Chapter 20:
--9:00 PM, Thursday, Police Station –
"Did you tell Vikram that his brother Varun was also involved in all the mess?" Emily said coming in to Maan's cabin and literally flopping on the sofa. "Where is Satya?" Emily asked looking around without waiting for an answer.
"No, we refrained from telling anything to Vikram as it could have been disastrous for our investigation. He asked how we got his brother's photo though. Satya said that it came up as a part of investigation and a lead that we were following. I think he just wanted to get out of this station so he didn't question us any further. Satya is arranging an interview with Varun for tomorrow morning. According to Varun's assistant, Varun is not supposed to be disturbed. Satya might get in a warrant if there is any more smart-ass reasons from them." Maan said.
"That should be interesting," Emily said and waited for others to come in. Deshmukh was going through the files and CDs given by the private detective agency and was going to give a briefing about it. Satya had taken off after Vikram had left after he received phone call form Mal's neighbor.
Satya and Deshmukh came in few minutes apart and arranged their paperwork in order.
"I was on phone with the detective agency for most part of the day sir. Though their reports are very thorough and clearly catalogued, I wanted to talk to the agent who was assigned Mal. Mal came to the agency couple of months after she graduated and came to the city. It was less than three months I think. She went in with a photo and asked the agent to track the man down in the picture," Deshmukh said and showed a printout of a picture. It was a photo of Geet with the stalker in the background. It was one of those pictures taken during college event. Mal knew what she was doing.
"Did they find him?" Satya asked.
"They did find him but it took them almost a year to do so. There are copies of letters that Geet received from the stalker and Mal was right about that one – the stalker did really want a future with Geet. The letters stopped coming in almost at the same time these people found him. They gave the address of the man to Mal with a copy of his house contract, here," Deshmukh handed over the copy of contract to Maan.
"This is the exact document we have in our evidence," Emily said looking over Deshmukh's shoulder.
"Yes, the detective agency was very thorough. Once the man was found, she asked the agency to keep an eye on him round the clock. The clients are supposed to give specifics like these and she was very particular about his surveillance details. There are actually pictures of her with that man," Deshmukh showed few more pictures of Mal and the man in his apartment.
"Isn't this dumb? I mean Mal was getting periodic reports from the agency. Couldn't she have called off the surveillance when she was about to visit the man so that she couldn't be implicated in future?" Satya asked.
"She actually did call the agency. But not for removing surveillance but for providing her with complete support if anything did go wrong. The agency provided men who stood outside the door and there were people watching her the whole time. Sure they didn't put it as a part of report but that doesn't mean that they destroyed the tapes completely," Deshmukh said.
"Why did they keep the tapes? Isn't that unethical?" Emily interjected.
"They are watching that man round the clock and taking in hundreds of photos and videos Emily. And only a select few actually make it to the final report that is dispatched to the client. However these agencies like us police folks, archive the complete feed for future references. There is a high probability that a client may go back to them and ask for material they paid heavily for," Deshmukh explained. Emily merely hummed in response.
"Now here is the kicker. There are only two days when the agency was instructed specifically not to put the man under surveillance. Any guesses?" Deshmukh asked.
"The day the eve-teaser was killed and the day the man himself was killed." Satya said plainly. Deshmukh nodded and said, "The day before man died was the day when the agency packed up from their surveillance duties with respect to that stalker."
"She knew what she was doing then," Emily said in response.
"Are there any photos of the man with Geet?" Maan asked.
"The only photos of the man with Geet are the ones where he was stalking her. And that too the stalking kind of stopped when Mal first confronted him."
"Why didn't she ever tell Geet about it?" Maan asked.
"It could be because she found some use from him. He beat up that eve teaser guy for Geet and the two of them were left alone from then on," Emily said. Maan only hummed.
"Did she actually kill him?" Satya threw in the question to the room without expecting any answer. He knew that everyone else was thinking the same thing.
"It's a mere conjecture but it is very plausible at this point," Emily responded and looked at Maan.
"It's quite possible, yes. But there is no concrete forensic evidence to prove it." Maan shrugged. No one spoke for handful of moments.
"Deshmukh, I met Mal's neighbor like you asked me to. Sir ji, one of the neighbors recognized Varun as the man who visited Mal." Satya said.
"I thought your preliminary sweep got us only negative results Deshmukh," Maan asked raising an eyebrow.
"Sir ji this lady was out of town for almost ten days now and she called Deshmukh in the afternoon responding to the messages he had left on her answering machine." Satya defended his keep. Maan swallowed his amusement and nodded him to continue.
"This woman told me that she had seen Varun few times in front of Mal's apartment. He rarely comes in to her place but when he does come, it would be generally late in evening. The woman positively identified Varun and she said that night watchmen can vouch for that. During our preliminary interview we weren't able to interview night watchmen either," Satya said.
"Who is whose boyfriend or girlfriend anyway? These people are way over their heads without an ounce of morality," Emily huffed in annoyance. In any other situation, Maan would have reprimanded her for her callous outtake, but he honestly felt the same. Had these people never heard of sincerity and commitments?
And most of all, where did Geet picture in all this?
"If Mal and Varun did have an affair and Varun was the father of Mal's child, then there is solid motive for Mal to kill Anjali. She had access to the building and to the apartment as Geet had graciously given her a set of keys for backup sake and Anjali wouldn't have suspected a thing. Once she slipped Rohypnol into the wine, she waited till Anjali became unconscious and barely breathing. Also there is evidence pointing to Mal being in Anjali's apartment around the time of murder." Satya summarized.
"Satya, if you are on the track of Mal being the first killer, then what about Sasha? It was a murder too and apart from the vase, there isn't much evidence or even motive for that matter," Emily asked.
"Mal felt threatened by Sasha." Deshmukh said opening the file again.
"Don't tell me Mal had Sasha also under surveillance?" Maan asked surprised.
"Yes sir. Sasha was also under surveillance but for totally different reason. Mal and Sasha were competitors. Both were architects and had excellent reputation in the market. Mal felt it was unfair that Sasha got everything she wanted at such a young age. She felt cheated and betrayed." Deshmukh surmised.
"That's the motive?" Emily asked incredulously.
"It could be possible that Mal and Sasha had a fallout which resulted in Sasha moving out of the house. It had nothing to do with Geet or the fact that Sasha was on drugs. But it was problem with their respective careers which had managed to clash in a very wrong way," Deshmukh said.
"Wait," Emily said shuffling at the papers which were printouts of Sasha's blog. She found the one she was looking for and said, "Sasha wrote about being a bad friend once. In her blog she mentions about misusing a friend's trust and under quoting to win a bid. She wasn't angry that her friend was disappointed with her but she was heartbroken when her friend decided to cut her out of life. Could she be talking about Mal here? The timeline of Sasha leaving the apartment which she actually documents in her blog in detail is just few days after this incident." Emily asked.
"The motive to kill Sasha is because Mal lost a project? Come on," Satya said not believing in their theory. Maan agreed with Satya.
"It is not that simple. Mal continuously lost to Sasha in coming months. You know Geet gave a statement that Sasha died the night she lost a major deal? That day she lost the deal to Mal. It would have been a terrible blow to Sasha and she would have been very vulnerable. How difficult would it have been to cajole her for a prick?" Emily said frowning.
"So Mal waited till she upped Sasha and then in her weakest moment she killed her?" Satya asked. "If so, then why kill Anjali on a normal day?" He asked again.
"Anjali wasn't normal. She was being blackmailed and it was slowly getting out of hand. The accountant suspected her of embezzlement, remember? It could have killed her career if it ever came out. She must have been under tremendous amount of stress though she didn't show it much about it to the world," Emily surmised.
"The behavior fits sir," Deshmukh added.
"It does but everything here is circumstantial or it can be proved in the end as circumstantial. Even though Mal is dead, I don't want to pin accusation of three murders on her people," Maan said in a final tone.
"When is Varun coming in Satya?" Maan asked remembering about the interview scheduled for next day.
"He will be here by tomorrow morning at eleven sir ji." Satya said.
"What does he do for a living?" Maan asked arranging all the paperwork done that day.
"He is an artist sir," Satya responded.
To be continued. 
Mannat Har Khushi Paane Ki
Cricket
36