INSOMNIAC: ALAN SMITH #2 (Alan Smith series)

by ARKOPAUL DAS

  ‘No we didn’t’ said Ryan thinking ‘but we also didn’t find Mr. Brown himself, so it’s highly possible that the thing he had....he took it with him’

  ‘And that’s the reason he’s hiding, he knows the danger, but still he doesn’t wanna let go of whatever he have’

  ‘Right’

  ‘And that’s always been the major problem for us, we cannot find anyone. First Henry Roberts and now Paul Brown’

  ‘But this will alter the case, or our theories’

  ‘What will?’

  ‘This disappearance of Paul Brown’

  ‘What will it alter?’

  ‘That means he is not the killer, but somebody else is, who is behind him right now. It’s convoluted and is complete the opposite of what we were thinking, right?’

  ‘True’ said Kevin who rarely agrees with Ryan.

  ‘Now what is that thing so valuable...to him and to someone else?’

  ‘There’s the problem, I can’t see anything valuable that a normal news reporter might have’

  ‘Yeah, me too’

  ‘And I hope wherever he’s hiddin’ , he’s not dead’

  ‘I too was thinking that’ this time Ryan agreed ‘These men are so desperate that they would leave no stone unturned to get what they’re looking for, they might even consider killing someone in order to get it’

  ‘And the only thing we can do is search for him’

  ‘And if we don’t find him soon, we would surely find him dead later’

  ‘Yes, and he’s the key to all the information we need, so we get him, we unlock another level. Or else we will forever remain stuck here’

  ‘I would not think like that. So negatively. But yes you’re right’

  PART 3

  The man was standing looking around the street, leaning on the wall of a coffee shop. He didn’t drink coffee, he just watched the car ahead which just came and the driver who seemed to be the owner, parked it on the other side of the road.

  The owner of the car came out and entered the building next to it. The car was an expensive one, an Audi A7 shining as if it was just out of the showroom for a test drive. It was also black. And it was also better than the SUV he tried his hands on that night. No regrets, he thought.

  He quickly cruised across the street looking at both sides and reached the car. He checked the exterior in a way that no one would be suspicious about what he was doing. He was all-normal.

  He pulled the door, it was locked. But he had some cool keys and equipments with him to unlock it , as he went inside and started the engine with a push button start. So far so good. No worries until now, and he was nearly done, so that was not a problem as well. But as soon as he gave the first gear the owner of the car suddenly came out of the building and saw him inside. He shouted and cursed but he was already hitting the accelerator and the car zoomed away past the street.

  The man yelled more ‘Hey! What the fuck! Come back here’ Some traffic police came running to him quickly and tried to help him out. But how could they help him? His car was already out of the street.

  * * * * *

  The next day Ryan and Kevin reached the Precinct, they found Alicia there, who must have come in more early, and was checking the list and some other files.

  The other room was also buzzing, as it seemed like Dr. Taylor had a free day today that’s why he and Henderson were chatting among themselves. A lot of sound of laughter was coming through the blinds and the mood was cheerful. Luke the other detective from the crime lab was also there giving some advice about something to a uniform and throwing an occasional glance at the Henderson’s room. Everyone was busy with their work but there was something cheerful going on around the complete precinct.

  ‘You both look like you just solved the case?’ said Alicia as they both came smiling and looking around.

  ‘Positive’ said Kevin.

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Yes, but not the whole part’ said Ryan.

  ‘Okay then, which part?’

  ‘Discovered something unimaginable last night’

  ‘Oh, really?’ she said still thinking that they’re joking ‘Tell me’

  Ryan, without telling her, kept the bunch of newspaper on her table and smiled again.

  ‘And what should do I with these crap?’ she jerked.

  ‘Yes! There is the funny part’ said Kevin ‘This newspapers contains something that we discovered last night’

  ‘We?’ Ryan was surprised ‘It was only me, man. You didn’t even bother helping me’

  ‘Whatever, the main thing is that we found it’

  ‘O, yeah?’ asked Alicia.

  ‘Yup!’

  ‘So tell me what you found in this....’

  ‘See it for yourself, the information is on the table’ said Ryan and he opened the specific page and handed it too Alicia .Alicia looked at it and said ‘Who wrote it?’ not too excited.

  ‘That’s what we need to know’ said Kevin.

  ‘So these are the papers we found from Paul Brown’s house’ said Ryan ‘You remember?’

  ‘I do’ replied Alicia ‘So someone is threatening him?’

  ‘It seems so’

  ‘But they are wanting something for sure, what can it be?’ Alicia concurred.

  ‘No idea’

  ‘I thought he is our killer, but it doesn’t seem so now’ said Kevin.

  Another round of laughter that came from Henderson’s room, interrupted their conversation

  And they found that Luke had also now joined them.

  Alicia made a face and ignored them, then she said ‘But what so important could he have?’

  ‘We talked about it last night. But we don’t have an idea about what that might be’ said Ryan.

  ‘And are we sure that this threat is a serious one and not any prank?’

  ‘Why would anyone play a prank without any reason behind it.?’ Said Ryan ‘This is serious, I’m sure about it’

  ‘But we don’t know yet where he is’

  ‘Yes that’s one of the many problems we have’

  They thought and looked around for the third time, Henderson was still in a excited mood so was some of the other detectives, as everyone outside watched Henderson’s room.

  ‘Now what is goin’ on there today?’ Kevin was the first one to talk about this topic.

  ‘They look like some street teenagers joking around’ said Alicia utterly annoyed of their ignorance. ‘Okay whatever’ said Alicia back in her professional mood ‘Now what do we have on our missing man Paul Brown?’

  ‘Nothing really’ answered Kevin ‘even his phone is disabled so we will not get GPS connectivity and his mobile surely doesn’t have a mobile tracker. And we also don’t have any credit or debit cards to track’

  ‘Look’ said Alicia again ignoring those nonsense that was going on, in the other room. ‘Mr. Brown’s life is in danger so we need to find him as soon as we can in any way possible and send him to a secure custody , then we will get the information from him and catch this madman whoever did this ,and I myself will bring his ass to justice’

  ‘Yes, you’re right .If we are late then he will certainly kill our man, but the problem is that we have nothing to proceed’

  ‘Kevin is right, you know’ said Ryan.

  ‘There must be something, there’s always something, we just have to find that clue’ Alicia murmured to herself and turned to the board ‘there’s got to be a way we can proceed’

  Alicia started pacing the room talking to herself and repeating those particular words ‘You don’t give it, you’ll be dead’ What were they asking about, what could it be, who could it be, what happens if they doesn’t get it, what happens if they kill Mr. Brown before they get it ,in that way they would never get it. Damn it! What is that thing? And there’s a connection between the killer and Mr. Brown, why in earth would he keep contact with a killer? Or, did the killer choose him randomly? No not possible, he knows him. No Mr. Brown knew the kille
r...whoever is threatening him...he knew him...

  Then suddenly an idea popped up in Alicia’s head.

  ‘Hey Ryan’ said Alicia.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘What if all this was just a joke?’

  ‘What joke, what’re you talking about?’ said Ryan looking at Kevin who was also astonished to hear this.

  ‘Okay, let me elaborate it a little’ said Alicia as she took two deep breaths and then started, and spend some time explaining them the things, the idea that she had. ‘Look we know that Mr. Brown and Mr. Carter had a quarrel, and that means there was a conflict going on between them’

  ‘So what’s your point?’

  ‘Then’ continued Alicia ‘It’s highly possible that he kills our Vic for some unknown reason and then write these words himself, then goes to hide somewhere’

  ‘Why would he do that?’

  ‘So that the suspicion falls on someone else. We would think that someone else wrote those words, the killer, and the killer is not him. It’s just a way to deceive us. It will look like that he’s hiding because he’s escaping from the killer while he actually escaped so that we can’t catch him.’

  ‘Oh’ Ryan tried to make out the meaning of her words though it was all plain and clear ‘Yeah that maybe is true, he could have done that of course’

  ‘And he knew someone will find those papers, and those words sooner or later, and the suspicion would just go away from him. He would be free’

  ‘That’ll be a clever idea’

  ‘And you see we were thinking just in the way he wants us to think’

  ‘True’ said Kevin.

  The laughter vanished from the other room as Dr. Taylor said at last to Henderson ‘I got a call you know .I need to go now, I will catch with you guys later’

  He came out of the room and saw Ryan, Alicia and Kevin looking at him blankly so he said ‘What’s up? Looks like you have some insurmountable job in your hand?’

  ‘Yeah’ said Ryan.

  ‘Okay, see you later’ he said and went away.

  ‘They must be discussing some urgent matters’ said Kevin and they all laughed.

  ‘Just leave them. We need our focus on our case’

  More minutes passed as they all thought what was to be done now. Mr. Henderson also came out of his room soon and said ‘Are you all daydreaming?’

  They all stood up and stared at him with blank faces.

  He asked ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Well’ said Alicia ‘We discovered something more and that’s the problem’

  ‘Right, the strangulation case?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So what’s the problem?’

  ‘These papers’

  ‘Some crumbled papers?’

  ‘Yes, and they are the key to the problem’ said Ryan ‘And the papers aren’t important, there’s something more inside them’

  Then Ryan summarised everything that happened, mainly the recent incidents. Then also told him and showed him the words.

  He frowned and said ‘Oh, this is some serious stuff’

  ‘Now we can’t find out the person who is threatening our suspect’

  ‘And we also got a missing man?’

  ‘Yes, and he was quite important .He had all the information we need, and now it turns out that someone else is chasing him too. So it just becomes more and more complicated’ said Ryan.

  ‘There’s no way other than finding this missing man. Dead or alive. We first have to find him’ said Henderson.

  They remained quiet so Henderson continued ‘Any idea how to get him?’

  ‘No idea whatsoever’ replied Alicia.

  ‘Do you have anything by which you can track his location?’

  ‘No we got nothing .Even his mobile does not work, and it’s with us’

  ‘So no way to trace him?’

  ‘No’

  ‘What did you get from his house?’

  ‘The papers’

  ‘That’s all?’

  ‘Yeah, pretty much, we checked, and CSU rechecked the house, but they didn’t find anything I guess’

  ‘Then it’s a problem for sure’ agreed Henderson at last.

  ‘Who’s that?’ Henderson pointed at the picture of Henry Roberts that was stuck on the board.

  ‘That’s another suspect’ said Kevin ‘We got his fingerprints in our Vic’s car’

  ‘Jade Carter’s car?’

  ‘Yeah, the black SUV’

  ‘You got him?’

  ‘Nope’ Ryan said in a low-pitched voice.

  ‘So he’s also missing?’

  ‘You may say that’

  ‘And there is no way to track him down too, is there?’ Henderson looked at their faces.

  ‘Nope’ confirmed Ryan.

  ‘I thought so’ said Henderson and moved closer to the picture staring at it carefully for some time, then he remarked ‘Is this dude some sort of rapper?’

  ‘We don’t know, sir,’ said Alicia.

  ‘Because he looks more like.....um..what was his name?’ Henderson fumbled with the name.

  Kevin answered for him. ‘Jay Z?’

  ‘Then is he..-- .’

  Alicia cut him short. ‘No, I don’t think that he’s related to Jay Z’ She didn’t want to waste much time on this topic.

  ‘Right, right .In that way it would have been easier to catch him’ he said.

  ‘Yeah’

  ‘Well so...’

  ‘You wanna say something Alicia?’ asked Henderson.

  ‘I mean’ said Alicia ‘Shouldn’t we just focus on finding him?’

  ‘Yes, of course’ Henderson tuned to Kevin and Ryan. ‘She’s right you know, we are drifting away from the main subject.’

  Henderson resumed his gaze at the picture, trying to check the details and ignoring the fact that he’s related to Jay Z.

  Luke came in and joined them. ‘What’s goin’ on?’

  ‘Nothing, what you doing here?’ Ryan asked.

  ‘Just wanted to get some coffee’

  ‘Get some for me too’ said Henderson.

  ‘And for me too. Cream, no sugar’ added Ryan.

  ‘Got it’ he left the room.

  Mr. Henderson, after studying the picture for some more time didn’t seem to get anything. In order to get a better view he tore away the picture from the board and held it in his hands more near to his eyes.

  ‘You got anything, boss?’ Kevin asked.

  ‘Hmm’ he grunted and added ‘I think, yes’

  ‘What?’ Ryan moved closer to him.

  ‘Is this a tattoo?’ Henderson showed the picture to Ryan and asked.

  There was something blackish on one side of the neck, but the picture was too small to get a good view at it.

  ‘It seems like one, I don’t know. But yeah, it might be a tattoo’ said Ryan. Alicia remained quiet failing to make up her mind.

  ‘Well then it’s probably is a tattoo’ said Alicia. ‘Look at the design, it’s certainly a tattoo. But is it important?’

  ‘It might be’ answered Henderson. ‘Ryan, do me a favour. Get the picture in the computer. We need to be sure about it’

  ‘On it’ said Ryan, pulled the chair to him from the other side, and sat on it quickly logging in the computer on his table. When the desktop came into view with a not so good wallpaper, he quickly took the picture from Henderson’s hand, scanned it and found it later in My Files section. He opened it and within a second, with the help of Photo viewer. But he saw that it came in a horizontal manner, he clicked the right button of the mouse and got the option to bring it back to its right position and moved it anticlockwise then went for the full screen option.

  ‘It’s ready for viewing’ declared Ryan as everyone gathered behind his chair.

  ‘It’s still the same’ said Alicia and she was right, there was no changes in the picture, the size , colour, contrast, everything was just the same .The only difference was that they were looking at a digital version
of the picture .They could still see the man’s face till the chest region.

  ‘Look at it carefully’ said Kevin ‘There is a dark design for sure,’ he pointed at the left side of the throat till the back of the neck that was not visible ‘But that’s all we can make out’

  ‘It’s still tough to make out what design is it’

  ‘Well I think I can try and fix that’ said Ryan as he clicked the mouse for a few more times as he increased the brightness up a few notch. It also increased the sharpness and saturation of the photo.

  But the result was that it became more blurry.

  ‘This angle is still not good’ said Henderson. ‘The tattoo is at the left side, but the photo is tilted to the right’

  ‘But I cannot move the picture or tilt it,’ said Ryan ‘It’s all I can do’

  ‘No, that’ll not work too’

  ‘Hey can’t you zoom it?’ said Alicia.

  ‘Oh, right. Great idea’

  He moved the bar below a little, the picture got zoomed itself a little and the details came into view and it became more prominent .But still the picture blurred a little more.

  ‘That’s the best I can do’ said Ryan.

  ‘That’s good, no need to zoom anymore’ said Henderson ‘Just move it a little this side...yeah now good’

  Now the black tattoo became visible clearly .The design contained a head, a spiny narrow tail and there was something written below it, which they could not make out.

  ‘What is this thing?’ Kevin asked to himself.

  ‘It’s a dragon, or it looks like one’

  ‘A dragon?’

  ‘Yeah’

  ‘And look’ Ryan zoomed a little more ‘There is something written below it’

  ‘What’s written below it?’ Alicia tried to make it out.

  ‘Something about the dragon must be’

  ‘What’s there to write about it?’

  ‘Significance of the dragon maybe. Or something that is related to it’

  ‘Yeah, probably’

  ‘Can you read it?’

  ‘No,’

  ‘Then how will we read it?’

  ‘You can’t. Even if you get a clear view, you’ll not be able to read it’

  ‘Why not?’ asked Kevin.

  ‘It’s not in English’

  ‘Not in English?’ asked Alicia.

  ‘Nope, it’s written in some other language. I can only tell you that it’s not in English’