The Case of the Footpath Murderer

Chapter I

His phone ring sounded louder than usual in the silence of the night. He glanced at the digital watch at his table before he picked it up. He recognised the number very well, and the odd hour at which he was receiving this call meant just one thing.... A dead body lay cold in one of the quiet lonely parts of the city, and a killer was at large, waiting to get cuffed.

Five minutes later, Aryan was buckling up his seatbelt, ready to race off into the night in his black SUV. He checked the address one more time before his engine roared into life.

This one was in the suburbs... but his self induced rule of always driving above the speed limit got him to the awaiting crime scene faster than expected. This one was in the by lanes of Vile Parle, in a fairly residential neighbourhood.

“Who could’ve decided to get themselves killed in the dead of the night?” thought Aryan to himself, but then again, who was he to comment upon the growing number of Insomniacs in the city of dreams.

He stepped out of his car, lighting his cigarette at the same time, his eyes fixed upon the corpse lying beyond the cordoned off area. This locality would’ve been dreadfully quiet, had it not been for the blood covered body lying at the side of the road. Now, it was bustling with police personnel, the forensics team and a small group of crying, miserable-looking people who seemed to be the family.

As his eyes quickly scanned the area, his junior, Shlok Chowdhary rushed up to him with a file. “We got an Id on him, Sir. His name’s Jay Shah, lives just a building away. There was no phone or a wallet on him, but a local recognised him when he was leaving for the airport to go to Bangalore and called us. We have detained him for you to question. Oh that’s his family there, by the way.”

Aryan nodded to him in acknowledgement and walked up to the corpse. Shalini Prabhu, one of the best forensic experts of the city was leaning over it, collecting skin and blood-splatter samples from the body. She instinctively moved to let him have a better look. It was pretty grotesque, even for Aryan’s taste. His stomach lay cut open and his tee shirt was soaked in blood. An expression of shock lay upon his cold, unflinching face and his sleeves were torn, his hands and shoulders were bruised.

After closely inspecting the body, Aryan looked up expectantly at Shalini. She was smart enough to know when she was supposed to speak, and Aryan loved that about her.

Her matter-of –fact voice chimed through the mid-night air. “If you’re thinking that it’s a mugging gone astray, then you’re very wrong. Those bruises were inflicted on him after he died, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you found out that the killer tore his tee shirt after the actual killing.”

“So it was made to look as if he was mugged. But the motive had always been murder...” This was the first time Aryan actually spoke, ever since he had reached the crime scene. “What’s the time of death?”

“He wasn’t dead for more than an hour before I got here, so I guess it would be between 2:30-3:30 am. He was killed with a sharp metallic object like a knife, but I’ll be able to tell you more once I get this down to the lab.”

Aryan shot one more look back at the body before he started looking around. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. No lost piece of paper, any suspicious footprints or tyre marks. The lack of clues always baffled him more than anything else.

He now turned to Shlok, who, by the way, had been at his heel all the time. “Scan the area and nearby dumpsters for his wallet and phone. Also, get his number from his family and put it on surveillance. It must be switched off by now, but I want its last location. And keep an eye out for a bloody kitchen knife.” Shlok noted down every word that cold but crisp voice uttered. He, personally, feared Aryan, but he knew that he had no choice unless he wanted to quit his government job. After a firm salute, he went off to the other police personnel to hand out instructions.

Aryan was now walking towards the grieving family. He dreaded this part. He was known to be devoid of all human emotions and his non-sympathetic front towards the victim’s family often proved to be a hindrance in every investigation he had conducted. So, putting on the kindest expression he could, he stepped out of the cordoned off area, to confront the family.

On his first glance at them, he had realized that they had been a family of four- a mother, father, and 2 sons. Apparently, the victim was the elder son. A policeman was already taking notes, but he stepped aside to let Aryan take lead. “This is the father, sir, Mr. Manish, and the mother, Mrs Bhavana; their younger son, Kevin. Our victim was 21, studying...” Aryan had just signalled him to stop. He had known all he wanted to from the hawaldar.

Aryan made eye contact with the father’s teary eyes and said, “I am Detective Aryan, Mumbai Police. I am in charge of finding out which bastard killed your son, so don’t worry, you’ll find him behind bars sooner than you think. But you’ll need to co-....”

His voice was cut off by the loud quivering voice of the mother “Can you bring him back? Can you? My son is dead. I don’t care who you catch, but I want you to bring him back. Can you? CAN YOU?”

This is the part which Aryan hated. These are the kind of people Aryan couldn’t stand – Over emotional, panicky Indian moms. Yes of course he couldn’t bring the dead guy back! That was common sense!

He pushed off all his frustration aside and spoke in the calmest voice he could “Madam, I cannot bring your son back and no one can, for that matter. But the best I can do is find out who did this to him and squeeze a confession out of him. If you want to get your boy a drop of justice, then please co-operate.”

The woman was just about to start off again, but Mr. Manish laid a constraining hand on her shoulder. “We will co-operate. You can ask me or Bhavana anything you want.”

It was within these 2 minutes that Aryan had made all the assessments he needed to about this family. It was a usual Gujarati family, the father called all the shots, the mother was overprotective as usual, the victim was the apple of their eye, but the younger son – Well that’s what was even more interesting. The 2^nd born meant nothing to his parents.

(To Be Continued)