The Bankster (Ravi Subramanian) (16 page)

Harshita’s trip to Austria and Switzerland was one of the most exciting vacations that she had ever taken. Frustration at work was so high it was festering negativity in her—it threatened to destroy her pleasing personality, her work and, possibly even her marriage. It was her quest to maintain sanity that made her walk up to Anand and ask him for permission to take some time off. Thankfully her visa had come on time.

It was not difficult to decide on Vienna. Harshita was a student of history, keenly interested in music and architecture and in Vienna one would find remarkable architecture, loads of artistic treasures and museums. What skewed the decision in Vienna’s favour was the city’s tryst with music. No other city in the world could boast of such diversity in its music and of being the home to scores of great musicians.

Architecturally, Vienna was a delight. Majestic buildings dating back centuries dotted the impressive Ringstrasse—a five-kilometre horseshoe-shaped boulevard, which began and ended at the Danube canal. Together with the canal, Ringstrasse completely encircled the city. No visit to Vienna was complete without spending a day walking up and down the Ringstrasse.

A walk down the exquisitely delightful gardens of Schonbrunn palace was like a dream come true for Harshita. This was the first time she and Siddhartha were on vacation in over five years and she wanted it to last forever.

The sight-seeing bus of the Panorama Tours and Travels drove into the gates of Hofburg Palace and stopped. The tour guide started off in French, which neither Harshita nor Siddhartha could understand. Thankfully, she repeated everything in English. Though German was spoken all over Austria, their guided tour had a mix of English and French speaking tourists, which explained the tour guide’s diction. The entire history of the centuries-old Hofburg Palace was communicated in all of four minutes. ‘So much for compression of facts,’ said Siddhartha, smiling at Harshita.

‘We will be here for the next thirty minutes,’ the guide said into the microphone. ‘Please be back in time people, else you will have to walk out through these gates and take a cab back to your hotels.’

Harshita looked at the overbuilt and bulky Siddhartha. ‘Only thirty minutes. What the hell?’

‘It’s okay. Let’s get down and see. If we like it, we will let the coach go and explore on our own.’ That made Harshita smile. ‘Okay, let’s go!’ She picked up her bag, her camera and with a wide grin walked out of the coach. Siddhartha had to puff and pant to keep pace with her.

The moment they got off the coach, Harshita’s phone rang. She looked at the screen, smiled, but didn’t pick it up. International roaming was too expensive. If there was anything important, the caller would SMS or email her. She dropped the phone deep inside her handbag. The next thirty minutes were pure bliss. Siddhartha and Harshita visited every corner of the Hofburg Palace, clicked hundreds of pictures to show off to friends and family back home, and also a few interesting ones to be put up on Facebook. By the time they were done, their thirty minutes were almost up. They were a good five-minute walk from the bus. Harshita ran and Siddhartha followed suit. Luckily the bus was just pulling out of its parking place when Harshita saw it and flagged it down. Hurriedly she got in and waited for Siddhartha to come. As she settled into her seat, she could hear a muffled noise. It was her phone ringing. She dug into her bag and pulled it out. It was the same caller.

‘Who is it?’ By then, Siddhartha was lowering himself into the seat next to her.

She just turned the phone towards him so he could see who the caller was.

‘Oh, okay. Why don’t you take the call?’

‘Mad or what? You know na, how expensive international roaming is? From Day One I have been staying away from all unimportant calls. The only calls I will pick up are mom’s and dad’s, both yours and mine.’ She was about to put the phone back, when she stopped.

‘Oh my God!’ she exclaimed. The shiver in her voice startled Siddhartha, who cut short his last few moments of admiring the Hofburg Palace through the bus window and turned to look at his wife. ‘What happened?’

Harshita had a shocked look on her face and the screen of her phone was turned towards him. On the screen was a notification: ‘14 missed calls’. And next to it was one number. ‘Something seems to be wrong. I think you should call him back,’ advised Siddhartha on seeing the screen.

‘Wait. I don’t want to call him now. Let me check my mail when we get Wi-Fi next and then, if need be, I will call him. He would surely have sent me an email if it was so important. Else I will Skype him from the hotel in the evening. Wi-Fi in the room is free.’

‘You and your obsession with free stuff,’ smiled Siddhartha, looking out, back to admiring the streets of Vienna.

‘The coach will now stop at the
Parlament
,’ announced the obese guide who had a sexy voice. ‘The Austrian Parliament building is where the two houses of the Austrian parliament sit. Dating back to the late nineteenth century, this imposing structure has a span of over 13,500 sq metres. Built in Greek style, this is one of the largest buildings on the Ringstrasse. Please do not forget to take pictures at the Athena fountain, at the entrance of the
Parlament
. The fountain, ladies and gentlemen, was not part of the initial design but a late addition. You have twenty minutes here. The coach will pick you up from the parking lot outside the Café Coffee Day outlet fifty metres down the Ringstrasse to your right.’ She bent down and pointed in the front, straight out of the windscreen of the bus. ‘Can you see the purple signboard in front of us? That’s the Café Coffee Day outlet.’

Despite her belligerence, Harshita couldn’t ignore the fourteen missed calls; they distracted her. She worried about what could have caused all those calls. She was lost in thought; the only time she really paid any attention to what the tour guide was saying was when she heard Café Coffee Day. ‘CCD? In Vienna?’ Harshita looked surprised. Back in Mumbai, Siddhartha and she would go on late night coffee dates. CCD was one of their favourite places. Even in the days Siddhartha was dating her, the Carter Road CCD outlet was their regular haunt.

She strained her neck to look out of the window in the direction the guide pointed and a little ahead saw the CCD logo.

‘Coffee? After this? Let’s finish this fast.’ So excited was she about having coffee at CCD that she didn’t leave Siddhartha with much of a choice. The weather was close to two degrees centigrade and the chill had made the prospect of a coffee, that too at CCD, very appealing to him.

By the time they were done with exploring the
Parlament
, there were four more missed calls from the same number. This Harshita got to know when she took out her phone as the two of them were settling down on a plush sofa in a cosy corner of CCD.

‘Two Macchiatos please,’ Siddhartha said loudly, forgetting for a minute that he was in Vienna and not in India. People there take offence to anyone screaming out their order. Thankfully for them, the person at the counter was an Indian.

‘Yippee!’ a yell from Harshita made Siddhartha turn towards her.

‘Don’t look at me like that. I yelled because Wi-Fi is free for thirty minutes for everyone who comes here. And it says that if your bill amount comes to more than fifteen euros, on a weekend, it’s free for twelve hours. Today is Sunday Sid. . .free Wi-Fi for twelve hours. . .wooooo. . .I am so thrilled.’

‘You and your fetish for free stuff!! I have no intention to sit here till the shop shuts down,’ said Siddhartha and went back to the menu card. Not only was he feeling hungry, he also had to run up a bill of fifteen euros, to make sure that his wife got unhindered access to free Wi-Fi.

Harshita started fiddling with her iPhone trying to connect to Wi-Fi so that she could download and check her mail. After struggling with it for a few minutes, she was able to connect—a success that she announced not only to Siddhartha but also to others in the coffee shop with an excited shout.

‘Wow, it’s fast. Twenty-six mails,’ she announced to Siddhartha, who didn’t seem very interested. She had left her personal mail ID with some of her colleagues, just in case they wanted to get in touch with her for something urgent. ‘It’s fast ya. All my mails got downloaded in forty-five seconds flat. That’s real fast. Considering that it’s free Wi-Fi, CCD rocks.’ And she started reading through the mails one by one.

‘Call back. It’s very urgent. Tried calling you so many times today.’ She read out one of the mails. ‘I think you should call him back. Something seems to be really wrong,’ Siddhartha advised.

‘Will call,’ she replied and at the same time typed back a response to that particular mail: ‘Get on Skype. Calling in ten minutes.’ She was confident that the mail would be seen on the BlackBerry. It was 5.00 p.m. in Vienna, and hence in India it would be well past dinnertime. Skype was a definite possibility.

‘We only have one more place to visit in this guided tour. Can we ditch it? We will see it tomorrow. What say?’

‘No problem. I’m tired too. Can do with some rest. And now that we have found this Indian coffee shop. . .you go ahead and finish whatever you have to do, while I enjoy my coffee.’ He raised his hand to catch the steward’s eye, and when the steward did look towards them, he just raised his index finger and pointed towards his cup. The steward understood that Siddhartha was asking for a repeat and went back towards the counter to get him more coffee.

Harshita didn’t have to struggle too much to connect on Skype. The call was picked up within the first few rings, indicating that the receiver had seen her mail and was ready. Internet speed was good resulting in good video quality. ‘Hiii. . .’ began Harshita, and then suddenly changed track. ‘Why are you looking like this? What happened?’

The call went on for twenty minutes. Harshita called the steward and asked for something to write on. After a minor confusion, the steward brought her a small piece of paper on which she took down some notes.

‘Okay, great. I will get back to you. Let’s connect on this at

4.00 p.m. tomorrow. Vienna time. By that time you will hopefully be back home. I will find out the details and let you know.’

‘Thanks, Harshita. Hope I haven’t screwed up your holiday, but this was important.’

‘No problems, sweety. Take care.’ She hung up only to see Siddhartha staring at her with raised eyebrows.

‘Oh Sid. You know na, what a darling he is,’ she cajoled. Siddhartha smiled; he knew the two were really great friends. He had no reason to doubt either of them. The raised eyebrows were because of something else. There was something about the call that gave him a bad feeling. Even though he heard only one side of the conversation—Harshita had put on her headphones— he was very uncomfortable. Something was wrong. But he just let it be. They were on a vacation, and there was no point spoiling the mood by worrying about unnecessary things. In any case he could always ask her what the call was about, later. And ask he did, as they were strolling back from CCD to their hotel, a couple of miles away. ‘Is everything alright? Why were you getting so worked up while talking to him? Is there a problem?’

‘No. Not much. It’s just that he wanted some help on some issue that’s come up. He wanted me to check on something. I told him that I will confirm by tomorrow evening.’

‘Confirm what?’

Seeing him edgy and inquisitive, Harshita narrated the entire story to him. ‘That’s all that he wanted to know. Happy sweetheart? Now the only problem is how to give him the information he needs by tomorrow evening.’

‘We have time na? It’s only six. We can do it tonight and revert to him by tomorrow. You can mail it to him tonight, in time for him to see when he gets to work tomorrow.’

‘No. He doesn’t want me to mail him. He said that he would prefer to do it on a call.’

‘Great that gives us more time. But we have a packed day tomorrow. We have a half-day trip to Hitler’s Eagles nest, for which we will have to leave at 7.30 a.m.’ said Siddhartha, reminding her of their tour schedule.

‘Oh yes. We’ll be back only by two. So I’ll have to complete it tonight itself.’

‘Great. Let’s quickly go and grab a drink. It looks like a long night to me. Let’s just pray it doesn’t snow.’

‘Yesss,’ said Harshita as she clutched his arm tightly and they walked back towards the hotel.

A little distance away, on Wiener Strasse, at the Wien Police Headquarters, the President of Police, Gerhard Purtsi was strolling up and down his cabin. Hands in his pockets, a smile on lips, and a relaxed look on his face; he belied the normal impression one would have of a tough cop. In attendance were all the department and zone heads of Vienna Police. It was a great occasion for them, and that’s why all of them were smiling on a Sunday evening despite being at work.

‘We have just crossed a very important milestone’, began Gerhard, in his deep voice. ‘In the whole of last year, eighteen murders were reported in Vienna, and I am glad to inform you that as of this morning, we have solved the 18th murder and that gives us a hundred per cent strike rate for the year. I can’t remember a single year in the history of Vienna Police when we have had such a strike rate.’

The entire team went up in applause. ‘It’s not me alone, but each one of you who has made this happen. I have called for a media briefing tomorrow. The briefing will be followed by our celebrations at The Imperial Grand at Karntner Ring. Please be there. It’s our moment of glory. Let’s bask in it.’

The entire room cheered, also in anticipation. The Imperial Grand was one of Vienna’s oldest and finest hotels. ‘Thanks gentlemen.’ Gerhard went on, ‘Tomorrow is our day. Let’s make it special.’

The last comment brought a smile on the faces of everyone present as they turned to leave. But before they could leave the room, the President thundered again, ‘And before you forget gentlemen, if I were you, I would get a good night’s sleep tonight, because after the media briefing tomorrow, you are bound to get pounded by calls from the media.’ The entire top brass of the police force was in a great mood that evening.

The next morning, the first working day of the week, the ballroom at the Imperial Grand filled up very rapidly. Over a hundred reporters from the local and world media were jostling for space in the large ballroom with imposing chandeliers. Looking strikingly commanding in his uniform, Purtsi walked in. A well-defined swagger in his walk was reflective of a job well done. Some television channels cornered him for sound bytes, and he readily obliged without giving out the reason for the briefing.