The Kavali Star
Friday 13 March 2026
DI Ruth Casswell, Serious Acquisitive Crime Unit, Surrey Police
Marchmont College, Chalfont Ashby, Surrey
The Kavali Star — 42.00 ct natural black carbonado diamond, insured £14.2m
On Thursday 12 March, Nikhil Kavali, 15, took the Kavali Star out of his family's home safe without permission and carried it into school in his blazer. At about 08:20 he showed it to four friends in the Long Room, and one of them filmed it and posted a nine-second story that reached a hundred and forty-one people before nine o'clock. Nikhil states he then locked the stone in his locker, Ashcombe 114, attended the compulsory Founders' Day rehearsal from 13:10 to 13:50, and found the locker empty on his return. He reported nothing to the school at any point that day. His father discovered the safe empty that evening and called police at 19:05. Four pupils knew the locker combination. The corridor outside the common room is covered by Camera 7, and the school supplied a copy of that camera's footage the following morning.
Establish whether the Kavali Star was ever taken from Locker 114; if not, reconstruct where it actually went, eliminate the pupils who could not have taken it, identify who removed it and prove how, and recover the stone. Each stage is sealed: you will need to prove your reasoning to unlock the next.
Who's involved
7 people are connected to this case. In the game you'll interview each of them and weigh their motive against whether they really had the opportunity.
Aanya Sood-Bakshi
Year 11; filmed the stone and posted it
Ivo Castellane
Year 11; runs a resale business out of his boarding house
Julian Faulkner-Reid
Head of Design & Technology; Director of the Founders' Day programme; staff lead, AV and Media Crew
Nikhil Kavali
Year 11; the stone's owner by family, and the person who took it out of the safe
Ottilie Renshaw-Vane
Year 11; Nikhil's former girlfriend, and the person who chose the locker combination
Theodore Ashby-Grant
Year 11; Nikhil's closest friend since Year 7
Wesley Nunn
Estates & Security Manager; holds the master key press and the CCTV system
Playing a case
- 01Read the briefing and open the evidence board.
- 02Examine forensics, documents, messages and CCTV, and interview every suspect.
- 03Clear each checkpoint deduction to unlock the next stage as the clock runs down.
- 04Name the culprit, their motive and their method, then get scored against the full solution.
Ready to open the file on The Kavali Star?
Play this case