I don’t know if these messages will ever find you, but if you see them, please help, stated the last of the twenty-odd pings that had landed in Mo’s ‘Other Folder’.

“Drama much?” said her cousin Brinda.

Brinda had, in her usual pushy way, insisted that they go through Mo’s Facebook ‘Other’ folder for juicy requests for “franship,” and the latter had obliged because her younger cousin was bored stiff at their grandmother’s place.

Mo had also relented because she found her real-estate paperwork tiresome. Not to mention that Dida was at her wit’s end about the bored and sulking teenage grandchild left in her charge. A week-long trip in non-covid times was now going to take Brinda’s mother triple the time, and so, the 17-year-old was pushing Mo to abandon her newly acquired real estate agency work and scroll through thirsty messages from incels for a few laughs.

And six messages down they found this, from one Roger Cole. The display picture was that of a dog with a stick in his mouth.

“Old and Ugly,” Brinda pronounced, with a capital O and U.

Mo furrowed her brow and scrolled to the bottom so she could read from the first message.

It was from 2 weeks ago. Hi Mohini, my name is Roger. I need to speak to you about a sensitive matter. Please trust me that this isn’t a way to get you to call for some underhand reason; it really is quite important.

This was followed by an UK number.

Brinda gave a bark of laughter. “Not fucking likely!” she said.

Mo shot a look at Brinda and inclined her head to the long corridor to remind Brinda their grandmother was within earshot.

Brinda subsided onto the bed again, disgruntled at being schooled by her older cousin.

The next message was within hours of the same day.

Hey, I realise this wasn’t enough to get you to contact me. Let me tell you that it’s about Mita Dey, I believe she lives down the street from you. My father and she were having a bit of an online thing, now my dad has gone missing (been 2 weeks since I heard from him) and I’ve been trying to get hold of this Mita lady. It’s all quiet from her too, even on her social media.

Considering my father did say he’s off to India for a month, the police both here and there are uninterested in pursuing this. They say he might just be tardy in his correspondence; that’s not a police matter.

That said, it looks like you aren’t very active on Facebook. I’m running out of ideas. I even left you a comment or two on some of your posts with global settings, but it looks like you aren’t biting.

I’ve been googling Ms Dey as much as I can, and you showed up in the Google results as living on the same street ─ a moonlighting private detective. Perhaps my luck is finally turning.

A few days later he wrote:

Okay I knew this was a long shot but I had to try. Let me explain this better so if you see this you know there’s a case to solve with double your usual rates if you take it.

My Father Scott has gone missing since October 2020. My mother and he have been divorced for over 10 years now but we are still a unit in some ways and I do not believe he would leave us in the dark for this long on a whim. I knew he was romantically attached to some lady called Mita Dey and chatted with her for hours every day. They started up during the pandemic. A look at Mita’s FB profile tells me even she hasn’t posted anything for even longer, though she was a regular poster till then.

Anyhow here is a recent picture of my dad. Hope you can help me.

After some online research and asking some well-travelled friends, I have notified the police station at Park street and Rowdon street as the likeliest areas my father might have taken a hotel room in. Frankly I was desperately busy with my own work and family and had not thought to take his address and local phone number when he told me he was going. I had thought I would be in constant touch with him through his social media and messengers anyway. But now he is apparently lost and not answering for a fortnight so we are worried, my mom included. With covid restrictions being what they are, if I were to visit India now; that is easily more than a month away from my veterinary practice, with the actual visit and quarantine time. There are a lot of people who depend on me here; so I am holding on to the hope that you and the police can help me before I need to take such a drastic step.

The next message came a day later. Ok, neither the police nor you seem inclined to help. Curse the whole wretched lot of you. A grown man can’t have vanished into thin air?

Mo felt a pang of disappointment both for this man, so desperate and handicapped in his search to find his father, and for missing the chance to solve this mystery; since Scott Cole must have surfaced, either dead or alive, by now.

“Check out this fellow, no, click on his name.” Brinda said with barely veiled impatience.

“All in good time, Brinda,” Mo bit out. Brinda was breathing down her neck.

About a week later, Scott had written,

Just letting you know that I’ve bought tickets to come to Kolkata, I shall be on my way soon.

That was the last message.

Brinda had settled into a chair by the window to register her protest at being treated shoddily; albeit a position that allowed her to still keep an eye on Mo’s screen.

Mo turned her screen around with a twinkle of mischief in her eye and belly-flopped on the bed to look at Roger’s profile. She could tell from Brinda’s fidgeting that her endurance was running out.

The younger cousin finally came over, all forgiven. “So, this is the mysterious Mr Cole.”

Mo was scrolling through pictures ─ about twenty of them spanning twelve years.

“Oooh, me likey!” Brinda said and Mo grimaced at her.

“To put it in terms you’ll understand, Brinda – “Ew”. He must be at least 15 years older than you.”

“Closer to your age, you mean?” Brinda winked.

Dida called from the other room, “Brindaaa, come here I have something to ask you.”

Brinda made a sound that sounded suspiciously like a growl before thudding out of the room.

Left to herself, Mo concentrated on the posts. Roger Cole seemed a rather private person, most posts locked away from strangers. She found his father, Scott Cole’s profile and scrolled through it with interest.

Scott Cole had a few posts supporting the UK’s Labour party, one about the importance of vaccinations, quite a few public posts about Indian art forms, some links about Indian monuments; another about Indian cinema.

Hmm, an Indo-phile. Wonder if that’s a result of his association with Mita Dey, or the other way around?

She saw that Scott Cole had written a post about his plan to fly to Kolkata about 2 months previously; which had generated a few comments from his friends about the wisdom of travel in the middle of a pandemic. He had dodged the questions well enough, and about 4 weeks later, fallen silent.

Mo went back to the son, Roger’s profile page and saw he had sent her a friend request a fortnight ago. She hit accept.

And wrote him a note.

I’m sorry I missed all these messages. Has your father been found? If not, I’m on the case now, Mr. Cole. I shall call you soon.

Within an hour she got a brief response from Roger Cole. No, he has not. I am very grateful if you can help. Do call me as soon as you can, I shall be waiting.

Ok Mo thought, first things first. Let’s go down the street. Ask what’s going on with this Mita Dey.

She slung her bag onto her shoulder and was letting herself out of the flat when Brinda’s voice said, “Oh no, you don’t! I’m coming too.”

“I’m sorry, this is work stuff, you’ll be bored.”

“I can’t be more bored than here! The internet just went down again!” She gave a little suppressed scream of rage fashionable among young people everywhere. “I know it’s not your real estate stuff, you’re going about that yummy Roger Cole thing.”

Mo looked back in exasperation and spied Dida beyond Brinda in the corridor, silently gesturing to Mo to take Brinda with her. She brought her palms together in a gesture of pleading. Please she mouthed.

“Oh well, come along then,” Mo said in disgust.

“Yay!” Brinda squealed, “give me a sec I have to change.”

Mo made to leave, closing the door behind her.

“On second thoughts I look fine,” Brinda grabbed her handbag with a slinky gold strap and sprang out the door before it shut.

A few houses down was the Dey House, as the plaque next to the gate announced. Mo and Brinda rang the bell and waited, adjusting their masks.

A pot-bellied neighbour in a sando-genji and shorts stood in the garden watering his plants. “Be careful over there, this family keeps going in and out of quarantine. Dangerous habit of getting covid, that lot.”

Mo gave him a ghost of a nod and rang the bell. A sonorous clanging sounded in the back of the house and an old retainer peered round the door after a few minutes. “Yes, what do you want?”

“We’d like to speak with Mrs Mita Dey, please?”

The old man stepped back, startled. “Er, but don’t you know?”

“What?” Mo feigned surprise and alarm, while Brinda stood stock still watching her cousin for cues.

“She died of covid last month!”