It was late by the time the police officers agreed to call it a day. Pavani returned to her office to type up the summary of the day’s interviews and email them to ACP Mona, who proceeded to give her briefings to the senior officers. They planned to catch up in the morning.
Mona did not have a vehicle. It was dusk and pedestrians were thinning so she decided to walk to the Commissionerate, despite Hyderabad’s drivers apparent and wrongful presumption that they had the right of way over pedestrians.
ACP Chittla Srinivas Kumar grunted without looking up from the file on his desk as Mona walked in and saluted. She remained standing, so he looked up. ‘Any progress?’ he asked.
She summarized the day’s interviews. ‘At the moment, the only certainty is that Sainath Rao was an accidental victim,’ Mona said. ‘I believe the poisoned paayasam was for Sankatram Reddy, but it went to Rao by mistake.’
‘It’s the timeline that is problematic.’
‘Yes, whoever wanted to poison Sankatram later found out that it did not happen, and the suspect then injected air into Reddy to induce a heart attack.’
‘The killer went to his room twice?’
‘Or stayed long enough to see the tin of paayasam leave the room.’
‘And Rompy Reddy?’
‘The murderer visited Rompy Reddy’s room and administered the same poison either immediately before or immediately after seeing Sankatram.’
‘Prime suspect?’
‘Right now it’s Magnolia Reddy, though others have motive as well. Shrek Fund wanted control of Deccan Testament. There’s a political angle, too, as the Reddys were pro-Congress and the Bitterness and Grievance Party was keen on controlling DT to effect an electoral breakthrough in the state.’
‘Magnolia wouldn’t kill her son.’
‘I agree. Also, he didn’t die of a heart attack; he overdosed on narcotics. Perhaps she did not murder them, and whoever did had a separate MO for Babloo Jubilee to throw us off-track.’
‘In which case, who would you suspect?’
‘The former editor-in-chief was terminated during the pandemic and had reason to kill all four. Shrek Fund’s representative, Mrs Srilatha, had the opportunity. Perhaps Swami Bonanand could be responsible, though I will only see him tomorrow morning.’
‘What about the film people?’
‘They provided important clues, but they don’t strike me as the type to to murder anyone, much less four people. Also, they don’t have the courage or the strength for it.’
‘They had the balls to shoot a film while pandemic restrictions are still in place.’
‘Sir, they said they had permission.’
‘I checked with the licensing department. No permission.’
‘Sir, they said they had political permission. They appeared to keep the unit limited to fifty people.’
‘I can’t believe that’s possible, not with the Tollywood unions.’
‘Sir, I was more concerned with interviewing those who met the victims than with checking permits.’
‘I hear you tasered a cheetah.’
‘Yes, sir, a leopard.’
ACP Kumar scrutinized her. ‘Whoever you meet after me, and you will no doubt meet some very important people, do yourself a favour,’ he said. ‘Don’t play up the political angle. In fact, be dismissive about it. Trivialize it.’
This made little sense to Mona. The politicians she would meet would be far from irritated, or interfering, if the biggest political threat in the state, the BGP, was a suspect. They might even leak it to the media—which was their business, not hers. She was merely interested in solving the case.
She looked at ACP Kumar who had gone back to his file. Perhaps he had an interest in keeping the BGP out of controversy. She should have not told him.
Mona saluted. He grunted. She turned around and left.
The next stop was DCP Chittla Suresh Kumar. She entered his room and found him laughing at the TV screen.
‘Sir.’
‘ACP Ramteke, come in, come in. Sit down, sit down. What’s this, you again look a bit shaken. Are you going to fight with my twin every time you come and see me?’
Mona was puzzled. She was not the least bit shaken, merely cautious. ‘I’ll try not to, sir.’
She told him what had transpired that day.
‘No worries, no worries,’ he said, cheerfully. ‘They all hated the Reddys, so they all seem to have motive. You must pin down the timeline. You said Magnolia was the prime suspect?’
‘Sir, I’m not a 100 per cent certain, but at the moment she seems the likeliest.’
‘Bring her in and slap her around,’ he said enthusiastically.
‘Sir, I’d like to complete my interviews. She isn’t a flight risk, what with the pandemic and airline restrictions.’
‘True. What about that resident editor, Canning? You don’t suspect him?’
‘His motive is weak. Also, he has even less courage than the Tollywood people. Though he did threaten to go to the commissioner during the questioning.’
DCP Kumar laughed. ‘Don’t worry. Canning only stabs in the back; he doesn’t attack from the front.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Do you think there might be a political motive?’
Mona paused. The DCP’s eyes turned serious. ‘It seems a bit far-fetched, but I won’t eliminate it as yet,’ she said.
‘If you do feel that such a line of inquiry needs to be looked into, please let me know first,’ he said. ‘Before anyone else. Okay?’
Mona nodded.
‘In the meantime, would you like to join me for a drink this evening?’ he asked, without guile. ‘I have a non-police friend joining me. He sings harmoniously. A male nightingale. Ha, that rhymes.’
‘I’d love to, sir, but I’m exhausted. Plus, I still have a couple of visits to make.’
‘Of course, of course. Well, all the best. Keep me posted.’
Mona left his office, walked to the main road and caught an autorickshaw to the commissioner’s office. Half an hour later, she was shown into Commissioner Chandravardhan’s room.
The police commissioner sat on a three-seater sofa with a bearded man who wore a dark pinstripe suit and shining leather shoes. This man’s receding hair, straggly beard and pointed eyebrows appeared to be dyed. He did not wear a mask. His face was dominated by a shrewd gaze and a hawk-like nose.
‘Come, Ramteke, come,’ Commissioner Chandravardhan said. ‘At the right moment, I might add. Do you know this gentleman? An MLA from the Oasis Party, the Honourable Syed Imtiaz Akbaruddin. Powerful man. Janab, this is a visiting ACP who is working on the DT case. Mona Ramteke.’
The man threw a sharp look in her direction. ‘Is Mona your given name?’ he asked.
‘No,’ she said.
The two men waited for an elaboration.
‘Should I brief you on the case, sir?’ she asked.
‘The DCP gave me a summary while you were on your way here,’ the commissioner said. ‘I just have a couple of questions.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘First. What does your gut say?’
‘Sir, my gut says that it’s too early to ask it to say something.’
Chandravardhan laughed.
‘Is there a political angle?’ Akbaruddin asked.
Mona looked at the commissioner, who gestured for her to go ahead. ‘It’s low on my list of possible motives,’ she said.
‘It’s well known in all circles that the BGP and the SSS, with their majoritarian agenda, were not too keen on the Reddys, a family that still believed in legal niceties and constitutional proprieties,’ Akbaruddin said.
‘Is it?’
‘Look at the whole Tablighi Jamaat controversy. The way they banged their drums about this group, you would have thought that the members of the Tablighi Jamaat brought the coronavirus to India, when actually the first documented case was in Kerala, of a medical student from Wuhan University.’
‘Yes, I remember.’
‘Do you remember the way the members of the Tablighi Jamaat were vilified? They were hunted down in districts and small towns. Fake videos were spread of men spitting, saying it was infected Tablighi Jamaat members who were deliberately spreading the coronavirus. It was turned into a Muslim disease. The only true disease in India right now is majoritarianism.’
‘One could assume, then, that the BGP and SSS would want the number one paper in the city, Deccan Testament, under their control?’ Commissioner Chandravardhan said.
‘Yes, the Urdu press will never side with them. Not even Inquilaab or Siyasat,’ Akbaruddin said. ‘The Telugu-language papers are fortunately so craven to the state party that they ignore the right-wingers. Though that may change if the BGP ever comes to power.’
‘MLA Sahib, I wonder if the BGP’s political fortunes and yours align?’ Mona asked.
‘An old conspiracy theory,’ the MLA said. ‘But it is untrue. My party cannot help it if others in north India call us a puppet of the BGP. We are no one’s puppet. We merely articulate the demands of Muslims. For too long, we have been taken for granted by parties that scare our millat, our community, by raising the majoritarian bogey. Well, the bogey is here. And still the prejudice against us remains. Call us vote-katuas.’
‘But quite a coincidence that it helps polarize the voters and drives them into the BGP’s arms?’
‘So what? You mean to say that we should remain mute? Allow the others to keep treating us like a captive vote bank and do nothing for us? The Sachar Committee report’s recommendations on ameliorating the low social and educational indices that bedevil Indian Muslims came out during the so-called decade of secular rule. But was any of it, even one comma, implemented?’
‘MLA Sahib, some are saying that you are a second Jinnah.’
‘Yes, yes. They say I spread coronavirus, I am anti-national, I am a jihadi, I am Junior Jinnah,’ Akbaruddin spat. ‘But I always swore on the Constitution of India whenever I took my place in the assembly, while these Hindu saviours talk about doing away with the Constitution.’
Both Mona and Commissioner Chandravardhan were silent for a moment.
‘I hardly think the BGP would kill a newspaper family in order to have a more sympathetic management in place to promote its political agenda,’ Mona said finally.
‘True, it only kills judges, state ministers, leftist journalists, Dalit labourers and Muslims.’
‘You have a point, MLA Sahib, but I will let the investigation proceed and see where the evidence leads us.’
‘Do what you must, but the damage has already been done.’
‘Don’t be pessimistic,’ Commissioner Chandravardhan said to his friend.
‘With the editor-in-chief gone and that “cunning” resident editor in place, the newspaper will drift towards the BGP’s agenda slowly,’ Akbaruddin said. ‘When Shrek Fund comes in, it will drift faster. After all, what is Shrek Fund? Another member of the Hindu mercantile class that already dominates publishing and mass media in India. The Banias and Marwaris have always been the most steadfast supporters of Hindutva. Their agenda is more hardline than the government’s. And now DT, once a fair and balanced newspaper, will merge into that herd.’
Again, everyone was at a loss for words.
‘Speaking of Canning, sir, he threatened to complain to you about his interview today,’ Mona said. ‘He felt we were aggressive. I’m not scared of him, but I wanted to inform you.’
‘Don’t worry, Ramteke,’ the commissioner said. ‘Work freely and fearlessly.’
‘Now that you mention this, I have a way of keeping Cunning busy for the next few days,’ Akbaruddin said.
‘How will you do that?’ Commissioner Chandravardhan asked.
‘He’s easily distracted by local issues, especially those featuring on Facebook. We’ll play to his weakness.’
‘Well, I don’t want to know anything about it,’ the commissioner said with a grin.
‘Sir, I’ll take your leave,’ Mona stood up and saluted.
‘ACP Ma’am, it was an honour and privilege to meet you,’ Akbaruddin said, also standing up. ‘I do hope that I get another chance to chat with you. If not, then khuda hafiz.’
As Mona departed, she mulled over what the MLA had said. No doubt he had been authentic and sincere, but at the moment the political angle seemed to be an unnecessary distraction. She had to stay focussed on the main line of inquiry. She wished the politics of the situation had never come up, that it wasn’t involved. Whenever a political angle surfaced, a case became infinitely impossible to bring to a close. She hoped it would stay low-key.
She flagged down an autorickshaw. ‘Hindi?’ she asked.
‘Haan haan. Hindi, Urdu, Telugu, English, Tamil, Odiya,’ the driver said.
‘Begumpet.’
CNT was not home, but he was expected to arrive any minute. Mona stood in the waiting room, looking at Ayn Rand’s painting. How crazy, she mused. Suddenly, Rand winked at her.
Impossible! Mona sat down and asked for a glass of water. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. She was exhausted.
She was a drone again, over Mumbai. This time, she was somewhere in Dadar, perhaps over Dadar TT Circle. It was deserted. Not a soul was in sight, not even the cops. It was a sight unimaginable before the pandemic. She was gripped by uncertainty.
There was the sound of tyres screeching to a halt on the asphalt. Mona opened her eyes. CNT strode in. Ushered into his office, she saluted the minister.
‘Had a busy day?’ CNT said to Mona. ‘Heard you were battling leopards in Hitech city.’
‘Sir, I was all over the city throughout the day for interviews.’
‘Any closer to nailing the culprit?’
‘Getting there, sir,’ Mona said and then briefed him on what she had learned so far. ‘There is apparently more than one person with motive to kill the Reddys.’
‘That’s true of most big businessmen in the Telugu-speaking states,’ he said. ‘A completely cynical bunch. Cheating and thieving is their default mode. Instead of comparing who has the most Bentleys, they compare who has siphoned off the most from banks and who is responsible for the most non-performing assets, or NPAs.’
‘Only businessmen?’
CNT laughed. ‘Point taken. There are politicians who have also turned illegal loans into NPAs. And if there’s a family that many would like to bump off, more than any industrialist’s, it’s probably mine, or rather, my father’s.’
‘Sir, today I spent most of the time talking to the Reddy family. Even within the family, there was no love lost.’
‘The big, fat, happy, traditional Indian family?’
‘Yes, sir. Tomorrow, Shrek Fund’s head honcho is arriving. He should help clarify some points. I’ll also be talking to other businessmen who were at the DT office yesterday morning,’ Mona said and then paused. ‘Also, I’ll talk to two figures from the Sanskriti Suraksha Sangh. Well, one actually. The other’s a godman who was one of the last people to meet Sankatram Reddy.’
‘The SSS? Is the BGP also under suspicion?’
Mona hesitated. ‘No, sir.’
‘You hesitated. If there’s a political angle, I want to know.’
Mona felt like kicking herself. ‘Sir, it’s nothing more than an opposition party wanting more favourable press coverage. Apparently, the Reddys were not cooperative, being an old Congress family.’
‘I know,’ the minister said. He then burst into laughter. ‘Sankatram fancied himself as a Rajya Sabha member once upon a time.’
‘It would seem that the BGP, too, did not offer him a parliamentary seat,’ Mona said. ‘Despite the BGP juggernaut sweeping the country, the Reddys remained Congress supporters.’
‘Yet they recruited a BGP mole into their editorial leadership. Who? Come on, you can guess. “Cunning”, of course. He might constantly call my office to offer a blow job, but we are aware who’s agenda he’s pushing. That’s why he stabbed the editor-in-chief in the back and had him fired.’
‘But Canning is not at the top of our list of suspects.’
‘Still, the BGP is getting more aggressive.’ The minister became pensive. ‘And until he died, even Babloo Jubilee was not enamoured by his family’s traditional political leaning. He was, like many brats nowadays, an admirer of the BGP for its alleged toughness. Probably wasn’t allowed to discuss it at his parents’ house.’
‘If that’s the case, the BGP wouldn’t have wanted him out of the way.’
‘True. They would have wanted him to take over.’
Both CNT and Mona were silent for a moment. Then the minister dismissed her.
Mona had just stepped off the verandah when a scarlet Skoda sedan pulled up and Gurleen stepped out. She had changed out of her dance costume and was wearing a shimmery red party dress, covered with sequins. Her pumps and lipstick were crimson.
‘Your shoot is over?’ Mona asked.
‘Yeah, I was on my way to a party but had to drop in here.’
‘Oh.’
‘It’s not what you think,’ Gurleen said. ‘If it were, I’d not be coming to the residence.’
True, Mona thought. Any lurid rendezvous between a film personality and a politician would have to be discreet. At a guest house, or a five-star hotel.
‘Come to the party,’ Gurleen smiled and WhatsApped the party’s location to Mona. ‘As my guest.’
Mona checked the location: Film Nagar. She could go. She hopped into the waiting autorickshaw and left for Jubilee Hills.
Inside the apartment complex, Sharmila was taking a walk in the lawns. Mona joined her.
‘How’s it going, ma’am?’ the legislator asked, breathing in a lungful of the evening air that was saturated with the smell of recently cut grass and awakening jasmine.
‘Ma’am, please don’t call me “ma’am”,’ Mona replied. ‘As I was telling the minister, your brother, there seem to be several potential motives.’
‘Several?’
‘Starting with a crime of passion. If that is the case, then Magnolia Reddy is our prime suspect.’
‘If so, she’d be the rare Hyderabadi socialite who acted on her violent desires. Most others would simply get even.’
‘It could also be a killing because of corporate rivalry, with Shrek Fund as the main conspirator.’
‘But Shrek Fund wouldn’t have an employee commit the crime, would it? It would outsource the assassination to a professional. Take out a supari as they say in your hometown?’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ Mona said. ‘In which case, Sainath Rao, who appears to be collateral damage, wouldn’t have died. A professional would have made a clean hit. A supari killing is usually more dramatic, something like a drive-by, contracted out to street-level thugs.’
‘Whereas these killings seem to be in-house.’
‘Yes, ma’am. The next potential motive has to do with a business dealing. It seems that within the family there was a difference of opinion over a possible collaboration to smuggle in Chinese vaccines against the coronavirus.’
‘That would have been lucrative if they beat the Oxford vaccine or Pfizer’s vaccine,’ Sharmila said. ‘Or even the Russian vaccine. They could clean up in the countryside, making hundreds, even thousands, of crores.’
‘Yes, ma’am, big money. Enough for a motive. I still have to dig in on that front though. I may get something tomorrow.’
‘That’s it with the motives?’
‘No, ma’am. There’s one that got the minister excited.’
‘Is it?’
‘There could have been a political angle.’
Sharmila froze and stared coldly at Mona. ‘Go on,’ she said.
‘The BGP had an interest in removing the Reddys from the number one paper in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.’
Sharmila relaxed. ‘Both are states where the BGP hopes to capture power in the coming years, as the next step in its southern strategy,’ she said. ‘But the Reddys are, I mean were, a Congress family.’
‘Yes, ma’am. The minister said Canning was a BGP mole, and that he conspired to have the editor-in-chief removed because the latter was anti-BGP.’
‘Yet the paper played up the state government, of course, in its greed for state advertising and exchequer funds, all the while also playing up the state Congress party chief, another Reddy.’
‘Yes, ma’am. Even if Shrek Fund takes over the running of the newspaper and turns it into a pro-BGP mouthpiece, I’m doubtful that a national political party would go so far as to murder a family. They’re just not that important in the larger scheme of things. They weren’t posing an immediate threat to a top BGP functionary, unlike a certain judge back home.’
‘And yet my brother was excited over the prospect of the BGP as a suspect?’
‘Yes, ma’am. I’m to interview two people connected with the party’s mothership, the SSS, tomorrow morning.’
‘Indeed,’ Sharmila said. ‘And that’s not all.’
‘No?’
‘I’m sure that when you look into the Reddys’ cricket interests, you’ll find yet another angle.’
‘Is it, ma’am? I will be talking to Richard Lessness, hopefully tomorrow. Before he returns to Australia.’
‘It’s interesting that given so many varying possible motives, there is only one thread that could tie them together.’
‘Ma’am?’
‘Who would find it easy to be at the centre of all these different strands of activity involving the Reddys? Cricket, corporate, commercial? Even Magnolia Reddy, despite the wallflower that she is.’
‘Who, ma’am?’
‘As much as you might not like to hear this, the common thread might be politics. I am saying to you that for all these diverse strands, it might be a politician or a political party that is the common thread.’
Sharmila is right, Mona mused.
‘However, I want that whatever lead you pursue, do not go off-track. I’ve already given you my brief, the reason I asked the police academy to depute you to the Hyderabad City Police for this investigation.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘It was to, at any cost, keep my father walled off from your investigation. Everyone else, me included, is fair game. But this inquiry must not touch my father, come what may.’
‘Right, ma’am. Understood.’