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126 pages

English

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When DCP Ravi and his ACP Rahul are handed the case of the death of the Union Sports Minister and cricket board member S.N. Rao, little do they know that this is just one of the series of murders across the city. What unravels is a ruthless game of supremacy a deeper, more sinister plan to squash anyone coming in the way of setting up the twenty-twenty league and becoming one of the richest sporting bodies of the world! In the nexus between politicians and the cricket board, the players are just pawns and the real game a tamasha.

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Thriller

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Publié par	Penguin Books Ltd
Date de parution	18 novembre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9788184752328
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0350€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

‘When did you see him last?’
‘During the T20 matches.’
‘Never after that?’
‘No. There was no need to.’
‘Did you discuss S.N. Rao?’
‘Yes, but this was internal.
It had nothing to do with his death.’
‘Was there any decision to ease him out of the board?’
‘I don’t think that is of any relevance here.’
When DCP Ravi and his ACP Rahul are handed the case of the death of Union Sports Minister and cricket board member S.N. Rao, little do they know that this is just one of a series of murders across the city.
What unravels is a ruthless game of supremacy—a deeper, more sinister plan to squash anyone coming in the way of setting up a Twenty20 league and becoming one of the richest sporting bodies of the world!
In the nexus between politicians and the cricket board, the players are just pawns and the real game a tamasha .
Every life has a story
PENGUIN BOOKS THE PREMIER MURDER LEAGUE
Dr Geeta Sundar did her schooling from St Joseph’s Convent, Jabalpur, and her bachelor’s and postgraduation in medicine from Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Medical College, Jabalpur.
She began her practice as a consultant in medicine at BL Kapoor Memorial Hospital, Delhi. Currently she has a consultancy practice at Bibvewadi, Pune, and is also an online health counsel for a leading insurance brokerage firm.
Several of her articles on health have appeared in national magazines and newspapers like Femina, the Times of India and the Indian Express. She began her career as a writer seven years ago and has published a number of books on health-related issues.
She has followed the game of cricket and enjoyed it since childhood. It was natural then that when she started writing her first fiction, cricket automatically crept into it!
Dr Geeta Sundar lives in Pune.

PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi 110 017, India
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)
Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)
Penguin Books (NZ) 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburgh 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published by Penguin Books India 2010
Copyright © Geeta Sundar 2010
All rights reserved
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-01-4306-782-5
This digital edition published in 2011.
e-ISBN: 978-81-8475-232-8
This e-book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser and without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above-mentioned publisher of this e-book.
This book is dedicated to my beloved father who passed away recently;
To Sachin Tendulkar for many an exciting moment;
And also to the three cricketers I admire wholeheartedly—Kapil Dev and M.S. Dhoni for their down-to-earth sincerity, talent and confidence;
Rahul Dravid for holding fort so many times in his career with perfect technique and sheer determination.
Contents
Copyright
Prologue
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Acknowledgements
Prologue
9 September 2007
It was raining heavily in Delhi that night. S.N. Rao, the minister for sports, was chewing two paans after his dinner as he prepared to go to bed. He was in his farmhouse located at a very picturesque, though isolated, spot forty kilometres from the city. It had been a long day but a fruitful one in the end, since the counselling session with his son had gone off well. He had shared the good news with his wife Indu. She was currently in the US, visiting her sister who was recovering from a surgery for breast cancer. He thought fondly about his wife. His lovely wife, who even at fifty could give the current beauty queens a run for their money, whose flawless complexion and chiselled features owed nothing to beauty parlours or plastic surgery. The only embellishment she needed on her face was a dark maroon bindi.
Suddenly he was flooded with her scent, a heady combination of jasmine and chandan that at this age too set his pulse racing. Their life together had been a good one. Thinking about her even for a few moments filled him with happiness and a feeling of being blessed. He missed her badly but comforted himself that she would be back with him soon.
His mind switched back to the paans he was chewing, they tasted unusually sweet. The paanwala had probably put too much gulkand, the sugary rose mixture, in it, he thought. A little while later there was a strong burning sensation in his throat as if somebody had set it on fire. Then suddenly he started retching violently but nothing came out. He went to the bathroom where he managed to throw up.
There was a sense of relief since he had got rid of his nausea, but this was short-lived. The discomfort in his stomach grew again till there were three more bouts of vomiting. By now he was wheezing and panting and there were severe cramps in his stomach followed by diarrhoea.
He came out of the bathroom and scrambled in his bedside drawer for his medicines. He pulled out his inhaler, took a puff and spotted an anti-diarrhoeal too. His hands began to shake as he poured himself water and swallowed the medicine—but he got no relief.
I must tell Vineet, he thought, remembering his son was at home. He looked at the door to his bedroom which was closed because of the air conditioner running. It suddenly seemed a long distance away. Wheezing slightly and walking slowly because of the weakness, he reached to open the door but could not. It seemed to have been locked from outside! Then he went back looking for his mobile to call his son, but was not able to find it either. What the hell is happening? He was panicking now. Something was seriously wrong!
After another visit to the bathroom he decided he would shout for help. But only a hoarse cry emerged from his parched throat. He inched to the door again. In his desperation, he tried to bang on it but nobody seemed to hear him. Probably his blows were feeble. By now he was losing his strength and breathing heavily. He was so weak that he was unable to stand and only able to crawl, that too with great difficulty. He felt as if his muscles were made of lead, but he was aware of what was happening to him since his mind was remarkably clear.
He was sure now that the paans had contained something, he should have spat them out immediately. But it was too late. The person who had done this to him had been clever enough to take his mobile away and also bolt the door from outside. He was lying on the ground—writhing and thinking, desperate to try something. Anything! Then he did the only thing he could. Shakily, he pulled out a pen from his pocket and used it to leave a message on the wall.
Exhausted by the effort and the knowledge that the end was near, he lay down flat on the floor in shavasana, the corpse pose, and softly started chanting ‘Hare Krishna, Hare Rama’ between long and deep laboured breaths. His body began to jerk as he suffered a fit. To his horror he felt totally paralysed. Oh God, I'm going to die! he thought.
He passed away after four hours.
Silence descended as his struggle ended. The door stood like a silent witness—it was now unlocked!
One
Just as Ravi Sharma, the deputy commissioner of police of the crime branch, walked briskly into his office at the police headquarters, he received a call. It was the commissioner of police on the other side, ‘Ravi, can you come to my office immediately; Mr S.N. Rao, the union minister for sports, passed away last night at his farmhouse.’
As he waited for his junior, Commissioner Bedi thanked his stars that he had a DCP like Ravi working under him, who had solved more criminal cases in the last five years than anyone else in the department. He smiled as Ravi entered and pointed to the chair in front. ‘Hope you enjoyed the well-deserved break with your parents. Have they gone back?’
‘Yes sir, they've gone back to my brother,’ Ravi replied saluting and then took the seat before his senior. Ravi was a tall, dark, good-looking police officer with a no-nonsense demeanour that added to his appeal.
‘Well, coming to S.N. Rao’s death, most probably it is a natural one, but given his status as union minister for sports and his status as a cricket board member, it is better to be sure. We don't want to find out later that the death was unnatural and miss out on vital evidence. Remember this had happened with the foreign minister three years back and there was a big hue and cry?’
Ravi nodded. ‘Yes sir.’
His senior continued, ‘I want you and Rahul to go to