Saboteur

by RV Raman

  ‘That’s right. But most guests who are paying their own bills usually charge everything to their room and make a single payment for the bills when they check out.’

  ‘I see… You can’t say for sure if Mr Kaul returned to the hotel last night or not?’

  The manager shook his head. ‘We can’t, madam. We don’t know if he came in and left again.’

  ‘Of if he came into the hotel and went to another room.’

  ‘Another room?’ The manager’s brow puckered.

  ‘He could have gone to a colleague’s room. His boss and two of his colleagues were staying here.’

  ‘Ah, yes, of course! But they said they hadn’t seen him either.’

  ‘I see… Could you check your CCTV footage to see if he had returned to the hotel last night?’

  The manager shifted uncomfortably in his chair. ‘We can provide a copy of the footage if the police requires it. But shouldn’t we wait for a few hours? Mr Kaul could return by then. For all we know, he may just be held up somewhere or may have decided to spend the night with a friend. He may also be…er…sleeping it off somewhere.’

  ‘You have informed the local police station, I suppose.’

  The manager nodded, a quizzical expression on his face.

  ‘Who informed them? The hotel or Mr Deswani?’

  ‘Mr Deswani asked us to call the police, which we did.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Fifteen minutes back. You have come in response to that call, haven’t you?’

  That explained the quizzical look on his face.

  ‘No… I’m from the CCB, the City Crime Branch, not the local police station. Puneet’s family called me from Mumbai. May I see Mr Deswani, please?’

  ‘I’ll check,’ the manager said with visible relief, reaching for his desk phone.

  ■

  Vikram Deswani turned out to be a dandy of forty, with a freshly shaved face and a carefully groomed mane still shiny with gel. His shirt was such a sparkling white, it may well have been brand new. A bright purple tie and gold-and-black cufflinks provided a measured and deliberate contrast.

  ‘Good morning,’ he said, his accent distinctly American, as he walked in trailing a faint whiff of expensive cologne.

  He took the time to carefully drape his charcoal grey jacket across the back of a chair before turning to Dhruvi and extending a hand. His intense black eyes surveyed her from head to toe.

  Standing five-foot-six inches in her socks, with clear brown eyes gazing out from under her crop of wild, thick hair, Dhruvi was her mother’s idea of an ideal policewoman. A resolute chin, which her mother claimed would have done the likes of Cleopatra and Indira Gandhi proud, along with her erect posture, added to her no-nonsense air. The stern visage softened into a pleasant, even pretty, face when she smiled – something she often did. But not now, as she bore Vikram’s unabashed scrutiny.

  Though Vikram was polished enough to keep his disdain from seeping through, Dhruvi sensed that he was unimpressed. In fact, few people were impressed when they met her for the first time – unless they saw her riding her bike. Whether it was her colour, gender, frugality with words or her generally quiet manner, she didn’t know. But it suited her if people underestimated her.

  ‘You are from the local police station, right?’ Vikram had withdrawn his hand after a cursory handshake and was turning away.

  ‘No. I’m from the crime branch.’

  Vikram paused halfway in his turn and shot a glance at the manager who was about to leave the room after escorting him there.

  ‘The local police have not yet arrived, sir,’ the manager explained. ‘Inspector Dhruvi has come in response to a phone call from Mumbai.’

  ‘Mumbai?’ Interest sparked briefly in his eyes.

  ‘Puneet’s people had someone call me,’ Dhruvi explained.

  Vikram nodded distractedly and took a chair, waving Dhruvi to hers. One would have imagined he owned the hotel.

  ‘Can you tell me what you know about Puneet’s disappearance?’ Dhruvi asked.

  Vikram gave her a cogent account of what had happened. His story was the same as the manager’s, except that Vikram had made several calls before approaching the hotel’s front desk. Among them was a call to his secretary, who had then called Puneet’s house.

  ‘The last I spoke to Puneet was a little after 10 p.m. last night,’ he said in response to a question from Dhruvi. ‘He said he had something to discuss with me and was coming over. He should have been here between 10.30 or 10.45, but didn’t turn up. I waited till 11 p.m. and then went to bed.’

  ‘You didn’t try calling him?’

  ‘I did…once. His phone was switched off. It’s been off ever since, I believe.’

  ‘You aren’t sure, Mr Deswani?’

  ‘I asked my colleagues to call him. I’ve had a few other things to attend to.’

  ‘I see. None of your other colleagues know of his whereabouts?’

  Vikram shook his head. ‘They have no idea.’

  ‘Weren’t they with him when he called you last night?’

  Vikram betrayed the first signs of uneasiness. Smiling sheepishly, he replied, ‘Well, you see, Puneet was working late. The others had left by then.’

  ‘When did they leave?’

  ‘A little before lunchtime.’

  That took Dhruvi by surprise.

  ‘Puneet was working till after 10 p.m., but his colleagues left before lunch?’ she asked. ‘How come?’

  ‘Well…the work was almost done, but Puneet insisted on staying back and clearing up a few questions he had in his mind. Frankly, I thought he was being too finicky – he was looking into things like misclassification of expenses. Give me a break!’ Vikram threw out his arms in a gesture of exasperation. ‘How does it matter if discounts are booked as promotional expenses? That’s just accounting! There’s no need for us to go to the last level of detail, you know. But Puneet insisted on it.’

  ‘I am not sure I understand. Why don’t you need to go into details?’

  ‘Look, we are an investing firm. We understand money, not the nitty-gritty of every company we invest in. We leave the details to the management of the investee company. Accounting doesn’t matter as long as there is no major leakage of revenue or siphoning off of funds. An expense is an expense, irrespective of where it’s booked.

  ‘For instance, there are any number of promoters who charge some amount of personal expenses to the company. The other day, the promoter of a hospital chain charged twenty lakhs out of his house-renovation expenses to the hospital. Twenty lakhs in a business worth thousands of crores is…trivial. It doesn’t matter. It just isn’t material!’

  ‘I see,’ Dhruvi said slowly. In a different context, twenty lakhs would have been sufficient to indict a CEO or even bring down a chief minister. But for an unregulated private equity fund that dealt in thousands of crores of other people’s money, it was seen as trivial.

  But was there a financial motive to Puneet’s disappearance? Did this case have the makings of white-collar crime? Dhruvi’s interest flared.

  She had been delighted when she was deputed to a squad in the CCB that investigated frauds and other white-collar crimes. Her undergraduate degree in law, both the DCP and the ACP had told her, was one of the reasons behind her deputation. The other reason, an unspoken one, was that the DCP, along with a few others in the force, did not want women in roles that involved physical confrontation. They preferred to confine their responsibilities to desk work and intellectual investigations. Dhruvi had been unaware of this covert discrimination till she joined her squad.

  Her ACP had assured her, however, that her performance during the deputation would decide her future postings. He expected her to use the knowledge of law in her work and wanted her to familiarize herself with the abuse of information technology. That would come in handy when she occasionally worked with the cyber crime division, he had said. Dhruvi saw it as a bonus, as she was keen on making a career in fighting
the entire range of white-collar crimes, and information technology was central to it.

  And now, Vikram had suggested a possible connection between his colleague’s disappearance and her area of interest. She was hooked.

  ‘Where did Puneet’s colleagues go after they left the workplace?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m not sure, but they basically took the afternoon off,’ Vikram replied. ‘The work was done, as far as the rest of us were concerned.’

  ‘And in the evening?’

  ‘They visited a couple of pubs, I believe.’

  So Puneet’s colleagues were partying while he was working.

  ‘What was Puneet working on? I believe he was at a company called MyMagicHat?’

  ‘That’s right. He was…er…doing a project there.’

  ‘Project?’ Dhruvi asked, curious at Vikram’s apparent reluctance to be more forthcoming with information.

  ‘Well…a due-diligence exercise.’

  So that was it. A private equity firm doing a due diligence meant that they were considering investing in MyMagicHat. No wonder Vikram was reluctant to talk about it.

  ‘Puneet was closing it out,’ Vikram continued softly. ‘Yesterday was the last day. Please, Inspector. Do keep this confidential. This is not the kind of stuff we speak of in public.’

  ‘I understand, Mr Deswani. Don’t worry. Coming back to Puneet, neither you nor your colleagues have any idea of what might have happened to him?’

  The corners of Vikram’s mouth drooped as he shook his head. ‘Unfortunately not.’

  ‘Are you aware of any personal problems he might have been dealing with?’

  Vikram silently shook his head again.

  ‘Girlfriends, financial issues, drugs?’ Dhruvi persisted.

  ‘None that I know of. You could ask his younger colleagues, though. They are closer to him. I don’t know him very well personally… Different age groups, you know. But he seemed quite normal to me. He is a serious guy and works hard. Very hard. He’s been in Bengaluru for four days, working late every evening, while his teammates wind up work and are out sampling what the city has to offer.’

  ‘Isn’t that unusual? I mean, one of them working so hard when the others are out having fun?’

  ‘Not if you understand Puneet’s temperament. He’s a bit of a workaholic. I keep telling him that he must learn to loosen up and enjoy life a little more.’

  ‘Is he a teetotaller?’

  ‘Not at all. He enjoys his drink.’

  Dhruvi stared at Vikram for a moment. She was missing something here. Why would a young man who enjoyed his drink miss out on four consecutive evenings having fun with his teammates in Bengaluru? That too when his colleagues were indulging themselves? And his boss saw nothing wrong in it? Puneet seemed to have been working harder than his boss.

  ‘The due-diligence exercise is a bit of a formality, you know,’ Vikram said, as if he owed Dhruvi an explanation on behalf of Puneet’s colleagues. ‘We have decided to invest. There is no need to nitpick over small details now.’

  ‘I thought a due diligence was an exercise to check if everything was above board. For that, you would have to go into the details, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘True, but our consultants have already done a thorough DD on MyMagicHat’s financials. Everything is whistle-clean. This is just a supplementary DD that is done in case we, as the investor, want to look at something specific. As I said, it’s just a formality.’

  ‘So what happens now?’ Dhruvi asked. ‘How does Puneet’s disappearance affect your plans?’

  ‘It may cause some delays if he doesn’t show up soon. We can’t conclude the deal until Puneet signs off on it.’ His expression turned sour for a moment. ‘We’ll have to see what we need to do now, but I do hope he’ll turn up soon.’

  Vikram made no bones about the fact that he was unhappy with the delay and annoyed over Puneet’s disappearance. It was as if he were holding his young colleague responsible for it. One would have expected a boss to be concerned over a junior’s sudden disappearance. He should have been worried, wondering what might have befallen Puneet. Instead, he seemed irritated. Dhruvi wondered about the nature of Puneet’s relationship with Vikram.

  Two things were clear, at any rate: Puneet was a diligent worker and Vikram was a glib talker who didn’t know his young colleague too well.

  ‘Is there anyone in your team who knows Puneet well?’ she asked.

  Vikram thought for a moment and nodded. ‘There’s Arnav, my vice president. He’s spending the weekend here with his family. You could speak to him if you wish.’

  ‘Thank you. Could you give me his number and let him know that I’ll be calling him? I’ll want to meet him.’

  ‘Sure, shouldn’t be a problem –’

  A knock at the door interrupted them. Turning, Dhruvi saw the hotel manager standing in the doorway with a uniformed man behind him. The sub-Inspector from the local police station had arrived.

  Vikram, she knew, was going to be annoyed at having to repeat everything again. She rose to let the sub-Inspector take charge of the interview and dialled a number as she left the room.

  ‘Alex,’ she said softly, when her assistant answered, ‘take down this number, will you? It’s a Mumbai mobile number. Get hold of the call list for the past week, please.’

  ‘Yes ma’am.’

  ‘The phone has been in Bengaluru for the past four days,’ she continued, once she had given him Puneet’s number. ‘Get the last known location, before it was switched off sometime last night. Also, get the location history for the past week.’

  Chapter 6

  Nilay was still a little dazed by the turn of events when Vikram Deswani walked into the office with a uniformed policeman and a plainly dressed woman. He watched them being swiftly ushered into Gautam’s room and then tried to return to his work.

  But he couldn’t. Though he had a good deal of work piled up, he was unable to focus. Every few minutes, his thoughts would wander back to one of the three events that had shaken him. He lined them up in his mind in the sequence in which they had occurred.

  First, the snooping. The bugs had been installed a few months ago. Then came the cash crunch; Sundar had mentioned first broaching the topic with Gautam on Wednesday – a full day before he had shared it with Nilay. And the third was Puneet’s disappearance, which had happened around 10.30 last night.

  Nilay focussed on the first event, putting himself in the shoes of the eavesdropper, whoever he was. He would have overheard their conversations, including the confidential ones, for months. With all four meeting rooms – including the one that had been converted into the data room – bugged, along with Gautam’s cabin and his own, as well as the conference room, it was unlikely that he had missed any significant conversation. He would be privy to the Kantoff deal, as discussions on that topic had been taking place for at least a month. And, on Wednesday, he would have learnt about the impending cash crunch. With knowledge of both the deal and the cash crunch at his disposal, he would have realized the criticality of the deal to MyMagicHat – assuming he was a person familiar with the e-tailing industry.

  ‘Of course, he is familiar with the industry!’ he found himself murmuring. ‘What better way to hurt MyMagicHat than by sabotaging the deal?’

  What did that mean? If delaying the deal was deliberate, was Puneet’s disappearance a deliberate act too?

  Good God! How could Puneet’s disappearance be deliberate – unless he had been…abducted? Or worse.

  Nilay felt his palms turn clammy. No! That can’t be true! It isn’t true!

  He stretched out and grasped his plastic water bottle with a trembling hand, then took a swig of water, spilling an equal amount down his shirt front.

  ‘Alarmist!’ he admonished himself. ‘You should know better than to jump to conclusions at the drop of a hat. Get a grip on yourself!’

  He picked up a tissue and furiously dabbed at his damp shirt front. His ire spent, he forced himself to c
alm down and think more optimistically. The least he could do was listen to what the police had to say.

  Presently, he saw Gautam step out of his cabin with the visitors and signal to him to join them in the conference room. But before Nilay could cover the distance, Gautam had hurried over and met him halfway.

  ‘Don’t speak of the bugs or the cash crunch,’ he whispered.

  ‘You haven’t said anything about it?’ Nilay asked.

  ‘No need to. This is about Puneet.’

  Thirty seconds later, Nilay was introduced to the sub-Inspector and the woman in civvies. The former began by taking his statement on what he had seen the previous evening. Nilay narrated the events, while the sub-Inspector laboriously made notes, frequently interrupting him to ask questions. The bright-eyed woman with him listened silently, if intently.

  Once he had taken Nilay’s statement, the policeman seemed to lose interest and closed his notebook. But Vikram continued the interrogation.

  ‘What did Puneet discuss yesterday?’ he asked. ‘What questions did he have?’

  ‘Let me see,’ Nilay replied, casting his mind back. ‘Yesterday was mostly about our customer spread and category performance. Puneet wanted to understand how our customers were spread across the country and who was buying what kind of products and in what volumes. I showed him an analysis of customer count and GMV by state and a break-up of sales by category – electronics, apparel, appliances, books and so on.’

  ‘Did you find any of his questions strange or out of place?’

  ‘Not at all. I actually found it a very engaging discussion. He was comparing our sales with the sales of physical retailers. We also looked at how much of our sales were outside the top twenty cities. Interesting stuff.’

  ‘You have data on sales by physical retailers?’

  Nilay shook his head. ‘Puneet had some. Don’t know where he got it from, but he seemed to think they were authentic.’

  Vikram asked a few more questions and lapsed into silence with a dissatisfied air. It was then that the woman who had introduced herself as Dhruvi spoke up.

  ‘Mr Adiga,’ she began mildly, her bright, wide-set eyes gazing steadily at him, ‘it appears that you are the last known person to have seen Puneet.’