The Pawn - Part 4
In continuation to Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
Unaware to both of them the investigative team head Shekhar was having a sleepless night as he tried to decipher all that had been decoded before him. It was a huge blunder on his team’s end to have named Aisha without cross verifying things and it could also lead to them losing their jobs.
Thirty seven year old Shekhar Subramaniam had been heading the investigative team at Zeus for about half a decade now and never had such a thing happened in the past with him. He was known for his staunch beliefs and rigorous investigations. This whole incident baffled him beyond logic as to how could his whole team end up doing something so ludicrous.
He was glad that in the end he had decided to apologize to Aisha, requesting for some more time for investigations albeit this time a bit more cautiously.
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| Source: Google Images |
Contrary to his fears, Aisha did not blow up on hearing his pleas. She had nodded a yes giving them 3 days time.
He had to make it in these three days by hook or by crook. Come whatever may he had to nail in the culprit or else his reputation of being impeccable in work would be questioned. He spent the entire night with his favourite Marlboro for company filling the room with smoke rings of various sizes. Thinking about all the possibilities that lay before him, he finally fell asleep somewhere in the wee hours of morning.
*-*-*-*-*
After 3 days
Shekhar sat in the empty meeting room perplexed at what should be done now. It was 7 pm and his team had left for the day. Unlike the previous instance, this time he had double checked the whole investigation report and was supposed to see Aisha in a while with the final conclusions.
He was pretty confident that they were bang on with their findings and yet the conclusion was what scared him. How could he tell Aisha what his team had found out? But then the job had to be done nevertheless of the repercussions.
Bracing himself for the worst he knocked on Aisha’s door.
“Come in…”
“Good evening Madam...”
“Good evening Shekhar. Please have a seat. I hope this time there are no lapses in your findings. Otherwise I will be forced to complain against you and your team to the global headquarters.”
“No Madam this time we have verified the report thrice and are pretty confident about our findings.”
“So, please go ahead and tell me then.”
“Madam, we will start where we left our previous findings. We had concluded that you were not present on the days when the transactions happened and moreover the device used for authorization was reported as lost by you.”
Aisha nodded in agreement.
He continued further,
“We verified the records and found that your mail about theft was indeed received by the tech team and a new device was also issued to you after blocking the old one. The same was dispatched on 27th April 2013 vide DHL courier tracking no. ABL1256480 and was delivered at the branch on 29th April 2013. The packet was received at the inward desk and handed over to…” Shekhar paused abruptly.
Aisha who was listening to all this intently with closed eyes suddenly opened her eyes and asked him “Why did you stop? Continue...”
Shekhar fumbled, “Madam it was handed over to Ms.Maria. Being your secretary she is in charge of accepting all the couriers addressed to you.”
Aisha snarled at him,” Don’t tell me it all still leads to me!!! I have not received any such courier.”
“Precisely Madam. We checked that too, she apparently maintains a register wherein you sign once the couriers are handed over to you as a compliance requirement and also to maintain confidentiality of the matters. There is no such mention of this device in the register, which clearly means the device never reached you.”
Now it was Aisha’s turn to be shocked.
“Did you check the branch inward register properly?”
“Yes Madam we did. Her signatures are very much there against the receipt of the device. “
Aisha was shell shocked at these new findings. Maria, her most trusted aide was under the scanner now and she did not know what to do. Shekhar continued speaking giving her details about dates and incidents mentioning the instances where there were loopholes. To top it all in the last few months there had been abnormal monetary transactions in her account as well confirming all their doubts.
Pin drop silence filled the room once Shekhar had finished talking. Aisha sat there brooding about things for quite some time before looking at him.
“Now what do you want from me.”
“Madam we need to interrogate her. And we need your approval for that. We will have to submit this report and get an inquiry committee set up for this whole issue. Subsequent to the committee’s conclusions appropriate action will be taken against her.”
A sigh escaped her lips as she heard all this. “There is nothing that we can do here. Please go ahead. You have all the approvals from my end to do the needful. You send the necessary emails for the same. “
A beaming Shekhar left her cabin feeling proud of his team. Finally tonight he will sleep peacefully. Since last 3 days sleep had evaded him as failure was something he could not digest. But today he had turned failure into success, something that he was known for.
~ To be continued in the final part
