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)
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