THE LAST PING

A Note on Sources

On November 3rd, 2023, at 11:47 PM GMT, a silver Volkswagen Polo registered to one Arjun Mehta — Indian national, UK resident, senior analyst at CipherNet Security Consulting, Canary Wharf, London — left the M4 motorway at Junction 8 and struck a concrete barrier at approximately 94 mph. The vehicle was destroyed. Emergency services recovered one body, identified through dental records and DNA as Arjun Mehta, 34.

His wife, Detective Inspector Naina Mehta of the Delhi Police Cyber Crime Unit, was informed at 4 AM IST on November 4th. She flew to London that morning to handle the arrangements.

On November 9th, while still in London, Naina Mehta received a WhatsApp message from her husband's phone number.

The message read: Don't come home yet.

She did not come home.

What follows is reconstructed from: Naina Mehta's personal case notes, maintained in a private encrypted file she began keeping on November 9th; communications records obtained under mutual legal assistance treaties with the UK, Japan, UAE, and India; the server logs of three telecommunications companies across four countries; and the testimony of four individuals who asked not to be named.

The investigation lasted sixty-one days.

It did not end where it began.

Neither did Naina.