Patang

by Chattopadhyay, Bhaskar

Rathod’s guess had been right. Tony could never forgive Miller for not believing him and not helping him. It didn’t matter to him that Miller was repenting now – his verdict of the man who had failed his faith was final. And that verdict was death.

  Rathod heard Harish’s agitated voice on the walkie-talkie. ‘I see him, sir, but I don’t have a clear shot.’

  Rathod knew he had very little time.Tony was looking down into Mr Miller’s face. He could strike at any moment. He also realized that, unless Tony moved from his current position, Harish and his team wouldn’t have a clear shot at him. It was all up to Rathod now.

  Very slowly and cautiously, Rathod removed the blanket from over him and whispered into the walkie-talkie, ‘I’m going in. Stand by.’ And at that exact moment, Rathod heard a sound that almost stopped his heart. A soft growl arose from the darkness just behind him. He turned sharply to look over his shoulder.

  The dog!

  It had come back and was growling at him – the homeless vagabond lying in the darkness. Rathod knew he was in deep trouble.

  As the first bark pierced through the dark, Tony turned sharply towards the makeshift shelter and thrust his hand into his jacket’s pocket. In a flash, Rathod threw the blanket over the dog and dashed towards the Ferris wheel. In the thin stream of light that had fallen on Tony, Rathod saw that he had pulled a small claw hammer from his pocket and was now clutching it tightly, ready to claim his fourth and last victim. Rathod ran as fast as his legs would allow him while the rain lashed against his face, carrying with it sharp bits of sand blown about by the wind, obscuring his vision. With a blood-curdling scream, Anthony Matthew, the little orphan child who had grown up to be one of the scariest serial killers the city had seen, raised his hand above his head to strike his final blow. Rathod jumped…he wasn’t sure what happened after that. All he knew was that moments later he was lying on the wet sand, and just a few metres away from him Tony Matthew was on his back as well, laughing hysterically. The sound of his maniacal laughter filled the night sky over the sound of the angry waves. As Rathod heard the tactical team apprehending Tony, his exhausted muscles finally gave up and he surrendered to the darkness.

  18

  In the ballroom of one of the best hotels in South Mumbai, a press conference headed by Commissioner Shashank Mule was held, where the Mumbai Police issued several statements and took questions from the media. The commissioner very graciously redirected many of the questions to his deputy, DCP Uday Singh, and praised his acumen profusely, stating again and again that under his able administration Mumbai had become a much safer city.

  Mule and Singh answered all the media’s questions, delving into the killer’s motives, his love for kites, the gruesome ways in which he had murdered his three victims, and the efficiency and courage exhibited by the brave officers of the Mumbai Police that night in apprehending Anthony Matthew and saving the old man who could have been his fourth victim. After the last question was answered, everyone rose to their feet and Commissioner Mule and DCP Singh stepped down from the dais amidst thunderous applause.

  As Mule noticed Rathod walking towards him, the smile on his face disappeared for a moment, but he immediately summoned it back and whispered something into Uday Singh’s ears. Uday Singh nodded understandingly and stole a quick glance at the media surrounding them. Then he raised his hands and advanced towards Rathod with a smile. Grasping his hand with both of his, DCP Singh whispered into his ear, ‘Mule Sir wants to speak to you right now.’

  ‘Yeah, sure,’ Rathod said.

  Mule walked up to Rathod and placed a hand on his shoulder, escorting him into an adjoining room. Uday Singh accompanied them into the room and shut the door behind him. The chatter of the ballroom outside was shut out instantly.

  ‘Rathod, my friend,’ Mule said with a soft smile on his face. ‘I am so happy for you!’

  A smile of genuine satisfaction spread across Rathod’s exhausted and dishevelled face. He had a small sticking plaster stuck to his cut chin. His hair was unkempt and there were grains of sand still stuck in it. He had not even had a chance to take off his make-up properly. Mule pulled out his expensive and impeccably white silk handkerchief from his pocket and wiped off some soot from Rathod’s forehead with the same expression that a mother has while wiping her child dry after a bath.

  ‘I was telling Uday on my way here how proud I am of my brightest man!’

  The smile on Rathod’s face lingered. He lowered his eyes modestly.

  DCP Singh stood at a distance and observed everything closely.

  ‘I knew you wouldn’t fail me,’ said the old commissioner, his eyes welling up with pride.

  Rathod looked up at him and said, ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘And now,’ said the commissioner, ‘you must rest. Why don’t you go on a vacation? Perhaps go to your village and spend some time with your old aunt there? I insist. You’ve earned it!’

  After several appreciative pats on his back, Rathod thanked Mule, shook Uday Singh’s hand as he congratulated him, and walked out of the door. As he strode out into the rain, Mule watched him go and, very gradually, the loving smile on his face faded.

  As Rathod drove through the streets, he couldn’t help but smile while rubbing the soot off his forehead with a tissue. He was finally about to meet the man who had almost beaten him – almost. His head was throbbing from a lack of sleep, but he barely noticed it. After some time, he arrived at the Juhu police station and parked his car outside. To his surprise, he was informed, quite curtly, by the officer-in-charge Ayushman Agashe that Tony Matthew had been shifted to an undisclosed location.

  Rathod was confused. ‘Even you don’t know where he has been taken?’ he asked Agashe.

  Agashe shook his head. ‘I was told it was confidential information and I couldn’t be privy to it.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Rathod nodded thoughtfully. ‘Fine, thank you.’

  Outside, Rathod sat in his car and stared at the windshield with a vacant expression. He would not be allowed to meet the man he had caught…again. This was not the first time it had happened. They hadn’t let him meet the Professor either, all those years ago. Although he was extremely hurt, he decided to keep his cool.

  After an hour or so, Rathod saw Agashe’s jeep in his rear-view mirror. It was leaving the premises. He immediately dialled a number on his phone and spoke into it briefly. Then he disconnected the call and waited. After a few minutes, a plain-clothes police officer emerged from the station and ran to his car in the rain. At a knock on the car’s window, Rathod let the officer in – it was Mhatre, one of the policemen who had been with him when he had nabbed the contract killer.

  ‘Look who’s here!’ said the officer with a big smile. ‘What’s the matter, Rathod Sir? What are you doing here?’

  Rathod stared at the officer for some time and then said, ‘Mhatre, I want to meet Tony Matthew.’

  The big smile on Mhatre’s face faded. He looked around furtively and said, ‘Sir, we all know what you’ve done. But we are not even allowed to talk about it. Orders from the top, sir.’

  ‘I don’t want you to talk about what I’ve done. But I think the department owes me this much. Let me meet him.’

  Mhatre sighed. ‘Sir, I’ve known you for so many years, there’s so much I have learnt from you. The Academy just trained us to be policemen. You taught us how to think. I am deeply indebted to you. Ask me for anything else, sir. But I can’t…’

  ‘I’m not asking you for anything else,’ Rathod said calmly. ‘I’m asking you for this. I know he’s inside.’

  Mhatre shook his head. ‘I can’t, sir…I’ll lose my job…please try to understand!’

  As the rainstorm continued to rage outside the vehicle, the two men argued inside. After some time, Mhatre opened the door of the Gypsy and ran through the rain towards the station’s covered veranda. He looked back over his shoulder, hung his head in despair, and disappeared inside.

  For several minutes, Rathod sat still in the car, cl
utching his head, which was aching so much that he wanted to cut it off. Finally, as if coming out of a stupor, he shook his head hopelessly and drove out of the parking lot and disappeared around the corner. The car took a few turns through narrow and muddy lanes till it came to a halt next to a wide, uncovered ditch. Rathod stepped out of the vehicle in the rain and looked around. Then he walked briskly across a makeshift bamboo footbridge over the drain and stopped near a particular door towards the back of a building. He knocked on it thrice and waited. Finally, the door creaked open, leaving him just enough space to slip inside.

  ‘I’m only doing this because it’s you,’ Mhatre said, as they crossed a dimly lit passageway.

  Rathod didn’t respond. The two men turned left at the end of the passage and Mhatre stopped in front of a metallic door with rivets all over it. He turned the key in the lock, opened the door wide and stood away from the door.

  ‘Fifteen minutes, sir,’ said Mhatre. ‘That’s all I can give you.’

  As Rathod patted Mhatre’s shoulder lightly and stepped wearily inside the Juhu police station’s interrogation room, the metallic door shut behind him with a loud clang.

  19

  ‘Mr Rathod, isn’t it?’

  A lamp hung from the ceiling of the interrogation room, but its light didn’t reach the face of the man tied to the chair on the other side of the table. Rathod had been in this room a couple of times in the past. He knew that the chair’s legs were securely screwed to the floor.

  ‘So nice of you to come. Please, have a seat,’ the calm, measured voice continued, as if welcoming Rathod into his home. Rathod tried to catch a glimpse of the man, but it was too dark behind the circle of light cast by the lamp. Very slowly, he sat down on the empty chair on his side of the table.

  ‘I’m sorry about your chin; I didn’t do it on purpose. But my hearty congratulations to you,’ the voice said.

  ‘For what?’

  With a creak of his chair and a clang of the chains that bound him to it, the man leaned forward and came into Rathod’s view.

  ‘For catching me!’ he said.

  Tony Matthew looked like an ordinary office-going man, with a calm roundish face, a small bald patch on his head and a slightly bulging belly. He wore an inexpensive half-sleeve shirt. His entire being bore no evidence of either the twisted way in which his brain worked, or of the brilliance of his mind.

  Rathod paused for a few seconds and then said, ‘You seem quite pleased to have been caught?’

  ‘On the contrary, sir, I am quite worried about my future. I don’t think I’ll be able to get back to the mainstream ever again. That is…if I am not hanged to death. I had a small job in a library – nothing fancy, but it paid my bills. I think I shall lose that too. And that will be sad, because I love books, I have always loved books. I believe you’ve also gone and flashed my photograph all over the media, which, I’m sure you’ll agree, was an extremely insensitive thing to do.’

  ‘So, you do regret it?’

  ‘I’m sorry? Regret what?’

  ‘Killing all those people?’

  ‘It would be wrong to say that I don’t regret it. I do feel bad, yes. But you see, Mr Rathod, my regret is nothing compared to some of the other feelings I’ve carried around in my heart for years.’

  ‘Guilt, I presume? Because it was you who was supposed to die instead of Anmol? Because you were scared to go into the bushes and your friend died a slow, painful death? Anger, too, that you were wronged by Saran, Patton and Rudolph? And hurt, let’s not forget that – you were hurt that the man you trusted so much, your teacher Mr Miller, didn’t believe you, didn’t help you?’

  For a few seconds, there was no response. Tony Matthew simply stared back at Rathod with a soft, appreciative smile. Finally, he said, ‘Pardon me for not applauding, Mr Rathod, but my hands are tied! I’m thoroughly impressed. You asked me if I’m pleased to be caught. Of course not, what sane man would consider himself lucky at being apprehended by the police? No… that’s not why I congratulated you. You see, I am someone who likes to read, who likes to dabble in things that appeal to man’s better nature. I like the very idea of intelligence, of wisdom and, therefore, as a corollary, I like intelligent men. Men like you. I’m very pleased to see that you’ve worked everything out, Mr Rathod. I’m pleased to see that you know. I hoped that someone in the city would. That’s why I sent those letters. And you rose to the occasion.’

  ‘And you deliberately gave everyone the impression that you are insane because a letter from a deranged serial killer has a greater chance of getting noticed?’

  ‘You’re an exceptionally intelligent man!’

  ‘But why did you want someone to take up your challenge?’

  ‘What’s the fun in constructing a puzzle if no one can solve it? Every single puzzle-maker in the world has a secret desire in his heart – that someone will be able to solve his puzzle. Because it is only when someone solves the puzzle that they truly understand the genius behind constructing it. Otherwise, they simply brush it aside and say, “Aww, it’s too tough”, and they conveniently forget about it, as if nothing ever happened, as if the puzzle didn’t exist in the first place, and as if it didn’t defeat them.’

  ‘Well, I solved your puzzle.’

  ‘As I said, I’m very happy for you!’

  ‘But look where that’s brought you.’

  ‘Well,’ Tony smiled politely, ‘you’re here, too, aren’t you?’

  ‘You’re the one tied to the chair, not me.’

  ‘And, yet, are you free?’ Tony continued to smile.

  Rathod looked straight into Tony’s eyes, and he stared back into Rathod’s. It seemed like both men were trying to look into each other’s souls. While Rathod had a look of scorn and disgust on his face, Tony had nothing but genuine respect for his opponent. After almost a minute, Rathod said, ‘I still have one question lingering in my mind, though.’

  ‘And what might that be?’

  ‘Why the funnel?’

  ‘You refer to the one in Rudy’s mouth?’

  ‘Yes…my guess is that you poured something down his throat. But post-mortem reports haven’t found anything toxic in his system.’

  Tony smiled. ‘Well, perhaps the good doctors conducting the post-mortem wanted to find something toxic? So much so that they overlooked what they did find?’

  Rathod frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’ve worked everything out. You’ll be able to work this out, too.’

  Rathod thought for a few moments and said, ‘You poured something down his throat. But it wasn’t toxic. Yet, it killed him.’

  ‘It did. The most simple, yet most potent venom in the world…’

  Rathod’s eyes lit up for a second as he whispered a single word in horror: ‘Water!’

  Tony writhed and giggled in his chair with childlike excitement. ‘Brilliant! Brilliant! I knew you could do it.’

  ‘You fed him rainwater! The water from the rain collected into the funnel…’

  ‘Over several hours, in fact!’

  ‘And he drowned!’

  ‘Death from water! In mid-air! Isn’t it brilliant? The very imagery of it!’Tony’s eyes sparkled madly in the half-lit room.

  ‘Just like a kite,’ Rathod whispered.

  ‘Just like a kite, Mr Rathod, just like a kite!’ Tony concurred.

  Rathod’s jaw hardened. What good was the man’s brilliance if he used it for killing people? Also, he didn’t like the calm and casual manner in which Tony was speaking to him.

  ‘Why do you keep calling me Mr Rathod?’ Rathod asked.

  Tony seemed confused. ‘What else do you want me to call you? I don’t know your first name.’

  ‘Call me Inspector Rathod.’

  ‘Inspector? You’re no Inspector!’ Tony scoffed softly.

  After a very brief pause, Rathod said, ‘Of course I am. I’m Inspector Chandrakant Rathod.’

  ‘Naaahhh! You aren’t. You’re far too intellig
ent to be an Inspector at your age. You’re not in the force. And as far as I could gather from the footsteps outside, you came in through the back door. And from what the other officer told you just outside the door, it seemed as if he was doing you a favour by letting you into this room. What do you think that says about you?’

  Rathod was silent as Tony went on, ‘No, I’m willing to put my last buck on the guess that you’re a private investigator. You were helping these not-so-enlightened folks because they didn’t have a clue as to how to solve this case…my case! They wouldn’t have been able to solve it in a lifetime. I’m also willing to guess that after you’ve solved my puzzle and…well…apprehended me, so to speak, they’ve disavowed you. Isn’t that true, Mr Rathod?’

  Rathod didn’t comment. His headache had become unbearable. In fact, despite the fact that Tony was sitting right in front of him, he was hardly able to see him clearly, as if a screen of haze had descended between them. Rathod realized that he badly needed some sleep. He rubbed his eyes and tried to focus.

  Tony watched him closely for a long time and then leaned back into the darkness again with a sigh. Only his eyes seemed to glisten in the dark, like those of a snake.

  ‘How does it feel, Mr Rathod? To be left high and dry by the people whose very existence depends on your brain? To live a life of anonymity? To never be able to hear a word of appreciation from anyone? You say I am tied to this chair? I am free, I can go anywhere, I can do anything. I am the master of my own will. I…well…I’m not in the habit of bragging about my own work, but you have to admit, I’m a genius! You, on the other hand… you are a slave! A slave to those who do not even appreciate your work. So you tell me…how does it feel to be in chains?’

  Rathod let Tony finish. Then he said calmly, ‘Listen, and listen carefully. I don’t know what you think of yourself, but to me you are just a murderer. You have murdered three people in cold blood, and you were trying to murder a fourth one. If I hadn’t caught you, God knows how many more innocent people would have died…’

  ‘Innocent?’ Tony asked as he leaned forward again. The polite smile at the corner of his lips had twisted in mockery. ‘A teacher, a man of the cloak, who had devoted his whole life to Christ, and vowed a life of piety and sacrifice – he gets a twelve-year-old child killed, for money. May I ask you, where is the innocence in that?’