Day 2
Lavanya keeps looking at me with her alluring eyes and it takes all efforts to not hold her tight and pull her against me.
"It could have been anyone. The photos have been taken in public places...," She says.
"Except the one taken while we were at your apartment. It looked like it was taken from across the building," I say, pondering over the memory of the snaps she had shown me. The ones sent by that blackmailer.
When she had first shown me those photos, I had freaked out and immediately agreed to pay off whoever it was. I never gave a thought as to who it could be or how they could have done so. I was terrified at the thought of those photos reaching Navya, and her reaction. I believed it was a one off.
"We should have asked the blackmailer to destroy any soft copies he had, of those photos. We just gave in to his demands and now we will have to do it again," Lavanya says.
"No. Lavanya, this is greed, and it is not going to end. He is asking 30000 today. He will ask 50000 tomorrow. There is no end to it. We have to stop it," I urge her, holding her hand and feeling her soft skin.
She jerks her hand out of mine.
"No," she says, her face flushing, and neck vein pulsing, "Can't you see? He will make those pictures viral! I don't know whether or not you have anything to lose, but my life will be destroyed! Everyone in this office will come to know! I might lose my job! My family will disown me! I am not even married!"
"Nothing is going to happen. You just stall him and wait, while I track him down. I have a very strong feeling that this is somehow connected to Navya's disappearance", I try to pacify her.
"Everything is about you! What about me! No, we have to give him the money," she says.
Now I am getting a bit annoyed. Why doesn't she get it? The blackmailer is not going to stop here. Doesn't she understand?
"Okay," she says, breathing hard, "let's give him the amount this time. And then figure out who he is. That will give us some time at least," she says.
I am totally against paying off this bloody blackmailer.
But Lavanya holds my hands in hers, squeezes them and pleads, "please", and unwillingly, I find myself nodding, saying "ok, but just this once".
And before my brain can analyze what I am doing, my body is pulling her close...
I return home in the evening to an empty house.
Guilt pangs deep in my stomach. Guilt for what I have been doing with Lavanya. Guilt for having failed Navya so far. Guilt for everything that I am and everything that I have been doing.
I know I shouldn't but I head directly towards my minibar and pour myself a large glass of Bourbon.
The door bell rings just as I have sat down in front of the television.
I heave myself out of the sofa and open the door, not sure who would want to meet me at this time of the day. And I am certain I don't want to meet anyone unless it's either Navya, or the police with some update.
There is no one. I step outside onto the corridor. I look outside from the open balcony on the front side of our apartment. The gate is visible beneath. There's no sign of anyone having been there. The sky is a dull orange and the melancholy I can feel only multiplies in this twilight.
Someone definitely rang the door bell. I know I am not hallucinating. But then why isn't that someone here? Is someone trying to play games with me? Mind games?
If so, I am too exhausted to play them. Go to hell, I mutter.
I am about to go inside and slam the door behind me when I notice the small envelope on the door mat. It hadn't been here when I returned quarter of an hour back. So it must have been placed just now. By whoever rang the bell.
I look around once more, then bend down, pick it up, go inside and lock the door.
I tear the envelope open. Inside there is a single page on which are printed just 7 words.
You will pay for what you did.
A chill of terror runs down my spine.
I can feel my hands tremble, the paper about to fall from my hands.
Who is this? What exactly are they punishing me for? Do they have Navya? If so, what have they done to her? Should I show this to police? If I do, I will have to reveal everything. EVERY-DAMN-THING!
*****
Mukta and Tushar sat in the tech room, surrounded by laptops and noisy gadgets that kept on giving an alarm here, a beep there.
Romee, the guy who they had called in for being a computer hacker, looked not more than 19 years old. He looked like he was just hitting puberty, a faint sign of a moustache on his face, his face pimply and shiny from the outburst of hormones.
Apparently, Navya's cell phone was highly password protected and it was difficult to access anything other than her call records.
Mukta had lost the interest in any finding from the phone, because she couldn't believe this guy would actually be able to do anything.
Now, as he kept them waiting, her impatience was growing by the minute. They had just returned with some new information from the school where Navya worked, and she wanted to pursue a few leads there.
"Okay," Romee said finally, placing a laptop in front of them and acknowledging their presence for the first time since they had arrived.
"There are a lot of things. We will go step by step," he said, as if about to explain the procedure of some organic chemistry practical.
"So first, Navya has been receiving threatening messages since the past two weeks," he said.
Mukta and Tushar exchanged puzzled glances.
They had interviewed her husband, her colleagues, her friends. They had specifically asked everyone if there had been any indication of any kind of stress in her behaviour recently. But there had been no suggestion of any such thing happening.
"What kind of threatening messages?" Mukta asked.
"They are not specific. But here," Romee said, opening those messages in a window on his laptop.
Mukta and Tushar leaned in to take a look.
'Karma returns - sin will be rewarded with sin'.
'You will face the consequences'
'Beware who is watching you'
'You don't know when you might die'
There were many more.
"What the hell? Has she replied to any of these?" Tushar asked.
"Yes. She has replied to the first two messages, asking who it is and what they want. But the sender never replied to her questions. He just kept sending such prophecies."
"Why didn't she block the number? Or complain?" Mukta wondered.
"Had she done something? Were these messages specific to something bad that she had done, which she couldn't tell anyone?" Tushar pondered loudly.
"But then she would know who was sending them. She wouldn't ask who it was," Mukta said.
"The surprise part comes next," Romee said."Guess in whose name the number is registered?"
"The husband?" Mukta asked, tentatively.
"Right," he said, "Mr Sumedh".
Mukta looked over at Tushar.
"I am telling you. This guy has orchestrated everything. We should arrest him," Tushar said.
"I don't think so. He is not foolish. If he was sending her threatening messages from a number registered in his name, he would not keep her cell phone for us to find in the pot outside his house," Mukta reasoned. "Someone else is doing this. And probably trying to trap him".
"Romee, can you get the location of this mobile number?" she asked.
"This mobile is switched off since the day Navya was reported to have disappeared. And I have traced the last location. Now this is also a surprise. Guess what it is?"
"What?" Mukta and Tushar asked in unison.
"Police station," Romee replied.