Like You and Me

 

Number of words: 7739

 

 

LIKE YOU AND ME

 

“To Shokie he is always the man.”

Constable Antony chuckled as he read aloud the opening line of a newspaper column.

“My dear Watson, you are begging to be neutered,” Sub-Inspector Shajeeb said, grinning.

This exchange happened in office around nine in the morning when their boss Shokie was summoned to the police headquarters.

The newspaper report was on the most recent confrontation between Shokie and the criminal lawyer Karate Shekhar. (Karate is pronounced as Ka-rey-tuh, after the place and not the martial arts form. Shekhar added that to his name to poke at people flaunting family property or caste in surname, even though he knew it would have little effect on those idiots.)

Shokie and her team had built a strong case implicating local bigwigs, including actors and political leaders, in the sexual abuse and murder of thirteen-year-old twin sisters at Kadalil. The government then transferred the case to the Crime Branch. From then to the inept handling by the prosecution, the case went downhill. Shekhar did not even have to use his full repertoire of skills to get the accused acquitted.

The case, like all their earlier encounters, had received the unwavering attention of the local media and the public. The media made a big deal of the contest between Shokie and Shekhar, and their head-to-head record which was roughly even.

The media was doubly-blessed during the trial. They got hold of a recording (of a private conversation between friends) in which Shekhar’s wife talks about her husband’s admiration towards Shokie. As icing on that cake, she ends that diatribe with, “I hate that bitch.”

A hack more literate than his peers thought of sensationalizing the relationship by alluding to the Sherlock Holmes story ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’; and hence, the opening line of that column.

As for the two in the alleged relationship, their actual contribution is minimal. Appearance-wise, her dark features and even darker mood and humour contrasts with his pleasant countenance and reputation to be quite a joker. If they have anything in common, it is a strange detachment to their profession, a precarious balance of the romantic and the pragmatic.

Shokie pursues criminals with ingenuity and dogged persistence. She also understands the system well enough to know that the worst usually escape incarceration and punishment. (She accepts that with excessive sangfroid, the afore-mentioned colleagues thought. They also wondered if the sangfroid was that of one who has no concern for loss; or, that of one who has lost all.) She knew of Shekhar and of what he does to her cases; other than that, her criminals got more of her time and consideration than him.

Shekhar is also passionate about his work but no one knows what drives that passion. His clients can trust him to use everything, the law and the loopholes (adjournments, bribes, cooked-up or misplaced evidence, whatever). But, how or why he picks a case remains unknown. He has been a mercenary after big buck from slimy villains and also, a charitable do-gooder using the big buck for pro bono cases. He was also never short of excuses when he refused to take a case. There was no underlying pattern of lofty moral or principle. Even the cases involving Shokie were subject to his random selection.  Some think he flips a coin. In his professional capacity, Shekhar is flamboyant and volatile. For that he compensates in the personal sphere by being staid. Even the media thought so, at least till his wife’s outburst. When they hounded him with regard to her revelations, his one-line statement surprised them, “Yes, I do admire Circle Inspector Shokie.”

As for Shokie, no one thought it wise to get her opinion on that issue.

Shokie returned to the police station around ten. She glared at the newspaper on Antony’s table. He quickly slipped it beneath some files before standing to attention. She looked at Shajeeb and brusquely gestured that she wanted them in her office.

They stood in front of her, unsure of her dark mood. She told them to sit down.

“Someone’s out to kill Shekhar’s wife,” she said.

The men sat forward, ramrod straight, poker-faced.

“It could be me,” she matched their dead-pan expression.

The men relaxed a little.

She briefed them about her meeting at HQ. Shekhar too had been there.

Shekhar and his wife had received printed notes, three in the last four days, left at their doorstep, with the succinct threat, “It’s your wife’s turn.”

Shokie gave Antony an evidence bag with the notes, and added that she did not expect to glean much from that.

“I will be her sole bodyguard. You two will assist with the investigation,” she said.

“When did we become a security firm?” Antony protested.

Shajeeb glared at his subordinate but he too raised a doubt, “Has Shekhar pulled strings?”

Shokie leaned back.

“I too thought so,” she said. “I refused to take the case at first. Shekhar then clarified that it’s his wife who wants me to take the case.”

“Aha…I think she’s going to stage something to make you…” Antony was interrupted by Shajeeb’s elbow jab at his ribs.

Shokie ignored the remark, her dark eyes focused elsewhere.

“I think she knows something really bad is going to happen.”

 

xxx

 

Shokie left for Shekhar’s house soon after. It was in a middle-class locality, not posh in any way; at the end of a long-winding lane, by the edge of a cliff. The house-name is ‘Land’s End’. The house is a compact modern construction on half an acre. Shekhar was outside in a lush garden. He tried a sentence or two about his garden but Shokie’s disinterest cut him short. They went inside to meet his wife. She was waiting in the living room and stood up when they walked in.

Shekhar excused himself promising to be available later.

“Hi, I am Sunitha,” the wife said.

“Shirley,” Shokie replied.

“I thank you.”

Shokie studied the lady. About her age and height, the same complexion, the same medium short hair, left loose though and not tied back tightly like Shokie’s. Her face and figure were fuller and softer. The eyes behind the round spectacles and lips seemed to be used to smiles. She wore glass bangles on both hands.

Both ladies seemed to be sure of themselves, with quiet intelligence.

“Let’s go to my office,” Sunitha said. “Oh, I am sorry…shall I get you something to drink…not even water…no?”

The living room, the dining-cum-kitchen and the area to the right of the house with bedrooms and Shekhar’s office had a comforting décor. That, like the garden, must be Shekhar’s handiwork, Shokie thought. The magnificent view from the cliff-top was to the right too.

Shokie followed Sunitha to the smaller spartan area on the left. Shokie was reminded of a department in a research institute where she had investigated a murder case.

There was a humming from within the first room.

“I have my pet in there,” Sunitha said, “a parallel computer I put together sometime around the turn of the century…still functions.”

That and the next room, her office, were air-conditioned and sound-proof. Access required a password to be entered on a pad by the door.

At one end of the rectangular office, away from the door, an old wooden recliner faced a medium-size screen on the wall. There were floor-to-ceiling shelves on two sides with neatly packed books and discs. At the other end, near the door, there was a no-frills office table with a silent workstation on top and sturdy leather-backed wooden chairs on either side.

“I thought you were a…” Shokie said sitting down.

“No, I am not…” Sunitha completed with a smile. “Shirley…that recording…that was a prank with friends.”

Shokie gave her best I-have-no-idea-what-you-are-talking-about look.

“Ah…good,” Sunitha said.

Sunitha leaned forward with her arms on the table, her body rigid, her eyes fixed on the police officer. Shokie recognized the posture, that of a person agitated within but trying hard not to reveal that to anyone. Shokie wanted her to relax a little.

“What do you do?” Shokie asked.

“I am a freelance consultant these days. I help old friends in various industries. Finance algorithms at times, a bit of data-mining, some projects which need number-crunching. I retired early from the rat race.”

“Made enough early?”

“Actually, no…not ransom material…” Sunitha laughed nervously, “too much ideals, too little patience.”

“How did you and Shekhar hook up?”

“A mistake…sorry…my mind’s elsewhere…how did we hook up…well, at a party in London. He was holidaying there. I was thinking of leaving an investment bank. He was funny. I needed a laugh.”

“No kids…?”

“Men in his family have some problem…he confided that before proposing…” she laughed again, “oops…I am giving you too much info…”

“Can you think of anyone who would want to harm you?” Shokie asked.

“No,” the instant reply.

The two ladies stared at each other, silently acknowledging the first lie.

They were interrupted by a buzz on Sunitha’s table. She checked a screen on the table. Shekhar was outside her office carrying a tray with coffee and cookies. She released the lock on the door.

Shekhar entered and placed the tray on the office table.

“Thank you, Shakes,” Sunitha stood up to help her husband serve. “I had asked the Inspector if she wanted anything.”

“Everything ok?” Shekhar asked before leaving.

“Is this like a panic room?” Shokie asked, sipping the freshly brewed coffee.

“Come to think of it…it could be…” Sunitha said, “the doors are not the armoured kind, though. But, if you try to enter without the password at the door, say by blowing up the door, my workstation here and the pet next door will reset themselves to factory settings.”

“Is the ventilation ok if the a/c is off?”

“Yes, that’s actually the only smart thing about this room…”

“I didn’t get that…”

“There’s no other connection to the outside world.”

“Not even through this computer?”

“No, that’s linked to the next room and not further.”

“No internet…?”

“I left my smartphone and laptop in the living room.”

“Good to meet one more person paranoid about this smart world,” Shokie said.

Sunitha smiled.

“If there’s any danger…” Shokie paused.

“Yes, I will try to reach this room,” Sunitha said. “Once again, I thank you, Shirley.”

Shokie was not too sure if the gratitude would last till the end.

“Just one more doubt,” Shokie said, “what if you are inside immobilized and we want to rescue you.”

“Oh god…never thought of that…” that too was an obvious lie, “I guess I will somehow send SOS to Shokie with triple x at the end of the message.”

“With numerals and special characters, I presume…”

“Of course.”

They smiled at each other.

“One more doubt actually…” Shokie said.

Sunitha tilted her head.

“Why did you choose me?” Shokie asked.

“Your name adds up to 13,” Sunitha replied with a kind laugh.

Shokie knew that the other would laugh even more if she actually checked numerology or whatever whether her name, whichever, added up to thirteen.

 

xxx

 

The situation remained the same for ten days. No more threatening notes were delivered. Shokie could not remember another case where she was so concerned about an impending danger. She was a constant presence at ‘Land’s End’. She took extensive photos of the outside and the inside.

Shokie found one room in particular very intriguing. In addition to the stunning view from that room, it was a photo gallery. Sunitha called it, “Our world…the great urban rural divide.”

On two facing walls were photos of the places Sunitha had been to, the landscape of skyscrapers and modern architecture, the poverty on the streets of rich cities. On the other two walls were photos of places in the State, the destroyed rivers, the receding foliage, the quarries, the crumbling natural beauty. One photo in that collection caught Shokie’s eye. An old house, a dark corridor within, sunlight creeping in reluctantly through wooden window slats, and on the ground, there was a small footprint imprinted on the dark red floor.

“That’s Shekhar’s maternal house, near Karate. It’s his now. We go there often; no one stays there,” Sunitha said. “That’s his grandmother’s sister’s footprint. Do you know that’s considered to be a bad omen, footprint on newly laid floor during construction? She died very young.”

“Is that still there?” Shokie asked.

“The footprint…? Yes.”

Shokie visited that empty house near Karate early the next day, without informing her team or the couple. It was an hour’s drive from the city. She inspected it and the layout. It is in the middle of a large rubber plantation. The nearest neighbours are separated by a hill and paddy fields. It could be a great hideout, to hide and to be hidden, she thought.

She interacted almost exclusively with Sunitha in those days. They talked a lot and as in their first meeting, there were lots of details, some admissions, a lie or evasion in between. It increasingly resembled a close confiding conversation between friends even though it was one way. Shekhar remained in the background, concerned unintrusive helpful. In his presence, Sunitha referred to Shokie as Inspector, not Shirley.

Meanwhile, Shajeeb and Antony went through Shekhar’s old and new cases.

“I don’t think it will lead to anything,” Shokie said, “but let’s not leave that stone unturned. Check if there are clients who might have reason to hold a grudge.”

“Doesn’t he give his best to all his slimy clients?” Antony said.

“There have been a few he screwed,” Shajeeb said.

“Really…?” Antony said. “A pity he feeds off criminals…”

“So do we,” Shajeeb said.

“Don’t forget the cases where he is a special public prosecutor,” Shokie said. “Maybe, someone’s trying to influence him…”

“I have made a list of those,” Shajeeb paused, “Ma’am…how about your existing cases…a long shot, I know…?”

“What can the villains in her cases hope to achieve?” Antony asked.

His senior officers did not reply. Shokie indicated with a nod that they should look through those cases too.

“What have we got from the CCTV’s around their area?” Shokie asked.

“There’s no better blind spot in the city than there at Land’s End,” Shajeeb replied.

While those investigations continued, Shokie monitored the activities of the couple. She remained in the background when the couple were together. Shokie went along, as driver and bodyguard, when Sunitha ventured out without her husband. Shokie did not raise any objections or restrictions till the tenth day.

“Do you really have to go to that school?” Shokie asked.

“Yes, I have to,” Sunitha replied, “it’s become an annual fixture. The girls will be so disappointed if I don’t turn up for their Cultural & Science Fair.”

“Can’t you do it by videoconference?” 

“No.”

“Sunitha…”

“Shirley, you should see those kids, their passion every year. These are not some rich kids with opportunity banging on their door every day. I go there often, that should do, I know…but, the girls somehow bring out their best during the annual fair…all year, they wait for it.”

Shokie did not object further.

The school is twenty-five kilometres from the city. There was no way to make the route secure for anyone other than a VVIP with category Z protection.

They prepared to leave for the school around half past nine, when it was peak time for office traffic.

“What the…” Shekhar exclaimed when the two ladies came out dressed for the occasion. Shokie’s colleagues were pleasantly surprised too.

Sunitha and Shokie had exchanged their usual mode of dress. Shokie wore an elegant cotton salwar, her hair in a soft ruffled state, even sporting a smile. Sunitha was in jeans and rough cotton shirt, hair pulled back tightly, hardly amused. Both wore dark glasses. The glass bangles remained on the hands of the rightful owner.

Sunitha took the driver’s seat in Shokie’s SUV and Shokie sat in the backseat supposedly working on a laptop. From far, they could easily be mistaken. Shajeeb and Antony went in separate vehicles, keeping some distance, one ahead the other behind, attentive and surveying for trouble.

Traffic was slow the first fifteen kilometres on the highway out of the city. After that stretch, Shokie told Shajeeb and Antony to be extra alert. The highway was not dual carriage from then on. There were many junctions, side roads and fewer people.

The attack came at one junction. A pickup truck, from a side road on the left, rammed into Shokie’s side of the SUV, throwing her across the seat. The SUV did not overturn but it went sliding to the right side of the road. In front, Sunitha got caught between seat and airbag. Shokie reached over to Sunitha, almost by reflex, held her hand, a few bloodied bangles came loose.

Two men stepped out of a parked car in the side road on the right. They were joined by the driver of the pickup truck. They wore balaclava. One of them took out a gun and shot. Sunitha hardly heard her own scream, deafened by the shot that smashed the pane on her side and the airbag. The men unlocked the door, released her safety belt. Two men grabbed her. The third kept the gun pointed at the prone figure of Shokie. They were gone in less than forty seconds. Shajeeb and Antony, their vehicles blocked by others, reached the SUV just as the car with Sunitha and her abductors raced away from the scene.

 

xxx

 

Shokie was admitted in hospital, unconscious having suffered concussion and also with a sprained hand and a more than bruised ribcage.

She had already planned for such an event. The search teams led by her subordinates found the abductors’ car in half an hour, abandoned within a rubber plantation. It was a stolen car with no leads. There were multiple tracks of vehicles from there and no reliable witnesses. The abductors must have split up. The police studied all CCTVs on routes to and from there. There were too many blind spots, uncharted paths through countryside and stretches without camera. The abductors had disappeared with Sunitha.

An abduction in broad daylight has its advantages. Everyone saw everything and nothing. Cars could speed through villages and no one would blink. The abductors had known the position of Shokie and Sunitha in the SUV. Apart from the police and the couple, the abductors could have got that information only if they had been closely monitoring the SUV during the trip. Or, if they had a camera with live feed on the SUV. That turned out to be the case. The police found a small camera wedged in the back window. Who could have placed that camera in Shokie’s SUV and when? They tried to trace the camera and its feed but that led nowhere.

That night, Antony offered to look after Shokie in hospital.

Shokie sipped gruel around eight. Around nine, a nurse checked her vitals and tried to make her take painkillers. The nurse told Antony to call her at any time during the night if there was any need. He copied his boss’s indifferent glare. She offered to check later. Shokie told her not to disturb till early morning. The nurse and her sweet smile vanished.

Antony had brought a bag with the change of clothes Shokie kept in office. He also had the torn salwar Shokie wore earlier, and the handbag she had had with her.

Shokie got up, stretched and groaned. She searched the handbag. She vaguely remembered slipping something into that before losing consciousness. She found the pieces of bloody glass bangles, next to her gun. She kept staring at that for a while. Antony thought he saw her shoulders shake with emotion.

She stepped out of the hospital wear and dressed in her clothes. Antony stared out of the window. She asked him to describe the layout of the hospital. She told him to take his car from the parking area within the hospital and park it outside on the road.

“Where are you going?” he asked. “Shouldn’t you rest?”

Around eleven, she opened the window and stepped out onto the ledge. From the darkened room, Antony watched the silhouette clamber down three floors. Shokie returned around two, back in the room through the window. She stepped out of her clothes and got onto bed in her underwear, tired and dead to the world within seconds. Antony adjusted the blanket around her, tidied and folded her clothes, wondered what she had been up to and where. He also knew that Shokie did not want him to share the night’s events with anyone, not even with Shajeeb.

 

xxx

 

Shokie checked out of the hospital at six. She dragged the groggy Antony to their office where Shajeeb was waiting. Shajeeb had been coordinating the search and tech teams. They had drawn a blank. There was not even a mobile call to trace from the area around the abduction or from there to Land’s End.

“Shekhar is our only suspect,” Shajeeb stated the obvious.

“I hope he is not the one,” Shokie said. Her subordinates were surprised and hoped the newspaper report was not right. She continued, “If he is, we are not going to find anything. He knows the system as well as us.”

They scoured all available material including feed from CCTV cameras near Shekhar’s home and office, and around the city, tracing Shekhar’s movements and contacts.

“What about tapping his phones and searching their other properties?” Shajeeb asked.

“Not now, we don’t want to get into a legal tangle,” Shokie said. “He must be expecting it, though.”

Shokie asked the tech team to find a way to enter Sunitha’s office. She could not think of a reason to do so but it had to be done. Later that day, the tech team reported that there were only two ways to enter Sunitha’s office: by breaking open the door, and using the right password. The idiots had tried a guess: Sunitha123. They had learned quickly that they could try guessing the password only two more times.

Shekhar’s office received a parcel the next morning. Shokie’s team managed to trace the delivery boy. That only led to a chain of delivery boys and a waste of time. The first one had collected the parcel from his courier office. The office did not have CCTV and the staff only remembered “a normal person, medium height, not fair not dark, wearing spectacles, sporting beard and moustache”.

The parcel had one item: a well-preserved severed little finger or pinkie of a lady’s left hand.

 

xxx

 

Shekhar sat in the living room at Land’s End, shocked, eyes distant. He had not said much since the abduction, hardly eaten anything or slept either. He managed to mumble, “That has the fingerprint to open her laptop.”

Sunitha had taken her smartphone but not the laptop. With that too, the tech team had discovered quickly that there was no way to enter the laptop without the relevant fingerprint. They had asked Shokie if they should send it to more specialized teams. Shokie had told them not to bother. She knew that Sunitha must have made sure her privacy could not be breached easily. The police had used all the fingerprints they could find in and outside the house and even in the couple’s cars. It was just a little surprising when they did not find the print of the pinkie of the left hand.

Sunitha had not set up any other barriers within the laptop, even her mail account was open. Shokie wondered if that was a lapse or by intention on Sunitha’s part. If people were ready to chop fingers, they would have the means to extract passwords too.

The first video arrived that night, around nine, as an attachment in a draft mail in Sunitha’s inbox.

Sunitha was alive. She was tied to a chair, blindfolded and gagged. The left hand was bandaged. She wore nothing but torn stained panties. Her face was swollen on one side, there were scratch marks on her breasts and thighs. She was in a nondescript room with plastic or tarpaulin on the floor and walls.

Shekhar moaned, he then sat mute, shattered, like a man who could not comprehend anything. Someone tried to make him sip water. He ran to a toilet and retched violently.

The video self-destructed after one minute.

Shokie cursed herself for not capturing that video on her smartphone or on some camera. She took out her anger on her subordinates. They had been with her in worse crimes with worse results before but they had never seen this Shokie. She seemed to be sure the case would end in disaster, from beginning till end. She still had the wits to investigate but something had broken within. They had seen such people before, people whose will to fight or survive just vanished after a tremendous loss or pain, people who felt totally responsible for a misfortune or death.

For a long while, Shokie stood by one of the windows staring at the darkness around the cliff top. Then, she sat down and wrote all she could recollect of the video. She told her team members to do the same independently. Her writing was not steady, especially when she wrote about Sunitha. She could hardly read what she wrote. One detail stuck out, though. Was there the sound of something dripping intermittently? She asked her colleagues if they had heard that. They had not noticed.

They thought that that was all there was to that night.

 

xxx

 

Hell broke loose during the night.

The local media had already started to crucify Shokie. They even insinuated that she had been lax with the case “because of her track record with Shekhar”. On TV debates, politicians of all fronts agreed that the case should be handed over to “someone better”.

Worse, the epidemic started. Similar abductions were reported across the country, in tier two and tier three cities. The abducted were both men and women, not rich not poor, not famous but reasonably well-known in their small cities. In two days, there were thirty-seven cases. And, the whole country was beginning to panic. Who next?

The media did not get to know about the video. Shokie decided to keep that under wraps as long as possible. She asked her boss to give her some more time. Forty-eight hours, he replied. She silently groaned at the cliché. Her boss informed her a little later that “a team from Centre” would be in touch soon.

The media pointed out an obvious fact. The abductors had not contacted them.

“I too find that strange,” Antony said the morning after the video arrived.

They were still at Land’s End. Shokie had decided to use that as the centre of operations.

Antony continued, “Why aren’t they seeking publicity…for whatever cause…or raising some demand?”

“They are nuts,” Shajeeb said.

Shekhar, tired and weak, mumbled, “The masters of propaganda…or the masses…who will lead…”

“What…?” Antony asked.

“I meant…” Shekhar looked confused. He was still skipping meals and sleep. “Maybe…oh, I don’t know…” he threw his head back in anguish.

Shokie handed him a glass of water.

“I think I asked you this before…” she said, “Do you have any idea about the password to enter Sunitha’s office?”

Shekhar shook his head.

Shokie went and stood by the door of Sunitha’s office, stared at the password pad. She smiled wryly, thinking of the books and movies in which passwords were guessed by amateurs and tech wizards. Or, discovered via prints on the pad.

“Girl, be kind to sister.”

 

xxx

 

Shokie received a call from “the team from Centre” before noon. The team leaders were Rao (North) and Kulkarni (Rest of India). Contrary to her expectations, they did not want her removed from the case. They informed her that they reported to the Home Minister and the NSA, and that there was tremendous pressure to get the situation under control. They also admitted that that they were clueless at the moment and appreciated the fact that Shokie had been with the case right from the start and could be the only person who had some idea or instinct to open up the case.

Shokie briefed them about nearly everything. She told them that Shekhar was the only suspect at the moment. They wanted to grab him and use the third degree. She said that might not only be futile, it might endanger the abducted. She added that she expected lots of fatalities.

They asked her if she had any idea what it was all about. She told them she had no idea whatsoever. She told them that Sunitha could have had her doubts.

She talked to them every day the next three days. They told her that people were really scared. They also mentioned a weird phenomenon. Even though there was an unofficial blackout of news on the abductions, the information seemed to be spreading far and wide. Even more strangely, people were not just avoiding news channels altogether, they were even staying away from all political and social discussions, even on social media. And, they were especially staying away from all contentious issues. It was as if the public either wanted to remain below the radar of the abductors or they were trying to be good in every way.

They told Shokie that the people in power were very disturbed with the developments, wanted quick results and had promised all available resources. They asked her if she had any suggestions.

Shokie told them to keep commando teams ready in every city where abductions had taken place. If and when they got a break, they would have to move fast at the same time at all places to minimize the risk of executions. They asked her if Sunitha could still be alive. She told them that that was most unlikely.

Three nights after the first video, around midnight, they received the second video. They were at Land’s End. Shekhar sat with them. It was even more horrific than the first.

Sunitha had clearly been abused a lot more. Like before, she was blindfolded, gagged and bound. Her body jerked involuntarily and also went limp at times. She could be feverish. The abductor could not be seen but a machete was visible on screen. When it was placed against Sunitha’s neck, Shekhar fainted. Sunitha twisted in the seat, away from the machete, her back bowed, her rear raised, she tried to turn towards the person holding the machete. She was begging for her life, the posture indicated that she was offering to continue as a sexual slave.

The video ended then and disintegrated.

 

xxx

 

Shokie moved away from the others. Shajeeb left with Shekhar in an ambulance. Antony had recorded the video on camera and gave it to Shokie. She took that and moved towards Sunitha’s office.

Shokie leaned her head against the door, the image of the frightened abused Sunitha flashed in front. Shokie clenched her fists and took deep breaths.

She forced herself to watch the video again. And again.

Something about Sunitha’s fits or convulsions caught her attention. Jerk jerk jerk limp limp limp jerk jerk jerk. She opened her notes of the first video. The dripping in the background. She tried to remember. What was dripping? She banged her head against the door. Of course, it was Sunitha’s blood from the injured left hand falling on plastic or tarpaulin. What was strange about the dripping? It was intermittent. Drops in quick succession and then at longer intervals and then again quickly. She watched the second video again.

The poor girl was trying to send a SOS in Morse code, she realized.

Shokie cursed herself, more liberally this time. She had been too affected by the abduction and played into the hands of the abductors for this long, she told herself.

Go back to square one…why did Sunitha choose me, Shokie muttered. She recollected their discussions, searching for some clue Sunitha must have left.

“…what if you are inside immobilized and we want to rescue you.”

 “I guess I will send SOS to Shokie with triple x at the end.”

Should she include SOS or try just her name, she thought; surely, Sunitha would not keep just a name.

Shokie entered on the password pad: SOStoShokiexxx.

It reported: you have one try left.

“With numerals and special characters, I presume…”

“Of course.”

“Why did you choose me?”

“Your name adds up to 13.”

Shokie tried again: S0S2Sh0k13***.

The door clicked open. She silently thanked Sunitha, entered the office and closed the door. The workstation had also turned on and there was a hum from next door.

She looked at the screen of the workstation. It said: Background job in progress. Do not switch off till it is over.

Shokie waited.

Twelve minutes later, the printer churned out pages. Once that was done, the machines went into shutdown mode.

The silence was eerie. Shokie was disappointed when she looked at the printout, ‘Hedging & Risk Management Across Sectors’. It looked like one big fat thesis: 733 pages long, with synopsis, introduction, theory, data, results dense with charts, and photos of teams and management.

Shokie read the first line of the synopsis: Here, we will explore a method to accurately determine the firm’s exposure to a corporate entity, across all asset classes and products, in every market across the globe; and, an effective hedge to manage risk.

She leaned back in Sunitha’s wooden seat, feeling the sturdy support. She looked around the office, at the neatly arranged books and disks on the shelves. It would take days to go through all that.

She opened the printout in front of her once again. She flipped through the pages one by one.

On page 73, there were two photos: one of the Risk Management team Sunitha worked with, a foreign team in suits; and, the other photo was of three men in casual dress.

There were seventeen such photos of different men and women fitted in with photos of various teams in the bank. Shokie did not recognize any of them. In one, taken at night somewhere outside, there was a silhouette of a man’s back at one edge of the photo. Shokie thought it could be Shekhar.

She went through the report again, skimming through the sections.

There were paragraphs that did not fit in.

On page 43, "I can understand it when old goofies follow diktat from higher powers and stick to party lines. That's the effect of the insecurity of mortality and the years of easy subservient life. But, how can the young choose to be silent on issues citing ideology, book or love of place or people? That's the worst scum."

There were more of such passages, long and brief, with similar conviction and incoherence.

On page 264, “Isn’t it a common belief that every ruler has to control media to rule the masses? Remember the pandemic. When the government wanted everyone locked up, the news everywhere blared about the deadly virus. When they wanted everyone to live or die with the virus, the news was restricted to the minimum, and the reports said that the virus was not all that deadly. That works most often. But what works more effectively with people like you and me, who have a trust deficit when it involves the government and the media? Word of mouth information. Consider these abductions. Each one of these abductions will create fear, each one an unimaginable nightmare. Even if the government and the media never reveal anything, that news will spread. The abducted will be someone like us. People like you and me will hear about it in their social circle. Tomorrow, your wife will wonder if you or herself or your kids could be the next one to be abducted. Can that fear be neutralized even when the abductions are stopped? With each passing day, the fear will grow and spread. With the pandemic, we tried wearing a mask or keeping social distance or observing better hygiene. With this epidemic of abductions, what do we do? There will be hope for a miracle. How long before this too is accepted as something to live with? How long will people like us pray? How long before they curse their old gods? As the fear grows, the next question in their minds will be: what have we done to deserve these abductions? Should we change ourselves? Should we put back into the bottle the genie of religion or communal hatred or distrust based on social inequality? Should we be better human beings? That is the power of gods, to rule using haphazard disasters along with the fear and the ignorance of the faithful, to make people kneel before new fears, to make them accept new rules. We will create that new god to change this world. No propaganda artist can compete with that. They can help to spread it but they cannot create such a new religion. Especially with people like you and me. That is the lot we will target. They are the ones with an opinion, the armchair philosophers, not the poor ready to revere a god if made to hop through loops, not the rich safeguarding their interests, we will target the middle who control, who rarely change, who with their beliefs and morality preserve a rotten system, who cares for their own self-preservation and nothing else, those who sup with the devil, the religious letting loose demons, the people signing off good or bad, never affected but still deciding. Just as they decide the market, they decide for the majority, untouched by riots or genocides, scratching each other’s back, settling kids abroad, crying hoarse patriotic verse. For this cause, we will even have to sacrifice what we love. Think of it as a malignant tumour. We will target that tumour: people like you and me.”

Sunitha must have digitized the photos and the manifesto, if one could call it that. She must have scattered that with financial data, impossible to retrieve without some program she ran on her machines. She must have wanted to hide it till the right person saw it, knowing that it would be destroyed otherwise.

Just another confusing irritating badly written Ayn Rand kind of rant, Shokie thought of the manifesto. She was about to close it when one line caught her eye.

On page 527, “In every revolution recorded in history, the masters of propaganda have led the masses. This time, the masses will lead the masters, with fear and doubt, scared to die.”

She could almost hear Shekhar saying snatches of those words again. It was not evidence that would hold in any court of law but she felt relieved to have something other than doubt to suspect Shekhar. Tying him to the case would be another matter, she knew. Shokie slipped the report into her backpack.

She stepped out of the office and closed the door. She tried the password once again. It said: you have two tries left.

Shokie smiled sadly.

 

xxx

 

Shokie had a few hours before her next morning meeting with Rao and Kulkarni.

She and her team went back to her office, after removing all their stuff at Land’s End. Shekhar had been admitted in hospital, and was on saline drip and other fluids. Even though it was the middle of the night, she called and informed Shekhar that they had been removed from the case and that a team from Centre had taken over. Shekhar requested her to keep looking for Sunitha.

Back in office, Shokie’s team went through the photos in the report.

Shokie read another part of the manifesto.

“How will you find people like you and me? I will step out of my car with my trolley bag, back home after the latest business trip, greet everyone in my apartment block just like every other day. I will enter my apartment, take the bag to a room fitted with plastic on floor and walls, and unpack my bag with the abducted one, drugged or unconscious. How will you find me?”

They focused on the photo with the silhouette. They agreed that the silhouette could be Shekhar only with a wild stretch of the imagination.

“Does not help, I know, but what’s Sunitha doing with all this?” Shajeeb asked.

“She must have sensed something,” Shokie shrugged.

“Or, she came across this on someone’s laptop or phone,” Antony suggested, “isn’t she good with computers? Maybe, she hacked into some account or machine.”

“Could be…” his boss said, “now, that source must be long gone…like Sunitha.”

“Ma’am…” Shajeeb said a while later.

“Hmmm…” Her forehead was on edge of the table, eyes closed.

“We will find her.”

 

xxx

 

“Let’s go back to every material we have on Shekar, newspaper reports, casefiles…” Shokie said.

Three and a half hours later, close to dawn, Antony gave them the break they desperately needed. It was a newspaper report on a conference in the city. A photo of the people on stage had Shekhar sitting to the right of the chief guest and to the extreme left, there was one of the men in the photo with the silhouette. He was a top executive of an IT firm in the city, a man originally from the North, settled in the State for many years.

Two hours later, after searching for material on this new suspect, they found one more face in the photo. A doctor in the city.

They were all like Shekhar, around the same age, well-known in the city, well-respected, “people like you and me”.

The team gathered every scrap of information with regard to the three suspects including Shekhar. They got details of family, assets, primary residence, other properties and apartments, mobile numbers, recent travel history.

 

xxx

 

At eight, Shokie shared with Rao and Kulkarni what her team had discovered. She told them that she had not made any move because she thought they should collect as much information about others too, but as soon as possible, and without a leak of what they were up to.

They agreed to use every reliable member in their organizations. They had access to large databases and technology to handle biometrics and facial recognition. Shokie thought to herself how Sunitha and her pet would have enjoyed the data mining.

The men in the seventeen photos were traced before noon. And just like what Shokie’s team had done earlier, every relevant bit of information was gathered.

Around dusk, they decided that it was time to act. The information they had was not exact or complete but the abducted had little time left to live.

Shokie and her team did not participate in the final swoop on all properties. Sixty abducted ones were discovered alive. More than twenty were dead, the actual number could be more. As Shokie had guessed, the abducted were found bound and gagged in apartments belonging to the suspects, mostly secondary residences that were temporarily vacant.

Sunitha was found, barely alive, and admitted in hospital. She was classified as most valuable witness and was to be given 24x7 VVIP security.

Shokie informed Shekhar of the news. There was still no evidence of his involvement.

Shokie went along with Shekhar to meet the doctors looking after Sunitha. They were told that Sunitha had suffered a lot and it is a miracle she survived. She is on heavy painkillers, barely conscious, she cannot have kids again, parts of her were savaged and beyond repair, they added.

Shekhar and Shokie went to Sunitha’s hospital room together. Shajeeb and Antony were on security duty outside, waiting to hand over to Central forces. They all stood by the door. Shekhar broke down when he saw Sunitha’s state, turned and moved away from the room and wept leaning against a wall. Shokie felt weak too.

One swollen eye barely open followed her.

Shokie went to Sunitha, held her, torn breast to torn breast.

“Remember the footprint,” Shokie whispered softly in Sunitha’s ear.

She moved away from Sunitha and walked out of the room.

They did not meet again.

 

xxx

 

The case was from then on handled exclusively by the team led by Rao and Kulkarni. Shokie and her team became mute spectators, having been instructed not to have any contact with the couple, especially Sunitha. With the high security shield around her, that would have been impossible anyway. They did not want any type of contamination of evidence or interrogation.

Shokie’s team was interviewed first. Sunitha was still in too bad a shape. There was still no ground for any search warrant against Shekhar till then.

Rao interviewed Sunitha a week later, when she could speak a little. She had been nearly strangled to death during the many hours of abuse.

Sunitha told the investigators that she had been bound, blindfolded and gagged all the time, even when abused. She could feel that she was in rooms with plastic on floor and walls. She thought she had been shifted at least twice.

She remembered only one detail. After she was abducted, before her torture began, she noticed one thing in the first place she was taken to.

“There was a footprint in the concrete,” Sunitha said, “like the one in the photograph at home.”

That was enough to secure a search warrant. Shekhar’s ancestral property was searched. The investigators found pieces of bloodied bangles on the grounds, close to the car park, nearly lost in the mud and plants.

The investigators already knew from Shokie’s interview that the last thing she had done before losing consciousness during the abduction was to reach out for Sunitha’s hand. That explained why Shokie’s fingerprints were on those bangles.

It was going to be a long case. Shekhar was incarcerated without bail. Shokie was not sure if the prosecution would manage to win the case. She stayed away from Sunitha knowing that any contact would be used by Shekhar. He had not protested about their brief moment together in the hospital, as yet. He might guess how those bloody broken bangles reached his property. She would not be surprised even if Shekhar turned tables and Sunitha was made out to be the mastermind. He was keeping all his cards close to his chest.