Day 2
Mukta was keenly watching Sumedh as his expressions changed from those of surprise to shock to anger within moments. Even though her instincts told her that he was not the culprit, she could not just go ahead by her instincts. As her job dictated, she had to look at each person involved as a potential suspect. But it was clear as the sky that Sumedh had no idea about Navya's planned Ahmedabad trip.
"I have absolutely no idea why she would do so," he said, looking exasperated.
"There's more," Mukta informed him, still observing him carefully.
"Bring it on," he said, sarcasm lacing his tone.
"She had booked two tickets on a bus returning back from Ahmedabad, for today night".
Sumedh looked stunned at the information he was learning.
"So you mean to say, she was planning to go to Ahmedabad and bring someone back? Two days later?" He said, trying to make sense of the facts. "That explains why she told Niyati that she would be absent from school for a few days!" He added.
Mukta sighed.
"We will get the record of her messages and any other correspondence from her mobile soon. We will also check her recent call records. One team will be dispatched to her school today, to talk to her colleagues and see if anyone knew something. We will keep you informed," she told him.
Sumedh looked worried, his forehead a web of creases.
"Okay, I guess," he said finally, getting up.
"We will need your finger prints Sumedh, just in case...," Mukta said.
He looked at her for a moment, again with the same exasperated expression, but then nodded.
"Sure," he said.
It took them another ten minutes to complete the formalities.
"If you remember anything, anything at all, whether or not it seems relevant, please tell me," Mukta said as she escorted him to the main gate of the police station.
Sumedh paused. He looked deep in thought as though he was analyzing something in his head. Probably whether or not to reveal whatever it was that he was hiding?
"Sure," he said finally, and left.
Mukta watched him walk away. Still thinking about him, she slowly walked back.
She then called Tushar to her cabin.
"Madam, the phone records will be available in another hour," he informed her.
"What about finger prints?" She asked.
"There are many finger prints on the phone, belonging to at least four persons. One set, we guess, belongs to the husband, which they will be checking now. We have taken prints from the house, from Navya's cupboard, clothes and cosmetic bottles, like you had instructed, while searching for the mobile. So they are running the prints for the matches."
"Okay. Get Sudhir to go to the bus service. The bus she had booked tickets for Ahmedabad with...what was its name?"
"Zinnia travels".
"Yes. Get him to check whether she had indeed boarded the bus she had booked the tickets for. Ask them to submit the CCTV footage from their bus boarding area. Simultaneously, contact the office of Zinnia travels in Ahmedabad, and inform them to keep a watch for Navya and another passenger who might board the bus tonight. Send them her photo and ask them to inform us the moment they see her".
"That is, if she has made it to Ahmedabad," Tushar said.
"Yes of course. Secondly, ask a team to question their common friends and Sumedh's colleagues from the bank. Including that guy who had accompanied him here. Third, whoever is working on Navya's phone, ask them to get me the call records from Sumedh's number as well. I need the details of who he has spoken to in the last five days. Ear mark any suspicious number."
Tushar furiously scribbled down everything as Mukta dictated.
"Onto it."
"Good. And you and me are going to the school in ten minutes. Get the Jeep ready".
******
I leave the police station. When I came here, I was hopeful. That there was some new update about Navya. But what I have heard has had my stomach in even tighter knots that before.
Ahmedabad? Why Ahmedabad? Who was she planning to meet there? And why was she bringing them here? Was she seeing someone? Were we both cheating on each other?
I drive to the bank absent mindedly. I am hoping that I have so much work at the bank that I get drowned in it and have no time to think about Navya.
Because this thinking is driving me crazy. And not serving any purpose.
Did Navya really want to get away from me? Did I miss the signs? Because there had to be something in her behaviour that would have suggested that she wanted to walk out.
All she had to do was talk to me. Why didn't she do that?
Then a terrible thought hits me. Did she come to know about me and Lavanya? Did the man who was blackmailing us, tell her about us, inspite of paying him off?
As if in a trance, mechanically, I walk to my cabin and plonk on my chair, thrusting my laptop bag onto one corner of my table.
"Any update?" Aashay asks as he stops by my cabin.
"They found her phone," I tell him.
"What? Just her phone? Where?" He asks. He looks as flustered as me.
"Yes. Just her phone. And that she had booked tickets to Ahmedabad. And 2 return tickets back," I say, as Aashay's eyebrows shoot up in a stunned surprise.
"And...and you knew nothing about it? Why Ahmedabad?" He asks finally.
"Absolutely no idea," I exclaim.
Aashay sighs. He sits down across my table.
"Sumedh, there is going to be a perfectly proper explanation for all of this. So as a friend, let me tell you, I know both of you since a long time, and Navya wouldn't do anything rash or irrational. Just try to relax and let the police do their job. Don't be judgemental until you know for sure why Navya did whatever she did," he says.
I know he means well but I am boiling inside. It just needs a small part on the surface to give way for the volcano to come out.
"How can I sit, hand on hand while she is out there! I don't even know if she has left me of her own will or she is in any danger, for God's sake!" I scream.
I realize I have screamed loud enough for people around to turn their necks and whisper amongst themselves. By now, probably all are aware that something is going on in my personal life.
I am hyperventilating. My face feels flushed.
Aashay doesn't say anything. He just hands me a glass of water kept on my table, and without any protest, I gulp it down in one go.
We stay silent for some more time.
"The police had called me," Aashay says after some time.
"You? Why you?" I ask, my face scrunching with the effort.
"I don't know. Routine enquiry I guess," he shrugs.
Mukta didn't mention that she was going to question my colleagues. Does that mean I am still a suspect? Are they wasting precious time trying to find out if I have done something to Navya?
We sit in silence for some more time.
"When are you going to the station then?" I ask him.
"Maybe around lunch time," he says, getting up.
I nod. I don't know what they are going to ask him. I don't know what to think anymore!
Aashay lingers a bit, then gets up to leave. I just nod again. I don't have anything to say. I don't feel fit to work with the mental stress surrounding me.
But I need to clarify things with Lavanya.
I wait for another hour before heading to the cashier's desk. Lavanya is looking as ravishingly beautiful as ever. I walk past the desk, with just a single glance at her.
That is the cue for her. Ten minutes later, she follows me to the underground storage unit, our secret meeting place.
I am sitting in the small isolated den at the extreme back. No one generally comes here. The moment she walks in, it's suddenly as if the emotional turmoil I am going through has given way. Seeing her, I lose all inhibitions and hug her fiercely. She hugs me back with an equal vehemence and before I can stop it, we are kissing each other passionately, leaning onto each other, hands working furiously over each other's body.
I am the first to pull away.
"What happened?" She asks, slightly breathless from our activity.
"Navya...my wife. She is missing," I say, looking at her.
Her hazel brown eyes work like magic for my hormones. I melt like a block of ice when I look at them. She makes me feel like a teenager all over again and that is probably why this began in the first place.
"What?" She asks, shocked at my declaration.
"Yes. I needed to speak to you," I say.
"Oh, I thought...," She breaks off, clearly disappointed.
I hold her by her shoulders. She looks at me with that enticing gaze and it takes every effort on my part to not go weak in my knees and begin kissing her again.
"Lavanya, tell me. Do you know who was blackmailing us?" I ask her.
"What? No! I have no idea who it was...is," she says.
"But Sumedh, he is blackmailing again. He wants 30,000 more," she adds.
"We are not giving him a single dime now. You know very well how we arranged for those fifty grand. I can't pull off something like that again," I say.
"But what if he really shows your wife those pictures?" She asks, her pupils dilating in horror.
"I want to know how he found out about us and how he managed to take those pictures. I think maybe he has already told Navya about it, maybe already shown her those pictures and that is why she left."