The Nidhi Kapoor Story (18 page)

“What happened on that night when the pets were killed? Where were you?” Rujuta came straight to the point.

Payal looked at Rujuta for an instant before she replied, “I was with Nidhi the entire night. She and I were
out.” Rujuta realized that Payal seemed to be weighing her words carefully before she spoke.

“Oh yes, she was shooting for some commercial, right?” Rujuta made an apparently harmless remark. She was just warming up. She wanted to see if she could throw Payal off-guard.

“What shooting?” Payal was genuinely surprised.

“From the meeting at your place, I got an impression that Nidhi was in some shoot that night. She wasn’t?”

“No, she wasn’t. Nidhi and I had gone out for dinner. After that we went for a drive. She was to start the shoot for Vicky’s film the next day and she wanted to rehearse her lines,” Payal replied calmly.

“So the two of you just drove around and talked?” Rujuta asked.

“Actually, at the dinner, Nidhi had one too many and she wanted to walk at the Marine Drive. Even though I was tired and wanted to come home sooner, I did not want her to go alone, because everywhere she goes, she is immediately mobbed by the crowd. I guess being famous has its issues as well. So, anyhow, I went along with her. I drove her around and when she slept in the car, we came home. I put her in her room and I went back to mine.” Again, nothing in Payal’s countenance gave anything away.

“When did you guys come back?”

“I don’t remember the exact time. Must’ve been around two if not later,” Payal was tentative.

“So how and when did she discover the dogs?… pets I mean. Were they around when you came back?”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember,” Payal sounded resigned. “Nidhi discovered them in the morning. I was woken up by her wailing. When I reached the office, Shankar Kaka and Malti Kaki were already there. We did not know what to do when we discovered Cho, Caesar and Cookie and then Shankar Kaka called Naveen. Thankfully, he came within ten minutes.”

“I am so sorry Payal. By the way, who amongst the two of you is older?” Rujuta knew all about Kapoors and she wanted to put Payal at ease.

Payal stared hard at Rujuta. “I am elder by two years. How is this important?” she asked, showing the first signs of irritation.

“It’s not. I was just curious. I did not mean to offend you. I just… just wanted to put you at ease before I got to questions about the two incidents,” Rujuta tried to retreat from the hostile territory.

Payal simply nodded.

Rujuta continued. “Do you think someone would want to harm Nidhi?”

“I don’t know. Nidhi is a really big star. But despite her reputation, she is never rude to anyone. She mostly keeps to herself and never meddles in anyone’s affairs. It’s hard to think that someone would want to hurt her.” Rujuta remembered the incident when Nidhi ran up to Prakash and apologized for Verma’s behavior. She nodded at Payal and continued to gaze at her.

Rujuta remained silent. Payal could not bear the silence and spoke involuntarily. “I don’t know. Maybe some deranged fan? She gets so many letters from fans every day.
Our publicist tries to reply to each letter but often there’s too much mail. Maybe that ticked someone off? Isn’t that what he wrote in the letter?” Payal sounded earnest.

Something clicked in Rujuta’s mind.“Who manages your mail?”

“A PR agency does that. I can have them call you. We have had threats since Papa’s time,” Payal said.

“OK. Please do that. It would be very helpful. Who all had access to your house?”

“That’s the most surprising part. Apart from Naveen, Shankar Kaka and Malti Kaki, nobody. Everyone in the film fraternity, all the film stars, have a personal staff of more than twenty people. But we just have Shankar Kaka and Malti Kaki. We take help from Shiva occasionally but that is about it. It is very scary that someone could enter our house, our office and do all those things to Cho, Caesar and Cookie. If we are not safe in our own house, where do we go? Naveen is of the opinion that we should move to a hotel for a few days, or even go abroad if required.” She was getting agitated now, probably angry because of her helplessness against this nameless and faceless assailant.

Rujuta took a note of Shiva. She tried to sound sympathetic. “I understand what you guys must be going through. You guys, especially Nidhi, are very brave…”

Before Rujuta could finish her sentence, Payal interrupted. She was louder than required, “You can’t, Rujuta. No one can understand. And only I know how Nidhi is coping with it. No one knows her better than I do. Not even Naveen. She is very strong. She always does the right thing and yet she is in danger.”

Rujuta was losing the plot. “I am so sorry. I just… just don’t know how to ask you without putting you through pain,” she spoke gently.

Payal did not reply. She was staring at something beyond Rujuta. Rujuta, for once, was lost for words. After what seemed like forever, when the silence became unbearable, Rujuta said, “I am sorry. We can talk later if it’s OK with you.”

Payal smiled weakly at Rujuta. That was the first time she smiled since she had come to meet her. It would have been a radiant smile on a regular day. Probably as good as Nidhi’s. “I am fine. I am sorry for reacting like that. We have seen far worse in past. Just that these incidents bring back those unpleasant memories.”

Rujuta’s eyes sparkled with excitement. So there indeed was something in the Kapoor’s history that they were wary of. Just the way Vicky Taluja had pointed. She made a note to dig deeper into the background of the Kapoors. Purely as an academic exercise more than anything else. And if there were indeed some dirty linen hidden, she would try and close the open ends. The world is full of strange people and some of them could hold grudges for decades and strike when no one is suspecting.

Payal’s answer was begging for a follow up question. But Rujuta thought the better of it. She replied with a leading question, “I hope it will be over soon. I don’t think the fire is related to what happened in Nidhi’s office. No?”

“Yeah! I also don’t want to believe that the two are related. But it’s too much of a coincidence. Both times Nidhi barely escaped. What if she is not lucky the third time? That
letter that Papa got, that letter clearly said that it’s the same guy!” Payal was genuinely concerned.

Rujuta was surprised. Apart from the letter in the study and the letter that Naveen Verma got in his car, she wasn’t aware of any other letters from the assailant. She had this urge to ask Payal about the letter but like a good investigator, she suppressed it. She wanted to rather check if Payal knew about the tape that Naveen Verma had received the previous day. The letter could wait.

“There won’t be any third time, Payal. The point of these long discussions is to make sure of that. Did you speak to Mr. Verma since yesterday?” Rujuta asked.

“Of course. He’s the only elder we have at home now. I mean, we have Papa, but he is unwell,” Payal replied sadly.

So Naveen Verma hadn’t shared the tapes with Payal at least. He had told as much to Prakash. Rujuta liked when facts checked like that. She was surprised that she was enjoying these interviews. Writing short essays and clicking pictures was a good way to satisfy her creative urges, but Rujuta was liking this grind of picking loose ends and binding them to make a long coherent thread. At one end of that non-existent thread was her, Rujuta Singh, the rookie investigator. On the other was the unknown assailant who was always at least two steps ahead of her.

Before Rujuta could ask her next question, Payal spoke by herself. “You know back then, Papa used that room as a spare bedroom. Whenever he was working late, he would be in there.” Payal’s eyes were clouded now and she looked on the verge of tears. She pulled a tissue paper from a side table.

“I love Papa so so much. I told him to stop drinking but he never listened to me. I wanted Mumma and Nidhi to talk to Papa but they did not talk to him at all. If only he had listened to me, he would have been better. Life would be so so different. Thank God we got him to come back and live with us.” Payal was now sobbing.

Rujuta wanted to interrupt but Payal was talking about their past. And there couldn’t be a better account of what had transpired behind those walls, all those years ago.

“You know, I am an adopted child. Mumma and Papa were so good to me. We always got the same set of clothes, same things to play with, the same school, same college. Everything. Nidhi and I were like the best of friends. We did everything together. We even went on double dates. And once with the same guy! I let Nidhi go ahead with him; I could get more boys any time. Nidhi had these ugly braces in her teeth. Kids used to call her cookie cutter. Actually, I only came up with that name!” she managed a weak smile.

“But you know, Maa was harsh. She said we couldn’t tell anyone in school that we were sisters. She thought that my popularity would cause complications for Nidhi. She obviously loved Nidhi more than she loved me but then Papa compensated for her.” Payal paused to sip on some water.

She continued, “I would play a prank and Nidhi would always get caught. But she would never rat on me. We were very thick. She could do anything to see me happy. She’s more than a sister to me. I just can’t imagine what I would do without her.”

While Payal was talking, Rujuta thought of a flame that burns brightly and throws out yellow and blue lights at the
same time. Two extremes, yet in harmony. Payal and Nidhi were like that. Two extremes, from the same source, so very different and yet in harmony.

Rujuta played along, “Nidhi is so lucky to have you as her sister!”

At Rujuta’s comment, Payal burst out in tears with loud sobs. Just a minute back Payal was smiling and talking about her sister and now she was crying out loud.

Rujuta was taken aback. She could not understand Payal. Since they started talking, Payal had shown extreme emotions ranging from anger to happiness to euphoria to sadness to indifference. Maybe she was disturbed with the recent events? Who could remain sane after what had happened to her family? If this was how Payal was reacting, Nidhi had to be worse because everyone that Rujuta spoke to had said that Nidhi was the weaker of the two.

In fact, a few years back, Nidhi had apparently undergone a long and arduous treatment for clinical depression. There was no evidence per se, but newspapers gossiped about frequent visits of a leading psychologist at Ronak. One reporter got hold of trash from Ronak and he found a cache of anti-depressants in the disposal bin. Rujuta found it surprising that Nidhi could fight depression and bounce back to become such a big name in the Bollywood in such a short time. In fact, Nidhi’s debut had come at a very difficult time; Neelima Kapoor had died in an accident and Nishant Kapoor had just announced his retirement. Something did not add up. She had to find out. But from whom? How?

The interview with Payal wasn’t going the way she
had expected. Although Rujuta enjoyed the investigation, she was now tired of seeing Payal go through the motions. She knew she did not have patience, which is probably the single most effective tool in an investigator’s arsenal. She had heard war room stories of investigators holed up for up to twenty, thirty hours with suspects. If Rujuta were to please Prakash, she needed to do better than the measly forty minutes that she spent with Payal.

But that could wait. Right now, she just wanted to get out of the Lotus Café at the Marriott and get away from Payal.

16. Day 7, Evening. Ronak.

“Over my dead body!” Nishant cried emphatically.

Naveen Verma looked at Nidhi. She hadn’t slept since Verma confronted her with the tapes. Nidhi had initially denied that Nishant did those things to Neelima and her but when Verma showed her the tapes, she accepted that it was indeed a recording of one of many times when Nishant had physically abused her and Neelima.

“So be it. And I anyway am not in favor of submitting to a bloody blackmailer,” Nidhi said.

“Nidhi,
beta
, try to understand. You have earned your place in the industry after so much hardship. Imagine if the tapes were to come out, what would happen!” Naveen was pleading.

“What tapes?” Nishant looked surprised.

“Nothing Papa,” Nidhi retorted immediately.

“Why don’t you tell him? It’s because of you that this bastard is still alive or else I would’ve killed him yesterday when I saw those tapes,” Verma pointed menacingly at Nishant Kapoor.

“You will not talk to my father like that. What has happened has happened, he is still my father and in case you are forgetting, he is your brother-in-law.”

“But
beta
…” Naveen softened.

“No uncle. If dad doesn’t want to sell it, we won’t. Even if he has threatened to harm me.” The calm demeanor was
back.

“Will someone please tell me what are we talking about? What is the confusion? Where did this thing about selling Ronak come in the first place? Nidhi you want to buy a new place? Go ahead and do it. We have enough and more money. But I won’t move out of Ronak. I made it with sweat and toil.” Nishant was now being insolent.

Naveen had had enough. He flung the CD at Nishant. It hit him in chest and then fell in his lap. “Here. If we don’t sell Ronak, this tape will air on prime time TV and you and your reputation will go to hell. You are a fucking monster Nishant. I knew Neelima was making a mistake by marrying you but I did not know that it would come to haunt us even after all these years,” Naveen cried.

Nishant did not know of the contents of the tape but he did not like Naveen talking to him like that. “Shut up, Naveen. What is on the tape? And dare you throw something at me. Basheer is still a phone call away and you know what he is capable of!” Nishant was referring to his old bodyguard, who was long gone now.

Nidhi wanted to put an end to this bout of bickering. “Papa, the tape is a recording of that night when you pushed mumma in the pool and threatened her with a gun. Remember?” Nidhi said calmly.

Nishant was stunned at Nidhi’s lack of emotion. He did not remember the night clearly, there were far too many times when he had beaten Neelima and Nidhi. And most of these attacks on his wife and daughter anyway had happened under the influence of alcohol. But when he beat Neelima and Nidhi, he often recorded their ordeal with a
small handycam that he had got from one of his trips abroad. It was a latest gadget of that time and he loved taping things secretly. His fetish of recording his adventures had come in handy while he was trying to acquire Ronak. Life seemed to have come a full circle and it looked as if he was going to lose Ronak to one such tape.