A little later, they had learnt that three men visited the shack after dark a few days a week, but always separately. One was Ismail from the Misty Valley Resort and another was a man who worked at a restaurant near the bus stand at Coonoor. The third name came as a surprise to the anti- drug team.
When a lorry blocked the view from the tea shop and the cigarette stall, a man materialized in front of the shack. Within thirty seconds, the lock was open. He stepped in and closed the door behind him. Inside, he found unquestionable evidence of drug trafficking.
The shack was put under round-the-clock surveillance. Before the next day dawned, the three men who frequented the shack would have been apprehended.
Once the shack had been searched, the team prepared to raid the Misty Valley Resort. Their primary target was the hidden cellar under Abbas’s office that was accessible only through a trapdoor concealed under a thick rug behind his desk.
* * *
Meanwhile, at the Coonoor town police station, an officer had been busy on the phone, calling nearby hotels and resorts in the hope of finding a man whose name he had been given by Athreya. He started with hotels in the heart of town, and slowly moved outwards.
The first hour had been fruitless as none of the hotels reported having hosted anyone by that name. After all, it was an uncommon name in this part of the world. Each call took several minutes. First, he had to get to the manager or his representative. Then, he had to convince the person that he was indeed a policeman calling from the station. And finally, he had to wait for the person to go through the guest register and report back.
By the end of the hour, he was growing frustrated. He had called twenty-odd hotels without success. An hour later, his hopes were fading. All the hotels in and around the town, including the few that were close to Wellington, had not hosted the man. Athreya’s hopes were also fading, but he insisted that they go over the entire list, and call all hotels and resorts.
Suddenly, the officer hit pay dirt. When he called a high-end resort to the south-east of Coonoor, he had a pleasant surprise waiting for him.
‘Yes,’ the hotel manager said. ‘We have a Mr. Enrico staying with us. He checked in on Saturday, and is expected to be here for two more days.’
Enrico, the art valuer, had come to Coonoor after all. Disregarding his growling stomach, Athreya jumped into a police vehicle and hastened to the resort, which was half an hour away.
‘Mr. Enrico?’ he asked when he met the surprised foreigner. ‘I have come from Greybrooke Manor. I want to speak to you about some paintings’
‘What paintings?’ Enrico asked.
‘The Balsano landscapes.’
* * *
Back in Coonoor, a ravenous Athreya sat down to eat lunch with Rajan. News of the anti-drug team’s discovery at the shack had come in, delighting Rajan and the local police. If Rajan had been expecting Athreya to be surprised at any of the three names that had emerged in relation to the shack, he was disappointed. In fact, the third name, which had surprised everyone, was the very one Athreya had asked Rajan to enquire about in Coorg.
Rajan’s contact in Coorg called when they were in the midst of lunch. He had completed the enquiries, and found out something that left Rajan astonished.
‘The person you asked me to find out about is dead,’ the man said. ‘Died ten years ago.’
‘You were right,’ Rajan said once he had hung up.
‘Things are falling into place. We now have enough evidence for a conviction. In addition, Abbas, Murthy, Ismail and a few others will also see jail terms.
‘The local police are thrilled that they have finally been able to nail Abbas. They have been after him for a few years now, and suspected that he was somehow involved in the drug trade. But they had nothing definite. Now, they have him.’
‘Bhaskar Fernandez, too, suspected that Abbas was in the drug trade,’ Athreya said. ‘In fact, he was very sure of it. It was his conviction that set me onto Abbas. A very sharp man, Bhaskar. He will be delighted to hear this news.’
‘That’s all fine,’ Rajan said with a frown. ‘But how does all this fit in with the murders at Greybrooke Manor? Why was Phillip killed? We know that he was involved in the attempts on Bhaskar’s life. But who killed him? And Sebastian? I suppose he surprised someone at the chapel last night and paid the price for it.’
‘That is what I am waiting for,’ Athreya replied. ‘The last piece of the puzzle. The final piece of evidence that links the residents of the valley to art-related crimes in Europe.’
‘What kind of evidence?’ Rajan asked.
‘Fingerprints. I expect one set of prints from here to find a match in the Viennese police records.’
As if on cue, Athreya’s phone rang. It was the man from Delhi. He sounded excited.
‘We have a match!’ he exclaimed. ‘We finally have a match.’
Chapter 21
Back at Greybrooke Manor, Athreya was standing over Bhaskar, who was seated in his wheelchair in the study. Sebastian’s murder had broken him. He sat slumped now, pale and drawn, his eyes deep-set and empty. Without Sebastian standing behind him, Bhaskar somehow looked lonely. It was no secret that Sebastian had been like a son to him.
Sebastian had been with Bhaskar from the time the younger man had been an uneducated, wayward seventeen-year-old. As a Spanish immigrant and a recent orphan, Sebastian had been unemployed and penniless in Austria. Bhaskar had pulled him out of the mire that many boys of Sebastian’s economic standing were prone to sink into. He had offered Sebastian a job at his antique shop and had given him a roof over his head.
Most importantly, he had given the young orphan hope, and something to look
