"You little creep…" Vikram raised his voice in anger and moved around table slowly.
"Sit down and shut up," Maan's voice boomed across the interrogation room. Silence fell in the room immediately.
"Maan, take Geet out of the room now." Emily said urgently. If Maan was surprised at that, he didn't show it on his face.
"Satya, escort Geet out." Satya nodded and took Geet out of the room.
"Don't ask Vikram about the cheating or the fraud case. I want to check Varun's reaction," Emily said.
"Sit down; both of you." Maan ordered the two men. He switched on the recorder and introduced himself officially.
"Vikram, when did you first meet Geet?" Maan asked the question which had already been asked before to both the parties. Vikram looked up in surprise and so did Varun.
"ACP Maan, why are you asking Vikram about Geet? Shouldn't you ask him about what he did to Anjali and Mal?" Varun asked in surprise. Maan could hear Emily's sigh in the earpiece. She had gotten what she wanted.
"I will ask questions and you both will answer. That's how it works here." Maan said in nonchalance.
"So Vikram tell me when did you meet Geet?" Maan asked again.
"I think I already answered…" Vikram trailed.
"Do you want me to bring in everyone who works with you on this? Really it's a waste of time for all of us. Besides, what have you got to lose if you answer the truth? We know that you aren't the killer," Maan said looking at the file in his hand. He knew that if he looked at either of them, then their expressions wouldn't be unguarded and that's what Emily would be looking for.
"Don't look up from the file yet Maan. Vikram is contemplating and I think Varun is telepathically sending a message to him as he is staring at Vikram like crazy but Vikram is ignoring him. This is interesting. Varun knows something and so does Vikram. They are scared of something." Emily whispered.
Vikram sighed and he sighed again. "I met Geet along with Mal four years ago during that fake art incident," he managed to bit out. Maan looked up to see Vikram tracing pattern on table with his index finger and Varun hiding his head in his chest. What where these brothers hiding?
"Look Vikram, if you tell me the truth and assist me in this investigation I will help you deal with the still open forgery case. I can get Mal's clients to negotiate with you and you will not have to worry anymore, okay?" Maan cut a deal right in the beginning. On the other side of the wall, Emily looked on in surprise.
"Maan, that was really a bold move. I hope he takes the bait since I believe that he has already made the deals with the people who initially put charges against him." Emily said.
"I don't care about the charges ACP because your department doesn't have a thing against me." Vikram replied harshly. Maan merely shrugged. Emily sighed. Both were surprised when Vikram spoke.
"Geet was insanely angry with me. When Mal accused me of selling her fake work I hadn't given much heed to it. But a month or so later she came to meet me with Geet with evidence to prove that I was wrong. She claimed that she had evidence against me that could bring my business down to dust and I couldn't do anything about it. She said that she could easily get me blacklisted in the art business and I might have to start dealing underground if I don't apologize and negotiate with Mal's clients." Vikram sighed again. Varun looked tired.
Maan didn't show surprise on his face and asked, "Did she have some dirt on you?" Vikram looked up and nodded.
"She had enough evidence all right. She still does. You must understand this ACP Maan. If I didn't comply with what she said, I could be dead within days after she exposed me in front of few of my clients. These clients of mine don't take cheating very well." Vikram finished.
"What did she want in return?" Maan asked. Satya chose that moment to come in.
"She just wanted justice for her friend. I told her I can even give money as much as she wanted but she refused. She didn't want Mal to take the blame for something she hadn't done and once I negotiated with Mal's clients, Geet didn't bring this incident anymore."
Satya subconsciously looked across the glass panel and Emily read his eyes. "Satya, ask him who initiated the relationship first. Was it Vikram or was it Geet?" Emily said. Satya repeated the question to Vikram.
"It was Geet actually. I was little scared to tell her no."
"Were you already having an affair with Anjali then?" Maan asked.
"Yes. I was. I was a little surprised when Geet formally asked me to court her. I panicked and I said her I would. When I spoke to Anjali about it, she told me to keep it low. I had told her about the incident with Mal and Geet of course and she was truly understanding about the whole thing." Vikram said.
"Geet didn't technically lie to us. I am reading her statement from before where she said that she is together with Vikram for past eight months or so." Emily said.
"Did you ever get a feeling that Geet knew about your affair with Anjali yet she made Anjali come with you two whenever you went out?" Satya asked shrewdly.
"She sometimes threw me and Anjali together and took a nonchalant step back. In our enthusiasm Anjali and I would forget our circumstances and surroundings and would be our true selves. And when we realized that we weren't alone, we would go back to the roles we were supposed to play; I being Geet's boyfriend and she, her roommate. I would wait for Geet to ask me about my behavior with Anjali but she never would. Her unblinking gaze was downright chilly and accused me of cheating on her." Vikram said.
"I am really sorry about what happened to Anjali. I really am sir. I truly loved Anjali and one day we would have come out in open. But I was really afraid that Geet would destroy me if I ever crossed her," Vikram said hoarsely. Varun patted his brother's back and sighed. Obviously he knew exactly what was going on in his brother's life.
"Did Geet ever threaten you saying so?" Satya asked.
"No. She never threatened me or even brought up that old incident sir." Vikram replied. Maan and Satya looked at each other.
"She knew that Vikram would be scared shitless about whatever evidence she possessed. Her impassiveness threatened Vikram. She either forgave him completely for what he did before or she was extremely smart in being silent knowing that it would pressurize Vikram." Emily said. "And that unfortunately works totally against us. We have nothing on Geet to incriminate her," she finished, her eyes trained on the brothers.
"Maan, ask Varun who was blackmailing him." Emily asked. Maan had trained his features enough not to react but Satya widened his eyes in surprise. "Do it Maan. It's a shot in the dark and we got nothing to lose." Emily said again. There was silence for several moments in the interrogation room.
"Varun, were you blackmailed by someone?" Maan asked slowly. Varun looked shocked.
"How did you….?" He looked at Maan in surprise and didn't finish the sentence when he saw three pairs of eyes looking at him. Satya nodded at the glass panel discreetly which was translated to – Good one!
Everyone looked at him and waited for him to continue.
"There was a thick envelope in my mailbox one day and it didn't have any address on it. When I opened I saw the evidence against Vikram and also against me."
"What crime did you commit for someone to have evidence against you?" Satya asked.
"Vikram sold few art pieces as mine while in reality it was actually done by one of the artists who works for me. The artist is my ward and I he have been mentoring him into the world of art for few years now."
"What was the evidence for this? And is this for the same incident as before?" Maan asked. Varun and Vikram looked at each other.
"No, this is much recent and is about a year and half ago. ACP sir, I have been going through a bleak phase in my artistic career and for past two years I haven't painted anything sell-able. But the orders came in and Vikram had promised art works for few of our regulars. So I got my artist to paint them on my behalf. And this blackmailer has enough evidence to prove that I am not the original painter of the works Vikram has sold for last two years. Like Vikram said before, these clients cannot be taken lightly sir. Their power is magnanimous and their retribution would be brutal." Varun explained.
"Bloody frauds," Emily hissed. Satya swallowed his smile.
"So what did the blackmailer asked you to do?" Maan asked ignoring every other explanation given by Varun.
"I was given instructions to deliver an envelope to Anjali by whatever means possible. The envelope was sealed and I didn't know what it contained. I got hold of a middle man who take care of some….stuff for us and asked him to carry on with the operations."
"Why did you demand money?" Maan asked.
"I didn't demand money because I wanted the money sir but because I was asked by the blackmailer to do so. If Anjali ever went to police, then they could trace it back to me after few days of investigation. And even if I did tell the story that I was blackmailed, I would be incriminated and charged with blackmail, or no one would buy the story of my own blackmail. It was lose-lose situation for me." Varun said.
"Did you suspect anyone?" Maan asked.
"I suspected both Geet and Mal actually. Geet is conniving enough to get this kind of evidence sir. She has material on Vikram and it wouldn't be impossible to gather some on me and the target was Anjali who was cheating with Geet's boyfriend. I guessed that the envelopes contained photos of her and Vikram and probably even me too but I couldn't stop seeing her because that was a part of the blackmail too. I had to continue as if nothing happened." Varun sighed.
"Maan, Deshmukh is here. Get over here quick." Emily said urgently. When Maan didn't make an effort to move, she spoke again, "Maan, Deshmukh found something at the detective agency. These two idiots were played and they have no clue that they were being used as puppets the whole time. Come here. Now." Emily said hurriedly.
"Wait for us here," Maan said and nodded to Satya. Maan asked an assistant sub-inspector to watch over the two men and walked towards the other side of the room where Emily waited.
"Here," Emily pointed to a sheet of paper in her hands and pointed to a section.
"What am I looking at?" Satya asked.
"That, darling Satya, is a bank account number on an invoice generated by the detective agency early this year for Mal. The account number belongs to a paper company set up by Geet years ago. Sometimes invoices are paid by this paper company and sometimes it's Mal who pays." Emily said. Maan's jaw hung open and Satya whistled. This, they didn't expect.
"You came to know that it's Geet's paper company this fast?" Maan asked.
"We didn't have to sir. The detective agency does a background check very thoroughly on all their clients and verifies the bank accounts. The contract was signed only by Mal in person. When they received this company's TAN and account number for the first time from Mal, they did some digging on their own for legal purposes. When they realized that it was Geet's, they procured the company's registration document and filed it for internal purposes and processed the invoice due." Deshmukh said.
"One of the photographers who took photos of Anjali with Vikram and Varun in her apartment claimed that Geet knew about the detectives. He thinks so because she gave him the feeling that she knew he was sitting in that apartment watching Anjali. She stared at the window from where the photographer took photos and smilingly closed the blinds of her own window. But she always opened the blinds of her room before going to work and urged Anjali to do the same. He knows this because he has seen Anjali opening the blinds of her room with Geet in tow." Deshmukh explained.
"She wanted to ensure that the photographer got his shots perfectly." Emily said.
"Let's go," Maan said and started walking briskly towards another interrogation room where Geet was sitting.
"You lied to me again," Maan said banging the interrogation room door open and slapping the papers on the table. Geet was startled at the noise but calmly took a look at the paper.
"It's my paper company's account number. What about it?"
"You said you didn't know that Mal had Anjali and Sasha followed by the detectives. But you were paying the detective agency on her behalf." Maan said.
"Mal was in short of cash so she asked me if she can borrow some money. She did mention about keeping it out of the radar so I gave her this bank details." Geet answered.
"You never bothered to ask her where she was depositing it? It's really weird how you wouldn't know the money flow in your own company," Maan flared.
"What is that you are trying to tell me here ACP Maan?" Geet asked.
"You knew. You knew everything about everyone. You had evidence against Vikram and it didn't take too much effort to collect evidence against Varun too. Anjali was cheating with both your boyfriend and Mal's boyfriend. So you made Varun blackmail Anjali so that there is a trail when investigated would lead to Varun and never to you or Mal. Sasha brought in big financial losses, career hindrance to Mal and not to mention the psychological effect it had on Mal. Am guessing Mal losing the baby was also somehow related to all this. When I barely suspected Mal, you gave me the diaries which kind of hinted that she killed the stalker and perhaps even planned the whole thing with the stalker too. In Sasha's murder case there is absolutely no forensic evidence for murder by drug overdose but in Anjali's murder case, Mal was at the crime scene at the time of the murder. And if you hadn't called her, even Anjali's murder would have been close to improbable to solve. Like in the case of stalker, even here you handed us the hint." Maan said in one breath. Emily and Satya looked at him in shock.
"This is such a wonderful story ACP Maan, really; vengeance, revenge, jealousy, friendship, betrayal and all. But again, I will have to ask. Are you suspecting me of murdering Anjali and Sasha?" Geet asked looking at her fingernails.
"No, I am not. Your alibis are rock solid." Maan said.
"Then what are you suspecting me of?" Geet asked with a soft smile looking straight at Maan.
"I am suspecting you of being the master mind behind all the murders; including the stalker's." Maan answered with a smile of his own.
"Prove it." Geet said smiling coldly.
To be continued.
Mannat Har Khushi Paane Ki
Cricket
36