere. Even Boris wasn’t getting anywhere- usually he makes enquiries and finds out which gang did the kidnapping, but in this case he had been enquiring for over a week now without success. This made him feel that the case was beyond hope. He told me and Mr. Shashi to give it up- most likely Ravi must have been killed, he said. But I didn’t want to believe it. So I came to you, without him knowing.”

“She is lying” I suddenly interrupted. “She is lying. She came to your office along with Boris.”

Anju suddenly seemed to notice me now. “Excuse me?” She asked. “And who are you? And how dare you call me a liar?”

“Miss No-Problem. Remember our short encounter at the airport CCD yesterday?” I asked in a sarcastic tone.

She looked at me for a long time. After some time it seemed she recognized me, but she still chose to ignore me, and decided to talk to Sunil instead.

“Sunil, you have to believe me.

“She is lying Sunil.” This time it was Lola, who had been silently observing Anju all this while, who interrupted.

Anju seemed to lose her temper now.

“Listen. I don’t know who you people are, but..”

“They are my people” Sunil declared.

“Ok, whoever they are, they have no right to call me a liar in this way” Anju said, still fidgeting with her dupatta.

“Oh yeah?” came Lola’s immediate reply. “Then tell us whose baby is it? The one you are carrying?”

I was stunned. Even Sunil had a disbelieving look on his face. Only a woman could have noticed it, I told myself. So that is why she was carrying that helmet when she went to visit Sunil, to hide the small bulge in her tummy.

“Hey, that’s very personal”, Anju went into defensive.

“Anju, if you are going to win our trust, you have to tell us everything truthfully” Sunil told her, in a softer tone now.

There was a long pause. And then she replied.

The answer threw all of us completely off-guard. This gave a whole new dimension to the story.

(to be continued)

The Case of the Mysterious Messages - Part 7

Note: This is serial fiction. Please read the previous parts before starting with this one:

Link to previous part : http://ashrafchoudhury.blogspot.in/2013/08/the-case-of-mysterious-messages-part-6.html

Both Lola and I gawked in amazement at the turn of events. Since we didn’t know what else to do, we disconnected the call.

Lola looked at me, unable to say a word. I, too was stunned into silence on seeing my father-in-law’s sudden appearance on the scene. Was this going to turn out like one of those many Bollywood flicks where your own father-in-law turns out to be the bad guy?

“We have to call him back” I decided.

So Lola gingerly connected the call again. And yet again my father-in-law Mr. Shashi Sinhaappeared on the screen. He looked angry and very frustrated.

“Hello Boris? Where have you been, man? No news at all?” Mr. Shahsi’s voice came out of the Tab speakers.He appeared to be frustrated at the moment.

Lola peeled off the ‘post-it’ note from the camera so that we were visible to the other caller now.

“Soniya !!” he looked equally surprised to see his daughter on his tab.

“What the hell are doing with this Tab? Anuj, you there too? ” my father-in-law looked genuinely surprised now.

“We can ask you the same question Dad?” Lola aka.Soniya (yes, that was her real name) demanded from her father.

I realized that Lola had pinched the wrong Tab. Obviously, this tab didn’t belong to Anju. It was the Russian guy’s Tab.

“Look dad, it’s a long story. Let’s just say that we are in possession of Boris’s tab now, and he is involved with a kidnapping case”, I put it as briefly as I could for my father-in-law.

“I know that. But how do you guys know about the kidnapping?” he asked, genuinely surprised.

“Dad, we were following up on this kidnapping case, and I happened to pinch your man Boris’s tab” Lola told her dad.

“What??!! Pinched Boris’s tab?? Are you crazy?” he shouted.

“Tell us what does this Boris guy do for you? Does he kidnap other people for you, dad?” Lola said in an accusing tone.

“Rubbish. And do you realize what have you done?” Mr Shahi asked. “You are in grave danger now. You have got involved with one of the most dangerous Russian ransom negotiator in India today.” Mr. Shahi’s voice was shaking and stuttering as he said this.

“What??!!” all three of us, me, Lola and Sunil, who had been silently observing the family reunion, squeaked together at once.

***

“Bhaiya, Whitefield”, I told the auto wala.

We had left my car behind, fearing Boris might have seen the car earlier.

Mr. Shahsi had instructed us to immediately switch off the Tab and reach his office in Whitefield as soon as we could. Boris, the dangerous man that Mr. Shashi told he was, surely would have discovered his tab missing, and he would definitely try to trace it back using the ‘Find my Tab’ function. He would get the GPS co-ordinates from where the tab had last been operated, and he would come for us.

So we had to take Sunil with us too. The senior man was not very excited to have to join a bunch of youngsters, but he had no other option.

We reached Mr. Shashi’s office on fifth floor in another fifteen minutes. It was almost late evening now, and most his employees had already left for the day.

Mr. Shahsi ushered us inside his cabin with great urgency. We introduced him with the private investigator Sunil, and briefed him about our story and our suspicions as briefly as we could.

After we had finished, Mr. S took a deep sigh, and loosened his tie.

“It’s a pity things had to turn out this way” he said in a sad tone.

“What do you mean Dad” Lola asked.

“Ravi was one of our employees, one of our very best. He was sent to Russia to work on a new project for a Russian petroleum giant. He was doing a very good job till around last month. Then suddenly two weeks back, he suddenly disappeared. He stopped showing up at work, and we haven’t been able to reach him on his phone either.” Mr. S explained.

“Initially, we thought he had gone off on an unannounced vacation somewhere. My clients were very disappointed with my employee’s conduct. Then last week Ravi’s ex-wife Anju came to see me at my office. She told me that Ravi had been kidnapped, and that his parents had received a ransom call. That’s when I called in Boris. He had worked for us last time something like this had happened. His job was to reach out to the kidnappers, who were probably hiding somewhere in Russia, and negotiate the ransom deal. Our company was ready to pay the ransom money, in exchange of the safe return of our employee. We just didn’t want any bad publicity. And that is the reason we turned to Boris instead of the authorities. “

A lot of things looked much clearer now. I looked at Sunil, who had been silent all this while.

But there were still a lot of questions that were yet to be answered.

What was Anju doing roaming around with Boris? Was she genuinely concerned about her husband’s disappearance?  The messages that we had intercepted so far from Anju, whom were they meant for? Where was Ravi at the moment? Why did Anju lie to Sunil?

(to be continued)

The Case of the Mysterious Messages - Part 6

Note: This is serial fiction. Please read the previous parts before starting with this one:

Link to previous part : http://ashrafchoudhury.blogspot.in/2013/08/the-case-of-mysterious-messages-part-5.html

The mail ended there. It had ended abruptly.

I looked up at Lola. She looked disappointed.

I was stunned. It was as if a child had been promised a candy, and all of a sudden he had found the shop closed.

“So what happened next?” I asked Sunil excitedly.

Sunil was looking at us closely, examining us, reading our expressions probably? He was silent.

“Sunil, what happened after that? Was Ravi really kidnapped?” I repeated my question.

“Yes, I haven’t been able to verify the facts, but from what she told me yesterday, Ravi was kidnapped when he was on an overseas assignment, working on some software project for his company.” Sunil explained.

“Hmm. Do you believe her?” Lola asked.

“She said that his parents had received a call from someone who was asking for one crore rupees in return for Ravi’s life.” Sunil replied.

“And what about Ravi? Have they not been able to contact him or anything?” Lola asked again.

“Ofcourse not. His phone is unreachable, and he hasn’t contacted anyone, or reported to work since the last three weeks.” Sunil explained irritably. “Don’t you think that would be the first thing I would check before taking up a case?”

Lola was silent now.

“So what happened to the ransom money? Did they pay it?” I asked, eager to hear the rest of the story.

“Her father in law told her  that he had scratched everything out, and could manage only fifty lakhs.” Sunil was now cleaning his glasses, blowing into each glass, and wiping them with his shirt.

“Then she realized that her father in law wanted her to pay the remaining half of the money, and she lost her temper, and threw them out of her house. I mean, after what she had received from that family, any lady would have done the same thing.” Sunil had his eyes closed now. He had pulled back on his revolving chair, and he was silent for a while after that.

I thought about the pretty lady that I had met last night at the airport. It seemed strange that a person who appeared so strong outwardly could have allowed her in laws to harass her. But then, what else could she have done other that walking out of them?

“And then she approached you?” I asked Sunil.

“Yes. She didn’t trust her greedy in-laws, and wanted to be sure that Ravi had really been kidnapped. She wanted to be sure that her in-laws weren’t playing a trick on her.” Sunil explained.

“And the strange part is that her father-in-law wanted her to pay the remaining fifty lakh amount, and that was the exact amount of money she had, summing up all her gold and bank balance. How, on earth, did he know that?” Sunil added, getting up and now sitting upright on his chair.

“That does smell fishy, doesn’t it?” Lola spoke after a long time.

“Yes. And that is why she wanted me to check upon her in laws. And that is why she had hired me” Sunil added.

“So what else have you found out about her in laws?” I asked Sunil.

“I didn’t yet get a chance to check upon them  yet.” Sunil replied matter-of-factly.

I was surprised at this. It had already been two days, and he still hadn’t done anything that he has hired for?

“You are not telling me the truth, are you, Mr Sunil?” I challenged him.

He looked up at me suspiciously. “And why is it that I should tell you anything? It’s between me and my client?”

“You don’t trust her story, do you?” I asked him, my famous crooked smile appearing as I looked at him intently.

Sunil looked back at me, staring deep into my eyes. I stared back. For a moment we were staring back at each other, trying to read what was on the others mind.  

After some time, he shook his head and said slowly “I don’t know. Something about her doesn’t seem right. She hasn’t been overly frank with me till now?”

“What do you mean?” Lola asked.

“She has been hiding things. Small things. Lying to me actually.” Sunil said, checking his reflection on his glasses.

“Like?” I asked.

“Like she had a helmet in her hands, and she told me that she had come here on her scooty. But something about her appearance told me that she hadn’t ridden all the way here. Her hair were all proper, and her dress, it wasn’t usually what a woman would be wearing if she had been driving a two wheeler” Sunil said distantly.

I suddenly remembered the helmet in Anju’s hands. This man was good. I myself hadn’t thought about it. And the dress. He was right. She had been wearing a knee length loose dress when she had come to Brigade road.

“That is why after she left, I followed her to check if she had really been telling me the truth” Sunil said. “But before I could verify my suspicions, I collided with you”

“She was lying. She came here in a car. With that foreigner” Lola screamed. Obviously, she hated the guts of the other woman already.

“The question is why was she lying? And who is that foreigner? And what is she doing with him” Sunil asked.

“From the messages that we have intercepted till now, it surely looks like she is having an extra marital affair, and is cheating on her husband. Maybe it is she herself who has got him kidnapped.” Lola said, her voice filled with detest and anger for a woman who could do such a thing. ‘My innocent wife!’ I thought and smiled to myself.

“But why would she hire me then? It could get risky for her, couldn’t it?” Sunil asked.

“And why would she need to get him kidnapped? She was already getting a divorce from him, remember?” I added.

“Questions. Lots of questions. And no answers” Sunil said in a sad tone.

“We may have some answers here” I heard Lola say.

I looked up at her. The mischievous smile was back on her face, the same smile that she gave me when she was in the right mood. The same smile that she had given me when she had got on the car on Brigade road.

“Lola” I asked. “What is it that you have done now?” My heart was in my mouth.

“Relax Ruffu. I haven’t done anything bad. I have just pinched this” saying this Lola pulled out something from her purse.

It was a Tab. Anju Bhat’s tab! The one she had been using at the airport yesterday!

“Wow Lola ! Way to go, girl!” I shouted excitedly, jumping up and down, and kissed her on her cheeks.

This was one of the rare moments that Lola actually felt a little shy.

We unlocked the tab, and the first thing that appeared on the screen was Skype. Lola immediately tried to dial the last called number, but I stopped her.

I looked around, and found a piece of ‘post-it’ and stuck it on the camera. Then I gestured to Lola to make the call.

The user was a ‘Mr. S’. We heard a ringing, and immediately it was answered.

I froze when I saw the man in a black tie who answered it.

Lola almost dropped the Tab in surprise.

The man on the screen was none other than Lola’s own dad !

(to be continued)