Sinner's Game: Karma will chase!

by Sandeep Sharma

  Most of the messages were from either from friends or from colleagues from Hailthy, all known to Vibhor. Most WhatsApp groups she was part of were also quite predictable except for one group: the group named ‘The Final Destination.’ Vibhor read the messages on the group. The messages had started few months back and Priya had not responded to any of them even though she had read them. The last message on the date of her death was shocking: ‘Your journey ends today and be ready for your final destination.’

  Vibhor’s mind raced very fast and he thought about the sequence of events leading to Priya’s death. He thought to himself, ‘This cannot be just a coincidence. Priya’s death is no random accident.’ He was not sure how to take this forward. He had established some link between her death and messages received in the WhatsApp group but was not sure about his plan of action. He was not sure if police would take him seriously.

  He became emotional and started crying. They had a beautiful brother and sister relationship and there were no secrets between them. He was aware of all her casual relationships, including the recent one with Himanshu.

  Just before the party, Priya wanted to show her dress to Vibhor. ‘How am I looking? Should I wear this one for the party?

  ‘Well you will look fabulous in any dress, Priya. Just tell me one thing, when will you ever clean up your room? It has bugs. You just can’t afford to live like this. What if your man decides to visit you here?’

  ‘Well I am smart enough for that just check out my room right now! There may be a guest here tonight!’

  He asked teasingly, ‘You must be joking! So will you ever get serious with anyone? How about Himanshu? You look serious this time!’

  Priya angrily responded, ‘Vibhor, I am a grown up girl and can take of myself. So do not try to be over protective elder brother for me. Stay away from my relationships. Stop playing with my phone or I will change the password again.

  ‘That is the point you need me to remember your password kiddo!’

  Priya said, ‘That is true! You don’t need to worry about Himanshu.’

  ‘Well sometimes I get worried about you. What is wrong in that? If you are in a hurry now you can always tell me later.’

  ‘Guess what? I will tell you now; Himanshu is married. See you after the party.’

  Vibhor knew Priya quite well and realized that this was not time to get answers. His timing was wrong and Priya was in no mood to respond.

  Vibhor smiled but soon his attention came back to Priya’s phone. He thought further about the sequence of events that led to the accident. ‘Priya was with Himanshu in the office party just before the accident. So maybe something happened between them. I must speak to Himanshu and discuss these WhatsApp message with him.’

  Vibhor called Himanshu from Priya’s phone. Himanshu immediately picked the call realizing that this must be someone from her family. ‘Hi Himanshu, I am Vibhor, Priya’s brother, is this a good time to talk? Actually…. I would like to meet you in person.’

  Himanshu was a little worried as Priya’s phone was in Vibhor’s hand and he was at home with his wife. He did not want to pick another fight with her. He responded back, ‘Hi Vibhor, I would love to meet you. Do let me know where you want me to meet. I am at home right now but can reach quickly.’

  They met at a café in South Point Mall.

  Himanshu conveyed his condolences. ‘I am sorry to hear about your loss. She was having so much fun at the party and suddenly this…’

  ‘Did you guys fight about something?’

  ‘Absolutely not; Priya was drinking and having fun. I wanted to drop her home but she wanted to drive on her own. This happened all within minutes.’

  Vibhor took out Priya’s phone and showed him all the messages that Priya had received in the WhatsApp group. Himanshu looked at the messages and could not believe what he saw. They looked too familiar to him.

  'Himanshu, did Priya discuss these messages with you? I am not sure who was sending these to her. Just look at the name of the group and the last message that came on the day of her death.’

  Himanshu took the phone from Vibhor’s hand and started reading all messages. He was petrified when he realized that the date of the last message coincided with the date of her death. He did not know what to do next. At this point of time, he was more worried about himself. He had been getting similar messages and had been ignoring them - just like Priya. He suddenly felt uncomfortable and short of breath. He did not want to spend any more time with Vibhor and desperately wanted fresh air.

  'So what do you think Himanshu? Should we discuss this with police or Akshay sir? This looks pretty serious to me.'

  Himanshu’s face had turned pale with fear and he replied hesitantly, 'Frankly this looks like a coincidence to me and we can ignore this. I need to head back home now. If something comes to my mind, I will contact you. I have to…' He did not even complete his sentence and just left abruptly, leaving Vibhor alone.

  Vibhor was quite irritated with Himanshu’s tepid response but he could do nothing about it. He had met Himanshu for the first time under such circumstances. While Himanshu looked quite devastated to him; considering Priya's friendship with him, Vibhor was expecting more. Vibhor headed back home thinking once again about the sequence of events that had led to Priya's death and by the time he reached home, he decided to do something about it.

  Himanshu did not go back home directly. Instead he was quite shaken and sat in his car. He wanted to speak to Vibhor and talk about Priya but was afraid of sharing his marital status with him. Any further conversation could have revealed details of his extra marital affair with Priya, probably to the whole office. He checked WhatsApp to see whether there were any new messages in the ‘The Final Destination’ group. Like Priya, he had been ignoring these messages. There was a new unread message. ‘Karma always catches up; don’t waste your life.' The messages coming to him were similar to the ones sent to Priya.

  When he read this, Himanshu got scared and did not know what to do. Talking to Vibhor could have given him a chance to probe this further but he didn’t. As the gravity of the situation struck him, Himanshu thought remorsefully about his wife and son and started crying loudly. He felt extremely helpless.

  The Doubt

  Garima always had known that Akshay’s life would be very demanding on the work front. She knew about his goals. Akshay and Garima had spoken to each other about how both of them would never let their marriage impact their aspirations.

  After the house party, Garima knew that Tanuja travelled with Akshay on some occasions. She still never took any interest in her; she did not feel the need to. She still trusted Akshay and chose to give the benefit of doubt to him.

  One day when she was unpacking Akshay’s suitcase after a trip, she was surprised to see a woman’s perfume in Akshay’s suitcase.

  What had happened was that Tanuja had forgotten to put perfume in her check-in bag and during the security check she had been stopped and asked to open her bag. The quantity was more than permissible limit and they confiscated the perfume bottle. Tanuja immediately called Akshay and he had not checked-in by that time. She had asked Akshay to keep it in his bag with a promise to take it back immediately after landing in Delhi. But she had forgotten.

  For some reason, Garima decided not to confront with Akshay even after this episode. She had full faith in Akshay’s loyalty. But Tanuja’s party incident made her a little cautious.

  Garima was aware that over time they had drifted apart.But recently Akshay would come back late at night after work, skip important social events for ‘spontaneous meetings’ and would extend his two-day business trip to a whole week. She knew something was off. She realized that her suspicions might not be far from reality.

  She wanted to discuss this with a common friend but then decided against it. She did not want to become the topic of gossip in her friends circle. It became sort of a norm in Gurgaon, especially for women, to know everyone’s business and talk all sorts of things abo
ut them. The hunger for gossip did not stop them from bashing their own friend to add more ‘color’ to their own lives.

  Moreover, any wrong move in this matter meant that her relationship with Akshay would be spoiled forever. She thought about it for a few days but she could not live with this uncertainty for long. She got tired of making scenarios about a possible affair between Akshay and Tanuja. At the same time, she did not have enough evidence and couldn’t confront Akshay.

  Garima researched online as to what she could do. It was from there that she got a suggestion to hire a detective agency. Garima had conflicting views on this and for a moment, she thought that it would become a huge deal. It was a huge deal.

  However she did not rule it out. When she read an article on the same topic, the increasing role of detective agencies in such situations, she decided to evaluate the option further. It was during her search for a detective agency that she discovered Vyom’s detective company. She called the number given on the Internet. Vyom picked up.

  ‘Hi this is Vyom. How can I help you?’

  ‘Hi I wanted to discuss a personal matter with you that requires investigation. If you let me know your office location, I can share more details with you in person.’ Garima requested. They fixed up a meeting at a café in a mall subsequently. Garima was not entirely convinced about her steps. However, she wanted normalcy and peace and wanted to know the truth.

  When she entered the coffee shop she spotted Vyom whose picture she had seen on WhatsApp. Their conversation was to the point. ‘How can I help you Garima?’

  Garima responded hesitantly, ‘I need your help in getting some details about my husband.’

  ‘What kind of details are you talking about?’

  ‘I suspect that my husband may be having an affair. I am not sure and don’t have any proof. It is a hunch but I’m pretty sure that something is wrong,’ said Garima.

  Vyom had a neutral expression on his face, ‘It’s very unfortunate Garima; but I hope you do realize that you aren’t the only one in such a situation; so take it easy on yourself. Believe me I have seen more of this than what you can ever imagine.’

  Garima smiled and said, ‘How long have you been in this profession?’

  ‘Over five years now.’

  Garima continued, ‘I want to understand your style of working. All this is very personal to me. I may be just overreacting.’

  Vyom asked her more information and assured her of complete confidentiality. ‘Garima. I will assure you complete confidentiality. I handle cases of sensitive nature myself. You will need to provide me with more details so that I can start my investigation. What do you do for a living?’

  ‘I am a freelancer. So what information would you need to start this investigation?’, Garima lied because she did not want to reveal everything about herself in her first meeting.’

  ‘Based on my initial understanding I would need names and phone numbers of all people involved.’

  Garima had noted Tanuja’s number recently from Akshay’s phone. So she quickly shared Tanuja’s and Akshay’s number and names with Vyom.

  ‘I have done a preliminary analysis and they have nothing common as far as social profile is concerned’, said Garima.

  ‘Garima, people are quite smart these days. It is a world dominated by WhatsApp, Instagram, Tinder and Snapchat.’

  ‘I agree, Vyom. Akshay is hardly active on social media. How are you planning to get information just by phone numbers?’

  ‘You leave that to me. With technical advancements, we can get a lot of information these days. Let us discuss commercial arrangements first and then I will share complete details with you.’

  Garima responded quickly, ‘Please do not worry about commercials but I will pay you in cash only. I don’t want these transactions to appear in my bank statement. I have a joint account with Akshay. Please ensure complete privacy and use proper discretion. I do not want to spoil my relationship with Akshay at any cost.’

  ‘Don’t worry at all. I would need a list of common hotels where Akshay stays when he travels and I would need the password for your home Wi-Fi.’

  ‘Why would I give you that?’ asked Garima.

  ‘I will need to access Akshay’s phone and analyze his messages. I will look at his call logs, if needed. This is just a starting point to get some direction. We don’t want to chase him without a plan.’

  ‘OK. I will share the password, whenever you need it.’

  With Garima’s help, Vyom hacked into Akshay’s phone some days later. This was no ethical hacking but Vyom never worried about ethics in his business. He wanted to expose all sinners.

  After a basic analysis of the data from Akshay’s phone, Vyom found out that Akshay was chatting actively either at late night or whenever he was out of town for his meetings. Akshay made calls to either his employees or someone associated with Hailthy, including vendors and investors. His SMS messages were quite harmless and he could not make much out of them. He could not get access to his WhatsApp chat message due to encryption.

  Even from the call recordings, nothing significant or substantial came out. The calls were quite normal most of made to either Hailthy or Garima. He couldn’t get anything substantial from Akshay’s phone. Vyom had nothing to share with Garima.

  Since Akshay and Tanuja were colleagues, there was no surprise element in catching them together in Gurgaon. He wanted something concrete and in black and white before reaching to any conclusion. In the case of Akshay, he was not making any progress. Therefore, he concluded that either Akshay was too smart or just innocent.

  He eventually thought of tracking activities of Tanuja. Tanuja stayed in an apartment with a roommate. The society complex had a high level of security and there was no way to enter the society, without a valid reason. He had no possibility of hacking into her home Wi-Fi.

  Vyom started making an alternate plan to hack her phone. He started looking at her weekend activities and soon discovered her regular activities. Her favorite café was CCD and every Saturday afternoon she went there for some privacy and relaxation. He started monitoring her closely to verify her visit timings.

  Once he was reasonably sure of her visiting hours, he decided to execute his plan. One day while Tanuja was sipping her coffee at CCD, he quietly entered the café with a signal jammer. He activated the same to block her 4G signal forcing Tanuja to hunt for café Wi-Fi.

  When she joined the Wi-Fi network, her phone was accessible to Vyom for surveillance. Getting into anyone’s phone is never easy but Vyom had mastered this art over many years. Using necessary permissions to access her phone activities, Vyom, in a very short time, he had access to her pictures, contacts and messages.

  Vyom could not find anything related to Akshay in Tanuja’s pictures.

  He reviewed all her contacts and most of them were self-explanatory. Only one contact was difficult to interpret. Vyom noticed a series of SMS from a specific number and quickly noted the same; it was saved under the name ‘Jaan’. Vyom checked the number and decided to call the same after some time from a landline. The number was switched off; it looked like that he was heading for a dead end again. He decided to trace this number through his connects. He was surprised to find that this number belonged to the Hailthy Company. Call records showed frequent calls to Tanuja’s number from other locations, mainly Mumbai. He timed this with Akshay’s travel and concluded that Akshay had some connection with this number. But he wanted to be sure about that.

  It was at this stage that Vyom decided to meet Garima again. Garima was quite anxious and reached there ahead of time. When Vyom entered the Café, she asked him impatiently.

  ‘How is it going? Did you find anything?’

  ‘Garima, I have looked at the contents of the phones of Akshay and Tanuja. There is nothing to link connect them directly.’

  ‘So we have nothing against Akshay. Right?’

  ‘There is a company’s phone number stored in Tanuja’s phone. I strongly feel that this
could be Akshay’s second number. There is a high probability that Tanuja interacts a lot with Akshay while he is traveling.’

  ‘If they both are traveling then what is the need of this number?’

  ‘Based on my experience, this could be for many reasons.’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘For talking to her whenever he is traveling alone. Local coordination etc. But I would require information on Akshay’s exact travel dates to confirm.’

  ‘Vyom are you sure about this?’ asked Garima. There was an element of disappointment in Garima’s tone.

  ‘I need to check it again Garima.’

  ‘Vyom, as far I know Akshay is traveling to Mumbai day after tomorrow. I can share hotel details with you on WhatsApp but please do delete my messages.’

  ‘No worries! I also want to stay away from having too much information on my phone. Sometimes police can harass you in the middle of an investigation.’

  Garima had more questions, ‘Did you find anything more than phone calls? Did you look at messages exchanged between them?’

  Vyom responded tentatively. ‘I am not able to access WhatsApp messages but I will check again with my software. There is nothing on SMS and pictures, so far.’

  Garima was relieved. ‘What is your plan Vyom?’

  ‘It is unlikely that they will speak so much on phone while he is traveling alone and not otherwise. This doesn’t seem normal. I plan to watch them closely in Mumbai.

  ‘It is your call, Vyom. But do not take any extra risk and play it safe.’

  ‘Don’t worry Garima, it is my job and I do it professionally. Let us meet after a few weeks. I am hoping to make more progress on this one.’

  Without telling Garima anything further, Vyom decided to travel to Mumbai and booked his stay in Marriott. The same hotel where Akshay would stay. To his luck, Tanuja was also traveling and was staying in the same hotel.

  In Mumbai, on the first day that they were there, Akshay and Tanuja were out for business meetings. Vyom who was tracking them waited for them to be back. They came back in the same cab but went to their respective rooms on the same floor. Vyom waited patiently near the lift lobby. In some time, later that evening, Akshay and Tanuja came to the lobby and headed straight to the hotel bar.