The Murder Suspect

by Rani Ramakrishnan

  THE MURDER SUSPECT

  RANI RAMAKRISHNAN

  Also by Rani Ramakrishnan

  Twice Blessed

  Here to Hear

  Lethal Acoustics

  Copyright © 2019 Rani Ramakrishnan

  Edited by Shivani Adib

  Cover design by Whatabook

  All rights reserved.

  Rani Ramakrishnan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, institutions, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events and locales is purely coincidental. The author does not necessarily agree with the views expressed by the characters.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner, the author, except in case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews with appropriate citation. For information regarding permissions, write to authorraniramakrishnan@gmail.com

  ISBN:

  ISBN-13:

  For Sangamithirai

  Contents

  Map—Cumbojee Island

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Other Books by the Author

  PARTING WORDS

  Map—Cumbojee Island

  Source (India Map): https://www.google.co.in/maps/search/India+,+pune,+navi+mumbai+,+lakshadweep,+darjeeing+,+Malwan

  Prologue

  When I came around, the bedside lamp was glowing, the curtains were drawn, and the wall clock showed 3:30 a.m. I wondered what had woken me. Then I heard the banging.

  ‘Hell, Piyush,’ I muttered. ‘Look at the time, for God’s sake. Can’t you let a girl rest?’ My anger came flaming back, and I stormed to the connecting door to give him a piece of my mind.

  But the noise was coming from the main door of my hotel room. Who was creating a racket at this time of night? What was the emergency? Casting a cursory look across the room to make sure that nothing suspicious was lying around, I went to the door and peeked through the peephole.

  Cyrus Daruwala’s face loomed on the other side. I stepped back, frowning.

  This had to be bad. We despised each other, yet here he stood hammering at my door in the middle of the night. Not good, I thought, and unlocked the door.

  ‘Nalini, I’ve been knocking for the past ten minutes!’ he yelled.

  ‘I was asleep. Maybe you should have called.’ My voice was cold.

  ‘I tried your mobile but your number was unreachable.’

  ‘My room has a landline, you know?’ I felt drained and couldn’t wait to be rid of this unwelcome intruder.

  ‘I forgot...’ He looked flustered and tense, I noted for the first time.

  ‘What is it, Cyrus? Do you want to step in?’ I asked, toning down my displeasure.

  ‘It’s Chirag.’

  ‘What about Chirag?’ I replied, alert.

  ‘Mmm... he isn’t in his room.’

  ‘What?’

  Memories of a drunken Chirag flashed through my mind. But my mistrust of Cyrus warned me to take his words with a pinch of salt.

  ‘His room is empty and I can’t find him anywhere.’

  ‘Why were you in his room in the first place?’

  ‘I wasn’t in his room, Nalini. Seriously, what business would I have there? I don’t even like the guy.’

  ‘So you weren’t in his room, but in the middle of the night you had a vision that he had disappeared?’ I retorted, shaking my head in disbelief.

  ‘Don’t equate me with that airhead. I was passing by his room and saw the door ajar. I was concerned, so I peeped in. He wasn’t in bed, but the bathroom light was on. I checked, but he wasn’t there either.’

  ‘He may be asleep in someone else’s suite.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Really? And you know this how?’ My eyes begged to shut, and I could feel the beginnings of a headache. My stomach also felt funny.

  He stayed quiet.

  Being quiet wasn’t in his nature. I stared at him. His face was white, as though he had seen a ghost, and he was trembling.

  ‘Something is wrong, Nalini. There is blood everywhere.’

  Chapter 1

  ‘Breakfast is ready!’ Piyush shouted from the kitchen.

  Half past seven in the morning was too early to tuck into a full meal, but we tried to eat together whenever possible, irrespective of the time. Fresh out of my bath, wrapped in a pink robe, I was towelling dry my long hair when he called. Tossing aside the towel, I breezed into the kitchen wearing my best smile and gave him a peck on the cheek before slipping into my seat at the table.

  I made dinner and he made breakfast—that was our arrangement. Today, he had outdone himself. Despite the early hour, he had managed toast, cereal, fried eggs, juice, and rice khichdi with green chutney. He found my obsession with rice amusing. ‘You can take a Bong out of Bengal, but good luck taking Bengal out of a Bong,’ he often teased me. However, he was also thoughtful enough to indulge me whenever we ate together. I poured myself a cup of steaming hot coffee. Piyush was a tea person and his cup was already half empty.

  He sat at the table, scanning the day’s newspapers—a habit he had inherited from his late father. His gold-rimmed spectacles slipped down his nose now and then. In a reflex action mastered through years of practice, his right hand alternated between picking up his teacup and repositioning his truant eyewear. He looked good in his lemon-yellow formal shirt and dark trousers, with shining maroon-black leather shoes completing the ensemble. Clean-shaven with short, tidy hair, Piyush was the opposite of the modern-day tech CEO.

  He loved wearing casuals but always turned up for work in immaculate formals. Born into a family of career diplomats, he was weaned on power dressing from a tender age. When his dream to join the civil services shattered, he took to coding to drown his disappointment. One thing led to another, and soon, he had a new goal—starting his own company.

  Even while sweating over technical glitches with his team in the non-air-conditioned two-bedroom house that had served as his first office, he had avoided casual clothes. As he dug deep into the dirt and grime of Indian red tape to set up his technology company, he realised the merits of his old-school dressing style. Everybody took him seriously. That helped. And he made these clothes his style statement.

  ◆◆◆

  He set aside the
paper as soon as he saw I was ready, and we ate together. We limited our chatter over breakfast to work, politics, and sports. Work was our shared love, and we could discuss it for hours without getting bored. He thrived on politics and enjoyed tracking eyebrow-raising gossip about public figures. Sports were my stress busters.

  Right after breakfast, he left for work.

  Always an early bird, he loved arriving first at the office. He called it ‘leading by example’. On some days, even the housekeeping staff would show up after him. He did not mind. IndeGen Technologies was his life, and no inconvenience was too great for the company. He had founded IndeGen ten years ago and had worked hard to bring it to its current position of pride.

  He was also one of the best programmers in the company, and, even today, with all his responsibilities as the chief executive officer of this bustling start-up, he spent the first couple of hours of his workday coding. He claimed the exercise sharpened his mind and kept him grounded.

  I chose a black T-shirt with an IndeGen logo from my wardrobe and coupled it with a pair of baggy khaki pants. Bunching my long, silky hair into a simple ponytail and keeping my makeup to a bare minimum, I examined my reflection in the mirror. Presentable, I decided. Blessed with clear, creamy skin and prominent black eyes, I never needed cosmetics to enhance my appearance.

  ◆◆◆

  We always worked on New Year’s—IndeGen’s founding day. Packed with events, the foundation day strived to keep all IndeGeners on their toes. We also had a tradition of rewarding our nine best performers of the previous year a weekend with the CEO. Piyush set aside the first weekend of every New Year for this.

  Being one of the chosen nine was the most sought-after honour at IndeGen. Every IndeGener aspired to boast of having won this award at least once, even though the accolade was unaccompanied by a cash prize or promotion guarantee. Piyush believed that the outing motivated the best performers to outdo themselves in the year ahead. Beginning the year on a high, he termed it.

  All the past winners agreed with this perspective. The opportunity gave them a zeal for work like no other human resource initiative in the company. Bonding with their top boss and high achievers from different verticals created an unparalleled sense of pride. The activities undertaken during the weekend built trust, and the informality of the entire setup nurtured bonding at a personal level, which lasted long after the trip.

  Winning The Business People magazine’s ‘HR Manager of the Year’ award earned me a place in that group this year. We were to leave on our adventure later that day. I had won this honour for the first time, and after this trip I hoped to understand all the reasons for its popularity. But, before that, I had to get through the day.

  This year too, the day lived up to its reputation and was as exhausting as ever. From being accosted at the reception by a former employee about his pending settlement to being bored to death at the lunch table by a board member way past his expiry date, events worth forgetting filled my day. I was in the middle of mediating an intense argument between two department heads over one of their contest’s grading policies when my reminder went off.

  ‘That’s my cue. Gentlemen, I need to rush. Wish me luck. This is my first time on the “Weekend with the CEO”. Piyush has asked all of us to assemble at the front desk by 4:00 p.m. Can we pull each other’s nails out after I return, please?’ I winked at them.

  ‘I’ll come back when I need a manicure,’ one of them grunted.

  ‘Interesting spa you patronise, man. You ask for a manicure and they pull your nails out?’ the other guffawed.

  I clasped my hands with a beseeching expression on my face. This time they obliged and left, wishing me good luck. I watched them leave, knowing that the long weekend would solve the impasse. Time was a wonderful problem solver. When they returned next week, all they would have time for was work. Contests and their policies wouldn’t resurface until the end of the year—a long time in a start-up’s life.

  ◆◆◆

  I cleared my desk, locked all the drawers and cabinets, shut down my laptop, and closed the blinds. Darkness settled into my room: my own space on the ninth floor of IndeGen’s awe-inspiring office. I shut the door and gazed around the sprawling maze of workstations outside my corner office. Most were vacant because my team was busy enjoying the celebrations underway on the eleventh floor.

  The few who remained were also winding up. Seeing me leave, they waved to me. ‘Have a blast, Nalini!’, ‘Send us pictures from the beach!’, ‘Show the other IndeGeners we’re the best!’ they shouted amid loud cheers. I strode out with a happy grin plastered on my face.

  The lift was empty. On the eighth floor, Sukhbir Sharma stepped in carrying a heavy-looking duffel bag. We smiled at each other. He was also a winner of the ‘Weekend with the CEO’ contest. The first thing anyone noticed about him was his height. At close to six and a half feet tall, he was a giant of a man whose size served as effortless intimidation. Being well-built gave him a wrestler’s aura, but his personality couldn’t have been more different from that of a grappler.

  He was one of my acquisitions and had joined the IndeGen family eight years ago. He had won this contest seven times.

  Sukhbir was our in-house Wikipedia. He knew everything. A creature of the Internet age, his brain worked like a bot, mechanically trawling through data and capturing keywords. He read a lot and had loads of information compiled neatly in different compartments of his brain. He had trained his mind to zip through this information at breakneck speed and retrieve a list of likely alternatives, much like Google. I always wondered if his skills preceded popular search algorithms.

  He was in content. He couldn’t code, he couldn’t ideate, his interpersonal and communication skills were pathetic, and yet he worked in content. He was a researcher. His career had stagnated over the years because he had neither evolved nor acquired new skills. He was incapable of it, he claimed. The reality seemed more like he was disinterested in doing anything else. He loved to read, and his current job paid him to do precisely that. He wanted nothing more.

  Despite his obvious flaws, Sukhbir was unbeatable in his domain. However obscure the topic, he would flood the writers with tons of relevant and usable information. They all loved him and fought to have him on their projects. No wonder that he won this contest every year. He was indispensable.

  True to his personality, he maintained a comfortable silence on the journey down. Even after eight years at IndeGen, he was reluctant to socialise.

  ◆◆◆

  We were the first to arrive. A huge banner with ‘Bon Voyage, Winners!’ written in big, bold letters welcomed us. In the background was a collage of pictures of the nine winners with CEO Piyush Gokhle’s smiling face forming the centrepiece. Colourful balloons lay scattered on the floor.

  The head of administration was present to receive us. His team of smart uniformed helpers stood beside him, ready to do his bidding. Outside, I spotted the band—the typical marriage ceremony kind, with drums and trumpets—ready to blast away and escort us to the waiting bus. Others joined us, and, at last, Piyush himself arrived.

  The band burst into life as soon as he set foot in the lounge, playing a popular Bollywood number. Our tapping feet and loud cheers joined them in the merrymaking. Members of the admin team gave us a traditional farewell with marigold garlands and sandalwood paste tikas. Piyush released a white dove into the sky, ending the send-off rituals.

  Pumped up and excited, all ten of us boarded the waiting bus. Luxurious seats with ample legroom were ours for the taking. Two men dressed in white greeted us at the door. One was the driver, the other his assistant. Inside the bus, the smell of delicious food filled my nostrils, exciting my taste buds.

  I found myself a seat at the back of the vehicle. We had a good distance to cover, and I wanted to be as comfortable as possible. This year’s destination was the best ever and was less than 800 km away! A radiant smile lit up my face at the thought of the weekend ahead.

 
A bugle sounded, firecrackers went off somewhere in the background, and, the bus began to move. We expected our drive from Pune to Navi Mumbai—from where we would fly to our holiday destination—to take a little over two hours. Thanks to the ambitious Mumbai-Pune Expressway, we could cover the distance of nearly 130 km between the cities in this short period.

  To be honest, the long bus ride at the start of the trip was a damper, and I had complained to Piyush about the arrangement. This getaway was his baby. He shrugged off my whines, saying I was being an unreasonable fusspot. As was often the case, we argued, failed to understand each other’s perspective, and agreed to disagree on the matter.

  Within minutes of hitting the road, the assistant rolled a food trolley down the aisle. The pampering had already begun!

  With music, games, and food keeping us engrossed, we had reached our destination before we knew it. We were in the parking lot of a private airfield on the outskirts of Navi Mumbai. Here we planned to board a chartered flight—something I was super excited about. Dusk was fading into night and Maximum City was lighting up in the horizon. Located at a good distance from the choking arteries of the megalopolis, the airport was a far cry from what I had expected.

  All I could see was a terraced building surrounded by open space. Where was the airport? Where were the hangars and the planes? The rest of my party appeared unruffled. Was I the only one expecting the moon?

  We stepped off the bus to find ourselves in the august company of the airfield’s welcome party. The group comprised distinguished-looking men and beautiful women, all dapper in magenta uniforms. The sight brought some relief to my worried senses. In my opinion, a well-turned-out team spoke volumes about the person in charge.

  The airport manager, a man in his mid-fifties, greeted us and introduced us to his associates. Among them were the two pilots designated to fly us to our destination. Both individuals looked sufficiently senior and capable, thanks to their salt-and-pepper hair. Our host took five minutes to explain each pilot’s credentials and accomplishments, putting my worst fears to rest. Many in my team were excited to learn that two of the pretty women were also to fly with us, as our hostesses.