Day 2
"Police station," he replied.
"See? He is carrying that sim card! He is the culprit, I am telling you," Tushar said.
Mukta fell in thought. Was she ignoring the clear evidence just because her gut feeling didn't say so?
"Don't jump to conclusions. This is a possibility. We will question him," she said to Tushar.
"Ok, what else?" She asked Romee.
"You had told me to look for any contact from Ahmedabad. So there is one number from which she had received calls from Ahmedabad," Romee said.
"When did she receive those calls? Could you trace the caller?" Mukta asked, sitting up straight, optimistically.
"She received just two calls. One was almost a month back. And the other was 3 days before she disappeared," he replied.
"Both from the same number?" Tushar questioned.
"Yes. But it's a landline".
"Ohh, then did you try to locate...?"
"It's the number of a public booth," he said.
Mukta and Tushar looked at each other, disappointed. They both were hoping that this clue would lead them to some person. Whoever Navya was planning to meet and bring back from Ahmedabad.
"Other than that, there's nothing in her messages, calls or social media platforms that stands out. I will again go through her recent chats and all social media messengers to see if I can get some clue," Romee said.
"Okay, thanks Romee. Keep us posted if you find anything out of the ordinary," Mukta said, getting up.
"So Sumedh is still our suspect number one?" Tushar asked her as they made their way towards her cabin.
"Yes, but it's too straight and simple. To reach such conclusion. Don't you think?" She asked, as much to him as to herself.
"Meaning?" Tushar asked, obviously not getting the drift.
"Meaning, what would you do if you wanted to kill your wife and get away with it?" Mukta asked Tushar, looking at him as he too pondered over it.
"You would do many things, but what you wouldn't do would be, number one, have a fight with her and have her walk out of your house at night; number two, have her mobile phone hidden around your house; number three; send her threatening messages from a specially purchased sim-card which could be traced back directly to you and number four, destroy that specially obtained sim card at the police station, where you have officially come to lodge a missing persons complaint", she replied for his benefit.
They had reached her cabin.
Mukta took her seat. Tushar sighed and sat opposite her.
"You are right," he agreed, "he would have covered up his tracks if he had really done something to her".
"We won't eliminate him as a suspect until we have a strong evidence to the contrary; but let's not waste time and energy on trying to frame him when it can very possibly be someone else. We still haven't ruled out the possibility that she walked away from the marriage, though again that wouldn't explain why she would bring someone back from Ahmedabad," Mukta said.
"Do they have children?" Tushar asked.
"No, I don't think so. Why?" Mukta questioned.
"Just wondering. Picture this. Navya wanted a child. But Sumedh didn't. So Navya decided to adopt. But Sumedh didn't approve of that too. So she just went ahead and did the formalities on her own, deciding to surprise him with a child. He wouldn't say no when she came home with a kid they could call their own?" Tushar suggested.
Mukta laughed.
"You have been watching too many movies Tushar, I must say this is a good way to explain everything," she said, "but that doesn't explain the threatening messages or how her phone came to lie in that pot".
"Okay. So what do we do next?" Tushar asked.
"First, we need to talk to the guy who sold that sim-card. Show him a photograph of Sumedh and see if he can remember him. Second thing, we need to conduct a thorough search for the sim-card which was last traced here. Call Shiva. He is in charge of the peons of all shifts. He will do that job well. We also need to check CCTV footage of the entrance of our station, for the entire day that Navya was missing, the same day that Sumedh came to lodge complaint," Mukta instructed him.
"Was it that day or the night before? Romee said the day she disappeared," Tushar interrupted.
"No. The next day. He said the day she was reported having disappeared," Mukta said.
"What else?"
"We need to get the CCTV images from outside the public telephone booth in Ahmedabad. Make a call to the police station there," Mukta said.
Tushar fervently jotted down everything that she had instructed.
"I will get teams onto it," he said, getting up.
"And we, are going to see Sumedh after he returns from work," she said.
*****
The bell rings again.
Like an electric current running through my body, I sprint in the direction of the door and yank it open, hoping to see whoever has sent the envelope. But what I see instead is Mukta and Tushar, eyeing me in surprise at the way I have almost pounced on them.
"Expecting someone else?" Tushar asks tentatively.
I am caught completely unawares.
Mukta has already caught sight of the envelope and letter in my hand.
"What is it?" She asks, indicating the same.
I sigh.
"Someone dropped this on my door mat," I say, ushering them inside and handing it to her, as I don't have any choice now.
I catch the two of them exchanging a meaningful glance as they walk past me, eyeing the piece of paper in Mukta's hand. My mind is working at top speed, trying to come up with something. Anything.
"Is this the first time you have received such a message?" Mukta asks me.
Every time she looks at me with those piercing eyes, I want to steal myself from her steely gaze.
"Yes," I reply.
"Do you know who has sent it? Or why?" She asks.
"No," I reply.
"There is no reason at all why someone is sending you such messages, just a night after your wife has disappeared?"
"You think it's connected?" I ask, though I certainly doubt it.
According to me, this is the greedy blackmailer who is after me and Lavanya, and he has nothing to do with Navya. So I decide not to mention anything.
"It could be. We need to pursue every lead if we want to find your wife," Mukta says.
"I really have no idea," I say and go on to describe how I found the envelope minutes before they appeared.
"Did you happen to see anyone on your way out?" I ask.
"No. But you have absolutely no idea who could be doing this?" Tushar asks.
"No," I say and shrug.
Mukta places the letter in a plastic evidence bag and seals it.
We all settle again in the same seats that we had been in a day before. Mukta and Tushar in the love seat, me opposite them.
"We had been to Navya's school," Mukta says, "and spoke to her colleagues".
"Okay?" I ask. I don't know what input her colleagues might give which I could not.
"Niyati told us that she seemed stressed since a few days. She had messaged Niyati the evening of the same night she left that she wouldn't be coming to school for a few days, just like you told us. She also told us that Navya had told her that she had something important to tell her. Do you have any idea what it could have been?"
I have been so immersed in my own things, I have no idea what is going on in Navya's day to day life. We have become the epitome of a typical couple facing midlife crisis, I guess. Husband and wife live together, spend majority of the day with other people, greet each other at night before going back to their cell phones, chat with someone else even as they lie next to each other on bed...
"Sumedh?" Tushar prods me.
I shake my head.
"Navya didn't tell me anything new about Niyati...so I don't know...", I say.
"New? Means, what do you know which is old?" Mukta asks.
"Well, Niyati separated from her husband recently. They are fighting a bitter court case over the custody of their daughter. Navya has been like a rock solid support to Niyati through all of this. Yes, now that you say it, I recall Navya telling me that Niyati has recently started dating someone too," I say, though I am.not sure if any of this is relevant.
Mukta and Tushar again exchange another glance. Niyati probably hasn't mentioned any of this. But why would she? Even I don't see any connection with Navya!
"Okay. We spoke to the sports teacher, Mr Nachiket. Do you know him?" Tushar asks.
"Yes, why? What did he say?" I ask.
Another meaningful glance gets exchanged. I wait.
"He said that recently Navya had confided in him that she was not happy in her marriage," Mukta says, again eyeing me with her scanner eyes.
"What? Bullshit! Why would she say that? That too to him! He is a leech who leers after my wife," I say, gritting my teeth, seething with anger.
"We are just recounting what we have been told," Tushar says.
"Then don't believe this bullshit," I say.
There is a pause. The silence hangs heavy in the air.
"We are going to ask you a personal thing," Mukta says.
I almost roll my eyes. She has asked me about everything that entails the relationship of a husband and wife. What more is yet to be dissected?
"Go on," I say.
"You don't have children?" She asks.
This is a totally unexpected question. I have no idea why she would ask this.
"No," I say, knowing what the next question will be.
"Can I ask why?"
"It was a mutual decision," I say.
"Navya didn't want a child?" Mukta persists.
What is this obsession of women about having children, I don't understand. Even Navya wanted one, and that was one of the major reasons for our routine fights. I am not mentally prepared to handle the responsibility of being a father yet, don't they get it?
But anyway, since Navya is not here, I don't want to waste time on this topic.
"No," I say, and the topic gets closed.
Mukta and Tushar again exchange a glance. She nods at him.
Tushar removes a print out and hands it to me.
It looks like a snap taken from a CCTV camera inside a shop. There's a man at the counter showing something to a customer.
"Can you identify who it is?" Tushar asks.