“Usko out kar, yaar!”
It was the last over of a frenetic match. As the ball sailed over the captain’s head after his exclamation, tempers frayed even further. The next deliveries—marked by prolonged deliberations, interpretations of the game, and yelling—yielded a boundary, followed by a hattrick of wickets, and more noise. The equation came down to six runs off the final ball with a wicket remaining.
Even Peter, who was the farthest thing from an ardent cricket devotee, found himself transfixed by the spectacle. “Impossible to see such pure emotion and passion in professional sports,” he thought. Just then, the batter slogged the ball a long distance. Cue the inevitable cacophony of voices. “Four,” shouted a trio. “No, six,” erupted the opponents. A fight seemed to be brewing, but after a minute examination of the makeshift boundary line and the ‘mark’ made by the ball, the teams begrudgingly decided on a six. As the winners broke into a celebration, the other team promised to exact revenge in the next match—“agle match me dekh lenge!”
Peter moved away from the battlefield, only to turn back and hear a dull thud. Whatever was going on there had been interrupted by a steel lunch box that flew and landed close to the tower of bricks that functioned as one of the stumps. Peter instinctively looked up but could make out no one looking over the flyover. “Probably someone from a moving car … ”, he muttered. He made towards the place the box had landed, but the children had mobbed around the box by then, and were about to examine its contents. Soon, cheers rang out. “Certainly an unexpected reward for a hard-fought match, and a half-day of hunger,” thought Peter, as he allowed himself the briefest of smiles.
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Peter Ramanujan continued on his way to the Brahmatalab police station in Mayanagari town. He had been invited out of the blue by his dear friend, Inspector Ashok Ghosh. “I wonder what he wants to meet me for,” he thought.
Ten minutes on a straight path from the spot where he had watched the cricket match brought him to the mouth of the Brahmatalab road, locally known as the police thana road. The road was fragrant and tree-lined, but despite its peaceful environs, suffice it to say that the street and the police station on it had, over the years, gobbled up all the foul secrets and mysterious events from the neighbourhood and some other adjoining areas. “I just hope it’s not another case,” Peter mouthed, as a silent prayer escaped his lips.
His prayer was not heard. After five more minutes of walking, Peter stood in front of the station—a one-storey greyish-yellow affair that looked more like a homely cottage than an office building, with a blue-and-red board proudly spelling out BRAHMATALAB POLICE STATION in white, its address and contact details in black. The cottage was surrounded by a well-maintained garden filling the air with a fragrant, infectious smell, but Peter was not distracted by the blooms.
He found the station to be in a state of unusual activity. Several jeeps and vans stood outside the gate, and a constant stream of police personnel issued back and forth. “Maaf kijiye, par Ashok Ghosh kahan milenge?” he asked, just as a khaki-clad constable rushed out of the station gates and jumped into a jeep. “Sorry, no time,” the constable yelled before the jeep rode off. “Ah, Ramanujan ji, you are just in time,” called out a voice. Peter turned around, and came face-to-face with Ramnath the sub-inspector. “Aap hi ko khonj rahe the—Ashok sir se ek message aaya hai ki aapko crime scene par laya jaaye.”
“Par huya kya hai, Ramnath ji?”
“Ek accident. Koi big-wig involved hai. Hanuman mandir golchakkar ke wahan. Aap aa rahe ho?”
There goes my day of peace, Peter cussed himself. He hadn’t even stepped inside the station, before he was ushered into a mobile van as it drove off, sirens blaring, along the same route he had come from. As they approached the junction of police thana road and the main thoroughfare, Peter was seized by a sudden desire to catch a momentary glimpse of the children playing cricket under the flyover. He wanted to revel in the youthful exuberance of a children’s game, before the senses-numbing, almost dehumanising, demands of a morbid crime scene took over. “Do minute kahin jaa sakte hai?”
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Peter and Ramnath could not quite believe what they were seeing. The state of shock lasted for a second, before instinct took over. Rushing out of the car, they sped to the first child lying on the ground. Within a minute, they had checked the pulses of all the children and a woman lying on the ground—to no avail. They were all dead—some clutching their stomach, others their throat; a few clawing and scratching the ground; some had fallen over to their sides or on their backs, while the woman, her head hanging limp, had tightly grasped two children to her bosom as if to protect them from some faceless enemy.
Their faces—some with eyes open, others closed—were contorted into visages of sheer, unimaginable agony which somehow still spoke volumes of their desperate attempts to cling to life. These life-like expressions of the dead would haunt Ramnath and Peter for a long time.
It was then that Ramnath observed the weird, misshapen blotches of cherry red and pink on the mouths and skins of the deceased—telltale signs of mass cyanide poisoning. “Yahan pe huya kya hai? Aur aap yahan kyu aana chahte the?” he asked. “Woh main baad mein batayunga. Pahle aap yahan se sab saaman aur saboot ikatthe karne ka bandobast kijiye. Laashen ko bhi le jaana padega.” Peter somehow managed, despite the storm raging inside him.
A moment later, recognition seemed to dawn upon Ramnath. “Aare, inhe toh maine pichle hafte hi yahan se hataya tha. Phir yeh yahan kaise?” Peter didn’t reply, but it was not hard for him to realise that the children must have still not got over their attachment to their old haunting grounds, and had returned once the vigilance had been lifted. “And on this very day …”
For quite some time, Peter’s attention had been drawn to the steel lunch box lying in the midst of the corpses. “Wasn’t this the one that flew off the bridge?” he pondered, taking a closer look but not handling it. Its lid, neatly labelled ANIL, lay some distance apart, but the contents of the box—matar paneer, daal, and maybe some chapattis—were nearly emptied. “Ramnath ji, iss box ko savdhani se lijiye. Isme shayad zahar hai,” Peter called out. When he found a moment to himself, he started crying—"the curse of the gift from the heavens” was his repeated, cryptic refrain.
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Twenty minutes later, the mobile van reached the accident spot. Inspector Ashok Ghosh had completely forgotten why he had invited Peter Ramanujan in the first place. Hiding his embarrassment, however, Ashok hailed Peter the moment he stepped out of the van.
“Peter, eshe gecho? Dekho ki kaando hoyeche ekhane! Aaj thekei baajar gorom hobe—shohor-r bikkhato byabshayi, Anil Mahajan, ei accident-e gurutoro bhaabe jokhmi.”
“When do I ever meet you without some kind of ‘incident’ happening?” thought Peter, a tad unkindly. Aloud, he said, “Sheh ki bolchen moshai?Shedin-i toh shunlam shohor-r nagar nigam abar korar contract peyeche. Aar aajkei ei obostha!”
Anil Mahajan happened to be the kingpin of Mahajan Constructions, a civil construction company that invariably took over any and all major construction projects in the city, public or private. Its modus operandi involved making use of its exhaustive network of eyes to spy on the operations of all its rivals, outbidding them always at the last possible moment. It had many enemies, but sabotaging its operations was out of the question—it had already driven most of its rival businesses into bankruptcy. Mahajan and his enterprise enjoyed considerable clout in political and private circles—his mansion, the largest in the city, was a seat of power in itself where deals were forged and lives ruined before they became public knowledge, and was located in the aptly named Mahajan Hills, a sprawling privately-owned property spread over 150 acres of sparse hilly forestland. “For such a person to meet such an ignominious fate—what a fall!” wondered Peter.
“Kintu accident-i jodi hoye thake, ami ki korbo?” Peter asked Ashok. “Aage shono toh, Peter,” replied Ashok. “Amio ghotona-sthole pouche bhebechilam normal accident hoyeche. Kintu ekhane byesh koyekjon amake janaye je crash-r aage Anil naki shahojjo or jonne chitkar korchilo gaari theke. Bolchilo je brake kaaj korche na. Onno gaari-r lokera-o eki kotha boleche.”
The car, it turned out, had overshot the traffic signal at the Hanuman mandir golchakkar—and, instead of turning right, had gone straight, veered and then crashed into the boundary wall of the premises of the state’s Civic Works Department headquarter. “Ebar toh Department-ta-ke kichu ekta nijeder-kei thik kore meramot korte hobe,” muttered Peter to himself. After all, the Civics Department was infamous for never ever letting its tools and men repair the crumbling buildings and roads.
A man emerged from the wreckage of the car. It was sheer luck that a malfunctioning car speeding at over 80 kilometres an hour had not caused a single casualty, owing to the unusually empty road at that time. The man—a mechanic who had been called to quickly ascertain the cause of the accident—confirmed that the car’s brakes had indeed been tampered with in a manner that “driving above 60 kilometres an hour meant that he was a dead man.” “I will of course have to analyse the mechanism of tampering,” the mechanic continued. “But, I also feel that an accelerant may have been mixed in the car’s fuel, ensuring that the car could never have slowed down. It was a death trap on wheels—and my guess is that it was meant for Anil Mahajan only.”
Peter and Ashok silently agreed with that last assessment. It was a well-known fact that if there was one thing Anil Mahajan took pride in apart from his construction empire, it was his fleet of seven high-end luxury cars—one for each day of the week. It was also widely known that Anil always drove the cars himself—"I could never entertain the idea of someone else driving my hard-earned cars,” he had once bluntly stated in an interview. So, it was quite a shock last week when people on the streets saw Anil’s car—the same one that was wrecked in this accident—being driven into a mechanic’s shop by Samir, his eldest son. Anil himself was nowhere to be seen, and when tabloids pushed him for an answer, “no comment” was all he would offer.
This line of thought, however, also opened the distinct and uncomfortable possibility that this incident may have been an inside job, involving immediate family member(s) or someone hired by them. Ashok therefore dispatched three officers from the scene to the Mahajans’ residence to interview them and check their stories. At that moment, Ramnath came with a report: “Anil ji ko City Heights Hospital bheja gaya hai. Unki sthiti kaafi naazuk hai.”
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“Brain haemorrhage. Neck break. Rib fracture. Bleeding in lungs.” Peter and Ashok listened to the doctor in the emergency ward of City Heights Hospital list out the near-fatal diagnosis. “External lacerations bhi bahut saare huye hain. Jab laaye gaye the, tab we kaafi gehre saadme me bhi the—abhi sedate kiya hai humne. Do-teen ghante me hosh aa bhi sakta hai, but kuch kah nahi sakte.”
Peter and Ashok looked at the barely breathing Anil Mahajan. There was no doubt that, had he been conscious, his state and the doctor’s diagnosis would have given him a nasty shock. It was just as well, but in this state, Anil resembled a mummy somehow brought to life. Bandages were wrapped around his face, arms, and chest, almost serving as a life support. His legs, which had miraculously escaped any kind of injury, barring the odd scratch or two, were barely moving—owing, no doubt to the sedation, but also creating the illusion that the shattered upper portion of his body was where his life resided the most.
“Par doctor, aapne bataya ki Anil ji kuch baat kar rahe the?” Ashok finally asked.
“Haan, kuch barbara rahe the. Ek minute… ” Hailing a passing ward boy, the doctor said, “Ekbar Ramesh ko bulana.” As the boy ran off, the doctor added, by way of explanation, “Ramesh ne hi kuch suna tha.” Accompanying the ward boy, Ramesh, the male nurse, arrived a few minutes later. Ashok repeated the question. “Pakka toh nahi kah sakta, sahib, par aisa lag raha tha ki ‘maar dala, maar dala—sab mere dushman.’ baar-baar barbara rahe the. Kuch der baad mujhe ‘Samir, Sunil, Amar’, ye teen naam bhi sunayi diye.”
Ashok and Peter nodded their heads meaningfully. The incoherent talk of a man in a delirious state did not mean anything, but Samir, Sunil, and Amar also happened to be the names of Anil’s three sons—and the squabbling successors to his empire. Together, the three sons, their wives, and Anil were the very portrait of a dysfunctional family, united only by thoughts of greed and more greed. Ironically, even though they each had different visions, none of the sons showed any inclination to continue the construction business. And so, despite its stature, Mahajan Constructions’ existence seemed inextricably tied to Anil Mahajan’s.
The inspector’s phone rang. As Peter and Ramnath watched, Ashok’s face grew cloudier and more grim. By the time the call was over, Ashok wanted to bang his face against the wall. Having decided otherwise, and after taking a long breath, he relayed what he had heard: “The team from Mahajan Hills just called. All members of the Mahajan family have been killed, no exceptions. Cyanide poisoning suspected.”
At that moment, Peter and Ramnath’s blood ran colder than it had ever done.
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Peter had no desire to visit Mahajan Hills—one scene of massacre had tormented him sufficiently. Directing Ramnath to keep watch over Anil and to report any developments, Ashok rushed over to Mahajan Hills. He drove through the gates of the stately mansion, coming to a halt in front of the portico with arched pillars. One of the constables greeted him and accompanied him to the scene of carnage, past the copiously weeping maali (gardener) standing at the doorway.
The first thing that caught one’s eye on entering the Mahajan’s mansion were the gigantic white-marble statues of gods and goddesses from the Hindu pantheon kept at various corners of the massive living space. The Mahajans liked to think of themselves as deities presiding over the lives of whoever stepped foot inside their house, and this installation of statues served to inspire awe and reverence among the visitors. This time, however, they stood as mute, omniscient witnesses refusing to say whodunnit—“as if they had run out of boons to bestow upon the family, and had instead meted out divine justice for a change,” thought Ashok. The very next moment, he corrected his line of thought—“but, surely, murder is very much a human act.”
Five officers were minutely analysing and scraping the room for prints, and other evidence. Ashok surveyed the scene—one of the officers was kneeling near the corpse of Amar, who had collapsed, face-forward, on the first landing of the staircase that led to the floor above. The three wives had evidently been sitting on the sofa in the sitting room, but death took different forms with them. Amar’s wife had pitched forward, nearly shattering the glass table in front of the sofa. Samir’s wife was still sitting clawing at her throat, head hung back over the sofa, eyes bulging open. Sunil’s wife, meanwhile, had fallen sideways on the floor, a trickle of blood around the portion of head that had struck the ground, mouth open with the tongue hanging out. In the kitchen adjoining the dining space, Sunil himself lay half-kneeling, head slumped, an arm trying to reach the tap in the sink. Samir lay fully on the floor, limbs in a posture that suggested wild thrashing movements before death, and a light pink foam issuing from a wide-open mouth.
Ashok fell sick to the stomach. He had already observed the same misshapen cherry red/pink blotches on the victims’ skins which Peter had observed in the children and mother. An officer came forward to tell him that some traces of a cyanide derivative had been detected on each of the dishes and glasses in the kitchen as well as those on the dining table. “Kisi ne kuch haath toh nahin lagaya? Hamesha gloves aur mask pehne raho.” Having barked out the directions, the inspector then proceeded to call one of the officers, and instructed him to have all the bodies transported to the morgue in the police headquarters [since the Brahmatalab police station itself didn’t have one]. “When will it all end today?” Ashok asked himself wearily.
The maali’s pathetic sobs could still be heard from outside the door. Still in his mask and gloves, Ashok enquired, “Aap hi maali ho? Aapne hi laashein pahle dekhi?”
“Ji, saab …”
“Kya hua ab khulke batao.”
“Saab, mai pedo par paani de raha tha. Aaj meri tankhwah milni thi, isiliye paani dene ke baad maine ghar ka bell bajaya—do-teen-baar. Jab kisine darwaza nahin khola, tab samne waale khirki se jhaanke dekha toh kuch ajeeb laga. Maine bohut chillaya, par kisine jawaab nahi diya. Tabhi mujhe laga ki kuch garbar hai.”
“Hmm. Tab kya hua?”
“Mere samajh me kuch aaya nahi. Tabhi doodhwala aaya. Humne darwaza torne ki bohut koshish ki, lekin darwaza hili hi nahi. Hum police ko phone lagane waale hi the, ki aap policewaale idhar pahuche. Ab maalik ko hum kya bataye?”
Ashok thought it prudent not to mention
anything about Anil’s death. Instead he changed tack.
“Jab tum yahan paani de rahe the, kisi ko ghar se nikalte dekha? Ghar se
nikalne ke liye aur koyi khirki–darwaze hai?”
“Nahi, saab. Muje kuch maalum nahi.”
“Theek hai. Tum yahi khare raho—kahin jaana nahin.”
Ashok turned to join the investigator’s activities, but the maali’s voice beckoned him.
“Saab … kuch batana chahta hoon.”
“Haan, batao?”
“Saab, mare huye logon ke baare me kuch bura toh nahin kahna chahiye, par kaal shaam ko maine inhi logon ko ghar me baat karte suna tha. Bade saab uss wakt ghar me nahin the, isliye kaafi zor se baatein kar rahe the. Kya batayun saab? Sunte hi mere toh hosh hi urr gaye.”
Ashok egged the gardener on.
“Saab, ye log acche nahin the. Kal shaam ko ye log bade saab ko maarne ka plan bana rahe the. Kah rahe the ki agle din saab ke tiffin-khaane me jahar milakar unka kaam tamam kar denge. Koi wasiyat ko lekar bahut pareshan the sabhi log. Mai chori-chupe puri baat sunkar wahan se bhaag gaya, lekin thodi door jakar me raaste ke paas khada raha. Jab bade saab gaadi leke gujre, maine unki gaari roki aur unhe poori baat batayi. Unhone mujhe kisi dusre ko bilkul nahin batane ke liye, so maine kiya. Lekin ye mamla mujhe dara kar rakh diya hai. Bade saab thik hai na?”
The confession of the gardener hit Ashok like a thunderbolt. But, it had only served to complicate matters. Who had killed the would-be murderers? And, how did Anil Mahajan become a victim of a planned accident, when the plan actually was to poison him at long distance?
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“Arre, mai toh yeh tiffin box headquarters me bheja hi nahi. Kya mai jaayu?” Ramnath’s remark broke Peter out of his reverie.
“Nahi, abhi chod dijiye. Results toh waise bhi mil gaye. Abhi Anil ji par nazar rakhna aur bhi zaruri hai.”
At around the same time, around 20 kilometres away, Ashok was racing to meet a certain Ravi Bansal, lawyer in the firm Jajwala and Sons. Ravi and Ashok had crossed paths several times before, their first encounter dating back to their childhoods. Ravi, Ashok, and Peter went to the same school where they were known to be top-class pranksters and troublemakers.
Ashok met Ravi not on the premises of Jajwala and Sons, but in Ravi’s house. As Ashok sank into the leather sofa, Ravi asked, “Ashok, what brings you here? Have you thought of a new chapter for The Book of Practical Tricks? Hey, look at this! I am working on an entire section of tricks involving water.” Ashok took the scratch pad, but its contents failed to amuse him. Seeing the cloud descend on his friend’s face, Ravi asked, “Ashok, what’s the matter? Is there something you are not telling me?”
“Have you seen the news?”
“No. I have just returned today, from my annual vacation.”
“Anil Mahajan was in a car crash today. He is in a critical condition. But, that’s not all. His entire family was murdered today. Poisoned.”
“But, I… I do not understand. What are you saying? Why, it was only last week that… ”
“Yes, Ravi?”
“What I wanted to say was that it was only last week that Anil ji changed his will in my presence and registered a new one. This was the day before I left for my leave. The new will is in the office.”
“Ravi, I am in a bit of a hurry, but could you quickly explain the differences? It could give us a motive for the incidents.”
“Why, yes, of course. It’s all pretty simple. The earlier will had divided all properties and assets equally among his three sons and their families—the divisions clearly outlined. However, since none of the sons and their families had shown any desire to continue the operations of Mahajan Constructions, he had revoked all the earlier provisions in this new will, and had instead bequeathed everything to a heritage conservation trust. Unless anything drastic happened at all, the will was to be made binding today, via an announcement.”
“Why, that’s pretty straightforward and convenient,” thought Ashok. A couple of possibilities had sprung to his mind, but only one could explain the change in modus operandi and how the would-be murderers ended up dead.
“Ravi, think carefully before answering, but did Anil have any offspring or family members other than these three? What I mean is, he may not have publicly acknowledged them, but legally, they could still have a claim to what the wills offered?
“I know what you are implying, but no. Anil ji was pretty firm on this point. And, neither have we received any such claims to this day.”
That shut the door on the possibility as soon as it had opened.
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More than four hours had passed since Anil Mahajan had been sedated. He had already been carried on a wheel stretcher to one of those private cabins in the hospital reserved for the super-rich and powerful. An attendant kept a watch on the patient, noting down the patient’s vitals and administering drugs intravenously from time to time, according to the doctor’s instructions.
Outside the room, Ashok, Peter, and Ramnath stood in deep conversation. They had already exchanged notes from the three incidents, and the fog had gradually lifted. Peter had offered an explanation that connected the three—yes, all three—incidents, but whether they could prove its veracity was a different matter altogether. At the most, they were banking on a kind of indirect confirmation, which would hold little value in a court. But, then again, none of the three present expected the case to make it to court. Which is also the reason why they had agreed to carry out an unconventional experiment.
The doctor came out of the patient’s room. “Anil ji is now conscious and awake,” the doctor said. “However, he cannot speak, as his vocal cords have received extensive damage. At the moment, he can only barely shake his head.” The three men nodded. Then, Ashok entered the room. Ramnath followed, carrying with him some items: car keys, sunglasses, a damaged leather briefcase, a pair of shoes, a blood-stained overcoat, a steel lunch box, and a plate. Peter entered the room last, standing close to the doorway.
Peter, sitting beside Anil, grasped Anil’s hands, before saying, “Anil ji, what happened to you was absolutely shocking. We are trying to get to the bottom of the matter as soon as possible. Can you please take a look at the following items and see if you can recognize them? No, no—please do not move yourself. Just nod your head to say yes, and shake for a no. Okay?”
With an almost imperceptible jerk of the head, Anil nodded yes.
“Ramnath!”
Ramnath came forward with the shoes, displaying all sides and angles to the patient. As Anil’s eyes followed the motion, he slowly shook his head once.
Next came the car keys. Anil nodded his head.
The sunglasses elicited another no.
The leather briefcase, on the other hand, was recognised.
At this moment, in came the doctor with an attendant carrying a pot full of khichdi. “I am sorry, gentlemen, but I must ask you to stop for a bit. Anil ji must have some food.” The attendant, in the meantime, poured some of the watery food into the plate, and some into the lunch box that Ramnath had earlier kept on the chair to show Anil. As the attendant slowly brought the plate before Anil’s eyes, he scooped a spoonful and brought it close to Anil’s mouth. By then, Ashok, Ramnath, and Peter had already seen the visible panic-ridden change in the patient’s movements. Eyes bulging wide, Anil frantically shook his head to the extent possible, and clenched his hands tightly. His body trembled, and he actively tried to avoid being fed the food. The doctor also observed this, and asked the attendant to stop. “Anil ji, you must have some food, otherwise you will become too weak. Or, do you want to be fed from the tiffin box?” And, thus, the same action was repeated with the lunch box. This time, Anil’s reaction was even more vehement. “Strange, I have never seen anyone react so violently to a meal of plain khichdi.” He made a note to later check if Anil had any existing food allergies, particularly to khichdi or any of its ingredients.
But, Peter, Ashok, and Ramnath had come to a different conclusion from the events that transpired. Closely watching the entire proceedings was the lid of the lunch box—the lid with the name ANIL.
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A little time later, Peter found himself alone in the hospital cabin with Anil. He had requested his good friend to grant him this time. Ashok understood immediately, particularly since it was Peter’s explanation of the entire sequence of events, which he had outlined previously, that made the most sense.
Peter took a deep breath. Followed immediately by a long sigh.
He was scared. Scared of what he was about to do. “A long day of dealing with death, non-stop, tends to do that to you … ” he tried to rationalise. But, what good, if any, were these actions going to serve?
Ever since the death of the children, there
was a nagging sensation at the back of his head—the kind that makes you want to
take a hatchet to your own head. A part of him had then fuelled this into a
fire of righteous indignation, as news of more deaths rolled in. And now,
having figured out the disparate threads of the affair, he wanted an outlet. It
was selfish, petty, no doubt—and it would only serve to prolong the suffering
and torment of himself and the patient. But, at this moment, no torture seemed
to be greater than what he was going through, silently.
Peter slowly approached the victim. After comparing his thoughts with the
inspector’s findings, a certain structure had come to his mind. Anil Mahajan
must have told the family about his intentions to not leave behind a single
penny, as long as they didn’t take up the mantle of Mahajan Constructions. The
greedy vultures would then have given in to their murderous impulses—the first
prey being Samir, who acted on his own. The tampering of the brakes and the car
fuel would have been done when Samir took the car for repairs—incidentally, the
very day Anil Mahajan finalised his new will. Samir must have told no one about
it; otherwise the second attempt made no sense, especially since Anil’s driving
schedule of ‘one car a day’ was fairly easy to deduce.
“So, what about the failed attempt, and how did the children get mixed up in this? And why did the family end up dead?” Inspector Ashok’s question came to Peter’s mind. The gardener’s account was vital to unpick the mystery here. Having learnt about the family’s poisoning plans, Anil Mahajan would have been furious. That he had taken matters into his own hand should come as no surprise. He must have gotten hold of some cyanide poison after his conversation with the maali. Later, at night or very early in the morning, when the entire family was asleep, he would have tiptoed into the kitchen, smeared the poison all over the utensils, leaving no one any the wiser. Later, on the way to his destination, acting on the maali’s warnings, he had dropped the lunch box off the bridge from his speeding car. It is possible that the choice of spot was completely random, or he may have seen it empty sometime over the week—either way, this act had the horrific consequences which Peter had witnessed earlier in the day. The unfortunate Anil was unable to cheat his karma, though—unaware of his eldest son’s machinations, he ended up in this hospital cabin, struggling to hold on.
Aloud, Peter said, “Anil ji, you have killed two families today. There were children under the flyover where you dropped your lunch box. They ate from it, and are now dead. I hope you know what you have done.”
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By the time Peter left the hospital, it was night. The bright lights of the streets failed to cheer him up. Two hours later, Ashok called Peter to inform that Anil Mahajan had also passed away—from a haemorrhage caused by a stroke.
Thus it was on that day, two families vanished from the face of earth in the city of Mayanagari. And a god-fearing man listened to the whisperings of the devil for the first time.
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