The Astral Alibi (25 page)

Mr. Wadekar returned. “I think we should settle the account now, Jatinji. We have to close the shop.”

“I understand,” Jatin agreed. It was past three and it was mandatory for all the shops on Lakshmi Road to be shut soon. But why wasn’t Naina back yet? Her mobile! He could call her up on her mobile! He quickly dialled her number and waited breathlessly for her sweet voice to answer. Any moment now…The phone rang continuously. But there was no response. Perhaps she still wasn’t out of the crowds. He waited a few seconds, then dialled again. The bell rang. Jatin’s heartbeat increased.
Answer the phone, Naina!
he beseeched.

“Hello?” Muted sounds of
dholaks
playing could be heard through the receiver.

“Hello, Naina!” he exclaimed, then stopped short.

“This is Pradeep and I found this phone lying on the pavement!” a male voice answered.

Pure terror streaked through Jatin.
Naina!
What had happened to her? Had she fainted? Had someone pushed her?
Oh God, no!

Jatin’s head reeled. His legs wobbled, giving way, and he grasped a chair and stumbled into it. Outside, the drumming seemed to grow louder as the swelling crowds marched and danced on the rhythm of two huge
dholaks.
The sound seemed to drill painfully into Jatin’s brain. He wanted to scream at everyone and order them to end the merrymaking. Naina was ill. All he could think of was her safety.
God, please let Naina be all right,
he pleaded silently.

“Is something the matter, Jatinji?” Mr. Wadekar inquired, a trifle sharply.

“I don’t know,” Jatin mumbled. His head seemed dizzy and his heart thudded painfully.

Sonia and Inspector Divekar rushed into the store at that very moment.

“Jatin! Are you all right?” Sonia asked anxiously, hastening towards him.

“Boss,” he whispered faintly, rising. “Naina…” The deathly paleness of his face made her heart go cold.

“I know! No, don’t get up. Just sit down, please.” She took command.

Mr. Wadekar, now very much roused, pushed ahead. “I’d like to know what’s going on! Jatinji, where is your friend? She was wearing my diamond earrings and necklace when she had that attack. And now you say that you don’t know where she is?”

Sonia sighed. “I’m afraid I have some bad news for you. That girl has just vanished with your precious jewels!”

Jatin gasped in shock and Mr. Wadekar looked startled. He turned swiftly to Inspector Divekar. “My God! Those jewels were worth a fortune! You can’t let this happen! I’ve known Jatinji for years and that’s why I allowed that girl to wear the jewels and go out of my shop. I
trusted
this boy! He will have to pay me for those missing jewels. There’s money in the purse. I’m going to see that I’m paid!” he thundered.

Inspector Divekar scooped up the purse. His face was impassive as he said, “This money’s useless. It is counterfeit money.”

Jatin’s head jerked up. “Counterfeit?” he asked incredulously. His stunned expression matched the one on the shopkeeper’s face.

Sonia nodded. “I’ll explain later, Jatin. Did you touch her money?”

Jatin shook his head, his face white and pinched. Suddenly his life was spinning dangerously off its hinges!

“Thank God! Look, we have a job in hand at the moment. We must convince Mr. Wadekar that you are in no way involved with this racket.”

“Racket? What
racket
?” Jatin repeated, bewildered.

Sonia’s eyes were soft with regret. “You still haven’t got it, have you? Naina’s not coming back, Jatin. She’s gone forever
and
she’s stolen those jewels!”

Her assistant gaped at her, grappling with the truth. The expression of disbelief, stupefaction, and consternation on his face seemed to pierce her heart.

“We have to convince Mr. Wadekar that you’re absolutely innocent and knew nothing whatsoever about the counterfeit. Then we can return to the office. Will you be all right on your own?” Sonia watched her Assistant uneasily.

Jatin nodded, grateful for the numbness seeping through his heart and brain! He didn’t ever wish to think or to feel again….

Inspector Divekar was checking the contents of Naina’s purse while the salesmen watched on curiously. The Inspector glanced at Sonia as she rose. Together they turned to the owner of Wadekar Jewellery.

“Can we talk in private?” Sonia asked Mr. Wadekar.

Sonia stared across at Jatin. He was halfheartedly sipping hot
chai,
avoiding looking at her. His face was still drawn, but it was his silence which was most disturbing. He hadn’t uttered a word since they had returned to the office. She feared that he was still reeling under shock.

Sonia threw Mohnish a desperate, pleading look. For the first time in her life, she felt totally ill equipped to handle a situation.

“Jatin, don’t you want to know what exactly happened?” Mohnish asked.

“I don’t care!” he mumbled, without glancing up.

“You’ve had a lucky escape and
you don’t care
?” Mohnish asked, a trifle sharply. “Do you think either one of us
enjoyed
seeing you hurt? Sonia and I were as shocked and hurt as you are. Only, we couldn’t sit nursing that hurt, we had to take action—to protect you. Don’t you
understand
?”

Jatin did look up then, and there was intense pain in his eyes. He suddenly seemed much older than his young years. “I’m sorry…but I don’t know what to believe anymore or what to say….” How could he explain to them that his whole universe had turned topsy-turvy? How could he ever explain what he was going through?

Sonia took the chair beside him. She placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Jatin. I know that love stories are supposed to have happy endings. But only when the love is mutual and for real. I know that you loved Naina and you’re heartbroken. But Naina was using you. For her, it was all a part of a charade she was enacting. You’ve got to believe that what happened is for the best. At least we stopped you before you got embroiled in a counterfeit case.

“Why did you ask me to go ahead when you knew that she was…a criminal! You could have at least saved me some self-respect!” The anguish in his voice tore at her heart.

“Because there was no other way. Right from the first time I met Naina at Pune Station, I liked her. Very much. And I really believed that she was the right girl for you. Until something happened. First, Shettychacha dropped by, returning the counterfeit fifty rupee note that you gave him for the
dosas.
Apparently Naina had given that bill to you. Then you gave me the horoscope details and my first passing thought was that it was funny how the two sisters wrote out their birth details separately. I mean, I would’ve expected Priya, being the older sister and like a mother to Naina, to write out their birth details. But each one wrote out their own. Anyway, I charted out their horoscopes and discovered some startling puzzles. Priya’s and Naina’s horoscopes had no parallels whatsoever. Each horoscope told a different story. Their characters were very different from what you’d told me. The age difference was more than eight years. Priya was twelve years older than Naina. Their backgrounds were totally in contrast to what you told me. Neither of them would ever be rolling in money—at least honest money. Neither of their horoscopes seemed to indicate any problems with their parents, who ought to be well and alive, not dead and gone! In short, every single detail seemed in total contrast to what we knew as facts. And Naina’s horoscope was a true puzzle. With Libra as the zodiac sign and the ascendant, she had a strange mix of planets. Sun, Mercury, and Saturn in conjunction in her eighth house revealed her to be melodramatic, talented, and intelligent, but dishonest and cunning and indulging in shady business, which would boomerang on her. Moreover, Sun, the Lord of Leo in the tenth house, was in conjunction with Saturn, which meant that she would go to any lengths to earn money. Jupiter in her Sagittarius gave her those beautiful, serene looks, but it was aspected by Mars. Saturn with the Sun in the eighth house would one day bring her illegal activities out in the open! Naina’s horoscope revealed such criminal traits that it was shocking. But although her horoscope confused me at that point, since it was totally in contrast with her image, I didn’t allow it to sway my judgement of Naina. Not just then.

“First, I took the hundred rupee note that Naina had laid beside our Ganapati on the first day of the festival to Uncle Jeevan. I had retained that money for good luck; that is why I knew it was the same bill. Inspector Divekar at once identified it as fake. My mind began ticking. First Shettychacha and now this. Was it a coincidence that Naina possessed two counterfeit bills? Had someone given her these rupees by mistake and had she carried them forward? Or was there a deliberate connection between the two? The first thing I did when I returned to the office yesterday was take another long look at the horoscopes. And suddenly a lot of my questions were answered. I knew then for a fact that something was definitely wrong and that I had to adopt a course of action. I remembered the twenty hundred rupee notes that Priya had gifted you and you had placed in my drawer. I instantly checked out the notes. All the notes were fake! This was definitely no coincidence. Naina’s friendship with you began smacking of something really suspicious and I had to find out what it was. So I enlisted Mohnish’s and Inspector Divekar’s aid. Inspector Divekar sent a constable to keep a watch on the bungalow, while Mohnish found out if it really belonged to the sisters.”

“That was easy enough,” Mohnish explained. “A few inquiries around the neighbourhood and the information dropped into my lap. The neighbours told me that the two sisters had just recently moved into the bungalow. It had laid vacant for years and the owner, who lived somewhere abroad, had left an agent in charge to deal with the renting of the place.”

“It was now obvious that something fishy was going on for sure,” Sonia told Jatin. “But I wondered what your role was in this whole business. Why had you been roped in and why was Naina leading you on? That she wasn’t in love with you and was using you for some private end was now sadly apparent. But what was her motive? Then I remembered how you had rushed to the medical store to purchase the inhaler when Naina had her asthma attack. And out of the blue everything fell into place. The two sisters were testing counterfeit money on you! First at Shettychacha’s, then the inhaler, and then the gift money given by Priya. But that certainly wasn’t the end. Naina had been duping you for far too long a time, angling for you by playing the right cues, slowly and cleverly provoking you to forge a relationship with her. Something big had to be in the offing. A larger goal. You were a stepping stone for a bigger scapegoat. What or who was it? My instinct told me that if we had to see what that game was, your relationship needed an impetus. That’s the reason why I telephoned you yesterday and gave you the green signal. Naturally, Naina accepted your proposal. And when you told me that you were going to buy the rings, I suspected that the big moment had arrived. She was going with you to the jewellery store, using your good relationship with the owner to establish confidence. If Naina was indeed dealing in counterfeit money, she would definitely try to pull a fast one in the jewellery shop. This was our one chance to catch her red-handed!”

“But she turned out to be smarter than us,” Mohnish remarked dryly.

Sonia nodded. “The moment Naina and you left for the Jewellers this afternoon, Inspector Divekar paid Naina’s house a surprise visit. And sure enough, they found a computer and a colour photocopier and heaps of currency in mostly smaller denominations. The police immediately took Priya into custody, but she claimed that she was nothing more than a small-time actress out for a little extra cash and that Naina was paying her to enact the role of her affectionate but grouchy and confrontational sister! That explained the different horoscopes!

“After that, Naina’s objective became clear. Her last and probably final stop
had to be
the Jewellers. And our next duty was to keep tabs on you. We planned to storm in and catch her red-handed in the nick of time, as she paid for the jewellery. But, like Mohnish said, she was smart. We underestimated her. She faked another asthma attack and used the chaos of the festive atmosphere to high-tail it with the jewels, leaving you to pay with the counterfeit money!”

Silence filled the room as Sonia finished her narration. She gazed anxiously at her Assistant.

“But I still don’t understand. If she wanted to use counterfeit money, then why steal the jewels?” he asked.

“I believe that her original plan was to buy the jewels with the counterfeit currency. But I think somewhere along the line she began to suspect something. Didn’t you say that she made a phone call?”

Jatin nodded. “Her mobile beeped a reminder for the call. But I don’t think she got through.”

“Exactly. I shall have to confirm this, but my guess is that Naina called home. Probably it was preplanned. A precautionary measure, before she actually took the final plunge. After all, a lot of money was at stake—I mean fake money. It was a do-or-die situation. Had she got caught, it would’ve meant jail. Naina had to be sure. But when Priya didn’t answer the call, as she was supposed to, Naina definitely caught the whiff of something suspicious. She must have realised that all was not well. And then I called you up on your mobile, informing you that I was dropping by to help you choose the rings. A wrong move on my part, but I was worried about you. Anyway, that was when Naina’s doubts were confirmed. She decided to act fast. After all her months of planning and scheming, she was unwilling to relinquish her goal—the jewels. Since she was forced to drop her original plan, she used another ploy. Her ever-useful asthma attack. She cleverly and callously vanished with the diamonds, leaving you to face the music.”

Jatin shook his head angrily. “Why me? Why did she have to select me for her game?”

“It probably had something to do with you being an Investigator. Like a thief hiding loot in a policeman’s house. That is the last place the police would ever consider in their search for a thief. Similarly, by involving you, she ensured that no one would suspect that she was in any way connected with anything hanky-panky. Besides, you were young, gullible, and an easy prey. Though Naina’s Mars in conjunction with Venus in Gemini in her ninth house made her attractive and eligible enough for
any guy
to fall in love with her! And easy enough for
her
to feign her emotions.”