“He went out with the car for the night shift and never returned,” he continued. “I should not have let him go out for the night shift. It was the biggest mistake of my life,” he added as he wept.
“At what time did he leave?” Avinash asked.
“Don’t remember the exact time, but it was late-night. Around eight or nine,” the father answered.
“Which car did he take that night?” Erika asked
“I don’t remember the model but I remember the number. It was “GA 03 MJ1011.” If I am not wrong,” the father answered in a cracked voice.
“What time was he usually home by?” Erika asked
“By 5 or 6 in the morning.”
“Did he call you that night or tried to get in contact with you somehow?” Avinash asked.
“Did not hear from him after that night. He just called to tell me that he had a customer for Pune and he might be late. After that, no contact,” replied the father, now looking at Mrs. Silvi.
Erika stood there, folding her hands, thinking hard and trying to process all this in her head. There were a lot many theories that were popping up in her head but were baseless without evidence.
“Did you file an FIR about this matter?” asked Avinash.
“Yes, we did, but we don’t have the FIR copy anymore. We went to the police station every week to check but no luck. Gave up after two years,” said the man in a cold voice.
“We are here for you, and we are going to look into this matter from a new angle and surely find your son,” said Erika pacifying the couple.
“Maka porga dhundhun deo”* 1 cried out the mom for the first time, pleading to Erika with folded hands.
Erika was overwhelmed with emotions and did not have anything to say. She put on her shades and walked out of the house, followed by Avinash. None of them uttered a single word until they got into the car and set on the journey back to the villa.
“Do you think there is a connection?” asked Avinash breaking the silence.
“This case is not a straight line and not even a circle. This is like a doughnut,” said Erika. “You ever had a doughnut? Odd little dish with a hole in the middle. Just like this case. A doughnut. One central piece that is missing. The non-existence of a single piece is keeping this case afloat and makes it different from other cases. How that one piece, if found, will just bring everything into perspective,” continued Erika.
“I don’t think I am keeping up with you,” Avinash said.
“Let’s revise. A murder, six witnesses, a suspect, a convict, a closed case, and then the note sent to me with some serious cash. No motives have been established for any of the suspects for killing the victim and a missing driver. Either there is one important ingredient missing in the recipe, or all of the ingredients are wrong,” said Erika in a mysterious tone looking out of the window.
Avinash couldn’t quite keep up with Erika but chose not to interrupt her flow of thought and kept on driving through the empty roads.
At around 9pm, they slowly entered the driveway of the villa. The villa stood there silently in the dead of night with a thousand secrets etched on it’s walls that could not be seen by the naked eye.
Erika got off from the car and stepped on loose soil, sinking her leg, ankle-deep in the mud. She was disgusted by it and stepped out of the vehicle, sinking both her feet now. She turned on her phone’s flashlight to check how deep her legs had sunk. As she stood there waving her cell phone over the soil, she noticed something odd. There was a garden with plants on both sides of the driveway, but the part of the garden she was standing on was barren with no plants or grass. She made her way out of the thick mud onto the driveway. Then she again used the flashlight and found out that the whole garden on either side of the driveway had lush green grass and flowers. But only a small part of the garden’s left side had wrinkled flowers and no grass. She kneeled to have a closer look. She observed that even the soil was unevenly spread.
“It did rain quite a bit in this part today,” said Avinash getting out of the car after searching for his wallet in the car all this while. He was surprised to see Erika kneeling and examining the soil.
“Do you find something peculiar about this?” he asked.
“Oh no, it’s just that this part doesn’t have any grass, and the flowers are wrinkled, so I was just wondering what could be the reason. It’s probably nothing,” she answered, getting up. As she was getting up, she glanced at the window that faced the garden and found Richa standing on the other side of the window staring right at her with zero expressions as if she had been hypnotized. She waved at her and smiled awkwardly, but there was no response from Richa. Erika then got her boots cleaned, and both the officers walked towards the villa.
As they entered, Erika noticed that Richa was still at the window, staring right out at the garden with the same expressions as earlier. Avinash went to his room while Erika walked up to Richa and asked, “You like the view, huh?”.
But there was no response from Richa as usual, and she just stood there staring out of the window. Erika stood behind her. She saw that Richa was directly gazing at the exact spot where she stood with her legs in the mud, a few minutes ago. This puzzled Erika.
Chapter 14
The sun rays had cracked open the skies and they pierced through the clouds that were hovering over the villa since the last few days. With the sunlight came a glimmer of hope and warmth, which the villa and the people living under it so desperately needed. The sunlight crept into the estate through the slightly open windows, and Erika’s room was no different. The bright sunlight pouring in had filled her room.
“The garden. No grass. Vivek, the missing driver. A murder with no connection whatsoever to the people interrogated,” thought Erika to herself as she lay on the bed, her eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling. She lay there, clueless as to what was going on around her and where was this case leading to.
Erika was startled by the sudden ringing of the alarm. She moved swiftly and turned it off. She sat up on the edge of the bed and then pulled out the note which she had received at her doorstep, from the drawer of the side table. She read the whole message again and again to herself. “Homicide case file. Truth Be Told,” she repeated to herself.
“Homicide. Truth. Homicide. The garden with no grass. A missing driver,” she continued in her mind closing her eyes. It felt as if a million Erikas were repeating the same few words again and again in her mind. Homicide. Truth. Homicide. The garden. Missing driver. Suddenly she opened her eyes, overwhelmed by the commotion in her head.
“Homicide, a part of a garden with no grass or flowers, a missing Driver!” she said a little loudly, with a spark in her voice.
She got out of the bed hurriedly. She then jumped into the bath and within minutes she came out dressed up and called Avinash. “Try and find a few labourers from around. We have some digging to be done, and also, ask everyone to gather in the living room within 30 minutes,” she said panting heaviliy and hung up
After 30 minutes Erika was walking down the staircase, her hair still wet. She hurried down the stairs trying to tie the wristwatch.
“Had a rough night?” asked Avinash as he saw Erika walk down the staircase.
“No. I mean, yeah, I am only human after all,” she answered. “Anyways, did you find the labourers?”
“Yes, they are ready, and so is the group, waiting in the living room,” Avinash replied.
“Very well, then let’s get on with this,” sighed Erika walking towards the living room.
All the six of them were busy in their work and Nishant was still in his night suit, which was a bit odd.
“We have a few new findings in the case, and we are going to match that up with some evidence. So let’s all gather in the garden then,” said Erika leaving the lot behind.
“What is she up to now, and why the garden?” asked Kaajal.
“Let her do her thing. Let her have her fun,” mocked Nishant.
All of them gat
hered in the garden, where two labourers were ready with their shovels and spades. Erika ordered the labourers to dig that area of the garden with no grass or flowers, so the labourers began digging the ground with heavy blows.
“Why the hell are we destroying the garden!” Vibha exclaimed. “Abhimanyu, why are you letting this happen? What is she even hoping to find below this?”
But Abhimanyu stood there silently without moving, ignoring every word that Vibha said.
“Please let us do our job. It’s in your best interest,” said Avinash.
All of them stood there, watching the labourers going hard at it. Each blow heavier than the earlier one. They had dug a considerable amount of land but had not found anything substantial yet. The labourers stopped and looked up at Erika, signalling that there is probably nothing under there and that they probably should stop. But Erika did not budge and ordered to resume. Everybody stood there, wondering what was going on in Erika’s mind, and right then, the labourers hit something hard as they ploughed. The sound of a metal hitting a hard surface had caught everyone’s attention, and Erika’s eyes widened. Now the labourers started digging around the hard surface. As they continued digging further, the structure became more visible, and a pungent smell like that of a dead body filled the air. As they were coming closer to the box, the pungent smell from the object increased with every passing blow. Everybody started to cover their noses with whatever they had. The smell had become so unbearable that Vibha could not tolerate it and ran and puked in the bushes.
“Give me a pair of gloves” Erika ordered one of the constables. He took out a pair of gloves from his pocket and handed them over to Erika.
Erika squatted down with her nose covered with a handkerchief to get a closer look at the box. She bent and removed the mud from the box, to her surprise, she saw a skeleton of a dead cat inside it. She got up in shock and was taken aback by the fact that it was just the skeleton of a cat.
“Damn it. It smells so disgusting out here!” exclaimed Nishant. “I still wonder why someone would dig out a cat and destroy a garden,” he taunted. “She is just wasting her time here,” he whispered to Ishaan.
They all left in disgust, including Avinash, while Erika sat there wondering why did she think of this, doubting her instincts. How did she even think the way she did? She sat there overthinking and staring at the big hole in the earth, diving deep into self-doubt.
Suddenly a rusted metallic piece besides the dead body of the cat caught her eye. She got onto her knees and stretched out to reach the metallic object. It was tightly fixed in the ground, hence Erika had to yank the metallic body hard to pull it out of the soil. She held that metallic piece, which was completely rusted. She cleaned the mud off the metallic piece to get a clearer picture of what it was.
“Looks like a key chain to me,” said Avinash as he walked in with two cups of tea from behind.
“Does it?” Erika wondered.
“Yeah, I guess. It does have a tag on it. There is something embedded on it,” said Avinash offering one of the tea cup to Erika.
“It’s a ‘T,’ ‘X’ and ‘I’. And is that something numerical written below the alphabets?” said Erika as she tried to read the tag.
“A car key, huh?” thought Avinash.
“Are you thinking along the same lines as I am?” asked Erika.
“I mean, it’s worth a try. We have nothing on this case right now,” Avinash said. “A shot in the dark, and let’s hope it hits its mark and let’s take this to the forensics too”
“Alright. Let’s do this,” said Erika getting up, brushing off her jeans.
Erika called the constables and once again gave them the same instructions which she had given the day before, regarding keeping a vigil on the group and handed them a small sample of the mud. Then the duo got into the car and sped out.
“I have a strong feeling that this car key belongs to Vivek. I mean, hypothetically, these dots do join. This could be our guy. We just need these keys to be identified by his parents so that we could start somewhere,” said Erika holding the evidence bag containing the rusted key.
“But what if he has nothing to do with this case and these are not his keys. Then we are again to level one. We will be questioned by our superiors, to which we have no answers,” said Avinash sounding concerned about the situation.
“Why is that truck following us?” Erika asked. She saw a truck in the rear view mirror that was at their trail for quite some time.
“Which truck?” asked Avinash checking the mirror.
He then steered slightly to the right so that the truck could pass, but instead it slowed down and slowly and gradually went out of sight.
“Probably, it was nothing. It is nowhere to be seen now,” he said. “What I believe is that we should start weighing in on the possibility that these people have no connection with the case, and that we are just heading in the wrong direction,” he added.
Erika sat quietly on the passenger seat, completely zoned out, looking out of the window. They both did not speak for the rest of the journey.
They reached Vivek’s house and rang the bell. This time his father opened the door. As they were acquainted now, the couple welcomed them into the house, unlike last time.
“Any news on Vivek?” asked his father with hope dripping through his words.
“Uhmm…actually no, but we have something in which we need your help,” said Avinash taking out the keychain. “Could you tell us if this keychain belongs to you or Vivek by any chance?”
The father took the keychain and stared at it, trying to remember.
“Ei Vivek cha asa” called out the mother from behind in Konkani.
“Tuka kasa mahiti. Hey, tar yevda juna asa” father replied.
“Aplya porgya chi vastu visart nasto” she said firmly. “Apan teka techa jalmdivas la dilo nahi ka”* 2
Vivek’s father flipped the keychain trying to check for any familiar marks on it, but it was extremely corroded. But suddenly he found something peculiar engraved on the keychain.
“This belongs to him,” he said.
“We had gifted him this silver keychain on his 20th birthday, and it had a heart on its backside with ‘VS’ engraved on it. And it does feel like a heart shape to me on the backside,” father replied.
“Okay, but you aren’t sure?” asked Erika, to which the father nodded.
“And the number on it, Sir, what is that about?” asked Avinash.
“That is the number of the car he drove,” the father replied.
The duo stared at each other in surprise, as if they were conversing with each other through their thoughts.
“Thank you for your co-operation. We will keep in touch with you,” said Avinash leaving the house.
“We should probably give it to the forensics now...
“But that means more waiting, and we can’t make any move till then,” Erika interrupted as they were heading back to the villa.
“If we could have gotten some confirmation that it belongs to Vivek, then we could get some breakthrough in this,” sighed Avinash while driving the car. “Need to make a stop for petrol. Need anything?” he asked, turning into the petrol pump station.
“No thanks, I am good,” she replied
Avinash turned the car off and stepped out of the vehicle. He went into the store to get some water. And when he came back, he saw that there was a long line of cars behind his car and people were honking for their turn. He ran to his car hurriedly, and drove away. Just as he came out of the petrol pump onto the highway, he realized he hadn’t taken the change in a hurry.
“Oh! I forgot the change,” he said, looking at Erika. “I will just go and get the change. Will be back in a jiffy,” he said, parking the car by the roadside.
Erika sat in the car, oblivious to what was happening around her, waiting for Avinash to return. All that was going on in her mind was how to get that one breakthrough that would just put everything into order. Where is that one piece
that needs to be fitted in the right area to complete the puzzle? That one piece!
As she was thinking about all this, she peeked into the side glass for a second. Image of a truck in the mirroe caught her eye. Probably it was the same truck, or probably not. But this time, it was speeding in her direction and coming closer really fast. She turned back to see and saw that the truck was in their car lane and was coming full speed towards them. The truck wasn’t stopping or slowing down. She saw Avinash coming towards the car from the left. She signalled him to stay away from the car. But Avinash could not hear or make out anything from her actions. Now she had no other option but to jump out of the car. She swiftly made her way to the driver’s seat as the truck was bolting towards their car. She managed to get into the driver’s seat and opened the door, and jumped for her life as the truck came rushing and rammed into the car. SMASH!!
Erika jumped out just in time and rolled on the ground, and hit a milestone. Avinash came running towards Erika. By then, the truck driver had done the job and sped off. The car had also rammed into a tree and was completely destroyed.
Erika lay there in the lap of Avinash, blood gushing through her forehead and nose.
“What a cliché act to pull off,” murmured Erika as her eyes rolled and she fell unconscious.
Chapter 15
“Erika! Erika”
“Baba! I can hear you! Where are you!?” screamed out, Erika as she was sitting on her bed. She got out of her bed and stood up. She was in a room similar to her room with beige paint, a silver coloured fan, and pink curtains flying inwards due to the wind. But except there was no door or windows to this room. Instead, there were just open spaces in those places. As she was shouting, she suddenly felt her feet getting wet. So she looked down and saw that her feet were in ankle-deep water. So she tried to jump out of it but failed because water had filled the whole space.
“Erika! Erika!”
She suddenly realized that she had been here before. This was not her first time in this place. She was familiar with this pitch darkness and this voice that was calling her name.
Into The Shadows Page 9