Patang

by Chattopadhyay, Bhaskar

  ‘Are you all right, sir?’ A voice rung out within the factory and echoed from wall to wall, but it wasn’t Aditya’s…whose voice was it? Ah! Rathod remembered…it was Nihari’s, the crane operator at Saran’s construction site. He clutched his head.

  ‘Are you all right, sir?’ Aditya asked once again.

  Rathod suddenly became aware of his surroundings. This wretched headache!

  ‘Yes, yes…I’m fine,’ he said, gasping.

  Aditya blabbered on. ‘I had only heard about you so far, sir! Now I know what they say about you is all true! It’s…it’s such a pleasure to meet you!’

  Rathod didn’t pay any attention to the flattering words. There was only one question in his mind right now: How was this possible? Tony Matthew was in jail. Rathod knew that for sure, because he had put him there. So how had he killed again? How?

  21

  ‘What do we know about Imtiaz Raza?’ Rathod asked Bhave. He had returned to the station and presented his findings on the giant cooling fan. Right now, he wanted to learn more about the case. He was feeling exhausted and famished, but the task at hand was far more important. If what he was thinking was really true, then he had a certain responsibility towards the case. He wanted answers. That was what mattered the most at this moment.

  Inspector Aditya stood behind Rathod with his hands folded patiently behind his back as he listened to Bhave’s words with full attention. Rathod didn’t like the fellow much, perhaps because he didn’t like sycophants. He glanced at the young man disapprovingly, but decided to leave him alone. After all, it was Bhave’s office, not his. If Bhave didn’t have a problem with the inspector being part of the discussion, Rathod had no option but to ignore him and focus on the facts. Moreover, he was the investigating officer, and had the right to be a part of any discussion on the case.

  ‘Raza had many business interests,’ replied Bhave. ‘His father had established an HVAC business several years ago, which was quite successful.’

  ‘I’m sorry, what business?’ Rathod asked.

  Inspector Aditya said, ‘HVAC… Heating, Ventilation and…’

  ‘Mainly air-conditioning,’ Bhave interrupted. ‘They manufactured and sold air-conditioners.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Later, he and his brother set up a factory that manufactured plastic toys. They quickly won a few large orders from companies both within and outside the country, and there was no looking back after that. The two brothers then set up a few more business entities and minted money for several years – retail stores, real estate, you name it. But after their father’s death, it was learnt that the old man had left the entirety of his vast fortune to his elder son Imtiaz Asgar Raza. Iliyas obviously didn’t take this too well. He was the more aggressive of the two brothers. He had a notorious temper too. Imtiaz claimed that Iliyas had several links with the mafia as well.’

  Rathod listened quietly, his mind recording all the information.

  ‘A few nights ago, Imtiaz came to us, highly disturbed and agitated, and lodged a complaint against Iliyas. He claimed that Iliyas had been threatening him with dire consequences if he didn’t split all their assets into equal shares. Iliyas suspected that his elder brother had forced their father to change his will and then murdered him. Imtiaz tried to explain to him that this wasn’t the case, but Iliyas didn’t care to listen. He swore revenge and left his house, cussing and swearing.’

  ‘I see…’

  ‘We brought in Iliyas for questioning one evening. He didn’t deny threatening his brother. In fact, he cast a counter-allegation, saying his brother had murdered his father for property.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘What could we do?’ Bhave shrugged his shoulders. ‘We let him go with a warning.’

  Rathod sighed. This is why he had very little faith in police officers.

  ‘Where is Iliyas now?’ he asked.

  ‘We’re looking for him,’ Bhave said. ‘We’ll find him for sure.’

  Rathod stared into the void for some time.

  Bhave hesitated for a moment and then said with a smile, ‘Don’t get me wrong, but…I’m trying to understand your interest in this case.’

  As Inspector Aditya cleared his throat, Rathod felt a little uncomfortable. He realized that his interest in the case must have indeed seemed strange to both Bhave and Aditya. Could he tell Bhave what was on his mind? Absolutely not. Bhave would think he had gone mad. He didn’t have the mental capacity to understand the ramifications of what Rathod was thinking.

  ‘It’s just that…’ Rathod hesitated.

  Bhave leaned forward in anticipation of an explanation. He knew Rathod for several years now, and despite what he suspected Rathod thought of him, he had immense respect for the man, something he couldn’t express in as many words, given his position. Never before in the history of the force had someone been so under-appreciated as Chandrakant Rathod. Bhave knew that if there was something on his mind, there had to be a pretty solid reason behind it.

  ‘The way Raza was killed…’ Rathod seemed to be having difficulty in making his point, ‘…don’t you think it’s a little odd?’

  ‘It is odd indeed,’ Bhave nodded, ‘in the sense that it seems a little out of league for contract killers, if that’s what you are hinting at. Such killers usually prefer doing things quickly, and with precision, if you know what I mean. They don’t want to take any chances. It’s a trade, after all. But having said that, there have been cases in the past where they have been compensated enough to torture the victim before finishing him off. I myself have handled cases like that.’

  ‘But the MO…it just doesn’t fit,’ Rathod remarked thoughtfully.

  After a few moments, Bhave said, ‘You think so?’

  Rathod seemed to make an effort to deliberately shake himself out of his thoughts and abruptly rose to his feet. ‘Please let me know if you find Iliyas,’ he said. ‘With your permission, I’d like to ask him a few questions.’

  ‘You’re most welcome to, of course,’ Bhave said with his most gracious smile, and shook Rathod’s hand.

  As Rathod walked out of the station towards his Gypsy, he sensed that Inspector Aditya was still following him, so he hastened his pace. He had opened the door and was about to get in, when the inspector caught up with him.

  ‘Sir! Do you have a minute?’

  ‘I’m a little busy right now, Inspector.’

  ‘I’ll just take a minute of your time.’

  What a clingy menace! What did he want now? An autograph?

  ‘What is it?’ Rathod asked without making an effort to hide his irritation.

  ‘Sir…umm…I don’t know how to explain this. I was hoping you will…’ he began.

  There you go, Rathod thought.

  ‘You see, we are police officers, right?’ Aditya continued with a smile. ‘We…umm…we solve crimes. And sometimes, when a crime has been committed and when we go to the scene, we… we get some…some vibes – you know what I mean?’

  Rathod calmly said, ‘I’m afraid I don’t, Inspector, perhaps because I’m not a police officer.’

  Aditya seemed a little crestfallen, but he paused a moment to choose his words, and then continued, ‘Has it ever happened to you that you’ve seen a crime, and that entire…environment – the entire scene of the crime has…spoken to you? It has told you something that was…beyond the evidence…beyond what meets the eye?’

  Rathod looked at the inspector curiously. What was he talking about? It occurred to him that the man wasn’t exactly the blabbering idiot he had thought he was. He realized that his initial impression was based on what he usually thought of police officers. But this man suddenly seemed different. He might be young, perhaps a rookie, but there was a spark of intelligence in his eyes, which Rathod could neither deny nor ignore.

  ‘I’m sure you’ve had that experience before, sir!’ Aditya went on. ‘To tell you the truth, it often happens with me too! And I just…wanted to share that with you.’


  Rathod didn’t respond, but continued to look at Aditya, who looked around him furtively before saying in a low voice, ‘When I was there at the mill today and saw the big picture thanks to you, when I realized how Imtiaz Raza had been murdered, I got this terrible…this inexplicable feeling…’

  ‘A feeling of what?’ Rathod asked curiously.

  Aditya stared into Rathod’s eyes, widened his own eyes and then said in an excited voice, ‘That this is not an isolated murder, sir! This is the job of a serial killer!’

  22

  ‘What brings you here?’ DCP Singh asked Rathore.

  They were in his office at the Mumbai Police headquarters. Rathod had tried to contact Mule first, but Mule hadn’t taken his calls. DCP Singh, too, had made him wait for almost 20 minutes before welcoming him into his office.

  ‘I have been trying to reach Mule Sir all evening. Where is he?’ Rathod asked.

  A look of hesitation flashed across the DCP’s face for a fleeting second. ‘There’s a delegation from Shanghai Police that’s meeting him today. He must be busy with them. But I am here. How can I help you?’

  It occurred to Rathod that the lines Singh had spouted were well-rehearsed. He realized that as Mule was advancing towards his retirement, his lieutenant was now trying to take on additional responsibilities on his own. He hesitated for a few moments and weighed the situation. If his line of thinking around Imtiaz’s murder was correct then he didn’t have the luxury of time.

  Rathod made up his mind. In a nutshell, and yet without leaving out any relevant details, he explained the Shantinagar murder to DCP Singh.

  ‘Hmm…and you think this is the job of a serial killer?’ the DCP asked.

  ‘It could be,’ Rathod chose his words carefully.

  ‘And…’ DCP Singh also seemed to measure and choose his words carefully. The dealings between the two men remained formal at best and both men took great care that their words were not misconstrued. In short, both of them were on high alert while speaking to each other. ‘Why exactly do you feel that way?’ the DCP asked finally.

  Rathod hesitated. He was almost on the verge of saying, ‘I got vibes at the crime scene’, but refrained from saying so. But then, what else could he say? He obviously couldn’t say that it seemed like a crime committed by Tony Matthew. No…Singh wouldn’t get it, and despite what Rathod felt about him, he really couldn’t blame the DCP for that. Inspector Aditya was right – one had to be there to feel it. Rathod was there, and he felt it in his guts. Aditya had felt it too. Both of them couldn’t have been wrong.

  Nor could Rathod tell the DCP that Tony Matthew had told him he would continue his murders. No…there was no way he could do that. For one, that would raise a lot of uncomfortable questions – for instance, how did he gain access to Tony? Mhatre would get into trouble – he might even get suspended. More importantly, the DCP would think he had gone crazy, believing in such impossible claims by a murderer behind bars. Rathod was stumped, and the DCP stood looking at him, expecting an answer. His head felt heavy and he couldn’t think straight, but he tried to get a grip on himself. Despite what he may have said that night at the Juhu police station, there was no way Tony could have killed Imtiaz Raza, because he was in prison. Rathod was unnecessarily letting foolish thoughts get into his head. But the outline of the kite – was that a coincidence? Just his imagination, and the force of suggestion?

  He excused himself and abruptly walked out of the DCP’s office and into his car. He wanted answers, and there was only one man who could give them to him. Unfortunately, there was no way to reach him. That man was now behind bars! Rathod remembered how Tony Matthew had not said a single word in his own defence in court, almost…almost as if he wanted to stay behind bars! He shut his eyes tight for a moment. His head was aching again. DCP Singh wouldn’t help him and neither would Mule. He didn’t have any contacts at the jail either.

  Suddenly, his phone rang. It was Bhave. Iliyas Raza had been nabbed as he was trying to board a train to Pune from Dadar. Rathod told Bhave he was on his way and immediately turned the car around. As he reached the Shantinagar police station, Rathod noticed the atmosphere was quite tense. Bhave was nowhere to be seen, but Inspector Aditya walked up to him and escorted him to the interrogation room.

  ‘They brought him in half an hour ago,’ Aditya said. ‘It seems he was trying to get out of town.’

  Rathod knocked on the door of the interrogation room and a constable opened it. Aditya entered the room and Rathod followed him inside. The door was shut behind them.

  In the middle of the room, Iliyas Raza sat in a chair with his head held high and an enraged expression on his face. Two officers in plain clothes were speaking to him. Bhave was standing at a distance and greeted Rathod with a soft nod. Rathod walked up to him and asked softly, ‘What’s he saying?’

  Bhave brought his mouth close to Rathod’s ears and said, ‘The usual.’

  A rugged-looking plain-clothes officer sat on the table in front of Iliyas and said, ‘You do know that you can’t lie to us inside this room, don’t you? Why are you lying then?’

  Iliyas looked at the officer with an expression that would send cold shivers down anyone’s spine. But it failed to have its intended effect on the officer, who was clearly cut out for the job.

  ‘I’m not lying,’ Iliyas said in a hoarse voice.

  Another plain-clothes officer strolled down casually from the other end of the room and stood before Iliyas. Then he stooped down and brought his face uncomfortably close to Iliyas’s and asked in the most casual manner, ‘Why did you kill your brother?’

  ‘I didn’t kill anyone!’ Iliyas screamed, making the second officer retract his face an inch or two.

  The two officers began to slap Iliyas around, softly at first, then with increasing intensity and frequency. Rathod saw Inspector Aditya observing Iliyas’s expressions keenly.Very soon, Iliyas was in bad shape, although it was quite evident that he was not about to break down.

  Bhave said, this time out loud, so that everyone in the room could hear him, ‘It’s going to be a long night!’

  Rathod made up his mind. He turned towards Bhave and said in a low voice, ‘Listen, I know it’s highly unusual, and feel free to say no, but I’d like to speak with him for a few minutes.’

  Bhave shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘Yeah, all right.’

  ‘Alone,’ Rathod added.

  Bhave had clearly not expected this. He stared at Rathod for a while. Then he nodded his head and said loudly, ‘Everyone… clear the room for 10 minutes.’

  As the others began walking towards the door, Inspector Aditya walked up to Rathod and said eagerly, ‘Sir, is it all right if I stay?’

  Rathod thought for a few moments and nodded. ‘All right.’ Then he looked at Bhave and said, ‘Thank you, I really appreciate it.’ Bhave shook his head understandingly and walked out. As the heavy door clanged shut behind them, Rathod drew a chair and sat in front of Iliyas. Aditya stood a short distance away.

  Iliyas seemed to be quite shocked at being roughed up. He wiped a small trickle of blood flowing down the corner of his lips and looked at Rathod, breathing heavily as he did. Rathod’s voice boomed across the table, ‘Do you know how your brother died?’

  Aditya glanced at Rathod and then watched Iliyas’s expressions closely. Iliyas looked at Rathod coldly and said briefly, ‘No.’

  ‘Someone took him to an abandoned steel mill, tied his hand and feet to poles set up in front of a high-speed industrial cooling fan and switched it on. His backbone snapped into two pieces…like a twig.’

  For several seconds, Iliyas looked at Rathod with a horrified expression of shock and disbelief. Rathod and Inspector Aditya exchanged glances. Then Rathod calmly said, ‘I know you had nothing to do with your brother’s murder.’

  Iliyas was looking at the strange man in front of him and trying to gauge if he was playing games with him.

  ‘You may be aggressive and obstinate, like a mule
,’ Rathod continued, ‘but you are not an idiot. You know that killing your brother wouldn’t get you your share of your father’s fortune. In fact, your benefit lay in him being afraid, not in his death. At the same time, you are not smart enough to devise the gruesome way in which he was killed. Neither you, nor any of the men that you are being accused of having hired to do the job.’

  There was absolute silence in the room. Iliyas was breathing normally again, although he looked at Rathod with suspicion in his eyes.

  ‘But you see, Iliyas, we need to find the killer. It’s a job, and like any other job we want to finish this off as quickly as we can so that we can all go home. So, your saying “I don’t know” to everything we ask you doesn’t cut it. Because, trust me when I tell you, if I leave this room without any answers, those guys will come back and keep you up all night. And no matter how strong you are, no matter how obstinate, I can assure you that you will confess to having killed your brother by tomorrow morning, even if you didn’t. I absolutely guarantee that.’

  A slight tremor shook Iliyas’s shoulders briefly.

  ‘You are a businessman, Iliyas,’ Rathod continued. ‘You understand the concept of profit and loss, don’t you? You see, it is in your best interest to work with me on this. Help me identify your brother’s killer. For your own sake.’

  There was a brief pause before Iliyas said, ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘Did your brother have any enemies?’

  ‘He had lots of enemies…he was stupid, and he was greedy, and dishonest,’ Iliyas screamed.

  Rathod thought for a few seconds and then pulled his chair closer to him.

  ‘Yes, but did he have any enemies who would do that to him?’

  Iliyas thought for some time and nodded his head. ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘Did he seem unusually disturbed or scared or excited in the last few days?’

  ‘How should I know? We live in our own worlds, and I hardly met him. The times I did meet him – yeah, he seemed pretty disturbed to see me!’