ANTI-SOCIAL NETWORK (8 page)

The day had been rough. He had left Usman Teacher without a clue as to how he was going to make good on his promise to get Usman’s case transferred to the CBI. He knew that he couldn’t ask any of his colleagues or his superiors for the fear of getting himself embroiled in an inquiry or becoming the target of interdepartmental rivalry. There were too many people gunning for Usman Teacher and Virkar did not want to get caught in the crossfire. In times like these, Virkar had found that there was only one person that he could turn to—retired Justice Joseph D’Gama, who had lent him a helping hand and extricated him from a couple of prickly situations in the past. Justice D’Gama had a soft corner for policemen and his number of years in the legal field had given him the knowledge that well-meaning policemen sometimes needed to do some fancy footwork to get their jobs done. He was also an expert in finding legal loopholes that policemen could jump through to reach their goals.

But as he was parking his Bullet outside Justice D’Gama’s ancient house in Matharpacady, Mazagaon, he received a call from Sub-Inspector Naik, his trusted subordinate whom he had sent to watch over Usman Teacher. Naik had dropped a bombshell: Usman Teacher had been taken ill and moved to J.J. Hospital before Naik had even reached the Jagtap Circle lock-up. Virkar had barked instructions to Naik, asking him to rush to J.J. Hospital. He himself had turned his Bullet in the direction of J.J. and had made it there within fifteen minutes. But when he reached the hospital, he had come to know that Usman Teacher was in the ICU and was being given emergency revival treatment as he had suffered a massive cardiac arrest. Virkar’s own heart had sunk really low, knowing that he would not see Usman alive again. And sure enough, after three hours of waiting, Usman Teacher was declared dead.

Virkar had found out that after he had left that morning, Usman had had his breakfast, immediately after which he had asked to be taken to the bathroom. But halfway there, he had crumpled and fallen to the floor. At first, the constable accompanying him had assumed that Usman had just fainted but he soon noticed that Usman wasn’t breathing and his face was drained of all colour. The doctor called on the scene had found that Usman had a blocked coronary artery that had spasmed, causing his heart to go into ventricular fibrillation. The thought of asking the doctor to conduct a post-mortem of the contents of Usman’s stomach to check the presence of any sort of poison that could have brought on the heart attack crossed Virkar’s mind, but he checked himself in time. There was no bringing Usman back. The thing to do now was to disassociate himself from the situation, unless he wanted to meet a similar fate.

Virkar had headed to the Crime Branch Headquarters with a story ready, in case he was brought in to the inquiry that would follow. He would now have to watch every little step of his, knowing that he would come under the scanner since he had met Usman just a short while before he had died. As he entered the office, he decided to take the bull by the horns. He walked straight into ACP Wagh’s cabin and told him everything that Usman had said. He just left out the small part where Usman had insisted that his case be transferred to the CBI, as he was scared for his life. ACP Wagh was a veteran at handling such situations and had asked Virkar to write a full report and file it immediately so that everyone was aware that Virkar had met Usman Teacher before his death. This report would ensure that Virkar, through his actions, had nothing to hide, and even though people might suspect that Usman Teacher had given Virkar some information that could be potentially harmful to them, Virkar was only interested in his own case. Virkar would be seen as a team player and a potential crisis would be averted.

Virkar had spent the day writing out the report and filing it, all the while making sure that he avoided answering any questions that came his way. He had even avoided Naina’s calls during the day, knowing that he needed to focus on saving his skin rather than indulge in thoughts of sex. As he had left that evening, though, he had called Naina and told her all that had transpired. She had asked him to come over, but he had decided against it—the Anti-Social Network needed his urgent attention, as did Sagarika. Making an excuse, he had headed towards Ferry Wharf after picking up his favourite food and alcohol.

Now out on the open sea, as he lay on the bench on the deck of the Koli Queen and gazed up at the stars, a plethora of thoughts rushed through his head. By now, Usman’s waiter khabri would have got the news of Usman’s demise and would have dropped off the face of the earth. He was back to square one, but he had something to go by—the mysterious Anti-Social Network Usman had mentioned.
Who were the two girls involved in the group along with Kshitij and Rajesh? Were they Sagarika and Nayantara? Who was the boy in the video on Rajesh’s iPod?

Somewhere between the hundreds of thoughts swimming about in his head, Virkar began to drift into sleep, his tired body now begging for rest. But not before the final question of the evening popped into his mind:
Twinkle twinkle little star, kyon meri lagti hai baar baar?

‘Y
ou’re joking, right?!’ Richard exclaimed, looking at Naina incredulously.

They were back to the high-ceilinged classroom at Willingdon College, having resumed the counselling session for the first time after the hostage drama that had ensued there. Richard had disappeared again for a few days after the incident and Naina had let him be. She had felt that he needed a break since he had undergone a harrowing experience. But then she had come to know that Richard had been seen lurking around the street where drug dealers plied their wares. She had immediately decided to tighten the screws on him once again and had summoned Richard back to their sessions. Richard had been reluctant but had, once again, given in to her threats of discussing his situation with his parents.

Now, seated in front of Naina, he had been tuning out her voice until he heard her say, ‘I think you and I should help the police in their investigation of this serial-killer case.’ This got Richard’s undivided attention. His jaw had dropped in shock as he stared at Naina, still reeling from her outrageous suggestion.

Naina, on her part, was only thinking about engaging Richard’s energies towards more positive pursuits. The alacrity with which Richard had responded to the threat posed by Usman Teacher had impressed Naina to no end. Virkar had expressed his team’s inability to establish a connection with the college students who could perhaps provide important information on the case. The youth were either wary of the police or downright scared, and it was difficult to establish any useful connection in such a scenario. Also, the fact that Richard had computer hacking skills was something that went in his favour. As soon as she had heard about the existence of the Anti-Social Network from Virkar, she had realized that he was out of his depth and needed a young ‘inside man’, so to speak, and she believed that Richard would fit this role beautifully.

Richard, of course, came up with the standard excuse that his age group was known to use while trying to avoid an important task. ‘My nerves are fried; I need to go to Goa to chill out,’ he said, trying to sound stressed.

But Naina was not one to back down easily. She tried to spin an elaborate scenario where he was being lauded by the top authorities of the Mumbai Police for capturing miscreants who were blackmailing people. Richard, however, laughed at her suggestion, saying that he had no belief in authority and did not trust the police. After all, he hadn’t even got any credit for helping to capture Usman Teacher. Naina countered his argument by saying, ‘You should learn to appreciate the joys of altruism—helping out others without being selfish.’

Richard continued to laugh. ‘Don’t do Gandhipanti with me, ma’am. I’ve helped out enough number of people to know that there’s no joy in it.’

Naina was about to say something when Richard continued, ‘Naina ma’am, I think you have your heart in the right place, but not your head. Have you even considered the dangers of getting mixed up in police investigations?’

‘I just want to help Sagarika because my biggest fear is that the police will be ham-handed in their investigation, causing further harm to the fragile psyche of the girl,’ Naina said in all seriousness. ‘I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m ready to do anything towards this end, even if that involves some harmless arm-twisting. After all, how dangerous could a few interactions with Virkar be?’ She fixed a determined eye on Richard and finally threw down the ace that she had kept up her sleeve. ‘I’ll get you off these faltu counselling sessions and will take responsibility for any trouble that you might get into with the authorities.’ From the look on Richard’s face, she knew that she had got him, but she waited for him to say it out land.

After a couple of minutes of considering her offer, Richard rose from his seat. ‘Okay, done. Just call me when you want me.’ He turned and walked towards the door of the classroom.

Naina, who was taken by surprise by his abruptness, called out behind him, ‘Where are you going? The counselling session is…’

‘…over,’ said Richard, cutting her off mid-sentence. Then, without another word, he walked out of the room, down the staircase and out of the college premises. Somewhere out on the street, a thought suddenly struck him. ‘Shit, man, I won’t be able to snort with the cop around. What did I just sign up for?’

‘T
his is a waste of time,’ Virkar said for the third time that evening. He was pacing up and down the small room in Khotachiwadi that housed Richard’s hacking equipment. Having been cooped up in the room with Naina and Richard for the past five hours, his patience was quickly wearing thin. For the past two hours, he had been cursing himself silently for letting himself be convinced by Naina to go on what now seemed like a wild goose chase.

He had arrived at his office that morning not in the best of moods; all his ruminations aboard the Koli Queen a few days ago had not resulted in any concrete insights. For the next few days, he was at a bit of a loose end, dealing with paperwork and trying to figure out how to take things forward on his case. That morning, though, to his surprise, he saw Naina waiting for him at his desk. He was a little unsure when Naina suggested that he use Richard’s hacking skills on Rajesh Chawre’s and Kshitij Bhatia’s computers to track down any leads about the Anti-Social Network that might have been missed by the experts at the police Cyber Crime Cell. As far as Virkar knew, the Cyber Crime Cell was very good at its job and would not really have missed anything. But Naina had persisted and, looking back at that moment, Virkar felt that he had given in to her idea perhaps because he could spend a little time with her. He kicked himself mentally for letting his personal desire cloud his professional judgement. He threw Richard yet another irritated look but Richard was lost to the world, staring at the computer monitors in front of him, sitting exactly in the same position since Virkar had arrived with Rajesh Chawre’s hard disk and Kshitij Bhatia’s laptop five hours ago.

Getting no response from Richard, Virkar turned his attention to Naina. She was sitting on a makeshift wooden-crate chair, looking as antsy as him. She returned Virkar’s look with a shrug that suggested that he remain patient for some more time. But Virkar was fresh out of patience. Having perhaps sensed the mood of his guests, Richard suddenly said, ‘Why don’t you two take a quick walk around Khotachiwadi and be back in ten minutes? I might have something for you by then.’ Virkar was about to retort irritably but Naina quickly sprang up from her chair and butted in. ‘That’s a great idea. C’mon, Virkar, let’s go. Richard, we’ll be back soon.’ She strode up to Virkar and despite his protesting looks, led him out of the room and into the narrow gali.

As soon as Virkar and Naina had left the room, Richard got up from his chair and walked up to the exposed brick wall across from him. Lifting two fingers, he pushed against the corner of a single brick in the middle of the wall. The brick swivelled in its place, opening up a small gap in the wall. Richard slid his fingers into the hole and withdrew a vial full of a white powdery substance. He walked to the table in front of him and from a drawer withdrew a hand-mirror and an empty transparent plastic ballpoint pen tube. He quickly emptied the contents of the vial on to the mirror and let the white powder sit in a small mound on the glass. Using the pen tube to separate the white powder into two thin lines on the glass, he placed the tube at one end of the line of powder after he was satisfied with his crude handiwork. Lowering his head, he gently put the other end of the tube into his right nostril and drew a massive snort. He then repeated the same operation using his left nostril and snorted the remaining line of powder.

Wiping the mirror clean, Richard put it back in his drawer. He quickly replaced the refill in the ballpoint pen tube and screwed on the end. Dropping the ballpoint pen into the drawer as well, he shut it and then stepped back towards the wall to place the now empty vial in the cavity behind the brick, which he finally closed with his two fingers. Richard then turned and walked back to his computer table. Just as he sat down, the door opened and Virkar and Naina walked in. Richard looked towards them and smiled. ‘Ah, just in time,’ he said.

Virkar did not return his smile but shot back a terse, ‘Have you found something?’

Richard kept smiling, turning his gaze on to Naina. ‘Why don’t you both sit down?’

‘Arre, don’t
khao bhao
, Mr Computer Genius. Tell us quickly.’ The irritation in Virkar’s voice was palpable now.

Clearing his throat, Richard began, ‘Kshitij Bhatia was sexually involved with Sagarika, perhaps he was her boyfriend. He apparently met her when she got mixed up with some druggies. Somewhere along the line, Sagarika was suddenly contacted by Rajesh Chawre, who said that he was a member of the Anti-Social Network. Rajesh sent Sagarika a video of her having sex with Kshitij in one of her drugged-out periods. He then demanded money from Sagarika, threatening to go public with the video if she didn’t pay up. She was scared and didn’t know what to do; in any case, she didn’t have the money to pay Rajesh. She went to Kshitij for help. But instead of defending her, Kshitij called her a whore. When she couldn’t deliver the money on the date and time that she was assigned, Rajesh sent her a last warning. Sagarika then sent an email to Kshitij, pleading, cajoling and finally threatening him with dire consequences if he didn’t do anything to get her out of the mess.’