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Word Count : 3200

Song - Saawan Bairi | Commando |

Play it while reading their scene.

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24  |  Tell Me, Who Are You?

Present

10th May 2023 | 1700 hrs. |

"Excluding today, we have only twenty-one days more to get hold of the syndicate." Raghav trailed while they ambled out of the stately entranceway of the SIT headquarters.

Hinduja nodded her head. "Yes." She slowly descended down the stairs as he followed alongside her. "The syndicate will execute the last five abductions on May 31st, so that gives us exactly twenty-one days from tomorrow, that is, exactly three weeks, to solve this case. In elementary terms, our deadline is May 31st, so it's either we do it or we die."

Getting down the last step of the cemented perron, they started walking towards the parking lot.

"I don't understand; how is the syndicate operating so immaculately? I mean, we haven't found even a single clue that was left behind by them other than the two profiles and the patterns that you have helped us with, in the last few days. Not coming across even a single piece of evidence; how is this even possible? Could this case be one of those so-called 'perfect crimes' perhaps?" He let out his thoughts as they both stepped inside the parking lot. "Is the investigation moving forward in the wrong direction?"

Hinduja chuckled.

"These serial abductions are not a set of perfect crimes, sir. Rather, they are a set of thoroughly planned patterned crimes. And then again, we have the intent and the motive also." Reaching their respective cars, which were coincidentally parked abreast, she supported her hand against the bonnet of her Scorpio.

It appeared to her that the DCP looked a bit perplexed.

"Okay, how about I simplify it for you? Let suppose you have caught a disease that you are not aware of; what would you do?" She asked.

"Go to the hospital." He answered, his eyes intently peering at her.

"Then?" She probed further while folding her arms across her chest.

"Visit a doctor." Came his instant reply.

"Then?" The shoulders of her tailored black blazer straightened as the silver cufflinks affixed to the sleeve ends of her white shirt gleamed under the rays of the setting sun.

"Isn't that quite clear? Of course, the doctor will first ask me for all the symptoms. Then he may ask me to go through a few tests, and then after the results of those tests arrive, I guess he will diagnose the condition." He replied as the emotion of incertitude took over his countenance.

She smiled. "And after that?"

"After that, he will map out the prognosis and then prescribe the medicines. He will also try to undermine the cause of the condition, if I am not wrong---which I guess is the standard procedure. Isn't it?"

"Exactly; that's the standard procedure, sir." She brought her left wrist up to assess the time reflecting on her watch and then looked at him again. "If I were to elucidate it to you in much simpler terms, the investigation of a serial crime is akin to a doctor's diagnosis and treatment plan for a patient's health condition. Unless and until a doctor finds out all the symptoms and signs of the disease from the patient—unless and until he gets the results of all the tests he prescribes for the patient to go through—he won't be able to make a proper diagnosis of the condition, which will eventually lead on to no treatment plan and subsequently no proper prescription of medications as well."

She untangled her arms from across her chest to clasp them behind her back. "In a similar fashion, unless and until we find out each and every pattern and correlation connecting the abductions of all the victims till now, we won't be able to get a break-through in this case. Unless and until we understand the motive of the syndicate behind these abductions—unless we understand what the leader of the syndicate wants, what his intent in actuality is—believe me, we won't be able to decode and crack this case, because from my perspective, I can guarantee you about one thing: we haven't even come across forty percent of all the hunting patterns of the syndicate that are involved in this case."

He thoughtfully nodded his head after the initial shock he felt himself going through.

"This is a battle where our weapons are our minds, sir—not evidence. So, no, the investigation is not progressing in the wrong direction. It's just that we still haven't discovered the path that we need to take next." She concluded.

"I get you." He agreed.

She nodded with a faint smile.

"Alright then, I won't take much of your time. Go home." He said, while unbolting the driver's side door of his car and getting inside it.

"Yes, sir." She, too, mirrored his actions.

Cranking up the engine, she drove the Scorpio straight out of the parking lot as she saw the DCP's SUV navigating its way out of the main gate from her peripheral vision.

As her Scorpio made its way out of the massive exit gate too, she grasped the intense traffic on the main road. Taking a clean left turn, she drove the car straight through it for the next five minutes.

Just as she passed a police checkpoint, her keen eyes noticed a familiar lean figure garbed in casual black assembles lurking around on the footpath. The phalanges of her left hand adjusted her glasses while she pulled on the brakes to stop the black Mahindra Scorpio right in front of her assistant's known frame.

Lowering down the glass pane of the passenger side window, she directed, "Get in."

And so he did. "Jai Hind, Madam!"

Acknowledging his greeting, she accelerated the car straight through the busy green corridor of Kalindi Chowk.

"What is the matter?" She asked, her gaze fixated on the road.

"Chittaranjan Sahu was found dead in the prison around 45 days ago. Sources say that a fight broke out between him and some of his cellmates, and they later stabbed him to death. The department hid this all along so that the officers who were in charge that night wouldn't get punished for their negligence. I just came across this information today."

"What?!" She glanced at him in blatant shock.

"There's more." He said this while drumming his fingers repeatedly on his right thigh.

"What else?"

"Guru Surya's brutally tortured body was found behind the bushes adjacent to the tracks of the Fahimuddin Railway Station in the early hours of April 19. The local police weren't initially aware of his identity, but once they got to know about him, they inferred that it could possibly be the work of one of his rivals. But most importantly, his.. his.." He hesitated to let out the upcoming terms sitting at the tip of his tongue.

"Out with it, Bakhtawar." She ordered.

"Both of his testicles were found cracked open."

"What even?!"

Bakhtawar tried to contain the chortles, threatening to escape his lips. "There's even more, actually." He muttered.

"Now what?" She inquired and glanced at him with her eyes wide open while skillfully maneuvering the Scorpio onto the flyover.

"Kalkinath is missing." The drumming of his fingers on his thigh ceased as he finally latched his eyes on his boss. "Do you think that all these three incidents are coincidences?"

She mirthlessly chuckled. "Coincidence, my foot! Activate our informer network immediately."

He sighed. "Alright, madam." Glancing at the scenery outside, he requested, "By the way, can you please drop me off at the Trinetra Chowk bus stop? I need to board a bus from there to Tulika Bazaar in order to buy the trackers."

"You haven't bought them till now?" She looked at him with her eyebrows scrunched together.

"Boss, I need to buy GPS trackers from a black market, not Samosas from a street vendor. There is a specified time for everything." He stared at her with a funny expression.

"Oh, okay. I'll drop you."

***

Mahadevan gently whisked the egg whites in a glass bowl while fetching the sugar jar from the cabinet above simultaneously. "Geeta, can you pass me the chocolate chip jar from the refrigerator?" He called her out for help while pouring two medium cups of sugar into the frothy egg white mix. "And the butter container as well, please."

"Sure, Sahib." Geeta promptly advanced in the direction of the refrigerator, adhering to her master's command while cradling the crochety toddler in her arms.

"Mamma!" Anirudh flailed his arms and limbs around.

Mahadevan instantly left the task at hand and turned around to find his wife taking their kid in her embrace. "You are home?"

"No, I am at the supermarket." She joked instead, with her brows raised up and a faint, lopsided smile on her lips.

Geeta chuckled while keeping the chocolate chip jar and the butter container on the kitchen countertop.

"Inu." Mahadevan gazed at his wife comically.

"Leave it. What are you doing?" She asked him as her eyes examined the various cooking items perched up on the countertop.

Untying the apron around his torso, Mahadevan folded it and then deposited it back in one of the drawers. "Baking a vanilla cake infused with chocolate chips." He answered her.

"Oh, great." She said it with a smile as the toddler in her arms placed a few open-mouthed kisses on her cheeks.

He nodded with his cheeks red while adding butter to the double boiler. "Oh, by the way, there is an envelope on the kitchen island over there. Open it and read." He instructed her while pointing out the index finger of his right hand in the direction of the white marbled kitchen island.

"Okay." She responded as her dulcet footsteps ambled towards the said envelope.

She held her boy in her left arm while her right hand picked up the white envelope from its locus. Tearing open its seal flap, she fished out the crisply folded paper inside it. She unfolded it and then started skimming through the words printed on it.

All of a sudden, a skeptical mien spread across her visage. "What?!" She raised her head and stared at him incredulously. "Karate classes?! Dogra Sahib, he is barely thirty-three months old." She worriedly glanced at Anirudh for a second. "Are children this young even allowed to be enrolled in a martial arts discipline?"

Mahadevan slowly poured the melted unsalted butter into the mixture of eggs and sugar and then about-faced to assess the expressions of his wife. "Yes, they are allowed. Moreover, I feel if we enroll him in the classes at his early developmental age, he'll grasp the skill better. I even consulted Vijay Bhai for this matter, and he feels the same too. Additionally, despite being chubby, this brat is actually quite active for his age, which is a plus point."

Hinduja thoughtfully gazed at her son for a second and then eventually nodded her head. "Alright."

Just then, the classic and upbeat notes of the Marimba ringtone were heard from a distant place, somewhere further inside the penthouse apartment.

"Someone is calling me on my phone." Mahadevan said as he added flour to the bowl. "It's in the study."

"Wait, let me get it for you." Saying so, Hinduja passed on Anirudh to Geeta and then strode straight in the direction of the study.

Stepping inside the state-of-the art Victorian-style office, she advanced towards the worktable on which the phone was ringing. Next to the phone was a MacBook Air with its lid open.

Just as she reached the table to fetch the phone, the laptop screen turned black, but the thing that caught her eye before the laptop went into screensaver mode compelled her to touch the trackpad in order to revive the device's screen again.

The phone kept ringing, yet her observant eyes never left the document that displayed on the MacBook screen. Her breaths sharpened as she heard a familiar type of footsteps approaching the sophisticated room she was in.

As the sound of the footfall finally ceased near the threshold of the study, she looked up to meet his eyes.

Suddenly, for the first time since their marriage, the man before her seemed unfamiliar to her eyes and felt unknown to her psyche.

Mahadevan kept on surveying her profile with a blank face as Geeta trailed behind him while carrying Anirudh in her embrace.

The catchy melody of the Marimba ringtone eventually came to a halt as bleak silence inundated the entire study.

Mahadevan averted his eyes from his wife to look at the middle-aged lady standing next to him. "Geeta, take Anirudh to the park for some time. Two of our security personnel will tag along with you both. Okay?"

Geeta gawked at her boss and then pivoted the joints in her neck around to glance at the boss's wife. "Yes, Sahib." With an awkward giggle, she made her exit from the tensed scene, taking the toddler along with her.

Mahadevan entered his workspace and then closed the door behind him.

"It's you, isn't it?" She asked in a firm yet feeble tone, pointing her finger at the MacBook screen.

Taking a deep breath, he slowly ambled closer to her. "Yes."

She clasped her trembling fingers together. "And judging from your tone of speech, I infer that you don't find anything wrong in it."

"No." Short and crisp was his reply.

"Where is Kalkinath?" She asked.

"Dead."

She didn't gasp. 

She didn't shout.

 She just stared at his impassive profile. "Are you even fathoming your own words? Those were murders, Dogra Sahib." She muttered.

"In your profession, it is termed as 'murder' but not in mine, because in my line of work, the correct affixation of words used for it is 'cleaning the trash'." He spoke out curtly.

Placing his palms on the table, he stood close in her vicinity and said, "And even if what I did was wrong, as you say it was, what did you expect me to do anyway? Watch the drama unfold like a goddamn blockhead while those three imbecile dogs covertly plan on assassinating my wife?"

He lifted his left hand to trace her chin. "Come on, wife, if you think I am that benevolent, you are utterly wrong in your assumption." He smiled looking at her, which was in complete contrast to the chilly look in his eyes.

In an instant, she realized, that how pathetically she had failed in recognizing the man before her. "No matter what the cause was, you could have used other methods to tackle this issue rather than indulging yourself in murders."

He laughed, yet his laugh lacked mirth in it. "You think this is the first time I have involved myself in something of this nature?"

He gently took off each of their glasses and then kept them on the table alongside each other. "You know, one of my classmates back from college possessed god-tier poetry writing skills. He was a refined sonneteer, with truth reflecting in each and every line that flowed out of his pen. Let me recite for you a short verse that I once read from his diary."

"The fine line where black and white do blur, there's a dance of moral ambiguity.
Where the lines of right and wrong do stir in the heart, there is a struggle for lucidity.
What once was deemed unjust and plainly vile, in a new light, may seem like a needed act.
Where virtue's face does wear a crooked smile, and deeds once pure bear some taint, in fact."

His deeply bass voice delivered each and every word of the sonnet perspicuously. 

"Rich, isn't it?" He further added with a smile.

"You can't manipulate me anymore." She whispered, her eyes latched on his face.

"I wield the sword of manipulation against the weak, wife, not against people of mettle like yourself." He slowly traced his digits through the edges of her jawline. "Moreover, aren't we both sailing in the same boat of moral dilemma? Hm?" He tipped his chin up, signaling for her to answer his question.

"What do you mean?" She swallowed.

"Asking your assistant to hack the government servers in order to put your own name on the recommendation list of criminal profilers who were shortlisted for the Maia's month abduction case—isn't that an unjust act too, Inu?" He smirked.

Her body turned rigid as her eyes widened on their own. "How do you know this?"

"I am called Mahadevan Dogra for a reason." He whispered as his fingers tenderly touched her lips. "Why are you so hellbent on embroiling yourself in this case, Inu?" And then and there, his cognac pools stared straight through the obsidian veil of her impenetrable swirls. "Why?" He breathed.

"Now is not the time for us to play this game. Some things are meant to revel under their own shadows, Dogra Sahib; they stay safe and secure that way." She dauntlessly shot back. "But I did fail at discerning you, though." Saying so, she took a step forward and raised her left hand up to engulf his own with her warmth. "Who are you?" She probed. "Tell me."

In response, Mahadevan found himself getting attracted to the heat emanating from her feminine figure. "Weird. Isn't it? A criminal profiler is asking me who I am. How about you tell me yourself?" The tips of their noses touched as he brought his face closer to hers. "Look into my eyes. What do you see in them?" He breathed next to her earlobes. "Tell me, who am I?"

A grim and humorless chuckle left her lips. "I really don't know anymore. I don't know who you are."

"But I do know you, and I am exactly cognizant of who you really are, for I see the rarest flares of retribution in these eyes of yours. And believe me, the flares seem disastrous—almost cataclysmic yet so contradictory to your morals." He countered her taunt. "But that doesn't matter to me; only you do. So no matter what your aim is, you will always find me as an amalgamation of your greatest bolster and your deadliest sabre, positioned just beside you in the stalwart confinement of your unyielding grasp—but allow me to get you acquainted with my aim as well, wife. Will you?"

"Go on." She gulped.

Softly kissing her forehead, he whispered, "It's you." Tracing the tip of her nose with his own, he trailed, "My aim is you." 

Sweat dribbled down the arch of her neck as she exhaled with great difficulty. "And what if I ever attempt to set myself free from you?"

Leaning his forehead against hers, he closed his eyes as her soft breaths fell on his face. "Tsk. tsk. tsk. That's where you are entirely wrong, tigress." He tersely replied.

The very next second she found him tightly interlocking their fingers together. "You are trapped." He whispered and then proceeded to open his eyes, his cognac pools penetrating right through the canvas of her façade. "You are trapped in this game with me—for forever." 

In the moments of dead silence that followed after, she saw it in his eyes--- that rivetingly consuming emotion, which carried the power to either be her glorifying fortification or her catastrophic undoing.

Obsession.

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