In the Name of God

by Ravi Subramanian

  Kabir had seen far too many tears and too much bravado during interrogations to be taken in by these two women. He turned to Aditya.

  ‘And you, what do you have to say about this?’ He waved the document he had brought with him a little while ago.

  ‘Power of attorney. The one that is in Subhash’s name. Given by Ms Sinha,’ announced Khan. ‘The only thing of significance here is that the power of attorney expires six days from now.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Subhash had struck a deal for selling the property. He was stopping in Mumbai on his way to Surat. To sell the property. Why not kill him before he transferred the property to someone else using this power of attorney and pocketed the money himself? How’s that for motive?’ Kabir looked at Krishnan. The latter nodded in agreement. ‘And what better than to threaten him into killing the thorn in your flesh, before you eliminate him?’

  ‘I could have just withdrawn the power of attorney,’ Shreyasi said reasonably. ‘Wouldn’t that have been easier to do than killing him?’

  ‘You would have to go to Surat for that. And given the current state you are in, stepping out of the hotel would be fraught with risk. You could have been seen and arrested. Interpol has issued a notice for your arrest.’

  ‘Mr Khan, had you not been a CBI officer, I’m certain you would have found your calling as a writer of crime thrillers,’ Shreyasi Sinha remarked casually. ‘What you are saying is a figment of your exceptional imagination.’ She glanced at Aditya. ‘For a minute assume that we did want to kill Subhash Parikh for the land. Why would we have any interest in killing Nirav Choksi? It is preposterous of you to even suggest that.’

  ‘Well, wasn’t that the discussion in your room that night? From what I have heard so far it seems the well-being of the BKC bourse can only be ensured if Nirav Choksi is out of the picture. What’s your interest in the bourse? I will figure it out. Sooner than later.’

  Kabir walked out, followed by Krishnan. They decided to give the three of them some time with each other in the same room. Putting them together in the presence of non-intrusive police personnel might make them talk. In any case the room was wired and they could track everything going on inside.

  119

  After Kabir Khan and Krishnan left, a visibly shaken Nirav waited in the visitors’ hall of the police station, hoping for a miracle. ‘I had not bargained for this when I signed up with you,’ he told Vikram Rai. ‘My life is falling to pieces,’ he lamented. With teary eyes, he buried his face in his palms.

  Vikram Rai gently patted his back. The man needs help, he thought sympathetically. His friend is dead. His daughter is being held for the friend’s murder. His future son-in-law is being held for planning to kill him. Everything around him is collapsing. Vikram continued rubbing Nirav’s back as if to offer solace. ‘It will all be all right,’ he said.

  At the other end of the complex, in the DGP’s office, Krishnan flung his cap on the sofa as he walked into the room. It had been a tiring morning for them. Interrogations were never easy for the interrogators—the strain was as much mental as it was physical.

  The phone started ringing the moment he sat down. Normally all calls were routed through his secretary, but since she was not there, all the calls were coming directly to him.

  ‘I warned you! It is karma. It is the will of the lord.’ Dharmaraja Varma sounded hysterical. ‘Can’t you see what is happening to a happy family? If this is not the will of the lord, what is it?’

  ‘We are still investigating, Thirumanassu. Let’s see how it shapes up.’

  ‘Tell the court-nominated team that this is what is in store for them if they continue with their blasphemous work. The best thing they can do now is pack up and leave. The lord’s wealth needs to be left to Him to manage. Humans have no jurisdiction over it.’ And he hung up just as abruptly as he had begun.

  Madhavan was in the room. He had not joined the interrogation. Kabir briefed him on the happenings in the past few hours. Madhavan too appeared confused. ‘So it was Subhash who was the temple raider?’

  ‘That’s what Sinha claims.’

  ‘Somehow the story does not sound believable. Why wouldn’t Divya tell Nirav what had happened rather than take matters into her own hands? Why would Aditya change the entire cab arrangement for Subhash, if he was going to kill him anyway? If he knew that Subhash wasn’t going to make it to Mumbai, then why leave a trail?’

  Khan kicked off his shoes, sat down on the sofa and put his feet up on the table in front. His eyes closed involuntarily. He went over the facts of the case again; there had to be something that he was missing.

  Aditya was in a relationship with Shreyasi Sinha. They had evidence to prove that: the Amsterdam hotel key card and CCTV camera footage that showed him entering her room at the Lotus Pond in the middle of the night. There was no denying that he was cheating on Divya—a fact that she had figured out. The argument that night between Aditya, Subhash and Shreyasi was also something which she had overheard. The CCTV camera images showed her standing outside the room and listening at the door. She had rushed out well past midnight to buy certain drugs, which were in all likelihood used to kill Subhash. Aditya had confessed to entering Subhash’s room at 4.30 a.m. with the intent to kill him, only to find that he was already dead. Aditya’s confession was not backed by evidence, but it tied in with what they knew about Subhash’s death. He was playing it safe. At best, he could be held for trespassing, but not murder.

  Was it so simple? Why did all of it have to happen in Thiruvananthapuram? Why to the team handling the temple audit? He was a bit confused.

  A knock at the door interrupted his flow of thoughts. ‘What?’ he demanded crossly.

  An ACP stuck his head inside the doorway and asked, ‘Can we take them back to the lockup, sir?’

  ‘Hmm.’ Kabir nodded. ‘The three whom we interrogated. Let the other two leave.’

  The ACP nodded and left.

  Khan took out his phone and replayed the voicemails Subhash had left for Nirav. Just what was he trying to tell Nirav. One by one he heard all the messages again. Nothing stood out. No hidden meaning. No hidden message. He was about to turn off the audio when he heard a noise. Very faint, almost inaudible. He suddenly perked up. Where had that come from? He had missed it all along.

  He played the last message over and over. It was sent at 1.32 a.m. Hurriedly he sought out Krishnan, and together they headed to the forensics department. The message was played on audio amplification equipment, at a decibel level fifteen times the original. Pallavi too had come by then. Khan had asked her to stick around as much as she could—her hotel contacts were proving invaluable.

  The message was played again. Just before the end, Kabir paused it, asked everyone to be silent and then resumed it. The feeble noise that he had heard at the end of the message was quite loud, yet Kabir couldn’t figure out what it was.

  ‘Doorbell,’ said Pallavi. ‘That’s the doorbell. A soft, non-intrusive doorbell.’

  120

  ‘Madhavan!’ he called out.

  Madhavan was at the far end of the room sorting out the Mumbai blasts charge sheet papers. They had to be put back into the box and stored away safely. He was taking stock of the core charge sheet document and the exhibits. He didn’t hear Kabir.

  Just then, Krishnan’s phone rang. ‘Home minister’s office,’ he said as he walked away to a corner of his room to take the call, as he normally did. He returned in forty-five seconds. ‘I’ve been summoned,’ he said making sure that only Kabir could hear him. ‘The chief minister’s back today. They want to issue the orders today as soon as possible.’

  ‘Damn! Assholes!’ Khan said. ‘When do you have to go?’

  Krishnan looked at his watch and said, ‘It’s a fifteen-minute drive, so I’ll leave in two hours.’

  ‘That’s more than enough time. We will nail this before that,’ Kabir said determinedly. He turned towards Madhavan and yelled. ‘MADHAVAN!’

  This time
Madhavan heard him, ‘Yes?’

  ‘Can you quickly get me the Menon Medical Stores video?’

  Within five minutes Madhavan was back with a pen drive, which had the CCTV images from the medical store. He plugged it into his laptop and played the video on the screen.

  The moment the video began, Kabir swore viciously. ‘Damn! What the hell is going on?’

  ‘Why? What happened?’ Madhavan asked him.

  ‘I can’t believe we missed this!’ he muttered angrily. ‘We made a hypothesis and went all out to prove it, without realizing the hypothesis could be flawed. We were looking for reinforcers rather than real evidence.’

  ‘Missed what?’ Madhavan asked patiently.

  ‘Pallavi!’ Kabir yelled, ignoring Madhavan’s query.

  ‘Not so loud! I’m right here!’ Pallavi admonished.

  ‘Sorry! Sorry!’ he said sheepishly. ‘Where is the key card report? The details stored in the key cards of the rooms.’

  ‘Tanveer’s fiancée had said she would send it this morning. Let me check if it has come.’ She turned on her laptop and checked her mail. ‘It has come,’ she said.

  Kabir came closer and peered at the screen.

  ‘The key card captures movement in and out of the room, and records the times when the door is opened or closed, either with or without the key card. This is a recent upgradation, so not many know about it,’ Pallavi explained while Kabir tried to make sense of the report.

  ‘According to this report, Subhash Parikh’s door was opened five times that night. At 12.36 a.m.—I guess that’s when he came back to his room after meeting Aditya and Shreyasi. Then at 1.32 a.m., 1.46 a.m., 4.33 a.m. and 4.37 a.m.’

  ‘So?’ Madhavan asked. He had not understood a word of what Kabir had said.

  Kabir motored on. He was excited. ‘Divya left the medical store at 12.38 a.m. The store is ten minutes from the hotel. Add five minutes for walking from the hotel entrance to Parikh’s room. She would not have been outside his room before 12.50-12.55 a.m. But there is a catch here.’ He pulled out the data that had come from the lift sensors. ‘Because of the increased security the only way to get to Subhash’s floor is using the lift, but not a single lift stopped there between 12.45 and 1.30. Which means that no one came to the floor around the time we assumed Divya came and killed him. The post-mortem report is very clear. It says that he died between 1.30 and 2.30 a.m. We missed this simple connec—’

  ‘Hold on!’ Pallavi interrupted. She pointed to the door-opening pattern of Divya’s room. ‘Her door was opened at 12.53 a.m. using her key card—this is probably when she returned from the medical store. Then at 1.12 after which it wasn’t shut till 1.28. But who opened it and why did it remain open for sixteen minutes at an hour past midnight? There’s something fishy here. Clearly she left the door open, went somewhere—probably to kill Subhash—came back, shut the door and went off to sleep. No?’

  ‘Unlikely, because Subhash’s door is opened only at 1.32. The last time Divya’s door opened or shut that night is at 1.28 a.m. Which means she could not have rung the bell outside Subhash’s room at 1.32 a.m. Had she done that, her room door would have opened at least once more after that, but it didn’t; not until morning, and then too from the inside. Divya was in her room at night. She couldn’t have killed Subhash. Remember, they all overslept the morning after they returned from Kanyakumari?’ Kabir Khan argued. ‘She couldn’t have done it.’

  From Aditya’s key card data, it was evident that he was the one who had walked into Subhash’s room at 4.33 a.m. So he was not lying. They examined the data from the key cards of the other people in the audit team. It was painstaking work, but at least they were heading in the right direction. Khan was worried about Krishnan’s transfer. It was playing on his mind.

  ‘Madhavan,’ he called out abruptly. ‘Can you get me the calls made between the rooms occupied by the extended temple team that night? Extended means everyone including Divya, Aditya and Shreyasi. Both hotel phones and mobile numbers.’ He went up to him and spoke in an urgent voice. ‘Bulldoze your way through, Madhavan. We are short on time. If we don’t kill this issue right now, I will always hold myself responsible for screwing up the retirement of a decorated officer.’ He gestured towards Krishnan who nodded. ‘Go personally to Lotus Pond and get this done,’ Krishnan added.

  Madhavan dumped the charge sheet papers he was holding and stood up. ‘These have to go today. I promised ACP Patil that they would be with him tomorrow.’ In the normal course they would have asked someone from the team to do this, however, since Patil had shared the papers with them at a personal level, they didn’t want to get anyone involved.

  Kabir nodded absently. ‘I’ll put them in the box,’ he said as he began packing the stuff Madhavan had left, into the box. A few annexures to the charge sheet, the three-thousand-pages-long main document, a few press clippings focusing on those killed and their families and the impact on ground. He had met all of them when he had gone to Mumbai, especially the survivors. He flipped through the newspaper cuttings distractedly—interviews with families of victims a few days after the blasts and pictures full of grief and tragedy.

  Suddenly Kabir stopped. One particular picture had caught his attention. He pulled out his phone, opened the gallery and scrolled it until he found a picture that he had saved many weeks ago. His hunch was right.

  He called a number.

  ‘Hello. Who is this?’

  ‘Hi. My name is Kabir Khan, from the CBI. We met a few days ago. I hope you remember?’

  ‘Oh yes, Mr Khan. How are you?’

  ‘Fine, thank you, ma’am. I know we spoke at length when we met, but I have a small query. I just happened to see a picture of you with some other people in the Times of India. It was carried immediately after the blasts. Could you tell me who those people are? Do you recall the picture I’m talking about?’ he asked, and after a pause added, ‘I can WhatsApp it to you in case—’

  ‘No, that won’t be necessary,’ she said softly. ‘I remember the picture. A lot of newspapers carried just my photograph but only one newspaper which carried the family picture . . .’ She fell silent.

  ‘Ma’am?’ Kabir prompted. ‘Who are the other people in your picture that TOI carried?’

  ‘My husband and my son.’

  ‘He’s a fine young man, I must say. Where is he these days?’

  Silence.

  ‘Ma’am?’

  He heard a slow sob. He held on. ‘I am sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.’

  ‘It’s all right, Mr Khan,’ she said stifling her sobs.

  They spoke for a few minutes more after which Kabir disconnected the call and yelled out for the ACP.

  ‘Are all of them still in the room, or have you taken them back to the lockup?’

  ‘Still there, sir. I was on my tea break. I haven’t been to the interrogation room. Should I—’

  ‘That’s okay, don’t bother. I’ll go down myself,’ Khan said, looking at Krishnan who was replying to a few government diktats on his mail. The last few that he would respond to before being transferred to the traffic department.

  ‘I think I know who killed Subhash Parikh,’ he said nonchalantly. The confidence, which had sagged a bit, was back. As was his swagger.

  ‘I am going to the interrogation room,’ he said. ‘Coming?’

  ‘Don’t you want to wait till Madhavan comes back?’ Krishnan asked him

  ‘We don’t have time now. I only want to know if any calls were made from one specific room that night. If there were, I am on track. And don’t worry. We will not go forward with the wrong hypothesis this time around. Come, let’s go,’ he said and walked towards Krishnan. When he was next to him, he slapped him on the back. ‘This one is for you, DGP Krishnan. One of the finest human beings I have met.’

  121

  Kabir Khan breezed in into the interrogation room, with Krishnan close behind. On the way they had asked Nirav and Vikram to join them.

  ‘So!�
� he said the moment the door shut behind him. ‘If we are all done with our stories, let’s focus on the truth now. What is the reality here? I need to know.’

  Aditya was struggling to understand what had just happened. They had spent two hours, maybe more, going over it and now they were back to square one. Shreyasi frowned.

  ‘So what did you do after you came back from Menon Medical Stores?’ Kabir asked Divya. The interrogation had begun. Again.

  ‘I went up to my room.’

  ‘And. When did you go to Subhash’s room?’

  ‘I have told you! I DID NOT KILL SUBHASH UNCLE.’

  ‘Well, you bought Sux from the store. You bought Alprax from the store. Alprax strips were found in Subhash’s room and my hunch and circumstances both point to the fact that Sux killed him. Who else could it have been?’

  ‘Am I the only one who bought the two medicines that you named?’

  ‘Well, that day, from a chemist near the hotel, it was only you.’

  ‘But I didn’t kill—’

  ‘Then why did you buy the drugs?’ Kabir banged on the table in front of him and yelled. Divya got frightened. She started sobbing uncontrollably. Nirav rose from his chair and rushed to her side. ‘Enough, Officer!’ he said. ‘You are harassing her.’ Hugging her protectively, he shouted, ‘She doesn’t deserve this!’

  ‘We’ll know soon enough,’ Kabir said as he continued with his queries. ‘Why did you buy Sux from the medical store if the intent was not to kill Subhash Parikh?’

  ‘I wanted to kill! I wanted to kill!’ Divya cried hysterically. ‘But not Subhash Uncle. I wanted to kill Aditya!’ Everyone in the room was stunned. ‘I wanted to kill him for cheating on me. And for plotting to kill my dad.’ She sobbed. ‘I can tolerate anything but not someone going after my dad. I told Aditya, I will choose my dad over everyone else in my life, every time! He has done so much for me. I love him.’

  ‘We all love our fathers, don’t we?’ Kabir remarked. ‘So drop the histrionics and tell us what happened next.’ He had no time for family soaps.