Rishi Girhotra was sweating profusely. This was not a consequence of a training session at the nets or a workout at his in-house gym. In fact, India’s dashing opening batter and captain of the MCL team Maharashtra Maxxers hadn’t even stepped out of the bedroom of his plush Juhu home since that morning.
No, his damp body was the chilling by-product of something far more powerful: fear.
It had all started with that phone call a few days ago.
How the hell did they find out? I took every precaution.
The more he thought about it all, the louder the voice in his head grew, like a pressure cooker on its fifth whistle, screeching for release.
And now, to make things worse, THIS.
Rishi switched off the TV news that had been playing on loop and flung the remote control onto the couch. He increased the blast from the air conditioner and flopped onto his super-king-size bed, face buried in one of the many pillows. But neither the flood of sweat nor the clamorous dialogue between his ears abated.
Breathe, Rishi. Breathe.
He sat up and mopped his dripping forehead with the front of his vest. He could see his reflection in the huge mirror on the stucco-textured wall to the side of the bed. He stood up, ripped off his vest and stared at himself. All six feet of his frame and six pack abs.
‘Look at you, you sissy,’ he yelled at his image. ‘Running to teacher like a cry-baby and then pissing in your pants.’
Rishi picked up the cricket bat and leather ball lying next to him and started knocking the ball a few inches in the air off the surface of the bat. Tap. Tap. Tap. This always worked when he needed his focus back. And boy, did he need it now.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Rishi muttered to himself, ‘You know how to play this game. You’re the freakin’ best in the business. No one’s gonna screw with you. No one messes with Rishi Girhotra. Those who try, get … smashed.’
Rishi stopped tapping as soon as that word came out of his mouth. He took a deep breath and held it till he no longer could. He then suddenly grabbed his phone and scrolled down the contact list till he found the name he was looking for. Rishi hesitated for a moment, but the self-doubt departed as fast as it had arrived. He pressed the dial button and the call connected.
‘It’s all over the news,’ came the voice from the other end.
‘No one knows anything, Ishaan,’ said Rishi.
‘That’s what you thought before. We need a plan.’
When Russi arrived at Sundaram Shankar’s flat in Churchgate, the first thing that struck him was its modesty. Its location in the heart of the city, adjacent to the Oval Maidan, Mumbai’s oldest public cricket ground, was certainly upscale. But the apartment itself, located on the second floor of a decaying ninety-year-old art deco building, was compact and its interiors plain.
Shankar received Russi in the living room, a sparsely furnished space with dull yellow walls, which Russi guessed hadn’t been painted in some years.
Shankar called out for his domestic help to serve water to his visitor.
‘Unless you would like some tea or coffee?’ he asked politely, if mechanically. ‘Tarini has been unwell and is resting, otherwise I would have loved to offer you some lunch, Russi.’
‘Please don’t bother Mrs Shankar, and I hope she recovers soon,’ said Russi, a little embarrassed that he had arrived at lunchtime with no advance notice. ‘I’ll not keep you long.’
Shankar sank feebly into a large wooden armchair. Russi sat on the small two-seater sofa next to him. He noticed the redness in his host’s tired eyes and the heavy bags that had formed below them—this was a different person from his spirited dinner companion the evening before. Grief had aged him ten years in a day, thought Russi.
Shankar spoke before Russi could say anything.
‘I have failed. The brightest light, and I couldn’t do anything to save her. I have known Shreya for six years, Russi. She was two years out of law school, with a well-paying corporate job, and walked up to me after attending a talk I gave on sports law. I still remember that so vividly, like it was yesterday.’
Shankar held his handkerchief to his face.
‘She had been researching corruption in cricket,’ he continued. ‘She said she wanted to be part of the solution to match-fixing. “How can I make a real difference?” she had asked me. There was an unmistakable drive in her voice even at that point. But I thought to myself then that putting aside a mainstream legal career to do the so-called “right thing” in sports—whatever that even means—is easier said than done. So I advised her to focus on becoming an expert in the law first, and promised to be in touch should the right opportunity arise.’
‘And then, the Commission happened,’ said Russi.
‘Precisely,’ said Shankar. ‘Two years after I first met her, I was appointed to head this enquiry and I had a chance to keep my word. I was given a free hand to form the best team for the job, and contacted Shreya. To be honest, I expected that having spent a few years as a successful corporate lawyer, she would turn me down. After all, this was a full-time but short-term assignment that didn’t pay anything close to what she would have been earning. But even before I could complete my offer, she had said yes. You won’t believe it, Russi, but she turned up at my doorstep the very next morning and asked me where she needed to sign to formalize the arrangement. We didn’t even have a proper office till two months later, but Shreya began working full tilt on this assignment from that day itself.’
As Shankar recounted the beginnings of his journey with Shreya, Russi felt like he was getting a small window into the woman whom he had known only as the victim of a ghastly crime and seen fleetingly on video earlier that day. A picture started to form in front of him—of a young, committed lawyer who wanted to make change happen, an idealist but not a spectator, willing to sacrifice a well-paying career to chase a mission more important to her.
Little would she have known that this mission would end up costing her her life.
‘SS, as an investigator for the Commission, what did Shreya actually do?’ asked Russi.
‘Well, ours is a team of just three people, plus an office manager, so everyone pretty much did everything to drive the investigation forward,’ said Shankar. ‘You will recall that the Commission was formed because the Supreme Court literally forced the INCB to institute a serious investigation into corruption and fixing in the Mega Cricket League. I only agreed to take it on if we were empowered in ways that previous commissions looking into fixing hadn’t been. Powers to get phone records, intercept calls, access money trails and bypass wasteful paperwork. I was determined that we wouldn’t write yet another thousand-page report that didn’t result in any real change.
He had a sip of water and continued.
‘The court agreed to most of the demands. Of course, we were told to get necessary permissions from time to time if we wanted to look into someone powerful. But they added two limitations. First, a small full-time headcount—which meant one investigator, Shreya, and one CBI officer, Aziz, whom you met last night.’
‘Was he also your hand-picked choice?
‘Aziz had built a reputation for being a tough-as-nails cop, even if a little … impulsive … sometimes,’ said Shankar. ‘He made his name by cracking some big cases. You remember the famous liquor tycoon extradition and trial a few years ago? He led that one … as well as the mining scam and the tribal land corruption case. But despite his record, most of his seniors in the force dislike him. They say his methods are not always above board, he is an ends-above-means guy and so on. But if you ask me, it’s more straightforward—he just never listened to them or cared too much for what they thought about him. Anyway, he happened to be between assignments when I was forming this team and his name popped up. I didn’t mind a headstrong or ruthless person if he knew what he was doing—after all, we needed to get things done, not build friendships.’
As Shankar spoke, Russi recalled Aziz Khan and his square-jawed determination from their brief exchange at the club. An ends-above-means guy, he repeated in his mind.
‘You said the court put two constraints on you, SS,’ said Russi. ‘What was the second one?’
‘Time,’ said Shankar. ‘We were given just eighteen months to wrap up everything. This may sound adequate, but once we got started, it became clear that the task was massive. As they say, it’s only when you dip your toes in the pool that you discover the temperature of the water.’
‘Now you are a month or two shy of your deadline?’ asked Russi.
‘Thirty-seven days to be precise. But we are nearly where we want to be. The way fixing happens, whether of matches or certain parts within it, has been fairly clear for a while now, right from the time of the South African saga over twenty years ago. It has just become bigger and more sophisticated. For an MCL game, for instance, about a hundred million dollars’ worth of betting happens in India alone.’
‘For one game?’ asked Russi, brows raised.
‘That’s right. In India, unlike some other countries in the West, this betting itself is illegal. But that’s not what fixing is. Fixing is when a bookie manipulates what happens in a game by buying someone on the inside. It takes the risk out of the bet, guaranteeing profits to the bettor. Also, whatever can be betted on, can be fixed—the result of a game certainly, but also smaller things like the score at which a wicket will fall, which over a no-ball will be bowled in, or when a misfield will happen.’
‘Spot fixing,’ said Russi.
‘Exactly,’ said Shankar. ‘Also, because the money riding on each match is so high and there are matches happening literally every other day, there is a windfall to be made. This attracts everyone to the party—underworld dons, businessmen, politicians, Bollywood stars, you name it. To satiate the appetites of all these sharks, you need to fix more, for which you need to enlist more players or team owners if it’s one of these T20 leagues. That’s how the cycle of rot stays in motion. Everyone makes a pile out of it, and the poor public which invests its time, money and passion in the game gets taken for a ride.’
Shankar paused momentarily to wipe the lenses of his spectacles. This was clearly the subject closest to his heart, and talking about it had injected some vigour back into his voice and colour into his face.
‘So, coming back to our investigation,’ he continued, ‘the challenge for us was not to find how the whole operation works, but who is making it work today. Who are the fixers running this criminal machine? We needed to find names and gather enough evidence to prosecute them. And do you know where we began?’
Russi stared back blankly.
‘By watching nearly every MCL game of the last five years,’ said Shankar. ‘Spotting the anomalies, like a massive no-ball or a batter scoring inexplicably slowly. We were observing patterns, connecting with known cases of fixing and drawing up lists of potentially compromised players, owners and teams. We then followed each of them and their networks, traced their whereabouts, developed informants when we needed to and, step by step, built out the whole web of fixers. Aziz made a lot of the police work and permissions possible—having people followed or tapping phones where we had to—but it was Shreya who connected the dots. She had an incredible knack for sniffing out a trail and converting a hunch into a proper package of evidence.’
‘It was this work that brought to the surface the names you were looking for?’ asked Russi. ‘The who as you called it.’
‘Mostly, yes. We’ve uncovered nearly the whole network behind MCL fixing with evidence,’ said Shankar. ‘Some of the names were entirely predictable, and some were real shockers. But the work is not finished yet, Russi. We are close to netting a really big name. Shreya has left us before the job is done. She has been taken from us before the job is done.’
‘It will only be with your help that the person or people behind this heinous crime are identified,’ said Russi. ‘The police have some leads from the CCTV footage, but unless we know the names that came up in your investigation—people with a motive to harm Shreya—we will not have the complete picture.’
‘Russi, you know it wouldn’t be right for me to give you names before we have concluded the report,’ said Shankar. ‘But …’
‘Yes?’ prodded Russi, shifting forward.
‘What I can tell you is to look at the report published recently by the magazine Express Today,’ said Shankar. ‘They had speculated heavily on whom we are going to name in our report and mentioned two prominent people: a male politician, formerly with the Board, and a female industrialist who owns an MCL franchise.’
‘And they were … right?’ asked Russi.
Shankar drew a deep breath. ‘All I will say is that my blood boiled seeing them at the Pavilion Club dinner last night,’ he said.
Shankar had revealed a lot without naming any names. Russi’s mind began racing. The Commission had ventured where no one had previously dared to, and in the process created enemies … powerful, wealthy, ruthless enemies. Was eliminating Shreya an attempt to silence the Commission and send a message that they had crossed one line too many? Or had she been on the cusp of discovering something that would have smashed the last nail into their coffin? How did all this fit in with what he had seen on the CCTV footage with Vichare and Lobo? Who were the other people whom Shankar and team had netted in their investigations? Surely all of them had reason to fear the release of the Commission’s findings. If Shreya was killed to halt the progress of the report, then were Shankar and Aziz also at risk?
As these questions tossed around like a kachumber salad in Russi’s mind, he noticed that Shankar had slumped deeper into his chair. Russi had many more questions to ask, but he decided that time permitted only one.
‘SS, one final thing before I take your leave. What do you think was bothering Shreya on Sunday evening? It wasn’t usual for any of you to be in the office on a weekend, but even more unusual was her asking Aziz to rush there. Something was troubling her …’
Shankar, still leaning back in his chair, looked up at the ceiling in thought.
‘There was definitely something. She was stressed about the deadline and concerned that we would run out of time. In fact, we spoke that afternoon and she raised that topic with me. I told her we need to do what we need to do—work well and work fast. There is little else in our control.’
‘What time was your call?’ asked Russi.
‘I was having my afternoon tea so I would say sometime between 3.30 and 4 p.m.,’ said Shankar. ‘I couldn’t sense anything else unduly worrying her.’ Shankar’s voice was choked with emotion.
Russi concluded that it was time to depart. What the judge needed was some rest, and what Russi needed was to head home and have some strong Irani chai to clear his brain.
Five minutes later, he had left Churchgate and was speeding back in his car towards Parsi Colony. He had two important calls to make on the journey home. The first was to Sherbanoo to sort out his culinary needs.
‘Dear, I’ll be home in thirty minutes if Gopal drives sensibly, fifteen if he mistakes this Wagon-R for an F1 car, as he sometimes does. Lunch? No need. I had a couple of vada pavs this morning. But what I do need is my chai and Shrewsbury biscuits. Don’t skimp on the sugar please. I have a busy evening of thinking ahead and need the energy.’
This important matter sorted, Russi made his second call. This time it was to his friend at the Pavilion Club.
‘Hormazd, kem chho? Good, good. Yes, I heard the news. Terrible, I tell you. Right in the heart of South Bombay … Murdered, that too in her office! Everything is so unpredictable nowadays, isn’t it? Now, my friend, I need a small favour. I wanted to have a chat with one of your bigshot members, a regular visitor to the club. He doesn’t know me, but I thought I could … you know … run into him casually at the club, if you tell me when is is usually around. Ah thank you … so nice of you, Hormazd. His name? Of course … Brajesh Choksi.’
‘So that woman with the big red bindi is a journalist?’ asked Inspector Vichare as he vigorously fanned himself with the remains of that afternoon’s local tabloid.
The sun was slowly setting behind Dhobi Talao, but it was still intensely muggy inside the police station. Vichare had been in the midst of preparing the list of suspects to interview when Lobo had brought in this new information.
‘Yes, sir. Kajal Banerjee. Works for Express Today magazine,’ said Lobo. ‘She called us herself when she heard the news this morning. Said she had met Shreya last evening and can record a statement.’
‘Hmm, like we wouldn’t have found her anyway.’ Vichare slapped the folded newspaper on his desk. ‘But it’s good that she decided to call herself. How nice it would be if all suspects were polite enough to dial in and present themselves for questioning!’
‘So this Kajal Banerjee is a suspect, sir?’ asked Lobo earnestly.
‘Everyone who was on the CCTV footage is a suspect, Lobo. Plus, if she’s from the press, then even more reason for us to be suspicious.’ Vichare paused to consider what he had just said and then grinned.
Lobo hadn’t figured out why his boss had a distinct aversion to members of the fourth estate. Previous attempts at discovering the reason behind this contempt had failed, and he thought it better not to venture there again. Instead, as he often did when unsure how to react to Vichare, Lobo decided to mirror the inspector and painted a toothy grin on his face.
‘Don’t stand there flashing your shiny white teeth at me, Lobo,’ said Vichare. ‘We must finalize our list of suspects now and begin grilling them tomorrow. Where have we got to so far?’
Lobo hurriedly flipped through the pages of his notebook. ‘We have Jayesh Acharya at the top of the list. We’ll be interviewing him at his house in Vikhroli tomorrow. We also need to speak to DSP Khan again. Russi Batliwala was right in pointing out the strange fact that Khan sir took two hours to cover the three kilometres between the Pavilion Club and Shanti Chambers …’
‘Barobar aahe. It’s definitely strange,’ said Vichare. ‘But even though we must talk to Aziz Khan, we must do so carefully. At this stage we don’t want him to think that we suspect a fellow police officer of involvement with murder. Best not to mess with these CBI types, anyway. Next thing you know, some big saheb in headquarters will be calling to give us a danda for overstepping the line. Also, there may be a completely straightforward explanation for why he took so long. Anyway, there’s no good reason why he would want to kill Shreya. Let’s talk to him and see. When did you say we’re meeting him?’
‘I requested a short meeting tomorrow afternoon at the station,’ said Lobo.
‘Good. Who else do we have?’ said Vichare. ‘Batliwala also noticed the pizza boy’s sunglasses, which I agree was a good spot by the old man. But I’m not sure if in today’s times simply wearing sunglasses at night means there is something suspicious going on. Youngsters do all kinds of nautanki these days in the name of fashion and to post on Instagram for likes. Attention-hungry generation this is, so different from my times, when hard work—’
‘But, sir,’ interjected Lobo quickly, ‘isn’t it unlikely that the pizza delivery man was trying to get attention or make a fashion statement in an empty office building on a Sunday evening? If he was making a routine delivery that wasn’t accepted by Shreya, then why hide his face? In any case, we will have this delivery person rounded up for questioning soon. I have called all the Pizza Oven outlets in the area—there are three in the vicinity of Shanti Chambers. They’ll produce the man who brought in Shreya’s pizza last night.’
Vichare nodded in approval at the initiative taken by his constable. ‘That leaves us with the scruffy limping man who arrived around the time of the murder,’ he said. ‘Our prime suspect, about whom we know nothing. Have other stations come back with any clues to his identity? He looked like a proper goonda, the sort that the police usually keep an eye on.’
‘We haven’t heard anything yet,’ said Lobo. ‘But I’ll chase them again. I’ll also follow up with the forensic team. We should get their report by tomorrow evening.’
‘We’ve earned our day’s salary, Lobo. I don’t know about you, but I need to get some sound sleep before our busy day tomorrow,’ said Vichare, glancing at the time. ‘If I leave now, I’ll get the 7.38 Kalyan local and, for a change, be home before 9 p.m. Surprise for Mrs Vichare to see me early. Whether it’s a good one or not, she will decide!’
Vichare rose to his feet and stretched his limbs, relieved that the long day was drawing to an end.
‘I’ll do some of the follow-ups and then get home to sleep too,’ said Lobo. ‘But I usually dream about my cases, so I don’t know if my sleep will be restful.’ As he finished speaking, an image of Shreya Ved’s gory corpse flashed before his eyes.
‘Sir,’ ventured the constable tentatively, ‘shall we invite Russi Batliwala for the interviews tomorrow? He was of help to us this morning and he may know a thing or two about cricket that helps the investigation. I also read online that he was one of the best umpires of his time, which may explain why he is good at spotting details. He also saw Jayesh last night at Shanti Chambers—maybe he can identify any inconsistencies in his story?’
Vichare was unwilling to risk missing his train over an argument with his junior colleague. Plus, it was true, he grudgingly conceded, that Russi had been useful that morning.
‘No harm, I suppose,’ he said, looking at his wristwatch. ‘Tell Bawaji to come to Vikhroli at 9 a.m. tomorrow. Let’s meet the victim’s grieving husband together and find out what he has to hide.’