‘We spoke to her assistant and told her it was urgent. And then we decided, to hell with it. We had government documents, we didn’t need anymore verification and we knew we would only get a denial from her anyway.’
‘You and Shayak are friends. You didn’t contact him?’
‘And have the whole weight of the Indian political establishment come down on us before we could go to print? Not a risk worth taking when we had faith in our material.’
‘Any luck tracking down the person that sent the pen drive in the first place?’
‘No.’
‘It didn’t strike you as suspicious?’
‘Of course. It reeked. Someone was obviously out to get Kimaaya, and we didn’t know why. But cold as it may sound, it didn’t particularly matter at the end of the day.’
‘You didn’t have second thoughts after the murder?’
‘About running it, no. Timing, yes. We could have gone to print earlier, but it seemed in bad taste. So we waited a couple of days. Wasting any more time seemed foolish. Who knows who else had been sent the same information?’
The murder had only made the story more newsworthy. I wondered how much it would actually affect Kimaaya. Shayak, who prized his privacy and anonymity above all else, seemed to be the one with more to lose.
‘No further contact from the sender?’
‘No.’
‘Could I have a look at the drive? I’d like to see if our tech team has better luck with it than you had.’
‘Go ahead,’ said Shakuntala, taking it out of her handbag and sliding it across the table. ‘We’ve got what we needed.’
‘You’ll let me know if Mr Parashar surfaces?’
She nodded.
TWELVE
The murder of Ashutosh Dhingre had begun to feel bigger than what I could see. Tech-savvy snitches, paparazzi, secrets – and a likely connection to another murder. And now, following Shayak’s advice to trust no one, I found myself on the outside looking in once more.
I thought I would never have to struggle for information again, with Titanium on the inside track with the police. But that was apparently a qualified association at the moment. So the upshot was that I needed help. Despite Shayak’s confidence, there was only so much headway I could make in a new, big city on my own. I needed to turn to someone who, I could say with some degree of certainty, had nothing to do with any of this business.
I called Terrence. ‘Are you ready for that drink?’ I asked.
‘Always.’
I gave him directions to my place, before packing my bag with everything I might need for the next few days, and headed out. I didn’t know when I’d be back in office. With Shayak’s instructions to act on my own, I thought I would be better off working from home to avoid questions and steer clear of prying eyes.
I picked up some cans of beer and, half an hour later, found Terrence leaning on my doorframe.
‘Ray, I knew it would come to this some day,’ he smirked.
I reminded myself it was all for a good cause. ‘Lose the attitude, Terrence. I called you here because I need your help – and a private place to talk.’
‘Private?’ The smirk did not dim in its brightness.
‘It’s about work.’
That got his attention. ‘The mighty Titanium needs me again?’
‘Come in,’ I said.
Terrence followed me in and I went to the fridge and poured our drinks. ‘Nice place,’ he said.
‘Yeah – company flat.’
He let out a low whistle. ‘These guys are really taking care of you.’
‘It’s not bad.’
‘If I was in your position, I’d be a damn sight more grateful. A month ago, you were working with Calcutta’s saddest collection of crime-fighters, begging for cases for free and you still couldn’t get them.’
‘That’s a little harsh.’
‘Well, that’s what you can expect from old friends who’ve seen you before you made the big league. But you made it out of there, so kudos to you.’
And straight into another mess.
‘How’s the work going?’
‘Just getting settled in.’
‘With the biggest case of the year.’
‘Is that what you consider this?’
‘Dude! Don’t play dumb. You are in the limelight – might as well enjoy it. And this thing gets better and better. Your boss was married to Kimaaya Kapoor, man!’
‘So?’
‘Just saying. Some guys have all the luck.’
‘Why don’t you tell me about your case for a change?’ I asked.
He gave me a sketch of what he had been up to – he had followed a man who had allegedly perpetrated a chit fund fraud on 500 unsuspecting families, swindling them of over ₹ 50 lakh. The victims had rallied together and gone to the police. When they seemed slow on the uptake, they had come to Terrence’s agency, and he had tracked the man to Mumbai.
‘How much longer do you think you’ll be in town?’ I asked.
‘Do I sense a desire to spend more time together?’
‘You’re not a very good detective, are you?’
Terrence’s smile widened. ‘At least another couple of weeks.’
‘Do you think you have time to help me with my case?’
‘A case – or the case?’
‘The case, if you must.’
‘Why would you need my help?’
‘Titanium often works with freelancers. It’s no big deal.’
‘Why is it always like this with you? Even when you want help, you’ll make me feel like a fool.’
‘You know what this business is like, Terrence. There is just too much I can’t tell you. You want in or not?’
‘Do I get credit?’
‘Where it is due.’
‘With your office?’
‘With my boss. And you will be compensated for your time.’
‘Your boss Shayak Gupta?’
‘The very same.’
‘And it is for the Maaya Island murder?’
‘Yes.’
‘You are working on this with freelancers? Why? This is a big case even for Titanium. The dude really hates his ex, doesn’t he?’
‘In or out?’
‘In, Reema. Obviously.’
‘Okay. Then we need to get to work now.’ I handed Terrence the pen drive and my laptop. ‘I am assuming you have read the coverage of Kimaaya’s murder and divorce saga.’
‘As well as the “Who is Shayak Gupta” piece of trash.’
‘So there is only one bit of information on this that you must agree to never discuss with anyone without express permission.’
‘Reema, I’ve been a detective for over ten years now. Since you were still running around in chaddis. Give me some credit.’
‘I can’t take anything on faith.’
‘Are you going to make me sign a non-disclosure agreement, or something else you might consider – though probably falsely – to be legally binding?’
‘No.’
‘Then you are taking it on faith.’
He was right, and there was nothing I could do about it. I handed Terrence the drive. ‘There is only one document on this that has new information, the rest you know.’
‘And if I tell anyone about it, I risk a painful death?’
‘Something like that.’
‘What do you need me to do?’
‘I want to know if there is any sign of who may have created this drive, and the source of the information.’ Tech was never my forte, and I didn’t want to miss anything because I didn’t have access to Titanium’s manpower.
Terrence plugged it into my machine. ‘I’m going to first run a search for malware on it, before I look at the files.’ He plugged away for a while. ‘Looks clean,’ he said.
Then he turned his attention to the documents themselves. When he reached the third one, the certificate from the rehab clinic, he looked up at me with surprise. ‘Why didn’t this make the pape
r?’
‘Might be a fake,’ I said.
He kept working, shaking his head every now and again. ‘All these film types are the same, aren’t they? Drugs, sex, meltdown. None of them can keep it together. How the hell did anyone get a hold of these?’
‘That’s what I had hoped you could tell me.’
‘I can’t find anything that might hint who the author is. But I can tell you that whoever saved these files knew exactly what they were doing. They didn’t want to leave any evidence behind and they knew how to do it.’
‘How hard is that?’
‘Nowadays – not very. There is some pretty common software out there that can help you.’
‘But he or she thought to take these measures, so knew the dangers of an electronic footprint.’
‘Yes. But having said that, a geeky teenager might have that stuff down.’
‘And that’s all you can tell me?’
Terrence shrugged. ‘I can try to run a data retrieval to see if there are any deleted files, but chances are this is a brand-new drive that has never been used before.’
‘I’m not assuming anything. Can you check now?’
Terrence complied, and in a few minutes confirmed what we both already knew.
‘So where does that leave us?’ I asked.
‘You tell me. I’m not asking any questions, remember?’
‘For now, I think this is it. But I’ll be in touch in case I need anything else.’
I let Terrence out. I was running into wall after wall. I had ruled out our best suspect in Viraat and, while plenty of people had the opportunity and the means to murder Ashutosh Dhingre, motive was less certain. These documents were my strongest angle, and I was running out of ideas about how to make them work.
I took Dhingre’s address book and file from my bag. Nothing leapt out as being unusual – it seemed as though Dhingre was just keeping tabs on his former protégée. If this wasn’t about blackmail then it must be about ruining Kimaaya. And yet apparently Dhingre was intent on doing the opposite – he was desperate to keep the news of Kimaaya’s addiction under wraps. Who else could have it out for her? A Bollywood rival? An angry lover? A disgruntled producer? The list was potentially endless. Where was I even supposed to start?
There was an unexpected upside of being banished from the office – my desk was now my kitchen, if I wanted it to be. And instead of taking notes to clear my head, I could bake.
I looked through my cupboards. It was slim pickings, but I did have enough for brownies. I set all the ingredients on the counter as I greased my pan and preheated the oven. It was something I could bake in my sleep, which was a good thing because the brownies were languishing in the background of my brain as I ran through the details of the case, trying to sort what I knew and keep it separate from what I thought I knew.
The baking, as always, did the trick. By the time I slipped the batch into the oven, I had figured out a way forward. Like the brownies themselves, it was simplicity itself – I would start where I always started: at the source.
But it would have to wait – I had just pulled the fudgy goodness out of the oven when my phone rang. It was Ajay. I had forgotten all about our date that wasn’t.
‘Are you joining me for dinner?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ I said a little too quickly to my ear.
He told me where to meet him, and I set out. On the way, I had time to ask myself what I was doing. I was curious about him but there was more to it than that – and I didn’t feel comfortable about any of it.
When I arrived at the restaurant, Ajay was seated in the corner, with his back to the room. He had already ordered a bottle of wine. ‘Thanks for coming,’ he said, pouring me a glass.
I felt unexpectedly at a loss for words. I smiled and held my glass up to his.
‘So tell me, how does a woman like you become a private investigator?’ he asked without preamble as I took a sip.
I hadn’t expected small talk from Ajay, and he didn’t disappoint. ‘I guess that would depend on what you mean by “woman like you”.’
‘You know – affluent, urbane, attractive. You could have chosen any profession you wanted.’
‘As I am sure you could have done.’
‘True. But I asked first.’
‘I blame it on an overactive imagination and unfortunate reading habits. And I must have been seriously deluded about the amount of excitement PI work entailed.’
‘You regret it?’
‘I’ve had my moments.’
‘Where were you before Titanium?’
I told him about my agency, and briefly about the case that threw me in Shayak’s path and led me to Mumbai.
‘Seems like quite a lot of excitement to me.’
‘Only because I’ve edited out the endless hours I spent tailing cheating spouses,’ I said, taking another sip. ‘It’s your turn.’
‘My story is not so different. I must have been seriously deluded about the number of criminals I would lock away as a policeman.’
‘Bad day at the office?’
He shook his head. ‘We can only do our best. And then we watch the guys get out on bail and, eventually, let off for rape and murder.’
‘Are you always this upbeat?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said with a sigh. ‘I guess I am just sick of doing so much and achieving so little. Sometimes I feel we are chasing our tails, like we are trying to take down the Amazon with a pair of tweezers.’ He gave me a sad smile. ‘Don’t tell my boss I said that.’
‘I’m not on a first-name basis with the commissioner, so you needn’t fear. Are private players any better off?’
‘When you are Shayak Gupta, I’d say so. You are getting the job done, often because the police have failed and, for the most part, Titanium is pretty good at it.’
Ajay put down his glass and picked up the menu. ‘Any preferences?’
‘Not really,’ I said, surprising myself. I couldn’t remember the last time I let anyone else order for me. But as I listened to him talk to the waiter, I realized his choices were telling me much about him.
In fact, all the choices he made through the evening were quite illustrative. The restaurant was multi-cuisine: he skipped through the appealing coastal cuisine section and went straight to the north Indian menu, from which he chose a yellow dal, a mixed vegetable, raita and roti.
‘I’m vegetarian,’ he said. ‘Please order anything else you want.’
‘That’s okay,’ I said. ‘I’m very happy eating vegetarian food.’
It wasn’t a lie either. I loved vegetables but in my world there were no non-vegetarians – there were the vegetarians and the rest of us omnivores, just as our digestive systems intended us to be.
We chatted as we waited. Despite his lacklustre taste in food, Ajay was good company. He was easy with words, making me laugh with stories of the police station. But as dinner arrived and he poured the last of the wine into our glasses, he abruptly changed tack. ‘You are here to talk about the case, aren’t you?’
I couldn’t lie to him. ‘In part, yes.’
He didn’t betray anger or irritation. ‘It is rather bad timing.’
‘Till this is over …’
‘Then let me try to speed things up. Any idea why your boss’ fingerprints would be at the scene of Afreen’s murder?’
I was confused. ‘Where?’
‘On the bar, under which the body was found.’
The bar – that fancy screen that came to life when Viraat hit it in his frustration. I remembered the water that had danced across the surface when the glass was knocked over. I hadn’t had enough time to collect prints before being asked to back off; it was the police team that had worked that scene.
‘Perhaps he was there on an earlier occasion?’
‘Viraat says he wasn’t. I’d ask Shayak, except that he’s conveniently unavailable.’
‘I’m sure there is a perfectly acceptable explanation.’
‘I’m
sure. One more thing. Could you explain why a gun licensed to Titanium would be used as the murder weapon?’
‘What?’
‘The unfortunate facts as they are emerging in this case. The gun that killed Afreen was found in the elevator shaft of Viraat’s building. It was a Titanium-licensed weapon.’
‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘Why not? You’ll find out soon enough. People in your office are already being questioned. And you wanted to know about the case,’ said Ajay.
I was taken aback by the sudden sarcasm. ‘You think Shayak would be shabby enough to kill someone with a gun registered to his company and leave a fingerprint at the scene?’
‘So your argument for his innocence is that if he were to commit murder, he would do a better job of it?’
‘Amongst others – and I’ve heard worse. You’ve worked with him closely enough to know I am right.’
‘Be that as it may, too sloppy isn’t grounds for dismissing him as a suspect.’
‘What about motive?’
‘To stop Dhingre from spilling the beans on his marriage. And maybe Afreen saw him do it.’
‘How is that good enough reason for a double murder? What did he have to gain?’
‘Thankfully, he came clean to me about the marriage before I read about it in the papers,’ he said.
‘He did?’ I was genuinely surprised – and relieved – that he had taken my advice.
‘Yup. Otherwise he would have gone straight to the top of the suspect list after that article came out. But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t protecting Kimaaya from blackmail and himself from scandal. We all know what a private bastard he is.’
I flinched at the words. Ajay’s eyes widened just a fraction at my reaction, before the mask fell back into place.
‘From what I have learnt, it wasn’t Dhingre doing the exposing. He may have only been trying to warn Kimaaya,’ I said.
Ajay didn’t respond to that one.
‘And the fingerprints weren’t found at Dhingre’s crime scene – they were only found at Afreen’s.’
‘I don’t know exactly what happened yet, Reema, but the evidence is too heavy for me to ignore. And I don’t see how an investigator with your skills is so convinced in the face of facts.’
It was my turn to hold my tongue.
Dead in a Mumbai Minute Page 20
