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fiction January 1, 2015 3 hours read Previously Unpublished

Molested Poppy

A detective buddy novel set in the underbelly of Bangalore. Two unlikely partners, a series of connected crimes, and a city that keeps its worst secrets in plain sight. The longest unpublished manuscript in the archive.

Genre: Crime Fiction, Buddy Novel, Bangalore Noir

By: Athul DeMarco

For people who like Lethal Weapon's buddy chemistry transplanted into Indian crime fiction. Long, messy, ambitious, and completely unfinished.

Molested Poppy • Athul DeMarco

Contact Details Arvind Chandrashekar Flat # 3B, Saraswathi Apartments, 54/7, Seethappa Colony, 8th Main, New Thippasandra, Bangalore – 75

Ph: +(91) 988-672-0869 Email: don.osiris@gmail.com

1 ‘FUCK! Fuck. Fuck. Fuckingfuckityfuck!’ Megan cursed as she stared at the strip of white plastic and watched the second pink line darken to a brighter shade. She picked up the box which the pregnancy test kit came in and read the instructions, even though she knew it by heart. ‘FUCK!’ She screamed as she got off the toilet and caught her angry face staring back from the bathroom mirror. ‘What the fuck are you going to do now Megan Wallace?’ She glowered at her reflection. She watched her lips move, she could hear herself talk. ‘Everything alright love?’ She heard her husband’s worried voice nervously inquiring from the other side of the bathroom door. She could picture him straining his ear to hear. God! She hated the man. ‘Yeah! I am fine’ She thundered, her hands clutching the sides of the washbasin to steady herself. She could feel the warm gluggy water climb up her esophagus. ‘Okay… I am leaving now.’ he meekly replied. He leaned in closer to the door and waited for some sort of acknowledgement, something, anything. He shook his wrist and saw the time. ‘I might be bit late. So don’t wait up’ he spoke to the bathroom door and hurriedly left.

Megan turned on the hot water for her bath. She stripped and stood naked in front of the mirror. She cupped her ample breasts and felt them heavier than usual. Her hands traced themselves down her flat tummy. She could hear her husband’s car reversing out into the driveway. She undid her blonde hair and spread them out over her shoulders and looked admiringly at herself. ‘Not bad for a forty year old wouldn’t you say?’ Megan questioned her reflection. She pinched her nipples, making them sticking out. Her mind flashed the images of the hot steaming sex she had with that fancy banker at the bar. God! She had loved it. He had said his name was Nick. She knew he was lying. She knew it because he had paused just long enough for her to know that he was lying when he said his name was Nick. She didn’t hesitate when she introduced herself as Amy. They had gone to the car park and had each other like an obese man going at a tub of chocolate ice-cream. And after that night, she had been constantly on the phone with him. ‘What are you wearing?’ He would ask and she would giggle like a little girl. And then he would get her to pleasure herself till they met again. It had been more than a week since they last met. She felt herself getting aroused as she played his voice in her head. Nick liked the fact that she was married. And Megan liked him because she could see the white knight syndrome in him. She had concocted a story about being in an abusive relationship, how her husband, Frank, verbally assaulted her. The truth was that Frank had lost his job five months back. Management restructuring he claimed. She knew he was lying. She could always tell when they lied to her. It takes a liar to catch the lies of another. The surprises, fancy dinners, expensive gifts had stopped abruptly. Frank had chided her when she had gone and splurged the credit card on a pair of heels. And they had got into a heated argument. Megan had pulled the same emotional stunt she had used when she got Frank to propose to him. ‘You know…’ She had carried on, between dry heaves and sobs, ‘You know I was adopted and…’ More sobs, no tears. ‘No. No. No. That’s all I have heard when I was growing up. Don’t do this. Don’t do that. You can’t have that.’ More sobs. Still no tears. ‘You know that I am trying hard. I wanted to feel good about myself. Especially after you have been laid off. I thought you would appreciate me looking good for you. I was doing it for you’ she carried on, turning the melodrama up a notch. ‘That is not what I was saying’ her husband had mumbled. And she felt both victorious and sick. She had married the man because she thought he would be a good provider. And now that he was no longer a provider, he still wanted to stake his claim on her. It made her sick. He would paw at her, nuzzle his face in her neck thinking that it aroused her. She would make the necessary noises and imagined Nick instead of her husband. She checked the water temperature, splashed some water to make the bubbles to froth up some more and turned off the tap. She stepped into the bathtub, she was going to break the news to Nick when he came home today. He had promised her. He said it would be kind of kinky that they would have sex on her marital bed. She thought it was cute. Nick was several years younger than her. And boy did he wear her out. And now, she was going to tell him that he was going to be a father. She didn’t know how he would react. She was scared.

Frank saw the bedroom light on as he drove up the driveway. He hoped against hope that Megan was fast asleep and she had just forgotten to turn the lights off. She sometimes did that. She always did that, leaving the lights on, her clothes lying around like a tornado had swept through the house, dishes in the sink rather than inside the dishwasher. He didn’t realize how much Martha, their house help, did around the house till he had to let her go couple of weeks back. He knew that Megan wouldn’t take the news of him being fired from his job too well. Hell! Even he had not taken to the news kindly. After having served eighteen long years in the company, he was being let go. Management restructuring they said. He knew they couldn’t bring it upon themselves to say the real reason. It would destroy the company and the investors would pull out, sending the company to bankruptcy. He wanted Megan to hold him and assure him that things will turn around. But when he told her that he lost his job, she flew into a rage and accused him of being lazy and not knowing how to deal with office politics. He felt something crumble inside him. The two things he had invested his youth in, his job and his wife, were fast turning out to be the two biggest mistakes he had ever made in his. He had never really cared so much about what his wife did when he was out on work. He had never really cared how much she spent on shopping. Not till he had checked his savings account to which her credit card was linked. When he had confronted her and had told her that they couldn’t afford their old lifestyle, not till he sorted himself out with the new venture he was planning. She had thrown a proper fit. He just hoped that the man he was planning his new venture with would live up to his end of the bargain. There were days when he saw his wife lying next to him, beautiful and fragile and he had reached out to her warm silky skin and she would scornfully rebuff him. Words didn’t have to be spoken for him to recognize the hate he saw in his wife’s eyes. Couple of days back, Megan had something which had shocked Frank, she had wanted a divorce. She had even spoken to a lawyer. When Frank asked her to reconsider her decision, and asked her to think about their daughter, Janice, she just laughed. She told him that he should just be happy that she hadn’t told Janice about how pathetic her father was. It was like a veil had been lifted off Megan’s pretty face and Frank was seeing his wife’s ugliness for the very first time. He opened the door and went straight for the fridge. He wanted something to drink. He couldn’t afford whisky, but there was some cheap beer still lying around his friends from work had gifted him. He opened the bottle of beer and looked around the kitchen if there was anything to eat. All he saw was unopened packs of instant noodles and some cookies. Angry and frustrated he went and switched on the television and kept pumping up the volume. He wondered how Megan could sleep when he was trying everyday to open his eyes. He finished his bottle of beer and soon he had finished the rest of the seven bottles of beer. The beer only fueled his anger. He wasn’t going to let Megan ruin him and take away everything he had worked so hard for. He banged open their bedroom door. They weren’t divorced yet. She was still his wife. He saw her sleeping on the bed. He pulled the cover off his wife, and immediately recoiled in horror. The sight of his wife sobered him as he urgently fumbled for his phone and punched the emergency number. ‘Hello? Hello? Yes… My wife… Somebody murdered her… Please send somebody over’ he sobbed into the phone. He sat cowering in the corner of their bedroom, staring at his wife and all the blood through his muddled vision.

2 ‘Oi! Open up!’ Abu yelled as he banged on the door. Stopping long enough to see if there was any sound of approaching footsteps. ‘Alex! Wake up! Open the goddamn door man!’ He continued banging and yelling at the door. ‘Can you keep it down? Some people are trying to sleep here.’ Abu turned around, and saw the light on in the flat across his, he could tell that the voice belonged to an old woman who was looking at him suspiciously through the peep hole. ‘It’s alright! I live here.’ Abu yelled as he continued banging on the door. ‘If you don’t stop yelling, I am going to call the cops’ she threatened. ‘Well, too bad lady! I am the police!’ Abu yelled as he held up his police badge. Just then he heard the door lock unlatch and open. ‘What took you so long?’ Abu demanded as he pushed past and looked around for his keys. ‘I was sleeping’ Alex replied as he tousled his hair and closed the door behind Abu. ‘Why don’t you put a shirt and some pants on for fuck sake!’ Abu yelled as he saw Alex walking around in his boxers. Alex ignored the noise and headed back to the bedroom. ‘You got something to smoke?’ Abu inquired as he tried to avoiding meeting Alex’s curious eyes and dug his head inside their refrigerator before deciding that he wanted something stronger than a cold beer. ‘Bad day?’ Alex quizzed as he pulled out the tea box kept in the secret compartment in their coffee table. He opened and box and surveyed its contents. ‘You want the northern lights or the B52?’ He inquired as he held aloft the two big rolled buds of cannabis. He saw Abu pour himself a large whisky and remarked ‘Alright! Northern lights it is then’. Alex went about breaking the bud and flicking the seeds on the carpet. ‘You have no idea!’ Abu slumped on the couch, next to where Alex was seated. The ice cubes clinked in his whisky and noisily slurped on it. ‘Pass the rizla’ Alex absentmindedly pointed with his chin to Abu, as he picked and dropped the fine cannabis dust on the magazine cover.

Alexander Rubenfeld and Abdul Rizvi had met each other in college, fourteen years ago. Alexander was considered bit of a pioneer even back then. In his first year of college, Alexander had designed a pen cap which people could clip onto their shirt pockets, which he duly sold to the leading ball point pen manufacturer for an astronomical amount of money. Abdul on the other hand came from a working class family with his mind set on becoming a police officer the moment he graduated from college. When Abdul wasn’t attending classes, he was working at the student pub close to the university. In the meanwhile, when Alexander wasn’t exclaiming, ‘This is boring’ or picking up a fight with the professor for not knowing enough about the subject and storming out of class after having attended just couple of classes and having read through all the course material and more. He was spending a lot of time learning pottery, basic astronomy, astrophysics and horticulture. Human psychology 101 was where Alexander and Abdul met each other for the first time. ‘Hand in your papers’ the professor yelled as the bell rang indicating the end of the class. ‘Shit! Shit! Shit!’ Abdul cursed as he suddenly realized what it was that was bothering him since he woke up that morning. He had forgotten to write the fourteen page assignment on human consciousness. Abdul realized that if he didn’t submit the paper than he wouldn’t need the required credit. ‘You alright mate?’ Abdul looked up, and saw a tall thin boy smiling at him. ‘I forgot about the paper’ Abdul croaked as his mind played a vivid scenario of being derided by the professor in the most colorful language. ‘Here…’ He handed a sheaf of papers to Abdul and without waiting for Abdul’s response, he hurried down the auditorium stairs. Abdul flipped through the pages and realized that the arguments which were written were nothing short of brilliant. Before Abdul could look up to inquire if it was alright for him to submit the paper as his own, the boy was no longer to be seen. Abdul was chuffed, he knew the paper would score him a minimum ‘A’. Lot more than the ‘B+’ he needed or what he would have scored if he had written the paper himself. But his mind kept going back to the boy who had handed him the paper, and tried to recollect if he had seen him anywhere before. Abdul had just entered the pub and was tying the apron around him when he noticed a big crowd gather around one of the tables and feverishly chanting numbers. ‘FORTY… FORTY ONE…’ Abdul walked over to see what the commotion was about, the crowd yelled ‘FIFTY!’ before erupted into loud cheers and wild hooting. ‘The money’ Abdul saw the boy who had saved him just moments ago casually demand money from a heavily built jock who Abdul recognized as, Syd Peoples, captain of the wrestling team. ‘What money?’ Syd demanded, ‘The bet was that you blow more than fifty smoke rings from a single drag and you blew fifty’ his voice threatening. ‘No! The bet was…’ the boy paused as he took a long deep drag from his cigarette, ‘fifty smoke rings’. ‘Well you are not getting shit from me’ Syd grinned menacingly. ‘I knew you would say that you fat cunt!’ The boy scorned. ‘What did you call me?’ Syd yelled as he tried lunging at the boy. Abdul stuck his foot catching Syd’s shin and sent the burly captain of the wrestling team scuttling along the beer wet floor. Syd got off the ground even more furious than he was when he went down. He lunged forward with his balled fist aimed at the boy’s face. The boy sidestepped and landed a hard punch at Syd’s gut knocking the air out of the captain of the wrestling team. The boy winked at Abdul, who was standing in shock. Syd’s friends quickly rushed to their friend’s aid. Syd sat up coughing and fighting for air. ‘Get the money tomorrow’ The boy said and began to walk out. ‘Hey!’ Abdul ran out after the boy. ‘Hey… Thanks but I am fine’ The boy said as he flexed his knuckles. ‘I wanted to say thank you for the paper. I am feeling guilty…’ ‘Oh! It is cool. Forget about it’ he smiled. ‘No. It is not cool. How can I repay this favor?’ Abdul inquired as he saw the boy study him. ‘You work here?’ He inquired. ‘Yeah! Helps pay the rent and tuition you know’ Abdul grinned proudly. His parents had taught him the value of a hard earned buck. ‘Cool… Where do you stay? Oh! By the way I am Alex.’ The boy extended his hand as he introduced himself. ‘Abdul. I stay at the boroughs’ Abdul replied as he shook Alex’s extended hand. ‘Jeez! The boroughs? Must be hard traveling in and out of the city every day’ He remarked. Abdul was surprised by Alex’s strong grip. ‘Yeah, but I manage. I take the tube.’ Abdul replied and watched Alex knock a cigarette out of a soft pack. ‘How much are you paying for rent?’ Alex inquired as he pulled hard at his cigarette. ‘Fifty quid a week’ Abdul replied. ‘Listen, I got a favor to ask you’ Alex looked at Abdul through the corner of his eye as he blew smoke. ‘Yeah! Yeah! Anything man’ Abdul replied earnestly. ‘What would you say if I ask you to be my flatmate. The rent is thirty quid.’ Alex spoke as he gauged Abdul’s physical reaction, ‘a month’, he added to sweeten the deal. ‘Uh…’ is all Abdul could manage. He wasn’t sure if he was being joked at. ‘Listen, I stay alone in the city, pretty close by to the college actually. And it gets pretty lonely you know. And you look like a straight shooter. So what do you say?’ Alex inquired. ‘Thanks man… But you know…’ Abdul squirmed, unsure if he was being propositioned. His friends back home did warn him about guys who loved guys. And even though Abdul had yet to come across somebody like that, he didn’t expect to find himself being solicited. ‘I am not like that man…’ Abdul finished his sentence as he took a step back. ‘Like what?’ Alex cocked his eyebrow. ‘You know into men. I like women’ Abdul explained apologetically. ‘What? Nonono!’ Alex hurriedly explained, ‘I like women too.’ ‘Oh! Sorry. I thought you know…’ Abdul apologized. ‘That’s okay… but what do you say?’ Alex inquired again. ‘Sounds too good to be true’ Abdul replied honestly. ‘Well that settles it then. I will see you tomorrow’ Alex swished out a visiting card from his pocket and handed it to Abdul before walking away. Abdul stared at the visiting card and wondered how many students had their own visiting card. But he was soon called into the pub to help out.

‘So what happened?’ Alex quizzed as he held the smoke in his lungs and passed the joint to Abdul. ‘Hmmm’ Abdul took a deep drag from the lit joint and felt the thick smoke scratch his throat and fill his lungs.

Abdul never knew how Alex managed to graduate, Magna Cum Laude. They both sniggers and laughed raucously when Abdul had explained what ‘Laude’ (balls) meant in his native tongue. Relieved of his insecurity of money or being financially inferior to everybody, Abdul had blossomed into a flirt, while Alex had applied for a post graduate course in Roman and Greek history. Abdul graduated out of the police academy and had found his first posting as Inspector in the city; he decided to take that opportunity to check in on his best friend, hoping that he could still get his old room back. Alex, in the meantime had quit college and moved on to growing his own variation of cannabis. ‘It was boring’ Alex countered Abdul’s self righteous anger at his friend for quitting college. ‘And growing your fucking drugs is what?’ Abdul indignantly questioned. ‘It is fun… And now that you are a cop…’ Alex grinned impishly. ‘Oh no! I am not fucking going to save your ass if you ever get caught’ Abdul exclaimed. ‘You look like you could take a hit’ Alex grinned as he passed the joint to Abdul. ‘You always were so uptight Abu. Plus we need to celebrate’ Alex chided, calling him the same way Abdul’s first girlfriend called him. ‘You grew this? Where? Actually don’t answer that’ Abdul took a deep drag and rolled his eyes in pleasure, ‘This is good shit!’ he muttered. ‘Your room is just the way you left it’ Alex grinned as he took the joint back and pulled on it.

‘Are you going to tell me what is bothering or what?’ Alex inquired as he surveyed the fridge, ‘You want to eat some eggs?’ ‘It’s three in the morning.’ Abdul exclaimed as he checked his watch. ‘Yeah! I will have some eggs’ he replied as he slouched further into the couch and began narrating the story he was trying to avoid.

#3 ‘Are you going to tell me what’s got your panties in a twisty knot?’ Alex inquired as ladled scrambled eggs on two plates and walked back to the couch. ‘You want to know what’s been bothering me? Bhenchod! Then listen to this’ Abdul banged his empty whisky glass on the coffee table. Alex looked worriedly at his flat mate, Abdul never cursed in his native language. He always did that when something was deeply troubling him. Alex handed him one of the plates and held out the fork he carried in his other hand. He sat down and spread the eggs around for them to cool down. He had used diced Spanish onions, finely chopped green chilli and few clove of garlic along with oregano, squirt of tomato puree with a dash of salt and pepper for flavor. The way Abdul liked it. He had avoided chopping bits of prosciutto and bacon. Abdul wouldn’t eat or cook from the pan if Alex told him that he occasionally made pork vindaloo in the same saucepan he had made the scrambled eggs in. ‘How would you react if you saw a dead woman’s body?’ Abdul inquired as he spooned a forkful of eggs in his mouth and noisily munched on it. ‘Depends doesn’t it?’ Alex replied as he blew at the steam emanating from his plate. ‘On fucking what?’ Abdul’s voice screeched as he looked up from his plate and spooned another forkful of eggs into his open mouth. ‘Depends on if the woman was good looking or not’ Alex answered with a shrug of his shoulders. ‘Huh… True… She was pretty’ Abdul shrugged his shoulders, it seemed like a reasonable enough response. ‘And it depends on what her dead body looked like’ Alex added as he took forkful and blew at it before putting it into his mouth. ‘This is good innit?’ He remarked as he chewed on the eggs, impressed with his culinary skills. ‘Yeah! It is good… She was lying on the bed. Naked. Her face bashed in. The CSU guys say that her face was bashed in with a heavy blunt object. Repeatedly…’ Abdul explained as he ate another mouthful before continuing, ‘Her ribs were broken and torn open and heart was not in the place god placed it in’ He ended as he scraped at the few pieces of onion sticking to the plate. ‘Where was it?’ Alex inquired as he looked at Abdul from the corner of his eye and ate some more of his scrambled eggs. ‘Her heart had been punched inside her…’ Abdul extended his fork and punched at Alex’s plate for some more of the delicious scrambled egg. ‘fucking vagina!’ ‘Seriously!’ Alex exclaimed as he extended his hand which held the plate for Abdul to take another bite off his plate. ‘Yeah! The pussy was like all torn and shit! The CSU guys said that the pussy and her poop chute was violated with a long elongated’ Abdul sat back in the couch, his fork clutched in his hand. ‘No I am done!’ he replied as Alex extended his plate, encouraging him to eat some more. ‘Sharp object?’ Alex questioned. ‘No! Blunt. But different from the whatever was caused her death. Most of her injuries were postmortem. The CSU guys will get back with the report once they are done with the body. Think it will be another day or two before they get back with that report. Those guys are swamped with shit’ Abdul muttered as he unbuckled his belt. ‘So who do you suspect?’ Alex inquired as he licked the plate clean. ‘The husband… It is always the husband innit?’ Abdul mumbled. ‘Where was the husband?’ ‘He was sitting in the corner. Crying like a little wimp. Apparently he had had a couple of beers and was incoherent like a geese flying south during summer’ ‘But…’ ‘Yeah whatever! I know, geese don’t fly south or is it north… whatever… I was trying to make a point’ ‘Got it!’ Alex nodded as he placed his empty plate on the coffee table. ‘So what is really bothering you?’ ‘The whole scene… It was like a lion had ravaged a goat which was kept as bait and the hunter who had kept the goat as a bait slept off while keeping wait. She was just lying there. Her heart ripped out and shoved deep into her pussy. Like what sort of fucked up person does that’ Abdul animatedly explained his frustration. ‘She was naked?’ Alex inquired as he punched a cigarette out of his soft pack and lit it up. ‘Naked like the day when we were born’ ‘I bet the bedroom had an attached bathroom’ Alex remarked as he blew out the cigarette smoke. ‘Don’t most bedrooms have an attached bathroom Sherlock?’ Abdul muttered as he filled his whisky glass again. ‘I think when you finish tossing and turning the house, you will find that a candle is that long elongated object which you described was used to defile her orifices.’ Alex remarked as Abdul got up to fill his glass with ice cubes. ‘Here take my plate and yours too. Oh! Also, it is your turn to do the dishes’ ‘How the fuck is it my turn to do the dishes? I did them the last time.’ Abdul indignantly exclaimed as he took both the empty and dirty plates while balancing his whisky tumbler. ‘Well…’ Alex paused and thought about the last time the dishes were done, ‘No! You did them on Tuesday when you came back early from work and I did them yesterday. Which means that it is your turn tomorrow’ Alex grinned. ‘And why the fuck didn’t you do the dishes today then?’ Abdul cribbed as he dropped the plates on the overflowing sink. ‘I was waiting for you to come back and do your turn.’ Alex chuckled, wickedness coating his eyes. ‘By the way, what makes you say that a candle was used to molest a dead woman’s body?’ Abdul inquired as he dropped two cubes of ice in his glass of whisky. ‘Put one more’ Alex yelled. ‘One more what?’ ‘Ice cube! You know the number two is forbidden in this house’ Alex exclaimed. ‘Jesus fucking Christ! You really ought to see a shrink you know. This OCD is fucking annoying’ Abdul replied as he pulled another ice cube from the tray and dropped it in his glass. ‘So why do you think I need to be looking for a candle?’ Abdul asked again as he sat down on the couch. ‘Well, there are plenty of reasons.’ Alex remarked as he got up and looked at the wall clock which suggested that the time was four in the morning. ‘Don’t go now… Give me some reasons from the plenty’ ‘Well, you said the woman was pretty. I am guessing you said that because you saw some of her pictures around the house. Most beautiful women tend to be narcissistic that way, which means that your victim also took extra special care to look after the way she presented herself to the world.’ Alex looked at inquiringly at Abdul to gauge if he was on the right track. Seeing no argument from him, he continued, ‘which means that a forty something woman would have candles in her bath. Apparently that is supposed to be a thing if you were to believe the shit which they write in cosmopolitan.’ ‘Hold on a fucking second… How the fuck did you know how old the victim was?’ Abdul inquired incredulously to which Alex grinned and scratched his still naked torso. ‘I made myself one of those ham radio which if you believe it also picks up the police radio frequency. And I must say, your radio channel makes for a riveting listen’ ‘Just how the…’ Abdul left the question incomplete, knowing well that a straight answer wasn’t going to be forthcoming. ‘So you think I should be looking for a candle?’ Abdul repeated his question. ‘I mean if I was going to mutilate a woman’s body postmortem… In her bedroom which had an attached bathroom where she kept one of those annoying fragrant candles, I would defile her with it. Common sense innit?’ Alex remarked. ‘How do you know the candle or candles were fragrant?’ ‘No point keeping a regular candle in your bathroom now is it? Also, Cosmopolitan magazine says it really helps you relax’ Alex replied as he walked back to his room. ‘Just what the fuck are you reading in cosmopolitan magazine?’ Abdul yelled at Alex’s back. ‘One must keep abreast with the times Abu’ Alex chuckled as he closed the door behind him and dropped his boxers before he got into his bed.

4 Abdul reached office, late, hungover, dark circles adorning his eyes and his breath reeking of whiskey. ‘You alright?’ Mathew, Abdul’s partner, inquired as he saw Abdul slump into his chair with pair of dark glasses covering his face. ‘You got any aspirin with you? Hungover like a stud horse and this headache is killing me’ Abdul mumbled as he let his head drop on the back of his chair. ‘Sort yourself out Rizvi, we got the husband for questioning’ Mathew spoke as he slammed his desk and threw a strip of aspirin at Abdul. ‘Yeah! Just give me a second’ Abdul retorted as he poured himself a glass of water and dropped two aspirins and watched them froth before glugging the milky water down. ‘Can we take the elevator? I am tired man’ he requested as they both got off their chairs. ‘Lose the glasses’ Mathew instructed. Mathew and Abdul took the elevator to the floor above them where the interrogation rooms were. Both the men peered inside the room where Frank Wallace was seated. ‘How long has he been waiting there for?’ Abdul asked. ‘About an hour or two’ Mathew clinically replied as he continued to intently study the husband. ‘He looks like shit…’ ‘I bet he is guilty’ ‘Yeah! Maybe it is because his wife was brutally murdered and he doesn’t look like he has had any sleep and clearly he is still in shock’ Abdul retorted as he pointed at the clothes the suspect was wearing. ‘So, you want to take the lead?’ Mathew inquired as his hand reached out to the door handle. ‘Yeah! I don’t want to give him a reason to call a lawyer and sue us’ ‘Cool’ Mathew twisted the handle and they both walked into the room. Frank looked relieved to see them. Abdul couldn’t help but notice the smiley faced stains on his shirt armpits. Frank had bloodshot eyes, his hair unkempt and he could see the dried white spit stains coating his lips. ‘Sorry for keeping you waiting Mr. Wallace. Would you like some coffee, water, soda?’ Abdul inquired before turning to his partner, ‘Samuels, can you get some water for Mr. Wallace’. ‘Yeah! Sure’ Mathew smiled courteously before leaving the room. ‘I am sorry for your loss Mr. Wallace. I know this is a hard time for you. And I know everything I am saying right now probably sounds clichéd to you.’ Abdul smiled at his suspect as he tried to break ice and build some rapport with him before he jumped into the difficult questions. Frank smiled weakly as Mathew entered the room with a pitcher of water and a glass. Frank quickly poured himself a glass of water and then another. As water slid down his throat and down his shirt and having satisfied himself, he turned his attention to his interviewer. ‘Mr. Wallace, could you tell me where you were’ Abdul looked into the file he was carrying and tried to search for the bit of information which indicated the approximate time of death, ‘between ten hundred hours and thirteen hundred hours’ Abdul looked up and watched Frank hesitate long enough for the two detectives to grow suspicious. Abdul looked up at Mathew who nodded and exited the interrogation room and slipped into the attached viewing room and hit the record button. ‘Mr. Wallace?’ Abdul inquired again as his eye flitted from the suspect to the mirror facing him. The room was fitted with two mirrors on opposing walls. One of those mirrors was a one way mirror which was used for observation and recording purposes. The one behind which Mathew stood and watched the proceedings intently. ‘Uh… I was at a bar’ Frank replied. ‘At ten in the morning?’ Abdul quizzed with a raised eyebrow. ‘Yeah! I recently lost my job. Management restructuring they said. Eighteen years I worked in that company. Eighteen long years. And then just like that they fired me.’ Frank replied, anger lighting up his tired eyes. ‘What was your job Mr. Wallace?’ ‘I was working as a senior vice president at Waltson Computer Systems. We did a lot for the government.’ ‘What sort of work?’ ‘You know upgrading their systems and some work for the federal bank’ ‘And how long have you been married Mr. Wallace?’ ‘We got married at a very young age. She was pregnant with Janice and we got married some time during my last year in college. She had dropped out of college because of Janice.’ ‘How was your relationship with your wife Mr. Wallace?’ Abdul inquired leaving the daughter thread open for him to open a line of questioning later if Frank started stonewalling his questions. ‘We were happy you know. It was just us three in our own sweet little world. Megan was a beautiful woman you know’ Abdul noted the way the suspect used past tense to describe his wife. It was common knowledge that people who suffered the loss of a loved one always, found it difficult to refer to them in the past tense. ‘She wasn’t like other women’ Frank continued, ‘She loved shopping and buying things. She loved surprises you know.’ ‘But…’ Abdul prompted, sensing that there was a pregnant ‘but’ aching to burst. ‘She was a fucking mean little bitch!’ Frank mumbled angrily. ‘What do you mean Mr. Wallace?’ ‘She was having an affair. It wasn’t the first time she was doing this. I knew she was seeing somebody else on the sly before she got pregnant. But when she came to me and said that I was going to be a father, I was just ecstatic you know. She promised that she wouldn’t cheat on me ever again. But she was a serial slut. There were people in my office who spoke behind my back sharing their sex tales with my wife. My wife. She didn’t care for either me or Janice.’ Abdul noticed Frank had balled his fists and the knuckles had turned white. ‘I didn’t want Janice to get the wrong impression you know. She adored her mother. But I didn’t want Janice to be anything like her mother. So when she turned eighteen, I sent her off to college.’ Frank refilled his glass and hungrily gulped it down. ‘I may not be able to make my mortgage, but I will make sure that she finishes college. She is a bright girl. Real bright girl’ Frank tried to hold back the flood of tears which threatened to break away. ‘Do you have any proof of Mrs. Wallace’s recent indiscretions?’ Abdul gently probed as he squirmed in his chair. It was difficult to watch a grown man cry. ‘That slutty whore was sleeping with somebody. I don’t know who. But this was a new one alright.’ Frank looked at Abdul, as he tried to underline his innocence. ‘And when do you suspect she started this recent affair?’ ‘She started having the affair right after I told her I lost my job. About five six weeks I guess. That heartless bitch maxed out all our credit cards buying shoes, lingerie, clothes, booking cheap motel rooms… She didn’t care that we couldn’t pay our mortgage. She didn’t even think about how we were going to pay Janice’s tuition. She always did think of herself as a fucking princess.’ ‘Did you confront Mrs. Wallace about these expenses?’ Abdul inquired, hoping that Frank may say something which might indicate a domestic violence case gone horribly wrong. But then he remembered the state of the dead body and he could feel his bile rise. ‘I sure did. But she always would deny anything if it didn’t fit in with her sense of reality. And if you pressed on any further, she could be the most rude and dangerous woman to ever cross your path.’ Abdul silently groaned. He was hoping for a quick closure to the case and go back to nursing his hangover. But it wouldn’t be.
‘So you don’t know who she was having an affair with?’ ‘No. I don’t know. I didn’t want to know. I am pretty that if you go through her phone you will know that she spent hours and hours sneaking around and talking to her fucking lover like a fucking teenager’ Abdul noted Frank clench his fist tighter. ‘Mr. Wallace I also remember a young girl in your family portrait.’ He quizzed trying to move on to something which would calm the suspect. ‘Janice. My daughter’ ‘And where is she?’ ‘She is studying at the Wilson University’ ‘The one at Isle of Moor?’ ‘Yeah! She is a smart kid you know. She is doing majors in Psychology.’ ‘Has anybody spoken to her? You know, since last night?’ ‘God no! I…’ Frank broke down and began crying uncontrollably. Abdul motioned for Wallace to come and join him. ‘Mr. Wallace, again, I am sorry for your loss. But I suggest that you speak with your daughter and inform her. We would like to speak with her as well.’ Abdul spoke as he stood up and buttoned his coat jacket. ‘Can I go back home now?’ ‘Do you have some place where you can stay?’ ‘Yeah! I have a friend with whom I can crash for a few days.’ ‘I suggest you do that Mr. Wallace. At least till the CSU guys are done going through your home. You can go back once they are done. Here is my card. This is my personal number’ Abdul pointed the printed numbers on the card, ‘give me a call if you remember anything which might help us catching the person who did this’ Abdul looked at Mathew who was standing in the door way as Frank nervously nodded his head. ‘Let us put couple of civvies on him for couple of days’ Abdul mumbled under his breath as he crossed Mathew.

‘What do you think?’ Mathew inquired. ‘It’s hard to say. The husband doesn’t really present a very innocent picture.’ ‘He looked angry enough to have murdered his wife’ Mathew interjected. ‘Yeah but, why wait for so long? From the looks of it, she seemed like a proper gold digging nymph. Which means that any of her lovers could have done her in… By the way was the victim’s phone checked into evidence?’ Abdul inquired. ‘No. Not that I remember. And I was the one who was cataloguing the evidence. I don’t remember seeing any phone.’ Mathew replied as he scrunched his eyebrows and mentally raced the images from last night. ‘So the phone is missing…’ Abdul popped another aspirin into a glass of water and watched it froth. ‘So what’s the plan?’Mathew inquired. ‘Time to revisit the scene of the crime and search for the phone I suppose. And when the fuck is Marty sending the primary report?’ Abdul inquired, referring to the Martin Sequira, the chief coroner attached to their unit. ‘I don’t know… He didn’t say.’ ‘Let us drop in on him before we go to Wallace’s place’ Abdul suggested as they both got off their chairs. ‘Oh! Also can you put in a requisition to get a hold of Megan Wallace’s phone record?’ ‘Already did that’ Mathew smiled, ‘And we have two guys in civvies who are going to follow our suspect in twelve hour shifts’ ‘God have mercy on them!’ Abdul remarked as he mockingly crossed himself. ‘Say what do you guys do for crossing oneself?’ Mathew inquired curiously. ‘What do you mean?’ Abdul inquired as they stood wait for the elevator to ping announcing its arrival on their floor. ‘You know sign of the cross?’ Mathew mimicked. ‘I don’t know… Roll our eyes and put our hands in the air?’ Abdul shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I don’t remember the last time I visited a mosque to offer prayers you know’ Abdul spoke as he avoided his partner’s eyes. ‘Do you remember our first stakeout detail?’ Mathew inquired, trying to quickly change the subject. ‘The one with Fat Albert?’ Abdul checked. ‘Yeah, yeah… the same’ Mathew grinned. ‘God! Do you remember how much he ate? And those women’ Abdul exclaimed. ‘Damn fine women too… I saw one of them working the corner on Chatterley street.’ ‘The one with the McDonalds? Or was it KFC? I can never tell one from the other’ ‘McDonalds. And she was on the other side’ Mathew answered as the lift doors opened. ‘No shit! How long ago was it?’ Abdul replied surprised as the two got inside the elevator and pressed the button for the basement where their car was parked.
‘Think it was three weeks back’ Mathew replied. Abdul had been recently assigned to work together with Mathew as part of the department’s initiative for cross departmental cooperation exercise. Abdul worked in homicide and Mathew worked in vice. In their first stint together, they were assigned to shadow Fat Albert, who allegedly ran a prostitution circle and overlooked a budding network of identity thieves. The girls would steal the credit card information from their unsuspecting clients and before they knew it, they had maxed out their platinum and titanium privileged cards. Apart from stealing credit card information, a number of Fat Albert’s girls were suspected to be catering to powerful people and were known to siphon important state secrets. Both Abdul and Mathew had been instrumental in bursting the case wide open. Commissioner Egan, in order to protect his officers from misplaced anger from the higher ups had them moved to handle homicide. As the elevator opened its door in the basement and the two of them walked towards Mathew’s car, Abdul realized that he liked working with Mathew, even though this was his first homicide case. 5 No matter how many times Abdul had visited the morgue, he could never get used to the freezing temperature, the smell of chemicals and dead bodies. He saw Marty working inside the glass walled unit washing away the blood from the floor with a strong hose and pointed him to Mathew. Abdul looked at Mathew and hid a smile, as Mathew struggled to keep his breakfast down amidst the sharp smell of chemical in the room which was clawing at their senses. He watched Mathew raise his hand and cover his face with his elbow as Abdul opened the glass door. ‘Ah! You guys are here. I was just about to put in a call to you guys anyway’ Martin exclaimed. He turned the knob to stop the hard jet of watered down chemical shooting out of the hose. ‘Smells rank doesn’t it?’ Martin gleefully cheered as he looked at Mathew’s partially covered face. He waved at the two of them to follow him as he flipped over the Cambridge blue colored sheet over a dead body. He picked up a sandwich which was kept next to the dead body’s head and took a mighty bite. ‘Sorry. Look at me…Betty would have my hide for my poor manners’ Martin apologized, ‘You guys want a bite?’ Martin extended his hand with the sandwich. ‘Just how the fuck do you manage to have your lunch standing next to a dead body?’ Mathew inquired as he physically recoiled at the sight of Martin noisily chomping down on the sandwich. ‘It’s a veg sandwich. I never eat meat next to them. That’s just bad manners.’ Martin replied defensively, visibly hurt. ‘Find anything interesting?’ Abdul directed his question as he tried to break the tension in the room. ‘Your victim, what’s her name’ Martin reviewed the name tag tied to the dead body’s big toe. ‘Megan Wallace?’ ‘Yeah that’s her alright’ Abdul confirmed as he walked and stood at the head of the table and inspected the dead woman’s bruised face. ‘Well, where would you like me to begin?’ Martin inquired as he took another big bite from his sandwich. ‘Cause of death and a more refined time of death would be a good place to start I suppose’ Martin mumbled, his hand still cupped over his mouth and nose. ‘Well, the cause of death was a blow to the back of the head. The blow was struck between the occipital lobe and the cerebellum. Death was immediate.’ Martin pointed to the point of impact at the back of his head with the hand which held the sandwich. ‘And time of death was around ten and ten thirty in the morning’ Martin answered and looked at Abdul, who was still observing the dead woman’s naked body, before continuing. ‘She was pregnant. Third week’ Martin looked at the two detectives as he broke the news and pointed his finger at the small jar filled with preservative liquid and the three week old fetus placed on the shelf on the wall behind Abdul. ‘Is that what a three week old baby looks like?’ Abdul picked up the jar, ‘Looks like more like a really ugly tadpole doesn’t it?’ Abdul grinned as he rhetorically posed the question to Mathew and Martin. Mathew turned green and rushed for the exit as he fought the urge to throw up. ‘Give it to me Marty… What do you think?’ Abdul smiled as he watched Mathew rush out of the room before pursing his lips and posing the question to Martin. ‘Whoever killed her didn’t know that she was pregnant.’ ‘But what about all these bloody cuts on her pussy?’ ‘Well, there are about thirty two lacerations on her vagina’ Martin cocked an eyebrow to let Abdul know his displeasure, ‘and they are all flesh wounds’. ‘English Marty…’ ‘Her vagina was torn open. Not in a failed attempt to abort the fetus but to make space for her heart.’ Martin pointed again to another jar filled with liquid preservative containing the victim’s heart. ‘So, whoever killed her, hit her at the back of her head. Broke her ribs, tore her heart and then split her pussy wide open to shove her heart inside it?’ Abdul’s face contorted as he pieced together everything Martin had told him till now. ‘Sounds about right’ Martin nodded and put the last of the sandwich in his mouth. ‘That seems bit excessive doesn’t it?’ ‘It does. Whoever killed her, hated the woman like McCarthy hated the commies. Whatever the reason was, it was personal.’ ‘Oh-kay!’ Abdul rolled his eyes at Martin’s cold war reference, ‘Anything else you can tell me which I might find helpful’ ‘I can tell you that the victim’s last meal was coffee, black, and a piece of oatmeal bread and that the vaginal swabs yielded traces of nonoxynol-9’ ‘English Marty!’ Abdul exclaimed. ‘Nonoxynol-9 is the silicon based lubricant which is most commonly used in condoms.’ ‘So not only was her heart shoved into her pussy but somebody also shoved their sausage into her pussy?’ Abdul made a face and Martin grimaced at the excessive usage of foul language to describe the victim’s genitals. ‘Yes! I also noted that anal fissure’ Martin looked at Abdul rolling his eyes exasperatedly, ‘anal fissure means that a tear in the skin around the anal canal and we found traces of aliphatic esters, diesters of 4-hydroxycinnamic acid, hydroxycarboxylic acids, and fatty acid alcohols…’ ‘Wax! Specifically palm wax used popularly in scented candles. And let me tell you something… Those things are expensive. I tried getting some for Betty for our anniversary and then the shop girl indicated the price tag. Jesus!’ Martin exaggeratedly wiped his brow to underline how expensive those scented wax candles were.
‘You sure?’ Abdul inquired, remembering Alex’s words from last night. ‘Yeah! I am pretty sure. Also the way the anal fissure, sorry… The tear in her anal canal suggests that an elongated round object was used to cause such a tear. Oh! I completely forgot about the most important thing of all’ Martin gleefully pulled the overhead magnifying glass over the examination table. He placed it over the victim’s dead naked body and motioned Abdul to peer down the magnifying glass. ‘And what am I supposed to looking at?’ Abdul inquired as he held the magnifying glass hanging from the overhead light fixture above the examination table. ‘The lacerations on the victim’s thighs’ Martin grinned as he indicated with his index finger, like he had just discovered penicillin. ‘Fuck!’ Abdul cursed under his breath as he made the words ‘Slut’ and ‘Whore’ carved on the inside of her thighs. ‘I know right?’ Martin grinned as Abdul pushed the magnifying glass away from his face. ‘I saw this when I was washing away all the dried blood. I didn’t believe it either when I saw it without the magnifying glass. I mean the writing is shaky. Possibly made by the same sharp object which was,’ Martin paused and pointed to the victim’s gaping genital, ‘used to make those lacerations on the victim’s vagina.’ ‘Hey… Sorry’ Mathew spoke as he entered the room again, still cupping his nose and mouth with his palm. ‘Listen it is going to take time tabulating everything I just shared with you on paper alright? So don’t keep calling me and pressurizing me to send the report. I told you everything you needed to know.’ Martin explained as he swept his hand across the room, ‘as you can see, I have lot more bodies begging me to write their report.’ ‘Thanks Marty… You are a rockstar! Oh! And do say hello to Betty will you?’ Abdul smiled as he touched Martin’s elbow. ‘I will’ Martin smiled gleefully at the mention of his wife’s name. ‘We done?’ Mathew inquired. ‘Yeah! We are done here.’ Abdul replied as they left Martin behind in freezing cold room. ‘Jesus fucking Christ! This place is miserable!’ Mathew cursed as they exited the building. ‘Yeah! But both the place and Marty tend to grow on you…’ Abdul smiled, ‘Like a genital rash’ he added as an after thought and sniggered at his own joke. ‘So… Betty is?’ ‘Betty is Marty’s wife. She is paraplegic. He is a good man. But he has had a tough couple of years.’ Abdul replied as he put the car gear in reverse. ‘So did he tell you something which might be important?’ ‘Yeah! He did. You would have heard it to if you didn’t turn green around your gills you know’ ‘Hey! I am from vice you know… we don’t see mutilated bodies everyday. Or eat our food around dead bodies Or make jokes about two week old fetuses’ Mathew defensively replied. ‘Three weeks’ ‘Three weeks what?’ ‘The fetus was three weeks old’ ‘Where are we going now?’ Mathew inquired as he looked at the road sign they sped past. ‘Going to the scene of the crime’ Abdul replied as a matter of fact. ‘Lunch?’ Mathew curiously inquired. ‘I wouldn’t suggest you eat anything till we are done and back in office. Especially if you are going to throw up everything you eat. We wouldn’t want one of us to ruining the crime scene now’ Abdul chuckled as he quickly glanced at his partner.

The Wallace’s house was no different from all the other fifteen houses on the street. ‘This is what a suburban dream, looks like eh?’ Abdul rhetorically remarked as they got out of the car and surveyed the neighborhood in day light. By the time Abdul and Mathew had responded to the call, it was well past nightfall. ‘What do you mean?’ Mathew inquired as he slammed the car door. ‘You know, everything is a copy of everything else. Just like how they show it in the movies. Well maintained gardens, picket fences, separate garages, toys strewn around the front lawn. Clean pavements for early morning joggers. The whole shebang. You know?’ Abdul commented. ‘And what is wrong with that?’ Mathew inquired as Abdul noted a tone of defensiveness in his voice. ‘Nothing… Nothing at all’ ‘I like a suburban home just like this you know.’ ‘You are married?’ Abdul inquired, surprised at this new bit of information. ‘Yeah! Got married last June. Have a year old son. Daniel’ Mathew beamed. ‘Isn’t that sweet’ Abdul remarked, with just the hint of sarcasm, just then his phone rang. ‘Are you coming home for dinner?’ Abdul heard Alex’s gravely voice on the other end. ‘Yeah! Though not sure what time I will be done’ ‘Okay! Oh! By the way… I was thinking.’ ‘And?’ Abdul inquired impatiently. ‘I think the wife was having an affair.’ Alex answered. Abdul could hear Alex exhale a mouthful of smoke on the other end. ‘Just how the fuck did you know that?’ Abdul questioned incredulously. ‘So she was…’ Abdul could imagine Alex grinning like Cheshire cat, seated in his boxers in the living room. He glanced at his wrist watch and the time read, quarter past two, which meant that Alex had just woken up from his luxurious sleep. ‘Yeah! The husband said something to that effect in the morning.’ Abdul responded. ‘Interesting, I suppose you are in the victim’s house looking for her missing phone. I say it is a waste of time. I would suggest that you check the victim’s phone records. Oh! And do you think you can bring those back home? Oh! By the way, you might want to look for some sort of a compartment’ ‘And just why the fuck should I be looking for a compartment? And how did you know about the phone?’ Abdul inquired. ‘Because… that is the place you will find her secret cache of love letters.’ Alex answered in a matter of factly tone. Abdul could hear him stirring the spoon in his first cup of coffee. ‘Stop fucking around Alex!’ Abdul indignantly retorted. ‘I am not. Just look out for them will you. I think it would be somewhere close to her lingerie draw or some place equally inconspicuous. Oh! Also, can you take a picture of the sex toy she keeps hidden there’ Alex chuckled. ‘Shut the fuck up Alex!’ Abdul replied as angrily hung up. ‘Wife?’ Mathew inquired with a cheeky smile as he nodded at one of the beat coppers who smartly smiled at Abdul and briskly walked away. Even though the two had spent in excess of forty hours staking out Fat Albert, the only thing they spoke about was the fortunes of their favorite cricket club and arguing over who the greatest player was. While Mathew personally vouched for the Ian McShane’s brilliance as a wily right arm off spinner and a handy late middle order batsman who could fling his bat around to get some valuable runs on board. Abdul had vehemently argued for Akram Rehman, the volatile left arm fast bowler who had built a reputation as a ‘toe breaker’ with his lethal yorkers. This was the first instance where the two partners were exchanging information about their personal lives. ‘No. That was my flatmate’ Abdul replied flippantly. Abdul wasn’t going to tell his partner that his flatmate was a certified lunatic who was a brilliant man but preferred to deal drugs to god knows who. Organic medicine, not drugs, that’s what Alex liked to call whatever it was he was doing. Abdul had tried explaining to his girlfriend, Paula, about Alex being a practitioner of organic medicine, just as Alex had suggested. The date didn’t go as well as Abdul had thought it would. Abdul could never bring himself to acknowledge the fact that he was not only friends with a drug dealer but was also splitting his rent with him. ‘Oh!’ Mathew scrunched his eyebrows worriedly. Abdul was well aware of what was running through Mathew’s mind. He was too well aware of that look on people’s faces every time he said that he lived with a flatmate. He didn’t quite understand why people always assumed the worst. ‘I am not gay! He is just my flat mate.’ Abdul answered defensively to the unasked question trawling between the two men like an elephant dressed in tutu. ‘Hey! I didn’t say that.’ Mathew held up his hands shirking all responsibility. ‘Did the door to door yield anything?’ Abdul inquired as they walked underneath the yellow police tape which screamed crime scene. ‘No. None of the neighbors heard or saw anything. However, there is an old man who said he heard a banshee screaming.’ ‘What time was that?’ ‘Seven in the evening… Apparently the old man is obsessed with voodoos and black magic. If the neighbors are to be believed’
‘Not surprised. She was stuck on the back of her head and the death was immediate. I don’t think there was much noise or struggle.’ Abdul explained as he snapped a pair of latex gloves on his hands. Abdul opened and closed the main door and checked its locking mechanism. ‘What are you doing?’ Mathew worriedly questioned his partner. ‘Just checking if the killer made his way through the main door or if he sneaked into the house through some other way.’ ‘Okay’ Mathew stepped back and started looking around the living room. ‘Hey, do me a favor and can you start looking for the victim’s mobile phone? It might possibly be bloody and broken.’ ‘Oh-kay! And where do you suggest I begin my search?’ Mathew sarcastically replied as he pointed at the mess which might otherwise be called as the living room. ‘Start from the bedroom. Where the victim was found’ Abdul absentmindedly answered the question.

Abdul made his way to the kitchen and inspected the contents of the fridge. Low fat yoghurt, bottles of mineral water, an unopened bottle of beer, cherry tomatoes, eggs. Abdul closed the door and inspected the window in the kitchen. He opened and closed it and then peered closely at the latch. And there it was. It was unmistakable. The scratches and the chipped wood indicated a forced point of entry. Abdul opened the window and looked out of the window. The grass was trampled, but no footprints. The tall apple tree outside hid his view to the neighboring house. He closed the door and tried retracing the murderer’s footsteps. He stepped out of the kitchen and stepped into the dining area and saw the huge blow up of the family portrait hanging from the wall. He saw the smiling faces of Megan, Frank and Janice grinning at him. He looked around the room and saw the wooden block which held ornamental knives. The box was meant to hold five knives. There were just four of them. Abdul was sure that this was the knife, sharp, long, just like Marty had said. The murderer didn’t look like he had carried any of the instruments used to kill and mutilate the body. He had found them all lying around the house. Abdul figured that the knife was what was used to carve the words and slice open the victim’s heart out. But where was the blunt object which was the murder weapon. Abdul wondered. He kept scanning the room and walked back to the kitchen to see if there was something which was commonly used in the kitchen but was missing. As he opened and closed the shelves which held cereal boxes (raisin bran), off the shelf pasta, sugar, coffee powder, whole big box of green tea. The Wallaces sure were health conscious. Abdul was surveying the cutlery when he heard Mathew curse aloud. ‘You alright?’ Abdul yelled from the kitchen. ‘I am not sure… I think you better come here’ Mathew nervously yelled back, his voice muffled and echoey. Abdul hurriedly climbed up stairs leading to the master bedroom. He looked around and didn’t find Mathew there. ‘Oi! Samuels?’ Abdul yelled. ‘In here’ Abdul heard Mathew yell from the adjacent room, still muffled and echoey Abdul walked in to the adjacent room and saw the floor littered with torn pieces of paper and family photographs. He looked at Mathew’s feet sticking out from under the bed. ‘What the fuck are you doing lying under the bed for?’ Abdul questioned. Mathew slid out from under the bed and held aloft a stack of envelopes. ‘And what exactly am I supposed to be looking at?’ Abdul inquired as he leafed through the envelopes. They seemed like correspondence addressed to Megan Wallace. ‘Oh! And I also found this…’ Mathew held aloft a worn out purple colored rubber dildo. ‘I will be fucking damned!’ Abdul cursed under his breath. ‘What?’ Mathew worriedly inquired. ‘Think we just may have found a possible motive’ Alex muttered. ‘What? A sex toy and some letters? How do they make for a possible motive?’ Mathew questioned. ‘I don’t know how to explain it to you right now. Give me time till tomorrow morning will you.’ ‘Oh-kay… What now?’ Mathew shrugged his shoulders in resignation. He was still getting used to how his partner worked cases. ‘We go back to the station. Hopefully the phone records we requested are there by now’ ‘And then?’ ‘And then we go home’ ‘Oh! Good… Karla will love that.’ Mathew beamed. Abdul raised his eyebrow questioningly, ‘Karla my wife’ Mathew replied with a smile. ‘By the way how the hell did you manage to find this anyway?’ Abdul questioned as they made their way back to the station. ‘Well, I was thinking if I was a mobile phone which is missing then where would I be. So I started looking in and under things. That’s when I saw something stuck underneath the bed with sellotape’ Mathew explained while Abdul wondered if his partner was serious or just joshing about. But one look at Mathew and, Abdul saw the coat of dust on his pants and he realized that he had actually spent time pretending to be a mobile phone. 6 ‘Hey, you are back early!’ Alex exclaimed as he looked excitedly at Abdul. ‘You got a fuck load of explaining to do’ Abdul screeched as he flung his bag, kicked off his shoes and stumbled around the doorway while he took off his socks. ‘Let me know when you want to have dinner. I just have to put the thing in the oven and it will be done’ Alex remarked as he switched channels and settled on a documentary playing on Discovery channel. ‘Where are my sandals? And what have you made for dinner?’ Abdul inquired as he looked around the living room. ‘Baked Ziti with beef and cheese’ Alex beamed as he looked proudly at Abdul. ‘What the fuck is that?’ Abdul yelled as he made his way to the washroom to wash his face and freshen up. ‘Supposed to be really good. I saw it on the food network sometime last month and when I woke up I felt a strong craving to eat that. So I called in for groceries from Patel. It is like pasta but it is also like a lasagna.’ ‘Lasagna is a pasta dish’ Abdul yelled above the sound of running water. ‘You know what I mean’ Alex replied as he lowered the volume on the television. ‘So… Samuels threw up when we went to meet Marty’ Abdul replied as he wiped the water off his face with a turkey towel and was about to throw it on the floor when he saw the alarmed look on Alex’s face and dejectedly went back to throw it on top of the laundry pile. ‘Who’s Samuels?’ ‘He is my new partner. I told you about him’ Abdul replied as a matter of fact. ‘Oh! You mean Mathew…’ Alex replied remembering their past conversation. ‘Yeah! Mathew is Samuels. His name is Mathew Samuels’ ‘Why do you coppers always address each other with last name?’ ‘Because there are lot of common first names’ Abdul explained. ‘So why did Samuels throw up?’ Alex curiously inquired as he muted the television. ‘Well, Martin was having his lunch and then he pointed at the three week old fetus which he found in the victim’s womb’ Abdul began chuckling as he started narrating the story. ‘Victim as in the woman who was killed last night and because of which you couldn’t sleep properly?’ ‘Man! I am telling you, you should have seen the way she was last night’ Abdul shuddered as he recalled the sight which greeted him when he entered the Wallace’s bedroom the previous night. ‘The woman was pregnant?’ Alex inquired, just to confirm. ‘Yeah! That’s what I said. Did you know that a three week fetus is about this big?’ Abdul indicated the size with his thumb and index finger. ‘Yeah I know. They look like fucking tadpoles’ Alex grinned in reply. ‘When did you see a fetus?’ Abdul inquired in disbelief. ‘I spent couple of weeks doing internship at the Fertility center’ ‘When was this and more importantly why?’ ‘I was bored. And it was couple of years back. Think you were still in the academy back then’ ‘Anyway… How did you know about the affair, the sex toy and the love letters? And what are you watching?’ Abdul inquired as he yanked the remote from Alex. ‘They are talking about the Y2K bug.’ Alex explained as he pointed at the television before turning his head to face towards Abdul, ‘Anyway, I remembered reading this article in She magazine about two out of three women having an extramarital affair. Apparently that is how women deal with their midlife crisis. The magazine had run some sort of sex survey for women. It was interesting. So you know, I put two and two together.’ ‘What else did the survey suggest?’ ‘Two of three women between the ages of twenty eight to forty engage in extramarital affairs. A staggering fifty seven percent of women own a sex toy. Eighty six percent of women believed that sexual satisfaction was more important than cuddling. Twenty seven percent of women surveyed admitted to keeping some form of souvenirs from their previous relationships. And the most common form is apparently scandalous love letters’ Alex rattled off the numbers from memory. ‘And just why were you reading a woman’s magazine?’ Abdul asked suspiciously. ‘Well, I had gone to get myself a pedicure and there were these magazines so I read them.’ ‘What the fuck is a pedicure? Is it the same as a manicure? I remember Ayame talking about ages back’ ‘Well you and Ayame did date each other ages ago. She was nice. Why did you guys break up anyway? And pedicure is getting your feet looking pretty and manicure is for hands’ Alex turned around on his hide, and stuck his feet at Abdul’s face. ‘See… They look pretty don’t they? Like a baby’s bottom’ Alex chuckled as Abdul disgustedly swiped his feet away. ‘She was nice. Yes. But do you know how annoying it is when a woman is screaming in a language when you are in bed with her?’ ‘She was Japanese wasn’t she?’ ‘Yeah! It sounded all gobbledygook to me anyway’ ‘That’s just racist man!’ Alex retorted self righteously. ‘And what the fuck are these old men going on about?’ Abdul inquired as he pointed the remote at the television, trying to change the subject. ‘Apparently there is a bug called Y2K which is nothing but a short fancy name for year two thousand problem. And since it wasn’t enough, they even have a posh name for it called the Millennium problem.’ ‘Oh-kay… So? Should I be worried?’ ‘No. There is nothing to be worried about. These guys are just drumming on about a problem they have already solved’ ‘What is the problem anyway?’ ‘You know the date you see on your computer? It uses two digits to indicate the year instead of four.’ ‘Yeah… So?’ ‘Well apparently these old geezers are worried that there would be something called a rollover’ ‘Like a dog?’ ‘No. Not like a dog’ Alex replied, slightly irritated that he had to explain something which was banal and boring. ‘So they think that the clock strikes twelve and the year is two thousand, the computer will change the ninety nine to double zeroes.’ ‘Well, yeah! Two thousand does have two zeroes at the end.’ ‘They think the computer will think that it is nineteen hundred instead of two thousand.’ ‘Oh!’ Abdul worriedly scrunched up his brows ‘Like I said, they have found a solution for it. They are just talking and getting people to slap their back and congratulate them on the fine work they have done.’ ‘But they do look like they are still worried about something’ Abdul remarked as he increased the television volume. ‘That is because apparently few French systems still seem to be suffering from this problem’ ‘But this problem wouldn’t be there if they just used four digits for the year instead of two right?’ ‘There is the whole history of punched data cards and lack of space and shit. It is all very boring. By the way, did you get the phone records?’ Alex remarked as he tried changing the topic. ‘Yeah and we also found love letters and a purple colored well worn out dildo’ Abdul mumbled as he picked up his bag from the floor and rifled through it before he took out the sheaf of envelopes and the folder with Megan Wallace’s phone records.
‘Where did you find the letters?’ ‘Mathew found them stuck underneath the daughter’s bed’ ‘Clever’ Alex smiled knowingly. Abdul looked at Alex who was grinning and muttered, ‘Don’t you dare say it…’ ‘Say what?’ Alex innocently questioned as he continued grinning. ‘I told you so…’ Abdul answered annoyed, to which Alex sniggered like a five year old who had watched his supremely evil prank succeed from a distance. ‘You know me so well Abu…’ Alex sniggered even more loudly than before as he took the folder and Abdul took a letter from the envelope. ‘You know who you remind me of?’ Abdul looked up at Alex. ‘Who?’ ‘Muttley’ Abdul remarked cheekily as he stood up and walked towards the fridge. ‘The dog?’ Alex inquired, ‘Oh! And if you are getting a beer, get me one as well. Thanks’ ‘Yeah! Like the dog.’ Abdul replied as he handed the bottle of beer to Alex. ‘Well, he was funny. And he was smarter and more intelligent than Dick Dastardly’ Alex replied as he looked up accusingly at Abdul. ‘Yeah whatever! You are still a dog’ ‘And you are a mean little man!’ Alex smiled as they both immersed themselves in the phone record and the personal letters. ‘Let me know when you feel like having dinner alright? Because it takes about thirty minutes for it cook and then it needs about five minutes to rest’ ‘Yeah! I will let know. Not feeling particular hungry right now’ The hour hand turned couple of degrees as the two friends turned page after page, with Abdul deciding to read the letters chronologically and Alex reviewed the phone records closer to the date of the incident. Occasionally getting up to fetch a new bottle of beer and put the empty bottle of beer in the recycle bin. Abdul had just finished two letters out of the forty odd letters he held in his lap when Alex abruptly got up and rushed to his room. Abdul looked at him alarmingly and heard Alex switch on the computer in his room. ‘What? Did you find something?’ Abdul inquired as he got off the couch and followed Alex to his room. ‘I think I might finally find some use for this’ Alex excitedly exclaimed as he picked up a floppy disk and held it like a holy grail. ‘And what is that?’ ‘I got this from one of my clients. He works in the telephone exchange. And apparently this floppy disk lets me know the location and the registered name and address of any phone number in the city’ Alex explained as a colorful window flew across the cloudy pale blue sky on the screen before it exclaimed ‘Windows 95’ in bold black letters. They two of them waited for another minute or two before it a grey box demanded Alex type in the password to gain access. Alex slid the thin black plastic square in the slot indicated and waited for the yellow light to turn green as the computer read the contents of the floppy disk. ‘Right! Here… Read the numbers I have circled’ Alex instructed as he handed the folder to Abdul and poised his right hand over the number pad. ‘Don’t forget to read out area codes’ ‘Zero. Seven. One. Four. Three. Double two. Five. Zero. Double three. Triple Four’ Abdul read out the phone number after scanning the sheet of underlined numbers before picking out the most recurring number. ‘That’s the one which keeps getting repeated doesn’t it?’ Alex inquired as he watched the pixilated sand fall down and the hourglass turn itself upside down. ‘Yeah! Most of the calls are somewhere between five to seven second long. The longest call was about a minute and seventeen seconds. Made last week. And for some odd reason, the number looks familiar’ ‘It should’ as Alex looked up and stared at Abdul and motioned with his eyes for Abdul to look at the results on the computer screen. ‘Victoria State Prison?’ Abdul read the search result aloud. ‘Somebody was calling Megan Wallace from inside the prison?’ Abdul muttered in disbelief. ‘Read me another number’ Alex commanded as he cleared the search result and stared at the empty dialog box. ‘Here is another one. Zero. Double three. Four. Seven. One. Five. Six. Three. Six. One. Four. Seven’ Both Abdul and Alex waited as the hourglass somersaulted. Abdul could tell that Alex was growing impatient. Finally the results populated the screen. ‘Public telephone. Mezrick Street.’ Abdul read the result aloud. ‘Give me another one.’ They repeated the process fourteen more times. Nine of them resulted in public telephone booths. And the remaining calls came from Wilson University. ‘That’s where the daughter studies’ Abdul added when Wilson University popped up on the screen. Before Alex could say something, Abdul heard his pager beep loudly in the living room. Abdul went to check on it leaving Alex pull up a map from his book shelf. ‘Where is the phone?’ Abdul yelled from the living room as Alex plotted the public phone booths the results had indicated. ‘Check on the telly stand, or it might be in the fridge’ Alex absentmindedly yelled back as he stared at the circle of red dots he had marked on the map. All the ten public phone booths were in and around Mezrich street, also known as the Robber’s street because of the number of banks, high end fashion labels and luxurious hotels. ‘This is Detective Inspector Abdul Rizvi speaking’ Alex heard Abdul speak into the phone as he got out of his room and to share his discovery. Alex was about to interrupt when Abdul held a finger up telling Alex to keep quiet. Rebuffed, Alex opened the fridge and pulled out another bottle of beer and waited for Abdul to finish talking to whoever he was talking to. ‘I will be right over’ and with that Abdul hung up and looked worriedly at Alex. ‘What happened?’ Alex inquired as he took a sip from his beer. ‘Janice, the victim’s daughter, the one who studies in Wilson University is missing.’ Abdul spoke as he tried to make sense of things before hurrying into his room to change. ‘What about dinner?’ Alex inquired staring at Abdul with puppy dog eyes. ‘I am sorry. I will come back have it’ Abdul apologized as he tied his shoe laces. ‘Fine’ Alex replied as he took another sip and switched the television back on. ‘Don’t forget to take your keys’ Alex mumbled as he flipped channels on the remote. Alex turned around just in time to see Abdul close the door behind him and his eyes landed on the sheaf of correspondence. Excitedly, he lunged at it and started reading it as the news played a piece of the significance of the total solar eclipse in two days time.

7 The station was empty save for the cop manning the front desk; few detectives were busy clearing up some of their sleep backlog while others still heatedly engaged in listing the pros and cons of the newly introduced white ‘duke’ ball in the recently concluded cricket world cup. Abdul had lost money on few of the games. He found Frank Wallace waiting in the reception area. Mathew wasn’t to be seen. He called out to the cop manning the front desk. ‘Richie? Richie…’ He called out till the officer turned his attention away from the radio he held close to his ears. ‘Can you put in a call to Samuel’s residence and tell him he is needed at the station? Cheers mate’ He looked at the worried face of Frank Wallace and nodded at him and followed it up with a weak smile. He wasn’t sure why he smiled at him and now it was too late. Richie was the one who had placed the call to Abdul letting him know that there was a distressed looking man at the station who wanted to speak with Abdul about his missing daughter. Richie told him that he had called on another on duty detective to come and take the first incident report from the man, but the man had declined and insisted that he speak with Abdul. ‘Samuels said he will be here in the next twenty minutes. It sounded like he was in the middle of his dinner’ Richie, the officer manning the front desk called out as Abdul ushered Frank to his seat. He shrugged his shoulder in a hey-what-can-you-do? ‘Thanks mate’ Abdul replied before turning his attention back towards Frank. ‘Would you like some water Mr. Wallace?’ Abdul inquired as Frank slumped on Abdul’s chair and clutched his forehead. ‘Well, let me get you a cup of coffee’ Abdul offered. He wanted to stall for time, till Mathew arrived. He hoped that his partner would come real soon. He wanted Mathew to speak to the guys who were supposed to follow Frank. A lot had happened from the time he had answered the distress emergency call. And from the look of things, the problem didn’t like it was going to go away anytime soon. ‘No. I am fine’ Frank mumbled. Let’s start from the very beginning Mr. Wallace. Try not to leave anything’ Abdul urged Frank. ‘Well, I went straight to my friend’s place as you said I should’ Frank looked up and saw Abdul nodding. ‘I then remembered that I had to break the news to Janice. I didn’t know how to do that. I didn’t know how to tell my little girl that her mother was dead. I didn’t want to tell her at all you know. But, I knew I had to tell her’ Frank tried hard not to break into fresh sobs. He took a deep breath and continued, ‘So I poured myself a drink to calm myself before I made that call. I tried her cell which Megan had gifted Janice on her eighteenth birthday. But it kept going straight o voicemail’ Frank looked around anxiously before he looked up at Abdul, ‘Can I have some water please?’ he pleaded. ‘Here’ Mathew offered the glass just as Abdul was standing up to fetch water.
‘Thanks’ Frank feebly muttered. ‘What happened next Mr. Wallace’ Abdul inquired, as he hastily scribbled on his notepad, tore the paper and stealthily passed to Mathew who excused himself and went out to make a call. ‘She must be attending classes or something. So I waited. I poured myself another drink. Before I knew it I had finished the whole bottle of Vodka and I had passed out on the floor. I woke up when my friend returned. I looked at the time and it was half past five. I knew I had to call Janice and tell her. And I was feeling really guilty’ Frank spoke as he actively avoided meeting Abdul’s curious eyes. ‘You felt guilty about what?’ Abdul inquired, not sure what Frank was suggesting, maybe this was the confession which would close the case. ‘I don’t know. Guilty that I got drunk and passed out… Guilty that I didn’t think about Janice the whole time while I was busy thinking that Megan deserved to die. I didn’t think how it would affect Janice.’ Frank’s cheeks got a fresh coat of saline. Abdul loudly sighed. He knew he was being rather optimistic. There was something about the case which gave him the feeling that the solution was right in front of him but he didn’t know what he was looking at. ‘Then what happened?’ Abdul waved his hand urging Frank to continue with his story. ‘So I tried Janice’s phone again. But it kept going to voicemail. So I called up her dorm room and her roommate, I forgot her name, think her name was Rita… God! I don’t even remember my daughter’s best friend’s name’ Frank sobbed as he verbally flogged himself for his poor memory. ‘What happened then Mr. Wallace?’ Abdul urged impatiently. ‘She said that Janice had not been sleeping in her room for the last couple of days and she hasn’t been attending her classes either. I told her to inform Janice to give me a call on my friend’s phone since I don’t know when I will be returning home. That’s when…’ ‘What?’ Abdul impatiently questioned. ‘That’s when she said that Janice was seeing this older man and that she thought something was wrong. She had become extremely secretive the past couple of weeks. She began to skip classes and was often seen spending time with this older man. She told me this because she said she was worried about Janice’ Abdul found his eyebrows involuntary scrunching up which he willfully unknotted. He didn’t want Frank to torture himself any further. ‘Good that you informed us about this Mr. Wallace. I have already got my partner to make few calls and see if we can trace Janice for you. She is probably spending time with her friend or something. You know how girls that age behave.’ Abdul tried consoling and realized that even he wasn’t convinced with the explanation he had given to Frank. ‘I will have someone escort you back to your place Mr. Wallace. And if you find anything else, do give me a call and I will call you the moment we find something alright? Nothing to worry about’ Abdul raised his hand and waved at Richie. ‘Richie, can you get one of the on-duty officers to escort Mr. Wallace back to his friend’s place in the squad car. Oh! Mr. Wallace, can you tell me your friend’s address where you are staying at? I forgot to take it down in the morning. You know so that we know where to get in touch with you.’ ‘5701A, Ridgemond Heights, 171 Mezrich Street.’ Frank rattled off the address. ‘And the phone number?’ Abdul looked up at Frank. ‘Seven. One. Five. Six. Three. Six. One. Four. Seven’ ‘And what’s the name of your friend Mr. Wallace?’ ‘Aaron Simmels. He is a good man, known him since our days in the Uni.’ ‘Thanks Mr. Wallace. We will be in touch… Richie…’ Abdul smiled at the duty officer. ‘Sure thing Detective’ Richie smiled. ‘Mr. Wallace?’ Abdul called out, suddenly remembering something. ‘Yeah?’ ‘Did your wife have a mobile phone?’ Abdul inquired. ‘Yeah she did. That is the dastard phone on which she was always busy texting and talking to that bastard’ ‘Do you remember her number?’ ‘Double six. Two. Five. Seven. Triple one. Nine. One’ ‘Thank you Mr. Wallace. We will get in touch as soon as we know something’ Abdul replied as he scribbled the number down and nodded towards Richie. As soon as Richie and Frank got into the lift, Mathew came back to where Abdul was trying the dead woman’s phone number. ‘The number you are trying to call is currently not reachable’ the sultry woman’s voice informed Abdul. ‘I just got off the phone…’ Mathew looked around, ‘Where’s he gone?’ ‘Just sent him back home with Richie… What did you find?’ Abdul inquired. ‘Well I spoke with the two officers who were supposed to tail Frank Wallace. He went straight to an apartment in’ ‘Mezrich street’ Abdul rolled his hand telling Mathew to hurry on. ‘He went straight from the station to that place and stayed put till he came to the station. Another man, described as being blonde, six feet, dressed in expensive clothes was seen walking in and out of the apartment’ Mathew continued. ‘That must be Aaron… Simmels’ Abdul looked up the name in his pocket notebook. ‘I also managed to speak with couple of people from Janice Wallace’s dorm’ Mathew looked up to see if Abdul already knew whatever Mathew had found out through his phone conversations. Abdul looked up and raised his eyebrow, ‘Well? What did they say?’ Abdul impatiently inquired, suddenly realizing that he was hungry. ‘Well Janice Wallace has not been seen around the campus for the last couple of days. Rumor has it that she was dating an older man. Though, nobody has actually seen Janice with this mysterious older man. I then placed a call to the station at Isle of Moor. They said they will look into it and get back to us as soon as they find something. Told them that we will drop by tomorrow.’ ‘Good… you hungry?’ Abdul inquired as he looked around the empty office to see if there was a stray packet of biscuit lying around for him to munch on. ‘No! I had my dinner. What do you think? The missing daughter is related to the mother’s murder?’ ‘Maybe… Maybe not. Too early to say till we find the daughter.’ ‘So I was thinking that we will leave here around seven in the morning. Isle of Moor is about two hours by road and then we got to take the ferry. We should reach there before lunch time if we don’t get stuck in the morning traffic.’ ‘Sounds like a plan’ Abdul nodded as he got up and slipped his hands inside his jacket. ‘So what did the father say?’ Abdul narrated the whole thing back to Mathew who nodded. ‘You know we have a saying in vice…’ ‘And what’s that?’ Abdul replied as he punched the lift button. ‘If the story fits the evidence then it probably is true’ Mathew remarked. ‘And we have a saying in homicide’ Abdul replied irritatedly, the grumbling in his stomach getting louder. ‘And what’s that?’ ‘Don’t believe shit till there is a confession and the guilty has been put behind bars. Even then always doubt shit’ Abdul remarked as he again punched the button for the basement.

8 When Abdul reached home, he found the baked Ziti in the fridge and no sign of Alex. He wondered where Alex was as he ate his dinner in silence and retired to the bed. Completely forgetting about the personal correspondence which was missing from the place he had kept them before he rushed out to the station. The violent sound coming from the alarm woke Abdul up with a start. He zombie walked to the kitchen and put a pot of coffee on. He figured by the time coffee finished percolating through the filter, he would be done with his morning shower. Before entering the bathroom he checked to see if Alex was back from wherever he had gone the night before. Alex’s room door was open and the small satchel he carried along with him which held all the weed and the hash was also missing. Not giving it any more thought, he jumped into the cold shower. He got dressed while looking at the time, it was five to seven. Mathew had offered to pick him up. He still had time to enjoy his morning cup of coffee. As he poured his coffee, black in the coffee mug and spooned two spoons of sugar, he suddenly realized how quiet the apartment felt without Alex yelling at him to add more spoon of sugar. Abdul never could figure out why Alex hated the number two with such vengeance. He had questioned Alex on plenty of occasions. And every time, the answer was different. Sometimes it was the juvenile reason that ‘two’ was the universal number for shit, and other times it was some bullshit about how correlation between two things is always plotted between minus one and plus one. Whatever the reason Alex gave, the result was always the same, Abdul always felt stupid to have asked the question. Over the years, he had gotten used to Alex and his multiple eccentricities. As he ran water over the empty coffee mug, he heard the loud three beep horn coming from the streets. As Abdul made his way down the stairs, he wondered if the three beep horn was something every cadet learned in the academy. ‘Good morning!’ Mathew yelled cheerfully and suddenly Abdul realized that the five hour long drive was going to be tortuous. Abdul curtly nodded back as he slipped into the co-driver’s side and pulled the safety belt on. ‘I thought you would be running late. I figured you were the late riser kinds’ Mathew continued to talk with glee. ‘I am’ Abdul mumbled. ‘I hope we don’t hit the morning traffic. I have it all planned’ Mathew stretched his hand to pick up a map which was lying on the backseat and pointed at the dots he had marked. ‘See those dots… Those are the rest stops. You know. Smoke. Pee. Eat. Fuel up’ Mathew eagerly explained. ‘Samuels…’ Abdul called out, in a honey voice. ‘Yeah!’ Mathew responded suspiciously as he alternated his gaze between the road and Abdul. ‘How old are you?’ Abdul inquired, the honey voice dripping with sarcasm. Mathew could see the rebuke headed his way and continued to stare at the road ahead. ‘Samuels… How old are you? I really want to know’ Abdul inquired. ‘Thirty four’ Mathew replied, his eyes still fixed on the road ahead. ‘Well then stop behaving like a fucking five year old on a fucking road trip’ Abdul yelled. Mathew looked hurt. Abdul could tell that Mathew was trying to decide to if he should respond or not. ‘Well, too bad! I thought we were friends.’ Mathew spoke, his tone hurt. ‘I am sorry man… It is just that I don’t like to talk much in the mornings you know. Got this bad habit from my flat mate.’ Abdul spoke softly and tried to offer an apology. ‘What does your flatmate do?’ Mathew inquired, realizing that Abdul was talking after all. ‘This and that’ Abdul replied. Realizing that he spoke any more then it would be difficult to get Mathew to shut up. Abdul switched on the car radio on and tuned into a news show. The two of them spent most of their journey in silence, as the voices on the radio drawled on about the millennium problem, the effect of Euro on the economy, the total solar eclipse, the implications of the US sponsored missile defense system and the growing concern about the ongoing war between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. ‘You want to stop and get something to eat?’ Mathew inquired as they approached their first stop. ‘No. I am good’ Abdul curtly replied. ‘Okay, we don’t have to stop. I fueled up before we started. By the way Karla made some sandwiches, you want a bite of that?’ Mathew stretched his hand again and fetched a Tupperware filled with sandwiches. ‘What sandwiches are these?’ Abdul looked at the transparent plastic box suspiciously. ‘Tuna and oatmeal. ‘Karla wants me to lose some of this paunch you know. She is very particular about the way I look.’ Mathew replied as he jocularly tapped his tummy.’ Mathew replied with a smile as he offered the box towards Abdul inviting him to take one. ‘No thanks!’ Abdul declined. ‘You know you are supposed to keep eating something every few hours. Else the sugar levels in your body drop.’ Mathew remarked. ‘Did Karla tell you this?’ Abdul sarcastically questioned. ‘No. My doctor’ ‘Why what’s wrong with you?’ Abdul inquired with a worried look on his face. ‘Well, Karla took me last week to get my yearly biannual checkup done.’ Abdul turned his face and looked out of the window and rolled his eyes. No sooner had they crossed the mid way mark, Mathew’s pager loudly beeped. Mathew balanced the steering wheel with the hand he held the sandwich and pulled the pager which he had clipped on his belt. ‘Uh-oh!’ Mathew mumbled. ‘What happened?’ Abdul looked at Mathew who was still reading the ticker on the pager. ‘This can’t be good?’ Mathew mumbled. ‘What can’t be good?’ Abdul impatiently inquired. ‘The guys at Isle of Moor county are trying to get in touch with us.’ ‘How long before we reach there?’ Abdul looked at his wristwatch as he posed the question. ‘Think another half an hour or so I reckon’ Mathew replied, ‘You think we should stop somewhere and find a phone to call them and check what happened?’ ‘Waste of time.’ Abdul muttered as he pulled out his mobile phone and dialed the landline number for Isle of Moor county. Abdul saw Mathew marveling at the mobile phone. As Abdul heard the phone ring on the other end, he recognized the small ball of feeling in the bottom of his gut. It wasn’t hunger. It was the familiar feeling that he was going to walk into a shit storm. Mathew threw the now empty Tupperware box towards the backseat and gunned the car down the nearly empty highway. He even pulled out the siren and placed it on the hood just to make sure that people knew to give way for the two of them as Abdul frantically noted down the address and barked instructions into his phone. ‘That’s good. Tell your men not to touch anything. Also, can you place a call to the CSU guys and… Do me a favor and ask for Martin Sequira… Yes! S.E.Q.U… Yes… Thanks. Will be there in ten’ Abdul snapped the phone shut. ‘What did they say?’ ‘They found a body matching the physical description of the missing girl. They got some people from the university to come and identify her.’ Mathew didn’t say anything as he shifted the gear and overtook a station wagon.

9 The weather had changed drastically as they waited for the ferry to touch shore. The clear blue skies were not being bullied by grey and pregnant clouds. Following the directions which the man over the phone had dictated to Abdul, they finally arrived at what they believed was the crime scene. There weren’t any buildings. Just wide open fields and a large canal leading to the fields Mathew stopped the car at a fair distance from the crowd. As the two got out of the car and started walking towards the crowd, they realized that a sizeable gathering of onlookers had gathered and the police barricades weren’t doing a good job of keeping them away. As they stepped closer, they spotted couple of reporters furiously taking pictures and lighting up the scene clicking pictures. Abdul nodded towards Mathew, who got busy flashing his badge and commanding the present cops to widen the barricade. The reporters sensed a man in command and the questions fast and thick towards Mathew. Mathew called one of the on-duty officers, who then in turn got few of his buddies and got busy dispersing the crowd. Abdul walked over to the county sheriff, a fat middle aged black man who didn’t care much to hide his weight or his age.
‘You Mathew Samuels?’ the sheriff inquired as he extended his hand to shake hands. ‘Abdul Rizvi’ he answered as he shook the sheriff’s hand. ‘I am the lead investigating officer on this case.’ Abdul explained as he saw the sheriff shake his head in a ‘I-don’t-know-how-it-works-in-the-city-and-I-don’t-want-to-know’ sort of a way. ‘Morris’ The sheriff answered as he shook Abdul’s hands and motioned towards Abdul to follow him. Lying in the canal was a half naked body of a young girl lying on her back. ‘Was the body moved?’ Abdul inquired as he lowered himself into the canal. The shallow water wet his shoes and pants and ran around the body. ‘Well yeah! We had to identify the body didn’t we?’ The sheriff replied as a matter of fact. ‘Who discovered her?’ Abdul inquired as he gingerly stepped closer to the body, trying to avoid the water splashing on the body. ‘One of the farm boys discovered her early in the morning. He come down to take a shit or something. That’s when he saw the body. We have already gotten the boy’s statement’ ‘How was the body placed?’ Abdul inquired as he looked up at the sheriff. ‘What do you mean?’ Sheriff pushed his hat back and scratched his forehead as he saw the city boy trudge through the dirty water and make his way towards the body. ‘I mean when the boy saw the body, how was her body? Was it lying on her stomach or like this on her back?’ Abdul inquired. ‘She was lying on her stomach. Her clothes and backpack were also lying along with her. That is how we got to know that she was a student at the Uni. Got couple of her friends to identify her. Though I am not sure how they identified her.’ Sheriff answered morosely. ‘Her clothes were lying next to her or on top of her?’ Abdul quizzed as he kneeled in front of the body. ‘The clothes, the backpack, everything was strewn around the place. We got them all here’ he answered. Abdul recognized the girl’s face. It was the same one which was smiling at him from the family portrait which was in Wallace’s living room. She looked older than the picture despite the baby doll dress she was wearing. One side of her head was crudely shaved off. Abdul could see the white nick marks on her skull. He didn’t need Marty to tell him that the girl’s cheekbones were broken, the jaw was dislocated, her eyes removed from their sockets, the exposed retinal nerve sticking to the corner of her eyes. The water brushed the dead blonde hair away from her neck and Abdul saw the clear bruised blue colored ligature marks around her pale white neck. ‘She took after her mother’ Abdul muttered to himself. His eyes were drawn to her exposed midriff which was covered in bruises. He pulled out a pen from his jacket pocket and pushed her hand. He saw a tattoo cursively inscribed on the side of her left hand palm. ‘Daddy’s lil’ girl’ the tattoo read. Abdul could see the tattooed skin still had some scabs left on it. The tattoo hadn’t healed fully. He spread the fingers and saw that blood had clotted around her broken finger nails. ‘You were a fighter weren’t you?’ Abdul mumbled to the dead girl’s body. He stood up and saw the girl’s dead body and suddenly realized that the killer had wanted to body to be found this way. The body was supposed to resemble that of an old, abused and discarded Barbie doll. ‘You alright son? You don’t look so good’ Abdul heard the sheriff speak worriedly. He looked up to see the sheriff patting down Mathew’s back who was struggling to keep the sandwiches he had eaten during their journey down. Abdul chuckled as he saw Mathew rush to find a safe place where he could regurgitate his meal. ‘Sheriff Morris?’ Abdul called out to the sheriff who was worriedly looking at Mathew puke in the bushes. ‘Yeah?’ ‘You can get the body out of the canal… By the way, did you manage to get hold of Martin?’ ‘Yeah! He said he will be here in another hour’ ‘Good! Can you show me her clothes and her backpack?’ Abdul requested as he held out a hand towards the sheriff to pull him up from the canal. Abdul saw one of Sheriff’s boys offer Mathew a bottle of water to gargle as the Sheriff led Abdul to where the dead girl’s pile of clothes and backpack lay. Abdul scanned the clothes, a blood spattered T-shirt, wet jeans, shreds of cotton which he believed were the dead girl’s bra and underwear. He picked up the backpack to check its content when he heard Mathew yell at him from behind. ‘Don’t! We might get fingerprints’ ‘We didn’t get any from the previous place and I don’t think we are going to find one here.’ Abdul curtly replied as he pulled out a laptop from the backpack. ‘Listen, I promised that we will keep Mr. Wallace informed. You can let him know that we found his daughter. Don’t tell him that she is dead. He will want to see her. Let Marty get done with the body and then we can break the news to him.’ Abdul opened the laptop, and then as an afterthought added, ‘And I think you better talk with the boy who found the body and her friends at the university. Go along with Sheriff Morris. I will wait here for Marty. And try to keep your food down will you?’ Abdul quipped as Mathew turned red and walked over to speak with the sheriff. ‘Daddy’s little girl sure was spoilt with gifts’ Abdul spoke to himself as he opened Mathew’s car door and sat down in the driver’s seat. He switched on the laptop and watched the familiar window with the colored panes fly through the sky. He turned his attention as couple of the Sheriff’s men picked up the dead girl’s body and put it on a gurney. He saw Mathew and Sheriff Morris get into the sheriff’s car and leave. As he turned his attention to the laptop screen, he saw a dialog box telling him the username, ‘Janice’. The password field was blank. He tried, ‘Wallace’, ‘Janice’, ‘Password’. Every time, the computer told him that the username or password was incorrect. He felt like an amateur robber trying to pick open a lock as he clicked ‘OK’ and stared at the screen. He wondered if he should give Alex a call and ask him if he could help getting past this gate. Abdul pulled out his phone and dialed Alex’s number and heard the phone ring. ‘Hello?’ Abdul heard Alex’s voice on the other side of the phone. ‘Hello… Alex?’ Before Abdul could carry on, he heard Alex interjecting him. ‘You are speaking to a recording. Which means I am not answering any calls right now. So leave a message after the beep’ He heard Alex instructing over the phone. ‘Fucker!’ Abdul cursed as he the annoyingly long beep finished beeping. He stared at the laptop screen. He looked out of the car windscreen and saw the girl lying on the gurney bag and tried entering the password once again. ‘D.A.D.D.Y’ he typed and pressed enter. ‘Yes!’ Abdul exclaimed as the dialog box disappeared and he saw the familiar rectangle at the left hand bottom corner with the word ‘start’ written in block letters. The desktop was sparsely littered with different icons, unlike the computer which Alex used at home. He recognized few of the icons, the ones with the blue coloured capital ‘W’s meant that they were text documents and then there were number of icons with tiny ‘123’ inscribed on them. Abdul clicked open one of the icons with ‘123’, named, ‘Daddy’. Abdul waited for the file to open with a time tracker and a volume controller. And then he saw Janice’s face smiling and giggling at him through the laptop screen. She was standing in front of the full length mirror, dressed in the white T-shirt and blue jeans, she held the laptop in her hands and a white ball clipped to the top of the laptop screen. She giggled loudly and then slipped a finger in front of her lips indicating to her reflection to keep quiet. She walked away from the mirror and placed the camera on a chair. Abdul strained his ears closer to the computer to see if he could hear something. He faintly made the sound of running water, shower he presumed, coming from the background over the sound of Janice tiptoes and opening the door the camera was facing towards. ‘Daddy?’ Abdul heard the girl call out seductively. Abdul stared at the screen hard, unsure of what he was seeing. The door was held open and he faintly heard a man’s voice asking Janice to take off her T-shirt. As Janice took off her T-shirt, Abdul was getting increasingly unsure if he should continue watching the video or not. Abdul looked away from the screen and wondered if anybody else could hear the video. Abdul pulled the driver’s door and closed it with a slam. Abdul stared at the screen. He saw the back of a man’s wet hand grab Janice’s hair, who was still giggling and standing topless in front of the bathroom doorway. And then Abdul heard the unmistakable muted thump of knuckles hitting the girl’s face. He could see Janice struggling to stay upright and the hand clutching her hair grabbed it tighter and pulled her up and another loud punch fell on her face. Abdul saw Janice stumble back and pushed the camera askew. The screams were loud and painful. He could hear Janice crying and chocking on blood. The laptop was pushed to the side, Abdul could see the edges of the bathroom door, the floor and the edge of the bed. He saw the hand reach out and grab Janice’s hair again who was crying, screaming and kicked the man as she tried to move away from the man. ‘You are a whore… Just like your mother’ he heard the man’s gravely voice accuse the frightened girl. Abdul saw the naked thighs, the limp cock, dripping across the floor as he made his way across the screen. Abdul tried turning and tilting the screen to try and see if he could get a better look at the man. Abdul winced, he felt his anal sphincter involuntarily tighten as he heard Janice scream and heard her head bang against something. Even though Abdul couldn’t see what the man was doing to the poor, helpless girl, he could tell what was happening to her as he looked out of the car window and saw the dead girl’s body lying on the gurney. He snapped the laptop screen shut as he saw Marty’s car pull up. Abdul put the laptop on the backseat and got off the car, more to get some fresh air than to greet Marty. ‘Hey! I must have killed half the traffic on the J21’ Marty grinned as he saw Abdul walk towards him. But the smile went away when he saw the little beads of sweat on Abdul’s forehead and his shirt clumped on his body with sweat. ‘You alright?’ Marty inquired worriedly. ‘No. No I am not alright!’ Abdul replied, ‘the body is lying there’ Abdul pointed towards the direction where the girl was lying on the gurney. ‘Marty! Can you do me a favour?’ Abdul inquired, as he tried to get his heart to beat regularly. ‘Sure thing mate’ Marty offered. ‘I don’t want a report on this. But tell me everything you can. I know it is not cool for me to do this to you. But please…’ Abdul pleaded. ‘I will do my best’ Marty weakly smiled. He knew better than to question his friend. He had known Abdul for over a decade now. And if friend wanted a favour, Martin Sequira wasn’t going to disappoint his friend. Abdul looked past the horizon, trying to get rid of the screams which were echoing in his soul. He pulled out the squished soft pack of camel cigarettes out of his trouser pocket and lit one up. As he took a long deep drag and held it in his lungs and feel the nicotine dissolve in his blood stream, he felt buzzing in his legs. Grateful for the distraction, Abdul pulled out his chunky looking phone. ‘Where were you?’ Abdul barked into the phone. ‘Shit!’ Abdul heard Alex curse on the other end of the phone. ‘What happened?’ Abdul inquired, momentarily forgetting his own despair. ‘I guess the girl is dead then?’ Alex inquired. ‘Yeah! But…’ Abdul inquired, surprised that Alex knew about the girl. Maybe it was his voice. ‘I think you better come back home for me to fill you up on whatever I have managed to find out and then you can fill me in on whatever you have got’ Alex instructed. ‘It will take me couple of hours. Samuels has gone to collect statements from the girl’s friends and Marty has just arrived and is looking at the body. So, it will be late by the time I get back to the city’ ‘Okay… I don’t feel like cooking tonight.’ Alex retorted. ‘Cool… I will see you at the pub then’ ‘How bad was the girl cut up?’ Alex inquired as an afterthought. ‘Bad. Pretty bad’ Abdul replied sombrely. ‘I will see you at the pub’ ‘Yeah okay’ Abdul looked at his phone before snapping it shut and putting in his pocket. He didn’t know how Alex knew that the girl was in danger. He wished that he known about it before. He looked over towards Marty who was running his fingers over the bruised and battered body of the nineteen year old dead girl.

10 ‘What took you so long?’ Abdul impatiently yelled at Mathew as soon as he got out of Sheriff Morris’s car. Mathew walked over to where Abdul was standing and anxiously pulling hard on a cigarette. He had smoked half a pack in the last forty minutes and yet Abdul couldn’t get his jangling nerves to settle down. Sheriff Morris yelled out to couple of his deputies and barked commands. The sheriff didn’t seem to be in a happy mood. ‘I didn’t know you smoked’ Mathew commented as he pulled out his pocket notebook from his jacket. ‘Only when I am stressed’ Abdul replied as he pulled hard one last time before dropping the cigarette and twisting his leather show over the still burning bud. ‘Stressed is the right word’ Mathew added as he flipped over pages of his pocket notebook. ‘Find anything?’ Abdul inquired. ‘Hold on a second’ Mathew held up his index finger, ‘here it is…’ Abdul looked on as Mathew re-read his handwriting before discoursing on his findings. ‘So… Janice Wallace according to her professors and friends was a complete saint. She could do no wrong. Everybody had the same thing to say except this one boy who apparently had a thing for the girl’ Mathew looked up to see if Abdul was paying attention who pulled out another cigarette and lit it up. ‘This boy, Oliver, said that Janice had received a call from her mother couple of weeks back. He wasn’t sure about what her mother told the girl but apparently it was enough to send her off the edge. Janice started doing drugs and was doing some serious drugs. You know heroin and shit. And then she fell into some really bad company.’ ‘What sort of bad company?’ Abdul quizzed with a raised eyebrow. ‘Apparently there is prostitution racket being run on campus. Young college girls are lured with hopes of making a quick buck or two. You know fetish and role playing and that sort of thing. They were also supposedly encouraged to make videos of this which is then later put on something called the…’ Mathew checked his notes, making sure he got it right, ‘the internet?’ ‘That explains things…’ Abdul mumbled as he blew a smoke ring. ‘What things?’ Mathew looked up from his notes. ‘Finish telling me whatever you have got and then I will fill you up’ ‘So there is a small bed and breakfast, called…’ Mathew looked at his notes again, ‘Eagle’s nest. Janice was seen checking in with an older man. The man signed his name as Nicholas Brown. The receptionist described the man as being about six feet tall, bald, with a thick blonde moustache.’ Mathew closed his notebook and put it back into his jacket pocket. ‘The prostitution racket has got the Sheriff all riled up. Think he takes his job little too personally.’ Mathew suddenly realized that he may have spoken a bit too much and looked guiltily at Abdul. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean you…’ he added before digging into his jacket pocket again, ‘When we scanned the room, we also found this’ Mathew a fake blonde moustache sealed in a plastic Ziploc evidence bag. ‘It’s alright man’ Abdul chuckled as he dropped the cigarette and trampled on it with vigour.
‘So what did you find out? Marty tell you anything yet?’ Mathew inquired. Abdul told him about the laptop and the video he found on it. He skipped the details of the violence and horrid screaming. ‘Did you see the man’s face? Let me see the video’ Mathew inquired excitedly. ‘I wouldn’t suggest that’ Abdul replied with a smile, ‘And all you can see his limp cock and his hand’ Abdul replied. Mathew pulled back his jacket and to see the time on his wrist watch. The time was twenty past five. ‘That’s weird!’ Abdul remarked as he pulled back his jacket and shirt sleeve and checked. ‘What’s weird’ Mathew inquired. ‘The man didn’t have any hair on his body.’ Abdul replied. ‘And why is that weird?’ Mathew inquired. ‘I am not sure’ Abdul replied, perplexed. ‘Marty’ Mathew nodded his head and smiled at the coroner. ‘Find anything’ Abdul inquired as Mathew pulled off the latex gloves off his hands. ‘Well…’ Martin replied as he wiped the sweat off his brow. ‘The cause of death is repeated blow to the skull. The bruise marks on the neck indicates post-mortem strangulation. She received multiple body blows, she may have a ruptured spleen. The approximate time of death is about two and two thirty in the morning. The head was shaved post-mortem. I can tell you more when I have got the body in the morgue.’ ‘Will have that arranged.’ The Sheriff added as he walked over to where the three were standing. ‘Thank you for everything Sheriff’ Abdul extended his hand t shake the Sheriff’s hand. ‘I will get those bastards. And I am sorry… if I had known about this, I might have been able to stop it.’ Sheriff apologized. The men glumly shook heads and nodded their heads courteously.

Abdul didn’t realize how tired he would be by the time Mathew got the car to edge past the bumper to bumper traffic. At least Mathew had offered to break the news to Frank Wallace and he was glad that he did. He wasn’t sure if he had it in him to be sensitive enough to break the news to an already angry grieving man. He entered the house to find Alex sleeping soundly on the couch with the television playing Eastenders. Abdul coaxed the telly remote out of Alex’s death grip and switched it off just as Barbara Windsor was yelling ‘Get outta my pub!’. Abdul removed his jacket as he walked over to the fridge and pulled out a pint of beer. He looked around for the bottle opener and quickly gave up as he put the bottle crown between his teeth and yanked on it before quickly suckling on the froth which bubbled out of the bottle’s mouth. Abdul saw a note stuck on the kitchen counter written in Alex’s cockroachey scribble. ‘Paula called. Call her back. She is annoying. So when she breaks up with you, don’t call her back. Ps: Wake me up.’ Abdul had completely forgotten about Paula, his girlfriend for all of two weeks. Abdul decided to let Alex sleep. He didn’t want to wake him up. He had woken him up once and he didn’t hear the end of it for months. Even though he had done exactly what Alex had told him to do. Call his name out thrice, if he didn’t wake up then switch off the fan and call out his name, three times. Because two is a shit prime number, every second number was divisible by it. At no point was he allowed to sprinkle water on Alex to wake him up. As Abdul picked up the phone from the kitchen counter and dialled Paula’s number. He couldn’t help but replay the scene the last time when he had woken up Alex. ‘Why? Why wouldn’t you let me sleep?’ Alex had yelled ‘Uh… Because you asked me to wake you up?’ Abdul defended himself. ‘Oh yeah? Well then go dunk your head in the loo and drink your own pee.’ Alex continued yelling. ‘Go on! I am telling you to do it. Why don’t you go and drink your own piss you little shit!’ Abdul didn’t reply. The two didn’t speak to each other for months. Till Abdul apologized and promised that he would never wake Alex up from his sleep. Ever again. Abdul looked up to see Alex slapping away at the drool which steadily flowed out of his mouth and chuckled as he waited for Paula to answer her phone. He got her voicemail. ‘Hey… Abdul here. So sorry, I know I said I will call you back but you know… I have just been so caught up in this new case that it completely slipped out of my mind. I promise I will make it up to you…’ Before Abdul could complete his sentence, he heard the phone go dead on the other end. He realized that she was listening to him mumble on the phone and had decided to cut him short. He looked at Alex and wondered if he had to do anything with Paula deciding to break up with him. He watched Alex turn around and sleep on his back and suddenly snore aloud. So loud that Abdul watched Alex wake himself up from his sleep. ‘Yeah! That was you’ Abdul chuckled ‘What time is it?’ Alex questioned as he wiped away at the sheet of drool which glazed on his chin. ‘Five to ten’ Abdul remarked as he checked the wall clock. ‘Shit!’ Alex cursed as he swiped his thighs to clandestinely wipe away the pool of drool on the couch. ‘What time did you come home?’ ‘Five minutes back’ Abdul replied still chuckling. ‘Good. Give me five minutes. Let me wash my face and then we can go down to the pub. Get some drinks and food and then you can tell me everything’ Alex remarked as he hurriedly rushed into his room. ‘Tell you everything? You are the one who has got shit to tell me’ Abdul protested as he watched Alex run into his room. ‘You done with that beer?’ Alex inquired as he stepped out of his room. ‘Almost… You took a bath?’ Abdul inquired. ‘No!’ Alex replied like he was hurt, ‘I just washed my face. Looks like I took a bath doesn’t it?’ Alex grinned as he took the almost empty beer bottle from Abdul’s hand and finished it in one long continuous glug.
‘Did you call Paula?’ Alex inquired as he put the empty beer bottle in the trash can and started for the door. ‘Yeah! I got her voicemail’ Abdul replied. ‘You leave a message?’ ‘Yeah… I did. But before I could finish speaking she hung up’ Abdul explained, his arms flailing about flabbergastedly. ‘Ouch! That’s cold’ Alex flinched as he waited outside for Abdul to get his coat. ‘Did you speak with her?’ Abdul inquired, he was increasingly growing suspicious about Alex and what he might have said to Paula. ‘Yeah of course I spoke to her. Didn’t you read my note?’ Alex replied as he locked the door and motioned towards Abdul to take the stairs. ‘Well, you mind telling me where you were last night and what you found about this case?’ Abdul inquired as he walked down the stairs. ‘Geez! I will tell you once we get to the pub. Hold your horses till then will you?’ ‘Fine… What did you tell Paula?’ Abdul questioned. ‘Jesus fucking Christ! You don’t give up do?’ Alex joked as he jumped on Abdul’s shoulders and rushed down the stairs. ‘So you did say something mean to her?’ ‘I may have.’ Alex grinned. ‘What the fuck did you tell her?’ Abdul looked up angrily at Alex. ‘I didn’t tell her shit alright! I told her that you were out and that she should try your mobile phone’ Alex retaliated. ‘Hmmm…’ ‘And maybe I told her not to call and annoy me’ Alex mumbled. ‘I knew it!’ Abdul looked accusingly at Alex. ‘She fucking kept calling and calling and then she asked me if you were seeing somebody else’ Alex self righteously raised his voice. ‘And what did you tell her?’ Abdul questioned, even though he knew the answer. ‘Well I told her what she wanted to hear…’ ‘Which is?’ ‘That you are in bed with sexy lingerie models all the fucking time and that you were probably in bed with one while she was calling and annoying me’ Alex explained in a matter of fact tone. Alex suddenly yanked Abdul by his shoulder. ‘See, I saved you from the oncoming traffic’ Alex pointed as the car passed them, miles away. ‘That’s twice I have saved you in one day’ ‘I hope you got shit to tell me than this stupid saving bullshit’ Abdul muttered as he shook his hand away from Alex’s grip. The pub, or as the Americans would call it ‘a dive bar’, was dimly lit with loud screechy music playing. The two of them cut through the swathe of smoke and wall of sound made by the loud cacophonous laughter, drunken slurs and the noise made by a woman squawking over the speakers. Alex raised his hand to acknowledge the old man manning the bar. The barman coughed and smiled as soon as he saw Alex walk in. Abdul felt compelled to return the barman’s smile and raise his hand in acknowledgement. Alex spotted an empty table and pointed it to Abdul. ‘Pitcher?’ The barman yelled at Alex as he crossed him. Alex nodded and drew a square in the air indicating the need for a food menu. ‘Can you now tell me what you know?’ Abdul yelled over the din only to have Alex smile back at home and sing along to the song which was playing over the speakers. ‘Hit me babaye one more time’ Alex strummed the air guitar. ‘What the fuck!’ ‘You just watch, this girl is going to go places. Though I think she has got the crazy eyes’ Alex remarked as the song ended and the dusky heavy voice of the radio jockey boomed through the speakers. ‘Which girl? And what song were you singing? Hit you baby one more? Were those the actual lyrics to a song?’ Abdul inquired as he dusted the chair and wiped the table with his jacket sleeve. ‘What are you doing? I will get somebody to clean the table. And those were the lyrics to the smash hit song called ‘Hit me baby one more time’ and it was sung by the new it girl.’ Alex remarked as he raised his hand to draw the attention to the overworked, underpaid server. ‘It’s alright’ Abdul remarked ignoring Alex’s generosity to share useless trivia as he saw a sad young man truddle towards them. ‘Hi, can you get us a pitcher of beer, two empty glasses, bottle of water, some chips, one beef burger and a plate of doner kebabs’ Alex rattled off the order, ordering for the two of them. ‘Sorry, we are out of kebabs’ The boy replied. ‘Then in that case…’ Alex looked at Abdul to seek inspiration, ‘then just get a plate of fish and chips.’ Alex smiled. ‘If the fish looks stodgy then you are eating it’ Alex remarked casually as he pulled out a pack of cigarette and lighter from his trouser pocket. ‘Are you done?’ Abdul irritatedly inquired. ‘With what?’ ‘With all of your’ Abdul flailed his arms around, trying to find the right word, ‘…shenanigans?’ ‘I guess’ Alex cheekily grinned at Abdul. ‘Well, now can you tell me what you found about the case?’ Abdul urged his friend to disclose everything that he knew. ‘I will… But…’ Alex paused as he pulled out a cigarette and lit it. ‘But? There is a fucking but? Are you fucking serious?’ Abdul animatedly exclaimed. ‘Calm down! Fuck! You are a bit hyper aren’t you?’ Alex exclaimed still smiling and blowing smoke rings. ‘But what?’ Abdul questioned through gritted teeth. ‘I want to know everything the old man Wallace told you last night at the station and what you found out at the Isle of Moor’ Alex put forward his condition. The server placed two empty glasses, pitcher of beer and a bottle of water. ‘Will get the food when its ready’ the boy promptly replied as he set the table and filled the two empty glasses with frothy beer. ‘Fine… But once I tell you whatever you want to know then I want proper answers to all of my questions alright?’ Abdul demanded. ‘Sure, sure’ Alex consoled him, ‘But before you begin’ Alex raised his glass and gingerly clinked glasses with Abdul and merrily exclaimed ‘Cheers’. ‘So…’ Abdul started narrating the story so far. Alex listened to the whole narration without interrupting Abdul. Occasionally he would ask him to stop while he refilled his glass and Abdul’s and inquire about the food he had ordered. ‘So that’s the story’ Abdul finished his narration and took a long sip of his beer. ‘Her eyes were gouged out eh?’ Alex remarked, visibly impressed as he motioned towards the barman to send another pitcher. ‘Yeah’ Abdul nodded. ‘I am guessing the call from her mother was to tell her daughter that her father was getting kicked out of his job.’ ‘I guess’ Alex nodded again before he got distracted, ‘Are they playing the goddamn song again?’ Abdul looked up at the speakers as the opening strains of ‘Hit me baby one more time’ started playing. ‘I told you. The song is going to be smash hit. Apparently the people across the pond think that the video is scandalous’ Alex commented as he chuckled at Abdul’s apparently dislike to the song. ‘What is the song about anyway?’ Abdul inquired. ‘Think it is about a girl hating herself because she dumped his sorry ass. And it has been getting extensive airplay. So I reckon the music labels are hedging their bets big time on this girl’ ‘And who is this girl?’ Abdul inquired as he lit his cigarette up. ‘Britney Spears’ Alex impatiently answered the question between gulps of his beer. ‘So… Why do you think the girl’s eyes were ripped out of her skull?’ Alex curiously inquired. ‘I don’t know. From whatever I can tell having seen both these bodies and the goddamn video is the fact that both the victims knew their killer. And it was personal. The whole mutilation of the body was meant to get rid of whatever anger and hatred the killer carried against his victims.’ ‘And you said that you found the fact that the man you saw in the video didn’t have any hair on his arm, chest or around his groin was weird’ Abdul nodded to Alex’s questions. ‘Right! Now your turn…’ Abdul reminded Alex about the deal. ‘Right… So where should I start’ Alex wondered aloud as he tapped the ash off the cigarette. ‘From the very fucking beginning’ Abdul insisted as he scowled at Alex. ‘Fine, so…’ ‘Chips, burger, fish and chips’ The boy smiled as he placed the food loudly on the table. ‘Thank you’ Alex smiled and Abdul curtly nodded. ‘Yo! Fuckface… You going to tell me your story or not?’ Abdul angrily demanded as the boy looked nervously at them. Abdul waved his hands and smiled apologetically and pointed towards Alex. ‘Before I begin, tomorrow you can’t go out anywhere’ Alex warned Abdul. ‘And why the fuck not?’ Abdul demanded. ‘Tomorrow is August the eleventh, nineteen ninety nine.’ Alex informed Abdul about the date, hoping that it would give him the answer to this question. ‘Today is the tenth, so… obviously tomorrow is going to the eleventh’ Abdul replied annoyed. ‘Tomorrow is when the moon is expected to directly cross the sun and the moon.’ ‘Shit! Tomorrow is the total solar eclipse innit?’ Abdul exclaimed. ‘Congratulations Abdul Rizvi, you seem to have read the news’ Alex mockingly clapped his hands. ‘I heard it on the radio. I just have to be indoors from ten to one right?’ Abdul’s eyebrows knotted themselves in worry. ‘Yeah… Though I don’t think you have anything to worry about. There will be no more murders. Or so I hope’ ‘What do you mean?’ Abdul demanded. ‘I saw your guys trailing Frank Wallace’ Alex smiled slyly, holding the beer glass in front of his face so as to not let Abdul see the smirk which was pasted on his face. ‘Okay… Enough of your bullshit! Just tell me what the fuck is going on’ Abdul demanded as he slammed his empty beer mug down on the table. ‘’Yeah alright… I am telling you this, only because you are insisting.’ ‘Just fucking say it!’ Abdul scowled. ‘So, after you left’ Alex began narrating his side of the tale.

11 ‘I will be right over’ and with that Abdul hung up and looked worriedly at Alex. ‘What happened?’ Alex inquired as he took a sip from his beer. ‘Janice, the victim’s daughter, the one who studies in Wilson University is missing.’ Abdul spoke as he tried to make sense of things before hurrying into his room to change. ‘What about dinner?’ Alex inquired staring at Abdul with puppy dog eyes. ‘I am sorry. I will come back have it’ Abdul apologized as he tied his shoe laces. ‘Fine’ Alex replied as he took another sip and switched the television back on. ‘Don’t forget to take your keys’ Alex mumbled as he flipped channels on the remote.

‘When I said start from the beginning I didn’t mean shit I already know’ Abdul irritatedly exclaimed he refilled his empty beer glass and ordered one more. ‘Alright. Keep your pants on. I am getting to the interesting bit’ Alex remarked with a smile.

Alex turned around just in time to see Abdul close the door behind him and his eyes landed on the sheaf of correspondence. Excitedly, he lunged at it and started reading it as the news played a piece of the significance of the total solar eclipse in two days time. Alex arranged the letters chronologically and picked up the most recent letter, addressed to Megan Wallace, five weeks back. ‘No return address. How typical’ Alex remarked to himself. He checked the postal stamp on the envelope and scrunched his eyebrows. The postal stamp indicated that the envelope was posted from Mezrich street. He took the bundle of letters and placed them under the magnifying glass he occasionally used to graft new strains of marijuana. The handwriting on the letter indicated that the writer had written the letter under heavy intoxication. The writing was relatively large sized and slanted to the left. The words had little or no space between them, and they were written with a lot of pressure, strong enough for the letters and the words to indent the paper underneath it.

‘What does that mean?’ Abdul interrupted Alex as he shoved a large piece of a limp chip in his mouth. ‘What does what mean?’ Alex volleyed the question back, taking a big bite off his burger. The fish and chips looked stodgy and Alex had quickly swapped the plates as he narrated his side of the tale. ‘The bit about the writing slanting to the left’ Abdul inquired. ‘What did they teach you at the detective school then? How to be a fucking annoying twat by asking a million questions?’ Alex infuriately replied. ‘Yeah! They do actually teach you that. But go on…’ Abdul chuckled as he took another piece of chip and shoved it into his open smiling face. ‘Also… Do you now realize how it feels to have your story stopped in the middle?’ Abdul smiled with a healthy mix of jocularity and vengefulness. ‘Well, the writer was right handed, but he wrote things with a leftish slant to his words. Which means, that he is by nature a rebellion, a regular troublemaker and possibly had run-ins with the law. The narrow spaces indicate that the guy who wrote it prefers to do more action and writing is not his strong suit. The spelling mistakes and poor grammar also did help me in arriving at the conclusion…’ Alex looked at Abdul open his mouth to ask another question and pre-empted it, ‘And before you ask, I have kept the letters back in your room’. ‘Go on… But I will keep asking you questions as and when you tell me something outlandish like the writer was a male and right handed’ ‘Well, if you did read the letters then you will know that the language and the manner in which the letter was written in clearly indicated that a man wrote it. Women are more prone to making sure that the grammar and the tone is correct. Women are very particular about that’ Alex explained. ‘And you would know that how?’ Abdul questioned in disbelief, surprised that Alex knew so much about women. ‘Do you remember Mrs. Schultz?’ Alex inquired as he signed in the air indicating to the boy to get the bill. ‘Our English teach back in college?’ Abdul questioned, not sure if they were talking about the same Mrs. Schultz. ‘Well… You know…’ Alex grinned impishly. ‘You dirty dog you!’ Abdul threw the napkin in disbelief. ‘Do you want me to continue?’ Alex spoke with a straight face. ‘Go on…’ Abdul motioned as he pulled out his wallet and waited for the bill. ‘Well most of the letters seemed like they were written by a delinquent kid writing to his teacher about her. You know, roses are red, violets are blue, barf puke. But then there was this one letter… Written about a year ago, which was most interesting. It was unlike the other letters.’

Alex held up the letter to the light and checked the postage stamp on it. The postal stamp indicated Victoria State Prison. Alex looked at the circle he had marked on the map and found the lone point sticking out like the North Star. Alex pulled out the one page letter, written on both sides of the paper. ‘Dear Megs, Hey, its me mitchell. You prabablee don’t remeber me. Long taime. 13 years. I waited for you megs. I even rabbed the likor store for you megs. For you and our little babay. I waited for you megs. But insted of you the cops showed up. And then they put me in jail. The crazy chinese cunt manged to live. If that geezer had died then I wuld have been dune for life. Good theng the lawyer felo got me twenty yers. He was a good man. I hope the babay and you are doing good. I think abut you everyday. You and our babay. I bet shes all grwn up and looks really preti just like her muther. You must be wundering how I got your adress. There is a nice man who wurks in the librarry. He told me about this theng called the internet. The man sed you culd find anything on there. So I told him find me yur address and gess what? He did. It is nice to see yu married. Babay needs a fater you know. A kid alays needs a fater. look at me, no fater, no moter, jus a gint pecer which you loved so much. can’t belive a fuckd up me culd be blessed wit such a smat kid. I heard she is proper scientist. Can you imagin? My babay is super smart. God! I can’t wait to meet the two of you. I hope you have told her that the cunt husband of yours is not her real father. Oh! I am so exited. I hope you reply and give my love to our babay. Yours and yours forever, J.S’

‘Shit! You mean to say…’ Abdul exclaimed loudly. ‘Calm down else you are going to wake up Mrs. Moran next door.’ Alex motioned with his hands and spoke almost in a whisper to reiterate his point. ‘And yes, I mean to say that Janice Wallace is not Frank Wallace’s daughter’ ‘Hold on a second’ Abdul brushed past Alex and took his shoes and walked over to the couch as Alex kept the keys in the bowl and walked over to the fridge to get beer. ‘Oh that bitch!’ Abdul cursed as he took the bottle of beer from Alex, ‘I remember Frank had told me that they had gotten married because she was pregnant.’ ‘Yeah! Well, apparently he didn’t call for a DNA test. And I am surprised that she didn’t contract aids… That thing is all over the place.’ ‘Don’t you get aids if you have sex with a monkey?’ Abdul inquired. ‘What the fuck is wrong with you? You get aids if the person you are having sex with has aids and you are not wearing a condom. Or if you are sharing needles to shoot up. Which is why hash and marijuana is good’ Alex impatiently explained. ‘By the way, did you have sex with Paula?’ Alex curiously inquired. ‘Yeah… Despite everything’ Abdul muttered as he silently blushed. ‘Well, did you wear a condom?’ Alex questioned with a raised eyebrow. ‘Why? Should I have?’ ‘Didn’t you just hear me say that aids spreads through unprotected sex? What is wrong with you? In all likelihood you probably already have aids’ Alex moved away and sat on the other end of the couch. ‘No. I am sure she doesn’t have aids’ Abdul defensively replied, but the seed of doubt had been planted in his fertile imagination. And he was beginning to worry. ‘I am sure that she would have told you right off the bat when you met her, Abu, I have aids. Will you still sleep with me?’ Alex spoke in a falsetto. ‘Fuck off! Like you always carry a condom around with you’ ‘I do. There are always three of them in my wallet’ Alex self righteously exclaimed. ‘You do not’ ‘I do’ ‘Fuck off! What else did the letter say?’ Abdul inquired shaking his head and trying to brush past the image of having sex with a monkey from his mind and him having aids. ‘Apart from the fact that Janice Wallace wasn’t Frank’s daughter, and the fact that the writer was spending his time in Victoria state prison, charged with culpable homicide of a Chinese man, assault and damage to property. Nothing much’ Alex replied irritated that Abdul wasn’t getting the full picture and had such a flippant attitude towards casual sex. ‘So where did you go last night?’ Abdul inquired. ‘Wait… Before that, I need you to tell you how I found out your victim, Megan Wallace’s mobile phone and her lover’ ‘How the fuck did you manage to do that?’ Abdul inquired as he looked on at Alex incredulously. ‘And before you ask, NO! It is not the same guy who signed the letter with the letter J.’

12 Alex kept studying the postal stamp on the envelope and the lone red dot marking Victoria State Prison. There was something he had read or seen early in the night which he kept trying to remember, he just didn’t know what it was. Not till he picked up the phone records and looked at the customer information. And there it was, written under the customer name, Megan Wallace and the contact address, Walden Avenue, Belmont, was a fifteen digit long number. Something about the numbers got Alex thinking furiously as he put some clothes on, picked up his satchel and headed to the one person who he knew would have the answer for his questions.

‘Who had the answers and what numbers?’ Abdul interrupted Alex again. ‘I am not going to disclose the identity of one of my customers. But for the record, let it be known that he is a brilliant hacker. He is also the guy who gave me the two mobile phones as payment.’ Alex smiled as Abdul looked on incredulously. Abdul wasn’t sure how to react to the fact the mobile phone he had gotten so used to was given to Alex as drug money. Alex continued, ‘And those numbers are something called IMSI numbers’ Alex began explaining. ‘IMSI?’ ‘Give me your phone’ Alex stuck his hand out towards Abdul who readily handed it over. Abdul watched as Alex pulled the phone apart, took out the battery and took out a small red fingernail sized plastic. ‘This is a subscriber identification module. And you see these string of numbers…’ Abdul nodded as Alex pointed to the digits. ‘These numbers are what is called as International Mobile Subscriber Identity. This is what the telephone companies use to find out which network the caller is using. So…’ ‘The man you went to see found out the last location from where the last phone call was made.’ Abdul completed Alex’s sentence. ‘Yes. But it is lot more complex than that.’ Alex tried explaining intricacy involved in solving the particular knotty problem. ‘Spare me the lecture and just tell me what you found out’ Abdul impatiently urged Alex. ‘Well, so using black magic’ Alex sarcastically replied, ‘we found out the last location from where the call was made to Megan Wallace’s number’ Alex explained as Abdul looked on, ignoring his beer which was sat sweating on the coffee table. ‘I guess you tried calling her number and then got the whole subscriber not reachable message and the other was a number registered to a Felix Dancy, an aspiring actor currently working as a mannequin in one of those high end underwear shops.’ ‘Where is the landline?’ Abdul inquired as he urgently got off the couch and looked around the living room. ‘You want to call him in for questioning?’ Alex inquired. ‘Well, yeah!’ Abdul replied like it was the most logical thing. ‘Well, that won’t be necessary’ Alex replied as he leaned back and finished his bottle of beer and reached out for Abdul’s half empty bottle of beer. ‘Now that you are standing, get me a bottle of beer. And put some in freezer.’ Alex replied. ‘You went and questioned him?’ ‘Yeah! And I visited the Victoria State Prison too’ Alex added with a sly smile. ‘How the fuck did you manage to do that?’ Abdul yelled from the kitchen as he picked up the bottles of beer and put them inside the freezer before getting two bottles of beer, one for Alex and the other for himself. He was after all paying half the money for the booze. ‘You know how you lost your badge last year?’ Alex sniggered as he questioned Abdul. ‘Yeah! I got shit from Egan for that. Sonofabitch even docked couple of days pay because of that’ Abdul replied as he placed Alex’s bottle of beer on the coaster on the coffee table. ‘You fucking didn’t!’ Abdul stared in disbelief. Alex laughed, chocking on his beer. ‘Well I fucking hope you choke and die’ Abdul cursed. ‘You know that is a crime… Impersonating an officer’ Abdul replied shaking his head. ‘You are fucking mental! You really are. Why wouldn’t you just tell me all this before and let me do my job?’ ‘I was bored’ Alex exclaimed, ‘Plus I can’t let you have all the fun’ Alex chuckled. ‘You are fucking mental. That’s what you are mental’ ‘Well, you already said that. And, don’t you want to finish hearing my story? And you will be pleased that I have a plan’ Alex replied. ‘To do what? Get me into more trouble?’ ‘To catch the killer’ Alex replied with a mischievous glint in his eyes. Abdul looked at him curiously. ‘First finish your story before you tell me your genius plan’

By the time Alex’s client, the man who was helping him figure out the fifteen digit long IMSI number, the sun was well over the horizon. When Alex reached home, he saw the steam still wafting out of Abdul’s bathroom but no sign of his flatmate. Alex quickly jumped into the shower, dressed and armed with Abdul’s detective badge, he headed over to Felix Dancy’s work place. By the time Alex’s taxi navigated through the Lego-land of cars waiting for a parking spot, the time was well past nine. Alex was the first customer to walk in through the heavy and expensive looking glass door. ‘Good morning!’ The young shop assistant beamed at him cheerfully, ‘Does Felix Dancy work here?’ Alex demanded as he quickly flipped open and closed the police badge. ‘Did he do something?’ The girl questioned as she nervously pointed to a tall, tanned man dressed in bright fluorescent green underwear. ‘Felix Dancy?’ ‘Yeah?’ The bronzed body dressed in the ridiculously short and brightly coloured underpants, growled as he broke his stance and turned around. ‘Detective Abdul Rizvi’ Alex flashed the badge again, ‘Need you to come with me to the station’ Alex bluffed. No sooner had the light coming from the shop window and glinted off the police badge, Alex saw the hostile body language melt down to that of a guilty cat. ‘But… but…Why? I didn’t do anything?’ Felix cowered. ‘You can explain everything at the station. You are wanted for the murder of Megan Wallace’ Alex sternly grabbed the man’s naked shoulder. ‘I don’t know anybody called Megan… I have never heard of her before’ Felix replied. ‘Come to the station and then we will see if you can remember something. Everybody remembers once they are behind a locked cell. You will remember and you will talk’ Alex dug his hand harder into the man’s shoulders. The bronze was beginning run down the side of the man’s armpits. ‘Listen I will tell you everything you want to know. I swear I didn’t do shit. Please… I will lose my job if the manager sees me talking to you’ Felix offered as he nervously looked around the shop to see if the manager was around. ‘Alright! Spill it’ Alex commanded. ‘Nancy? I am going to take my break now’ Felix hurriedly informed the shop girl and reached to get a robe to cover his naked torso and motioned to Alex to follow him to the back of the store. ‘Go on stud… Tell me’ Alex questioned as he searched for a rag to wipe the bronze off his hand. ‘Couple of weeks back, a man approached me’ Felix nervously paced around the room. ‘What man?’ Alex replied as he slid his palm against the edge of the door. ‘I don’t know… I was heading back home and he said he was a casting agent and was looking for some new faces for a movie he was working on. He gave me his card.’ Felix replied as he searched his pocket for cigarettes. ‘What was his name?’ ‘He said his name was John’ ‘John what?’ Alex excitedly questioned, remembered the initials which had signed at the end of the letter. ‘J.S’ ‘He didn’t say and I didn’t ask’ ‘How did he look?’ ‘He was about my height. He was bald but he was wearing a blonde wig. I could tell. And he was wearing an expensive looking suit and he was wearing a cravat. Which I thought was weird in that weather. It was blooming hot. But I figured that’s how casting directors usually dressed. He most certainly looked the part.’ ‘Then what happened?’ Alex inquired. ‘Well, he said that I would have to audition. And the director was looking at making something realistic. I asked him who the director was, but he said that till I had not passed the audition and signed a non-disclosure agreement with the agency he couldn’t reveal.’ Felix explained as he furiously puffed on his cigarette, his hand trembled nervously with fear. ‘Did he give you his card?’ Alex inquired. ‘Yeah he did. But except the name of the agency and his first name there wasn’t anything else on it.’ ‘What happened then?’ ‘He told me to visit his office the next day. I thought it was weird that the office was in an apartment complex. But he explained that this was a makeshift office he had hired in the city. Then he told me what my role was.’ ‘Where is this office?’ ‘It was one of those new skyrises. Think it was called Ridgemond Height on…’ ‘Mezrich street’ Alex finished Felix’s sentence. Felix nodded as he crushed the cigarette under his ballerina shoe.

‘Hold on a second… I know that address.’ Abdul exclaimed loudly from the kitchen as he pulled out another beer from himself. ‘Yeah! That’s the place where Frank Wallace is staying right now with a friend. The two numbskulls you have taking turns trying to keep an eye on him are shit at their job.’ Alex added. ‘It’s always the husband innit?’ Abdul drunkenly muttered as he slumped down on the couch and watched Alex light up a joint. ‘No!’ Alex replied as he passed the joint to Abdul. ‘No?’ Abdul inquired, confused. ‘No’ Alex replied as he loudly exhaled.

13 ‘What was your role?’ Alex probed as Felix continued pacing up and down and nervously trying to light his cigarette which hung precariously off his lips. ‘I was supposed to play this hot shot, you know rich tastes, dresses like a dandy, proper player and I was supposed to pick up this woman. The man said that the woman’s name was Megan but she would also be playing a part. When I said if I could meet her before the audition and you know probably get our lines and chemistry worked out, he said that wouldn’t be a good idea. He kept saying that the director was looking at making a realistic movie, and so there would be camera placed all over the place without the rest of the people in the scene knowing that they were being filmed.’ Felix explained. ‘What happened next?’ ‘He gave me some clothes to wear, business cards, the whole shebang you know… He told me to go get ready and go to the bar down the road’ ‘Which road?’ ‘Down the road, where his office was, there is this rich bar called Oyster filled with all those rich snooty powerful people.’ ‘Yeah I know that one… What time was this all happening?’ ‘About seven- seven thirty. I had just finished my shift here. I thought I would get some time to prepare for my role and everything. I didn’t know I would be told to go and chat up some woman at a bar as a part of my audition. Or at least that’s what I was thinking at that point’ Felix was getting his confidence back. His hand had stopped shaking and he had stopped sweating. His torso was still glistening with a oily film of sweat and bronze. He would have to reapply his makeup. ‘Tell me what happened after you reached the bar’ Alex probed. ‘I saw the woman just like the man said I would. So I went and casually chatted her up. You know offered to buy her a drink, the man had given me a thick wad of cash. And he told me to flash it around. And I was doing my best to fit in with the rest of the crowd. I told her my name was Nick. Before the bartender got us our drinks, her hands were crawling up my legs you know. And I was thinking that I had lost the part. No woman behaves that slutty but she was. But there was something about the way she looked at me you know. Like a prize buffalo in a ranch. I knew she was taking things bit over the top but she was gorgeous for a thirty year old woman you know’ Felix let a smile play on his lips as he replayed the scene. ‘How old are you Felix?’ Alex questioned. ‘Twenty four’ Felix moderately replied. ‘Then you had sex with her?’ ‘Yes. I didn’t want to do it but it was hard for me to say no to her you know. But please don’t tell this to Nancy. She will be devastated. We are planning on getting married soon’ Felix whispered as he cautiously looked behind Alex’s shoulder to see if Nancy was overhearing their conversation. ‘Did you wear a condom?’ Alex inquired.

‘You did not?’ Abdul exclaimed as he got up from his couch. He had decided that he had enough to drink and needed to get himself a cup of coffee if he was going to sit through this long drawn narration from Alex. ‘I did not what?’ Alex inquired, puzzled. ‘You did not give him the whole use protection when you are having sex speech did you?’ ‘No I did not’ Alex jumped a bit too much as he defended himself. Abdul stared at him before shaking his head and walking to the kitchen. He should have known better than to have questioned Alex. Of course he had given him the speech. What was he thinking?

‘What did you do after that?’ Alex looked behind his shoulders to see what Felix was anxiously looking at.

‘The man said that before I left, I should give her one of the business cards he had given me and told her to call me on the number printed on the card’ ‘You went to see the man after that?’ Alex inquired. ‘I did. But he wasn’t there. The whole apartment was stripped clean. It was like nobody had stayed there’ ‘Hard to believe something like that now Felix’ ‘I swear… I swear there was nobody there. And couple of weeks later, I saw the news about the woman’s death in the papers. They didn’t show her picture, but I knew it was her and that I was being set up. I swear… I didn’t do it’ Felix mumbled, his eyes filled up, threatening to spill over in case they were needed to prove his innocence. ‘Alright Felix… I believe you. I am going to let you go now… But I will be back to ask you more questions if the need arises alright?’ Alex commanded. ‘Whatever you say man…’ Felix gratefully wiped away his tears and pulled out the squeegee bottle of bronzer from his robe and started applying under his arms and over his shoulders.

‘So let me get this straight…’ Abdul interrupted Alex as he walked up stirring sugar in his cup of black coffee. ‘Yes. The man Frank Wallace believes his wife was cheating on him was an actor for hire. And the man the wife was spending all the time talking over the phone was not the actor.’ Alex explained. ‘You know how confusing that sounds?’ Abdul remarked as Alex chuckled and nodded his head as he sipped from his nearly empty bottle of beer. ‘So you went to that address in Mezrich street after speaking with this kid?’ Abdul inquired. ‘Nope!’ Alex smiled slyly, ‘I went to Victoria State Prison. I needed to get some information before I went checking on that address’

Victoria state prison was one of the few state run prisons which had been earmarked to become a model prison system. The prison had been sanctioned a huge grant to modernize its facilities. A number of non profit organizations were helping to rehabilitate the prisoners to seamlessly fit back into the harsh judgemental society. Alex repeated his stunt with Abdul’s police badge and had managed to gain access to the prison’s record room. The room was filled with files haphazardly stuffed in cartons. He stood marvelling at the sheer number of files which stood front of him like an angry mob, as he tried to find a way to sort and sieve through the ocean of paper. ‘Hello? May I help you?’ He heard a young woman’s voice come from behind one of the shelves stacked ceiling high with cartons. ‘Hello?’ Alex replied cautiously. ‘Hey… Can I help you?’ A young woman dressed smartly in black uniform, her hair cut short and her face ballooning out at her jowls, stood in front of him. ‘Hi… Yes… I was… uh…’ Alex fumbled for words. The woman wasn’t good looking but neither was there something extremely adorable about her. And something quaint about the way she spoke. ‘I… uh… What?’ She snapped. ‘Sorry… I was looking for a particular suspect in connection to one of the cases I am working on. I would be really grateful if you could help me find his file’ Alex explained as he nervously looked around him to emphasis his point. ‘What’s the suspect’s name?’ she questioned with authority. ‘I… uh… I don’t have his name. Just his initials. J as in January and S as in Surprise.’ ‘And?’ ‘Well he was arrested for armed robbery, culpable homicide about sixteen years ago. It is quite possible that he is still here in the jail or he may have received a pardon sometime this year.’ Alex nervously explained. There was something about the way the woman looked at him that made Alex extremely nervous. ‘If he was released last year than we might have his record on computer. But if it was anytime before that then you are on your own…’ The woman shrugged in a noncommittal way. ‘That would be most kind of you officer…’ Alex let the sentence hanging in air. ‘Moore. Merriam Moore. What did you say your name was?’ Merriam turned around and extended her hand to shake his. ‘Al… Detective Inspector Abdul Rizvi’ Alex corrected himself just in time as she looked suspiciously at him. ‘You don’t look like Abdul Rizvi to me’ she quipped as she tried to hide her smile and walked in front of him, leading the way. ‘Sorry’ Alex apologized, unsure why he was doing so.

‘You have a crush?’ Abdul quizzed as he stopped himself from coughing the coffee out of his nose. ‘No I don’t!’ Alex replied, offended. ‘Yes you do!’ Abdul teased. ‘No I fucking don’t alright! She was you know… bit intimidating’ Alex tried explaining as his pale white cheeks turned a bright shade of crimson. ‘Merriam and Alex sitting on a tree… K-I-S-S-I-N-G’ Abdul started singing the juvenile song, the curse of many schoolyard friendships. ‘Fuck off! You can go figure this shit out on your own’ Alex got up huffily to replace his empty bottle of beer. ‘Sorry! I am sorry… I was just taking your mickey’ Abdul apologized. ‘And just for the record, I do not like her. She was fucking intimidating’ Alex yelled from the kitchen. ‘I said I am sorry… Now finish telling me your story’ Abdul yelled back.

She switched on the computer and waited for it to show the beloved log in screen patiently. They both silently stared at the screen, unsure of what to say to each other. The log in screen finally presented itself as saviour. ‘What did you say the man was arrested for?’ She questioned as she double clicked on an icon. ‘Armed robbery, culpable homicide among others’ Alex offered the information.
The hourglass teasingly took its own sweet time to turn on its head repeatedly before deciding to fill the screen with names. ‘Okay, so this is the entire list of people who were released in the last year arrested for armed robbery’ ‘One thousand and forty five?’ Alex read out the number in surprise, ‘I need to update myself on these numbers’ Alex muttered to himself.
‘And if we now refine the search with the additional culpable homicide… we get’ Merriam spoke waiting for the hourglass to do its thing. ‘Those are a lot of people carrying weapons and trying to rob liquor stores.’ Alex remarked, trying to make small talk. ‘You should see the number of people who get added sentences because they tried to steal some idiot’s identity. That is the future of crime’ She replied prophetically. ‘Identity theft?’ Alex inquired, curious. ‘Yeah! Apparently couple of the prisoners have been setting up some fat bank accounts for them to retire once they get out of here. They need something to look forward to you know. Some of them get real attached to their cells and will do just about anything to get back inside’ She remarked knowledgably. ‘Right… Eight hundred and forty seven names. And you said all you got were the initials, J and S right?’ ‘Yup!’ Alex stared at the list of names mesmerized suddenly recognizing the need to have all the files lying around in carton boxes which surrounded him. ‘Eleven names’ Merriam replied as she scrolled down the list. Suddenly an idea stuck Alex. ‘Can you further minimize this list and see if there are any names in this list who had their sentences added because of this identity theft?’ Alex suggested more than inquired. ‘Sure’ Merriam turned her head back to the screen. ‘One name… Jack Summers. Arrested in 1983 for armed robbery, culpable homicide, two counts of possession. He was warned and then had six months added to his sentence for attempted identity theft. But… He was released eight months back because of his deteriorating health. The report here says that he was suffering from cancer. No forwarding address or contact number.’ ‘Thank you Merriam. You have been wonderful. Thank you’ Alex bowed before hurriedly walking out of the room.

14 ‘Finally we have a lead… A good solid lead’ Abdul satisfactorily exclaimed. ‘I think we have more than that’ Alex remarked. ‘What do you mean?’ ‘I mean that we may have our murderer… But… We need a plan before you can do kicking down his door and cuffing him’ Alex explained. ‘Eh?’ ‘Jack Summers was given a pardon because he was sick.’ Alex tried explaining by giving Alex a hint. ‘Yeah… Apparently he is suffering from cancer…’ Abdul spoke, slowly, as he tried to get what Alex was driving at, ‘Which means he underwent chem-something’ ‘Chemotherapy’ Alex informed, ‘And one of chemotherapy’s side effects is hair loss.’ ‘Which would explain why the man didn’t have a single spot of hair on his body’ Abdul mused. ‘Yeah… Which is why I was trying to confirm if you were sure about that’ ‘Hold on… Hold on one second’ Abdul interrupted as he placed his coffee mug on the table and held up his hands asking Alex to pause for sometime. ‘So, this Jack Summers, had sexual relations with Megan Wallace. Megan got pregnant and realized that she couldn’t carry on with her lifestyle the way she dreamed about with Jack. So dropped the ball on him, told Frank that he was the child’s father. Jack gets out of prison and then kills Megan and then finds his daughter whoring herself which only enrages him more and in a fit of rage, he kills her.’ ‘Sounds about right’ Alex nodded as Abdul surmised everything they knew so far. ‘But…’ ‘But?’ ‘All these character descriptions which the witnesses claim of Jack Summers, says that he looked like a rich man. You know fancy clothes, money to buy mobile phone, to hire an actor to do his bidding. To rent an office’ Abdul raised questions which seemed to be troubling him. ‘You don’t know what identity theft is right?’ Alex inquired as Abdul shook his head. ‘Identity theft is when you literally steal somebody’s life from them. Their name, credit card details, employment history, driver’s license. Just about anything which you use to identify yourself. You can do whatever you want and somebody else is made to suffer the consequences’ ‘That’s clever… So he could have just about any number of aliases.’ Abdul nodded, visibly impressed. ‘And so it doesn’t make sense to put out an APB for him. And all the evidence we have against him is all circumstantial anyway’ ‘What does APB mean?’ Alex inquired ‘All point bulletin. All the cops manning the bus stations, railway stations, airports, they look out for the suspect.’ ‘That won’t help. He is not going anywhere’ Alex remarked. That’s what I said’ Abdul looked irritatedly at Alex, ‘So, what’s the plan?’ Abdul looked at his watch. The time was five to seven. Abdul could see the sharp rays of the sun trying to sneak past the blinds on the window. ‘Like you said, we can’t arrest him’ Alex mused. ‘We?’ ‘You know what I mean…’ Alex irritatedly replied as he thought of a plan, ‘The only way to get him is for us to suss things out of him.’ ‘And how do you suggest we do that?’ Abdul inquired as he stood up to stretch his body. ‘Too bad that I don’t have sodium pentathol or amyl nitrate’ Alex quipped and then chuckled at his own joke. ‘What fuck is that?’ Abdul inquired, trying to form a plan of action in his mind. ‘Truth serum compounds’ Alex explained with a straight face. ‘You can’t fucking use truth serums. They are illegal.’ Abdul replied, exasperatedly. ‘Something still doesn’t fit… the story doesn’t sound right you know’ Alex mused. ‘Shut the fuck up for a second. I know what we have to do… Go get dressed’ Abdul commanded as he reached for the phone and dialled Mathew’s number. ‘Excuses, excuses… Illegal it seems!’ Alex muttered as he got off the couch and headed to his room. ‘Hello? Hi, can I speak with Samuels? Rizvi. Abdul Rizvi.’ Abdul spoke into the phone. Alex stood in front of his room and mimicked him, ‘Rizvi. Abdul Rizvi… buhbuhbuhbuh’. Abdul widened his eyes and tapped on his wrist watch.

‘Sorry I couldn’t get here earlier. I woke up when you called me up’ Mathew apologized as he opened the passenger side door for Abdul. ‘It’s alright… It’s a good thing that you didn’t tell Frank Wallace about his daughter.’ ‘Yeah! Sorry, I was just really tired after all the driving yesterday’ Mathew apologized as he mistook Abdul’s serious tone to be that of sarcasm. ‘Morning! You must be Samuels’ Alex grinned as he stretched his hand from the backseat. ‘He is my flat mate’ Abdul explained to a confused Mathew. ‘You called for backup?’ Abdul questioned in between as he told Mathew everything he knew. ‘Yeah! They said they will reach in another half an hour.’ Mathew spoke through gritted teeth as he pulled hard at his steering and turned sharp into a corner. Swerving past the early morning traffic like a deranged lunatic. ‘Don’t forget about the solar eclipse’ Alex yelled over the top of the tyres screeching, wanting to be part of the conversation which was happing in the front. They reached Ridgemond Heights in record time. ‘Right, the suspect maybe armed, so proceed cautiously. And you’ Abdul looked at Alex, ‘You stay behind me. This might get bit…’ ‘Dangerous?’ Alex grinned. His eyes gleamed with excitement. The three of them proceeded cautiously towards the door marked 5701A. Abdul and Mathew looked at each other, standing on either side of the doorway. Just the way they were taught in the academy. ‘Jack Summers. Police! Open the door…’ Abdul yelled, but before he could finish his command, he heard loud frantic noises. ‘Don’t!’ They heard the man yell from inside the room. ‘I have a gun’. They could hear the sound of another man whimpering. ‘We just want to talk to you man…’ Mathew yelled back. ‘Get the fuck away from the door or this son of a bitch gets it in his head’ Jack yelled, Abdul and Mathew looked at each other. They both noticed the quiver in the man’s voice. They silently counted down to three before they both stood in front of the door in unison and kicked hard at the lock on the door. The combined force from the kick was no match to the lock on the door. As they rushed through the door, their weapons raised and pointing furiously around the room. ‘Don’t… Don’t come close to me’ Jack Summers stood in front of them in his undershirt and boxers, a gun pointed to his head. His eyes sunk deep inside his skull, his bald scalp wrinkled, his muscles sagged resignedly. Frank Wallace was struggling in the corner. He was tied to a chair, his mouth was covered with duct tape and he was bleeding profusely through his nose. Alex stood wait outside the door clutching his satchel, cautiously examining the situation inside the room. ‘Listen man…’ Abdul spoke soothingly as he lowered his weapon and raised his hand to show that his didn’t carry any other weapon, ‘No one has to get hurt here’. ‘You don’t understand… Don’t come to me else I will shoot this motherfucker’ Jack yelled as he pointed his gun at Frank who only cried harder. ‘We know about the cancer Jack… We know about Janice… We found her body yesterday’ Abdul continued to speak softly as he slowly stepped closer to Jack. The mention of his daughter’s name made Jack turn the gun back and pointed at his temple ‘Then you will know that I have nothing left to live for’ Jack’s thumb pulled back the hammer. Abdul lunged forward trying to tackle Jack and the shot rang out. The bang echoed around the room punctured by Jack’s painful scream. Mathew immediately stepped in front and kicked away the gun which lay close to Jack on the floor. Abdul stood up and saw a flying ninja star stuck deep Jack’s wrist. ‘Good thing that I have been practicing with those hira-shuriken’ Alex paused long enough to remove the duct tape over Frank Wallace’s mouth, ‘Other it would have been your head’. ‘Are you fucking crazy?’ Abdul yelled, trying to shake the shock of being fired at. Mathew slapped the handcuffs on Jack Summer’s bleeding wrist. ‘And where the fuck is the back up?’ Abdul yelled at Mathew who just shrugged and looked out through the window. ‘I don’t think they are going to be here anytime soon’ Alex remarked as he peered out of the window and saw the skies darkening while pulling away at the knots which held Frank Wallace in the chair. ‘Get him some water and here take my phone and call for an EMT’ Abdul threw his mobile phone towards Mathew. ‘Jack Summers! You are nicked’ Abdul spoke to the bleeding handcuffed man lying on the floor. Darkness enveloped the city as the moon teasingly held the sun’s way.

15 ‘Go on Jack… Tell us your story.’ Abdul sat down on the couch with his nth cup of coffee. Mathew had finished bandaging Jack’s bleeding arm and had found something to eat. Alex in the meantime had finished brewing a pot of coffee. Mathew was applying tincture on Frank Wallace’s wounds. Apart from a broken nose and bruises on his naked torso, Frank was doing alright. Jack kept mum. ‘Fine, let me tell you a story and you can correct me’ Abdul looked at Alex who sat next to him. ‘You were banging Megan. She comes and tells you that she is pregnant and she is not sure if it is your kid. And then she breaks up with you. You try to rob a liquor store. Get nicked. And then you find out that dear old Megan has gone and married the rich dweeb Frank Wallace. You write letters to her. But she doesn’t reply. You are hurt and angry. And you decided to kill her and then go searching for Janice who you think is your daughter and then you find her whoring herself out just like her mother and so you fuck her and then kill her!’ Jack continued to hold his silence. ‘Who gave you those credit card numbers?’ Alex inquired as he stared down at Jack. ‘I don’t know… We paid the money to whoever was on library duty and he would then get the numbers sent to him in a mail’ ‘Who gave you those credit card numbers Jack?’ Alex repeated his question. Jack continued to keep quiet and avoided staring into Alex’s eyes. ‘Abdul, I think you were right’ Alex replied with a smile as he leaned back in the sofa. It was beginning to get bright outside. ‘About what?’ Abdul inquired, confused, as he looked at Alex. ‘It is always the husband!’ Alex replied. ‘What? That is absolute bullshit!’ Frank yelled but something about the way his voice quivered and his trembling hands didn’t present a convincing image to Abdul and Mathew who stood up from the stool, his hand on the gun holstered to his belt. ‘You see, Mr. Wallace had for long known that Janice was not his daughter. And he was getting pretty sick and tired of Megan’s indiscretions. But he didn’t mind any of that as long as he could carry on the racket he was running.’ Alex explained. Frank made a lunge towards Mathew. Mathew stepped aside and stuck Frank on his neck with a karate chop. Frank coughed and tried to get up and fight, but Mathew was quick on his feet and had him in a headlock. Abdul jumped and slapped the handcuffs on Frank. ‘Frank Wallace was fired from his job because the company had found that Frank was stealing customer information and selling it to people who had plenty of money to spare and were in desperate need of fake identities. In short…’ Alex opened a new pack of cigarettes and offered to both Abdul and Samuel, who declined. ‘Criminals. Waltson Computer Systems, the company where Frank Wallace worked in, was also the same company which had won the contract to install computer systems in the prison and help the prison to digitize its records.’ ‘Why didn’t the company just give him up to the police?’ Mathew questioned, curious. ‘The company couldn’t afford a scandal. Not with the public already scared about the Y2K bug. Going public that one of their own had stolen vital information from the system would bankrupt the company. Isn’t that right Mr. Frank?’ Frank grimaced and snarled. ‘Jack had been in touch with Frank ever since he had got out of prison. You see, people tend to learn special skills in prison. Jack began blackmailing Frank to give him the last few cards he had kept for himself, threatening to blow the whistle if he didn’t comply with Jack’s demands. He needed the money to get chemotherapy. In the meantime Jack was keeping a close watch on Megan. She hadn’t replied to any of his letters. But he was sure that if he showed her that he had the money and could give her the life she craved for then she would run back to him. So’ Alex paused as he searched for a place where he could tap the ash. He found a bronze statue of a woman sitting cross legged, holding a baby suckling on her tit, and tapped the ash in the woman’s lap. ‘So Jack sent an anonymous tip to the Frank’s company. The company acted swiftly and fired Frank. Jack finally approached Megan, but she didn’t want anything to somebody who had been in prison. Isn’t that right Jack?’ Alex questioned as he blew out smoke. ‘That fucking cunt!’ Jack finally broke his silence. ‘She wouldn’t recognize me. She threatened to call the cops on me. She wouldn’t even return my calls. She told me that Janice hated me and Janice thought that I was the scum of the earth. She wanted money, she wanted to be pampered, she wanted to be treated like a fucking princess. She looked at me with disgust. So I hired that shitfuck and told him to pretend to be some big shot. I told him to give her my number. She would call me and coo. She told me she wanted to suck my cock. That fucking whore! She deserved to die!’ Jack screamed out his confession, his mouth frothing in anger, sweat running down his. ‘I carved her up real good didn’t I?’ Jack looked up with a maniacal look in his eyes and a sinister smile spread across his face. ‘Why did you kill Janice?’ Abdul questioned. ‘I am sick. The doctors tell me I don’t have much time left. All I wanted was to see and speak to my daughter. I told her I was her father. But she just thought that I was some loser trying to get into her pants. I told her that I just want to talk. But she wouldn’t listen. She just wouldn’t listen. She thought it was all one big game. I couldn’t believe that my daughter was behaving like a fucking slut.’ ‘So you killed her? You fucking monster!’ Frank yelled before breaking down. Suddenly they heard the loud lyrical sirens and saw the fast approaching the flashing lights of the backup. ‘Why would Frank come and seek shelter here, with the man who killed his wife and his daughter?’ Mathew questioned. ‘Because Frank didn’t have anybody else to go. He believed that he could branch out and use Jack’s experience to set up his own business.’ Alex explained as Abdul went out to yell at the back up team for being delayed. ‘And he didn’t know that Jack was the one who killed his wife and daughter?’ Mathew quizzed. ‘If he did, then we would have walked into a room with two dead bodies’ Alex prophesied.

As the sirens and the flashy lights faded out around the corner, Abdul turned towards Alex. ‘When the fuck did you figure the whole thing about the identity theft?’ Abdul questioned. ‘You didn’t let me finish the story. After I left the prison, I came here and saw that the flat was registered under Frank Wallace’s name. Which I thought was weird, so I followed that lead and then the pieces of the jigsaw just fell in place’ Alex smiled as he explained. ‘When the fuck did you learn to throw those sherikyuns whatever’ ‘Hira - Shuriken’ Alex corrected him, ‘I thought I ought to carry some weapon with me you know. Being a drug dealer is dangerous work.’ ‘So you fucking pick up a fucking ninja flying stars?’ Abdul shook his head resignedly. ‘By the way, the drug dealing has gotten boring.’ Alex mumbled as he hailed a taxi. ‘So… what are you going to do now?’ Abdul questioned, afraid what the answer might be as the taxi pulled up next to them. ‘I spoke with Commissioner Egan and he thinks that it would be a good idea if I consult on some of the cases you guys are working on’ Alex replied with a cheeky smile playing on his lips. ‘Oh fuck no!’ Abdul moaned as they got into the cab.

THE END