Inspector Vichare wasn’t enthused by the prospect of trekking all the way to Koliwada in the afternoon heat, after just having been there the previous night. But he had little choice—Koliwada Police were officially looking into Vasu Langda’s death. When Paswan called to say that the toxicology report was available, Vichare—with Russi in tow—took off in his jeep. Lobo was dealing with another matter of importance.
‘Vasu died of a heart attack,’ said Paswan as soon as the pair had taken a seat in the station.
Vichare immediately gave Russi a knowing look.
Paswan turned to a young woman seated at the same table. She was wearing a white lab coat, disposable gloves, big round spectacles and even bigger disc earrings. A thick wad of papers was stacked in front of her on the table, and a huge plastic box sat on the floor.
‘Dr Gurleen Kaur from the forensic team,’ said Paswan. ‘She’s done the preliminary assessment of the body.’
‘Cause of death is technically myocardial infarction—a heart attack,’ started Gurleen. ‘But …’
‘But what?’ said Vichare impatiently.
‘But … it’s a bit more complicated than that,’ said Gurleen. ‘You see, a heart attack can happen for a variety of reasons. Even seemingly healthy people, in low-risk age groups, can suffer it, with fatal consequences. This gentleman was neither healthy nor young.’
Vichare winced at hearing Langda being called a gentleman.
‘His liver and kidneys were in terrible shape,’ continued Gurleen. ‘A consequence of excessive alcohol consumption. The lungs were also damaged—he was a heavy smoker, so again, I’m not surprised. There were also very high levels of alcohol in his bloodstream, and that could have on its own triggered a heart attack. So the fact that it was a heart attack is known, but the underlying cause is hard to pinpoint.’
‘That’s true for most heart attacks, na,’ said Vichare, not keen on a longer lecture on the inner workings of the cardiovascular system.
‘You’re right, Inspector,’ said Gurleen. ‘On most occasions, we struggle to identify the trigger for a heart attack—it could be one of many possibilities. Of course, if we get a clue, then it makes our search much more focused, and we can make a better and quicker guess.’
‘A clue?’ asked Russi. He was enjoying the slow and detailed build-up of Gurleen’s explanation, although it was apparent that it was irritating Vichare.
Gurleen opened the large plastic box on the floor. Inside it were twelve empty glass bottles of varying sizes, individually packed in transparent evidence bags.
‘These are the alcohol bottles procured from the room of the deceased,’ she said. ‘His blood alcohol levels indicate that he drank the equivalent of two or three of these bottles in the hours just before he died.’
Vichare snorted. ‘Drinking so much so quickly should itself be the answer to the cause of death.’
‘Possibly, and perhaps in most cases that would be a satisfying answer,’ said Gurleen. ‘However, there were a couple of things about these bottles that made me think differently.’
She reached into the case of wrapped bottles and picked one up. The three men moved to the edge of their respective seats, their rapt attention focused on the bottle she had selected as if in anticipation of a magician’s big reveal.
‘This bottle of whisky looks empty to the naked eye. But our lab analysis found that, in addition to a few remaining drops of alcohol, it contains microscopic particles of phenobarbital—the chemical name for what we commonly call barbiturates.’
Gurleen decided to elaborate further.
‘Barbiturates are anti-anxiety drugs, commercially sold under the name of Barbital,’ she said. ‘They are commonly used in cases of depression or mood instability or even insomnia, and fairly safe if used correctly. But overdose can be very dangerous, and overdose in conjunction with alcohol can trigger respiratory failure and—’
‘Heart attacks,’ said Paswan.
Gurleen nodded. ‘Now, we looked for the presence of barbiturates in the blood samples of the deceased and found a level of two hundred nanograms per millilitre. Even for someone on prescribed regular use of the drug, the dose usually does not exceed sixty nanograms. Such high levels—over three times the maximum limit—suggests that this is a case of barbiturate poisoning. Poisoning that triggered a massive, fatal heart attack.’
‘One possibility, Dr Kaur, could be that our deceased friend was consuming barbiturates, either prescribed or otherwise, and happened to overdose badly, followed by a drinking bout that then proved fatal,’ said Russi.
‘Certainly a possibility,’ said Gurleen. ‘However, as far as I know, no medicines with these ingredients or anything remotely similar were found in his room. Am I correct, ASI Paswan?’
‘We only found one strip of paracetamol in his room,’ said Paswan. ‘Nothing for anxiety or insomnia, and nothing with this …’
‘Barbital,’ completed Gurleen. ‘Also remember, the chemical traces were found inside the bottle. So, the barbiturates had been mixed into the whisky, and then consumed.’
Vichare glanced at Russi.
‘Basically you’re saying that Vasu Langda was killed,’ said Vichare. ‘This … Barbie-doll … was put into his alcohol, he drank it, had a heart attack and died. But this bottle could have come from absolutely anywhere and given by absolutely anyone.’
Russi shuffled forward.
‘There is one more difference between this bottle and the rest. If I may, doctor?’ he said, arranging the various evidence bags with bottles on the desk.
‘What is that?’ asked Vichare as Russi lifted a bottle that had a golden sticker.
‘It’s by far the highest-quality whisky of all these,’ said Russi. ‘Look at the labels of the other bottles. Cheap, mostly desi liquor. But this one? Single malt, no less. Vasu Langda may have been a true alcoholic, but I’m pretty sure he wasn’t a regular consumer of premium Scotch. So where did this come from? Remember Francis saying he saw Vasu walking in with a bottle of foreign-looking liquor that evening? Was this the bottle? Given to him by someone he had met? A bribe? A reward?’
‘A reward mixed with killer chemicals. The reward of death,’ said Paswan.
‘Remember I said there were two things about the bottles?’ said Gurleen, holding up the bag containing the Scotch bottle with the golden sticker. Vichare drew near again and squinted at the bottle.
‘Unfortunately, again not something you can see with the naked eye,’ said Gurleen. The inspector sheepishly shifted back in his chair.
‘Like all the other bottles, as expected, it has fingerprints of the deceased,’ continued Gurleen. ‘But this bottle also had one single fingerprint belonging to someone else. Not a set of prints, just one solitary print, that looks like an index finger. We managed to lift it off the bottle.’
She held up a square transparent plastic sheet with a clear fingerprint at its centre.
‘So Langda’s whisky-gifting killer left us something to find him with,’ said Vichare.
‘Or her,’ chipped in Russi.
‘Does this match any prints in our police database?’ asked Vichare.
‘That is next in the plan, Inspector,’ said Gurleen. ‘I hope you can see that in less than twelve hours of work our forensic team has already made good progress.’
‘Yes, yes, of course. Excellent work. Fast work,’ said Vichare. ‘Now let’s hope the fingerprint is a match to someone, and we can be sure who the killer is.’
Just then, Vichare’s phone buzzed with a call.
‘Lobo, any updates?’ asked the Inspector.
‘Sir, things have become more complicated than we expected,’ said Lobo. ‘We’ve been monitoring the package since this morning. Now it’s on the move. From the direction of travel, I believe we need to get airport police involved right away—and get approval from Sabse Bada Boss.’
‘Thank you for making it here, gentlemen. Meeting at the office would have been impossible with all those media hounds around. The only safe place I could think of meeting was here at Aziz’s apartment.’
Sundaram Shankar looked haggard and in need of the large mug of coffee in his hand. He had asked Russi over to discuss what to do in the wake of the big news splash earlier that morning.
‘I need to pick your brain, my friend,’ Shankar had said on the phone just as Russi and Vichare were wrapping up at Koliwada Police Station. Aziz Khan’s apartment in Wadala was on the route back to Dhobi Talao, making it easier for Russi to convince Vichare to make a pitstop and join the huddle.
Aziz’s apartment was a small one-bedroom unit with a bunch of haphazardly thrown-in pieces of furniture—a true bachelor pad—in one of Wadala’s many residential buildings that looked substantially older than they really were.
The DSP pulled up a couple of chairs from a desk that also doubled up as a small dining table and placed them in front of a two-seater Rexine sofa with short shiny steel legs. Russi and Vichare settled themselves on the sofa, while Shankar sat on one of the dining chairs. Aziz stood by the other chair, nervously tapping its back with his knuckles.
‘The news channels have been going on non-stop since the wee hours of the morning on their so-called big story,’ said Shankar. ‘I have no doubt that Choksi and Mahadevia are behind this. We all know her deep connections with the pliant media. What I don’t know is how they got hold of all those private messages from Shreya’s chats and email. And not that it’s relevant to our cause, but as for the thing between Shreya and Aziz, I had no clue myself.’
He looked up at Aziz as he ended his last sentence. Russi observed a small shake of the head, an ever-so-slight signal of disapproval.
‘Are you saying all those chat screenshots are authentic?’ asked Russi.
‘The only person who can answer that is Aziz,’ said Shankar, looking down as he stirred his coffee.
Aziz folded his arms across his chest and clenched his jaw.
‘I hope you will speak freely, Aziz,’ said Russi. ‘We’re only here to help you and Justice Shankar figure out the best way out of the mess created by these leaked chats—and, of course, to catch Shreya’s killer. No judgement on your methods of investigation, and certainly none on your personal life.’
‘They are,’ said Aziz, finally sitting down. ‘The chats are genuine. At least the ones where I’m involved are, so I suppose the one with Express Today’s Kajal Banerjee is too. In any case, we know that Shreya passed on the info to her.’
‘So the illegal tappings are also true?’ asked Russi.
‘Listen, we had permission for some people but not all those we wanted to keep an eye on,’ said Aziz. ‘So yes, there were cases where we went ahead without all due permissions, in the larger interest of bringing the criminals to book.’
‘Was Brajesh Choksi one of those whose phone was tapped in this way?’ asked Vichare.
‘Partly,’ said Aziz. ‘Tapping a politician’s phone would not have been possible without sanction at the highest level, which would have been nearly impossible to get. We’d collected a lot of evidence against him, mostly related to the movement of money from the fixing syndicate through his offshore accounts in the Middle East and Monaco. But it’s his phone conversations that make the case against him watertight. Calls to his associates like Navika on fixing plans. Calls to bookies to place huge bets that seemed ridiculous at the time but paid off because of some bizarre turn of events in the match. Calls to players on the plans to fix, and sometimes to threaten or blackmail them. We have recordings of all these, some obtained with permissions and some without. Of course, he operates more than one number, so we don’t have access to everything. But what we do possess makes their guilt clear as day.’
‘All this evidence is in our report,’ added Shankar gravely, ‘which is why he’s attacked us with this smear campaign. Discredit the messenger and their methods, so the message itself stands discredited.’
‘Why did you leak part of your findings well before the report was ready to Kajal Banerjee?’ asked Russi.
‘Precisely because we feared that while we were busy dotting every i and crossing every t in the report, Choksi would do something like this and distract attention,’ said Aziz. ‘Kajal had already done a lot of digging herself and it was mostly spot-on. She had some missing parts and unconfirmed guesses—we plugged those gaps for her. You have to win in the court of law, Mr Batliwala. But you also have to win in the court of public opinion.’
‘And Express Today is one of the few publications that had the audience and would be willing to print a story like this,’ said Russi.
‘More importantly, Kajal Banerjee had credibility as a journalist and could be trusted,’ said Aziz.
Russi and Vichare exchanged glances. That Kajal had broken their trust—and Shreya’s—was a matter Aziz and Shankar had no idea of.
‘I … I wasn’t much in favour of this leak business, I must admit,’ said Shankar hesitatingly. ‘But I supported Shreya and Aziz when they decided to do it and after Choksi threatened to sue us.’
Russi remembered the email exchange retrieved from Shreya’s laptop—Shankar had indeed chosen to stand by his team after Choksi’s legal notice.
Vichare sighed. ‘So all these chats are genuine. But how did Choksi get hold of them from Shreya’s phone?’
‘They were screenshots from various different chat threads, and at different points in time,’ said Aziz. ‘Definitely taken by someone who was able to access her phone easily and frequently. Must be that scumbag husband of hers.’
‘Quite possible,’ said Vichare. ‘We know that Jayesh Acharya had accessed her phone. That’s how he got to know about the … delicate … matter between you and Shreya. Although, when we examined her phone, we didn’t come across any text messages about the phone tapping and the leaks to Kajal.’
‘That was typical Shreya,’ said Aziz. ‘Every couple of days, she would clean all her work-related messages out. Physically delete them. I suppose precisely in case her phone fell into the wrong hands.’
‘Clearly that was not frequent enough,’ said Russi. ‘Jayesh probably knew her phone password, accessed her messages before she deleted them and took screenshots.’
‘But why? And how on earth is he connected to Choksi and gang?’ asked Shankar.
‘We have only one established contact there. Jayesh … and Vasu Langda, Choksi’s henchman. They spoke on the phone just hours before Shreya was killed,’ said Vichare.
‘They also met that same evening,’ said Russi. ‘At a bar in Byculla.’
‘Inspector, I already gave you the recording of Vasu Langda and Choksi’s conversation,’ said Aziz impatiently. ‘You have more than enough to get him and keep him in custody.’
‘That’s no longer a possibility,’ said Vichare.
‘What do you mean? Why not?’ asked Aziz.
‘Because Vasu Langda died last night,’ said Vichare.
‘Died?’ asked Shankar.
‘Yes, we believe he was killed,’ said Vichare.
‘My God!’ said Aziz. ‘Choksi will stop at nothing to save himself. Not even murdering the man who was doing his dirty work.’
‘We don’t know that yet,’ said Vichare. ‘But yes, there’s a good chance it’s true.’
Shankar scratched his forehead. ‘Choksi,’ he said slowly. ‘Fixing kingpin. Very likely he had Shreya killed. Possibly had this man you mentioned—Vasu Langda—killed. Now he is trying to besmirch our reputation, so our report loses teeth. And he gets away scot-free after all this? We must not let this happen.’ He looked at Aziz and continued, ‘I propose that we, in the Commission, press ahead and submit our report. We have nothing to hide and must name these criminals and expose them for what they are. Meanwhile, Inspector Vichare, we trust you to find Shreya’s killer.’
‘That we will, Justice Shankar, nakki,’ said Vichare. ‘In fact, for exactly that reason, I must now take your leave. Lot of urgent work to be done. Russiji, I can drop you home on the way to the station if you like.’
Russi’s gaze had been fixed on a corner of the living room.
‘Russiji?’ pressed Vichare.
‘Yes, of course, Inspector, that’s very kind of you,’ replied Russi, standing up and walking towards the waist-high glass-door cabinet in the corner. ‘I was distracted by this beautiful cabinet. Not to mention its exquisite contents.’
The other three men got up to see what he was talking about.
Russi opened the cabinet door carefully and hunched down to take a closer look. Neatly displayed on the three shelves of the cabinet were bottles of whisky, imported—and single malt.
‘An impressive collection,’ said Russi to Aziz, counting fourteen bottles distributed across the three shelves. Five on the top shelf, five on the middle one and four on the bottom shelf.
‘Well, we all have our indulgences,’ said Aziz.
‘Indeed we do,’ said Russi. ‘It is our indulgences, more than anything else, that reveal the truth about us.’
Russi took a quick step back towards the sofa, even as the others remained in front of the cabinet.
‘Now I must not hold our respected inspector back or I will lose my ride home,’ he said. ‘Inspector Vichare, give me a moment to answer nature’s call … and then off we go.’
Later that evening, an official at the Air Majesty First Class check-in counter at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport scrutinized the passport and ticket in front of him, one last time. He returned the documents to the passenger with a smile.
‘Wish you a pleasant journey to Dubai, sir,’ he said.
The passenger didn’t say a word. He simply collected his papers swiftly and walked away. He was sweating profusely, but the doors of his flight would close in barely twenty minutes, and there was no time for a breather. The immigration counters had several snaking lines of people waiting their turn, but that didn’t concern him as he would use the nearly empty priority lane.
Minutes later his documents had been marked with large ‘Departure’ stamps and he was on his way to the boarding gate. An overhead screen indicated that the gate was an eight-minute walk away, in the other wing of the terminal, next to a red-lettered ‘LAST CALL’ message.
It was getting tight, but he was going to make it.
Five minutes later, he had just reached the other wing, when he heard a rhythmic pattern of footsteps behind him. He stole a backwards glance. On one side was a woman struggling with three kids and a trolley full of luggage, on the other a newly married couple giggling childishly as they window-shopped. He moved forward again, even faster.
His gate was finally visible; on the public announcement system he could hear the same words spoken with urgency: LAST CALL.
And then, he heard it again—the rhythmic footsteps behind him. This time he didn’t look back. The gate was now under 15 metres away. He reached his shaking hand into the pocket of his jacket and took out his passport and ticket, his heart pumping furiously. This was the last stretch.
The gate agent smiled as she reached out for his travel documents. But he was not alone at the gate. The footsteps had followed him there. He could now see that they belonged to two young, uniformed policemen. One of them intercepted his outstretched arm, gently but firmly.
‘Sir, kindly come with us,’ said the policeman.
‘But who are you? I need to board.’
‘I am Assistant Commandant Akash Kumar from Airport Security,’ the policeman replied. ‘And this is Constable Neil Lobo from Mumbai Police. We have orders to stop you from leaving the country—you cannot board this flight.’
Lobo stepped forward. ‘Come on, Mr Choksi,’ he said emphatically. ‘Instead of running off to Dubai like this, wouldn’t it be better if you tell us about your involvement with the murders of Shreya Ved and Vasu Langda, face to face—right here in Mumbai?’