‘I’m not sure yet…but I think you can find the answer to that in a cell at Arthur Road Jail.’
Rathod thought for a few moments and said, ‘Even if I were to agree to meet Tony, no one will let me see him.’
‘Ah, there’s a way,’ Aditya said. He glanced around, tilted his head towards Rathod and then said in a low voice, ‘Do you remember Satham Sir?’
Rathod frowned. ‘Satham? You mean G.K. Satham?’
‘Exactly. The senior inspector at Chembur years ago, in your early days. It was a long time ago, and I wasn’t even in the force back then. I’ve heard that you two were close – that he, in fact, mentored you. You also worked on several cases together.’
‘Yes, but what about him?’
Aditya beamed. ‘Well, he is now the chief warden at the Arthur Road Jail!’
‘Oh yes!’ Rathod exclaimed, the fork almost dropping from his hand. ‘I had heard this sometime ago. I wonder how it slipped my mind.’
Aditya smiled cheerfully. He seemed happy to have been of assistance to his hero.
‘But,’Rathod said, ‘how do you know so much about Satham Sir and me?’
‘I told you earlier, sir…perhaps you didn’t notice – I am a big fan of yours. I’ve followed all your cases very closely.’
A soft, appreciative smile appeared on Rathod’s face. He had been thinking of Tony Matthew ever since he had seen the crime scene at the mill and had been convinced it was impossible to meet him. But the bright young officer in front of him had just shown him the way.
24
He was walking through a dark and damp alley when he saw a man hunched over next to a fire burning in a drum at the end of the lane. As he drew nearer, the man looked up. His heart galloping, he saw that it was Tony, and that he was hunched over a chessboard. With a sinister smile, Tony raised his blood-covered hand and dipped it inside his jacket to bring out a claw-hammer. Then, raising the claw-hammer over the chessboard, his eyes shining in the dark, he said, ‘Checkmate!’ and brought the hammer crashing down.
Rathod woke with a start. For a few seconds, he couldn’t remember when he had returned home and dozed off. He had broken into a sweat. As he was taking his shirt off, he realized that his phone was buzzing insistently.
‘Hello?’
‘Rathod? This is DCP Singh.’
‘Yes, sir, how can I help you?’ Rathod asked as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes.
For a few seconds, there was no response. Then the DCP said, ‘So you haven’t seen the news yet?’
‘What news?’ Rathod sensed the urgency in the DCP’s voice. ‘What happened?’
‘Turn on your TV. It’s everywhere. Call me back on this number.’
Rathod rushed to his living room and turned on the news. An anchor was reporting from the field – Rathod recognized her as Maya Taneja. Wasn’t this the channel Ananya worked for?
‘Citizens of Mumbai had just breathed a sigh of relief after notorious serial killer Anthony Matthew, also known as the “Patang Killer”, was apprehended by the Mumbai Police after brutally murdering as many as three individuals in shocking and bizarre ways, when a sense of dread descended upon the city yesterday as a fourth body was discovered in an abandoned steel mill near the Shantinagar industrial area in north Mumbai. The victim, a man named Imtiaz Raza, is believed to have been murdered in a gruesome manner, which has all the signs of a murder committed by Tony Matthew. We have learnt from reliable sources that although initially the victim’s brother had been considered the prime suspect the police are now considering the possibility that the murder may have been caused by the Patang Killer himself. We remind our viewers that Tony Matthew is still in jail. In this bizarre, almost supernatural turn of events, various questions are being asked by the citizens of the city. As you can see, we are reporting live from the steel mill in which the victim’s body was found. Let us ask a few people gathered here. Yes sir… Do you think this murder was committed by Tony Matthew?’
A middle-aged man with his shirt buttoned all the way up to his throat looked directly at the camera and said, ‘Yes, only he could have killed in this manner.’
‘But Tony Matthew is in prison.’
‘Everything is possible for him,’ the man said with dangerous confidence, and a few young men and children behind him smiled and nodded.
‘But how? How did he escape from prison and commit the murder?’
‘That I don’t know.’
Taneja turned towards another man, who seemed eager to express his views. ‘Yes, sir, you want to say something?’
‘Yes, my name is Dibakar Dutt, I live in…’
‘How do you think Tony Matthew…’
‘Oh, no, no…I don’t think he did it at all…’
‘You don’t think it was Tony Matthew?’
‘No, not at all. How could he have escaped from that jail, you tell me, madam? And even if he did do it somehow, what reason did he have to go back to his cell? He could have run away, no? People just say whatever comes to their mind without thinking. I am a B.Sc., madam, Physics Honours, and I…’
Rathod’s phone rang again.
‘Yes, Singh Sir. How did this happen?’
‘You tell me, Rathod.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You tell me. How did the media get involved in this?’
‘Surely you don’t think I spoke to the media, do you?’
‘Rathod, several people at the Shantinagar police station saw you speaking to a reporter from Sky News.’
‘Yes, but I didn’t tell her anything…I was just…’
Rathod stopped abruptly as Ananya’s words flashed through his mind: ‘I was in the neighbourhood, following a story…’
So this was the story! But who could have told her about the Tony Matthew connection? He then remembered: ‘…the entire crime scene had “Tony Matthew” written all over it.’
Aditya! Rathod closed his eyes in frustration. He recalled the way Aditya had been looking at Ananya. It was he who leaked the news to the media. Ananya was no fool – she had noticed how he had been looking at her, and it would have been easy for her to get the scoop out of him. That stupid, foolish boy!
‘Sir, I’ll call you back.’ Rathod disconnected the call over the DCP’s protests and considered his next course of action. For a few minutes, he fumed over Aditya’s stupidity, but he calmed himself down. The damage had been done; the media was now going to add fuel to the fire and cook up all sorts of stories. There was nothing he could do about that anymore. However, there was something he could do. He dialled a number on his phone and placed the call.
‘Hello, Satham Sir? This is Rathod, Chandrakant Rathod. Do you remember me?’
A couple of hours later, Rathod found himself walking down the long corridors of Arthur Road Jail behind two armed guards. Satham had heard his story and given him permission to visit Tony Matthew in his cell, although he had made it a point to let Rathod know that he was making a one-time exception and doing him a huge favour.
Tony had been kept in Block E, where the most dangerous inmates were usually locked up. Security was tighter there, the doors double-barred and the cells without windows. Most of the cells were empty and, in the darkness, they stood like a row of ominous ghosts. As the two guards escorted Rathod past the multiple doors, he looked around and his heart skipped a beat.
Impossible!
It was simply impossible for someone to escape from here, commit a murder and then sneak back in. Unless…
Rathod suspended all further thought for now. They had arrived at cell number 14.
‘This is it,’ one of the guards said. ‘He is in there.’
‘Open the doors.’
The guard shook his head. ‘No permission.’
Rathod realized Satham must have seen the news too.
The two guards took a couple of steps back as Rathod stepped forward. The cell was half-dark and Rathod could vaguely make out a cot with a thin mattress and a pillow on it. Ther
e seemed to be nothing else in the room – at least nothing he could see.
‘That’s enough,’ one of the guards said firmly. Rathod was now less than two feet away from the bars.
Rathod turned to see that both the guards had taken their guns off their slings and were now pointing them towards the darkness beyond the bars.
‘Mr Rathod! How very nice of you to come!’
Tony’s voice seemed much more ominous to Rathod today as compared to that day at the Juhu police station. He realized that it was because, at this moment, Tony knew he held all the cards in the deck.
‘I’m a little embarrassed,’ he continued softly. ‘I should offer you a chair, but I’m afraid I don’t have one in my cell. There used to be one here, but they had it removed the day I was brought in. They probably thought I would use it to inflict fatal injuries upon myself. A ridiculous idea, don’t you think?’
Tony’s voice was still echoing from within the dark cell. Why wasn’t he showing himself?
‘So…what brings you here?’
‘I want to ask you a few questions, Tony.’
‘I can take a very good guess at what those questions might be, Mr Rathod. You’re here about the steel mill murder, aren’t you?’
Rathod was silent for a few seconds. Then Tony said, ‘Only a genius can recognize and truly appreciate the work of another genius! Don’t you agree, Mr Rathod?’
Rathod felt extremely disconcerted by the darkness inside the cell. There was something very wrong about it. The passage outside was brightly lit and, yet, inside the cell, it was dark. Rathod suddenly had an epiphany. He realized, much to his surprise, that despite the fact that Tony was inside a dark cell, locked away from the rest of the world, it was he – Chandrakant Rathod – who had come to him to seek enlightenment. The thought made him uncomfortable, and he shook it off with great effort.
‘Did you kill Imtiaz Raza?’ Rathod asked, without mincing his words.
A few more seconds of silence.
‘I’m going to have to say no to that.’
‘Why?’ Rathod asked.
‘I’m here, locked up, inside this cell. I haven’t had a hearing at the court in two weeks, which means I haven’t left this cell, escorted or otherwise. How on earth do you think I might have got out? Look behind you!’
Rathod glanced back and found that the two guards were still stoically pointing the gun towards the cell.
‘So you are saying you had nothing to do with Raza’s murder?’
The answer came with an almost unnoticeable delay, ‘That’s not what I said!’
Rathod thought he heard a smirk in Tony’s voice. He seemed to shift a little in the darkness, because the bed creaked just a little. Rathod frowned and shook his head in frustration.
‘Listen, Tony…’ he began.
‘The fundamental requirement in solving a puzzle, Mr Rathod…’ Tony interrupted him, ‘…is patience!’
Suddenly,Tony’s eyes shone in the dark like those of a snake that had deliberately withdrawn into a dark corner to take its prey by surprise. Rathod strained his eyes to try and see his face, but that made no difference.
‘And you seem to be pretty much on the verge of losing it,’ Tony hissed.
Why was he hiding in the dark? Was he afraid? Or was he hiding something?
‘Can I ask you to step into the light, please?’ Rathod asked.
‘Why?’
The response came after a few seconds.
‘So that I can see your face when I’m talking to you.’
‘No, thank you. I’m just fine here.’
‘Step into the light please, Tony.’ Rathod took another step forward.
‘It is futile to insist, Mr Rathod.’
‘Step into the light, right now!’
There was no response, and Rathod instantly suspected foul play. Although he recognized Tony’s voice, he had to be sure that it was indeed Tony who was inside the cell. The circumstances demanded that he be absolutely sure. He turned around to face the guards and said, ‘Hey, can we get some light in here?’
Before the guards could respond, Rathod suddenly felt a violent tug on his shoulder. Before he realized what was happening, he lost his balance and fell back against the bars. A strong arm protruding through them grabbed him in a fierce scissor grip while another hand gripped his right wrist and shoved it towards his back. All of it happened so quickly that the guards didn’t get a chance to react. By the time they did, Anthony Matthew had successfully used Chandrakant Rathod as a human shield to protect himself from the guards’ guns.
Rathod had seen Tony up close once before, but he had not realized that he possessed such enormous strength within that short and ordinary-looking body of his. The scissor grip against his neck was unyielding, and Rathod was almost blacking out, struggling to search for even the slightest bubble of breath in some deep corner of his lungs. He clawed at Tony’s arm with his free hand while the screech of his shoes rubbing against the floor resounded through the passages of Block E. The guards didn’t know what to do and swore at Tony, their guns still pointed at him, asking him let go of the man.
Recovering quickly from his initial panic, Rathod calmed down and tried to think his way out of the situation. He realized that Tony was too strong for him to be able to free himself of the chokehold with his free hand, especially since he was getting weaker by the minute. Maybe he could target and attack Tony’s eyes so that his grip loosens? However, he realized he didn’t have enough strength left in him for that either.
But there was something else he could do. Letting go of Tony’s arm, he raised his hand weakly to assure the guards that he was all right and waved down to ask them to lower their weapons. The last thing he wanted was to get shot by two panicked guards. Looking unsure of themselves, the guards gradually lowered their weapons, although they continued to throw the filthiest curses at Tony, their mouths frothing, their legs trembling in rage.
Rathod was close to blacking out by now. His lungs were burning and his heart felt as though it was about to burst. He felt something sting the palm of his right hand. He immediately shuddered in fear and struggled to break free one last time, but Tony only held him tighter. Then, just as Rathod was about to lose consciousness, he felt Tony’s warm breath in his right ear accompanied by a hiss: ‘It seems you’ve hit a dead end in solving the puzzle, haven’t you, Mr Rathod? Well, here’s a little clue for you!’
Tony released his grip around Rathod’s neck quite suddenly and threw both his hands up in the air. The two guards immediately picked up their weapons and pointed them at him once again. The last thing that Rathod heard, before he finally lost consciousness, was Tony’s calm, quiet and admonishing voice addressing the two guards directly: ‘And you two…mind your language!’
25
‘How are you feeling now?’ The prison doctor at the Arthur Road Jail placed a comforting hand on Rathod’s shoulder and asked.
Rathod nodded, indicating that he was all right. In fact, he had come to his senses well before the doctor had reached the prison infirmary from his quarters. He had learnt, quite surprisingly, that the nose starts to run while being strangulated. He was sniffing and wiping his nose with a handkerchief over and over again. Other than that, and a splitting headache, he was perfectly okay and was sure he could drive home, although the doctor strictly advised against it.
‘Don’t underestimate the shock. That’s more harmful than any physical damage.’
‘I’m fine, really. If you could just give me something for these headaches…’
‘Since when have you been having them?’
‘I’m not sure…maybe a month or so?’
‘How’s your sleep?’
‘I don’t get much sleep in my line of work.’
The doctor smiled. ‘Yes, but you will not be in this line of work for long if you don’t take care of your body, will you? I’ll give you a few pills and also draw up a prescription for you.Take the medicines, you’ll feel better.’<
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Rathod thanked the doctor. After some time, he stepped out into the fresh air and slowly made his way to his car. As he drove through the empty streets, he couldn’t help but think about how unprepared he had been for his meeting with Tony Matthew. What a dangerous man! Rathod realized that of all the mysteries that he had solved in his career, this was, by far, the most baffling one. He wondered what Tony’s strange last words to him meant.
As he reached his apartment building and parked the car, he saw Aditya coming out of the lift. A fresh bout of rage flared up in him and he decided to give the irresponsible young man a piece of his mind for speaking to the media.
‘Hello, sir! I was…oh my God, what happened to you?’ Aditya’s grin disappeared the instant he saw Rathod’s face.
‘Get in,’ Rathod said briefly, as the lift door opened.
‘Are you all right?’ Aditya asked with concern.
Rathod turned to Aditya and said angrily, ‘Why did you tell the girl what we had discussed?’
‘What? Which girl?’ Aditya looked confused.
‘Aditya, don’t try to act smart with me! Tell me the truth. I may not be in the force, but there’s an assumption of confidentiality when I have a discussion with someone from the force. Professional ethics. We do not discuss our cases outside our professional network, especially not open cases.’
‘What are you talking about?’
The lift stopped on Rathod’s floor. As he stepped out, Aditya followed him, still looking bewildered. ‘Sir, I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ he said.
Rathod stopped abruptly and turned around, wagging a menacing finger at him. ‘Don’t fool around with me, Aditya. You had no right to blurt out any of the sensitive information we discussed. It’s all over the news now.’
‘But, sir, I didn’t discuss anything with anyone. Which girl are you talking about? Ananya?’
Rathod paused for a moment. ‘Did you not speak to her?’
‘Of course not!’
‘You did not meet her?’
‘No! For heaven’s sake!’
‘You’re lying!’ Rathod yelled at the top of his voice.
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