Patang

by Chattopadhyay, Bhaskar

  ‘It wasn’t a cobra!’

  A voice boomed from the other side of the room and startled Rathod. The old man had spoken for the first time.

  ‘It wasn’t a cobra,’ he said once again. ‘It was a snake named Rudy!’

  ‘Oh come, come Frank,’ said Mrs Miller hurriedly. ‘Let us not speak about things that we don’t know.’

  ‘I know!’ the old man growled in his deep baritone. ‘I have always known!’

  Mrs Miller looked at Rathod with an expression of embarrassment and said in a low voice, ‘His arthritis is working up again. I think it’s best that you leave now.’

  Rathod rose from his chair very slowly. He looked at Francis Miller, whose face bore an expression of great agony. His eyes were shut tight, as if some old memory had taken the shape of a demon and was torturing him.

  ‘Everyone wept for the boy who died,’ Mr Miller was muttering. ‘No one even bothered to look at the poor boy who was left behind – alone, desolate, trembling with shock.’

  Rathod took a few steps towards the old man.

  ‘Anmol’s best friend, an equally precious boy. A gifted child. So intelligent, yet so soft-spoken, so humble. He didn’t have the luxury of knowing the love of a parent – an orphan, who was reminded of that fact at every opportunity. His only friend was Anmol, as aloof as he was. Little Tony!’

  Rathod knelt by the old man’s side and Francis Miller opened his eyes. Tears ran down his weathered cheeks. He looked at Rathod and said, ‘It was Tony who discovered his friend Anmol lying on the grass, shivering, frothing in the mouth, turning blue. A ghastly sight for any man. The scar of a lifetime for a little child. Anmol died in his arms. When we found the two of them, Tony didn’t move, nor did he speak a single word. The poor child had received a terrible, terrible shock. But later that night, in the hostel, I was with him. I was his Scouts master, you see? That night, Tony had a high fever, because of the shock. He was in delirium. And he was mumbling all sorts of nonsense and gibberish throughout the night. I didn’t believe what he was saying. Or perhaps I didn’t want to believe him. I was too scared Charlotte and I would lose our jobs. It’s true that we had earned a lot of respect, but respect wouldn’t put bread on our plate, or a roof over our heads.’

  Francis Miller buried his face in his palms.

  ‘Mr Miller,’ Rathod said, as he gently lay a hand on the old man’s arm, ‘I have to know, sir…what did Tony tell you?’

  The young lad now walked up behind Rathod and said in a grave voice, ‘You should leave now.’

  ‘Mr Miller?’ said Rathod.

  ‘You have to leave now!’ the lad shouted.

  ‘Please, Mr Miller…’ Rathod implored.

  Mrs Miller’s calm voice floated across the room: ‘It was Rudy who killed Anmol.’

  Rathod turned to Mrs Miller. There was a sense of calm on her face. That – and a resolve Rathod hadn’t seen so far. Her jaws had hardened, her eyes now opened wider. It was as if she had been saving her strength, bit by bit, all her life, to finally be able to tell that one truth.

  ‘Rudy? Rudolph D’Costa?’ Rathod asked.

  ‘Yes! Dirty Rudy. Vagabond Rudy. Shabby Rudy. Charsi Rudy. It is one thing to be homeless. It is another to be addicted to that vile powder. We had told Father Matthew repeatedly that he shouldn’t be let anywhere near the campus. But he said Rudy had confessed to the Reverend at the chapel about his addiction, and that he deserved his redemption before Christ.’

  ‘Tell me more,’ insisted Rathod.

  ‘Tell him, Frank,’ said Mrs Miller, her eyes now welling up with tears. ‘Tell him. You have carried the burden in your heart for far too long now.’

  Francis Miller was still looking out of the window, his face tired and haggard, his eyes red. He said, ‘Father Matthew had asked Rudy to mow the lawns in exchange for food and shelter. But someone promised Rudy a lot of money if he would do a certain job for him. A child had to die, of a snakebite. This would put a lot of pressure on the school board, and the land would be sold to a builder who had had his eye on it for several years.’

  ‘Oh my God!’ said Rathod. ‘It was Sukhdeo Saran who paid off Rudy?’

  ‘Yes…that was the builder’s name. But it was Patton who gave the builder the idea in the first place.’

  ‘But why?’ Rathod couldn’t believe someone could do such a thing to a child.

  ‘For money, young man, for money. Greed – the most dangerous of the seven sins.’

  Rathod shook his head, in horror. ‘How could he? How could he?’

  ‘Exactly, how could he do something like that? He was just a little child – little Tony!’

  Rathod was confused. ‘But…you said…you said it was Anmol who died?’

  Francis Miller slowly turned to look at him. He stared at him for a long time before saying, ‘Don’t you get it, my friend? Rudy had planted the snake in the bushes to kill Tony, not Anmol. You want to know why? Because no one would miss one little orphan. No one would investigate. No one had the time or the money to seek justice for his death. But it would still scare the parents.’

  ‘Oh God!’ Rathod’s head was spinning. ‘But the plan went wrong? It was Anmol who went into the bushes instead of Tony?’

  ‘Yes, Rudy and Patton had thought that no one loved Tony, no one cared for him, and that it would be easy to kill him. But it was his friend Anmol’s love for him that saved him that day. Anmol offered to go into the bushes instead of Tony, who was feeling scared.’

  ‘But why did Anmol go into the bushes in the first place?’

  Francis Miller looked at Rathod with a strange expression and said, ‘Oh, haven’t I told you? Anmol went into the bushes to fetch Tony’s kite! Tony was very fond of flying kites, you see?’

  14

  The entire neighbourhood around Chaitanya Park had been cordoned off to create a one-square-mile perimeter. It seemed like all of the Mumbai Police force had descended upon the neighbourhood. At least 20 police vehicles guarded the multiple exits out of the area. Sniper teams had been placed on the terraces of multiple buildings. Tactical forces were locked and loaded, and were waiting for a word from the high command. Almost all senior officials were present as well. Despite their best attempts at keeping the operation under cover, news of the activity had reached the media as well, although they were being restricted outside the cordon. Multiple ambulances were parked and ready.

  Rathod was not liking this one bit.

  ‘How did the media come to know about the operation?’ he barked at the commander of the tactical team. ‘I had specifically told everyone to keep it under wraps.’

  ‘An operation of this size can’t be kept under wraps, no matter how hard we try,’ the commander said. ‘And the media is focusing on this case every day anyway. After all, this is the most sensational serial killer this city has seen in recent times.’

  ‘Don’t patronize him, Harish,’ Rathod raised a menacing finger.

  Harish, a distinguished combat officer himself, had been in the force for several years, and had worked with Rathod long enough to know he was not tolerant of any form of crime and he hated the glorification of criminals. Rathod was also notorious for his hatred of the media, despite the fact that he had begun his own career in the industry.

  ‘Can someone tell me what in the name of mother earth we are waiting for?’ Rathod yelled as he paced up and down the alley impatiently.

  ‘Singh Sir insisted on being here when we break in,’ Harish said calmly.

  Rathod looked at him in frustration. ‘What’s the use of his being here if the bird flies away? Huh? What makes him think that the killer doesn’t watch TV, and is not currently watching the live telecast of a crackdown on his own den?’

  Harish shrugged. ‘Well, ask him yourself – there he comes!’

  DCP Singh’s vehicle pulled up at the mouth of the alley with a noisy screech. Protected under an umbrella held by one of his aides, Uday Singh got out of his jeep and walked up to where Rathod and
Harish were standing.

  ‘What’s the situation, Rathod?’ the DCP asked.

  ‘Sir, we don’t have time for a SITREP right now – we’ve been standing here for the last 20 minutes. He may have disappeared by now.’

  DCP Singh was calmness personified. Ignoring the urgency in Rathod’s voice, he said, ‘Tell me the suspect’s name.’

  ‘Anthony Matthew, 36 years old, male.’

  ‘Where is he holed up?’

  ‘Left at that corner, then first right. Second building to the left. First floor.’

  ‘Tactical teams are ready?’

  ‘Yes, they are all ready.’

  ‘You have the warrant?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘Good. All right, everyone. Let’s make a move, and do this nice and easy.’

  Rathod and Harish sprung into action. In less than 10 minutes, the door of Tony Matthew’s small one-room apartment was kicked in and a tactical team entered the room.

  ‘Clear! There’s no one here!’ Rathod heard the dreaded words from outside. He locked the safety of his pistol and tucked it back into his jeans. Then he took a deep breath and entered the room.

  The room was roughly 15x15 feet in area, with a door leading to a cramped bathroom, which a combat officer was now checking. Judging by the precision with which everything had been arranged, it was quite evident that Tony was a methodical man. Against one wall stood a bed that had not been slept in. The adjacent wall served as a small kitchen, with a low granite-top shelf on which rested a small stove and some utensils and pulses. In the corner stood a small steel almirah with some clothes. Placed in front of the third wall was a desk and a chair. The desk was stacked high with books and notebooks. Stuck on the wall were several post-it notes, newspaper and magazine cuttings, photographs, notes, diagrams and blueprints. It seemed that Tony Matthew had done a lot of research on his victims and their movements, as well as on the locations where he had finally left their bodies. When Rathod looked closely at the papers pinned above the desk, his attention was caught by a beautifully drawn red kite. His heart began to race. A kite… Tony Matthew’s signature! But…was this evidence enough? And wasn’t it possible that the presence of that kite was just a coincidence?

  Suddenly, Harish, who stood behind him, exclaimed, ‘My God! Take a look at this.’

  Rathod turned around to face the fourth wall – the one through which he had come in. With the exception of the small section which accommodated the front door, there were at least a hundred kites of various shapes, sizes and colours hanging from the wall.

  An officer from the tactical team said in a low voice, ‘We’ve checked everywhere. He’s gone.’

  ‘Yes,’ Rathod whispered, his eyes still fixed on the kites, ‘but we came to the right place.’

  As officers continued their interrogation of Tony’s neighbours, Rathod intently studied the wall near Tony’s desk, occasionally clicking photographs of the post-its on his phone’s camera. Uday Singh had left. Rathod knew he would leave. He also knew that the DCP would have stayed back if they would have apprehended Tony. Someone would have had to speak to the media, after all!

  A constable came over to him and said, ‘Sir, this man wants to speak to you.’

  Rathod turned around to face a man in his late fifties dressed in a cheap shirt and lungi.There were two young children – a boy and a girl – standing behind him, watching Rathod curiously.

  ‘Namaste sir, my name is Manohar Apte, I work at the Kurla post office,’ he said, joining his hands.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ asked Rathod.

  ‘Sir, I live in that flat over there.’ The man pointed towards his ‘flat’, a dingy room directly across Tony Matthew’s, but on the first floor of the building across the street. ‘Sir, are you looking for Mr Matthew?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, why?’

  ‘He was my neighbour, sir.’

  ‘Yes? Please give your statement to the constable over there.’

  ‘I have a photograph of him, sir. Show it to Inspector sahib Dolly…’

  The young girl came forward shyly and held up a cheap imitation of an iPhone. The photograph on the screen was a group photo of Manohar Apte, the two children, and a woman who looked like their mother. Tony Matthew was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘Last week, sir, on Dolly’s birthday, we took a family photograph in our drawing room. It’s…called something… what do you call it, Dolly?’

  ‘Selfie,’ said the girl coyly.

  ‘Yes…yes, sir…so…we took this photograph and at that time we didn’t notice anything. Later, my son noticed it and showed his sister. I didn’t know. Today, when we learnt that you were looking for Mr Matthew, my daughter came and showed this to me. Show him, Dolly.’

  Rathod looked at the photo with interest as Dolly placed her nimble, nail-polished fingers on the screen and zoomed in over the shoulder of her mother. A man’s pixelated face suddenly filled the screen. As the photograph was being taken, Tony must have been leaving his room across the street. The shot was never intended to capture him, but it was good enough for Rathod to see what he looked like.

  There he is! Rathod’s heart galloped like a wild stallion. The man was a genius, for which Rathod respected him. From whatever he had learnt, Tony had his reasons for whatever he was doing. But whatever his reasons might be, and whatever his level of intellect, he was still a criminal – he had taken the law into his own hands and brutally murdered three people. As Rathod looked at Tony’s profile on the screen, his jaws hardened. The rush of blood that he had first experienced 12 years ago was strengthening his resolve once again. He had to, simply had to, catch this man. And now he knew what he looked like. This raid had been more successful than he had previously thought.Tony Matthew might be a genius, but he had made one mistake – quite inadvertently, he had exposed his face to Dolly’s camera!

  15

  As Rathod crossed the cordon outside Chaitanya Park, ignoring the crowd of journalists and onlookers at bay as he walked to his Gypsy, he spotted Ananya running in his direction.

  ‘Hi,’ she said, lifting herself on her toes and waving from behind a group of constables.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked, as she made her way to his car.

  Ananya noticed that Rathod’s voice wasn’t as stern as it had been last time. ‘Just doing my job,’ she smiled.

  Rathod didn’t comment as he sat in his Gypsy.

  ‘You will catch him,’ Ananya said.

  Rathod looked at the beautiful girl curiously.

  ‘I know you will!’ she said once again with a soft, confident smile, and waved goodbye.

  An hour or so later, Rathod entered Mule’s cabin and found the DCP giving him a situation report. ‘By the time we swooped down on him, he was gone, sir,’ he was saying.

  Rathod was irritated. ‘Of course he was gone! Had we not lost those precious minutes waiting for you, perhaps we could have nabbed him tonight.’

  The DCP turned red. He looked at Rathod, clenched his teeth and said, ‘Mr Rathod, we follow procedures in this department! This is not a game of Ludo, which we can start playing anytime. There is paperwork to be done, there are permissions…’

  ‘I had all the paperwork, I had all the permissions, I had the team on the spot, ready to go in…what I didn’t have was you, ready to smile for the cameras,’ Rathod snapped.

  ‘Mind your words, Mr Rathod!’ Uday Singh rose to his feet in anger. ‘Who do you think you’re speaking to? On the one hand, you’re not able to do the job you’ve been hired for, and…’ he growled.

  ‘Don’t tell me about my job, I know what my job is…if you’re so sure of yourself, why don’t you catch him?’ Rathod growled back, and the two took menacing steps towards each other.

  ‘What was the funnel for, I wonder?’ Mule interrupted calmly from the other side of his desk.

  The two men stopped in their tracks.

  ‘Sir?’ asked DCP Singh, as he turned to look at his boss. Rathod was lo
oking at the commissioner, too.

  ‘The funnel? The large one that was found in the victim’s mouth? What was it for?’ Mule repeated.

  The DCP looked at Rathod, who had checked his temper by now. He said softly, ‘I haven’t seen the post-mortem reports yet, sir, but it seems the killer put some sort of liquid into the victim’s mouth. I’m assuming it was some sort of a poison – snake venom, perhaps.’

  Mule said, ‘So your guess is that, this…Tony…was trying to punish Rudolph by giving him a dose of the same poison that he had given his friend?’

  ‘Yes…but, of course, the assumption is that he could get hold of the poison.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Mule with a chuckle, ‘they wouldn’t sell it at the local chemist store, I suppose.’

  ‘No, sir, and even if he did get it from the underground market, it would be quite expensive. Tony Matthew works as an assistant librarian in Andheri. I don’t think he would have that kind of money.’

  ‘Hmm…so, let’s take stock of the situation, shall we?’ Mule gestured towards the two chairs in front of him.

  The two men took their seats somewhat apologetically, looking embarrassed. Secretly, both men admired the way Mule had handled a situation spiralling out of control.

  ‘What do we do now?’ asked Mule.

  ‘Sir, I have a suggestion,’ the DCP said, glancing at Rathod for his views as well. ‘We now know what Tony Matthew looks like. I suggest that we launch a massive manhunt for him. No holds barred. We flash his photograph on every channel, on every newspaper, on every social media platform. We also alert all airports, highways, bus stations, railway stations, petrol pumps – everyone. We alert all our informers too. Sooner or later, he will get caught.’

  Mule looked at Rathod, who was deep in thought. ‘What do you think, Rathod?’

  ‘Well, let us hope for our sake that it’s sooner rather than later, because in the state he is in right now he’s extremely dangerous. He’s like an arrogant child. He’s decided that he wants something, and nobody can talk him out of it. You can’t scare him, because you can’t get to him. You can’t coax him out of it, because he isn’t greedy. He’s a child possessed by an idea. And he will get to his goal.’