“I fucked up.” He is telling someone. He is apologizing for the mistake. I slither on the bed and strain my ears to catch his conversation. He has moved further away from the door.
“What do I do now?” Yes, I think that’s what he said. I’m not sure but I think that’s what he said. I feel a strange sense of calm. He didn’t plan today. He had one too many, made a slip, and now he is just improvising. He doesn’t know what to do. Is that good or bad? I don’t know. I try to wriggle my hands. They are tied behind my back. My legs are tied to the bedpost; I can’t move beyond the bed.
What is he planning to do with me? Why did he do this? Who is he speaking with?
He is still on the phone, having a hushed conversation with someone. So, someone else is responsible for all of it. Who could that be? Is he speaking with Rishi? Is it Rishi who planned it all?
The main door bangs shut and I hear the key turn twice. Then silence. I try to sit up but fall on the bed.
Fuck! Has he left me alone in the flat? Oh my god!! I continue struggling hard with the knot on my wrists. Keep wiggling, twisting and turning. I have to free myself. I will not survive in this flat, tied up in one corner.
Breathe slowly, Myra; I talk to myself. Take slow breaths. I continue to wriggle my wrists and finally get them free!! The idiot isn’t good with knots. Thank God for that!
I untie the gag from my mouth and then my feet. I rush to the kitchen. Open the fridge. There’s no water. I open the tap in the basin and gulp water and then splash it on my face. I keep my head under the running tap. Water soaks the collar of my sweater but I need to calm my head and think. I stand up, push my wet hair back and cold water trickles down my neck and spine.
What if he returns? I need to act fast. Though something tells me he wouldn’t come back. He fucked up. His words. He isn’t coming back here. He’s run away. The fucker has scooted but the person he spoke with…that person…he might arrive to take care of his fuck up. I need to hurry. I need to figure a way to get out. Banging and shouting will not help. My phone is gone.
Maybe he has a spare phone or a laptop or tablet in the house. I begin searching the closets, the drawers in his room. Nothing. The living room has just two cane chairs and a centre table. I go back to the bedroom. No bedside table. Just a cupboard. I yank it open and wildly throw his clothes out, pulling out whatever I touch. Nothing. There’s nothing I can use.
No one knows I’m here. Hridi is in Bangalore. Malti wouldn’t miss me till night. She’s used to me being away for long hours. And it’s only …I think it’s 2 or 3 in the afternoon. I’m locked inside a flat on the 22nd floor of an uninhabited tower in the middle of fucking nowhere.
I go from one window to another. From the small kitchen balcony to the main balcony; crane my neck to look if I can see any balcony with a towel or something hanging. Something that would indicate people living.
Nothing.
I’m drawing a blank and time is passing. I stand near the balcony thinking…just thinking what I can do. That’s when I see the cars. They aren’t near the tower. But yes, three police cars.
Yes!! I can see the red light atop one of them spinning. The police are nearby!! I can see some of them outside the cars, on the road. I start screaming and wildly flaying my arms. In less than a minute I realize the folly of it. They are far away. I’m too high up for my voice to carry to them.
I can’t let them get away. I have to do something…something to catch their attention. But what? Think Myra…think…what can you do? Suddenly it occurs to me. Oh my God!! Why didn’t I think of it?
I rush back into the bedroom and gather the torn bedsheet. Pull out the pillow cover. Knot them together. I need more. More bedsheets. More clothes. I pick up a few shirts and trousers. Knot them around. I’m going to set them on fire and hang them from the balcony. Surely the cops will notice smoke. Yes, it will work.
It has to.
Now I need something to light a fire. Come on….Suraj smokes. There must be a lighter or a matchbox somewhere. Hurry…I need to act fast. The cops will leave. I pull out the drawer from the cupboard. Nothing. I run to the next bedroom. There’s a small cupboard. I grab the door open. Some woman’s clothes. Salwar kameez, dupatta etc. matchbox. Lighter…. can’t find anything. There’s a drawer. I pull it open. Papers, envelopes, some crap. I yank it so hard that it falls on the floor. A lighter falls near my feet.
Yes!! Got it. I rush out of the room to light the rope of knotted clothes and bedsheets but in my haste my foot knocks over a plastic bin near the door. A kind of a waste paper bucket. I slip and fall as the bucket tumbles over, spilling the contents on the floor. I get up quickly and make a dash and then stop. Something lying on the floor catches my eye.
It's an empty, totally squeezed out tube of avocado hand cream from Harrods.
Chapter 22. Dipti
It was a junior cop, someone like Sonali who wanted to be proactive, show his enthusiasm and win brownie points with his SHO. After the senior cop questioned the maid in Goa, Alberto went back to her with the sketch artist.
‘Describe the woman you saw in the house.’ The maid described while the artist sketched. When it was done, Alberto clicked pictures and sent them to Dipti with a message.
‘The picture of the woman who visited the house sometimes. The maid described her.’
Dipti began calling Myra’s phone from the moment she received the picture. The phone was switched off.
“Where the hell is this woman? Sonali!” Dipti yelled.
“Check Myra’s insta feed. Has she posted something about where she is?”
The insta feed revealed nothing and she got the team to triangulate the last place the phone had pinged from.
Dipti and her team reached the area beyond the Golf course extension road. Vast stretches of nothing but arid land and few towers that had come up but were still mostly unoccupied.
“What were you doing here, Myra? In the middle of nowhere. How do I find you now?”
She was about to give up, get back into the jeep when Sonali spotted smoke and fire in one of the tall towers.
High up, on the tower, one of the balconies. From where she stood it seemed like something was hanging from the balcony and it was on fire.
“Fire brigade bulao!” Dipti yelled as she jumped into her jeep and didn’t take her foot off the accelerator. As she neared the building, the lone security guard, an aged man who spent more time sleeping in his cot than guarding, came running out.
“Kya hua, madam?”
“Aag lagi hai. Kaunsa floor hai?” Dipti pointed. As they stood speaking. A plastic chair crashed on the ground. Everyone jumped aside. A white baniyan was tied to one of the legs.
‘Madam something is written on it.’
‘Help. 22nd floor. Police ko bulao. Myra.’ The scribbling in pen was large.
“She’s trapped!’ Dipti raced towards the elevator.
It took the men considerable effort and a number of kicks to break the front door down. Myra stood inside, a foot away from the door, face streaked with tears and fear. Smoke from the burning clothes were rising and floating away like the dementors from Potter’s world. She began crying on seeing Dipti and did something she never thought she would do. She flung her arms around her and wept.
“It’s okay. It’s over now. You’re safe. You’re safe.” Dipti patted Myra on the back, taken back by the show of emotion. But she understood; it had been a harrowing experience.
“No. It’s not just that. I need to show you something. I found something.” Myra led the way to the adjoining room where the plastic bucket lay on its side its contents lay scattered on the floor. Dipti looked at the stuff on the floor and then at Myra.
“What?”
“That tube…that tube of hand cream…it belongs to Hridi.”
“I found something too, Myra. From Goa police.” Dipti pulled out a paper from her pocket and handed it to her. Myra looked at the sketch, slumped against the wall and shut her eyes.
&
nbsp; Chapter 23. Dipti
“Give me the rod. I want to thrash the bastard before I question him.” Dipti rolled her sleeves.
“But madam, he has agreed to admit to everything,” Sonali whispered, almost terrified to speak.
“I can’t hear what you are saying. Shut up and stay away, Sonali.” For the next 15 minutes, Suraj yelled and howled as Dipti thrashed the daylights out of him.
He had been caught while speeding on the highway; he was on his way to the airport to buy a ticket and get out of the city. When he called Hridi from his flat after making the slip that revealed everything, she had been livid.
“I told you to get out. I got away and I told you to do the same. But no, you had to fuck around again. You also messed with Ana’s phone, her laptop. Get the fuck out of the city, Suraj. Dipti will find me. RUN!!” Her instructions had been loud and clear.
“If you get caught, you are on your own Suraj. Remember that. Nothing can tie me to you.” Those had been her last words.
In his anxious and harried haste, he banged into a car and then ran over a cyclist. Misfortune seldom comes alone. The car he banged into was a brand Audi 6 of a Jat and he wasn’t going to let the driver of a beat-up Swift get away with scratching and denting his precious expensive car. So while the Jat dude and his pals caught Suraj by his collar, the aam janta on the streets, held him for running over the humble cyclist. They kept him till the cops arrived.
The man who had the brain to hack into computers, unleash havoc in the lives of two women, and wreck Myra’s hard-earned reputation at work finally brought it all down because he had one too many, made an inadvertent slip, and then drove like a maniac.
Dipti had however realized Hridi’s involvement when she saw the picture sent by Alberto. The sketch proved that it was Hridi who had visited the aged couple and the boy.
“Why are you beating me?” Suraj began crying. “I will tell you everything. I said I will.”
“The beating was for the besharmi you did, you harami. Now talk.” Dipti called the others and they began to record his statement.
“Hridi is not her real name. She is Poorna and I’m her first cousin. After Rishi left, after the marriage broke up, she became obsessed to know about Myra. She wanted to know what Rishi had seen in Myra that made him forget his marriage, the family they had built together. She asked me to make an Instagram account and she began stalking Myra on social media; I taught her how to do it. She used to look at Myra’s posts all day and night. She decided she would destroy what Myra held most precious – her career.”
“But Poorna and Hridi look so different. One is plump, with straight hair, specks and surly; while Hridi is toned, fit, a gym enthusiast. They are two different people.” Dipti asked.
“Poorna knew the only way she could enter Myra’s life was by becoming like Myra. She joined a gym, worked out like a maniac for a year. Got her hair permed and then paid up to join the trekking group where she met Myra. I helped her to know everything about Myra because she practically lives on social media. Poorna converted herself into an almost clone of Myra.” Suraj whimpered.
“How did you enter Myra’s home?”
“When I hacked into her phone, I saw the CCTV app and the smart door app. I was already seeing her pictures. I began watching her through the CCTV via the phone. I watched her all the time.” Suraj looked down. Dipti walked up to him and slapped him hard.
“Saale, abhi tujhe sharam aa rahi hai. Kutte. Badtameezi karte waqt sharam nahin aayee.” Suraj crawled away to the far corner, as far as he could get.
“Rape kyon kiya uska?”
“I like her.” Suraj was barely audible. Dipti yelled at him.
“You liked her? You liked her so you entered her house and raped her? Why don’t I beat you to a pulp because I don’t like you?” She was almost frothing at her mouth.
“Who changed the bedsheet?”
“Poorna. I mean Hridi.”
“She was there when you raped her friend. Her so-called friend!” Dipti looked aghast. “The rape was her idea?!”
“No. She didn’t know that I had let myself in. I knew about the party and that it was an open door. I had control of her phone and sent the MyGate entry code to a different number which I keep. It was not difficult to get it.” Suraj stopped and licked his lips and gulped. The floor was cold, the walls damp but he shivered as beads of sweat dotted his bald head.
“Aage bol.”
“I got inside. Some people had left. Many were lying here and there, drunk. Myra was drunk too. I led her away and she didn’t resist. Poorna didn’t notice but soon she did. Then she came into the bedroom.” He stopped and buried his head between his knees, unable to continue.
“Then she changed the bedsheets so that your DNA couldn’t be found. Right?” Dipti kicked him hard and he winced.
“Yes, that’s what she did. In any case, I had shaved my head and waxed my whole body that afternoon. And I was wearing gloves. No prints or anything could be found. I made sure of that.”
“Suraj, you are confessing that the entire plan was Poorna’s and you helped her carry it out, right?” Dipti needed to get the full confession.
“Yes, that’s right.” Suraj looked up. The usual glint and twinkle in his eyes were long gone. He knew he was going to be behind bars for a long time.
“Where is that woman now? Hridi or Poorna…whatever name she goes by. And what about her husband Rishi? Where is he? Did he have any role to play?”
“I don’t know where Rishi is. No one knows where he is. He just left Mumbai and disappeared. Poorna’s parents and Aveek were in Goa. I don’t know where she is now. I made multiple Aadhar cards and helped her get credit cards from different banks. She opened accounts in different banks. She could be anywhere in the country now. Changing locations every few months.” He stopped for a while, looked at Dipti and then added.
“The day you met Myra and her at the chai shop, she knew you would do everything possible to track down Rishi and will find out the truth. She lied about her mother’s illness and ran. She told me to run away too but I just couldn’t leave Myra and go away. I thought let me spend few days with her and then I’ll leave.” He looked at the faces in the room that surrounded him. Grim, angry faces. Suraj lowered his eyes and kept silent.
It was the sound of roaring laughter that made him sit up and look at the others. Dipti, Sonali and the three constables were literally holding their sides and laughing; laughing so hard that tears rolled from their eyes.
“Hey bhagwaan!” Dipti snorted through her laugh, unable to stop herself. “Yeh toh majnu nikla.”
“Bechare ko pyaar ho gaya.” Someone else said and then the laughter subsided.
“Get him to sign on the written copy and give me a copy of the recording. I need to show it to her.” Dipti wiped her eyes, stood up and walked out of the room.
Chapter 24. Myra
I got back into my role as the Sales Director. Subodh and I launched the IPO successfully. My life is back to normal. I hit the gym every morning. I go for a run thrice a week. I work hard and party harder. So, yes everything is back to normal. If I can call it normal.
I haven’t spoken with Arjun. I don’t want to. I hear he and his married girlfriend, who isn’t married anymore are now a couple. She in fact lives with him. Strange, we never discussed moving in together.
I stopped going to Starbucks to start my day of work. I have switched to tea. Darjeeling. It’s much better and far healthier.
I sold the flat and moved into a rented place. I lost some money in the bargain but I have peace of mind.
I try not to think of her.
My best friend. She hated me. She hatched the diabolic plan to ruin me. Hridi. Poorna. My best friend, my bestie or so I thought. The one I laughed, partied, drank, hugged, had a blast with, the one I called to share something good. The first person I called when I realized I’d been raped…she had planned it all.
“My best friend got me raped?” that’s the thi
ng I couldn’t wrap my head around. Though Dipti had tried to explain it.
“She didn’t intend on that, Myra. Suraj had been helping her track you on social media and he got obsessed with you. It came to a point when she couldn’t manage him anymore; when he started hacking into other girls’ phones. Like Ana.”
When I think of them – Suraj and Hridi, its amazes me how systematically they had planned and executed the entire plan. Suraj seemed so gentle, kind and attentive. Handing me a cup of coffee, walking me to the car, attentively listening to every word I said…and I had no clue that he was the one. He’d shaved his head to ensure no strands of hair are left behind. He used to watch me through the CCTV app. All the time he had eyes on me. While I changed, read a book, slept, walked from one room to another, watched TV…all the time.
I don’t know which one of them creeps me out more? Suraj or Hridi?
She’d rushed over when I called her in the morning and she’d cried with me. Wept and hugged me. She’d continued pretending while I was sinking. When I think of it all, I want to puke. I feel sick inside. It feels as though something toxic is inside me and I need to purge it out. Vomit. Stick my finger inside my throat and throw up.
I went to her office. I don’t know why or what I hoped to find. She’d sent an email informing them of her resignation. Her employment status was one of a retainer, a consultant; she had worked it out such that she could leave with a day’s notice and not have money held up with the company.
They never had a rodent problem. The reason Hridi was worked up and upset that evening was because of what Suraj had been doing. Hacking into Ana’s laptop. He was only supposed to insert the morphed picture in the Instagram feed for Dipti’s team to find it and arrest Arjun. A mountain of lies. We chatted every day, met, drank and gossiped all the time. For almost 2 years she was with me, pretending to be my soul sister. How does one keep up the façade for so long?
Dipti is working hard on tracing her but she is a smart cookie. She flew to Bangalore, then to Lucknow, and then just disappeared. Suraj had taught her well and given her enough fake cards to stay off the radar.
Eye On You Page 14
