Prey On The Prowl A Crime Novel Read online

Amazed though at the development, Dhruva, turning business-like, wanted Shakeel to send someone to pick up Pravar's chaat basket, whatever be its forensic worth; and waiting for a constable to come to pick up the thing, he called up Rani to enquire about the state of her 'leggy self'. Learning that she was jumping like a jack and was eager for the news, as he apprised her of the developments at the Tank Bund, she blamed with him for having deprived her thrill of participation; and having cajoled her, he said in half jest that he hoped she would not hold it against him to deny him the thrill of their nocturnal adventure.

  Chapter 8 Foul on Pravar

  Reaching 9, Castle Hills, Dhruva was nudged by Rani into the drawing room, where Raju laid the drinks for them - Old M onk with Thums Up for him and Gin with Sprite for her. Even before he had had his first sip, as she pressed him to blurt out, tuning into TV9, he told her that she should first hear it from the horse's mouth at 9. Lighting his cigar as he savored it along with the rum, she told him that in the excitement of the moment, the aroma of the lanka pogaku was more exhilarating than ever.

  Soon Shakeel was seen on the TV screen along a handcuffed youth, whom he named as Pravar the kingpin of the fake-note racket that he had busted that evening. As Karim laid bundles of thousand-rupees notes on the table before a dazed Pravar, Shakeel boasted that the police would catch the other members of the gang sooner than later.

  "I don't believe a word of that cop," said Rani. "Why his body language spoke all lies.”

  "Given the stock of the khakis," said Dhruva, "you can't be faulted."

  “But I will fault you," she said coyly, "if you default in telling the truth."

  “What struck me in the ransom note was the kidnappers' choice of a rendezvous that too at a time when it gets crowded the most," he said, switching off the TV and lighting a fresh cigar. "M aybe the idea was to enable the kidnappers to spot the cops in mufti, if any, but still, it was risky as the police could lay in wait for them on either side of the Tank Bund. Wouldn't have the kidnappers taken that into account? It only meant that they could hit upon a foolproof plan to facilitate the Operation Exchange. Why were they specific that Ranjit waited near the Tanesha statue? When I focused on the location, what came to the fore was the nearby 'vaulted staircase' that led from the Tank Bund down to the roadside M aisamma temple.”

  "When we were in Gaganmahal, I used to climb up the stairs for my morning walk on the Tank Bund,” she said reminiscently.

  "How I wish I had met you then," he said winking at her.

  "Better late than never, isn't it?"

  "Not in the affairs of heart; thank god we have aligned before it was too late to write home about it,” he said squeezing her hand. "Well, given the location of the staircase, it was easy to visualize the contours of their envisaged plan; while the male interlocutor would deal with Ranjit on the Tank Bund, his female accomplice would hold Kavya on the road below, desolated at that hour. Once Ranjit got down the staircase with the ransom Kavya could be led up for the operation exchange midway with the captors blocking the way both ways. Even if someone were to use the staircase then, the Ranjits could be silenced with advance threats, and what is more, the double entry or exit as the case may be, affords the kidnappers a two-way get-away either in their Zen or in their Santro."

  "Isn't it foolproof?" said Rani, "But how come they came a cropper."

  "No denying that but ironically it's the brilliance of the idea that betrayed their plan,” said Dhruva. "I thought of freeing Kavya, by arraigning her captor without her partner on the Tank Bund getting wind of it but as you know by then, Shakeel laid his hands on those fake notes in the Operation M oolah though the culprits gave him the slip. I don't know why, but I got a naughty idea; what if the fake money was clothed as ransom amount and the kidnapper pictured as the kingpin of the counterfeit racket? Though Shakeel was excited at that prospect, yet he was afraid of the pitfalls, and it took a great deal of effort for me to make him fall in line."

  Rani admired him for his ingenuous idea but Dhruva said that on second thoughts he felt that it was morally dark and conceptually unethical; turning remorseful as he said that, given a chance, he would not repeat it for sure, she told him that the episode brought to the fore her own guilt in a cynical act, and like him, she too would not like to repeat it. Puzzled by her mane and manner, he pressed her to confide in him but smiling sweetly, she said that he might wait as she was not running away from him right then. When he said in jest that he would break her legs to stop her from leaving him, she coquettishly reminded him that she was within his arms reach, and as he took her into his arms, he received a call from Shakeel.

  Complimenting Shakeel for the finesse in the execution of the Operation Checkmate, though Dhruva invited him to come home to exchange notes, the cop excused himself, as he had to rush to his native place to see his ailing mother.

  Chapter 9

  Stockholm Syndrome

  When Ranjit reached 9, Castle Hills, in its sprawling backyard, Dhruva was playing shuttle badminton with Rani. As Raju announced Ranjit's arrival, Dhruva playfully told Rani that he would like to flaunt her before the visitor. Turning coquettish, she told him that she had no eyes for any other man, and not to be outdone, he said that had she been there on the Tank Bund the other day, Ranjit would have lost his eyes for her, thereby putting Pravar in a fix. She said joyously that though she was flattered, she was eager to know how Kavya could have spent the time with her captors, and he told her she better eavesdrop as he closeted with the visitor. Chiding him for wanting to spoil her, she got into the swimming pool, and he went into the study to meet with Ranjit.

  Dismissing Dhruva's apologies for having kept him waiting, Ranjit lost no time in scolding him for the fake-notes mess he had created for him albeit falling short of demanding compensation for the damage caused. Turning apologetic for not having taken him into confidence, Dhruva explained that had Ranjit been privy to the plan, he would have probably fumbled in handling Pravar, and that would have put Kavya's life at risk. However, Ranjit bemoaned that Kavya was cut up with him for playing foul with Pravar for he was so fair to her.

  Cajoled by Dhruva that all that would come to a pass, Ranjit placed the Kavya-cards on the table - around three that day, she locked the gate and wondered how to hire an auto in the pouring rain; what a hassle it was in Hyderabad to hire an auto as the autowallahs tended to veto the savaaris. So, when a youth drove his auto straight up to her, thinking it was a Godsend, she got into it, and to spare herself the spatter, she gratefully accepted his offer to unwind the Rexene windshields. Not long after they turned the bend, as a well-drenched young woman was beckoning for an auto, he wanted to know from Kavya whether she would mind accommodating the hapless lass. As an unsuspecting Kavya agreed to his proposition, he let the grateful woman share the backseat with her.

  The next thing that Kavya could recall was that she woke up in an alien place with the pair around, who, after introducing themselves as Pravar and Natya, began to press her to disclose her man's monitory worth. Kavya kept mum but as he warned her that she better revealed that before he forced her to tell about her man's manly worth as well, she retorted that it was unbecoming of a man to tick a woman on the sly. But when he asked Natya to leave him alone to let him eye her assets, afraid of rape, and desperately holding Natya, Kavya agreed to cooperate. He thought of a ransom of five-crore rupees but Kavya told him that he might as well prepare himself for her perpetual captivity; even as he scaled it down to three-crores, yet as she protested, he told her that she might as well count her days if her man was not prepared to cough up even that much.

  They confined her to the guestroom of that desolated house on the outskirts, and having warned her against any misadventure, they still took turns to guard her, lest she should give them a slip. Pravar was younger to Kavya by twelve years, but whenever she was alone with him, she was ever in fright that he might turn eager for her; during nights, even though, holding the rope that tied both her hands, he was fast aslee
p on the floor, keeping an eye on him, she used to keep awake on the cot all night. He always tried to win her sympathy by picturing his wayward life and Natya too went out of her way to earn her goodwill by catering to her every need. When Kavya told him that once freed, she might practice law, Pravar joked that if only she took his briefs, he would ensure that her wallet bulged like a pregnant womb. Well, his semantics only helped aggravate her lurking fear of rape that was at the back of her mind all the while - that was the long and short of Kavya's ordeal of a kidnap.

  Asked by Dhruva about his rendezvous on the Tank Bund, Ranjit said that after verifying the ransom and ensuring that there were no khakis in mufti around, Pravar let him talk to Kavya on the mobile. Later, followed by Pravar, as Ranjit was half way down the staircase, he saw Natya leading Kavya up the steps, and after the operation exchange, as Natya ascended the stairs; Pravar descended it with the false booty of fake-notes. Later, upon learning that Shakeel falsely implicated Pravar, as Kavya became furious, and wanted an explanation from him, he told her that he had no inkling about it. While she saw it as a dirty trick of the police to serve their own ends, he tried to pacify her by saying that, in either case, Pravar had to serve the sentence. Maintaining that it was no justification for such falsification, she recalled what Pravar said in jest about her being his lawyer and wondered aloud what if she took up his case.

  As Ranjit lamented that he was at a loss to understand her inexplicable behavior, after cautioning him not to let Kavya ever wiser to the nuances of her rescue act, Dhruva tried to counsel him to keep his cool while she got over her nerves. Harping on how the Operation Checkmate had upset his mate, Ranjit wondered of what avail it all was, and thus having put Dhruva on the back foot, he gave him a cheque for a paltry sum of Rupees twenty-thousand. Measuring Ranjit's meanness in that meager amount, yet Dhruva told him that he was free to call on him if ever needed any help, and as an afterthought enquired about the fate of his call letter to Kavyar. Ranjit merely said that having read it, she had tucked it in her handbag.

  Seeing Ranjit's back, as Dhruva turned pensive, Rani, failing to enliven him with her coquetry, nevertheless, managed to cajole him into breaking his silence; he said he was worried that the foisted case on Pravar might end up hurting Kavya in inexplicable ways. Rani wondered how that could be and he elucidated the intriguing features of the 'Stockholm Syndrome'.

  "It's a psychic state in which the kidnapped turn sympathetic to their captors after they are freed," he said. "It is said that the survival instinct activates the defensive mechanism in the captives to let them identify themselves with the captors to ward off possible violence against them. In that state of emotional stress and physical duress, accentuated by a sense of helplessness dominated by fear, the captives magnify small acts of kindness by their captors. Wonder how I failed to factor that!"

  "What an irony is that!" said Rani.

  "Courtesy those four days in Pravar's captivity, apparently her latent sympathies for the underdogs resurged,'' he said pensively. "Maybe, she came to identify herself more with her depraved captor, than with her mean man, who came to enjoy her father's largesse.”

  "I've heard of a story, fact or fiction I can't say," said Rani. "Seeing a murderer being paraded to the gallows, it was love at first sight for a girl, and what's more, she wanted to marry him before he was hanged, and so begged the king to spare his life; my memory fails me at that."

  "Dear, it's all about the imponderables of human psychology," said Dhruva. "Coming to Kavya, it is possible that in Ranjit's move to deny Pravar the ransom, she could have seen the propensity of the rich to deprive the poor. Now that Pravar was falsely implicated, her sympathy for him would have acquired weird emotional wings; given Ranjit's deceitfulness towards pravar, she might even begin to lean towards her excaptor even more. Where it all might lead her to, her fate only would know; how I wish she wouldn't become another Patty Hearst. You may know that Hearst became an accomplice of her captors to assist them, of all things, in bank robberies. M ay God forbid that to Kavya, but the silver-lining was that Hearst could come out of her psychic

  aberration to disown her gory association. M aybe, as I created the mess, I may have to clear it up as well."

  Chapter 10 An Aborted Affair

  Rani proposed a trip to Ooty to let him bide his time as she did his bidding. Though Dhruva was inclined towards 'train journey' as she opted to 'air dash' so as not to 'lose time', they had boarded the Indian Airlines flight that very evening. On their way from the airport to an Ooty hotel, even as the serene surroundings of the hill resort refreshed his mind, her innate romanticism enamored his heart, and once ensconced in the hotel suite, they made it their love nest, and rarely ventured out of it.

  Soon, amidst the 'time of their lives', Ranjit rang up to lament over the ugly turn in his life.

  Disregarding his protestations, Kavya met Pravar in the Cherlapalli jail and apologized to him for what had happened, and the culprit played up to her psyche by exaggerating his plight ensuring that she developed an obsession to earn him a reprieve. While Ranjit would have none of that, yet she took up Pravar's vakalat making him wonder where all that would lead her to and he was at a loss to understand how to wean her away from Pravar.

  Dismayed at the development, Dhruva said that it was better that Ranjit kept his cool as under the circumstances, the best course of action was inaction. He also advised Ranjit to leave her alone until she got over her obsession for any hurdles he might place in her way might buttress her resolve to surmount them, leading her to a disastrous end.

  M aking it a double jeopardy for Dhruva, a week later, a furious Shakeel rang him up to recount how Kavya hauled him over the coals in the court on Pravar's account. She urged the court to take note of the fact that Pravar was a petty thief and not a mafia don and drove home the point that he was the sole accused while it was inconceivable that one can single-handedly run a multi-crore fake-note racket. She argued that Shakeel would have earlier seized the booty while the real culprits might have given him the slip, or who knew, whether or not he let them off under pressure of the powers that be, and so as to cover up his lapse, and to earn false laurels, he tried to make her client his fall guy. She alleged that it was Shakeel's compulsions to crack the case, or his expediency to protect the guilty that was behind his foisting a false case on Pravar.

  What was more; Kavya sought to prove Pravar's innocence and produced Natya for a witness, who sensationally revealed that in the days before the alleged crime, Kavya was with Pravar and her. And that stunned all including the judge. What with Natya having come up trumps in the intense cross-examination that followed, there was no way the public prosecutor could have pulled the rug from under her feet as no case of kidnap was registered against Pravar or her. As the judge was quick in passing strictures against Shakeel making him curse Dhruva for once, he nevertheless asked the public prosecutor to seek time for further investigation. When the judge ordered the release of Pravar on bail, all applauded Kavya's sterling performance, and as a grateful Pravar thanked her no end an appalled Ranjit led herout of the court hall.

  Dhruva had to strain every nerve to convince Shakeel that their failure was owing to the 'Stockholm Syndrome' that he himself failed to factor in while fashioning the Operation Checkmate. Whatever, Shakeel vowed to get even with Kavya but Dhruva cautioned him to guard himself against the wounded Pravar instead. With the damage done and his pride dented, Dhruva showed no inclination to return home, though, on

  and off; Shakeel goaded him to be back soon while Rani was all-eager to make the best of their sojourn.

  In the euphoria of their whirlwind romance that rolled days and nights into one, time seemed to them but a fleeting moment of life. Son he sought her hand in marriage but she excused herself, and perplexed though, he was unrelenting in his passionate pleas; when she disclosed that she was a married woman, he was aghast beyond belief, but, nonetheless, bowled by her charms, he insisted that she divorce her man to adorn his l
ife. While she remained unmoved, devastated by her refusal to yield, he wanted to know what made her flirt with him so heartlessly.

  Rani's parents hailed from Waltair, where she graduated in arts; soon after she moved over to Hyderabad, she met Ramesh, to whose advances she had readily yielded; but realizing the gravity of her transgression, she goaded him to regularize their irregular union. While he wanted time to sort out things with his parents, who were averse to her on caste considerations, her parents were in a hurry to give her hand to Satish, who they thought was a suitable boy. When she ran out of excuses to avoid Satish's hand, as she forced the issue with Ramesh, he revealed that he was a married man, and shaken to the core, she married Satish to repair her life, as his wife.

  What with Satish's charm and wit inducing warmth in her life, she soon got over the bitterness of her betrayed past, and for the first ten years, they had been reaping the fruits of their love though without laying the seeds of it, and that was the only jarring note in their blessed life. M aybe to make up for the lacking, Satish began to be obsessed with his career to the exclusion of all else, and that made her bear the brunt of her barrenness; three years back, he developed an ambition to start a venture of his own, which made him turn their home into his office in the offing. While he began to court his career with passion, as her urges remained in the cold, she was constrained to entertain the idea of an extramarital affair.

  When she made up her mind to spice up her life with a paramour, as she recalled Ramesh's trickery, her bitterness came to acquire a vengeful edge, and she developed an urge to play a la Ramesh after a hectic sexual give-and-take to get even with a man in this man's world. Then she recalled the cop who had put her cousin Ashok's murder under the carpet, over which he led his murderess wife M ithya to the altar, and thought of busting that cop. When she came to know that M ithya was no more and her cop lover became Detective Dhruva, she knew he was the ideal target