Mona was annoyed. Either Dr Dharma, or someone working under her, had blabbed to the minister, as a result of which he had given Mona an earful. When he ended the call, Mona telephoned Dr Dharma.
‘Why?’ she asked, exasperated.
By the end of their conversation, it became clear to Mona that Dr Dharma had not called C.N.T. Rao. However, the doctor had no control over her deputies and clerical staff, and many of them were beholden to the government.
‘Many of them nearly flunked in the private medical colleges that charged lakhs as capitation fees, and after scraping through college they paid lakhs to be recruited for this government job,’ Dr Dharma told Mona. ‘They will never withhold information from this, or any, government.’
True, Mona mused. The minister, after all, was the heir apparent to the chief minister. He was going to loom large in Hyderabad for the foreseeable future.
‘But that aside, it is definitive that Sankatram Reddy was murdered,’ Dr Dharma added. ‘A vascular air embolism. Someone injected perhaps 160 or 180 mm of air into his artery.’
‘You found the injection mark?’
‘Yes, but it wasn’t easy. We did an x-ray of the pulmonary arteries and confirmed it with a transoesophageal echocardiogram,’ Dr Dharma said. ‘So, we searched for an entry point for the air and found it camouflaged by an old burn injury on his neck. Who knows how he got burnt there! I can tell you one thing though. Whoever killed him knew the injury existed. The killer probably knew the victim intimately.’
‘Thank you,’ Mona said. ‘Now the grind begins.’
‘Yes, unfortunately none of the others died of a vascular air embolism. We need to determine a cause of death for them. After the Sankatram Reddy finding, I’m presuming they were also killed.’
After Dr Dharma hung up, Mona called up Sharmila Rao and informed her of the development.
‘This will be music to my father’s and brother’s ears,’ Sharmila said. ‘They passionately hated Sankatram Reddy. Haughty fellow, they said.’
‘Is it, ma’am?’
‘Thanks, and keep me posted. My brother no doubt is keeping a close tab as well. Don’t let him cow you down. Ultimately, he has to rely on you for the truth.‘
‘Yes, ma’am.’
The MLC disconnected.
‘I need to get out of the office and clear my head,’ Mona said to her.
‘Ma’am, we’ve located the starlet and one of the producers, Rowdy Panja Naidu, ‘Pavani said. ‘They are at a film shoot, at Ikea.’
‘Ikea? That furniture store?’
‘Yes, ma’am. It’s gigantic. I went once. It’s out in Hitech city and takes an hour to reach. It’ll get late; it’s already 4 p.m.’
‘So what? Film shoots go on till late.’
‘Yes, ma’am. It’s just that the chief financial officer has been here all day and requested to be the next interview. Also, the resident editor says he will get busy by six, and he may not have time after that for an interview. And Mr Rocky has returned.’
‘Oh, him first. The others can wait.’
Rocky entered, waving a hello at Mona. He hadn’t changed much since she saw him in Mumbai eight years ago, other than the greying hair and thicker waist. He still walked with a distracted air. Today, he was wearing red-framed glasses and a red mask.
‘You’re an ACP now?’ he said by way of greeting. ‘May I have some hand sanitiser?’
‘Rocky Sir,’ Mona smiled. ‘What are you doing here today? I’m told you’ve parted ways with the Deccan Testament.’
‘Deccan Testicle!’ Rocky corrected her. ‘True, true. I was sacked. A blessing in disguise.’
‘You have another job?’
‘No, no. I’m trying to manage my health. High blood pressure, for the first time in my life. Imagine that! Thank you, Deccan Testicle. Thank you, City of Nizams. And thank you to the Nizam’s biggest testicle, Sankatram Reddy. A pretend-Nizam. Like the Raja of Marh in A Suitable Boy. Have you seen it yet?’
‘No, but I had read the novel in my teens.’
‘Aah, yes! A languid read, the first Indian-English aspiring heir to Jane Austen. Far from Anna Karenina in any case.’
‘What are you planning to do other than managing your health?’
‘Oh, I’m in touch with another former journalist,’ Rocky said. ‘He’s developing a web series. Wants me in his writer’s room. Perhaps you’ve heard of him? Aditya Sinha?’
‘Vaguely,’ Mona said, though she had no idea who Rocky was talking about. ‘So, are you scriptwriting serials now? No wonder getting sacked is a blessing in disguise.’
‘Yes, yes. Too much tension, too much stress.’
‘Did you feel overworked?’
‘Are you kidding? Work is a piece of cake. My third stint as an editor-in-chief and I could do the job with my eyes close. Come to think of it, at times I actually did that.’
‘What was it then?’
‘The other stuff. Company’s finance are a mess.’
‘But that’s not your job?’
‘True. But editorial colleagues from Kanyakumari to Kashmir would call and text and email all the time about their salaries. Day and night. Many hadn’t been paid in nearly a year. Only Hyderabad was pampered; colleagues here were just two or three months behind on their salaries.’
‘Because DT is number one in Hyderabad?’
‘Yes, this is where the ad revenue came from. A day’s strike here meant lakhs, or even ₹1 crore, of revenue loss. As it is, DT isn’t breaking even month-on-month due to the economic downturn and the pandemic, which only shrank circulation and collections.’
‘The staff could have written to the administration.’
‘The Reddys and their admin puppets are feudal,’ he said. ‘Never bothered to answer calls, emails or text messages. Sankatram himself said he never opened WhatsApp messages unless it was something he wanted to see. Callous. I couldn’t let my journalists down. I answered each phone call, each message, each email. And such sob stories! Somebody needed to hospitalize an elderly parent, someone had to pay an EMI on their flat, somebody had to pay their kid’s school fees, someone just needed to pay rent. But, you know, the salaries were not the Reddys’ obligation; they were the staffers’ due. Their right.’
‘So, they turned to their editor-in-chief?’
‘I tried to push Gopaliah and Sai as much as I could to pay even half a month’s pending salary. It was difficult. Even though I was based in Hyderabad, I still haven’t got my full March salary. It’s nearly festival time.’
‘That couldn’t be why they sacked you?’
Rocky shook his head. ‘The night before the lockdown, I took the last flight home. In the nick of time. I live alone here and had no desire to spend the next three weeks or months, or whatever it was going to be, alone in a ghost town, driving through empty streets, sitting in an empty office. I wanted to be at home with my wife, in a pleasant space. But it upset the Reddys.’
‘What was their problem?’
‘I told you, they were feudal. That people could work remotely bothered them immensely. When I returned, Babloo Jubilee insisted that I summon the entire editorial staff back to office. I refused. I couldn’t compel anyone to come while the pandemic still raged. People lived with elderly parents and small children, and I did not want them to risk taking Covid home.’
‘True, true,’ Mona acknowledged. ‘They were correct to be afraid. The Mumbai Police lost so many personnel to Covid. I knew several of them, from my station postings.’
‘Babloo Jubilee said the other departments were coming to office. What an argument! He forgot that the other departments come in every other day, but the editorial produces the newspaper each and every day. It is the core of the company,’ Rocky said. ‘And trust me, working from home is no joke. Zoom meetings are a pain, especially with squabbling colleagues. My laptop was on all the time, so I couldn’t wander about or watch TV. Quite unlike the admin babus who did meaningless paperwork every other day for just an hour or two.’
‘Didn’t the Reddys realize the work editorial put in?’
‘Sankatram knew the business inside out. He had been running the paper since the ’80s; he was involved in every nitty-gritty. Lately, though, with bankruptcy and the airline crashing before take-off and his high life drying up, he left the paper’s managing to Babloo Jubilee, who knew zilch.’
‘He is the fellow you called an “illiterate eunuch”?’
‘The same, the same. Lord Cunning whispered to me about how Babloo Jubilee was a cokehead, a playboy living the good life when the family owned a cricket team, partying with Shah Rukh Khan and Sid Mallya and other VIPs. That life folded up with the cricket team going down. Lord Cunning claims that, after bankruptcy, Babloo Jubilee had to make do with discount whores at his uncle’s farmhouse.’
‘Canning Sairam? The fellow who backstabbed you?’
‘The same, the same. A fake journalist! Began on the DT desk twenty years ago. Left journalism almost immediately and became a PR person for convicted scamster Ramalingam Raju. In 2008, he returned to journalism when I roped him in for a column in the New Indian Success. Then, in 2014, when a friend working for the New York Times needed a writer from Hyderabad, I suggested Cunning Sairam. Of course, Lord Cunning will claim that he already knew my friend, but I want to see him try to say this publicly.’
‘Seems untrustworthy. Characterless.’
‘Yes, but it’s my fault. I shouldn’t have trusted him so much even if he was my deputy. Never should have messaged him calling Babloo Jubilee an illiterate eunuch. I also accused Babloo Jubilee of choking on CNT’s dick.’
Pavani giggled.
‘In my last conversation with Lord Cunning, I asked him why he had shown my messages to the illiterate eunuch. He mumbled something about the prisoner’s dilemma.’
‘Some excuse,’ Mona said.
‘Some number two. He’s more like a piece of the other number two.’
‘Reckless Rocky!’
‘True, true. But the Reddys started it. Sankatram began to abuse me on the phone in June. He accused me of warming my ass at home. Warming my ass! He also accused me of plotting with the people from Shrek Fund.’
‘Were you?’
‘Of course not. I did occasionally get a call from Manish Manaktala over there, but that conversation never got anywhere. Manish wanted me to sack lots of people and reduce the staff strength to bring down the salary bill so that the newspaper, when Shrek Fund finally took charge, was no longer loss-making. He wanted almost everyone sacked. Irrational redundance.’
‘Irrational redundance?’
‘Yes, you know, like Alan Greenspan’s irrational exuberance. Anyway, once Sankatram started abusing me, I realized my time here was up. I also began to abuse them back, privately though. Lord Cunning also abused Sankatram, calling him “Bahadur Shah Zafar II”, rolling around drunkenly on his carpet while his empire crumbled. Raja of Marh, I guess.’
‘Leaving DT to Babloo Jubilee …’
‘At the start of the lockdown, Babloo Jubilee closed the paper for a day. Then it was just an e-paper for a week. When we began printing again, hawkers did not want to distribute the paper. Readers were also afraid that touching the newspaper would spread Covid. Circulation plummeted. Today, the newspaper has recovered to 92,000 copies per day, whereas pre-pandemic it printed 2,64,000 copies. India’s largest circulating paper, the News of India is at 37,000 per day in Hyderabad. Its readers, the young techies, have deserted it. Such readers will likely never touch a newspaper again.’
‘Tell me about why you were angry with the Reddys?’
‘It wasn’t just about the salaries. It was always “carry this story but not that”. They were shit-scared of criticizing the government. If a critical story slipped through, Sankatram would call and abuse. It made no sense because the state never gave us ads anyway. The chief minister and his son made it a point, on a former prime minister’s birth anniversary, to give a full-page ad on the front page of every newspaper in town except ours. And we were number one. I say, there’s no point in kowtowing to thugs, they only understand the language of power. I prefer to be on the offense, printing lots of negative stories till the government comes crawling.’
‘Why did the Reddys want to curry favour with the chief minister and his son?’
‘The government owed about ₹30 crore for advertisements. The Reddys wanted this money before handing the company over to Shrek Fund. They were salting away mountains of cash. Taking cash for classifieds. Just the obits would come to ₹80,000 a day. Every evening, the cash box would be handed over to the Reddys, no questions asked. No accounting. The books also showed full-page ads as discounted ads, even though payments were received in full, in cash. It was all to support a fancy lifestyle, Sankatram’s cigars and Babloo Jubilee’s cocaine. Once in a blue moon, some change was spared for staff salaries.’
‘Why did the chief minister and his son hate them?’
‘Oh, a complicated yet simple matter, like politics always is,’ Rocky said. ‘Sankatram was a supporter of the Congress party. He nearly became a Rajya Sabha member back in the 2000s. Now, Sankatram was arrogant that he understood politics better than anyone else. He never gave the current chief minister the time of day when he was in the opposition, even back when he agitated for a separate state. Lo and behold! The Congress leadership in Delhi bifurcated the state to cut to size the local leaders who had grown too powerful. They even had the then chief minister bumped off, if rumours are to be believed.’
‘What?’
‘Yes. And after the state split and the agitationist became the chief minister, his family saw the Reddys as interlopers from the old state. Now the chief minister doesn’t give Sankatram the time of day. After all, if Sankatram is feudal then, as Lord Cunning put it, the chief minister is the biggest feudal of them all.’
This was a lot to process for Mona. She caught Pavani staring at Rocky in awe. It was time to change tack.
‘Why did you come to the office today?’ Mona asked.
‘To kill the Reddys,’ Rocky said.
‘What?’
‘Yes, my plan was to induce their heart attacks, though rushing from room to room with Ravi, the peon, watching me was a bit of a giveaway.’
‘Why shouldn’t I arrest you?’
Rocky paused. ‘Because,’ he said, ‘I don’t want to be executed near the airport like those four guys who raped and killed the veterinarian last year.’
‘I don’t believe you murdered anyone,’ Mona said. ‘But I am interested in knowing how you know these were murders.’
‘Why else are you here, questioning all of us?’
‘A fair deduction. But tell me why you are here. Today.’
‘Believe me, I would avoid being here if I could. But it’s an asinine administration led by the illiterate eunuch … withholding six months of salary, not facilitating the return of my phone number from the corporate account to my personal account and withholding documents,’ Rocky said. ‘Sai even told his staff to ignore my requests. I wanted to raise a ruckus with Gopalaiah before I left town.’
‘Don’t leave just yet,’ Mona said. ‘Not till we sort this out.’
‘Oh fuck. I already shipped my bed.’
‘Just a couple of days.’
Rocky stood up. ‘But you must tell me the whole story,’ he said. ‘I’ll novelize it.’
‘What happened to the one you were writing before?’
‘Don’t ask.’
Rocky left.
Mona asked Pavani who was next.
‘Ravi, the peon, ma’am. Then the chief financial officer. Then Canning Sairam.’
‘I feel like having a snack,’ Mona said. ‘Can’t we step out for a bite?’
‘Maybe we can order, ma’am. We can even ask Ravi once he’s done.’
‘Good idea.’
A thin and small-built fellow with a shock of oiled and uncut hair and twitching eyes stumbled in. He smiled dazzlingly, but a glare from Pavani inverted his expression. He wore a white shirt and black pants, presumably the support staff’s uniform.
‘Yahaan khaane ko kuch milega?’ Mona asked him.
‘Ma’am, lots of places,’ Ravi said, speaking in Dakhni that was more degraded than Mumbaiyya Hindi. ‘Dosa? Parallel road has many eateries with takeaway. Dosa Express, Dosa Heaven, Dosa Forever, Dosa Palace, Dosa Anand, Dosa Love, Dozens of Dosa …’
‘What about something non-vegetarian?’
‘Near Paradise circle. Paradise Biryani you must be knowing. Opposite that is Nizam’s Biryani, and next to that is Biryani Heaven. Then there’s Biryani Banao Pulao Khao, Biryani Bomb, Biden ka Biryani and—’
‘Stop, stop. What about a simple plate of kebab?’
‘For that, go to Tolichowki, ma’am,’ Pavani interjected.
‘Tolichowki has Irani kebab,’ Ravi said. ‘Also, Afghani kebab, Lucknowi kebab, Kolkata kebab, Kashmiri kebab ...’
‘What did you do, feed the Reddys to death?’
‘No, ma’am, I didn’t kill anyone.’
‘How do you know they were killed?’
‘Ma’am, that’s all everyone is saying,’ Ravi said. ‘The health reporter found out from the Gandhi hospital that Sankatram Sir was killed, and she told Cunning Sir, I mean Canning Sir, who told his assistant, Mr Sachya, who told the librarian, who told his peon, who then told me. Also, it’s on Telugu TV news.’
Mona sighed. ‘Do you know how he was killed?’
‘With nothing, ma’am.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, ma’am. They said he was injected with nothing.’
Mona scrutinized Ravi’s face. ‘Are you anxious? Worried about something?’
‘Ma’am, everyone has been smiling at me. It means they will target me next. They are angry about their delayed salaries. Because I’m the office boy for the Reddys, they think I was their right-hand man. In fact, I, too, haven’t got my salary for seven months. The other peon, also called Sai, left this job to drive an auto-rickshaw after the lockdown lifted. He could not keep working without a salary. I had no choice.’
‘Who did you see coming and going from the Reddys’ rooms on the fourth floor this morning?’ Mona asked.
‘Four VIPs came. Also, Swami Bonanand.’
‘From inside the office?’
‘Rocky Saheb tried to go, but Sankatram Sir refused to see him. Ghattu Sir, our union leader, went to meet Rompy Reddy Sir. Canning Sir then met Sankatram Sir briefly. Then Srilatha Madam met all the three Reddys, as she did every morning.’
‘Who is Srilatha?’
‘She is the lady placed here by Shrek Fund.’
Mona chewed over this bit of information. ‘Did you kill the Reddys?’ she spoke suddenly.
‘No, ma’am, not even one. Never.’
Mona was assessing Ravi’s expression when her phone rang.
‘Jai Hind, ma’am. SI Anantamula Ananth this side,’ the caller said. ‘From the Secunderabad cyber cell.’
‘Jai Hind.’
‘Ma’am, I thought you would not want to wait for the complete analysis to hear that one of the victims had received multiple death threats over email.’
‘Over email?’ Mona asked. ‘Who?’
‘Sainath Rao, ma’am.’